big ole mess of conspiracy

i just can't help myself - this is pure conjecture

so, "we"'ve got all these south american countries mad at "us". one of them had a dispute with britain not long ago about some islands. russia went through the panama canal for the first time in a long time early in the obama administration, no one in the middle east has reason to be happy with us - especially iran who can do something about it (and they're pretty close with russia and china).

i'm just guessing deepwater horizon wasn't an accident. and if it wasn't an accident, what would i do as pres? send some military (coast guard) down there to protect the remaining oil rigs and pay bp for damages so they don't bail - and that sounds like what they've done privately if not publicly. i've heard that the us gov doesn't admit attacks unless it's beyond cover up, so you try to find an internal fall guy to distract the public - and it makes sense - look at what 911 did to the airlines. you think people are more likely to continue working in the gulf if they know chavez has submarines and torpedoes? remember, a s. korea vessel recently got hit by one. and i remember an article about china testing advanced (aka stealth) submarines

Housing Market Manipulation

RUMOR ALERT

I have a source that has reconfirmed that the banks are holding large inventories of houses that they will not release until later this summer. This is despite the tax credits that were designed to prop house prices, and now housing sales have dropped 33%.

The geo-libertarian part of me says we need to raise taxes on idle resources, while the capitalist part of me says the banks can do what they want with their property. Since the banks are using (my/our) tax dollars to remain solvent (theft), I say take back the land. Tit for tat (with forgiveness)

individuals collectively going galt

the problem with leaders is, they're easy to pick off (a.k.a assassinate, if only the character type). imo, the latest move in gold is a collective vote of no confidence in our current system of government and banking. i think we will see more like this. uncle joe will buy an extra weeks worth of food ... just in case there's a run. aunt mary will spend another few minutes chatting up the neighbor about tea party or libertarian candidates. your buddy dave will start fixing cars on the weekend and accept any kind of barter item instead of putting in extra hours at his 9 to 5. your friend sherry will start a pre-school where each parent spends a day teaching - and it will morph into a private school. Occasionally the "authorities" will find out, and some will feign ignorance, but it will become more and more obvious that the probability of getting caught and punished is a good trade-off for the profit of working outside the system. and as more defect, the easier it will be to defect. and then maybe, finally, i'll sack up and defect

The Future of Education

A few education predictions. In the future, I believe students will be tested, these tests will be evaluated, and the students will be delivered custom content tapered to their personal strengths and weaknesses. This will likely all be automated. No longer will a student listen to a lecture on content that is below or above their level; or similarly be tasked with busy work.

I don't know what will happen to students who are above or below average. If the past holds any clues, though, those behind will receive special encouragement, while those ahead will be punished by the jealous. Ideally though, those ahead could pursue their own interests, skip ahead, or start materially benefiting from their productive capacity.

on location

here's a prediction/recommendation: as we're designing the next phase of human interaction (government, economics, etc) we can/will leverage technology to allow us to voluntarily participate in the communities we want without the restrictions of location. if we want to participate in a democratic commune, there will be an app for that. instead of marching on washington, or protesting outside city hall, we'll just update our preferences, and change our friends or groups that we're interested in - facebook style

Quarantine the KillBots

Stefan discusses the problem of returning soldiers. He has little faith in the idea of "swords to ploughshares". In an ideal world, we would rehabilitate everyone. Second best, we could leave parts of the world where they can express their destructive programming without hurting others. This is one of the reasons I have suggested that Afghanistan become an independent colony. For those who nature and/or nurture have deemed warlike, we can help them fulfill their calling without endangering others, by sponsoring them to go to "war regions". This would be a modern day gladiator, but more so. Further, we should expand professional sports - so that we create a path from killing people, to injuring your competitor, to causing pain in your competitor, to competing with someone for mutual fitness, etc. The problem is, of course, moving from win/lose to win/win; without diminishing our effectiveness at deflecting and disabling win/lose attacks.