Denmark's Niels Kim Award for best translated story (awarded for Science Fiction Cirklen's translation of my story Clockwork Fagin as "Børnehjemslederen") is an exceptionally lovely object.
The US and the UK have been locked in a fierce competition since March, to see who can bungle their coronavirus response worse. The US is the clear leader here, both in per-capita deaths and infections and in elevating lethal junk-science to a conservative loyalty test.
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But the UK has put in a remarkable showing.
Remember "cumgate" (Prime Ministerial advisor Dominic Cummings' breathtaking violation of his own lockdown rules)?
Then there's Boris Johnson, who beat Trump in the who-gets-infected-first race by months.
For all that the UK has lost most of the events in Infection Olympics to its American cousins, it continues to lead in that most quintessentially ENGLISH of events: the omnishambles.
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However, very few large cities have done the same. Telcoms apologists who argue that America simply can't do broadband argue that big cities can't have municipal fiber because they're too dense, and small towns can't have it because they're too spread out.
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Reality has a well-known bias in favor of muni fiber. When we look inside large telcoms monopolists (as we did when Frontier went bankrupt), we learn they don't connect us because execs make more (AND companies lose money) when they withhold fiber.
To understand the levers of power under the rule of law, you have to understand "standing" - the right to seek justice for some bad act. Courts and legislatures guard standing jealously; the worst-case scenario is that anyone can sue over an injustice done to someone else.
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You and your neighbor agree that it's fine for them to park their car in a way that impedes a driveway you never use anyway, and then some stranger sues your neighbor to make them stop - it's not just court-clogging, it's also a barrier to justice.
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But many of our gravest, most urgent harms affect whole populations, so it can be hard to identify which person is harmed. This is where we get class action suits from - a million people sue over a $2.83 ripoff, not to get their $2.83 back, but to hold the grifter to account.
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