Defeating War

 OK, I want to dream. I always say that if you think you have a simple solution to a problem, you haven't understood the problem. So I know that what I'm saying is just plain wrong, but I have to get it out there.

How do you stop a war? Probably not by winning - given enough fuel a war can last for generations. How do you put out a fire? Generally you stop a fire by removing the ingredients that make a fire happen - fuel, oxygen, heat.

So in a war, what can you take out of the equation without adding to the conflict? Money has been a big part of all wars, and sanctions target that aspect. Money provides hardware and logistics, but to a large part they have already been provisioned. We need to take something out of the battlefield that is vital to the war, but in a way that doesn't cause reprisals or intensification.

I'm talking about the war in Ukraine. Russia invaded but appears to have no clear goal, no clear idea of what success will look like. The justifications and misdirections are not believable, Russia will never be trusted under its current leadership. The Russian soldiers don't appear happy.

So we should offer European citizenship to any Russian soldier who becomes a prisoner by whatever means - surrender or being outnumbered. There are about 200,000 Russian soldiers, perhaps the offer would be taken up by 50%, the number is insignificant compared to the Ukrainian refugee crisis.

True, there is no such thing as European citizenship, the legal details are challenging. 

The offer is totally unfair - refugees aren't being offered such a good deal, nor are Ukrainian soldiers. But the deal should not be a whitewash - war crimes are not forgiven, no future promise of work. There could be a monetary reward for surrendering with valuable equipment or information. The identification and debriefing process would be slow.

There should be urgency in the offer - its not on the last day that you can change sides. However I have no idea if there is any way to communicate the deal to the Russian soldiers. Both Ukrainians and Russians would need to have common procedures on how to surrender and how to accept surrender.

The outcome would not be neat. Russian officers would be against it, particularly if they were indeed responsible for war crimes. It would cause mutiny and distrust. There would be mistakes during surrender operations. Friendly fire. 

Could it really end the war? Of course not. But I feel its worth trying.

I want to be a whistleblower!

 Actually I don't. Or I would, if I had anything to be a whistleblower about. But I think we should encourage whistleblowers, there should be a process.

So, what's important to a whistleblower? Money? Secrecy? Accountability? Maybe just a way to say "I was a whistleblower before I was fired", since I've often heard of whistleblowers being described as "disgruntled ex-employees"?

I think whistleblowing applies to crimes. There should be a state-level process to provide concrete and detailed accusations, with no possible blowback. The process should allow people to provide information they are not otherwise legally allowed to disclose. It should be infeasible to determine if someone has given information. Most importantly, the person should be able to demonstrate that they did provide information about a crime in a timely manner.

I think this could easily be implemented as a web site, so I'm surprised that it doesn't already exist. To enter into the web site you would enter a number that you can easily remember - say your credit card or mobile phone number, combined with your postcode or year of birth. These numbers should not be verified, allowing the submitter to add a deliberate mistake. However there should be a "Captcha", to prevent fishing expeditions. Ideally under duress you could "prove" that you DID NOT submit any information, while being able to prove that you DID in a court-of-law situation.

Whistleblower reports should be available to police, anonymously. If a whistleblower reconnects, they should be able to see feedback from the police. Statistical aggregations should be used to highlight problems at a company or discrimination across an industry.

A whistleblower submission does not have the same value as a complaint lodged with the police, but if the information provided is sufficiently detailed and credible the police should not be prevented from opening an investigation.

This seems so easy it should be obvious. Who is scared of building a system like this? The police are overworked? The police would be accused? Industry would be scared? Journalists would be out of work? Wikileaks and other anonymous disclosure hotlines exist, but they need journalists to publicize information, meaning that small problems are ignored, and they offer no legal protection.

Should whistleblower submissions be made public after 50 years?

I am Support

I work for a company that sells software. My job is software-support. I help clients and partners to use our software. I want to talk about my job.

Why does this job exist? The support isn't supposed to develop corrections, and fundamentally we don't do anything that the developers can't do. We cost money and if the client doesn't call we have nothing to do!

However if you don't have a support team, what happens? The customer questions will be managed directly by the development team. You will still need to decide who should pick up the phone or check the emails. Perhaps its a secretary? They will still need to know what to do - which developer to contact. Maybe the boss will dispatch?

In short, all software vendors have a support team. They just appear, like foam on a beer. They exist because the developers don't want to be interrupted. Developers have plans and sprints and schedules that customers don't know about. Developers are assigned to projects and become experts in new domains - they move on. The support reduces the interruptions for the development.

Sometimes we believe that the clients pay for the support, so the support is a profitable activity. This is a misconception. The  support works for the developers, and the clients are buying an insurance policy. In fact the software maintenance revenue pays the cost of development of their current product and future products - especially the ones that fail.

Support teams should be overstaffed, to handle peak activity. Outside of peak activity support must find other occupations. Often the development can suck the support into testing or infrastructure administration activities. The support can help the documentation team navigate the product. The support can act as occasional trainers for the clients. Generally the support team knows the products better than anyone else, so we are the best people to work on small customer integration projects. However - to the annoyance of all - support can't commit to a deadline for these extra activities - the peak is coming!

So here I am. I'm not a developer, I can't build a product. I'm a facilitator, trouble-shooter, a reference. I bring clarity and, hopefully, understanding. Sometimes I think I'm an accelerator, like petrol to a fire. Its a job with variety and satisfaction, but also frustration since I can't actually change the products. I've been doing it for 30 years, its what I've become.

Identity Cards

Identity cards seem to be complicated.

Fundamentally a state has the right to know who is resident. Residents have to make a tax declaration, while citizens must be available for jury duty. A state photo identity seems like a good idea.

Today everything is computerised. Does that mean that there should be more or less information on an identity card? To me there should be less. A card should show your name and your face, and then a reference number used to access a state-managed database. Several different databases in reality. The police should have access to a database with your criminal record, while an authorised medical facility should have access to your medical records.

The card should be "machine readable", but the machine info should be identical to the human-readable information.

Today most identity cards also have your age and your sex. I think this is private information that you only share by choice. For example, to buy alcohol you need to prove your age. So you should be able to go to the post office and get a "civil certificate" that lists the information that you want to share. When you buy alcohol you present your ID card, saying who you are, and the civil certificate saying the age of that person.

What about identity theft? What happens if I lose my card? Well, really its going to be like your credit card. You will get a new ID card with a new number, and the old card's number will be invalidated. The card's number is not your ID number. On the other hand, the old number must not be reused immediately. So the card must have an expiry date, and the number should only be valid with that expiry date. Just like a credit card.

OK, but what happens if someone copies my card? This is a real risk. You can't copy a "chip and pin" credit card, although you can pretend. You can easily copy a digital passport. In the case of the ID card, every database access should be logged, and as the identity principal you should have a web access to monitor each access. Optionally you should be able to enter your mobile phone number and get an SMS every time someone uses your card number to access your personal information.

So what happens if I use my ID card to open a bank account, and then I lose my card. When I get a new card are my bank accounts blocked because the old number is invalid? Obviously a card verification result is valid until the card expires. So even if the card changes, the bank must accept your identity at least until the old card expires naturally. Depending on applicable legislation a bank may require you to update your card information at the end of the old card's validity date.

It should be impossible or illegal to deduce your identity from the card number without going through a state database. Most state databases should require the card number plus the name before providing any results. So your local post office or hospital can't surf the records using people's names. However a hospitable may have personnel specially authorised to invoke emergency powers to perform a search only on the name. In this case each search must be justified to an appropriate judicial representative after the fact.

With this system, what would the problem be? I think its not the existence or use of a state ID card, it is the requirement to produce the card when interrogated by the police. Somehow its like a requirement of self-incrimination, I can understand the reluctance. However if you can't identify yourself immediately to the police they have to power to take you into custody. So for most of us we would empty our wallet to find any partial identity they might accept. For dignity’s sake, I'm not sure that the ID card is worse.

Why is an Unconditional Basic Income not studied more?

When I first heard about the idea of an Unconditional Basic Income, I thought it was a classic left-wing socialist idea.  In that light I can understand why it meets a lot of resistance.

However the more I think about it, the more it seems to be a right-wing ultra-liberal idea. All types of social protections can be eliminated if everybody has food and shelter. Minimum pay can be eliminated if a worker can afford to walk away from a job that doesn't pay enough.

An unconditional basic income could stimulate entrepreneurship. Someone with an interesting idea could convince friends to work for free for a trial period to launch a new product or service. This is particularly necessary today as we see automation destroying traditional jobs at an alarming rate.

From a taxation viewpoint, the basic income policy should or could be break-even. Salaries would always be taxed, there would be no tax-free income band. A basic income would make a flat tax rate act as a progressive tax, since the net taxation would be negative for very low incomes. The individual tax rate would be higher that previously so that at a certain salary your net tax would be the same as before the introduction of the basic income policy. This same tax rate would also apply to higher salaries, allowing the system to break even on average.

A flat tax with zero tax-free income would hugely simplify tax administration for companies and the government alike.

The basic income provides an automatic stimulus in periods of crisis, and establishes a lower bound for economic activity in the country, reducing volatility for companies servicing the economy.

The cost of manpower for manufacturing would be reduced, to the extent there would be a risk of creating international concern. If a company today employs 100 people at the national minimum wage, and tomorrow these workers receive a basic salary that is a large percentage of that salary while the minimum wage is abolished, them the manpower costs for the company will drop - either immediately or in a slow transition across the economy. This might prompt neighboring countries to implement trade barriers...

Debt and bankruptcy are always problematic. Obviously the basic income cannot be seized in a bankruptcy, since it represents the minimum amount needed to survive. By extension there should be no credit linked to the basic income - or at least banks won't want to issue credit based on it. This would cause "rent-to-buy" schemes to develop as a general alternative to personal indebtedness, however banks would still play their part of creating money. An example would be the Islamic banking rules.

Socially this policy could produce several outcomes, depending on implementation. Initially it appears to encourage immigration, however an illegal immigrant would not get the basic income, and there would not be any unfilled jobs at the low end to make up the difference. If legal immigrants are denied the basic income for 5 years, it would also be economically unattractive. Legal immigrants with a job would receive the basic income after a shorter period. The possibilities are endless.

The basic income could also be used to encourage large families depending on the amount given to parents for dependent minors.

I wish I had the tools to simulate the impact of this type of scheme on a real economy. What would the break-even tax rate be? What is the poverty-level income in each country?

Why Skyscrapers ?

I'd love to know what a town planner gets out of allowing a skyscraper to be build. I understand why a builder or property promoter would want to build a skyscraper - maximize the profit on the patch of land. But for the town it seems like a pure headache.

Manhattan is an island with lots of skyscrapers, in one of the biggest countries on the world and that is obsessed with cars. Each floor of each skyscraper has toilets. Imagine the environmental impact on an island! In the film "Towering Inferno", the firemen couldn't reach the upper floors. This sounds like a real problem to me - firemen need special equipment, again a problem for the town planner. Skyscrapers tend the have lots of people entering and leaving - how do they get there? Another problem for the town planner, not for the promoter.

Towns need taxes, and big businesses bring big taxes. However the big view would seem to say that the taxes are going to be spent somewhere. Is there really no better way to provide buildings for these activities?

Paris has a business district with lots of tall buildings, but just one tall building inside the walls. No-one in Paris knows how the building, called the Tour Montparnasse, got permission to be built. TV in Paris is transmitted from the Tour Eiffel. I had a friend living behind the Tour Montparnasse (as seen from the Tour Eiffel) and they basically couldn't watch TV. This was in 1997, so hopefully its improved today.

So when I see a skyscraper I interpret it as corruption. Chicago was one of the pioneers of skyscrapers, and is also one of the most corrupt cities in the US. Any connection?

Environmental Impact Insurance

I'm not someone who thinks that anything a government does is bad. However there is a recurring theme of environmental disaster and cleanup, where the everyone points blame somewhere else, and I don't understand why it keeps happening.

In the Deepwater Horizon investigation it appeared that the government department that was supposed to control the projects was complicit in risks being taken. In France, oil tankers keep sinking. For oil tankers Europe can't impose the same rules as the US on double-hull tankers, but does impose inspections.

I don't see why BP Oil wasn't required to have a "no limits" insurance policy to cover any environmental impact. I don't understand why ships aren't required to have an insurance policy before the leave the port. Having a double-hull should reduce the cost of insurance. Insurance inspectors should be on the oil rigs and in decision process, saying "no!" to anything risky. The government should only be concerned with the financial resources of the insurance company, not with inspecting the ships for rust. It should simply lay out strict rules on what the insurance company has to pay. Insurance companies should be required to pay quickly - if a claim is made and not contested within 10 days it should be paid, although there should be a process to recover fraud.

If the US and Europe required comprehensive environmental impact insurance like this, specialized companies would appear, they would have the skills, resources and motivation to keep inspecting everything. They would have the international reach to have standardized procedures across the globe. Flags of convenience would no longer apply.

So why hasn't this already happened? Money, obviously. Whose money and where? One thing I sure of, if governments clean up the mess then its the people who are paying.