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Cool-Factor Predicted To Spur Energy Conservation
An anonymous reader writes "Panelists at a recent technology expo argued about how to motivate people to conserve energy, dragging out all the usual suspects, from financial incentives to emotion appeals to 'save the planet.' However, one panelist trumped the status quo by noting that adding the 'cool factor' could make energy conservation fun via apps on smartphones and tablets. By making energy conservation as fun as a video game, the fickle on-again, off-again of human nature might just be overcome."
... is not even a week old. http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2286#comic
I don't think the effect is huge, but since i switched from a Rav4 to a Prius i've noticed that my driving habits have gotten a little more conservative, and i think the main factor is the little current and cumulative "miles per gallon" readings on the display. Trying to keep it above 45 mpg can be kinda fun, and it really doesn't seem to affect how quickly i get anywhere very much.
I used to gun the motor a lot more in the Rav4 just cause it was fun and there wasn't much reason not to (the difference in mileage and thus the difference in how often i had to fill up seemed pretty marginal) but now that i've got direct and immediate feedback playing with the mpg gauges is also fun, even if in an entirely different way, and now it's the marginal difference in time that i'm dismissing rather than the marginal difference in mileage. (And i still drive faster than i probably ought to, and i still will gun my car from time to time just for the fun of it, just nowhere near as often.)
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Maybe we could do one of those rapping songs the kids are so keen on these days?
if the light switch were shaped like a clitoris, men would be stumbling round in the dark trying to find it.
I was thinking
I'm not sure you were. ;)
tax credits for small families, and tax burdens for large families
People with large families aren't doing it for the money. Having kids is already a significant expense, and the tax breaks for kids don't really amount to squat in comparison to the expense.
The childless families are rolling in money by comparison. Both can work...
No diapers, no day care expense, no extra mouth to feed and clothe, birthday presents to buy, constant school fundraising/fieldtrips/hotlunch days/bookfairs, haircuts, dental work, glasses...
Nobody has kids to save moeny.
And throwing a tax burden on them won't stop them from having more kids.
The trailer park squad is having them because they make bad decisions... and they aren't going to consider the tax ramifications of unprotected sex if they failed to consider the pregnancy ramifications of unprotected sex.
The no contraceptives for religious reasons group isn't going to stop having sex or having kids due to a tax burden either... they'll just be poorer thanks to you... perhaps driven to live in trailers with the first group.
Finally its not like large families can 'right size' in response to the burden either, even if they wanted to.
Meanwhile... the childless couples will putter around in their sports cars and vacations with their disposable income augmented by tax breaks until they get old and apparently have to be looked after by someone elses kids. ;)
That said.. you said tax breaks for small families... so maybe you mean families of 3 to 5, instead of childless couples. And that's less caustic... but tax breaks for childless couples is demented.
If you want small families though, taxes isn't the way to do it.Education and prosperity is the path to smaller families.