Wikistrat starting a new internal sim: Who Smuggles What in 2050?
Tuesday, October 23, 2012 at 12:02AM See below for slick fire-them-up video for the community.
Idea began when I read NYT front-pager on how big a criminal network has arisen around banned refrigeration/air-conditioning coolants (what we used to call freon for the most part). Goes back a couple of decades to a global enviro treaty (remember the ozone layer flap?), and I remember thinking back then, "Wow, someday this stuff is going to be smuggled just like pot!" Well, it certainly is today.
So that got me thinking: if we jump ahead to 2050, what surprising things might be smuggle-able in that time frame? You know, besides Soylent Green.
Should be a fun one, and if this sort of thing intrigues, you should consider joining the community.
2012 has been the big train-up for 2013, when the client load is going to bulge in a big, big way. So it's a good time to get in on the ground floor. That way you can say you joined before the thing went crazy big.
It's fun to be part of a revolution.
Reader Comments (2)
Tobacco, obviously. Does this need explanation? Tobacco-relarted paraphenalia, such as briar pipes and hookahs and cigarette lighters. So no legalization of pot, which will contiinue to generate a livelihood for traditional American smugglers. OTOH, we'll probably see legally sold marijuana-based candy and "energy drinks" containing THC, so there's something to make everyone happy. Except for smokers of course, but..
Over the counter antibiotics, on the grounds the overusage is encouraging the generation of drug-resistant micro-organisms.
Sudafed and other pseudoephedrine -containing medications. We're already halfway there!
Plan B and other "emergency" contraceptives. Because SOCIETY DEMANDS THIS! Condems will contunue to be sold of course, because young men must sow (or plow under) wild oats.
Primatene MIst (gone already) and other ephedrine-containing medications.
Phosphate-rich laundry detergents. Will they be missed, or will future housewives insist that something valuable went out of their life when Tide was reformulated?
Gasoline with lead additives. Paint with lead -- the sort of paint used to paint bedroom walls. Paint with lead -- the sort that artists use.. One would think that artists would be accomodated , but... Congress could go nuts,
Children's "chemistry sets" with sodium or mercury or potassium permanganate or other "dangerous" chemicals.
Brake pads with asbestos facings (or are these already gone?). Certain oil and gasoline addiitves. Embedded computers in a dozen different automobile and truck components, one the grounds that low pollution-emitting vehicles need to be seviced by professional mechanics, not by do it yourself weekend amateurs. Remember when it was legal to change your own oil and possible to set your own spark plug gaps and adjust your carburator by ear? (Which was supposed to be rhetoric. Or am I just showing my advanced age?)
Nitrous oxide, whether injected into auto engines or inhaled by humans.
Tetracyline and other antibiotics can be bought over the counter in pet shops-- without perscriptions-- in small dosages for treatment of infections of fish in aquariums. Other generic medications can be bought in veteninary supply stores for treatment of livestock. Presumably these are not of sufficient purity to be used on humans. But... they work. It's always surprised me that the Feds haven't clamped down on this. OTOH, not a whole lot of people are interested enough in dispensing purely theraputic drugs, so the likelihood of "abuse" isn't very high.
There are proposals to require computer chip manufacturers to give individual ID numbers to chips, with the notion that at some future date it will be possible (with "improved" software -- Microsoft Window 12 say) to label computer files to show precisely which computer they were created on, copied by, distributed, downloaded, played. The ultimate DRM tool. I can imagine a market in chips with voided or false IDs.
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I could probably cook up more if it warranted the time., These are the notions that come to me., just off the cuff. Likely, if I were a gardener and more knowledgable of plants, I'd add another dozen.. I think t you're on to something, in other words. Continue to interrogate the usual suspects!
Genetically Modified Seeds, etc, to countries with food problems.