Ridiculous Fines for Cellphone Use while Driving

Fines vary from $20 to $2000 – is this merely an extra money for the government to spend on new roads, or will it prevent people from using cellphones?

Photo from Stefan Kloo’s flickr

We all know your reaction time doesn’t improve when you use a cellphone while driving. If I were playing Angry Birds, I wouldn’t even see the other car coming.  But I could hold a navigation device in my hand all day while building a Lego tower, and not be fined. Even calling someone while riding a bike is no problem.

Calling would distract you from driving, and therefore be an offence. Research shows that older people react much slower than younger people (Green, 2009), and there is a dramatic increase  in reaction time between an 80 year old and a 20 year old man. Why then do we not forbid all old people to drive? They’re much more dangerous that young people calling.

Research also shows that handheld calling causes as many accidents as handsfree calling (Victor H., 2011). It doesn’t matter whether you hold your phone or not, you can’t pay as much attention to the road as you should. But when attention becomes the problem, we could also forbid music in cars. I personally find pink cars very distracting, let’s forbid those too.

Is there any way to forbid everything that causes distraction? No, but calling is a popular thing to do while driving, so when you forbid that. We might solve a big part of the problem. But then handsfree calling should be forbidden too. And Angry Birds. While we’re at it, let’s just ban all cellphone use from our lives. It is not possible.

Will the fine prevent you from calling while driving?

Sources:
Driver Reaction Time; Visual Expert
Using a Bluetooth hands-free while driving just as risky as using the handset, study finds; Phone Arena

Punishing Before and After Crimes

There is technology that can detect thoughts that  might, or will, lead to a crime.

Photo from photoXpress

Is it ethically responsible to hold people in detention for crimes they are going to commit in the future?

Normally, you will be sentenced to prison for a crime you committed in the past. The punishment is a reaction to your crime. If you’d commit murder, you would be in prison for 30 years or so, maybe for the rest of your life. We see this as a normal thing, but were you accountable for what you did? Probably so, unless you have a mental disorder. It is very hard to draw the line between those two. Doesn’t everyone who commits murder have a mental disorder? The real question is whether someone will commit murder again. If you have a mental disorder you aren’t expected to. You’re just a case of chance.

But if you’re not a case of chance, and you have been in prison for 29 years, with one year left, are you at that moment still accountable for what you did 29 years ago? How long does a punishment have to last? The worse the crime, the longer the imprisonment. But do those 30 years re-awake the dead person? Do they take away the guilt?

In the Netherlands the police is punishing people for crimes they committed, 4 years ago. People who uploaded videos of illegal sets of fireworks a few years ago are being held accountable for it now. Is this not a strange way of punishing, when people don’t even remember the video existing on YouTube?

What if you’re sentenced for a crime you are going to commit in the future? In the movie Minority Report gifted humans predict that John, the main character, will commit murder in 36 hours. John doesn’t even know the victim at that moment, but he is sentenced for murder. If pre-crime detection were possible in our world, would we use it? Are you accountable for a murder you are going to commit, without yourself knowing yet? We’d say it’s impossible to prove a future crime, but what if the government says the pre-crime detection is certainly right?

Video:
Indefinite Detention for Future Crime

Senkaku Islands: “War is the only solution”

The Senkaku Islands are covered in jungle but no rivers – it’s uninhabitable.

Photos from theatlantic.com

This month Japan bought the islands, prompting large-scale protests in China. Japan has been in control since 1972 anyway. But there might be a lot of oil reserves.

The dispute was caused by the territorial claims of Japan and China. The islands are within the boundaries of both countries, because they are close to Chinese coast as well as the Japanese one. Japanese boats have been on patrol to prevent Chinese fishing boats from visiting.

It is strange that China makes a fuss of the islands. They never really seem to have cared about them; Japanese boats have been on patrol long before this dispute. What would China want to do with those islands?  The oil that can be found there might be of some use, but it can’t be as important as China makes it seem. And the financial argument of China can’t possibly be better than the cultural argument of Japan. It became clear that a financial argument was possible in 1971, so why protest against the Japanese claim now? China hasn’t  been able to use those oil (and gas) reserves for 40 years, it can’t be that important if you ignore those reserves for so long.

This doesn’t make Japan good though. They tell the world that China only wants those islands for the money, but isn’t it a strange coincidence that Japan is in control of the Senkaku Islands since 1972, one year after the oil discovery? And why do they want to be the official owner of the islands, when they have been in control for so long? An answer for that is the money they’ll get from the oil reserves.

Is the dispute only about oil? There is also an important military shipping lane and it offers fishing grounds.  But does China need the fishing grounds or the oil? Probably not. They can’t need the strategic shipping lanes either, as if they would fear Japan more if it ‘officially’ owns these islands.

For China it is important to create an enemy. It is better for the harmony among people when they all have the same enemy; Japan. If China encourages protests, everyone in China will become mad at Japan. Normally if people protest in China, people are beaten and sent to jail. In the anti-Japan protests, no one is hurt. China is supporting the protests, if not organising them.

In front of a camera a Chinese civilian said: “They are stealing our land. War is the only solution”. If all civilians would be as easily manipulated as she is, war will be the only way to relieve their anger. What if Japan is not the chosen enemy but Europe or the United States? How easy would it be for China to start a war, to convince their people they’re right?

Is war the solution to this dispute?

Success is for Morning People

If you want to be successful, try to be a morning person.

Photo from photoXpress

Author Laura Vanderkam argues that successful people, referring to CEO’s and top of the industry successes, are mostly morning person. That’s a correlation, and she believes in transforming night owls to morning peeps for the sapid success everybody wanted.

There’s a part of me that’s agreeing with her. Productivity is at peak in the morning; mind is fresh, body is rested. Just compare it to the evening status of our selves, where our body and brain are both exhausted. You see the rationale behind it.

This is good news for me because I’m all around. I can peer like an owl at night but be able to wake up early to do something valuable, be it exercise or this article. But the night lovers could cringe, or perhaps disagree overtly because this claim is robbing them their chance for success.

Another part of me believed in productivity at any time of the day. I know mornings are the best time, but there are slits of opportunities throughout the day. I’m talking about a jog between break time or midnight study. This is the general finding; it’s good to know but our opinions about ourselves will still be the loudest. Just whatever works for us, worked for us so keep on doing it!

At what time of the day are you most productive?

More Moments for you:
Single-Tasking Demanded
The Least Money You Fight For
What Your Birth Order Says About You

Source:
Why Morning People Rule the World; Inc.

What if.. Crime Commit

What if you could commit a crime and get away with it..

Photo from photoXpress

What crimes have you committed in your thoughts?

Don’t come clean here, I know at some point in our childhood and especially adulthood, we fantasized stabbing our enemies in the most epic possible way. I do that a lot with movie villains.

The Bling Ring gang had it groovy. They robbed the settlements of A-list celebrities including Paris Hilton, Rachel Bilson, Megan Fox, Orlando Bloom, Lindsay Lohan and more. They executed it between 2008 to 2009, got caught and now a movie in production. How can you get away with that, with Millionaires against you.

I don’t intend to promote crimes here, but to just play around the neat idea.

Toptentopten.com listed the rad crimes to commit.  Among my favorites is hacking “the cities street light operating system and change all the lights to green”, or better make the lights dance like it’s Christmas.

On the said list as well is stealing a tank and driving it all around New York City. Yeah, that was like playing Grand Theft Auto in real life – awesome! Or pulling your pants down and running nude in a live presidential speech – you get to steal the focus.

The rest of their badass crimes are in the list – The Top Ten Coolest Crimes To Commit.

LG, a multinational electronics company, suggested a way to rob their stores. Watch their ad:

I’m a simple dude, my crimes would be tax evasion (understandable, right?), beating traffic laws then bribing the police officer and sneaking into a cinema. I may also want to hack computers of important people, or the Twitter account of the famous. Then I’ll fill it up with untamed viruses. What’s your crimes?

More Moments for you:
Loath these Laws
What If.. You Sell a Body to a Chemist
Horsemeat Maltreat