"Asassinating" Corporations

So, more than anything else, corporations are destroying our country. In ancient times, if you had a corrupt and evil monarch, the peasants could rise up with pitchforks and force an "early retirement". However, that's a lot harder with a faceless and soulless corporation. You remove the CEO, and another brutal one is hired. Despite the fact government claims they're "people" now, they have not easy-to-target vital organs.


They bribe our politicians, manipulate the FDA to allow unhealthy foods, try to increase taxes to in turn increase subsidies that go towards them, and more. Some threaten to fire people based on sexual orientation (such as Hobby Lobby & Chick-Fila in Kansas) or trying to disrupt work people do for free for others (Microsoft's earlier attitude towards open source software) or just plain trying to make people suffer for profit (private corporate owned prisons trying to force new pointless laws and then find culprits to them just to bad their inmate count for higher payouts).

So, the question is... what can we do about it? Boycott their product? What if we don't buy their product in the first place? (Companies that encourage wars and sell arms to the military or the private prisons?) Or that we don't think we could get enough people to counter easily? How can we actually attack their pocketbook instead of just not contributing to it? Well, that's where we start exploring ideas...

I hope for this to be a recurring theme on this blog as more ideas are explored. If you have ideas, feel free to post them in the comments below.

1. Lawsuits
Corporate media has done a fairly strong-armed job of portraying "a lawsuit problem" in our country, portraying people as lawsuit happy. The thing is, those who bring the most lawsuits to court aren't individuals... it's corporations and businesses. They're the source of the glut. So with the corporate-caused guilt out of the way, lawsuits are a viable route.
Going to a small claims court will set you back ~ $70. The form is a simple two pages, and the payout is usually inbetween $1000 and $3000. Further, lawyers are NOT allowed in small claims courts in many places. That means it's just you vs some company manager IF they send someone out. Which only happens 50% of the time. Often, they don't even bother with that, because the manager's time is better spent elsewhere.

However, a judge will throw out the case if you're being frivolous. You NEED a legitimate complaint. So only target the corporations that deserve it, that are truly doing something wrong, and make sure you can point out how it's affected you personally and give a dollar amount and resources to back it up. Although there's the $70 upfront cost, the 50% no-fight payout can make this pay for itself fast. Just don't do it twice with the same corrupt company, because eventually they'll get  sick of you and send someone trained but not a lawyer to handle your courtcases. So keep them to less than once a year with the same company.

2. Phonecalls
Call them up. Ask questions, ask about their products, refuse to talk to a machine (when you have number keys to press, always choose operator or an extension where you'll hit random numbers, when it tries to do voice recognition, talk in gibberish). They have to pay people in those people positions, so each minute you spend talking to them is a minute they're paying for. Talk long winded, talk on tangents easily, never buy anything.

3. Hire their staff
If you have your own small business, and you're looking to bring on some more employees, steal some of the workforce of a corrupt corporation. Let's say you run a small dry cleaner that does home delivery, and you're wanting to corporate assassination on on a certain small-business-destroying mega-mart chain. As you know from going through that process, that process isn't cheap. And if you're paying more than minimum wage, just stroll right into the local 'mart, and say the first person they're you ask for help, ask them how much they're getting paid. If you're willing to pay even slightly more, tell them that. Sure, you still have to deal with the hiring costs, but you're not alone, you're also making sure whatever mega-mart it is will ALSO have to go through more hiring. To top it off, if you're running your own business, you're not paying for a manager's time if you interview them at a restaurant you like after store hours. The mega-mart will have to pay their manager that time. It's win-win for you and the employee, lose for the corporation.

4. Make it yourself, with others... then sell it, make a party of it.
 Let's say there's a corporation you buy from. A lot of GMO-loving corporations that don't safety test their GMO products are good targets, so they're a good example for this.... a lot will include harmful toxins as preservatives, etc. So... here's what you do...
Find a local farmer that grows their own stuff (if you have difficulty finding some, just do a search for your local farmers markets). Ask if there's a way you can buy some ingrediants in a larger bulk. Find out how much you can get. Make a party via your social media (facebook for example) and put up an RSVP, with a cover charge. Buy an appropriate amount of food from that farmer, and throw a party. If you don't have a room, switch the house party up for a hoedown at the farmer's farm, and split the profits with the farmer. Or rent a venue and have a bigger party. Because the more people you invite to your party and who eat at your party, the more people who AREN'T buying corporate food that day. And to top it off, if the local farmer comes along, and people love his food, they may get permanent customers, which is forever funnelling money away from the corporate food and towards the locals. And you made a little profit on the side. Not bad.

5. Are you ex-military or an engineer? If the former, you meet the majority of requirements to be a military contractor. If the latter, you have the majority of the skill to be a military contractor. There are plenty of young engineers who like to make things explode and ex-military floating around. To be fair, military contracts are often sold on "boom value". The flashier the sale, the more likely it is to happen. But instead of focusing on offensive weaponry, focus on defensive stuff (hint: for hiring, you'll be looking for more mechanical engineers, physicists, chemists, and materials engineers). Show off how much explosion armor can take and sell that, instead of selling weapons. You get the budget more defensive, and politicians listen (way too much) to military lobbyists. Use some of your extra funds to lobby for less warfare and military spending (tip: Lobbying firms charge $5K to $25K a month for lobbying). That'll turn some heads. And if you can't afford all the science, help organize a group at the local college to do it (there's plenty of ex-military in college) and have them for a portion of profits. They may have some clever ideas.

6. Organize co-ops.
The example I'll use here is housing. Housing corporations in your area a pain in the arse and draconian? Hop on craigslist, and find several other people looking for housing. Spend a few hundred to get a non-profit license between all of you, register as a co-op, and have the organization (instead of as individuals) and take out a loan to buy a house or a few adjacent houses. Link 'em together, and share resources. Put up solar panels, windmills, etc. and you can get it almost to the point to where your housing pays for itself. You may need to room with someone, but if you're already in a roommate situation, there's no loss.



Anyway, that's a few ideas to get the ball rolling. It's nowhere near an exhaustive list. Feel free to share more ideas in the comments below.

Job Creation via minimum wage.

This is a simple diagram I made that shows why raising the minimum wage will INCREASE the number of jobs, instead of decrease them. You can click the image to view it in higher detail.

It glosses over a few of the nitty-gritty details (I doubt my readers want to see a wall of text to explain what should be some obvious points. If you feel any need explanation, feel free to use the comment section below to ask.)

Food Labeling

On Food Labeling....

I read this article earlier today, which got me thinking on the GMO labeling movement.

The GMO label was supposedly just supposed to be an additional line on the nutritional information that says, "This product contains Genetically Modified Organisms" which if the initial grower includes on their product (they should know), would require no significant change other than updating your labels with the same information when you find out that the labels on things you're buying have it. So it'd be relatively cheap. (The companies in California raised a huge stink, and claimed that "it'd cost consumers an extra $400 a year in groceries." What they didn't tell consumers was that $400 was assuming noone changed their purchasing habits at all, and was due to companies switching away from GMOs because they wouldn't want to get stuck with that label, and raising their prices as a result.)

However, to be fair, labels can be expensive if they require significant research. For example, listing the percentage of dietary intake of sugar for a pre-cooked apple pie. Sure, some is taken up by the sugar you add, that number can be found with a simple 3x3 spreadsheet, but then you have to include the sugar from the apple, and its exact amounts are more obscure (a granny smith might have a different amount than a red delicious, and if you've got a cross-breed or a good/bad year, oh my!), and requires more research.

Now, the linked article doesn't say HOW the supplements were asked to be labeled. If it was simply, "This is an alternative medicine supplement, and has not been tested by the FDA", that's completely fine, I'm cool with that. If it's a label that requires significant testing by the FDA to fill out its contents (like a full nutrition label), then like normal nutrition labels, requirements should be scaled to the size of company.

Now, that said, I'm a proponent of labeling requiring the ingrediant list to mention source of ingrediants, I'm also the type who ignores the font of a container and heads straight for the ingredient list. And organic pre-made pizza will include, "Organic cheese, organic wheat, organic tomatoes..." as part of its label. Similarly, *I* think foods with gmo foods should be labeled as such, "Patent 3255623 GMO Wheat, Patent 5290983 GMO Tomatos, ..." so that way I can look up the patent office online and see what they actually DID to the food.

So, say something like golden rice or purple tomatoes that are altered to have more nutrients? I'm cool with that, load me up, GMO my food all day! But if that corn has been engineered to be able to survive enough poison to kill a blue whale... I don't think I'm going to choose to trust the pesticides that have been sprayed on it. Call me paranoid, but I'd like that tomato to die from poison overdose before I would.

Our future via space elevators

Our future lives thanks to Space Elevators...

To properly talk about the effect of Space Elevators, you need to start with the Lunar Elevator. This is, because, despite what you may think, Actually, the Lunar Space Elevator is simpler to build than the Earth Space Elevator. Although the cable has to be longer, it doesn't need to be of as strong material. (Materials strong enough for the Lunar Elevator cable already exist.) At the moment, it's VERY hard to land something on the moon, despite being so close. This is because the gravity of approaching, as gravity has a tendency to do, means we constantly accelerate towards it after a certain point. So, it takes a LOT of fuel to slow down via retrorockets to land on the surface. And all that fuel has to be sent up out of the atmosphere. And all the materials to build a lunar space elevator can go up in a single rocket.

For comparison, Mars, energy wise, is easier to land on than the moon, despite being so far away. This is because it has an atmosphere we can use to slow ourselves down. The problem, of course, is the time it takes to get there, which means a LOT Of life support.

A lunar elevator, however, changes to moon from being a hard target, to only slightly harder than getting any old communications satellite into orbit. That may not seem like a big deal (I mean, after all, not many people afford satallites), but it comes with a bonus. He3, Helium 3, is constantly put out by our sun. Our atmosphere destroys it on contact, but the moon acts like a giant sponge for the stuff. He3 is the BEST fuel source that we currently know of, second only to antimatter. As far as cleanliness and energy output goes, it's only byproduct is regular helium which at the moment is expensive for us to mine, and is used in almost every major form of industry. Having it as an easily accessible energy byproduct would do wonders for cleaning up the carbon footprint of energy. (It's not just a zero pollution energy source, it's a negative pollution energy source!)

Further, He3 constantly comes off the sun. It's solar energy free for the grabbing that's more potent than the typical solar panels that rely on catching photons (which, by comparison, have much less potential energy).

Now, to make matters more interesting, He3 is used for fusion reactions. (Not to be confused with the fission reactions of current nuclear power plants). Despite the fact that it's literally 10 times as powerful as energy potent as our current nuclear power, it's a non-self sustaining reaction, meaning no risk of meltdown. There's not radiation. Again, the ONLY byproduct is regular helium, and LOTS of clean renewable energy. Further, He3 runs at thousands of dollars a litre at present market price, and that price is only expected to go up as we start shipping it, because that's the price before we have enough He3 to start building lots of clean fusion reactors. So far, the only fusion reactor is the ITAR reactor, and it's only an experimental demo. So with a ready supply of He3, supply may go up, but demand will go up much faster. In short, it's a great investment.

Now, access to any energy source, once established, comes in high demand. That means that space development will kick up to a new level. Materials research for the Earth Space elevator will kick up to a heavy level. (The same was that train tracks get built if a new coal mine is discovered.) Not only will the company our country that is running the Lunar Elevator have significant interest in making easy access to such a cash cow, but people will be beginning to travel back and forth (think new mining town mentality.) And people will be moving to live there permanently. (Pro tip: Expect a ticket price to get from Earth to the Moon, once both elevators are running, to cost about $10K, start saving if you don't want to take out a loan, but at $1K a litre for He3, expect to make all that money back in the first week!)

Now we are almost at the point where we can build an Earth Space Elevator. The main thing that's left to research is the cable material, and it looks like we have that set for the near future. Originally, Carbon Nanotubes were hoped to fill that role, but as many businesses found out, they're just too hard to produce. However, since then, two more technologies have appeared that have the strength that's needed... and they're much more easy to produce. Those are boron-carbon nanotubes, and graphene. (The CEO of LiftPort , Michael Laine, and myself - I'm the CITO of LiftPort - debate between the two of us which will be doable first. It's just a friendly rivalry between us on that one. I'm betting on the graphene.)

So, basically, the Lunar Space Elevator paves the road for the Earth Space Elevator, which means whoever gets the Lunar Elevator first, will control the Earth Space Elevator, and from there, the direction of space development afterwards, and by extension of that, directly guide the future of humanity as a whole.

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... which means whoever gets the Lunar Elevator first, will ... directly guide the future of humanity as a whole.

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You may ask why just the Lunar Elevator is so important? I'll tell you right here.

When the Lunar Elevator is built, that group will have the foothold into space. Although an Earth elevator can be built anywhere near enough to the equator, the Moon doesn't rotate enough for the centripetal force to keep an elevator up like the Earth would. You need to use the balance point between the Earth an the Moon... the L1 Lagrange point. And there's only one of these. Trying to build a lunar elevator anywhere else would be significantly more difficult and complex.

And the space station and elevator built at the L1 will be THE refueling depot and large-scale ship-building facility for Earth Orbit. This is because it will be cheaper to bring Lunar materials into space than Earth materials. And the Moon is providing the He3. Thus, the Lunar station will be THE gateway between Earth and the rest of space. This means whoever has it gets such a ridiculous lead on space development over any other group that it's not even funny.

And cheap space travel opens ups another opportunity. He3 makes energy a non-issue. Asteroid mining with both space elevators available makes mineral resources a non-issue. With the space elevators, getting anywhere in the solar system becomes ridiculously cheap. And asteroids in the asteroid belt can literally be city sized rocks of a single element.

Think about that... what mining company wouldn't fight tooth and nail to get their hands on an entire city-sized "pre-mined" hunk of rock for them to open up onto the market? Think about the fact that digging takes absurd amounts of permits, regulations, controls, equipment, and time. Not to mention there's environmental impacts to be concerned about. Cheap space-travel and asteroids says, "a few explosives, and your'e done". No environment to hurt, no regulations, no neighbors to annoy with blasting. Just batta-bing, batta-boom, massive profit and cheap resources for all of humanity.

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Just batta-bing, batta-boom, massive profit and cheap resources for all of humanity.

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At this point, with amazing resources, and amazing energy, we can begin to seriously start considering colonizing not only other planets in our system, but start creating ships to travel to other systems. The non-profit Alcor already has the research for long-term cryogenic freezing that would be necessary for a multi-year journey to the next star system perfected.

Now, you may be thinking this sounds like science fiction, but the Lunar Space Elevators area already being planned. Three major organizations have already declared the goal of building a lunar space elevator with two more looking like they may declare such a goal in the near future. The three already declared are the LiftPort group of the US, Russia (which started awhile ago), and Obayashi Corp of Japan. The two organizations that may be considering are the EU (which just dumped a LOT of research into the primary component, Graphene) and China (which similarly dumped a lot into its space program), these latter two, although they have not formally declared space elevator interests, are expected to once they do the math and realize how vital they would be to their ambitions.

The latest any of these are expecting to put an Earth space elevator up by is 2050. The earliest is Earth elevator is expected 2030. Expect asteroid mining within five years after that. My personal opinion is that I expect five years after that before someone says, "Hey, cryogenic freezing? Space travel? Let's start looking for investors."

And that kind of travel means free open space for humanity. First world families settling on new worlds (expect families of fifteen kids again, like back in old-west settling days!) And new cultural renaissance. Expect a vibrant exploring space program. Races for new space technology to be developed. (I know I've already heard plans with sound physics... but no testing yet...for a functional warp that could use as little as 10 tons of He3 to power it.)

In short, expect to see the future we all dreamed of in Star Trek in about 30ish years.

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In short, expect to see the future we all dreamed of in Star Trek in about 30ish years.

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Intro

An introduction to the Megalocritic blog...

First off, the question asked of most critics is, "What do you review"? And that's the defining feature of the critic. Me, I am a critic of everything. Anyone who has talked to me will attest that I have an opinion... often an extremely well thought out opinion, on almost any topic. (Except for sports teams. I have no plans to review sports teams.)

Some people may ask, "What makes you qualified to be a critic of everything?"

Before I go into this, I will beg you, plead for you, to please skip this blog entry and go onto the next. Why? Because I'm putting this here as an obligatory, "why you should listen to me". But I don't want these to be the reasons you read what I write. I want yo to read (or not read) purely because you find the information relevant or useful. Let my work stand on its own merits. What comes next is the about me, and it will sound arrogant, because I have to talk about myself (which I don't care for much).

Well, here goes, if you must know who I am...

I have a 5-year undergraduate degree from a liberal arts college and four years post-graduate experience (the only reason I didn't go on to get a degree is bureaucratic reasons I won't bore you with, and my own dislike of bureaucracy). I have an IQ of 140 to 160 (lower end set by taking the test after being sleep deprived for 36 hours, wondering what effect it would have). This, depending on the scale, sets me as high genius or low supergenius. Further, geniuses come in various types. You may have a math supergenius, an artistic supergenius, etc. My qualification is "pan-genius". This means I may not be as good at math as a math supergenius, or as good at art as an artistic supergenius, but that in most fields I beat out the average joe by a decent margin (although I will admit, I'm horrible at chemistry.)

Now, that sounds a little arrogant, so let me throw on a dislcaimer... people treat genius like it's some kind of disease (saying all geniuses are also miserable) or they treat it like some kind of superpower (which, it kind of is, but not as overpowered as you may think). People think geniuses know things by the magical power of genius. That's not what it means (although it can lead to that). What it does mean is that the person learns faster. Much as runner from a family with a history of being professional track runners has a good chance at running faster than the average joe starting track, a genius has a leg up on learning.

Does this mean I know more on any particular topic than you do? No. I can be wrong just as much as the next guy. Give me bad information, or I jump to the wrong conclusion, or anything else, and it means I can screw up just as bad (if not worse) than the next guy. But it does mean that if I put a lot of my time towards learning (which I do), I get more bang for my buck than the average Joe.

 So as much as you may look at someone's buttcheeks and think, "Daaaang, those those mean they're evolutionarily advantaged for being able to travel long distances and are more likely to bear kids that can run long distances", genius merely means the brain can run long mental distances before tiring.

So, I've got some fancy college learning, and I've got a fancy brain. So what?
Okay, I'm also a published author (I wrote a roleplaying book. For those unaware, that involves writing and studying all aspects of life to figure out how to make rules on how to analyze everything that people will likely encounter. So I had to study life in general in all its aspects). In college, I studied biology, philosophy, computers, religion, art, and music. (All my degrees and additional studies areas were multi-study across multiple fields)

Further, knowledge is nothing without experience. I have worked as the CITO (Chief IT Officer) of an Aerospace research corporation, volunteered for political groups and changed some areas courses of history, started my own religion based off of logic and reason, saved lives (I worked for awhile as a lifeguard and watched some fairly unsafe waters), and more. In my search for truth, I've written letters to PhDs in quantum physics, astrophysics, & biology. I've studied religion till I saw visions and was offered priesthood (which the priesthood positions I turned down, and my own visions I looked at objectively as the interesting phenomena they are, that in objective retro-observation, are more than likely just interesting psychological events), and have meditated till I reached Nirvana (and then some). I have tackled the big questions, and come up with answers (including "Is there a God", which I have answered with logical proofs, which, indicative of all good answers, no one actually likes, but can't find a good way to disagree with.)

So, all in all, I hope you enjoy my blog, and I hope it's useful to you.