Ian M. Banks' culture series doesn't include the specific items you mention, but he certainly does deal with the cultural as well technical differences of a far future. The Player of Games would be a good start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

Elements include being able to change one's sex, glands to produce any number biologically useful/pleasurable substances at will, what do people do when they live in the embrace of a (mostly) benevolent AI that doesn't need them. And then there's a good story interwoven with it all.

The police seem very reluctant to prosecute women, and men are reluctant to apear weak.

I can speak to the second part. I've been punched in the face exactly one time in my life -- saw stars even -- by my then girlfriend. At a different point in our relationship, she choked me and by the time I realized she was serious, I was getting dizzy and my ability to stop it was compromised. Lucky for me she quit on her own. That was well over 20 years ago -- back then I said nothing. Even today, despite the passage of time and the consequent ability to chalk up my reticence about the incident to the ignorance of youth, I feel embarrassed by it -- so much so that it is a struggle to not post this as AC.

Hydropower. Lots of it. The same reason Alcoa has aluminum plants in WA. Electricity is cheap here, cheapest in the nation apparently: http://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=...

I agree with you more than I disagree and in a society with a rehabilitative rather than retributive prison system, I would definitely agree. As things are now however, serving time does not demonstrate that a person is safe to society. I do understand your point about a permanent disadvantaged underclass, it's just that we need a prison system that will help reform people rather make them hardened, and to get there, we have to make prison far less about vengeance than it currently is.

Summer of 1994 (I can remember because it was just before I started grad school), I used Mavis Beacon to learn to touch type. I'd been using computers since I was 12 but just did the hunt and peck -- I think it took a couple weeks to become reasonably proficient, might even have been less. The thing is, once you learn to touch type, you only get better and better as time goes on. It was probably one of the best and most useful things I ever learned.

As for my cursive penmanship, that has always been beyond bad. And painful -- hand cramps and all that. I can print sort of legibly but hand writing belongs to the past for daily use. Quick notes of six or seven words, artistic calligraphy, scrawling something in the dirt on the back window of a car -- it's those sorts of occasional use cases for which writing by hand is reasonable.

Maybe a criminal background check too. Kidnappers should probably not be taxi drivers. But your point is right on -- as long as a person can demonstrate that he or she is not a threat to the public (bad driver, violent criminal, dangerous car), there is absolutely no reason to deny a license to be a taxi driver.

That's basically the current rule and it isn't working as intended because employers game the system. That's why it must be lopsided -- employers have no sense of fairness and after they get done gaming a lopsided system, it might settle at a fair level.

Workers bear the burden of H1B -- both the immigrants and the locals. That burden could be shifted by changing the rules. For example, make the visa last three years, non-renewable, cost $25,000 per visa paid for by the employer, and once the worker has been employed for two weeks, he/she will have the legal right to quit working for employer, even if that means sitting at home playing video games and doing no work at all, and make all employment contracts that contain some kind of damages provision if the worker quits or is fired, not just void, but result in a $25,000 fine, or twice the damages provision in the contract, whichever is greater, to be imposed on the employer.

This way, if a company really wants that genius they just gotta have, they can get that person no problem. They just better treat him/her right or risk losing a substantial investment. As for getting slave labor, it would make that completely unfeasible from a financial perspective.

Much of this change with the police occurred in the last 20 years with the militarization skyrocketing after 9/11. I don't know whether to call that rapid change or not -- it seems pretty rapid to me having occurred from my 20s to my 40s. Here in my smallish town of 80k, with many miles of fields and forests between it the next town of any consequence, the police have at least a two military vehicles. What is that for if not for practice and training as Police State Enforcers? If they aren't ready to take on that role now, how long would it take to train them as a paramilitary police force? Probably just a few years to hire up some of those desperate for a decent job and let them practice on the equipment they already have.

Mal. Bad. In the Latin.

I had parents, I'm white, have a graduate degree, make six figures. I think of the police as mother-fucking-pigs because they are they enforcement side of the Constitution destroying political regime we have. While I realize that I'm not their prime target -- at this point in time -- that doesn't make the police nice or moral people. I see the racial bias stuff as nothing more than the pigs practicing for full on police state, at which point everyone will be a target.

What will cause attitudes toward these assholes to change is when the police stop using SWAT to bust up home poker games, give up the military equipment, and start trying to _serve_ their community rather looking at us like enemies. The problem starts with the cops and the changes have to start in the pig stye.

Yeah ... banksters explain some part (certainly not all, but some for certain) of the immigration reform push:

Head of banking group pushes Republicans to back immigration reform

Wells Fargo Official Links Lending to Immigration Reform

Silicon Valley Bank: In Support of Immigration Reform

How Immigration Reform Will Help Fix The Housing Recovery

I wonder if the recent push open up immigration on all fronts, has something to do with the bank bailouts caused by the housing market crash. Basically, the banks now own a lot of useless foreclosed real estate and injection millions of people into the market, some percentage of which will do well enough to buy a house, may be seen as a good thing (by banks and elites).

Of course, it increases wage competition making it harder for working people to get ahead and is thus seen as a bad thing by such people.

I have no evidence, I'm not saying it is true, just mentioning it is some sort of possibility to explain why Democrats are so hell bent on opening the borders recently (aside from the obvious pandering to certain voting segments).

Far down on anyone's radar are environmental effects. There are enough people here already and the more we add, the more polluted and nasty our world gets.

Companies care about bottom lines.

Exactly and that's the point. If a flight of customers is going to make a business go under, that business is going to bitch to reps/senators and then something will happen.

To get there though, users must engage in flight to alternatives in a recognizable pattern. You think Google would totally not care if there was a demonstration day, where say google's usage rate dropped by a third and DuckDuckGo's septupled or whatever? Google would totally notice. So would DDG for that matter. Competition can also lead to better options.

krokodil more likely.