By now, you’ve probably realised that ‘big’ thoughts find their way into my head. Once there they spin and ricochet, collide and merge — or smash and sunder. Eventually though, in one form or another, they find their way back into the real world. Sometimes to my friends in emails, or in a long-winded monologues to my mother in the kitchen — and more often than not, they also find their way to my blog.

But occasionally… I just can’t get my head around some things. They’re too gnarled, too complex. Often they’re related to fields that I have little experience in. And so what better way to get more experience than to ask the world what it thinks? The ‘world’ is you, by the way!

With that said here’s one that I’ve been thinkin’ about recently:

Would equal, same-for-all income tax be a good thing? If every adult paid the same amount of tax — not a percentage, a flat figure — would that be a good thing? Would it encourage slackers to work harder, to meet the tax requirement? Would it encourage millionaires to work less, or would they work more?

Or is this just akin to communism? In fact, is everyone being treated the same a bad thing? Does everyone deserve to be treated equally?

Bits I haven’t really worked out: would it be a large amount, or small amount? $5,000 — or $20,000 a year? Would a small tax mean it’s a capitalist system? To meet the required amount, would low-wage workers have to be paid more? Is there only a ‘finite’ amount of money in a country which prevents cleaners from being paid more? Or surely, if it encourages everyone to work harder, wouldn’t a country make more trade goods, and thus money?

There, that’s a fairly meaty one. One that I need to know the answer to, before I rule the world.

Recently I was contacted by a very nice Canadian chap called Lee. He writes for a big Internet blog and news source — the kind of site that has a million unique visitors a month — and he asked me if I’d like to write for them! Apparently, I’m a bit snarky. Apparently that’s what they want; someone that tells it like it is. Someone that isn’t afraid to step on a few toes.

And that’s cool. I can do that. Artists will do anything for a cheap buck.

But I can’t believe he actually called me SNARKY! Of all the things he could’ve called me! Intelligent, wise, bright, charming, charismatic… even tall or hairy would’ve been fine. But snarky? Who the fuck does he think he is? I wouldn’t mind if he was American — that would explain a few things — but a Canadian? A civilian pawn of the mighty, Earth-spanning British Empire? Really, some people ought to know their place.

Which brings me neatly onto the topic of the Internet class system. Or the sickening and complete lack thereof. Online, everyone is born equal. From the moment you plug that cable in and battle your way through Internet Explorer’s shit MSN homepage redirection, you are… A NETIZEN — an Internet citizen — a very grandiose term that basically means you belong to the Online Community. A small monthly fee, a modem and a computer — that’s all you need to become a fully paid-up member of the largest, most powerful and ubiquitous community in the world.

You can become a civilian of the modern society — the only real society that counts — where rules and etiquette are created and destroyed as technology and peer pressure dictates. This often happens so quickly that no one really knows what’s going on: The Internet is in disarray! Anyone and everyone rules the roost, or their small part of it. The Internet is an anarchic system of authority. And therein lies the problem: there is no social structure.

Historically the citizens of a country are those that are born there. Changing your nationality was something that very few people did; you only emigrated or sought asylum during the most dire of situations. Why? Because there was a class or caste system in place; a pecking order. Jobs would be given to specific families first. If you were born into a family of cleaners or chimney sweeps, you really didn’t have much of a career choice. The rich died rich; the poor died poor. When you move country you drop down to the bottom — and trust me, there is always someone worse off than you — a thought petrifying enough to scare off all but the most desperate emigrants. In a world where class means everything, losing your class is not unlike dying. Social status, perks, opportunity — all gone.

But there’s one exception: a new country. You can move to a new country where everyone is equal, at least for a short time. A new, primordial society, amorphous and malleable. A new culture just waiting to be defined by creative and daring individuals. A New World. America.

Is it really a surprise that five hundred years later we’ve created the virtual equivalent of America?

The Internet is still at that stage where everyone is equal. The loud-shouting neophyte is as much a patron of the new world order as the venerable Internet veteran. Is that correct? Should we be born equal in this New Virtual World? After being on the Internet for 15 years should a jumped-up newbie with bold, brash ideas be able to tell me what to do? No! Should I defer, prostrate myself and shuffle nervously around those that have been online since the very dawn of our current epoch 40 years ago? As much as it pains my ego to say so: yes, yes I should.

In the hope of achieving a more sane and useful society, in true Virtual World style, I propose a level system. When you first connect to the Internet, you are level 1. Every year of continued use thereafter, you gain a level. It would need to be tracked by some kind of governing body — like the Censor’s Office in Roman times, or the peerage registers in the UK.

Each level would bestow rights, privileges. Perhaps you could mute lower levels in chat rooms or on forums. You would be eligible for more bandwidth when downloading illegal movies and music. Perhaps if the level difference is great enough you could even bestow ‘time outs’ on particularly irritating runts by cutting their Internet access for an hour.

You would be forced to use an Apple Mac until level 5.

Smileys would be banned until you reach level 10.

Streaming porn would remain unavailable until you reach level 15.

How about it, peons?

I’m going to attempt to tackle the tricky and turbulent subject of racism. I’m not going to cover its entire history. I’m not going to pretend that I’m entirely objective — no one is — though I will try my best to be as neutral as possible. If I say something upsetting, apologies; this a sensitive topic, one that most people tend to stay well away from.

As always, we’ll start at the beginning. Not many people know where racism actually begun. The slave trade? No. Eugenics and ultimately the Holocaust? No. Religion? Getting warmer, but still not quite.

Racism begun way back in tribal times. Racism is effectively synonymous with tribalism, which is itself similar to the concept of nationalism. It’s all about selfishness.  Racism can take many forms: religious, cultural, skin-colour and are all equally ‘bad’ — but at one time, they weren’t. They were a matter of self-preservation. It’s you or them. Insular tribes and their inbreeding reaffirmed genetic and physical traits and thus ‘races’ were created — but even the term ‘race’ is, ironically, racist! Race is an American term coined hundreds of years ago to describe the difference between blacks and whites. It sadly gained credibility and traction, and was then exported around the world. It was borrowed from the French razza which means ‘lineage’.

Racism is all about lineage — all about blood, and the purity thereof. Racism is the act of erroneous differentiation of humans into different species. It’s about the justification of maliciousness and unfair, unfounded prejudice to those of different colour, culture, heritage or lineage.

We have the Cartesian-Newtonian worldview to thank for this little gem. For 500 years now we’ve been living in a world governed by the laws of physics. Action and reaction, cause and effect. Mechanics. Gravity. Cold, cool calculation of calculus. The control, utilisation and abuse of energy. The last five centuries have been all about physicality; it’s been all about what we can see and touch and push and stretch. Racism existed before of course, but it wasn’t the kind we see today — it was religious. For 1500 years racism was religious — though back then it wasn’t called racism of course. It would’ve been ‘persecution’ or ‘religious intolerance’.

Did you know that when Columbus first landed on what would become Mexico, the Portuguese and Spanish sailors did not hesitate to mate and marry the Indians, the native Americans? As long as they converted to Christianity via baptism, colour didn’t matter one iota. Only their religious beliefs mattered.

But that’s a topic unto itself and I’m not going to go into it here. The rise of contemporary racism is more interesting.

Let’s go back to skin colour. Other than the Holocaust, almost all modern examples of racism have stemmed from the concept of White supremacy and superiority. How on earth did those of white skin end up at the top of the food chain?

The Declaration of Independence, that’s how. But don’t stop reading yet, my dear American friends! You probably wouldn’t have drafted the Declaration if it wasn’t for the British.

The Declaration of Independence was the pinnacle of The Enlightenment. The single most important period for philosophical and scientific advancement ever also created racism. All it took one was one theory-treated-as-fact: Dr Charles White (what a name…) scientifically reasoned that Blacks were the stop-gap between monkeys and Whites. Voltaire and Kames — both bigwigs of the Enlightenment — proposed the idea of separate human species.  Hume and Kant, Jefferson and Washington — almost every big name of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries were White supremacists.

Here were the most influential thinkers, scholars and scientists the world has ever seen. It was their thoughts, mental machinations and ideologies that formed the world we live in today. And they were racists. They thought of Blacks as not-quite-human.

And I dare say… it’s not a very big surprise that they arrived at such a conclusion.

The Enlightenment was about culture; a big damn celebration of art and science and thinking — in essence, it was a riotous exaltation of everything that makes us human and not monkeys.

And Blacks didn’t have that culture. American Indians didn’t have that culture. Or, rather, they didn’t have any that we could see. So we subjugated them. We made them our bitches. We justified our brutal abuse of fellow man by declaring them sub-human — after all, would a fellow white man allow himself to be forced into slavery? God no, his intelligence and tenacity would prevent it.

We’re talking about a group of intellectuals that ranted and raved about the benefits of liberty and equality; freedom from tyranny and the virtues of democracy and representative government. Later, they even drafted a declaration formed from the tenets and axioms of these great thinkers. They formed a new, mighty nation that, at its very core, ratified slavery.

As Thomas Jefferson scrawled out the fundament, lynch-pin and rock-solid bastion of the New World, as he illustrated his idyllic imaginings on the loose paper that would later become the Declaration of Independence… he was writing it for the whites. There was just no way their way of life could continue if non-whites were afforded the same rights and privileges as the whites. Think about it.

But it wasn’t really Jefferson’s fault. Science had told him that blacks were little more than apes devoid of culture and intellect. Or perhaps science merely suggested it and human nature enforced it. I suppose we’ll never know.

But how do we fix it?

Racism is a pathological contagion. It passes from parent to child. That can never be changed.

What we need is a new worldview. We need to shift our perspective through 90 degrees and move towards a new frontier. I hesitate to say that we need to ‘re-find our spirituality’, because there are issues associated with organised religion: intolerance, persecution, zealotry. Oour infatuation with the physical nature of the world needs to change. Never again must we single-out and tunnel-vision a sole strand of science.

What we need is another Enlightenment…

For the first time in recorded history everyone has an equal chance of success.

Or that’s what we like to tell ourselves.

We gape at the powerful, unwaxed women that are directors and CEOs. We smile fondly at the emasculated house-husband that stays home to tend to the children.

Sure, Spics and Polacks still man the mops and paint our walls, but everyone knows of at least one rich and successful Mexican or American Indian! They might not all be doing well but at least now they have the chance to be successful.

And the Blacks… well… we like to claim that they’re on an equal footing with the rest of ‘us’ (listen to me, I’m perpetuating racism right here…), but who are we kidding? I look at how tribalistic and wild England was before the Romans arrived… and wonder if Africans merely missed the Imperialistic Gravy Train. What would’ve happened if Caesar went South instead of North? (I don’t know enough history here — is there a reason there were no large communities south of Alexandria and Carthage?) Today there is a little Arabian/North African racism, but nothing compared to the scale of black-attack and White supremacy that rules contemporary society (the Arabians have only been attacked in recent years, and we all know why that is — again, like modern-day ‘black racism’, Middle East racism is Americentric too…)

So how do we fix it?  A lot of people point to these ‘ethnicities’ that hold high-powered positions or win awards. A lot of people say that we’re already on the path to eliminating racism. But… are we?

Do we not reinforce racism every time we congratulate an ethnic minority on achieving a high-status position? Our entire mindset has to change. We still look at those of differing cultures and colours as fundamentally different. Every time someone writes an article celebrating the chutzpah and tenacity of a female CEO, we are reaffirming these differences between us — differences that don’t exist.

* * *

Try this little thought experiment for a moment. If you’re white, get a really detailed image in your mind of a black person. Dark, thicker skin. Flatter nose. Fuller lips. Curly hair perhaps. If you’re black, picture a white person and all that ‘white’ entails. If you’re yellow… picture something else, I don’t know. Now… imagine yourself in their skin. Imagine being identical to how you are now, only a different colour, a different shape. The same fluid personality but filling a different vassal. It’s really damn hard, eh? It’s also a little revolting, isn’t it…? Did you shudder? Did you simply shrug and give up? It’s pretty hard to do, actually. Sadly.

* * *

Once upon a time, we were all brothers. It was a very damn long time ago now. But we fought each other’s battles and hunted for the tribe — the extended family — instead of ourselves. I suppose, back then, our entire world was much smaller. Populations were smaller. There was less contention for resources.

Did racism purely arise from a burgeoning ‘need’ to gather resources? Did we subjugate our fellow man merely so that we could compete with others? Migrant Indians keep Black slaves too, in their African colonies. It’s not just a ‘white thing’. We treat men and women — our friends, our family? — as commodities with values, rather than sentient beings.

Do we have this all to blame on capitalism…? I wonder if there’s less racism in ‘less developed’ parts of the world where more important things than money are sought for.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to get all holier-than-thou. I’ve had my share of one-night stands; not lots, but enough. I’ve swung, hung and even bunged… but it was in the name of and under the guise of research!

Personally, in my humble opinion, casual sex isn’t all that. I can see the temporary appeal of rampant, lights-out knees-over-your-head action. But to me it’s like fast food: gorge yourself and there are repercussions. You can do it occasionally, but even then is it worth the indigestion afterwards?

And that’s what it comes down to, casual sex: is it worth it? This is my scarily-objective, cold-and-calculatory mind spinning up again. Checks and balances, measurement and sanity checks: you have to ask yourself, just before you unzip and stick it in — or lift up and bend over – is it worth it?

I’m not going to make this a lesson on the perils of sex. I’m not even talking about STDs or STIs! I’m just talking about complications. Try as we might, we can’t lower sex to the status of ‘team sport’. It’s involved. If we could blow our load and get off by playing football, we’d just play football. Without trying to school you all, I just don’t think it’s healthy (mentally, if nothing else) to screw everything with a pulse. I don’t want to sound like a prude, but it’s my belief that we should all value these fantastic collections of skin, bone and miscellaneous organs just a little more.

And so I devised a system. I could get into trouble if I say when exactly I implemented this system — let’s just say it was a few years ago. In its formative months The System was just a way of controlling the hedonism — you really don’t get much work done if you’re performing the 8am Walk of Shame a few times a week — then later it became more… formalised. With my System the actual quality of sex improved. There is such a thing as bad sex, don’t listen to anyone that says otherwise! Bad sex is really, really bad.

Seb’s Sex System doesn’t discourage casual sex, nor sex with strangers, but instead ensures that you constantly push the envelope rather than settling for second or third (or fourth…) best. It does this with points and a sex threshold. You start by defining your idea of the perfect sex partner. Do you want a big ass? Small? Tall, short? Muscles, or cuddle-monster? Once you have the perfect archetype (which you are free to change as your tastes alter!) every potential partner is measured against this scale. The key to this system is that the point score must increase each time you engage in casual sex. Let me give an example, using (most of) my own scale:

Perfect Archetype

Physical: Short (5′1″-5′3″/150-160cm), large eyes (colour unimportant), small’ish breasts — ass is more important. Slender but not all skin and bones (I think we’d call this a size 8 in the UK, but in the US that’s like… a size 4?)

Mental: Has to be smart/witty, interested in her surroundings/inquisitive, talks quickly.

That’s the basic template. That’s 1000 points. But it’s not quite that simple: there are deal breakers, traits that completely change your outlook. For most people these are pretty similar, but let me list some of mine:

Deal breakers: Talks slowly, bad skin, smells bad, irritating laugh, habitual mannerisms (itching, nail biting, twitches, etc.)

Any of these traits/attributes immediately lower the person’s score by 100 points.

So you’ve found your prey…

What now?! Well, you rate them against your perfect girl or boy! This bit is subjective. For me, a girl that’s one inch shorter is closer to perfection than one inch taller. For you it might be the other way around. For every ‘increment’ that your prey/victim/target is ‘out by’, deduct 50 points. So if she had large breasts, I would deduct 50 points. Semi-flat ass, minus 50. A totally flat ass? Take 100 points!

Eventually you’ll have a total score.

The System

Now that you have a score for the lucky boy or girl, you simply compare that score to your last exploit. Only if the new score is higher do you sleep with them. Not equal! Not ‘almost the same’. Higher! If this is your first time, just remember or write down the score as it’s the starting point upon which your next encounter will be compared.

Extras and things to watch out for

As you’ve probably gathered, this is a very, er, analytical system. I realised the same thing after using The System for a few months! That’s why there’s a bonus round! Also known as cool things during sex. Until now The System hasn’t really been about sex — that’s what the bonus round changes. Without going into disgusting detail (maybe another time), you should add 25 points for every ‘ooh, cool’ sex act. Likewise, you should detract 100 points for every ‘eeww, not cool’ sex act. Update the previous total score with these new modifiers and commence your 8am Walk of Shame. Rinse, repeat!

It’s also worth noting that you can set a ‘baseline’ level if you’re new to the whole sex-before-marriage thing. Most people will just leap right into it, but in some cases (say, in a city with lots of immigrants or gypsies) it might be wise to stipulate a base threshold that potential squeezes must surpass. An easy-going person might be happy to start with girls or boys around 100 points. ‘Tight’ girls (and boys), those of you that like to think they’re a cut above the rest, probably want to start at around 500 points. Remember, there is a happy medium between promiscuity and chastity.

Best-case scenario you’ll have a lot of wholesome, healthy fun. You might even find the love of your life! At the very least you’ll learn a lot more about the world and how we interact with one another — important skills, in my opinion!