Cutting the Gordian Knot: Simple Solutions to Complex Societal Problems

By Stanley Korn

Each of the 39 chapters in this book addresses a different problem. The chapter begins with a description of the problem, followed by a discussion of the previous attempts to solve it, and an explanation of why such attempts have fallen short. A solution is then presented that addresses these shortcomings.

Along the way, challenge questions related to the problem at hand are presented to the reader, who is invited to ponder them before proceeding to the next page for the solution.

The ideas and proposals presented in this book are likely to be considered radical by some, and will require the reader to think outside the matrix of our cultural indoctrination.

Below is a list of the chapters in this book, showing the wide range of problems addressed therein.

Campaign Financing
Children: Having and Raising
Climate Change
Crime
Customer Service
Daylight Saving Time
Discrimination
Driving While Impaired
Drug Overcharging
Education
Electing Our Representatives
Entitlement Cost Escalation
Financial Bubbles
Flood Mitigation
Gambling
Government
Gun Violence
Health Care Cost Escalation
Identity Fraud
Immigration
Income Inequality
Inflation
Information Overload
Insect Pests
Life: Creating
National Debt
Photograph and Video Authentication
Religion
Rewriting the Constitution
Same-Sex Procreation
Space Travel
Spam
Substance Abuse
Taxes
Terrorism
Traffic Congestion
Unemployment
War
Weight Management

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stanley Korn
• Release date: Apr 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311192943

Stanley Korn

Stanley Korn received a B.S. in physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and did graduate work in physics and mathematics at the University of Maryland. Stanley was employed by the Defense Department as a physicist, operations research analyst, and computer specialist; he has since retired. He is the former coordinator of the Metropolitan Washington Mensa Parapsychology SIG and an investigator of the paranormal. Stanley has given presentations on a wide variety of subjects before diverse groups. He is the author of four books, an inventor with four issued patents, and a Fellow of the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry, membership in which requires an IQ in the top 0.1%.

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Introduction

"Cutting the Gordian Knot" is a metaphor for solving a seemingly complex problem by using a simple but bold or innovative method. In this book, you will find solutions to a wide variety of societal problems. Some problems, such as inflation, have a truly simple solution. Others, such as crime, require a multifaceted approach. In the chapter on space travel, a mass transit system is detailed for launching vehicles into space using the energy of Earth’s rotation to do the heavy lifting.

If there are simple solutions to some of society’s vexing problems, why haven’t they been implemented by now? In some cases, the solutions have been thwarted by those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Another reason for the lack of acceptance may be that the solution involves methods considered unacceptable by our cultural indoctrination. Finally, there is always the possibility that no one has thought of the solution before.

In some cases, the solution to one problem can be part of the solution to another problem. For example, solving the problem of entitlement cost escalation can mitigate the problem of the growing national debt. Another example is that a secure method of identity authentication that would provide a solution to the problem of identity fraud would also be a component of the solution to the problem of illegal immigration.

Some of the ideas proposed in this book may seem radical to many. However, the fact that ideas are radical does not imply that they lack merit. I can cite historical examples of ideas that were once considered radical but are now mainstream and vice versa. For example, during the time of the Inquisition, the prevailing dogma was that Earth was the center of the universe. The idea that Earth revolved around the sun was heresy – literally! People were tortured and killed for expressing that belief. Galileo was forced to recant. A more recent historical example is that in the antebellum South, where slavery was the norm, abolitionists were marginalized. In fact, it was a crime to aid and abet an escaped slave. Today, of course, slavery is, to put it mildly, out of fashion.

The point is that ideas that are radical and on the fringe should not be cavalierly dismissed without first examining them. However, in order to give such radical ideas serious consideration, it will require that you, the reader, are able to think outside the matrix of our cultural indoctrination.

Each of the 39 chapters in this book addresses a different problem. The chapter begins with a description of the problem, followed by a discussion of the previous attempts to solve it and an explanation of why such attempts have fallen short. A solution is then presented that addresses these shortcomings.

Throughout this book, you will be given the opportunity to solve challenge questions related to the problem at hand before viewing the solution on the following page. These challenges are designed to stimulate your creative problem-solving ability as well as your imagination.

The policy changes recommended herein refer primarily to the United States of America, of which the author is a citizen, but can also apply, mutatis mutandis, to other countries as well.

In this ebook, I use hyperlinks to link to source material rather than citing sources using the MLA or APA style. (The one exception is for a 1979 reference that is not available online.) MLA and APA were designed for print media, for which they work quite well, and later extended with only minimal modification to apply to electronic media, for which they are far from optimal. Using hyperlinks saves considerable time and effort for both me, the author, and you, the reader, in linking to the source material, as compared to using the MLA or APA style for referencing sources.

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Societal Problems

Each of the chapters that follow provides a solution to a different societal problem. They are, for the most part, self-contained and may be read in any order; they are listed alphabetically for ease of reference. Some of the chapters have hyperlinks to other chapters for elaboration and to avoid redundancy. For example, the chapter on crime has a link to the chapter on gun violence, a solution to which would be a component of the solution to the crime problem.

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Campaign Financing

The main problem associated with campaign financing is that large campaign contributions by vested interests or the lobbyists that represent them may cause members of Congress to vote on legislation favorable to those vested interests. Now, no lobbyist would be foolish enough to make the quid pro quo explicit, for example, by saying to a legislator something like: The party that I represent has authorized me to give you a $50,000 campaign contribution if you vote ‘yes’ on Bill X. Any lobbyist making such an explicit offer would risk being prosecuted for attempted bribery. Instead, the lobbyist is likely to say to the legislator something like: The party that I represent believes that it would be beneficial if Bill X were passed for the following reasons … (and gives the reasons). The lobbyist would then give the legislator a campaign contribution if and only if that legislator voted yes on Bill X. Such an understood quid pro quo can be every bit as effective in influencing a legislator’s vote as an explicit quid quo pro and, unlike the latter, is legal.

Efforts to curb the undue influence of campaign contributions on members of Congress have focused mainly on limiting the amount of money that an individual or an organization can contribute to a candidate. However, such limitations have been largely circumvented by the use of super PACs, to which contributions are unlimited. In any case, such restrictions placed on campaign contributions unnecessarily limit the ability of individuals or advocacy groups to support the candidates of their choice, even in cases where there is clearly no conflict of interest. As long as the contributions are made to a legislator whose voting record and public statements make it clear that he would vote on bills in a manner favorable to the advocacy group providing the contributions even in the absence of such contributions, there is no indication of any quid pro quo. It is only when a legislator changes his voting pattern in close proximity to receiving a large campaign contribution to a voting pattern favorable to that of the contributor that one has reason to suspect that an explicit or implicit quid pro quo may be involved, although even here it is possible, albeit unlikely, that the case made by the lobbyist representing the donor was so persuasive that the legislator would have changed his voting pattern even in the absence of the campaign contribution. Crafting campaign finance legislation that distinguishes between these two situations would be a herculean task.

An alternative method of curbing the undue influence that lobbyists have on legislators that doesn’t require restricting campaign contributions is to eliminate or at least reduce the ability of members of Congress to pass legislation that favors particular individuals, corporations, or industries. For example, legislators could no longer pass laws giving certain industries preferential tax treatment if, as advocated in the Taxes chapter, all taxes were eliminated, nor could they reward agricultural interests with farm subsidies or advocacy groups for the poor with social programs if, as proposed in the Entitlement Cost Escalation chapter, we do away with all entitlements and subsidies.

Finally, let’s end the practice of political appointment used by elected officials to reward their supporters. Appointments to government jobs should be based solely on merit, not on political affiliation. The spoils system has no place in our government.

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Children: Having and Raising

It is entirely appropriate for the government to regulate activities that if performed incompetently or recklessly have a significant potential to harm others. For example, in order to obtain a driver’s license, one must demonstrate the ability to competently control the vehicle as well as knowledge of the rules of the road; competent drivers are less likely to cause accidents, which could result in injury, death, or property damage. Likewise, doctors and lawyers are required to undergo extensive education and testing before they are permitted to engage in their respective practices; the harm that can be done by incompetent doctors and lawyers is obvious.

There is one egregious exception to the policy of requiring those who engage in activities that put others at risk of harm to demonstrate competence in performing those activities, namely, having and raising natural children. One of the most important activities of any society is raising the next generation. Children raised by incompetent parents are likely to be abused or neglected and engage in destructive behavior as juveniles and adults. Unlike the screening process that prospective adoptive parents and foster parents must undergo before being approved, all that’s required to become a natural parent is the ability to procreate. Common sense dictates that the requirements for bringing a child into the world should be at least as stringent as those required for caring for an existing child.

To address the problem of incompetent parents, I propose that anyone wanting to have children should be required to first obtain a parenting license, just as one must have a driver’s license in order to legally operate a motor vehicle on the public roads. In order to obtain a parenting license, the applicants would be required to take a class in parenting education and pass the written test for that course; be interviewed in order to determine if they are psychologically capable of raising children; have their finances assessed to ensure that they can afford the expenses of taking care of children; and perhaps have insurance or post a bond to cover the cost of any damage caused by their minor children, similar to the insurance required of those operating motor vehicles. Just as the owner of a dog is responsible for any damage or injury caused by that animal, parents should be held legally responsible for any harm resulting from the actions of their minor children.

Those on public assistance lack the financial disincentive normally associated with having children that they can’t afford to take care of by virtue of the fact that the government pays to take care of their children, placing an unfair burden on the taxpayers. Eliminating government-financed public assistance, as recommended in the Entitlement Cost Escalation chapter, would solve that problem.

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Climate Change

Climate change, aka global warming, refers to the steadily increasing average temperature of Earth, believed to be due mainly to the anthropogenic carbon dioxide resulting from the burning of fossil fuels. This increasing temperature is causing the polar ice caps to melt, resulting in rising sea levels, which, if this trend continues, will cause the flooding of coastal areas. The warming oceans provide increasing energy to hurricanes and storms, causing more severe weather.

One proposed method of reducing carbon dioxide emissions is by cap and trade, aka emissions trading. While cap and trade provides a financial incentive for companies to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions, it has the disadvantage of unfairly rewarding those companies that have made little or no effort in the past to limit their emissions, as compared to those that have made such effort, by virtue of the fact that the caps are determined by the amount of carbon dioxide that these companies emitted during a period of time in the past serving as a baseline. Furthermore, the prospect of cap and trade legislation provides factories with an incentive to not reduce their emissions, since any such reductions are likely to result in corresponding reductions of their caps.

A carbon tax provides a financial incentive to reduce emissions similar to that provided by cap and trade but without the disadvantage of the latter described above, only let’s not call it a tax; I suggest the name environment degradation fee, which would be charged to the emitters of other forms of pollution as well. As I argue in the Taxes chapter, all taxes should be eliminated for the reasons discussed in that chapter.

For those who might question whether the proposed environment degradation fee is really a fee and not just a tax by another name, let’s consider the differences between a fee and a tax. A fee is money paid in return for a service. The amount of the fee is generally commensurate with the cost of providing the service or the value of the service provided. By contrast, one does not receive any direct benefit in exchange for paying a tax. For example, a property owner does not benefit from paying property tax, nor is that tax associated with any cost to the public resulting from that property. Much of the revenue collected in property taxes goes to support public education, which does not benefit those property owners who do not have children in the public schools.

Some fees are charged for removing something of value from the public lands, for example, drilling for oil. Fees are also charged for adding something of negative value to the environment. For example, where I live, the county charges residents a sanitation fee of $2 per garbage container per month to dispose of their garbage. Similarly, the environment degradation fee would be charged to emitters of pollutants for adding material of negative value to the environment and would be commensurate with the harm done to the environment resulting from the pollutants emitted.

For the environment degradation fee to be effective in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, there would need to be an international agreement to establish a uniform fee per unit of carbon dioxide emitted. The fee could apply to other greenhouse gasses as well, such as methane.

Carbon capture and storage has been proposed as a method of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by storing it in underground reservoirs. However, this method has the disadvantage of being expensive as well as the possibility of the carbon dioxide leaking out of the reservoirs back into the atmosphere, so it is not recommended.

Cogeneration is an underutilized technology that could increase energy efficiency by using the heat that is a byproduct of fuel-powered electricity generation for heating applications, such as for heating homes.

With the steadily declining price of photovoltaics, it is becoming increasingly cost-efficient to install solar panels on the rooftops of buildings to provide their electricity requirements. Furthermore, solar panels could provide power for charging the batteries of electrically-powered motor vehicles, eliminating the need to power motor vehicles by fossil fuels. An alternative to rechargeable batteries is the hydrogen fuel cell, where the hydrogen is generated by the electrolysis of water using solar energy. Hydrogen has a much higher energy density than batteries, so it will result in a longer distance traveled between refueling than is possible with batteries.

Rather than burn coal to generate electricity (and unwanted carbon dioxide), the coal could be converted into carbon nanotubes (when the technology has developed to the point to make this feasible), to be used in fabricating the conveyor belt used in the construction of the space conveyor proposed in the Space Travel chapter.

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Crime

Crime is a multifaceted problem and therefore requires a multifaceted solution. Below are a set of recommendations which, if followed, would go a long way toward solving the crime problem.

Control Access to Guns

Guns greatly enhance the ability of criminals to commit crimes involving violence or threats of violence. The Firearms Management System (FMS) described in the chapter on Gun Violence is designed to prevent those with a criminal record or a history of mental illness from obtaining guns, not only by purchases at gun stores but from private sales and theft as well. In addition, the FMS facilitates the solution of crimes involving guns by enabling bullets found at the crime scene to be traced back to the gun from which the bullets were fired, even if the gun involved cannot be recovered, and thence back to the person to whom the gun was registered.

Establish a National DNA Database

Require all residents of and visitors to this country to allow a sample of their DNA to be taken. The digitized DNA profiles of everyone would be stored in a national DNA database. This would enable any DNA recovered from a crime scene to be matched to the persons involved.

Adopt the Secure Card System

The Secure Card system described in the Identity Fraud chapter is designed to allow two parties to securely authenticate each other’s identity. Adopting this system would prevent identity fraud and in particular eliminate identity theft. Furthermore, since each Secure Card transaction is recorded in a national database, law enforcement agents could (with proper authorization, of course) use these transaction records to track the whereabouts and activities of persons of interest (e.g., criminal or terrorist suspects) and ascertain the persons and organizations with whom they transact business. Watch lists could be set up such that the authorities would be alerted when a person on these lists engages in specified types of transactions, for example, booking tickets on a commercial airline.

Legalize Victimless Crimes

People like to be free. They like to do what they want to do, where they want to do it, when they want to do it, how they want to do it, and with whom they want to do it. Laws and rules in general by their very nature control human behavior. They either prohibit behavior, such as laws against murder, restrict behavior, such as speed limits on the public roads, or compel behavior, such as requiring people to pay income tax. Therefore, laws are inherently undesirable and can be justified only if and to the extent that they prevent a greater harm. Having one’s sensibilities offended is not sufficient to qualify as a greater harm; otherwise, people could be arrested because someone finds the way that they dress or the type of language that they use to be offensive.

In deciding whether a law should be passed, the question that should be asked is What harm is the law designed to prevent? The burden of proof should be on the proponents of any law to show that the proposed law prevents a greater harm. It is herein recommended that all laws be required to contain a statement spelling out the harm that they are designed to prevent or mitigate. Like food products and medications, all laws should have an expiration date, by which time they could either be renewed, modified, or allowed to expire.

The guiding principle should be that you should be allowed to do as you please, so long as you don’t harm anyone else. I would add the clause or put others at risk of harm to prohibit activities such as reckless driving and also the clause without their informed consent, namely, the informed consent of those that you put at risk of harm, in order to permit activities such as surgery with the informed consent of the patient. Let’s see to what extent current laws regarding victimless crimes meet this test.

Laws established solely to enforce a standard of morality do not meet the test of preventing a greater harm. These include laws against