The Second Chance Booth

Ok here is one that has doubtlessly been thought of and wished for by millions of pregnant teenage girls, drunk drivers, and most miscreants in general.

The Second Chance Booth

How many of us have sat in the back of a police cruiser, filled with remorse over whatever crime (inadvertent or otherwise) that we’ve been apprehended for, praying for a miracle that would undo that last few hours of our poor decision making skills.

The Second Chance Booth (SCB) Gives the user 1 opportunity every 7 years to rewind up to 3 days of their lives for the opportunity to make a better decision.

The Process

As this decision impacts a great many people, it would have to be approved by a qualified panel of brilliant experts who would include: an astrophysicist, an ethics professor, and a temporal judge. Each panel member would review the case and provide their decisions individually, and later within a quorum to decide if the applicant qualifies for a second chance.

At the time of detainment every citizen is marandized with the standard legal disclaimer of “you have the right to remain silent etc.” but it now also includes “If you are eligible for a temporal second chance, please inform the arresting officer immediately so that you may be quarantined from human contact until a temporal judge reviews your case.”

It is always best to enter the SCB with a minimum of human interaction so that you do not interfere with their time line. The more interaction one has with people the more intrusive the impact of rewinding time is to the rest of the world. Because the SCB is nothing more than a well controlled time machine, it is critical that the person is isolated from the general population so as not to create a paradox.

The Rules

At the age of 18 all children are given a subcutaneous Second Chance Beacon which is provided after a 3 month compulsory training course. When activated, this beacon will:

1. Alert those around you that you have activated your SC Beacon, and not to interact with you in any way
2. Notify the Temporal Authorities to detain and isolate you until the Judge has an opportunity to review your case.
3. Release a powerful truth serum into your bloodstream so that the authorities can accurately report the reason why you need to roll back your time to a previous moment.

The beacon is replaced after each use and should be replaced every 14 years regardless.

The Booth

The Booth itself is fairly nondescript, a small closet sized room about 6′ x 8′ with an easy chair located in the middle of it. The interior has wallpaper with a vertical gradient going from navy blue to white. There are no windows, and the door has no interior handle.

Because the trip backwards typically causes stress to most users, the chair emits pure oxygen which gives the citizen a feeling of temporary euphoria. Before every Second Chance episode, the citizen is given a brief list of things not to do:

1. Upon your return it is not advisable to mention what has transpired in the alternate reality, as it will confuse others and possibly cause them unnecessary anxiety.
2. Do not – under any circumstances – attempt to capitalize on your knowledge of the future i.e. gambling. Winning a lottery with knowledge of the future equates to 1st degree robbery, and you will be prosecuted with an expected penalty of 15 years in a temporal stasis field

The Second Chance Process creates a divergent path of time, on one path there is what you would have done without activating the SCB, the other path leads to this moment where you are now (an entirely new path). Due to possible overlaps in time as well as creating a paradox by re-encountering your alternate self, you will be isolated for a period of 1 hour past the point of time of divergence whereupon you will be returned to the location of beacon activation. From there you are free to go on your way, hopefully with care and knowledge that will stave you off for the next 7 years.

Comments Welcome,

Sincerely,

Mr. Black

10 Seconds of Foresight

It’s amusing for me when I see my children using their burgeoning foresight in times of potential trouble. And while it thankfully is happening more and more frequently, I see people ignoring this wonderful nuance of intelligence all the time.

So today, I would like to share with you what I would readily give a full year of life to have as a human upgrade:

10 SECOND FORESIGHT

We as a species are born with a decent set of senses, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and of course sight, well wouldn’t it be handy to have been born with a sense of foresight as well?

With an extra week at His disposal, G could have easily given all of us the ability to see not just the present, but an addition 10 seconds into the future for emergency purposes. This gift would prevent us from traipsing blindly into dangerous situations, random acts of violence, embarrassment, and of course death.

This ability would also have to be both reflexive and voluntary – Just like our ability to blink.

As a species we’ve already proven that we’ve barely tapped into more than 10% of our brains cognitive abilities, so it stands to reason that we have enough dormant computational power within our minds to discern and vet all the additional data that would exist in both the present and the immediate future.

Besides, 10 seconds is more than adequate to avoid a sharp knife falling towards your foot from a countertop, or an unobservant driver plowing into your car through a red light.

Can you imagine a world in which there were no spontaneous accidents? Stuff that kills most people usually happens within a 10 second window.

Here’s my top 10 list of things that would be good about this sensory upgrade:

1. All car accidents would stop unless it was intentional, and there would be no speed limit (I mean what for – right?)
2. Slips and falls would be a thing of the past
3. Slamming any body part in any-thing would be unknown to mankind
4. All slow acting poisons would be removed from the market.
5. Knowing what lies at the end of every dark alley
6. Knowing whether or not it’s going to be a home run just before the pitch comes
7. Finding the sliver of glass in the baby food jar before you spoon feed it to the baby
8. Stopping the jumper before he leaps onto the tracks
9. Shutting off the lawnmower before you reach that hidden piece of wood with the nails in it.
10. Deciding not to mention the $500 poker loss to your wife until the morning.

I’m sure there are countless instances where having 10 seconds of insight would be appreciated. And if there are any concepts in the works for this type of device, please feel free to send me the link so I can check it out.

Sincerely,

Mr. Black

Life Choice Machine

If ones life is a continuous series of “if – then” statements, some choices we make are going to be small and insignificant while others will completely alter the course of our lives in a major way. It is precisely for these types of life altering decisions that I would like to present the idea of the:

Life Choice Machine

Imagine being a woman with two seemingly perfect suitors vying for your hand in marriage. This would be a truly nerve wracking situation under any circumstance, however with the Life Choice Machine (LCM), one could simply visit any of the 1,000+ Life Box locations in their metropolitan area. By following these simple steps your decision is as good as made:

1. Write the names of the suitors on one of the available LCM-Decision slips
2. Enter a dollar into the bill accepter and when prompted
3. Feed the slip into the LCM.

Moments later you receive a printed receipt indicating the name of the winning suitor as well as a percentage of success based on “Higher Power” algorithms and quantum analytics.

Every response is guaranteed to be the best choice for that individual within a seven year cycle of “life-time”. If you are deciding between two jobs, medical treatments, colleges, or even vacation destinations the LCM is going to provide you with the best decision possible.

Thanks to the LCM the quality of life for all people will be markedly improved. With rash decisions taken out of the equation, people will be more able to enjoy happy and more productive lives. It’s not required that you take the advice of the LCM, you are free to make all the unwise decisions you’d like, however there can be no pursuit of litigation should you choose not to heed the advice of the LCM. (Please note the “Disclaimer of Usage” found on the reverse side of every LCM-Decision Slip.

As with all devices intended for good, there will be the criminal element who seeks to find the best opportunity to capitalize on an illicit venture. Fortunately for all of us however, the LCM would already be aware of the users intent and prevent them from using the device for unproductive ends. They would receive a refund of their dollar as well as a list of local help centers that offers pertinent counseling.

As a child you believed you’d have all the answers when you grew up just as your parents seemed to know everything, only to find out that the confusion you had as a child is a lifelong condition. The LCM allows you to capture some of that parental wisdom while simultaneously retaining the spontaneity of life.

With the Life Choice Machine – you can be confident in knowing you’ve made a wise and prudent decision.

Sincerely,

Mr. Black

A New Presidental Election Process

New Presidential Election Process

Concept by Mr. Black II 12/2005

As a citizen of the United States of America, I think it is important to have only the most qualified, intelligent, and level-headed leaders we can possibly find to represent our country.

I feel that it is also universally agreed upon that our leaders should truly represent the best that America has to offer, especially in terms of knowledge, wisdom, integrity, and diplomacy.

Our process of electing leaders is antiquated. We elect our officials strictly on the basis of their history, their beliefs, their rhetoric, and most of all how much money they spend to get elected.

Imagine corporations hiring their leaders based on these simple, easily modifiable standards of quality. How easy would it be for the average unqualified “Joe” with minimal skills to cajole his or her way into a highly lucrative position that will affect millions for as long as 8 years?

Fortunately, the majority of our financial infrastructures have multi-layered, in-depth interview standards that are designed to filter out unqualified applicants, leaving only the best to vie for that position.

This is my proposal for a new election model.

I propose a reform in our current election methodology, in favor of a multi-tiered testing and election process.

The testing is available to every US citizen over the age of 35 with a clean record.

It is based upon the SAT standard of mass testing, where there will be multiple testing centers throughout the country. A registration fee of between $500 and $1000, is required to take the test (tax deductible). The test will be based upon the following categories:

1. Intelligence
2. Government (US & World)
3. History (US & World)
4. Global Business & Economy
5. Ethics (Business and Character)
6. Human Rights
7. Civil Rights
8. Foreign Language (of their choosing)
9. Law (Domestic and International)

10. Diplomacy

These tests would be geared for a college level applicant, and would be split over the course of two days. To avoid cheating, each persons test would be randomly generated with varying question structures and combinations in each of the subjects covered. Applicant tests are tracked by their social security numbers.

It will be independently run by a national testing service. The top 10% of the applicants move to the next stage of testing. Which includes:

1. Lie detection testing
2. In-depth background searches
3. Drug testing
4. Character/Psychological evaluations

The top 2% will be interviewed by national news reporters (representing the people), college professors and two former Presidents from previous administrations (1 from each political party) each applicant will be interviewed privately, and then before a group forum.

The field is then reduced to the top 5 applicants from each party, based on interview performance. If only one party qualifies (i.e. 15 republicans) there will be a secondary testing date scheduled for those in the unrepresented parties until there are 5 candidates in each party.

The remaining candidates will then be allotted $10 million dollars each for their campaign advertising. No other service or financial contribution is allowed. They will campaign alone for the first month; they will have 2 intra-party debates and 2 extra-party debates during the 2nd month. All debates will be government sponsored and televised for all to see.

During the third month primary elections will take place, This will decide who will become presidential candidate for each party.

From there each candidate will receive another $10 million and will follow the primary schedule of campaigning alone for the first month and debating 4 times in the next month. The following month, the election will take place and a winner will be decided. Although this is not a requirement, it is advisable that the candidates take the second runner up from their party as their running mate.

At the end of the process, we should have the most qualified candidate for the most important job in this country. A well read, intelligent, level headed, charismatic leader with a conscious vision of the future, and a clear understanding of the past. A leader who has the foundation, and the confidence of the people to lead the country. This is the president of the United States.

I think this is a much cheaper and streamlined way of electing our presidents.

Thoughts? Comments?

The Displacement Button

Hello World,

Today I present to you one of my most favorite concepts that in a perfect world would likely be completely unnecessary, but in our rather shitty existence would be without doubt the most functional of all devices.

The Displacement Button

The Displacement Button is a vehicle mounted device thats sole purpose is to render the bad drivers of the world insane.

Imagine you’re running late for work one morning and are driving a bit more recklessly than is advisable by the Secretary Of State, you slalom between cars in a futile attempt to get to work on time when all of the sudden you see a brilliant flash of light and you find yourself instantly parked back home in your driveway.

You have been Displaced!

The premise is really very simple, every licensed driver is provided with a free displacement button for their own personal vehicle. They are empowered by the state to displace anyone who drives poorly, unsafely, or those who aren’t paying adequate attention to the road.

Jane Smith is a cautious and defensive driver, never had a ticket, and never been in an accident. She observes John Doe driving like a bat out of Hell to wherever he needs to be so urgently. She presses her displacement button and speaks the license plate number aloud. A pleasant voice chimes from within the device asking for her confirmation, and with a polite “yes” the car and it’s driver are instantly teleported back to his point of origin.

The displacement process temporarily disables the cars engine so that when they arrive back at their point of origin there is no unexpected movement from the vehicle.

The rules are simple:

For the Displacer

1. You are alloted 3 displacements per running session – meaning once you start your car you get 3, and once you turn off the car the displacement counter resets.
2. You may not use the displacement button on the person who last displaced you – this would count as revenge displacement and is not allowed.

For the Displaced

1. You are allowed 3 instances of displacement per day – if you are displaced more than 3 times in a single day you must wait 20 hours before your vehicle is again operational. The engine is disabled. You will probably lose one day of work unless you find alternate means of transportation which may equate to the cost of your average reckless driving citation.
2. If you are displaced more than 10 times in a month you will be required to attend a driver safety course at your expense. Or if your time is more valuable than money, you may also pay a sizable fee in lieu of attendance, however you will accrue points on your license.

The Displacement Button would certainly change the commuting world as we know it. Lives saved, fewer accidents, less overall insurance costs, more money in everyones pocket. And let’s face it, the world is full of angry, irresponsible drivers who really shouldn’t have gotten their license in the first place. This device would change the daily grind into something much more fluid and better for everyone….God would have done it if he’d had the time.

Sincerely,

Mr. Black

Animals Diets

Hello World,

I recently read a report about the utterly cool Koala Bear, which stated that the eucalyptus tree (which is the Koalas only food source) has been slowly absorbing higher levels of Co2 which in turn depletes the nutritional value of the leaves.

My question is this:

Why are they forced to exclusively eat this plant? How in the world did G. miss this? Certainly there are other less pleasant animals he could have punished.

There is only one solution to this problem as I see it, and that is to genetically modify the Koala to be able to process a more diverse food menu.

It wouldn’t take that much effort in the grand scheme of things, and we could certainly learn a lot in the meantime. I think we should do it for all cool animals like the panda who only eats bamboo shoots, or the monarch butterfly who only eats milkweed.

When we discover the cure for all of our really virulent diseases, we should spend all of the surplus cash on making the lives of animals better. Yes I know “Spare Cash” is like an oxymoron, but it seems to me like the right thing to do.

Just to put things into perspective: Can you imagine eating PB&J sandwiches for the rest of your life? You’d have to eat a whole bunch of them to stay healthy. And your bound to miss a few key vitamins along the way.

This is an easy fix to save some cool animals.

Until time where my topic will be: The Displacement Button

Sincerely

Mr. Black

Genetically Transferable Knowledge

Hello Friends, Today I offer for your consideration what may be the most important upgrade to “Everything 2.0″ of them all.

Genetically Transferable Knowledge (GTK)

As any parent of a prepubescent knows – children actually think that they know everything. There is no scenario so amazing that would cause them to admit even the slightest lack of knowledge of any topic when questioned by a parent. It is a sad failure of our kind that wisdom is only achieved through hands on experience.

But those days of children blindly running into the street without a care in the world are over. Now, thanks to the optional GTK patch, you as parents now have the option of gifting your newborn child with your entire life’s worth of experience and wisdom. By logging onto Everthing2.0.com/gtk you can create a fully customizable database of important life’s lessons. Starting with the 10 commandments, you can even pull from a stock of commonly used nuggets of wisdom such as:

1. You’ll shoot your eye out with that thing
2. If little jimmy jumped off the bridge would you do it too?
3. it’s not polite to stare

And many more.

The real benefit of this patch is that you can choose the level of wisdom your child has – give it too much and you’ll have a kid afraid to take a risk, too little and you wind up having to teach all of lifes lessons from scratch – hoping not to miss any. Imagine having a child that really understands the dangers of drug addiction, or how risky unprotected sex can be. Your child will never burn down your house, talk to strangers, or come home with a relationship you’re totally against.

They say youth is wasted on the young, but now it doesn’t have to be thanks to GTK.

As your wisdom is passed on to successive generations, the world in turn will become a smarter wiser place to live in.

Sincerely,

Mr. Black

The Resurrection Button

Hello all,

In this installment, I would like to pay respect to the lives of those taken away from us without warning or reason, and notate a very useful 7 More Days recommendation.

The Resurrection Button

The premise is fairly straight forward, if you are found within 3 days of death, and someone knows the location of your resurrection button, they can then press it and you will be restored to good health. It is only good for a one time use and of course is non-transferable. This button is also called the Lazarus clause, and because of the biblical references we know that this clause was used at least twice, the second time being by Jesus himself.

So the premise is not with precedent. Imagine coming home finding a loved one in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, having tripped over a squeaky ball left behind by the family pet. Under normal circumstances this would be a done deal, the coroner would arrive cart away your loved one and funeral arrangements would ensue.

But with the Resurrection Button, a simple press to the singularly unique bodily location, and life would surge back into the recently deceased. Broken bones would instantly mend, all injury would be vanquished, and the person would have no lasting traumatic memories of their final moment to speak of. And for those of you with sinister thoughts of the undead roaming the earth, let’s remember that this technology is Heaven sent and perfectly safe.

For those in the throws of depression or puberty, this is the ideal solution. Thanks to the recently developed 7 More Days Patch – all parents are fully aware of the location of their child’s resurrection button from the date of birth. This ensures that in case of suicide, whether intentional or accidental, the ultimate decision of self termination is not theirs to make. This allows for a quick restoration of life, and an immediate trip to the appropriate mental health center.

If by chance you are alone, and death should come calling upon you, do keep in mind that you have only 3 days in which to resurrect, otherwise your fate shall rest with those who keep track of the “Dead for good” types. Fortunately, thanks to GPS technology it is possible to have a life monitor installed on your person. This device will emit a homing beacon to your top three contacts in the event of your death, so that they can reach you before your three days are up.

There are of course a few caveats, no beheading, and severed body parts are not guaranteed to regrow, you may have a nice clean stump where the detachment occurred, but of course – no residual pain.

There are a million ways a person could die, but thanks to the Lazarus Clause, it doesn’t have to be over something stupid.

Coordially yours,

Mr. Black

Hello World, And Welcome to 7 More Days!

Greetings!

I am Mr. Black, and this blog is dedicated to the simple concept of what if God had taken 7 more days in the creation of our world.

I am not someone you’d consider to be a religious man, but according to the church, I am officially Catholic. I enjoy speaking about theology from a very logical perspective. So if you’d like to contribute to my comments area, please know that I will not speak ill of your beliefs, just don’t try imposing your beliefs upon me.

I understand that some devout readers will disagree with my views, but I know that regardless of whatever Deity you believe in, we can both agree that he/she/it didn’t want his/her/thats’ best creation becoming mindless unquestioning zombies.

I am a real guy, and I can speak eloquently when I’m inspired, but I also have a sharp tongue that has been known to slash a politically correct word or two. So be warned.

That’s my disclaimer …

OK, So let’s imagine for a moment that God created all we know in the world, and pretty much everything we’ve still yet to discover. Now let’s take that concept further – When God looked around on Saturday morning and saw what He’d done, I bet He was pretty proud of himself.

From any vantage point you take, the universe is pretty freakin’ cool. But could it have been made better? I mean, like an “Everything 2.0″ or a universal patch that includes a bunch of extra new features, like more storage, less radiation, breathable air in space, stuff like that.

The whole purpose of this site is to think about Everything, and how it could be made better. Basically we need to think of all the stuff God would’ve done with 7 extras days at his disposal, and then do our best to make it happen.

Sounds dreamy eh? Blissfully, ridiculously, absurdly dreamy. But let’s be clear – It is a dream. We are simply (in my opinion) not good enough as a species to do anything more than make intelligent observations about what we’d like to see in “Everything 2.0″ the actual implementation of doing it will have to wait until we’re extinct, and the next contestants come on the scene.

Now, roll forward 6 – 8000 years later to Present day – 2008

Everything is still pretty good. Galaxies are doing their thing, cosmos still expanding. And as far as we know life on other worlds is pretty content too.

Earth is another story. We will therefore focus on what we could actually change with a smidgen of human solidarity.

Allow me to start with something completely irrelevant to what everyone in the civilized world is talking about i.e. Global Warming.

If God had taken 7 more days He could have:

Preloaded us with a good deal more common sense than we’re born with. I mean I have two kids and imbuing them with common sense is a full time job, I could save a lot of breath and worry if they knew from the get-go not to play with fire, run into the street, talk to strangers etc…

I firmly believe that there would be fewer people on this earth if only common sense were a genetic trait. In fact most stupid people are just lacking a decent load of common sense.

We can start working on a vaccine for this.

That is my first recommendation for Everything 2.0

Sincerely,

Mr. Black