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chapotraphouse @hexbear.net
HarryLime [any] @hexbear.net

What's yours?

My megaproject ideas are mostly pretty standard. I'd build a high speed rail network across North America, and build and expand metro and regional rail systems in and around every city. I'd turn all cities and suburbs into fifteen-minute cities. I'd decommodify housing, and build ten million units of public/social/non-market housing, mostly three bedroom units. I'd link those last three policies together by building TODs around the new Metro and rail stops. And I'd build bicycle networks in every town and city and connect them to the TODs. I'd build bridges and walkways across skyscrapers. I'd put a bidet in every American toilet (uses less water than toilet paper apart from being more comfortable). Fiber internet in every home. A heat pump in every home. An induction stove in every kitchen. Phase out fossil fuels and power everything with Pumped Storage Hydropower and Geothermal. I'd make the US go Metric.

But my truly crazy, obsessive idea would be to bring back the French Revolutionary calendar. Or I'd purge all French influences from English.

12 comments

  • Community cafeterias. 1 caf per x (tbd) population.

    • informed by national-level dietary guidelines
    • very receptive to local neighborhood dietary preferences and encouraged to develop specialties
    • worker controlled
    • kitchen teams could swap/guest in other neighborhoods to mix things up
    • you can go to cafs in other neighborhoods but there would probably be some system to anticipate demand to avoid over/under prepping (like you have a home caf but you can make reservation at another one?)

    You can eat there or get take out.

    Benefits:

    • less food waste
    • don't have to waste time shopping, chopping, cooking and cleaning when you don't want to
    • will not have insane "chef" centered kitchen cultures, unless everyone working there votes in favour of this for some reason

  • Create a large network of state and/or cooperatively owned cannabis farms to mass-produce hemp for industrial purposes, and every strain of quality marijuana known to man. You think the weed's too strong these days? That's ok, the state will devote its resources to developing 10% THC strains that taste like a gourmet meal. You want to be sent to the moon? Why yes, there will be 99.9% pure concentrate oils widely available.

    Just as the USSR had an alcohol ration, there will be a mids ration available for all. Any unclaimed rations will be distributed to the gulags to forcibly pacify political prisoners. While high and marginally more open-minded, they will be made to play video games where every character is a black lesbian and all the messaging is based on post-colonial theory. Only after their daily shift constructing and tending the farms is finished, of course.

    Any questions?

  • I'd pour massive amounts of money into arguably crank Bazinga ideas like Life Extension and proper Nanotech. I'd ban all cars and replace with public transport. Thorium power plants in every house! SPAAAAAAAACCCEEEE!

    I'd make massive urban farming and gardening projects regardless of economic viability.

    I also have Gaddafi-grade western fashion revival ideas. You will have to dress up for all evening events and no a Tuxedo is not gonna cut it. if you want a vision of the future it's an 1700s dance slipper brushing a human face lightly, forever.

    I am also for the French Revolutionary calendar. Happy Basil Day!

    • Life extension is a lot less crank stuff if you look at it as a gradual process with countless stops on the long road to biological immortality. Like fussing with some genes to reduce the incidence of prostate cancers or preventing/reversing immune system degradation in old age are a lot less /r/ futorology than magic live forever machines, but they're steps on a road to biological immortality and they're probably achievable with tech we have now given sufficient time and resources.

12 comments