I liked Stewart's Cain/Pokemon skit... but that's one of those cases where the story itself does the comedy work, and the comedian doesn't need to contribute that much. 

After reading the first couple posts, I just want to preemptively warn everyone to be on their best behavior here... both because I can see this getting derailed easily, and because I'd rather not have to actually read this thread.

Thank you!

Change Cash Factory to Banking Center

Specifically, the issue is that a cash factory, literally interpreted, would be envisioned as essentially a printing press.  In practice, a literal printing press being the embodiment of a nation's growth would be hyperinflationary.

One thing I notice: This could make for some HUGE jump abuse.

Galaxy: Family A and B will each begin with 10 players.  They all begin with the resources of 10 players.  So... how do they start the round?

For either family to be eligible for drafting, family A will need to get open player slots.  So... family A does something counter-intuitive: They draft stupid!  They make sure to get some inactive players in their fam, but not enough to where there's no family (at the very least, a 3-4 active person team).  If a new player comes, be an ass hole to them, or just bore them!  They'll go inactive, and you get their resources!  Until they do... screw em!  Just only aid out to your core group, plus enough to give 8 expos/day to inactive bums until they go inactive!  Or better yet... play nicely with everyone, until about expo phase... then become an asshole!

Once enough players in family A and B have gone inactive, through a mix of boredom and rudeness, the "core" players (the boring assholes in this strategy) will have a small enough family to where they'll be eligible for assimilation!  In return for their boring and asshole behavior, the family will be relocated to either a large family with a couple draft spots (sweet, we got in a top family), or a mid-to-bottom ranked family that's just small in players (hmm... guess we'll have to be bigger assholes!).  Either way, the boring family now gets access to resources unavailable to a single family, and certainly not available to a group of 3-4 assholes who showed no teamwork with the rest of their group during the course of the round before such a change was implemented.

Additionally, I'm seeing one serious worry here: What if this random drafting thing ended up resulting in the worst pairings ever?  If two families unite, for example, and it turn out two solid attackers that just got integrated are also mortal enemies with one another... intra fam war, anyone?

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/correlation.png

Specifically, it's possible the causation is backwards here: High-crime cities force people to be more aware and worried about crime in their city, influencing the individual's vote.  Gun policies would be a good example.  When crime is as prevalent as, for example, the crime in Detroit, voters may feel powerless to actually stop said crime without some sort of deus ex machina intervention (hence the favoritism toward liberal policies, which more often than not involve a government intervention of one form or another).  In contrast, a place like Gilbert, Arizona doesn't have much to worry about statistically in terms of crime, so from a voting perspective, crime issues are much less important and will define the politics much less.

Alternatively, the explanation could be a simple third factor influencing both statistics.  Poverty would be a good example.  Poor voters overwhelmingly vote Democrat.  Poor populations are overwhelmingly the victims and targets of violent crimes.

One thing is for certain, though.  I'm staying as far away from urban Michigan as possible. 

Did I get enough tag points to upgrade my forum moderator tag to moderator? 

Wait... we DON'T want legalese?

Aww, crap!

*crumbles up his piece of paper*

In continuing with the theme of this conversation... I'm cashing out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kn481KcjvMo

Don't make me eat your crayon box!

@Flint

So in your worldview, ensuring equality of opportunity involves... promoting/paying for K-12 education, and having some merit-based scholarships available?  Any other government programs involved in that which we may be missing?

Okay, general question for everyone: Define "equality of opportunity," and give examples of the policies which would, in your view, be needed to support such a policy goal (specifically, why the policies you mention are a tool to achieve equality of opportunity).

Short answer: Probability assessments of outcomes are skewed.

Long answer+a better explanation:

At casinos, there is a game called keno.  It has the absolute worst odds in the casino, with casinos generally getting 25% of all bets on average.  The rules are simple: You pick between 1 and 20 numbers from 1 to 80.  Twenty numbers are randomly chosen, and you get paid based on the amount of numbers you picked vs. the amount of numbers you guessed correctly.  Basically, it's a casino equivalent of the lottery.

So... if someone were to ask me before they played at a casino what they should do in relation to the keno game, the best answer (that being, the answer with the best average result, considering both probability of possible outcomes and return on investment for each possibility) would be to tell that person to stay away from keno.

Now... let's say the numbers were picked: every number from 1 to 20 was picked by the casino.  Knowing what the casino would select, the probabilities become different.  Why?  Given the casino's picks, the probability of winning becomes 100% if I tell that person to play those specific numbers.

Does this mean I am in any way better at keno?  Nope.  If I was to use the same advice in that instance in any other given instance, the probability would not reflect the probability for that specific scenario.  That is, just because the casino outcome in that situation was X, it does not mean the casino outcome in every similar situation would be X.  Thus, when I give advice which presumes the casino outcome would be X because I saw the casino outcome as X in one situation, it would not increase the validity of my advice in a separate but similar situation (another keno game later).

So... what does that all mean?  Simply put, we know the outcomes that will occur in response to the web of choices which have actually been selected.  However, the actual events which resulted in any given outcome are generally so complicated and multifaceted that any given choice may only be a small fraction of the circumstances that they triggered, and may be part of larger unintended consequences.  Although there's some ways we can learn from history, to give any sort of guess as to what could have been achieved through some series of changes in history (what this thread specifically asks through your quote, "I question where we could be on the Kardeshev Scale now had things 'been different'."), it's essentially a moot question due to the complexity of time and causation.