Very Important Person

As Nguyen Tuong Van's case proves, some people are more important than others. The public may take a shining to one person, but not another. The reasons are complex, but I think I have gathered it into an algorithm. I call it:

The Human Value Index (HVI) for Australian society.

Firstly, all men are created equal. They start with a value of 1. Women, are not, and start at 0.8.

Secondly, race. (WHITE) times the number by 1, (OTHER) times the number by 0.3

Thirdly, wealth. Divide your annual earnings by 100,000, and multiply it by your current number thus far. (ie: 30,000 = n x 0.3, 100,000 = n x 1.0, etc)

Then, multiply this value by 2 if you are pretty, 1 for plain, 0.5 if ugly, or vary it along that scale.

Now, if you have a somewhat ethnic name (ie: not smith, jack, etc) multiply it by 0.6

Finally, if you are a doctor, or other person with any useful skills to society, multiply your value by 1.4

And hey presto - this is your total worth. Society should judge your life by this value.

Let's see how this works for Corby vs Nguyen.

Corby: 0.48
Nguyen: 0.05

As you can see from the results (with earnings at 30k for both), Corby is by far a more important person. Worth 10 Nguyen's in fact.

Bill Gates: 25,000
Me: 0.7

Anyone got a cure for cynicism??