Greg Veen eats apple cores. This is unarguably horrible, though Greg argues that it is indeed a good thing to eat apple cores. Upon discussing this with Greg, two ideas were borne that bear repeating and eventually implementation:
The Trivial Question Portal
Imagine for a second that there’s no such thing as spam, or abuse of the Internet at all. It just doesn’t happen (I’ll say more about this on idea number two). Now, you have this little program running on your computer, and you can open it up and ask it a trivial question, like “Do you think eating apple cores is akin to eating sweet and juicy cockroaches?”. Your question would immediately land in the inbox of everyone on the Internet who were also using the Trivial Question Portal. Your question would start, undoubtedly, getting responses from citizens of the Internet immediately and your argument would be won. This would work splendidly, of course, because of the lack of abuse, which leads to idea number two.
Stopping Bad Behavior on The Internet
Pretend for a second that the only way to get on the Internet is by first taking an intense psychological test that determined, with supreme accuracy, what you fear the most in life (both your conscious and subconscious fears). By logging on to the Internet, you agree that, should you abuse the Internet, those fears would be immediately realized. And the Internet decides if you’ve abused the Internet or not by asking the following question through the “Trivial Question Portal”. If two thirds of the Internet populace says yes, your worst fears become real.
For example, let’s say you ask the Internet the question “Would like to purchase some viagra?” through the Trivial Question Portal. Someone might then ask back “Is Joe User abusing the Internet?” and before you know it, all those nude photographs taken years ago show up on CNN, and tarantulas begin nesting in your ears.
Of course you’d never be able to take this concept into real life. Governing by fear only works on half the people at any given time.