You are called upon by the next President of the United States to head up a....

[Michaelangelica]

What is it with Yanks?

Every sci. fi. 'future' movie shows a dark, grim future full of death and destruction or war.

Hollywood churns out "disaster " movies.

You love seeing cars destroyed and things blown up.

Is their no optimism for the future?

Do you like scaring youselves?

[Racoon]

What is it with Yanks?

Every sci. fi. 'future' movie shows a dark, grim future full of death and destruction or war.

Hollywood churns out "disaster " movies.

You love seeing cars destroyed and things blown up.

Is their no optimism for the future?

Do you like scaring youselves?

 

People would rather look at a train wreck.

Than a mother hugging her child.

 

Hollywood knows how to sell.

 

Death is inevitable. Get Desensitized to it already!!

:(

 

:)

[Freddy]

First, I would require all cities with public transportation, (bus, train, subway) to increase ridership. All vehicles entering the city would be required to carpool with a three passengers minimum.

 

Gas would be rationed period with everyone getting say 10 gallons per week. Not enough then get a better mileage car and/or cut your driving.

 

This would cut pollution as well as oil and gasoline useage in America. Many people would be inconvienced but too bad.

 

Hydrogen fuel cell technology, ethanol, electric and hybrid cars would be given incentives for purchases.

 

A start but it would help.

 

We would withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2006.

[Zythryn]

Why do I want to do TWO infrastructure conversion steps? Why not skip step one and use the suggestion that Michaelangelica supplied which would allow us to retrofit the existing fleet(rather cheaply) and start the second step fuel supply and dispensing infrastructure conversion NOW?

As always, the very best of wishes.

 

You are the one that wanted action now. I am fine waiting till we have hydrogen, however I don't think it will be as soon as you want.

 

Not because it is impossible to do so soon (BMW plans to come out with a Hydrogen burning car in two years) but because the current political atmosphere will not allow the switch in infrastructure.

 

As for Natural Gas burning cars, natural gas is limited as well. It is not a good solution. The switch to ethonal on the other hand, is inexpensive and we do have the tech to do it today. GM is producing 'flex fuel' cars right now which will run either gas or ethonal. Converting a car you own now to be able to use ethonal cost about $221 (according to last week's 60 minutes and dateline).

The switch at gas stations (that don't already offer ethonal) is much less than the switch to Hydrogen would cost.

[GAHD]

First thing I would do is immidiatly explain that oil wil be banned in 5 years, and the burning of any perolium poduct after that time will carrya hefty fine.

 

Then I would make a federal Gas company using Brown's gas.

 

Next I would Immidiatly propose a cut in all political wages, down (or up) to EXACTLY the national average. Campain contibutions would be immidiatly federally taxed just like buying something at the grocery store.

 

I would remove controlls on operating a still, under the cicumstance that this still was used to create wood alchohol for an alternative fuel source.

 

Upgrading your home to comply with this new anti-petrolim act would be a tax write-off. Upgrading your vehicle would be a wright-off too.

 

Education would be made to follow international baccalaureate standards.

 

Energy conservation would become a wright-off: each household and business would be given a certain amount of total power usage based on 80% of national supply levels. Houses coming in under his level get a tax credit, those above get a tax penalty.

[TheFaithfulStone]

The First World is already dead. There is no saving it. The entire planet wll descend into transcendent barbarism and four billion corpses by 2050, possibly by 2015. We have scraped away everything of value down to a depth of two miles. There will be no coming back after the miracles of technology become priests' lies.

 

Pessimism is cowardice disguised as intellect.

 

It defends itself as "realism" but all it really is is anti-Liebnizism. This is the inevitable, and therefore there is no sense in trying to resist it. This is the only possible outcome, and any action you may take won't change it.

 

Any other apocalyptic panglossian insights for us? Even if what you say is true, and the worlds is doomed, and us along with it, so what?

 

What, we're "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic?" So? At least we're doing something, not locked in our staterooms waiting to drown.

 

Take your pick people, die with your chin up, or die hunkered down like a frightened animal. You're just as dead either way.

 

Anyway, I don't know if there is a solution to all the problems facing us, but I do know that there is are two ways that are GUARANTEED to result in spectacular, society ending failure. You can either refuse to acknowledge the problem, or refuse to acknowledge the possibility of any solution.

 

Anyway, solutions:

 

Targeted capital gains and tax credits to companies that invest a significant portion of their budgets towards renewable / nextgen technologies. Other companies go back to paying taxes.

 

Mandate intelligent urban planning by limiting the size of parking lots. Bring cities back "in." Require a licensed urban planning specialist for all development. Developers no longer get to decide where they put a 105,000 sq ft. Home Depot and it's attendant 30 sq mile parking lot.

 

Block Grants to Cities for public transportation and green initiatives.

 

Invest more in the future. Why don't Americans save for the future? Because they think there isn't going to be one. Let's start acting like the future is good and wonderful and happy, and it WILL BE.

 

Those are a few. Will they happen? I don't know. I think they would work. Maybe not. I'm not willing to sit around and whine about how awful the world is, but really do nothing to change it.

 

TFS

[Boerseun]

Invest heavily in Modular Pebble Bed Reactor research, and beat China to it!

Have all coal and/or oil guzzling power plants replaced with scalable modular nuclear reactors by 2020!

Dig massively deep holes in geologically stable bedrock to dump the waste in!

Use these same reactors to split water thermochemically into H and O, and use this resource to fuel and make possible the upcoming hydrogen economy!

Use whatever oil's left over or needed solely for lubricants! Once that's completely finished, use silicon oils!

Invest massive amounts of money in education, and shoot any pseudo-science crackpot on sight!

Ban the 'hip-hop' culture to a different planet. This culture is probably responsible for 99% of the dumbing down of the world. They can go peddle weed and bling on the other side of Uranus.

Any government employee found to slack on the job, being paid with my tax money, essentially working for me, me being his/her boss, will be fired with no recourse to labour union protection. Matter of fact, enforce tighter control over unions while we're at it.

Declare war on Venus. We need an enemy planet.

Devise huge vertical filters with massive solar-driven fans to pump air through it. We ***** and moan about the oil running out - we should be able to 'mine' hydrocarbs straight from the atmosphere.

Declare fat chicks illegal. Give them one year to lose weight or lose citizenship. This will increase the happiness levels amongst men, and make them more productive, in which case they'll pay more tax.

All dogs smaller than knee-height should be declared vermin and shot.

 

This will sort out the US.

[damocles]

Invest heavily in Modular Pebble Bed Reactor research, and beat China to it! <snip>

 

:hihi: :) :xx:

 

Now those are practical and FUNNY!

 

I love optimism!

 

D.

[GAHD]

Oh, and upon further thought, Chruches are no longer tax-exempt. :hihi:

[Michaelangelica]

Oh, and upon further thought, Chruches are no longer tax-exempt. :D

And their for profit companies (eg Sanitarium) taxed as well (or at least!)

 

I like the idea of declaring war on Venus.;)

We need a bad guy.:evil:

 

Hollywood could re-make all the old Anti-Commie/Spy films:camera:

and the Bad-Terrorist films:Guns:

resulting in a massive boost to California's economy.:hihi:

 

No unemployed actors. Therefore massive shortage of waiters.:omg:

No unemployment.:money:

 

The last of the remaining Australian actors would move to Los Angles:star:

 

Lucas Film would have to buy more California to produce all the different forms of life Hollywood imagines Venusians might look like.;)

 

 

Fascinating idea with much potential:lightbulb

- Need to get the UN involved somehow?:)

[Zythryn]

Boerseun, those are a beautiful mix of great ideas and great humor:)

[Boerseun]

Boerseun, those are a beautiful mix of great ideas and great humor:)

[Elvis Voice] Thank you... Thank you very muuuuuchhh...[/Elvis Voice]

...although I wasn't jokin' about them fat chicks, though...

[ryan2006]

Being President is never easy job nor is it for the lady at the rest home who needs her groceries during the middle of a snow storm. Let's face it everything around the world can change in a split second in 300 days the situation could change but it is change that forges the direction. The situation we find ourselves in however is one issue so I will waste no more time. 2 and one half trillion dollars is 25% over 10 years so we will shoot for a long term goal with little or less. Research grants fund let's say to find energy efficient fuel saving dollars converting from oil to say air based, garbage waste fuel, solar, battery operated electric motors that have been around since the 20s we'll focus our attention there. First locate the people at the patent office who have utility patents in these areas. Sift through the ones that work and then use Oil supply to flourish in the United States by Providing Fair Trade Practices with China in exchange for some of its buys from oil producers such as Iran. Use fair Trade practice Oil for food program to exchange computer goods from India. and if the Embassy between India and Iran agree to exchange the better. The world population will take another 100 years to grow to full capacity of 56million based on the United Nations I believe so we have 50 projected years for nanotech developement for atom built foods. We plant more trees for oxygen production and to allow for the evaportation process. We use land management the best way we can steward the land and hand out pamplets for the areas of land development that we need. Create online opportunities to work closely with financing stability of the top ten as well as the other 278 countries. Those who do not cooperate will be considered resisting growth and must be diplomatically convinced to do the right thing. For the planet. Tax base shrinking means small government at first glance but who is in office and what decisions are being wagered by the congress in effect who will vote which way jobs for political analysts Resources haven't gone away only the people morality so begin entertainment in local towns so people don't have to spend a lot to travel sorry depression is not an alternative. Besides this page is almost run out.

[Boerseun]

In the short term, there's a few things we can still do to make our energy reserves last longer. For instance, appliance manufacturers could be fined for making appliances have a stand-by mode depending on mains power, and not simply a little battery-operated ROM chip. Apparently, appliances on stand-by still use about 40% of their normal consumption!

 

The purchase of LCD monitors and LCD televisions should have some sort of a tax incentive. LCD's consume way less energy than CRT's (I'm not too sure of how much energy they need in construction, but even if its more than CRT construction, it should even out after a few years, from whence the saving would start).

 

We should work on the 'disposable culture'. Things don't need to be upgraded and replaced every few years if they're still running fine. Buy something and look after it, and it'll last for years - unless the new model is more energy efficient, of course.

 

Any executive power the President holds should be stripped away. Any single person wanting to become President's motives are suspect. The President should be appointed by national lottery, using Social Security numbers as the 'ticket'. The winning number would indicate the President for the next four years, with no power at all - simply a PR figurehead. A reality TV show could be made about his career as President.

 

And jack up the educational system! There's nothing wrong with being smart, but a smart individual shouldn't have to be kept down by a system insistent on bringing everybody down to the lowest common denominator! Celebrating intellectual capacity is way better, with a more productive outcome than the celebration of mediocrity. These smart kids, with access to more and better tools (if we dump some serious moolah into the ed system) would inject more able and productive citizens into solving the puzzle as posted in post #1 in a few years.

 

But I think the best way to get around to doing all these things would be cold, hard cash: Define the things needed, and use tax incentives to get the people and companies to actually do it. Elegantly phrased ecological and political arguments don't work - people want to see cash. SUV's could be more heavily taxed, for instance, and fuel efficient vehicles not.

[InfiniteNow]

Damn, B, a flurry of great posts you had last night. I actually repped you just now elsewhere for a brilliant post, but now sort of wish I'd saved it for the post above. Nice job. :doh:

 

The disposable culture issue is likely worthy of it's own thread...

[IDMclean]

Starting wth Franklin Roosevelt's "New Deal," exploding with Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society," and gutted by Bush the Lesser's cronyism we have a government that cannot possibly work.

 

Its persistence is based upon cheap raw material inputs, massive deficit spending, a supportive citizenry mythos, and massive theft of value from Baby Boomers. Stealing an extra $10K/year each from 50 million productive families is $500 billion/year in cold cash mad money.

 

The First World is already dead. There is no saving it.

 

What will harbinger the end? Entities of unchanging international value - coinage metals - will explode in price as fiat paper money is admitted to be worthless. It happened in late 1930's Germany, in "Boys from Chicago" Chile, during the downfall of the USSR and in each of its puppet states... and it is happening right now to the dollar, as you read this

 

The price of gold is shooting skyward and will insanely continue. Silver, historically 1/16th the value of gold since Roman times, will zoom even faster to restore parity. Copper will go wild. Your savings in US dollars will be rendered worthless. Stock prices will zoom with inflation then utterly collapse with economic ruin.

 

The US stopped circulating gold coinage at the Great Depression. It ended silver coinage, silver certificates, and bronze pennies in 1964, forecasting 1970s hyperinflation. Check out the prices of gold, silver, copper, and platinum in today's commodity markets.

 

What this all culminates to indicate is High ineffficiency and High Corruption.

 

What is the cause? Uncle AI quite correctly, though indirectly identifies it, the paper and/or commodity based economy.

 

What Uncle AI asserts in the way of gold's value is non-sense. Gold has little to no industrial related uses beyond High tech electronics. It's Value is purely cultural, and if the full store of gold world wide was brought to bare, it's value (as we have seen previously, Black tuesday) would come crashing down to probably a little above the price of copper.

 

The value of the Gold market is artifically constrained so as to keep the (gold industry) infrastructure that has been built over hundreds of years going.

 

Silver is likewise.

 

The point being that the commodity based market crashed because the supply rapidly was out growing the demand. Hence the gold buyon seizure and restricted use and holding. Also the reason for the use of bank notes (the dollar bill).

 

Precious metals, even as rare as they are, can be found through out the world and escavated at high rates. So they can not make a proper well formed market.

 

A resource is valuable if and only if, it has utility and is scarce.

 

Now as for the government thing? Yes, it is ill formed, and maintained. It would seem to be so full of holes that a mass revision might be able to fix. The consitution was originally intended to be a living document, one that is revised as unforseen consiquences pop up.

 

The answer then to our problems lies not in the sickness. For that is the problem we are trying to solve, and it cannot be the cure.

 

I have several very simple alterations that can be implemented over the lifetime of the next two cohorts (2006-2040). The first concern would seem to be the economy, because from it much of our inefficiency would seem to arise. From our economic system much (inappropiate) explotation of labor and resources is possible. Second would be our social systems which depend on our economic capabilities.

 

Here is my purposal.

 

For the economic system what must go on is that the power to resources must be allocated evenly. All people have equal potentials, and all people require the same things. Food, clothes, medical care, housing, education, and entertainment.

 

A single person has no real need, nor requirement to own 80% of the worlds wealth, no single person is capable of managing the distribution and effective use of that wealth. Therefore Personal wealth should be capped at personal needs and wants(The afforementioned needs). Community wealth should be capped at community needs and wants (housing, parks, and other low level infrastructure) Municiple wealth should be capped at municiple needs and wants. (Mass Communities and major projects.)

 

This goes on until we have a division of wealth at each level. The levels would be dictated not by geographical area but by number of people. The global level wealth would be in concern for the needs and wants world wide, of the entire population of the earth.

 

A person should never be able to purchase land. it has been shown time and time again that a private profit driven entity will not work in the best interest of the society. Therefore the society must manage the wealth. Whether it be raw resources, mid or finished product, labor, land, or otherwise. Personal property is fine.

 

Each wealth level must be concerned with generating a level above and a level below it. Excepting the personal level which must be concerned with generating the level above it.

 

In the system I worked out so far, each (excepting civilian) level would consist of eight units of the level below it. So that a community would be defined as eight civilians and a neighborhood would be defined as eight communities, this would continue on up the chain such that the Global level would be defined as [math]8^{11}=8,589,934,592[/math] people.

 

The reason I chose eight is that is the optimal number for any team. Starting with the community (Eight Civilians), one of the civilians would be elected, locally, as the team leader, or representive. So that the Rep would be charged with the management of the seven other people in their community. This person would meet with other community Reps to decide neighborhood matters, and resource allocation. Of the Eight Community reps, one would become the rep for that neighborhood. Moving up to represent his community, neighborhood in the next level.

 

At each (excepting civilian) level one person would be elected by that level to represent them at the next level.

 

As you can see this forms the basis of both an Economic and Social power allocation scheme, something like direct democracy, representive democracy, and corporate hierarchy synthesized into a power allocation scheme. Where all members are required to be active and involved in the matters of their world.

 

This could be implemented starting on the low end of the scale and moved up. The bank system could be used to create a community chest, and each member could be allocated resources from day to day according to statisical needs and participation in the system.

 

This all of course would necessitate the elimination of personal land property, and a massive move to the public domain.

 

More later after I go chrismas shopping, with my GF.

[Buffy]

Two questions KAC:

 

1) How come these socialist organizations never seem to work--like the USSR, North Korea, China, etc.--unless they violate the main dictate of your plan: not allowing anyone to have more than they need via capitalism (e.g. China, VietNam)? What would you do to avoid these pitfalls?

 

2) Given that the power is mostly controlled by the very people who would have to give up their wealth and power, how do you propose we get to this organization? Do you think its possible to motivate *anyone* if they know that they will never get anything more than they "need?"

 

BTW: its Uncle AL (as in "the kiddies pal" but he hates it when I say that)...

 

Test of Faith,

Aunt Buffy