Ah, Modern Technology

Living in a third world country, I doubt I'm elligible to sigh and wistfully appreciate the wonders of Modern Technology, but I'll go ahead anyway. That's one of the less mentioned advantages of Technology, especially the Internet. Before, it was "web sites"; when every teenager who could, scrambled to get his or her own GeoCities or Tripod account to have their very own presense on The Great Big World Wide Web. Now with everyone and their mother blogging, it's even easier for people who don't really have anything to say, to say it and have a potentially massive audience.

There really needs to be some sort of Darwinian system on the Internet to separate all the crap from the personally-opinionated crap. I'm going to go out on a limb here and use a controversial analogy. Ever wonder why Lahore has such shitty drivers? Ever notice the lack of minibuses and 16-wheeler tank-dumper trucks? Using these two simple variables, we may calculate a hearty 1.0 correlation. Karachi has minibuses and big trucks. Karachi has good drivers. Lahore has no minibuses and big trucks. Lahore has no good drivers.

A little scrutiny would show that the reason for this is that every idiot on the roads of Karachi has been selectively and systematically been wiped off by the first Minibus or Big Truck that he had the privilege to interact with. I purposely say "he" because most idiots on the road are usually men (more accurately; "kids", though they come in all shapes, sizes and ages ... the kids I mean ... not the men ... think about it). Any driver who expects a woman to act in a sane and rational manner (on the road) is an idiot. It wouldn't hurt to assume that holds true off the road as well.

So every idiot in Karachi who ever made a blind left-turn onto a main road (something as traditional in Lahore as gol gappas and staring) got creamed by the first minibus that he tried that infront of and thereby allowed an entire generation of Karachiites to enjoy safer, better driving.

Of course there is always "collateral damage" (c'mon Bush, back me up on this), which is sad, but sacrifices must be made for the greater good of humanity yada yada..

Oh yeah, the analogy. Well, as I have just demonstrated, the Darwinian process works quite well (some might say that's an example of the anthropic principle but that's quite debatable, if you don't understand why; you'll have your answer) and so we need a similar system on the web. Hit squads and assasination attempts require too much effort and/or money that could be better spent in other more hedonistic enterprises. What we need is a way for every blog to have a "Slap The User Dead" (STUD) button. This should be mandatory by law, and people who don't have it should be shot, and the cost of the bullet & execution paid by the offender before death. There can be a trust / charity fund, open to public donation in case there's ever not enough money (though that's very unlikely; the richer people become, the dumber they get, which is another seemingly illogical correlation - but i'll save that one for another post). Ah! "But what", you say, "will stop a torrent of complete morons slapping all the smart people to death and taking over the world?". YOU, my friend, have underestimated me yet again (be honest, you did it around 4 paragraphs ago didn't you). The way Blogspot has a word verification thing for comments to stop spam (mind you - that's spam from dumb, automated bots), there can be a Smart User Verification (SUV) system for the Slap The User Dead (STUD) button. Once there's an SUV for the STUD, there's nothing in the world that can get in the way.

The SUV works by asking the user (potentially a dumb, automated human.. ok ok fine, maybe not automated) a simple (what an idiot would think of as a "highly complex third level calculus problem that I couldn't possibly even hope of solving unless I could solve 2nd order complex differential equations in my head") problem. If the answer is correct, the button causes the owner of the blog to be automagically slapped through the Wonders Of ModErn techNology. If the button clicker (a person) gets it wrong three times, he or she is then reverse-slapped.

This wonderful system would ultimately stabilize to a wonderfully utopian system Sir Thomas More could only dream (ok ok fine, .. and write) about.

Why I don't win a Nobel prize for ideas like this I'll never know. Maybe the Stortinget needs a STUD for itself. Who knows.