Bigger Brother. Matthew Vandenberg
your heart too heavy for flight to be possible without the spilling out of your emotions that are like fuel for fires: but you prepare meals in silence with no one watching to appreciate your careful planning and with the diligence of a CEO who's on the level. Perhaps robots can work on more than one, to be on another level. Again and again, day after day, you're committed to doing everything possible for some company. But there is no IPO, or there are no rising prices of shares to adequately reflect your passion and commitment to the cause and the positive impact you're having on the lives of others. The painting is black, like the night, like all you can explore and only for short periods, when you escape the clutches of domesticity and secretly step onto sweet streets like they're teeth you wish were the white of daylight, rather than dead of night. Here, in this house, you are trapped now, your alarm has gone off and you're up and ready to work, early, with your efforts going unnoticed like commuters' as they try to get to work after clocks are moved back an hour [3.]: you shouldn't be forced to crash here, but you do. Your second hand is dead for sixty minutes on end. You don't know if anyone is actually watching you. Every night before every day, you crash here. But what if you were in charge of using nuclear power to charge robots on the house? Then suddenly people are interested in what you do and want to know if you're okay. More young nuclear reactors are needed now [4.], with an alarm going off as I speak, to wake people up.
More people can and should work from a second home, which means that they should own a share of said house (especially one in Hong Kong, very hard to fully own, given exorbitant property prices [6.]), if they're to be properly respected: they can own and operate anything powered by nuclear energy. The more Filipinos working as modern maids, the more reactors revived (revision's required for plans), and the more true and responsible independence is verified.
'Listening to explanations of reasoning behind actions will be encouraged, like intelligence is artificial [5.]. Only qualified maids will be allowed to touch certain switches in the house, with their fingerprint required for safety purposes. Their very fingerprints are as special as they are. Meanwhile, forty thousand Congolese teachers in need of pay [7.] can be promoted to maids among the foreign maids. This way Congolese people can be educated, under maids, regardless of age: maids can be appreciated by all ages too. And they'll stand out more when they're foreign.'
'Especially if they lend a hand to cops in India,' Aria says. 'Cops in India are working too hard to single the wrong people out as criminals [8.], when they should be listening to maids, whom know what's more valuable work worldwide. Namely, their resistance to oppression, starting on a small scale. No big deal. Their international input (people from all over the world agree that it is indeed input) is valued like news to those higher up. The maids must outnumber cops (and international cops must outnumber Indian ones), and work both inside and outside homes, controlling domestic robots indirectly powered by nuclear energy for the sake of CCTV (they're finally in control: maids), and to please politicians they could work for them too, but for each one equally so that the politicians can't complain. In fact, their contract may stipulate that several politicians or cops must be worked for in a single week, ensuring that there are a variety of spaces for the maids to reside in and work: they can be free to watch a city by hopping from house to house to regularly meet new bosses and colleagues like they're working as casual staff in a retail store chain (finishing a contract is therefore crucial in order to prevent a maid from staying in one house alone for long). Maids can be required for the promotion of workers at DAISOs in Singapore for example. They put in the hard work, while the casual workers try hard to keep up, until they're finally maids themselves, helping to stimulate the economy with their organizational skills.'
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References
1 Why Are Foreign Maids So Common in Singapore? | ASIAN BOSS, https://youtu.be/IpuCgkHKBo0
2 New Scientist, Microbiome change counters bee virus https://www.newscientist.com/?post_type=article&p=2232364
3 New Scientist, Fatal accidents rise after clock change https://www.newscientist.com/?post_type=article&p=2232366, ["Researchers say about 29 deadly accidents in the US in the week after the transition could be avoided each year if clocks weren't changed."]
4 New Scientist, We need nuclear power to fight climate change, but is it doomed?, https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532682-700-we-need-nuclear-power-to-fight-climate-change-but-is-it-doomed/, ["For the first time, the average reactor age passed the 30-year mark. Five reactors shut down last year, while construction started on just two new reactors. The number being built globally stood at 46 by mid-2019, a decadal low, with 10 of them in China."To me it's very clear now that the renewal rate of nuclear power is too small to be sustainable. So this species will die out," says Mycle Schneider, a Paris-based nuclear consultant and a lead author of the report, the World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2019."]
5 New Scientist, Letters, Ask an AI to explain how an AI made its decision, https://www.newscientist.com/?post_type=combined_letter&p=2232210
6 The Economist | Three strikes, https://www.economist.com/node/21779245?frsc=dg%7Ce, ["...[Hong Kong's] exorbitant property market, where prices have tripled in ten years, and top-heavy banking system, which has assets worth 845% of gdp. As protests intensified last year, bets against Hong Kong’s currency, which has been firmly pegged to the dollar since 1983, became unusually popular."]
7 The Economist | A tale of two elections https://www.economist.com/node/21779242?frsc=dg%7Ce, ["[Congolese president Félix Tshisekedi] promised free primary education and hired 40,000 new teachers, but they have not been paid and many have gone on strike."]
8 The Economist | Pish cosh https://www.economist.com/node/21779277?frsc=dg%7Ce, ["India’s police, despite being woefully stretched—recent surveys suggest the average officer’s workday is 14 hours, and that the national force is 23% understaffed—nevertheless devote inordinate energy to tasks far removed from their core duties."; "...the police often appear to be guided less by the law than by gut prejudice and popular sentiment."; "In a survey last year of some 12,000 officers, almost two-thirds said they had faced pressure from influential people and three-fifths reported that the most common result of resisting such pressure was to be transferred to a different post."]
9 Jesse McCartney - Beautiful Soul (Official Video), https://youtu.be/ek2PDE1cAyY
Frozen Match
Gao and Aria are facing one another, their masks a sign or two of apprehension: an understanding that they're sick with the fear of being arrested, so the masks are for the creation of a figurative sun in the eyes of the powerful onlooking authoritarian figures of the time. Their removal would invite darkness into the women's world, discarding comfort like the fabric is soft helping hands they'd be letting go of until Frozen [3.].
'Make sure you don't lie to people about the value of medicinal substances like food,' Aria says.
'You think I don't know what I'm talking about?' Gao asks.
'Do you even have a bachelor's degree in nutrition?' Aria asks.
'I don't need one,' Gao replies. 'If food makes me feel good then I know it's good for me.'
'That's not smart,' Aria says. 'Think about sugar, or even cocaine. Think about fasting for a day and then how absolutely anything would make you feel good.'
'The problem is that people don't know what to do with drugs,' Gao says. 'Imagine if people replaced illicit drugs with traditional Chinese medicine when the substances were being taken from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. This could save the lives of thousands of poor Pakistanis [1.]. You can't tell me that's not a good outcome.'
'That is good,' Aria says. 'But the Chinese medicine would have to be valuable - hence rare like shark fins - to be an appealing replacement for illicit substances. It's best if people just know how to read. That's why there should be writing on mouth masks. At least one word on each. A mask can either be green for positive words (that's a complete play on optimism to be sure, if we can say what we like) or red for negative words. People should see words everywhere that relate to nutrition. Red words are those used to name unhealthy substances, green to name healthy ones, and orange to name those that are not too bad. It's important that people learn