BABY FROM THE LAB

 EXTRACORPOREAL PREGNANCY

Artificial Wombs

In the near future women will be delivered from the burden of pregnancy. We will grow our babies entirely in the lab, in some kind of artificial womb. We are becoming increasingly proficient at keeping premature babies alive, the earliest at 21 weeks and 5 days, as opposed to the regular 37 weeks (ref). We have already grown a number of different organs by growing (stem) cells over a scaffold. Probably the biggest problem technically is to get the dosage and timing of growth regulators exactly right. But to find out we need to overcome a bigger hurdle, which is explaining to religious people that the world is not going to end if we grow people outside of the womb.

The option of getting a child from an artificial womb, as opposed to the traditional way, has great advantages. Pregnancies are very demanding, causing all manners of severe physical discomfort and often cause ugly deformations. These are common symptoms of a pregnancy according to the wiki page: tiredness, constipation, pelvic girdle pain, back pain, Braxton Hicks contractions, edema, increased urinary frequency, urinary tract infection, varicose veins, haemorrhoids, regurgitation, heartburn, nausea, and stretch marks. And that's only the regular stuff. There is also a chance of all manners of dangerous and painful complications. In rare occasions childbirth can even lead to the death of the mother.

Incubator

For people that cannot get children through traditional means this is also a solution. Think about sterility due to genetic defects, or due to injury, or age-related disease. Or because both parents are of the same sex. Of course children can be adopted, but I would only choose adoption if the child has very recently exited the womb of the biological mother. Children that are older often have behavioural problems due to mistreatment by their previous parents, or due to the changing of parents. And sometimes the original parents try to get 'their' children back, sometimes even successfully (ref). And there's always the psychological thing about adopted children: "why did my mommy give me away? What didn't she like about me?" I think it's pretty handy if we can create children without stains or ties.

Also important is the fact that inside the artificial womb, the baby can be monitored 24/7. If anything bad happens we can respond quickly. We can design the artificial womb so that the baby is very accessible to doctors. And if the baby sustains irreversible damage, we will notice that, and can easily abort the pregnancy without spending a lot of time and money to find out at birth that the child has only half a brain. We also reduce the possibility that the mother becomes too attached to the unfinished person, and decides to keep it.

No longer will the mother's diet be a problem for the child. Normally if the mother consumes a lot of alcohol, the baby will suffer from a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which includes serious brain defects (ref). Malnutrition might also cause negative epigenetic changes in the baby (ref).

We know that the unborn child can learn things, like language basics, and taste preference. With the artificial wombs you can highly regulate what you want the child to learn. This can be done automatically, and with involvement of the parents.

If these advantages weren't enough, there are even more things that will greatly improve our future society. 

EUGENICS

Let's first get the nasty things out of the way. Eugenics has a very bad name, mainly due to practices starting in the early 1900s to 1945. People at that time had extremely simplistic ideas about heredity, and even about modern society. People thought, for instance, that criminal behaviour and poverty were both strongly genetically determined. If you just prevent criminals and poor people to reproduce, you create a 'race' with only lawful, rich people. Everybody happy, <ahem>. And don't think that the 'evil' German Nazis were the only ones involved in this. It was a common practice in the whole of the civilized world. Civilized indeed. People that were thought to carry genes that benefited society were encouraged to reproduce, and people with 'bad blood' were discouraged (this sometimes included sterilization, incarceration, or murder). 

Transhumanism Logo

The principle of eugenics, the belief and practice of improving the human species genetically, is not per definition bad. If you made people more intelligent and rational, you would prevent a lot of conflicts. Technological improvements will also go much faster, allowing for a generally higher standard of living. The bad aspect of traditional eugenics is allowing some people to have children, and others not. But with artificial production of children, we can improve the genetics of our species, ànd allow people with defects to have children. For being a parent is not sharing half of your DNA with your child. Being a parent is to provide resources (food, shelter), to teach it to deal with the world, and -most importantly- to show it your love. The degree of genetic similarity between parent and child does not matter.

I certainly do not advocate sterilization of certain people that happen to have genetic defects. No, that would be unfair (they are punished without having committed a crime) and unequal (people ought to have equal rights).

When we have created human artificial breeding centres around the world, we ought to sterilize all human beings.

GENOME BUILDING

Scientists are able to synthesize chromosomes artificially, though it's difficult to create long chromosomes like those of humans. I expect a quick evolution of DNA synthesizing techniques, because it's so useful for molecular biologists. Think about how fast sequencing techniques have changed. When synthesizing large chromosomes becomes commonplace, genetic manipulation will be so much faster and easier.

Human Chromosomes

Each human being has two sets of chromosomes in their somatic cells, and therefore two copies of each (autosomal) gene. These copies are called alleles, and are rarely completely the same. One human being only has two (different) alleles of a specific gene, but in a population many different alleles exist. Differences between alleles may have (almost) no effect on a person's phenotype. Some alleles, however, have a significant negative effect. If there's an error in a critical component of a gene's promoter, the protein might not be produced. Changes in the coding region might alter the shape of the gene product into a dysfunctional protein, or even a highly toxic one. Variants that improve the functioning of a gene are also possible. For example, the allele CCR5-Δ32 provides 100% protection against HIV-1. Some MSTN alleles strongly increase muscularity, and consequently increase physical strength.

Sorting out all variants of all genes is an extremely laborious task. We possess about 25.000 (protein-coding) genes, and hundreds or thousands of alleles can exist per gene. Some differences between alleles may not matter, but some do. Therefore we need a good computer with software that chooses among alleles, and assembles the genomes.

Some alleles give 100% chance of a specific disease. Such alleles need to be absent from all artificial genomes. However, most alleles will only provide a certain chance of getting a certain disease (or certain benefits). For example, oncogenes increase the likelihood of getting cancer. Cancer requires X specific mutations in one particular cell, but with 1 oncogene that number becomes X-1. Other alleles may even be less clearly associated with a disease, just because we do not yet know all the details of every process in our bodies. That's why we need the program to work with chances of 'inheritance'.

Piece of genetic code

We can study a group of humans with the same disease and a group of otherwise similar humans without that disease, and inspect the genetic code. One particular variation in a gene might be present in 80% of those diseased people, and in 30% of non-diseased people. If this difference is significant, the computer should decrease the chance of selecting that particular allele. But because it's not 100%/ 0%, that chance should not be 0. That's because a correlation is not the same as a causal relation. And we do not want to remove all variability from our genomes. We wouldn't want to create identical clones.

Studies for positive traits can be performed too. You can do IQ tests, for instance, and link the result of those tests to the genetic variation. The higher the linkage between a particular sequence and a positive result on the test, the higher the chance should be of getting that piece into the artificial genome.

After we have tested lots of people for all manners of traits, we will probably find that some alleles have a positive effect on one trait, and a negative effect on another. We need to provide some mechanism for the computer to choose which trait is preferred over which other. For this I can imagine we give our future parents a questionnaire with questions about their future child. Each question compares two traits, and the parents have to decide which they deem more important. When they're done we can give that information to the computer, and the computer can do its magic.

Perhaps we can even allow a neutral option, which the computer interprets as choosing the one or the other at random.


BIRTH CONTROL

Did I mention mandatory sterilization somewhere? Yes I did. Well, in the first of the solutions you do have two options. You either choose to get medical care from your government with sterilization, or no sterilization and no medical care. That'll make most of the people enthusiastic about sterilization :P. Or perhaps not. It'll only work in developed, western countries. And only when you've educated the people about it. And when the choice has been made democratically. Especially Islamic countries will be strongly opposed no matter what you'll tell them. Every time you produce a vaccine against some dreadful disease for free, ignorant Muslims see it as part of some grand conspiracy by Amereeka and other nations to sterilize them. Perhaps it's better if we design a virus that sterilizes everybody. The 'pathogen' spreads, all will get mild flu-like symptoms, and only after a while will they find out that they cannot get kids anymore.

Of course, we should only do this when we already have birth centres around the world. And when the world is ready for such an intervention. We do not want to cause a third world war, or create total anarchy.

Oh, God why on earth do you want to sterilize everybody? Are you thinking this? Well, the answer is that I think it's very beneficial to society, and the individual, that the size of the population is highly controlled. Big fluctuations cause problems with supply and demand. If  the population size shrinks, there aren't enough teachers, and doctors, etc. If the population explodes, society suffers from unemployment and resource shortages. If the population size is constant, or if the growth rate is constant,  we can much better anticipate what the resource demand and worker supply is going to be. We can adjust the number of houses we build, and we can provide better vocational counselling.

There are other advantages too. Crime often stems from some trauma during childhood. Raising a child is very important and should not be taken lightly. Therefore, I propose we get mandatory parenting courses. The first course and exam are free. If you fail the exam, you have to pay for subsequent courses and exams. This will prevent some accidents for uneducated but otherwise good parents, and prevents bad people from abusing their children. Not only should we get tests, we also should check whether the parents can support their children. Do they have a job? Own a house? If either of these questions is 'no', they should not be allowed to get a child until they do. Again, this is to ensure child welfare. Thirdly, we should check for their criminal background. Some past offences like (child) rape and murder are not very compatible with proper parenting, in my opinion. Such people are also excluded.

Of course I'm not saying we will prevent all child-abuse this way. But it will help a lot. I do want that the procedure is standardized, and all decisions accessible, so that we don't create powerful bureaucrats.


FINAL REMARKS

First, I want to say that without the sterilization part, the artificial human breeding is still a good idea. We'll get healthier and smarter people, which is a big thing already. And with proper education human population growth is already reduced a lot. And before we can control human population growth, we need societies that are designed to minimize corruption. Baby breeding should not become a big money-making business. The current world is not ready for it yet.

EVOLUTION SHOOTER

Evolution is a concept, to my knowledge, absent from the shooter genre of video games. In other genres there's 'SimEarth', and a more recent one called 'Species'. Though in these games you are more of a spectator, not participating in the struggle for existence itself.

Another game, 'Spore', does involve participating in that struggle, though the evolution-mechanism is not at all like that of the real world: you have to collect bones which give you new characteristics that you can apply to your species. An upcoming game, 'Evolve', allows you to play a monster that can kill creatures in order to 'evolve' your character. The game involves changes to the individual through a cocoon stage, making it much more like metamorphosis than evolution. 

'Evolve' from Turtle Rock Studios.

I did start thinking about true evolution in a shooter after reading the preview, and I think it's very much possible and plausibly fun. It will also solve common spawning-related problems.

HYPOTHETICAL GAME

In my hypothetical game, all players play a monster. They have to kill and eat each other, in order to produce eggs, which is the goal in the game. The players get victory points when the eggs they laid have hatched. Others try to destroy these eggs, to prevent giving points to the enemy (and to get food points for producing eggs of their own).

So where's the evolution? One element is genetic variation underlying phenotypic variation. This means that the differences in characteristics that affect gameplay (speed, strength, attack speed, etc.) are influenced by variables that are passed on to progeny. When eggs hatch, a monster similar to the parent will emerge. 

Another element is mutation. The creatures emerging from the eggs are similar to the parent, but not 100% similar. Each variable is slightly and randomly increased or decreased (or not changed). The hatchlings are slightly different from the parents, and also from each other. 

Natural selection is the final element. Selection of course occurs when some creatures are killed, and others survive. Like in the real world, genes do not determine 100% the evolutionary success of the creatures. Creatures with good stats have better chances of surviving, but in the end tactics of the players are also very important. Selection also depends on the environment. Some characteristics might be better for some maps than for others. Just as sniper rifles aren't useful in maps that lack high grounds and contain lots of small corridors.

SPAWNING

So what about the improved spawning mechanism? I hate games where suddenly out of nowhere an enemy can appear with 3 second immunity. It's often completely non-thematic and unfair. Sometimes fixed spawning points are used, which decrease the unfairness, but increases the 'camping' problem.

But in my hypothetical game everybody spawns from eggs. When you are killed, you spawn from an egg of a random other person. Perhaps you you start as a spectator inside another person (your mother), or in a unhatched egg. You wait a little while and then you hatch, ready to fight again. There's no appearing out of nowhere, as the eggs are clearly visible. The eggs can also be destroyed to prevent spawning. This should not decrease the spawning rate, as players are very much motivated to keep their eggs alive, because that's what counts in the game.

This does mean that affiliations can change, and that from the eggs you produce and protect deadly enemies emerge. That's nasty, but that's life. It happens all the time. If you're good you produce a lot of offspring, but are bound to get killed by your offspring. Still, evidence of your skill will be evident, as at that time many of the existing creatures resemble you.

TRADE-OFFS

To make the game both more fair and more realistic, we can introduce a trade-off to inheriting good stats. In reality creatures can evolve to be bigger and therefore stronger, though this requires more time to grow, and more energy. We can introduce this trait of reality in a number of ways. We can say that during the game the creatures have to eat not only to produce eggs, but also to become bigger. So if a creature has inherited the a high value on the size variable, he needs to eat more until he can produce his first eggs, but he will become stronger in the meantime. 

Another possibility is to make the eggs more expensive, assuming that all the growth happens inside the eggs. This means the eggs themselves cost more (nutrient points) to produce if the creature has high values in its variables. Yet another way would be to increase the time until hatching. I think it's possible and fun to incorporate all these things.

I think the game could be great. Imagine you first design your own creature, choosing body types and colors and appendages (or perhaps choose from randomized/ premade creatures if you don't feel like spending time on this). Perhaps you can spend points on jaw strength, leg strength, claw strength, etc. Do you want a big poisonous stinger? Or big legs that allows you to outrun others? Or are you a slow, camouflaged creature that can attack when others do not expect? Or do you want to fly? You have to keep the size of other body parts small or you would not be able to fly, but the advantage is great.

And then you battle creatures made by your friends, eat them to create more of creatures like you. Next you have a family hunting party that you use to battle the more difficult enemies, but suddenly you are betrayed and eaten by your own kin. But you start again, as the offspring of your offspring and take your revenge on the persons that have killed you in a previous life.

TECHNOCRATIC DEMOCRACY

Today I wanted to expand on the idea of mine for a new political system. I want to emphasize the ruling power this time.

I believe that knowledgeable, problem-solving people should rule a country. The minister of health should have studied medicine. The minister of economics should have a master's degree in the economic field, at least. The minister of foreign affairs might be a doctor in history, having studied international relations. Politicians don't have to be good at talking, but at solving problems. That's something the Romans got wrong, but we're still using a system heavily based on theirs. My system reduces the focus on eloquence because political parties are not directly selected. We need to select for good ideas, not good one-liners.

To recapitulate previous political posts, in my system, people first select 10 statements they find actual and important, from a list of statements provided by the parties that want to participate in the elections. Those 10 that are deemed most important by the public are used in the actual elections, where people choose 'AGREE', 'DISAGREE', or 'INDIFFERENT' for each of the 10 statements. The political parties officially list their opinions on those statements beforehand (also agree/disagree/indifferent), and the people's result is compared with the results of the political parties, resulting in many votes for parties that share the opinion of the public, and a small amount of votes for the parties with fringe views.

Each political party is supposed to provide experts for the political positions they have won during the elections. They can choose anyone that has the right qualifications. Experts from different parties, but in the same department can have valuable discussions on matters within their expertise. This ensures that the government is not only democratic, but also wise. Discussions between wise people are valuable. Discussions between ignorant people often miss the point. Uninformed people tend to be much stronger attached to a certain (simplistic) political ideal, and tend to be very chauvinistic. They want to win, or to make the other lose, instead of realizing that it's not about winning or losing, but about improving the nation, or even the world.

For example, many (ignorant) environmentalist politicians are against nuclear energy. Sure, nuclear reactors produce dangerous waste that 'decays' very slowly. But we can store this safely underground, with no ill effects whatsoever. With proper maintenance, nuclear reactors are also very safe. Burning fossil fuels is causing big problems, and needs to be stopped as soon as possible. We can replace coal plants by solar panels and wind turbines, but to get a stable and reliable supply, we also need something like nuclear power plants. So environmentalists should actually be in favor of nuclear energy, not against it. They aren't because they are fundamentally opposed to nuclear power, instead of determining what is best for the environment.

Another example is foreign aid. Many (ignorant) socialists are very much in favor of sending as much resources to foreign countries to help people in need. The foundation of my morality is that suffering is bad. So trying to reduce the suffering of humans anywhere is a good thing. In general. But specific aid projects might actually increase suffering. Consider the following example calculation. 

There's a tribe with 1000 people. These people can only produce food for 1000 people. After reproduction there are 2000 people, so 1000 people will die of food shortage. If you give these people food for 1000 more people, the people will first experience a complete reduction of starvation. The 2000 people can now all reproduce, resulting in 4000 people. However, after the aid they still only produce food for 1000 people, causing 3000 people to die of starvation. So you spent a lot of money on food, and the end result is 3 times more suffering.

The problem with such an aid project is that the politicians did not see the underlying problem. The tribe did not have a food shortage. It has a problem scaling up the food production methods. Or perhaps there are too many criminals stealing from farmers. And obviously there's also problem in birth control. Those problems need to be dealt with. The same thing is sending aid to people in Syria. By sending such aid you prolong the war, and prolong suffering. Blocking weapons trade to that country (whether the dictatorial government or the terrorist rebellions) should be the first thing on the list. But no. Stopping arms trade does not make them fuzzy inside as giving food and medical supplies does.

Such decisions are made by either short-sighted and ignorant people, or people that do not care about how the money is being spent, because they are not held responsible for their actions. Both areas should improve. We should have more experts in the governments, and we should always hold the individual members of a government responsible for their own actions. It should always be very clear who signed what.

Why can't we just select the best experts for the positions available? Why go through the trouble of selecting parties first? Let me answer that question with a question: who selects the experts? Those selectors need also be selected. You can't just appoint one random person to select the experts. That puts far too much power in the hands of that person. Or even if it's one office or agency. But by allowing the different parties to select the experts themselves, you get a democratic, mixed set of experts.

We do need some rules to make sure that the parties don't hire idiots or laymen. We do need experts. So we might require them to possess doctor degrees, and relevant working experience. Perhaps the candidate has authored a number of scientific papers. If this selection procedure is both standardized and transparent not much corruption is possible in this step. Because each party selects its own experts, the effect of altering the selection procedure in favor of some private benefit is severely reduced.

Past achievements are great, but a scientific job is not the same as a political job. So the executive politicians should be checked by each other, which is possible because they are from different parties. Motions of no confidence can be used to remove politicians that are not doing their job correctly. But the people can also be involved. If you make the decision making process as transparent as possible, and organize a platform where people can comment on those decisions, it would make the system even more democratic. Governments should have their own internet forum, and people should log on using their digital ID (so it's not anonymous). This prevents trolling and spamming, and makes it possible to use people's input to assist in policy-making (even if only slightly).

Such a platform could be great not only for criticizing current policy, but also for people to feel more connected to the government, to learn more about important political matters, and perhaps to generate new ideas. On the idea section of the government forum people could 'like' / '+' good ideas and comment on them to make them better. The endorsement will have to be publicly viewable, so that people are less inclined to randomly endorse things.

Less performers, and more brains. Politicians that talk and talk and talk and talk are not valuable. Politicians that throw shoes are not valuable. Instead of insulting each other when there's a problem, or having endless yes-no arguments, they should acquire evidence to prove their point. They should work like scientists. Not like actors. They should work together to solve apparent problems. Not to prove their points or to forward some impossible utopia. We should build ourselves a technocratic democracy.

NEO-NORSE - TIME REFERENCE

In this language you determine the time of events in a sentence by using time indicatives. Once the time has been specified, the sentences keep that time until specified again. If no time is indicated, present is expected. 

Tense like in Old Norse, or in English does not exist in this language. This is the consequence of my attempt to remove most of the word-changing business (inflection). If you compare Latin with it's daughter language English, you will see that a lot of the inflection has already disappeared. I just take it a small step further.

 
 I think it's easier to specify the subject like in the English language (I + drink) instead of changing the verb like in Latin (bib -> bibo). Similarly, I think it's easier to specify the time with another word (e.g. yesterday I drink) instead of inflecting the verb (I drank). And if specification is not required you just don't write the indicative.

Maybe you're thinking that it's easier for me, because my mother tongue doesn't use a lot of inflection, and so I'm not used to it. Well, Dutch uses inflection a little more than English, but I suppose it's still inflection-light. Perhaps learning inflection rules is as easy as learning indicatives for a naive person.

However, in inflection-heavy languages like Latin you have to learn both the inflection schemes AND the indicatives. For example, Latin uses personal conjugation and personal pronouns. Apparently the indicatives are very handy words, even in languages with heavy inflection.

Moreover, a language that uses both inflection and indicatives is no worse off without inflection. A person could say: 'Yesterday I walk through the forest'. It sounds weird, but it contains the same information. In this case you don't need the verb to change. 'Tomorrow she eat the banana.' Sounds even sillier, but retains all the information.

TIME INDICATORS

Here are some of the time indicators of the new language:

Yesterday:            gáárdax         (lit. previous day)

Today:                þesdax          (lit. this day)

Tomorrow:             náástdax        (lit. next day)

Past:                 tyltyym         (lit. until time)

Present:              þestyym         (lit. this time)

Future:               fraatyym        (lit. since time)

Previous morning:     gáár mórxun

Previous afternoon:   gáár eftmyðdax

Previous evening:     gáár kveld

Tomorrow morning:     náást mórxun

Tomorrow afternoon:   náást eftmyðdax

Tomorrow evening:     náást kveld

And here some example sentences:

I run through the woods.

Ek raða þurx skóóx.

I ran through the woods.

Tyltyym ek raða þurx skóóx.

Yesterday I was running through the woods.

Gáárdax ek vera raðandi þurx skóóx. 

Last evening I ran through the woods.

Gáár kveld ek raða þurx skóóx.

I will run through the woods.

Fraatyym ek raða þurx skóóx.

Tomorrow I will be running through the woods.

Náástdax ek vera raðandi þurx skóóx.

Tomorrow morning I will have been running through the woods.

Náást mórxun ek vera raðaðör þurx skóóx.

NEO-NORSE 2

Like in many languages, my Neo-Norse language has words that are composed of a stem + suffix. Each stem is unique and is associated with a different meaning. The suffix denotes the type of word.

Let me give an example. In English, '-ious' is a suffix indicating that the word is an adjective. 'Infectious' = 'infect' + 'ious'. '-ion' denotes a noun. 'Infect' + 'ion' = 'Infection'. Using suffixes makes a language easy to learn, because you need only learn the stem, and can derive other words from it without having encountered those words before. Unfortunately, in current languages like English, one kind of word can be indicated by many different suffixes. And one suffix might not be very specific. In English, adjectives can also be made by adding '-ic', or '-able', or '-ate', or '-ful'. Both nouns and verbs often do not have suffixes. So 'fire!' might be an order to shoot someone, or it might be an exclamation informing the people that the town is burning down.

I want a language that does not contain superfluous suffixes, but also in which each suffix has a specific purpose not shared by other suffixes.

By looking (critically) at common Old Norse and Icelandic words, I've decided on the following suffixes:

Type	Suffix	Example1	Translation1	Example2	Translation2
Stem		stúð	support	þók	fog
Abstract	-i	stúði	supportiveness	þóki	fogginess
Agent/ Subject	-ar	stúðar	supporter	þókar
Product/ Object	-ör	stúðör	supportee	þókör
Adjective	-in	stúðin	supportive	þókin	foggy
Verb Active	-a	stúða	to support	þóka
Verb Passive	-ast	stúðast	to be supported	þókast
Participle Active	-andi	stúðandi	supporting	þókandi
Participle Passive	-aðör	stúðaðör	supported	þókaðör
Plural	-as	stúðaras	supporters	þókaras

Note that I use transcription symbols (rather than runes) so that you understand it without needing to learn a new alphabet.  The stem 'stúð' is based on the Old Norse word 'styðja', with '-ja' being a (meaningless) suffix. The stem 'þók' is based on the Old Norse word 'þoka'. You can see that while you can make all kinds of different words from a stem by adding suffixes, not all have meaning. Agent/subject and product/object are usually only present when there is an action/verb associated with the stem.

The stem is a special category. It is used for common objects like 'money', 'river', 'hole', 'sun', 'tool', etc. It is also used for special words like: 'as', 'if', 'then', 'unless', etc. I deliberately made this category suffix-less because 1) otherwise common words will all have the same ending, making the language more boring and 2) so that the most frequently used words are also the shortest, making communicating with this language faster.

You will perhaps notice that only 2 verb suffixes exist (active and passive). This is very different in a number of other languages, where each person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) has a different suffix, and also singular and plural are different. In English this difference has almost disappeared, there are only 2 forms left (stem and stem + s). There is a thing in English called tence: verbs can be set in the past (-ed) or in the non-past. In my language, all timing is indicated by special words, more on that in later posts. Like in English, noun function is not indicated by the case but by the position in the sentence. The cat ate the fish. The fish ate the cat.

This is still pretty easy isn't it?

NEO-NORSE

I'm creating a modernized version of the Old Norse language. I want a language that has the same flavour as the Old Norse language, while also being very logical. I'm not saying that the Old Norse language was particularly illogical or difficult. I think most languages could do with less rules and less exceptions to the rules. I chose Old Norse, apart from the flavour, because it's an ancestor to current modern languages. Speakers of the daughter languages (Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, German, Dutch, English) will have less trouble learning this language. In this post I'll only show you the runes, the letters that make up the alphabet for the language. In future posts I'll show you the actual language.

RUNES

Like Old Norse, my language needs to have runes. I wanted roughly 1 sound per rune, so I could not stick with any of the existing rune sets. Old Norse used only about 16 runes (the Younger Futhark), which isn't nearly enough to cover all of the sounds. Therefore I used the Anglo-Saxon runes (the Futhorc) as a basis, which contains the same runes as the Younger Futhark, but with additional characters. In the end I only had to add 3 new characters, coming to a total of 30 runes.

The table shows all of the runes, transcription characters, and IPA characters. Transcription is basically writing foreign words using familiar letters. You also use these letters when using the font I created to write these runes on your computer. You can download the font from THIS PAGE. The IPA symbols represent sounds, so that you know how to pronounce the letters. You can read about or listen to the pronunciation of the IPA symbols on THE WIKIPEDIA PAGE about it. This table does not really say much about the length of the sounds. I did want the writing system to show vowel length. Therefore I decided that short vowels should be written with 1 (vowel) rune, and long vowels with 2 runes. As an exercise, try to speak the name of my blog!

For the o rune I inverted the a (áss) rune, as the sounds are similar, and in the Futhorc I think three versions of the a rune exist, some associated with the o sound. The inversion was to make the a and o runes more dissimilar. For the ö rune I added a diagonal stroke to the ó (ódhal) rune to make it similar to the IPA symbol 'o with stroke', a letter used in parts of Scandinavia for that sound. Finally, the dh sound was originally associated with the th (thurs) rune, so I made a symbol similar to that rune. There's also similarity between the new rune and the eth character, which is commonly used to represent the dh sound.

I wanted to add that the inclusion of the z rune may not seem entirely logical, as the sound is absent in Old Norse. But if you want to use this script to write words of another language, it is nice to have all of the common sounds included. I can now, for example, write the name 'Zaluzar' using these runes:

 

I you have any remarks, please add a comment below.

ELECTIONS PART 2

My second post about politics, following up on the idea of a new elections system. Click HERE to read the first article. I want to address some potential problems related to the new system, and explain some of the details better.

 DEFINING STATEMENTS

I mentioned in the previous article that before the pre-elections, each party must write down 10 statements that basically define their political program. Statements should always be executable. "Soft drugs are bad for your health" is not a good statement because it isn't executable. "Possession of soft drugs should be made punishable" is a good statement. The (properly worded) statements are then combined into one list, which is used in the pre-elections. In the pre-elections everybody chooses 10 statements that they think are the most actual and important.

Most problematic is the list that is created and used in the pre-elections. One issue is that one subject will be represented by multiple statements. It can be expected that the more important a subject is, the more statements enter the list. Votes could be spread among statements on the same subject, in a way that would make those subjects seem less important. Perhaps enough not to be selected for the final elections. See the next example:

Assume that there are only 2 statements, and 1600 people voting.

Statement 1: "the government should invest more in renewable energy sources"

Statement 2: "soft drugs should be completely legalized"

Assume that statement 1 is more important, and that the voting result will be:

Statement 1: 1000 votes

Statement 2: 600 votes

Now assume that there are 3 statements, 2 of them are very similar. The rest is the same.

Statement 1 "the government should invest more in renewable energy sources"

Statement 2 "subsidization of renewable energy should increase"

Statement 3 "soft drugs should be completely legalized"

The result could now be:

Statement 1: 550 votes

Statement 2: 450 votes

Statement 3: 600 votes. 

Apart from a 'spreading effect', it is also possible that the first subject is so important that the 2 statements about 1 subject will 'steal' all the votes away from the second subject. Because people will be able to choose 10 actual, important statements, it is possible that they choose multiple on the same subject. I don't think this is what we want. We want to know the opinion of the public on as many of subjects as possible, so we cannot keep multiple statements on the same subject if they are too much alike.

Statements that are 100% the same can be combined automatically, but other statements must be combined by hand. Preferably a team of politics experts is assembled by the incumbent government. First the team removes all statements that are not executable. Probably none of the statements are wrongly formulated, as parties want to have the most influence. Secondly the team combines all statements that are about the same thing. The trick is to make a new statement that incorporates all elements of those statements, without being too vague. Additionally, the new statements should be formulated as yes/no questions, to make them more neutral. Instead of "the government should legalize this" it should be "should the government legalize this?" If you do not formulate it as a question, people that are opposed to the statement will not be willing to choose it (I think), even though they are only choosing it so that they can later express their opinion on it. Both the original list and the adjusted list should be made public. On the original list there should be 10*X statements, where the X is the amount of parties. After the adjustments by the team there are most likely much less statements, presumably 20-50 (my guess). There should be an option for the eligible parties to file complaints if they think the list is not acceptable. Perhaps the team can be replaced if the majority of the parties thinks that the team is not impartial.

RISE OF THE UNDERDOG

When you no longer vote for parties, popularity no longer matters (that much). In the current system popular parties will get more votes than the other parties simply because they are already popular. In the new system, smaller, less popular parties will have a higher chance of getting into the government than with the current system, if their opinions are shared by the general public. I suppose that this is good, as I (and I assume more people) want politics to be about good decisions, not good looks.

On the other hand, the current voting system serves as a mechanism to punish parties that do not do what the public wants. But if you do not vote for parties, each party with popular opinions will get votes each time. Of course, we do have a way to punish those that do their job badly. Any member of the house of representatives can file a motion of no confidence to a minister that failed at his job. If the majority of the house agrees, the subject is encouraged to resign. Perhaps also such a system could be constructed to allow the general public to show their lack of confidence in the government. If the majority of the electorate wants a minister, or perhaps the entire government, to resign, they should be able to force them. Everybody could use his or her digital identity to log on to the governmental website that has the option to vote for nonconfidence in a minister or in the entire government. At any time. Of course there have to be moments for counting and resetting the counter, which could be every 3 months, or perhaps every year. If such a thing occurred, it should trigger new elections.

EXAMPLE CALCULATION

Finally, I want to give you an example of how party members get their seats in the house of representatives through the new voting system. I will skip the process of the pre-elections now, and assume that there are 3 statements/questions chosen (normally this would be 10 questions).

These are the fictional results after a voting by 3500 people:
Question 1: 900 yes, 2000 no, 600 indifferent

Question 2: 300 yes, 2800 no, 400 indifferent
Question 3: 2200 yes, 1100 no, 200 indifferent

These are the opinions of the 3 parties which they have officially written down before the election. The number after that is how many votes they got, based on the voting result above.

Party 1: indifferent, yes, yes = 600 + 300 + 2200 = 3100
Party 2: yes, yes, no = 900 + 300 + 1100 = 2300
Party 3: no, no, no = 2000 + 2800 + 1100 = 5900

The number of seats in the house of representatives = total number of votes of all parties combined / 150 = 11300/150. The number of seats per party = number of votes/ (11300/150)

Party 1 will receive 41 seats
Party 2 will receive 30 seats

Party 3 will receive 78 seats

1 seat remains because of rounding, and will be allocated normally:
3100/42=73,81
2300/31=74,19
5900/79=74,68 -> highest average

Final result:

Party 3: 79 seats
Party 1: 41 seats
Party 2: 30 seats

Party 3 has enough votes to form the coalition on its own. Party 1 and 2 will form the opposition.

What do you think? Are you convinced by my idea? If not, why? Help improve the system. Democracy must be actively maintained, and our democracy can certainly be improved. We can increase freedom and justice in our world through reason. 

REASON IS PROGRESS