Government’s Three Branches

There are different ways to look at the world we live in. Just recently I thought of a novel (to me anyways) way of thinking about government.

There are three main branches of a democratic government (in some countries there are more, but three branches are commonly identified): the executive, the legislative, and the judicial.

Anyways, I’m a computer science student, so I tend to think about things in computer-related ways. So my novel idea is this: governments have three major functions – (1) programming (and debugging) code; (2) executing code; and, (3) handling exceptions. (1) is the legislative branch. (2) is the executive branch. (3) is the judicial branch. Of course it’s people who throw exceptions. Occasionally an exception thrown falls under a broad set of exceptions and is handled as all exceptions before it (common law). It is up to the programmers to make it so that certain things are handled with more specificity. Everyone’s run through the program called ‘governance’ – mwahahaha!

Yes, yes, I’m boring. I had a 100-level politics course, so it’s been on on my mind a bit.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing seems, to me, to be a level between personal computing and the thin client model.

A thin client (or dumb terminal) is a computer which has limited capabilities, instead leaving the heavy computing to remote servers. Thin clients use less power as a result of their lesser abilities compared to an average PC.

With cloud computing, you would use your PC’s web browser (or standalone web application) in order to use the capabilities provided by many (not necessarily powerful) computers working together for that purpose. I believe that this is functionally equivalent to the use of a thin client.

The similarity is apparent, but the difference is the more important aspect. With cloud computing, you don’t deny the capabilities of your own computer. There is no reason why your data must be stored remotely, on some unknown computer. Using a web application might require that the servers have a working copy of your data, but that does not imply that they need to store your data permanently. Supposing that one can rely on the organization providing the cloud service to keep the working copy secure and in tact, deleting it completely only when done with it, then the reliability issue is trivial. Of course there is still the need for a reliable connection.

Then again, the door is opened for true thin clients. What is a netbook? It is a limited capability notebook. To cut costs, the use of less capable OSes made sense for netbooks. After all, a netbook was meant to do but a few things: web browse, word process, email and very little else. Think about it; who needs a powerful PC when a cheap netbook can accomplish the same things by use of cloud services? Word processing can already by done online (e.g. Google Docs), and the only non-online aspect of email is choosing where you keep your messages stored (e.g. use of Outlook vs use of Hotmail).

Cloud computing really isn’t anything special if you already use email. The trust you place in a web service like Hotmail is considerably great, depending on the content of your email. It might not be that special, but it is an important part of our computing experience. To be able to access and modify documents where ever we are, whenever we want is a great convenience. A more professional entity (e.g. a private company) would most likely want its own servers handling its own special purpose computing, but the idea is the same, so long as some remote client is utilizing those special purpose servers.

In essence, cloud computing means that computing becomes more convenient. It also means that hardware requirements for the end-user aren’t a concern. Consider the idea of “cloud gaming” (OnLive). Imagine playing processor/graphics card intensive games without even owning a discrete video card. Of course, the main concerns relate to internet connection; how much bandwidth (speed), and how much bandwidth (caps) do you have? If the computing part of gaming is off-loaded, then that leaves the displaying part (relay of video/audio), and – depending on the quality – can be very bandwidth intensive.

I haven’t really said anything interesting, but it is satisfying to lay my thoughts out here. To sum this entry up (tl;dr), the concept of cloud computing isn’t anything special, but its implementation makes for interesting conversation.

Washing Windows: Partitioning

It’s been ages since I’ve posted anything. To be honest, it’s because I haven’t had anything interesting to post about. Well, it could be argued that I never had anything interesting to post about in the first place.

Anyways, I want to talk about Windows XP again. I didn’t really see the need to clarify that I was using XP before because the only obvious alternative to that is Vista, and… well, why would anyone talk about Vista? But seriously, with 7 on the way (and the release candidate sitting on one of my hard drives as I type), I think it is time to specify my version. Perhaps I did specify before, but I can’t remember (it’s been that long).

What I want to talk about is partitioning XP. Just a quick warning: don’t do any of this unless you’re confident enough. I take no blame for any loss of time or data relating to what I describe here on in.

With any installation of Windows, you need at least one drive. It doesn’t have to be “C” so I won’t say it’s the “C drive”. I’d like to call it the “system drive”, but that’s not quite right.

Now, this might sound stupid to you (it certainly does to me), but XP itself calls that partition the “boot” drive (just check Disk Management in the Microsoft Management Console). When I installed XP on my laptop, I created three partitions; the third partition is the one that I chose to install XP onto. The first partition I created was 8MB large. (Yes, that’s MB, not GB.) The second was about 1.5 times the size of memory on my laptop.

Obvious the second partition was for the page file, but the first? You see, when I chose to install XP onto the third partition, XP couldn’t just use that one partition for its installation. It needed to place the boot loader (ntldr) in the first partition. That’s the so-called “system” drive.

So far, so good? First partition contains boot loader and is the system drive, second contains the page file, and third contains XP itself and is the boot drive. The two titles are swapped as far as I’m concerned. All three if you count the “swap drive”.

Now, when I got XP up and running, I decided that I wanted to create some more partitions for better organization. I made a fourth partition for temporary files (cache for internet files, temp and tmp folders, etc.).  My sixth parition was for my program files, and my seventh was for my documents and settings (well, at least the settings, but I keep documents elsewhere usually). The last partition was for my media files (videos, music, etc.).

Maybe you are wondering how I managed to separate my temporary file folders and program file folder from the “boot” drive. It’s quite simple, but can be very annoying if mistakes are made. Believe me – I screwed up the first time. The “trick” is to modify the registry. It’s easy to do, but many would perceive doing so as intimidating if not downright scary.

For the program files folder, the “obvious” way is to just copy the contents of the folder to the partition, and then make a change to the ProgramFilesDir value. The problem is that old keys and values with hard-coded references to the location of the old program files folder. Because of them, this simple change results in not being able to delete the original program files folder. Of course, the solution is to find those hard-coded references and change them to the new location. This is easy to do. Just export the entire registry, thereby creating a .reg file, then modifying that .reg file (which is really just plain text). Just use notepad or whatever and replace all instances of “C:\Program Files” with “X:” (if X is the drive letter). One thing to be aware of is that XP still contains 8.3 naming in some references. In short, instead of using “C:\Program Files”, it will be “C:\Progra~1″. In my desktop installation, there are still such references in the registry.

As for the temporary files folder(s), you should do the same thing using “C:\Windows\Temp” for your search. An interesting point here is that XP actually has registry values for both “temp” and “tmp” folders. There’s no real point in having two separate folders, but that’s exactly what I have.

The Documents and Settings folder can be changed similarly to how Program Files was changed. The one thing you might wish to know is that each user has a folder in the Documents and Settings folder, and in each of those is a folder for temporary files for that specific user. Why not relocate those to the temporary files partition already set up? That’s what I did. Wherever you have “%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp” you can change to “Y:\Temp\%USERNAME%”. Just remember that the system temp folder should be something like “Y:\Temp\system” instead of just “Y:\Temp” so as to keep the system temp folder separate from the user temp folders.

I won’t flesh out the details because if you’ve managed to figure out what I’m talking about and are confident enough to try this out, you should have no problem working it out by yourself.

I plan on re-installing XP on my desktop so as to achieve a nice partitioning scheme similar to that of my laptop. Maybe you are wondering why I would bother. The answer is that it makes things seem neater. One thing’s for sure: my laptop’s XP partition has only 1.13GB of data (fully updated) and doesn’t need to be defragmented as often as it did before. Of course, I’m using a stripped down version of XP with some services removed (nlite is your friend), but I’d expect similar results even with a normal version of XP.

Have fun!

Wages

Well, I’ve been busy. School work on top of midterms.

Anyways, I want to talk about wages since I’ve been thinking about what I want to do after (or before) graduation. Shall I work, or shall I go to graduate school? Shall I do co-op before my time runs out? If I go the graduate school route, I can hold off on thinking about where my money’s coming from some more, because graduate school will most likely be completely covered by the school I’m accepted to. But if I choose work, then wages will come into the picture. How much is enough?

I don’t think I need that much money in comparison to what I think I’ll be making when I get a job. Some would say, “if” I get a job, considering the world’s economy, but I’m not worried. Actually, I’ve been spending my money on electronics and more food than is necessary for myself recently. So, that got me thinking – if I can live just fine with the money I’m getting funded with now (enough to get by with, with the occasional toss in of money from my dad and digging into my savings account), then how much would I need if I weren’t being funded for school, and had finished my education?

This question is something that doesn’t apply to everyone, since most people have to take out student loans. I consider myself fortunate to be given as much as I am. But given similar circumstances, with no debt to speak of, how much money would one need to live a basic life?

My rent is affordable, and my housing (an apartment) is sufficient (nice size, nice location, nothing fancy) at $650 a month. Food and utilities for one person I overestimate to $650 (I order pizza a lot, so if I were to be more economical, I could surely save on this point). I don’t have a car, and currently don’t pay for transit (covered in education), but it would go for around $100 a month (for one zone, I believe). Throw in $100 per month for something special (not including eating out, since I’m pretty much paying for that already), and I’m sitting at $1500 a month. For 12 months, that’s $18000. That’s my overestimate of how a budget for one person could look given optimal circumstances (affordable housing and reasonable cost of utilities and transit). The actual number of work hours for a full time job is 37.5, and the number of weeks worked in a year might be 50. Then the wage required to sustain basic living expenses plus a bit extra is $9.6 per hour. The current minimum wage where I live is $8. Not quite enough, but take into account the extras I gave myself, and you have a decent living wage right there.

The problem then is the circumstances by which one reaches employment. If you had to take out a student loan throughout education, then you have to pay it off. If you didn’t get post-secondary education, having to support a family makes all the difference. The government needs to subsidize education and family expenses in order to make the living wage make sense for those people. Otherwise, to call it a living wage is a slap in the face.

My naive idea is to have the government directly subsidize parents’ wages. The employer will pay from its own pocket exactly what it would for any other employee, but throws in the 50% of that wage they received from the government to give to the parent employed. That is, an employed parent will make 50% more than a non-parental employee in the same job. Why 50%? Because if both parents are working, they’ll be double dipping for the bonus (perfectly acceptable). When one parent is working, it means that he or she is making enough to get by on one salary. Then instead of money, the parents benefit in having one of them always at home to take care of the child. Also, given that the one working parent makes twice as much one of the two working parents, then the bonus amounts to the same value.

The problems with my naive approach are many. What if the working parent is making far more than minimum wage? Then the cost of subsidizing someone who doesn’t even require help monetarily will be very high. The solution is to cap the amount they receive. Why not just give them the difference between their wage and the “minimum parent wage”? We don’t want people to intentionally take easy, low paying jobs which will not benefit their situation in the long run. After all, do they expect the extra wages to last forever? They shouldn’t, as the subsidies should cease when children reach a certain age. That solution of capping however affects the idea that one parent should be able to work and let the other stay at home, receiving the same bonus as both would receive totally for working for half the salary each. Obviously, the logistics of implementing any kind of social system is complex.

The case of the debt-ridden student is similar in a way: if the government can subsidize education through subsidizing universities, then that will help students in the long run (debt can be a chain that holds you down for the rest of your life). But where does the government find such money – taxes? Taxing is ironic, because they’d just be taking money from the people they’re helping in the other situation. On top of that, they’d also be taxing the single, non-parental worker. What I’m saying is that to tax the poorest that we’re trying to help is counter-productive. So then, this implies that taxes should come from those who can afford it.

I know there are rich people out there who think that the government doesn’t deserve to stick their fingers into the pocket of someone who worked hard to make the money the government is about to take away, but come on! I painted a picture before of how much one person really needs to have a living wage. So then, we can ask, why does anyone need the gross amounts of money that some people make? The excuse that they worked hard for it is ridiculous. Even if they worked three times as hard (which is unlikely), are they entitled to ten to thirty times the amount as someone else? To make the claim that they worked hard to learn in school is also pointless; after all, there are others who would have gone to school, but the only thing that prevented them from was the cost of education – such an excuse could not be used given the funding suggested earlier, but only if such funding is comprehensive and sufficient. If a wage is determined by the amount of sweat we produce, then we would surely expect it to be based on a linear scale, not exponential. However, that’s not the way it is. Therefore, to produce a result that is more in line with our expectations, it makes sense to tax more – slightly exponentially – proportional to the amount of money one makes.

When people stop working so hard because all of their money is being taken away from taxing, that’s when we know we’ve reached just beyond the right amount of taxation. Why work so hard if you’re going to make only so much more than the employees working under you? There needs to be a balance; harder work does justify higher wages, just not so disproportionately. If one high tier money-maker decides to drop down a level because the stress of the job isn’t worth it anymore, then let someone else step in. This is the way it should work. By then, perhaps the workload will be more balanced as well. Instead of having one at the very top, have multiple people at the top, for less money (each), less stress, and more thinking power. Sharing responsibilities is the ultimate goal in such a system. Why should one person be responsible for so much? Why does one person need to make so much money? Is it ego, or greed? Neither of those is a laudable attribute for any person. Pride is important and drive is valuable; ego is worthless and greed is too.

Obviously my opinion on these matters is naive and probably unrealistic from many aspects. I’d like to think that theoretically, such a system is possible, but who knows?

So, I started off talking about how much I’d need to live decently (not all that much more compared to the minimum wage right now), but then talked about how there are situations that change the meaning of a living wage. Then I talked about how there are those who are so far beyond “just living” that it makes sense for them to be the benefactors of the worse off of society. Even if they don’t agree, if they continue to work as hard as they do now, then obviously the idea wasn’t such a deterrent to hard work after all. Furthermore, what good is it to have an elite few controlling everything? In my opinion, my humble opinion, though important, is not necessarily useful; however, it is not worthless. Input from more people is a good thing; whether or not their opinions are accepted, they can be appreciated and understood for what they are.

HD642JJ

I didn’t order this one online, but I did get it from NCIX. As stated above, I bought a Samsung Spinpoint F1 Series HD642JJ 640GB hard drive. So far? It’s good, but I’ve only had it for about 13 hours or so.

There are a number of reasons why I bought this particular model…. Okay, that was a lie. The only reason I chose this model was because it was on sale (specifically the in-store only sale that NCIX has every Saturday). Obviously the price was right ($60 for 640GB > 10GB/$).

I have a couple reasons why I wanted a hard drive: (1) I was running out of space on my older drives; and (2) I need to take one of them offline in order to either send it to the manufacturer for fixing, or fix it myself. I was planning to wait for Western Digital’s new “Green” model with three platters (improved from four of the previous “Green Power”/”GP” version) totaling 1000GB, but who knows when it will become available? For now, I am content with what I’ve got.

Speaking of what I’ve got, the HD642JJ that I bought is the two platter model. In other words, it should consume less power and have better sustained transfer rates than the three platter model (higher density platters means more bits read per rotation). I couldn’t find any reviews of it, but I’m guessing it’s competitive performance-wise with other 640GB models. If so, the price is what made it a real value deal.

Speaking of deals, I bought some other items that were on sale at NCIX. I haven’t gamed in a long time, and Prey was on sale for $5. You do the math. Although my video card is old, it should be good enough for decent graphics for this game. I also bought a $10 mouse (back-up in case mine craps out on me – an event which seems very possible these days) and an 8GB MicroSDHC memory stick/card/thingie. I needed the MicroSDHC device for expanding my music collection for the journey I’ll be taking with my dad and brothers for Christmas vacation. We’re going to Las Vegas (among other places)!

For the trip, I need new headphones. My “old” ones lost an ear (which can only be remedied by holding the jack in a specific position). Since we’re going by automobile, I want to get something that’ll isolate well (even better than the IEM that I already have). I’m not exactly rich, so I’m aiming for quality that’s inexpensive. For me, this means I’ll be buying the Etymotic er6i. Apparently they’ve got the best isolation (in fact, that’s what the “i” stands for). I look forward to hearing the sound quality of them. They’ve been called “analytical” (vs. “musical”), but that shouldn’t be a problem; perhaps it will give me a greater appreciation for the original recording as it is intended.

Race and Obama

With Obama having been elected President of the United States of America, there’s been a lot of talk about what race he actually is. Race, not just in America, has always been a complex subject. After reading a bit of a discussion about the difference between “African-American” and “black”, and having seen some confusion for the anti-symmetry of “African-American” and “European-American”, I will give my own understanding of this.

With regards to the generic “X-American” descriptor, this is simple. Someone who is of Irish descent will have no problem with Irish-American, especially if he grew up in a primarily Irish-American neighbourhood. Since there wasn’t any particular segregation of white people, different European-American sub-cultures were merged into one large “white” American culture.

On the other end of the spectrum, black people were segregated from that “normal”, “mainstream” and “white” culture, and essentially forced to live in ghettos. Thus, they came to share a sub-culture together, and became known as “African-American”. As mentioned before, this type of sub-culture can occur in the same manner for other peoples given the same type of circumstances (an area in which the majority of people share some common descent; e.g. Irish-American). Obviously, if the different types of Africans weren’t mixed together, then there’d be more distinction given to which type of African one actually is rather than the catch-all term.

As for the general terms “white” and “black”, this was mentioned earlier. Although Europeans may find such a term offensive, Americans do not. This is for the obvious reason that the cultures are quite different. American is not so much a race as it is a culture (although Native-Americans would probably like it to be used for their own), so when describing race, the term white is used for that whole pool of people with some kind of “Caucasian” background (perhaps, I’m not an expert on the exact terms). Likewise, black is not offensive for the those who identify with it (that’s black people, duh).

For Asian-Americans, I think the distinction is made clear more often; one hears “Chinese-American” or “Japanese-American” since I’m sure there are those who have pride in being of their own specific race. It’s the same for Native people, since there are so many different peoples, to be lumped together with others may not be too offensive, but it’s a matter of pride to identify with one’s own specific people.

To summarize, race is a complex subject. Barack Obama may not be “black” in the sense that he does not “directly” share the history of the American culture of black people, but he does have the genetic qualifications as well as skin colour (despite being half-white, most Americans would visually recognize him as black). He is most definitely African-American, just as the son of an Irish man and an American woman living in America could call himself Irish-American (though he may choose not to). It’s just that there’s more emphasis on it (a point of pride of one’s background) if raised in a primarily “X-American” neighbourhood.

In reality, it’s better if people forget about these things, and just accept that colour should not be an issue in the first place. I’m happy Obama was elected and hope that he can do his job in garnering respect for his country (something it doesn’t get from other countries/people of other countries too often). Whatever his race, I hope he can do a good job.

Quickie: Dragonball Z – Saiyan

Just a quickie

I’ve recently been watching Dragonball Z again. The first time I watched it was when I was a kid of course, and by chance I found videos of the dub on Youtube available to watch. Yeah, I don’t like dubs a whole lot, but since I watched the dub originally, it didn’t bother me so much.

In any case, there’s always a controversy over naming conventions used by dubs for the original Japanese versions of words. The uncut version of DBZ was more accurate in terms of what the original intended, but there are some discrepancies due to Anglocization. There are also blatant renamings done in the non-uncut versions (“Hercule” instead of “Mr. Satan” for a very obvious reason).

One of the Anglocized (that’s “Anglocised” for non-North Americans) words is Saiyan. The word “Saiyan” was actually used on an official toy, but the Japanese say Saiya-jin because it makes sense for them (literally, “people of Saiya”). A similar term Amerika-jin (or “America-jin” if you want) means “person of America” (an “American”). You should see the obviousness of why Saiyan makes sense for an English-speaking audience. The only real complaint that could be used here is the pronunciation of the word Saiyan; it’s spelled “correctly” in terms of an appropriate Anglocization, but it’s incorrectly pronounced “Say”-an instead of “Sigh”-an.

This is really just nitpicking…it’s a dub that I wouldn’t be watching if it weren’t for boredom and nostalgia. However, it’s fun to point things out that others didn’t know about.

Another example is “King Kai” (in Japanese, you can pick any one of “Kai-oo”, “Kai-ou”, or “Kai-oh” apparently comprised of the kanji for “god” and “king”). Why not “God King” or simply “Kai-oh”? And that technique Goku (or “Son Gokuu”) learned from King Kai is called the Kaioken (in the dub, pronounced “Kay-Oh-Ken”; in Japanese, it’s obviously pronounced like “Kai-oh” with a “ken” attached), but the reasoning for it’s name isn’t clear in the dub.

Yep, dubs tick people off for silly reasons, but it’s also a pain when those same people don’t actually get their nitpicking right. Myself, I don’t mind “Saiyan”, as it’s a valid “translation”/interpretation of Saiya-jin… the dub’s pronunciation is surely incorrect, but at least it’s a valid re-invention of the term for an English audience.

Hockey

I’d like to play hockey again. Although I continue to enjoy kendo (to the extent that I can possibly enjoy physical effort), I want to play hockey again.

I’m not sure how to go about beginning again. I’m sure there’s a non-contact (no body checks) league I can join, but that’s less exciting to me. I’ve also got to get some gear (either by getting my old gear sent to me, or buying new gear). I’m pretty lazy, and never take initiative, so it probably won’t happen.

It’s sad that I want to do something, but lack the motivation to even attempt it.

The most possible route for getting to play contact hockey would be the inter-collegiate league. I’m a student, so I could join the club at my university… but I don’t think I’d make the team. For one thing, I’m out of shape (and have never really been in shape). Another problem is that I don’t have the experience that other, better players would have (all I played was minor hockey in a small town).

It’s not that I think it’s impossible to play again, but it’s very unlikely any time soon. If I begin skating again (yeah, it’s been too long), and gain some stamina from kendo in the meantime, maybe I’ll really be able to play hockey again.

Statelessness (and self-governance)

This is something most people don’t even think about; I myself hadn’t even considered this until recently. The idea is statelessness – the state (pun intended) of having no nationality. Some people give up their nationality (renunciation) in exchange for another, but very few actually give up nationality altogether. From what I can tell, statelessness is considered a very bad thing.

[Disclaimer: my reasoning may very well be flight of fancy, but it's at least interesting to consider. Take it how you will; statelessness with not likely ever be considered a good thing by any nation since all nations typically are self-promoting and protectionist.]

The Wikipedia entry on statelessness mentions several problems associated to it. One of those problems is diminished civil rights. The problem with this problem is that it’s taken for granted that only those citizens of a nation are given rights. That’s simply not true, or at least shouldn’t be true. If an American, for example, were to visit Canada, then that person would have all of the important rights in common with all others; just because he’s not a citizen, there’s no reason why it would be permissible to assault him, or commit some other crime against him.

Admittedly, this leaves a number of rights out. For example, the right to find employment and make a living would be denied, unless they have a work permit and Visa. Regardless of citizenship however, one may find residency (at least temporarily). So the question becomes not something of citizenship or nationality, but rather of the knowledge that such a person exists. So long as the government knows you’re there, they shouldn’t have any reason to deny you a way of life.

The rights regarding voting in national elections and other integral political functions can be denied validly. That isn’t to say that a non-citizen is powerless in the process. For example, Bono isn’t Canadian, but even he gets to talk with Prime Ministers and make splashes regarding certain issues. The ability to affect the process is not limited by nationality, but rather by an appeal of reason and/or charisma. I would argue that anyone may influence a nation’s decision, but that a nation’s decision is that of the nationals.

The second problem listed by Wikipedia is the perception that stateless persons are not loyal or committed to the nation. My response is this: So what? I feel no need to harbour feelings of blind pride; the fact that I was born here does not obligate me to be remain here, nor to claim that this is the “best place on earth” as self-promotion by the government would have me believe. Rather, having the ability to look objectively at the nation allows for a greater deal of critical thinking regarding a nation’s policies. For this reason, I am convinced that even if stateless persons were not loyal to a nation, that fact does not degrade them.

Of course, there’s really no reason that a stateless person would be disloyal to a nation. The laws will always apply equally to all, regardless of citizenship. Presumably the law is enough to convince anyone that there are things that you can’t do (for example, spying). The only time you may consider them disloyal is if they disagree with a nation’s war, but that’s something that even citizens do. In nations without conscription, this really isn’t a problem, as military service is voluntary. Furthermore, no stateless person could possibly join the military, as the military is a governmental institution (which serves an “integral political function”). Thus, loyalty holds no value in a democratic nation.

The third problem is regarding a child’s nationality. Once again, this isn’t a problem as I see it, since statelessness shouldn’t be a problem in the first place. The question is one of equality, and no self-respecting democratic, liberal nation would allow discrimination based on nationality (or lack thereof). Furthermore, the right to gain citizenship is a vital piece of the puzzle that allows this problem to be overcome quite simply. If you consider the possibility of being a stateless person living in a nation for an extended period of time, so long as that nation knows you exist, the naturalization process can occur. Thus, a child born into a stateless family would naturally have the same potential for naturalization.

Of course, this type of thinking relies upon a certain framework to exist within a nation. The first is that all basic rights are conferred to anyone regardless of social capacity and conditions. The second is that only nationals may hold positions vital to the nation’s well-being (this includes the position of “voter”). The third is that so long as one is known to exist within the framework (in addition to meeting other specific criteria), that person may gain citizenship on the basis of naturalization.

The fourth problem posed by Wikipedia is lack of consular services outside country of residence. The saving grace is provided along with the problem in the form of the UN. There’s no reason why international consul cannot exist to provide a safe-haven for people regardless of citizenship in certain nations. Furthermore, in the theoretical framework I laid out, there’s the possibility for such a nation to grant a right of consular services to all residential persons of that nation.

What I’m really trying to get at is this: the only reason why nations feel it’s important to require citizenship of residents is the idea of security (protectionism) and self-promotion (“best place on earth” thinking). However, any forward thinking government (one which prides itself on protecting rights common to all people regardless of race, sex, nationality, etc.) would only consider nationality necessary in cases where valid concern can be applied. For example, you can’t allow non-nationals to vote, or else the decision is no longer that of the nation’s. You also cannot allow non-national politicians, for the same reason. You cannot allow non-nationals to join the army, or else you might find your army run completely by another nation (and an ensuing coup d’etat); foreign legions are perfectly acceptable, but it’s wise to have a national army. In short, citizenship is only necessary in cases of integral political functions and national sovereignty.

The fifth problem is that stateless persons have no home country to which they would have the right of return. Of course, refuge needs to be granted in certain cases (escaping danger within a certain country of residence), and nationality shouldn’t play a role in that case. For those stateless persons who hold residency within a certain country, and that must is known by the government, should be given the right of return based on that residency. Once again, I don’t believe that residency should be strictly limited by nationality.

The final problem for such a stateless person is the lack of a country to which he can be deported to. I’m sure that Wikipedia made a mistake on this one, as that’s not really a problem to a stateless person. Why would anyone want to be deported? The result would be the necessity for a nation which recognizes stateless residents to apply the law of the land. Presumably, the law is universal to all perpetrators of crime regardless of nationality. The only effect of statelessness is that there won’t be another nation hunting such a criminal down and attempting to interfere with a nation’s sovereignty and laws.

In cases of “illegal aliens” who enter a country without a passport or whatever…that doesn’t really matter. In a nation where statelessness is acceptable, the nationality of any person living there does not matter. Then, the question is one of the “quality” of the nation. That is, “What kind of people are letting into country?” This, of course, is a type of discrimination. If residents are poor, that’s too bad; to not allow someone into your country because he’s poor is quite ridiculous. The question of crime is answered by effective policing. So long as they haven’t done anything wrong, they shouldn’t be judged prematurely.

All in all, I don’t believe statelessness is necessarily a bad thing. If the mechanisms of a nation could be generalized to accept persons regardless of nationality except in concerns of integral political function, then there’d be nothing wrong.

The logistics of such a framework may be impossible, but I believe that this is a thought worth entertaining. I don’t believe that the strength of a nation should be determined solely by the ground on which people are born. I don’t believe that people should be denied common rights based on nationality (or lack thereof). What I do believe is that the world’s nations have placed too much importance on keeping tabs on people they don’t have any business in knowing. So long as essential laws can be maintained and enforced, there’s no harm in leaving the stateless alone.

As a final note, the lack of discrimination based on nationality allows for cross-cultural influence. For example, if Americans could freely come and live in Canada without restriction (after security measurements of course), then Canada would become more American in a way. But the fact is that it doesn’t really matter. Since Canada prides itself on multiculturalism, there’s no shame in society subtly transforming.

The only reason to restrict immigration is capacity (the logistics of a nation). Aside from that, what reason is there to disallow a new life to anyone seeking it? Security issues can be handled if the capacity to handle them exists. If not, then the reasoning of denying immigration still holds. But really, that’s all there is to it.

If anyone’s read this far, I hope you enjoyed reading this flight of fancy. Do I believe that it’s possible to achieve a world in which nationals, non-nationals and stateless people are able to co-exist? Maybe, if nations consider certain rights to be absolutely, completely universal to all people. If not, then we’ll continue to see nations of pride (self-promotion) and security (protectionism).

I have some final questions. If we don’t stop and rethink about how we deal with keeping track of people, what will the consequences be? How much do nations really need to know about people? Why do nations have the right to arbitrarily decide that people “belong” to a country upon birth? More specifically, in nations that enforce laws of conscription, what gives them the right to force people to fight a war on their behalf?

These questions all relate to the importance people place on individual independence and self-sovereignty. Even if certain constraints can be placed upon people justifiably (laws), does that give nations the right to maintain a hold on every individual within that nation? Can a nation be reduced? Changed? Dissolved? If it cannot, then it isn’t a democratic nation at all. A democratic nation is one in which the people have the power to self-govern. If one cannot claim individual independence from a nation, then how is that nation democratic?

[Disclaimer: this is crazy talk now but don't let that stop you from reading this.]

Imagine if the sovereignty of a nation could be conferred to an individual. So long as that sovereign person does not attack individuals of the residence-nation, there’s no problem. If two sovereign persons were to engage in a “war” (perhaps just a fistfight), then the residence-nation could justifiably resolve the issue by enforcing “international” laws (perhaps by placing “sanctions” upon each sovereign person). Thus, individuals who secede from a nation could justifiably live within that nation just as anyone else does. Furthermore, there’s no reason why the government couldn’t keep tabs on that individual like it would have done normally.

Taking this idea further, there’s no reason why an sovereign person couldn’t buy land from the residence-nation. He’d still be subject to paying for gas, water, etc. since it’s unlikely that an individual could supply those himself. The most interesting prospect is that new nations could arise from within, allowing for true self-governance to occur. And yes, buying land from a government is entirely possible, as it has happened historically.

Of course this will never happen. A government is more interested in taxing people than letting them self-govern. If people were to take land away on top of denying taxation, then what reason is there to allow this type of thing to occur? There’s no reason that tariffs couldn’t be placed upon an individual-nation. Though he might be able to buy land, he would still need to pay for gas, etc. On top of the regular costs, he would also pay tariffs for importing those things. In other words, while an individual can claim sovereignty over oneself, by existing within the context of international relations, he can still be subject to similar conditions.

Okay, anyone tired of this rambling of mine? I’m fascinated by my concept, but it’s just a dream. In writing this, I have questioned my own belief in a central government which applies laws fairly to all within the nation. If one may secede from government and establish self-governance fairly, then what challenges does the main nation have in order to maintain order as well as increasingly complex international (or intranational) relations.

Wilhelm’s Democracy in the Digital Age

For one of my courses, I am to write a paper on critical issues raised by a book of my choice. The book I chose is the one mentioned in the title of this post. I’m not sure if the book is as critical as it’s supposed to be for the paper, but it’s at least interesting.

A lot of what the book focuses on is taking away some of the blind optimism provided by proponents of the Internet as a means to fostering greater political activity and debate (cyberdemocracy in general). The author, Wilhelm, does so by providing reasonable reasons (go figure) as to why things may not be as perfect as proposed, as well as providing empirical data to correspond with his own account.

That isn’t to say that Wilhelm is opposed to cyberdemocracy; rather, Wilhelm argues that it’s important to be aware of potential downfalls in order to deal with them properly so that the effort to use the Internet as a means for enhanced political discourse does not fail from short-sightedness or result in harmful consequences.

Anyways, at some point in reading this book, I believe he mentioned that the Internet supposedly increases decentralized activity and diverse viewpoints. I would like to point out that the Internet can also be used to promote greater centralization as well. Because the Internet effectively forms connections between everyone who is connected to it, although these individual connections are most definitely decentralized, the end result is a network to which everyone belongs – that is in effect a centralized structure. If the Internet can be considered a monolithic structure/organization to which many computers/people are associated to, then it is by definition centralized (because all gather in the same place). The internal structure of that organization may be decentralized, but the organization itself is centralized. It’s like putting a bunch of lawyers/firms into a single building. The building acts as a outwardly centralizing structure, but it will have many different firms and lawyers with differing specialties and values thus providing a decentralized internal structure.

Okay, that’s probably repetitive. In short, my point is that the Internet has the potential to act in a centralized manner by bringing those decentralized nodes (people, computers, etc.) together to form a single network.

My final analogy is this: the Government of Canada is centralized in Ottawa. However, the Members of Parliament who form the House of Commons (in addition to Senators in the Upper Chamber) each represent different parts of the country. It is possible that they could form a House of Commons without having to physically go to Ottawa; instead, they could log-in to a secure network each day to perform their duties. Perhaps that’s unreasonable at this point in time, but I believe it could be possible if attempted whole-heartedly. The worst consequence might be the loss of traditional government and formalities, but that shouldn’t be sufficient to oppose innovation outright.