An easy approach to junk food consumption regulation.

As we saw earlier, the same mechanisms that currently serve the rich, can be adjusted for the benefit of the general public. "But what about fast food joints?", a shrewd reader would ask. "They hardly sell anything healthy, would they have to be abolished?"

Abolishing something is certainly the easiest solution to problems, but the Wise Monarch should try to avoid closing down familiar institutions in order to preserve the happiness of the public. Thankfully, and elegant solution exists for fast food establishments.

Fast food in itself isn't poison -- it is the excess consumption of it that creates problems. It is, however, a convenient way to get some energy quickly when traveling.

With understanding the cause of the problem comes the solution: the Wise Monarch would require the burgerias to ask their customers to bring an electricity bill no more than a month old. The customer can only be served if the address on the bill is 100 miles or more from the location of the restaurant. Technological advances allow for automatic scanning of the bill and calculating the distance, lowering the educational requirements of the clerk.

Raising a healthy nation is easy!

Sales as a dietary regulator.

The evolution of human thought has given us capitalism, which is used as a framework for all sorts of great things. One of the great inventions is sales. You know, "buy one, get one _{of the same or lesser price} free" kind of thing.

As with most achievements of capitalism, sales serve the general public rather indirectly: while they do provide stuff cheaper than normal, quite often you can either find the same thing somewhere else for the same price, or just don't need the item. As usual, it benefits "corporations" (in general sense): they can get rid of the goods with expiring shelf-life, or they lure people into the store with a loss leader.

There is, however, no reason to abolish sales in a neo-monarchy. The Wise Monarch should use every means possible to keep his subjects happy and healthy... Perhaps even more healthy than happy, because the projected lifespan (and hence the generated tax revenue) of the healthy but unhappy people is longer than of the happy but fat unhealthy.

And since most people would buy only the thing that are on sale, this mechanism can be used for regulating what people eat without the atrocities of older monarchies. No, the Wise Monarch would just put fatty fish on sale for one week, thus forcing his subject to get some Omega-3 acids. Then he'd replace fish with beef, beef with chicken and so on. He would constantly put different vegetables on sale to make his subjects happier with alternating fiber sources and their bowel movements regular, which also contributes to happiness.

The rich would, of course, avoid these regulations by buying whatever they want (since they can afford it), but they already do mostly healthy choices, so the Wise Monarch shouldn't be too concerned with them.

For extra happiness of the general public, the periodic costumed parades could be held and TV shows themed after the current week's Food. Next week is the Fish week. Come watch the Fishwalk at the Main Street this Friday. Don't miss the Salmon's intern next Tuesday at 8!

Total war honesty

There was a program over the radio recently, something about the new techniques the military employs to train soldiers to turn the “killer instinct” on and off quickly. Or may be it was about the proposed techniques, that some concerned armchair strategists are demanding to be implemented. Not sure about that, but the purpose described was to allow soldiers to enter a building, see who's inside and, if they see movement, make a decision whether to kill whomever was moving, or recognize that “it's just a few kids” and, correspondingly, do nothing.

I think this is a logical extension of the “humane weapons” concept that is being circulated recently. Precision bombs, guided missiles, no collateral damage, etc., etc., etc. Although, somehow, non-combatants are still being killed, mistaken for guerrillas, or just because the precision guidance wasn't as precise as expected. Lots of reasons, lots of scary pictures on the Internet, lots of demands to improve the tactics... Like the aforementioned training.

The scary pictures on the Internet or TV are, perhaps, the driving factor behind this. Nobody really cares to think about how wars were fought when there was no TV and no photography, although it is fairly obvious from the science of History that, well, the purpose of wars was to kill your opponents by any means available. The nobility might have enjoyed a privilege of being held for ransom, but as for the regular folks ― vae victis!

And somewhere between the invention of TV and the Internet, I think, the public must have become quite scared by all these gory pictures, which normally only the actual combatants would see. Being unaccustomed to that, the public got shocked and demanded change. The best change would be, of course, to stop wars completely, but that is unrealistic until globalization is complete, hence all the fuss about precision weapons to calm the domestic populace.

But it doesn't work too well. Of course, technology has to balance between price, effectiveness and the “preciseness” but, more importantly, civilians tend to wander right into the kill zone, rendering collateral damage reduction technology useless. Then the general public starts worrying again, demanding more effort in that respect and politicians are happy to give out promises, until the vicious cycle repeats and people begin whining again: “How could we support this horrible, horrible thing! But we thought we were only going to kill bad people!”

So what would the Wise Monarch's solution be? I guess he'd just stop pretending and would honestly say: “We're going to go there and kill everyone”, and than actually go and do it. Why waste money researching precision weapons if civilians are going to die anyway? Why screw the soldiers' psyche by demanding two conflicting modes of behavior simultaneously? As an extra bonus, “regular people” would know what the war is and, although would be less likely to support it, but if they do, there won't be any second thoughts or flip-flops. And they won't have the uncomfortable remorse afterwards. Not that the Monarch needs any support – you know, being an absolute ruler and all – but a good king should always try to make his subjects happy. Makes coups less likely ;)

Pharmaceuticals strike back.

After the wise monarch had issued an edict intending to promote searching for cures instead of treatments, the cunning pharmaceutical companies have come up with a novel trick: they are promoting the idea that obesity is a disease and therefore can be cured -- or at least, you know, treated :p -- with pills. The Wise Monarch understands the general need for selling people stuff and does not mind most of the marketing tricks.

His Majesty, however, is appalled by the recent attempts to advance the obesity-is-a-disease-so-it's-not-your-fault-just-buy-these-pills-thnx paradigm. Oh, they are really smart, those guys, first hinting on the effect and now providing the people with a feasible explanation. "Fatness spreads, now why would that be...", -- the subconscious keeps thinking for a month, -- "must be some reason to it... Yes! A virus! That explains it!"

Well, two can play this game. If obesity is a disease, and obviously a fast spreading one, then the Wise Monarch has no choice but to declare a state of emergency, global quarantine and isolation of the affected* and the expropriation of all drug research facilities in order to find the cure ASAP.

Achtung! The future of our species is in danger! It is no time to profit from erection enhancers until this horrible disease is wiped out once and for all!

*Free and unlimited access to treadmills is to be provided in the isolation facilities.

What to do with the orphans.

Currently, abandoned children are mostly neglected by governments, and it appears to have been the case for quite a while, judging by the vast cultural heritage on the topic: orphans are often perceived as unlucky, poor kids who lack the warmth of parental love and are, generally, quite miserable.

This once again shows the ineffectiveness of the past and present governments, because orphans, by the very nature of their situation, can be very loyal to the government. Most people are quite loyal to their family, relatives and friends, so if there's ever a choice, whether to do something that benefits their family or the country as a whole, many people may choose the former. What's worse, it isn't possible to foresee what each particular person will choose, which may have very dire consequence for the country if the person choosing is at a high level of the power hierarchy -- a president or some such. Although it's not that those who get elected into high offices get scrutinized on this criteria, so the problem isn't very obvious.

Orphans, on the other hand, can be raised as the government elite, brought up equating themselves with the country and its government, so they won't ever have any doubts about whom to serve. They will also be highly resistant to treason, because the whole idea of betraying the government they owe everything will be very foreign to them.

Certainly, in the current scheme of things, the government and the country are not quite the same, the former may change course several times while a person is growing up, but, in the context of neo genetic monarchy this makes much more sense. These orphans raised in loyalty to the dynasty is the human resource pool that a wise, genetically-engineered monarch could take his lieutenants from.

Vive la génétique!

The genetic dawn of new monarchies.

It's obvious that with the right monarch, a monarchy can outperform democracies easily, since the monarch is not concerned with reelection. The king is pretty much associated with the country, so he'll do his best to lead the country to prosperity -- he does not have any other goal in life, anyway.

The reason why this is not the case in reality is right there in the 3rd word of the statement: "with the right monarch...". (Un)fortunately, the systems with family-inherited absolute power don't work too well because the children aren't the exact copies of their parents, so if the dynasty founder was all suited to be a king, his offspring may be less so. And their offspring, lacking not only the natural predisposition but the right upbringing under the influence of a good monarch, may be even worse rulers. They could be great musicians or bakers or scientists, but the country needs a ruler to rule and a great poet will let his country down. The tendency to breed within a narrow "royal" gene pool isn't helping either.

That's why democracies win so far: each individual ruler may be mediocre, but, succeeding each other frequently, they cancel each other's mistakes and the country makes a good progress overall. However, there are things that may be pleasing to the potential voters in the short turn, but damaging for the country and biting those same voters in the ass a few years later. Which doesn't matter for the elected leader who done those, because he's not a leader anymore, another guy has to solve the problem now. A good king won't have to do things for the voters' immediate gratification, but could really aim for long-term goals.

So, how do we ensure the good king's son is also a good king? Well, genetic engineering is the answer: don't let the Brownian motion decide whether the price will be a good ruler or a good golf player. Pick up the right one out of the million royal seamen, the country's future depends on it! Sure, the father may want a great basketball player son, you know, to get free tickets for the best seats and all that, but that's his duty as a king. Besides, I'm sure the Basketball Association would recognize this great sacrifice and spare a few tickets for the king.