(RAR) Fix Mega City One

[fgalkin]

This may seem drastic but lock down each Block and do a thorough cleansing of any criminals. Then consolidate the Blocks and tear down the empty ones.

This happens all the time, pretty much after every disaster that strikes the city, although generally only a relatively small part of the city is cleared that way at any given time

Which is what I was pushing, you say the local non-judge cops are useless? Make them part of the cleansing. If there is 200,000 people per block or whatever it is, throw enough judges at the issue so it's 1 judge per 20 residents. Block to block, clear out each one, if the new rent a cops start making trouble with another block, Judge the shit out of them.

This is exactly how it happens, all free judges including the senior cadets from the Academy seal off a block in a troublesome area and go through it door by door, then on to the next one and so forth. The peacekeeping works for a while, and then there is a coup in the justice department, or a zombie virus is unleashed, or the city is under attack by magical extradimensional aliens, and law and order collapses again, as there is rioting and looting and the Justice Department, weakened again after saving the city, has to do everything all over again.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Simon_Jester]

Honestly, then, the only fundamental problem with the system seems to be the near-total lack of law enforcement personnel other than the homo custodes organization that is the Judges. Work on that, and on changing the way the militia operate so they don't fight pitched battles with heavy weapons in the middle of the city, and you're making progress.

[Enigma]

Or just say "Screw it!" and select a few thousand citizens with the necessary skills, take along the Judges, put them in a Block and lock it down. Then get the Space Navy to level Mega City One until only that Block and the walls survive. Then start over.

That was the plot of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifecta_( ... edd_story) , with a faction of the Justice department trying just that (except with a flying city built on the Moon in secret). It didn't work because no matter how bad things get, the Judges refused to abandon the city and its people.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

I'm not saying to abandon the city. My plan is to raze it to the ground so that only that one Block and the walls remain (maybe keep the Hall of Justice too). They'd still be in the city but with a more manageable number of citizens.

Plus in this scenario I'm in charge not Bachman (that link you gave, did my best to read it all, but it's all convoluted so forgive me if I get some details wrong.). I'm not trying to mess up the Judges. I'm in essence, saving Mega City One. Once the city is razed, open up that Block, send out some robots to clear the area and then rebuild.

[Zixinus]

Colonies already exist, on other planets as well. Would you really want to send "Sid Mc -the Faceslasher O Nelly" to an agrarian colony where there won't be any judges to stop them?

The option wouldn't apply for carrier psychopaths.

There are already self-defence forces for every block, as heavily armed as any modern army, complete with tanks and such. More often than not, they cause more problems that they solve.

Yes, but I am talking about a force that isn't meant to be the last line of defence in case of war. I'm talking about community-minded, less-lethal weapons equipped, limited legal powered police force that handles the more minor squabbles of a block. Stuff not really worth the Judges' time.

Then again, I am describing a private security company for a block that is just made up of people in the very same block.

I admit that the devil is in the details. How to have this and prevent it from turning into either madness or utter corruption, I have little idea over.

IIRC, retirement IS being sent out into the Wastelands. There are no retired Judges. It's an anti-corruption measure.

Yes, I did forget about that, but you are forgetting the other option: teach at the Academy. I think one or two Chief Judges were elected that way.

Simply put, they couldn't get the robots' programming to work correctly. There is now significant opposition to any new attempts to introduce robots due the the first attempt ending in a disaster.

Yes, but the problem was that these were meant to be replace Judges, complete with authorization to kill. I am talking about robots well-armored but equipped with less-lethal weapons that would stop muggers and be a hands-on resource during riots. Programmed and designed not to be able to kill. These going rouge would be an inconvience.

Yes, but again, why would someone want to work when they get paid simply for breathing?

Jobs pay more. And considering that people would kill for them, there is certainly a market for it.

Impossible, as Judges are literally trained and systematically brainwashed since they are children to the point that they cannot function as normal citizens. Moreover, such an activity is incredibly risky due to the astronomical crime rates and the possibility of gangs targeting these "vacationing" Judges. However, the basic premise is sound, as currently Judges have zero understanding of the mindset of the average cit.

Maybe introduce simulations of being one as part of detective training? Judges would find that to make sense.

Honestly, then, the only fundamental problem with the system seems to be the near-total lack of law enforcement personnel other than the homo custodes organization that is the Judges. Work on that, and on changing the way the militia operate so they don't fight pitched battles with heavy weapons in the middle of the city, and you're making progress.

But the problem is that the Judges are convinced that they are the only law enforcement possible. And the worse thing is that they're right, or very much appear to be. Judges are already equipped up to the nose for violence and still keep dying. The fact that the city is in some sort of weird and ridiculously lethal crisis every few years doesn't help.


The only thing I could possibly imagine would be some sort of grand social revolution, complete with radically new (yet still somehow workable) ideology. The laws would have to be rewritten, the economy and infrastructure changed, etc, etc.

The problem is, that the city is constantly in crisis every few years and the thing every citizen wants and need is safety. The Judges and the military are struggling constantly to provide that. The Blocks themselves aren't just meant to be a miniature city-in-a-box but also a fortress complete with an army. That's what what Mega-City One and a lot of the other Mega-Cities are geared toward: self-sustaining supercities that can withstand attack from another supercity. And it did happen: the Apocalypse War (the first big story-arc with a war against the Soviets) did happen. The worst thing, is that the Soviets tailored a virus deliberately to exploit this thick defense-oriented society (the virus caused the entire city's population to go down into a massive block-war) and almost won.

[Simon_Jester]

The nonlethal weapons-bots are probably a good idea that Judges might be willing to implement, purely because of their inability to kill.

My impression is that robotics makes this society insanely productive- so even if the robots are being destroyed in huge numbers, more robots can be created easily. If damaging the robots is cause for severe punishment from the Judges (so that citizens don't mess with them lightly), and if the robots themselves are designed rigorously to use no lethal force, that might actually be practical and acceptable.

I wonder if they can cook up something equivalent to goober rounds...

[Zixinus]

Judges have a plathora of non-lethal weapons, from knock-out gases to ye-oldie-stick. According to the wiki though, they are not standard ammunition in Lawgivers.

However, I am dubious whether the Judges would like it. They might see it as a cowardly pussy-footing solution.

[Simon_Jester]

In no way would any Judge relax their vigilance even for a moment. All Judge actions would take place as if the robots did not exist, except that there is now a law against offering violence to a Deputybot.

At most, therefore, this adds zero vigilance and effort, and cannot be taken as relaxing the Judges' efforts. At best, it improves the Judges' ability to maintain law and order in good times.

The point here is simply to provide a quick temporary fix to the problem of inadequate Judge manpower, by bringing in petty criminals so no Judge is forced to go chasing after them.

[Annatar Giftbringer]

The lawgiver mk II can fire stun-pulses (also seen in the 2012 movie) as well as rubber ricochet shots, designed to be non-lethal. They also carry a pair of stumm gas grenades as part of their standard kit.

Also, AFAIK, there are already laws against destroying robots.

Both citi-def and mechanismo bots could have their access to weapons restricted, so they could function in a military role when needed, but not destroy the city the rest of the time.

[fgalkin]

In no way would any Judge relax their vigilance even for a moment. All Judge actions would take place as if the robots did not exist, except that there is now a law against offering violence to a Deputybot.

At most, therefore, this adds zero vigilance and effort, and cannot be taken as relaxing the Judges' efforts. At best, it improves the Judges' ability to maintain law and order in good times.

The point here is simply to provide a quick temporary fix to the problem of inadequate Judge manpower, by bringing in petty criminals so no Judge is forced to go chasing after them.

But then you're essentially sending out sapient and self-aware robots into harm's way without the ability to defend themselves.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Those goober rounds mentioned earlier in the thread sound a bit like riot foam 2.0. Riot foam is a substance that solidifies upon contact with air, useful for neutralizing large groups of perps with minimal effort. It's very hard to break free from, but also porous enough to allow breathing.

[Simon_Jester]

The lawgiver mk II can fire stun-pulses (also seen in the 2012 movie) as well as rubber ricochet shots, designed to be non-lethal. They also carry a pair of stumm gas grenades as part of their standard kit.

Gas grenades might be a good choice. Rubber bullets are arguably good, but I was hoping for something which could render suspects immobile so that a Judge would be able to swoop in and pick them up easily.

But then you're essentially sending out sapient and self-aware robots into harm's way without the ability to defend themselves.

Solutions:
1) Stop caring (may not be an option in this culture)
2) Build dumber robots (may not be an option given how complex the job is).
3) Build robots that cannot feel pain, have no sense of self-preservation, and do not care if they come to harm.
4) Back up the robots' software so that no permanent damage can come to their actual consciousness.

In all seriousness though, would it be a cultural problem in the Judge Dredd setting to send out robots that cannot defend themselves and might be attacked? Humans, sure, but robots?

Those goober rounds mentioned earlier in the thread sound a bit like riot foam 2.0. Riot foam is a substance that solidifies upon contact with air, useful for neutralizing large groups of perps with minimal effort. It's very hard to break free from, but also porous enough to allow breathing.

If that's a thing in Mega City One, it is ideally suited for arming the patrol deputybots.

[Annatar Giftbringer]

The lawgiver mk II can fire stun-pulses (also seen in the 2012 movie) as well as rubber ricochet shots, designed to be non-lethal. They also carry a pair of stumm gas grenades as part of their standard kit.

Gas grenades might be a good choice. Rubber bullets are arguably good, but I was hoping for something which could render suspects immobile so that a Judge would be able to swoop in and pick them up easily.

That stumm gas is like a really really mean version of tear gas, works wonders on huge crowds.

Those goober rounds mentioned earlier in the thread sound a bit like riot foam 2.0. Riot foam is a substance that solidifies upon contact with air, useful for neutralizing large groups of perps with minimal effort. It's very hard to break free from, but also porous enough to allow breathing.

If that's a thing in Mega City One, it is ideally suited for arming the patrol deputybots.

It is a thing, and it's used to quell riots and stuff. One problem in its current form is lack of accuracy. It is sprayed over the rioting group like a water cannon (or flamethrower) and any civilians in the vicinity gets stuck too. Might not be the smoothest way to arrest a single lawbreaker in a crowd... But hey, apply R&D, create a bullet or grenade delivered precision version, and you're good to go!

[Simon_Jester]

Also, I can only assume the Judges are prepared to accept a little imprecision. Perhaps any innocent citizens accidentally caught up in a wave of riot goop could be compensated for their trouble, but there still shouldn't be that much trouble dealing with them.

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Also, I can only assume the Judges are prepared to accept a little imprecision. Perhaps any innocent citizens accidentally caught up in a wave of riot goop could be compensated for their trouble, but there still shouldn't be that much trouble dealing with them.

That's true. IIRC most or all justice department vehicles larger than lawmasters carry foam-cutting equipment as part of their standard gear.

Also, to arrest or incapacitate a single perp it won't be necessary to hose down the entire street. If just a little foam lands upon the perp it'll soon get very difficult to threaten, use weapons, or run away for that matter

Also, while the citidef idea often results in more trouble than necessary, I believe the cursed earth ranger corps works fine? So by looking more at them than citidef it should be possible to create an auxiliary police force, I'd think.

Screening citidef volunteers to weed out the gun-nuts and restricting their access to heavy weapons could make them more useful too. Perhaps even placing them under justice department rule, so that a judge is needed to unlock the weapons locker, and replace citidef officers with judges?

[FaxModem1]

During the democracy arc, Judge Dredd used the weather control systems to have it rain on the protesters, couldn't the same weather control technologies being used around the city help with the radiation? Or would it be like using an eye dropper on a swimming pool?

[madd0ct0r]

If you've got radioactive dust in the air, rain will flush it out, but it won't eliminate it.
After the radioactive mud dries, you've got dust again.

If you used enough wter, you could flush it all into the sewers. Apart from the likely results of radioactive sewers in a Judge Dredd comic, you might irredeemably contaminate your filtration facilities downstream.
Maybe not - I guess it's used to dealing with minor contamination from the blasted earth.

Another option might be to flush it, mix in cement and then drop the blocks off somewhere in the blasted earth. (or bury them and use them as a heating system )

[Simon_Jester]

Basically, you fight large-scale radioactive contamination by physically removing the irradiated topsoil. This can be done fairly easily with enough use of heavy automated machinery, and I would be very much surprised if it isn't being done by the government of Mega-City One if they have the resources and the opportunity.

[Zixinus]

What would be ideal would be to be able to somehow seperate the radioactive material from the non-radioactive material. Once then, the radioactive material would be buried or handled in other ways.

I highly suspect that if they DO have such technology at work, it is most likely overtaxed just to keep the habitable city sections habitable.

The thing is, that space isn't quite the problem. While there was a population that lived in large homes that constantly traveled around the city on autopilot, that was before the Apoclypse war and other cataclysms.

[jollyreaper]

I've not delved deep into the Dredd mythos. The inspiration, as pointed out, comes from prior media portrayals of decaying metropolises which are themselves based on the real world. Usually the entertainment portrayals are sexed up. Even in bad areas of the US, the average cop has never fired his weapon in anger. Then again, we look at Mexico these days and the violence there completely outdoes anything we've seen in cinema. Just hearing a description of a decapitation video that made it onto the net ruined my whole goddamn day.

So the question I would first ask isn't how to fix the city but why is it so fucked up in the first place? Just having a bunch of angry hoodlums doesn't make for a street army. The gangs are packing serious firepower. Where is it coming from? In our world, things that are incomprehensibly fucked up start making sense when you follow the money. Your typical Third World hellhole, for example. Everyone's got guns and is shooting at each other. Well, they aren't making the guns locally, are they? No, they aren't. Arms dealers are turning a pretty profit off of what is essentially a tax levied against the poor as they scrape and save their pennies to buy weapons to kill the other guy with because they know he's doing the same. You can't understand the gang violence in Mexico without first understanding America's insatiable appetite for drugs, the disproportionate earning power still remaining even in our diminished economy and just how much bang those bucks can generate in impoverished nations.

When you are looking at a location's status quo, you're likely going to see a lot of people getting the shaft. Look at who's benefiting from the shafting. They're going to be the elites and they'll have a vested interest in keeping that thing going. If it's a high-functioning dystopia, there will be a coordinated and cooperating elite, very efficient and little internal conflict. If it's a low-functioning dystopia, you'll see wars between elite clans and much inefficiency, bad for business. If there's an equitable distribution of society's resources, you won't see nearly the same level of problems.

The high unemployment and no prospects future here is pretty frightening because that appears to be the same place the real world is going. Economists have pointed out that, if the productivity gains we've made in the last 50 years had been evenly distributed across the population and working hours also dropped to keep the earning power roughly the same, we'd be looking at 15 to 20 hour work weeks for the full population of working adults. This hasn't been the reality of it, though. It's been long hours for those who still have jobs and nothing for those who have been made obsolete. And the powers that be begrudge even given them the dole.

Workforce automation shouldn't be a scary thing. It's getting rid of the jobs nobody wants to do. Nobody likes being a toll booth attendant. Nobody likes being a cashier. But you take that job away from attendants and cashiers and offer nothing in return, you haven't taken away drudgery, you've taken away a livelihood. That's scary as fuck.

Anyway, to summarize, look at who's got it good with the Dredd status quo. That's where your pushback is going to come from. You threaten their racket, things are going to get ugly.

[Simon_Jester]

The high unemployment and no prospects future here is pretty frightening because that appears to be the same place the real world is going. Economists have pointed out that, if the productivity gains we've made in the last 50 years had been evenly distributed across the population and working hours also dropped to keep the earning power roughly the same, we'd be looking at 15 to 20 hour work weeks for the full population of working adults. This hasn't been the reality of it, though. It's been long hours for those who still have jobs and nothing for those who have been made obsolete. And the powers that be begrudge even given them the dole.

A few thoughts on this:

One is, our earning power in real terms isn't the same as it was fifty years ago; fifty years ago a middle class home was typically smaller, middle class possessions were usually patched and repaired more and discarded less, and you damn sure couldn't get a smartphone for love or money, and the infrastructure for them did not exist and cost society nothing.

A second issue is what a friend of mine called the 'string quartet effect.' Automation makes some kinds of labor cheaper, but not others. No amount of automation allows a string quartet to produce more live music in an hour. They can record music but that's not the same and does not replace demand for live music in many cases. More obviously, teachers and professors can't really teach more students than they did 50 years ago, or cannot teach them much more effectively. In some cases they teach less effectively because their job now includes extra things that make it more complicated. Doctors don't really provide health care much faster than they used to- the physician still has to see you, the specialist still has to test you, and any gain in efficiency per man-hour of specialist labor in medicine has been offset by the rise of more complicated treatments and a sicker population.

Since the people who do these things have to eat, and are usually specialists who expect a good salary, their cost of living tends to drive inflation in everyone else's cost of living. As productivity increases the effective salary of professors and doctors MUST rise to remain constant, not only in constant dollars but in relative terms of social standing. Otherwise, people leave the profession, because being a doctor now puts you in the 60th percentile of prosperity where it used to put you in the 80th or 90th percentile. That tends to distort incomes.

While we're at it, the workforce has in a real sense doubled since 1960, because in 1960 very few adult females worked and by 2010 virtually all did. That alone greatly distorts our measurement of labor productivity; the biggest single change in our workforce's life experience isn't automation as such. It's that we've outsourced/automated things that used to be done by housewives onto appliances, restaurants, laundromats, daycare facilities, and occasionally servants.

Not sure what effect that has, but it isn't trivial.

[madd0ct0r]

can you un[ack your string quartet logic a bit more?

Automation makes some things cheaper, but not others.
People who produce 'others' remain on a high wage, other wages fall as automation makes them more productive (or we all just consume more and wages stay constant).

Where does the infaltion drive come from?

[jollyreaper]

The string quartet logic makes sense. If you want four musicians to play, you need four players who have technical skill. You can't sub four warm bodies from Labor Ready. Prerecorded music is not a perfect substitute at the high end but on the low end it's a lot different for working musicians now than a hundred years ago. And synthesizers and autotune make it easier to cheap out in low-quality mass market productions.

But if you look at an auto plant, they are doing far more with less head count. Modern steel foundries likewise make heavy use of automation these days. Across the world, classic societies needed over 90% of the population directly working in agriculture. We are running less than 2% now. That's freed people up to work as salesclerks and manicurists and claims adjusters. We have a dizzying array of professions quite divorced from the immediate production of necessary goods. It's a fair question about how many of these jobs are bullshit jobs. Some might say sports figures are bull, others say fast food work is bull, others say finance gurus are lucrative bullshit who add no value to the economy, are more like parasites.

As far as doctors go, I do think they are actually seeing more patients now but this isn't efficiency but overwork. My mom was a nurse for many years and the changes made in the industry in the name of profit are not pretty.

[Zixinus]

What's depressing, is that I can foresee a future where companies are made mostly of marketing and the relative few engineers in charge of making the machines make other machines do the actual product. Then a bunch of machines automatically deliver it to a shop that has a machine retailer. And the top board room's people would happily get rid of the engineers if they could.

I kind of see this in massive companies on the costumer end, at least in my country. Wages are one of the most significant costs of running a thing, so one way to pay less wages is just to have the same person do several other people's job. Have as few cashiers as you can get away with. Have people that stock/clean the shop also be cashiers when there is a crowd. Have as few tills you can.
Or at least that's my guess at what's happening.

[Guardsman Bass]

Where does the infaltion drive come from?

Automation and technology makes some jobs rise in productivity, at least theoretically leading to higher wages in those jobs. Other jobs don't have productivity rises, but since costs of living often tend to go up over time, and the non-productivity-rising jobs have to pay enough to keep their people from leaving and going to do other jobs, the costs of having those jobs goes up even without productivity gains.

It's a problem in Economics called "Baumol's Cost Disease".

But if you look at an auto plant, they are doing far more with less head count. Modern steel foundries likewise make heavy use of automation these days. Across the world, classic societies needed over 90% of the population directly working in agriculture. We are running less than 2% now. That's freed people up to work as salesclerks and manicurists and claims adjusters. We have a dizzying array of professions quite divorced from the immediate production of necessary goods. It's a fair question about how many of these jobs are bullshit jobs. Some might say sports figures are bull, others say fast food work is bull, others say finance gurus are lucrative bullshit who add no value to the economy, are more like parasites.

If you want to be brutally honest, then technically anything beyond subsistence agriculture is a luxury in terms of human history. Beyond that, there's really no point arguing over which jobs are bullshit or not.

In the Age of Automation, you probably end up with a ton of jobs that are tantamount to "watch the machines and make sure they don't screw up", or "make sure we've jumped through all the legal hoops on this", or the like. We had a thread a few months back about how there seemed to be increasingly large numbers of administrative jobs, and one of the arguments was that it was from the increasing complexity of the economy and of business administration.

I don't think Mega City One's 90% unemployment rate makes sense (even aside from the fact that if they're not looking for jobs, they're technically not unemployed). With that much cheap labor, there should be companies using people to do all kinds of random tasks, even if it basically consists of the whole "monitor the robots to make sure they don't screw" type of thing or the 21st century equivalent of telemarketing/sweat shop labor. That government stipend must be pretty generous and unconditional, sort of like how the unemployment rate in the Persian Gulf countries is really high among citizens because the oil-rich governments give them money (and their economies are built on the backs of imported labor).

As far as doctors go, I do think they are actually seeing more patients now but this isn't efficiency but overwork. My mom was a nurse for many years and the changes made in the industry in the name of profit are not pretty.

At least in the US, doctors and the American Medical Association have been really good at protecting their turf against anything that might drastically increase the supply of medical care and reduce the wages of doctors. They've fought against stuff like letting nurse-practitioners and physician assistants provide stand-alone primary care in clinics, even when there's a shortage of primary care doctors and many of them won't take Medicaid or even Medicare.

[Eternal_Freedom]

What's depressing, is that I can foresee a future where companies are made mostly of marketing and the relative few engineers in charge of making the machines make other machines do the actual product. Then a bunch of machines automatically deliver it to a shop that has a machine retailer. And the top board room's people would happily get rid of the engineers if they could.

I kind of see this in massive companies on the costumer end, at least in my country. Wages are one of the most significant costs of running a thing, so one way to pay less wages is just to have the same person do several other people's job. Have as few cashiers as you can get away with. Have people that stock/clean the shop also be cashiers when there is a crowd. Have as few tills you can.
Or at least that's my guess at what's happening.

Very much this. Within my own profession the number of staff needed has fallen massively. As little as 25-30 years ago, in a business with 100 employees, you would need about 7-10 accounting and payroll staff, perhaps more. Now,with modern computer programs (which are an absolute godsend for doing payroll!) you would need perhaps one guy to monitor accounts, one to do payroll and maybe a secretary/errand boy.