Welcome to My World
In my world...
Public Works
Cars are too expensive for us to tolerate capricious maintenance of the roadways.
Ideally, we’d phone in to report a pothole, and it would have to be repaired within three days, or the mayor and head of maintenance & public works would be fined.
Same deal for burned out streetlights, cracks in sidewalks, and so on.
Table of Contents
Charities
We’ve already looked at how shady these so-called “charities” are. Proven frauds would be eliminated, e.g.: Red Cross, and all “foundations,” which are tax dodges. A potential new system would limit the size of charities, which makes sense. You just don’t need a huge bureaucracy to cut checks. It could be just one person, with perhaps two or three helpers, in charge of distributing money. Importantly, all the salaries would have to be posted on any ads or documentation the charity issued, and all the expenses would have to be publicly available, through the website. If the charity is on the verge of becoming too large, a new one with a similar mission, but new administration, would be allowed. This is not an “infringement of liberty,” blah, blah — these charities are given special privileges not available to we peons, therefore have to be carefully monitored and controlled.
Schools/Education
We discussed this at length, that educational revamp is no small thing. Correcting the system would restructure it to actually teach useful skills. If you were going to be a literature major, you’d complete a book before leaving high school. Trades people would be well-trained in actual trades. For example, student mechanics would rebuild a car before graduation. Computer science students would complete a small commercial software app, and so on.
A complete dedication to truth and education would be required here (which teachers wouldn’t like since they wouldn’t have license to act as tyrants anymore). Here’s a recent example: a hysterical teacher attacked a native Spanish-speaking student for correcting her Spanish mistake.
What a great teaching moment it would have been though, for everyone, had the principal instructed the teacher to go apologize to the entire class. She could explain how teachers, like everyone, got things wrong and it was incumbent on others to point out failings, as long as it is done respectfully.
Stocks and Business
Businesses would not be permitted to play out Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” in real life. This nonsense system of buyouts and stock plays and mergers and corporate espionage is foolish and intolerable. Money manipulation, tricks and games like that are not viable or legitimate business.
A public business should have a set, stated task, like in the old days. And a limited number of people to do that task. All “shareholders,” would also be employees. A company would never be permitted to grow to such size it could buy out or threaten small competitors, and take over a whole market.
And any bankruptcy should trigger automatic dissolution of the corporation, its assets would be required to be sold and redistributed, without the opportunity for the same people to somehow leverage government funds to finance a reversal that puts them back in power. (Lookin’ at you, General Morons.) In fact, all the executives of a bankrupt corporation should be prohibited from being involved in the formation of a similar corporation (in the same area of business), for at least five years.
Sex
Sex would be treated completely differently, not weaponized, with everyone paired off early. Marriage itself needs to be completely reassessed, perhaps structured as a term-limited contract, with stipulations for violations or breaking the contract spelled out in advance.
Obviously this is a huge, controversial topic that needs a more involved discussion, but it does provide a lead-in to the important concept of experimental communities.
Experimental Communities
No matter how badly the political class screws things up, and we’ve already covered a lot of that at length, they’ll never admit they’re wrong. It’s hubris, of course, but, as the saying goes, it doesn’t have to be this way.
Communities could be encouraged to form, to perform social experiments that might improve our lot — like the one mentioned above, where the average marriage age is drastically reduced, and birthing ages as well. The grandparents would assist in the raising of the offspring in most cases. Since girls mature faster, a typical age for marriage would be around 12-13 for girls, 14-15 for boys, with one of the main functions of middle/high school being to act as a place that encourages the pairing off of children. Obviously the system we have now isn’t working, and dissatisfaction/divorce is through the roof. This would probably be better than the (Asian) Indian system of arranged marriages, which mostly works for them, but probably wouldn’t be as effective in the West.
So, you would establish a community of people, be it virtual or otherwise, who would like to participate, to see how workable it is, and implement it. (“Virtual” meaning the participants wouldn’t need to move. For this particular experiment, they’d have to establish a school under their auspices, however.) Then, scientists and reporters could observe and assess how effective and practical the results of the experiment are.
There could be other communities, investigating other ideas, of course. The sky is the limit. In fact, it should be routine for people with shared views to form communities, not the chaotic way we have it now, as with, say, “Liberals” and “Conservatives” at each others’ throats.
Government
Civics
No pledges of allegiance to flags, no worship of any constitutions; we would have utmost respect for principles, but we’d be continually looking for flaws in our political documents, and praise people who uncovered them. A proper system would displace all the trappings and lip service.
I’ve been reading do-gooders, reformers, blogs, etc. for years now, and it’s always problems, problems, no solutions. (Or, solutions that are drivel, like, “We must be more aware of...” etc.)
The answer is right in front of us: We have regular sessions where we tell stories, about the scams people pull — like the charity that collected a billion bucks for housing the homeless and built six houses with it. Also important would be the presentation of solutions. Reviewing at least one scam, fraud or deception, daily, is in itself the bulk of the solution. Then we’d plainly see the legitimate purpose of government: to defend against infringement of people’s rights.
Reform
Even if you have a good philosophy and principles, and government starts out well, it can still be infiltrated. There is no obvious mechanism to prevent this. In my world...
Government would be restructured so it can’t get larger than necessary to carry out its short list of tasks. One simple thing, that could be done immediately, is literally that “reading of the principles” described above. Rather than those pledges and anthems and worship of figureheads and symbols, we’d do a reading, out loud, on a regular basis, all the scams, and all the instances of what can happen when a government goes rogue. This reading would be performed in schools (especially), at the start of sporting events, at council meetings, or any meetings involving politics. The next part of the reading would be the remedies. The third part, the reading of the lofty ideals, clearly identified as ideals that we are striving for, but due to the garbage elements of society, may never be able to achieve. You’ll note that these concepts would be presented in plain, understandable language, not complicated legal jargon.
The reading of the principles wouldn’t be dead and stagnant, but then again, the lofty ideals would never change. Things like, as an example, the first ten amendments to the U.S. constitution, called “The Bill of Rights.” But otherwise, it would be a process where people were encouraged to come up with ideas for more principles.
We’d emphasize, in our principles how, without significant exception, people can be corrupted and compromised by money, blackmail and extortion. People can be physically coerced, seduced, you name it. Families can be threatened.
We’d also be careful to discuss the “sensitive” things that no one seems to want to address: “The concept of judges is troublesome because, even with an honest judge, one might suppose a situation where the judge or his kin are threatened...”
It’s actually dangerous to have judges in their present form, for the very reason that they’re fallible, subject to threats, bribes, blackmail, extortion... Only a jury system makes any sense at all, with the jury having to justify its decision, published in a form accessible to the public.
The crux of the matter would be to recognize the problems, keep people aware of them, and always to seek solutions.
Society and Government
One unacceptable failure that almost every member of society, world-wide, has, is, misunderstanding the concept of “freedom.” A lecturer spoke of how a group of people discussing government were all adamant about “freedom.” Except in their particular area of obsession. For example, they’d say, “Everyone has to be free to do what they want (where it doesn’t interfere with others’ freedom), but in this one particular area...” Then they might say, “Oh, we have to ban booze. It causes so many problems...” Then someone else would say, “No, we saw how that failed in prohibition, but we can’t allow anyone to burn the flag.” “Oh, no. We must ban buttsext,” says someone else, who might even say, “I’m an emergency surgeon and buttsext is rupturing sphincters all over town, so I know what I’m talking about!”
Freedom is freedom, with everyone free to pursue happiness and all that good stuff, but it also means taking the bad with the good, because people have to also be free to make mistakes. The big issue is the god complex, with people thinking they personally can (and should) change the world. (Which would be the one thing we should ban if we could.)
Any attempt to reform society for the better has to recognize that the world will always have a large contingent of arrogant and self-righteous meddlers.
A Tool to Assess Sincerity
Trump was on the other night. He’s obviously a talented speaker, and he hardly seems to age, or tire. Anyway, he promised to rid the country of fascists, communists, and other assorted trash. He made a lot of promises last time, too, that went unfulfilled. But how do we know, confidently, that he’s insincere, or unwitting (and either way, he’s obviously disqualified for the job of president)? First off, above all, an honest player would describe how one might achieve these miracles. Also, he’d need to address the failures of his actual presidency, which he blamed on others. Well then, how does he plan to address the formidable obstacle of these “others,” the next go-round?
So simple. All politicians can be judged by simple methods like that.
Autos
Here is an example of the lunacy of what should be a fairly simple repair, costing half or more of the value of the vehicle, making it effectively a “write-off.” The simple alternative to out-of-control costs like that, is that all car-makers should have a facility that takes in wrecked vehicles of their own manufacture, paying back the salvage value (determined by an independent assessor), then strip out every re-usable and repairable component. These parts would then go into another assembly line where they would make re-manufactured vehicles, then sell them as re-manufactured vehicles, with warranty. This system would also motivate the makers to improve the ease with which these things could be disassembled, making smaller repairs easier for everyone.
This would be quite a new industry for the ever-whining automakers. It’d be nice if they could also apply it to the old classics. Lots of people would like to drive an old classic Flair Bird or C2 Vette or Barracuda, for example, especially if it were equipped with a new, modern power train.
In the Rivian case, however, the owner had taken the vehicle to a con-man, because it turned out that a dent-repair guy could do the job for less than one-fifth the cost.
Old vehicles can be wonderful, but there’s a psychosis involved when someone spends $100,000+ to repair an old Charger, Nova or similar, when those things sold for only a few thousand, new. It’s a misappropriation of resources. It’s not a case of “someone has the right to spend their money as they see fit,” it’s indicative of a big problem: saps have been lured into blowing big bucks on repairing old hoopties, by these big auction scams with old cars selling for hundreds of thousands. Those could well be money laundering schemes.
If you want the look of a particular old classic, the answer is the companies that produce those steel or carbon fiber reproductions, though it looks like the carbon one for the ’70 Charger is almost $200k! Still smarter than spot- and patch- welding all those gossamer old corroded steel panels, which seems a fool’s errand.
No Cars in Downtown Areas
They might say that’s some sort of infringement on rights, but it isn’t. Downtowns belong to the people, not cars. The downtown core just isn’t that big, it’s no infringement. Space is at such a premium they have to build those expensive, tall towers to make space. But probably the only reason we don’t already have restrictions, is because the rich want to stay isolated and not rub shoulders with the hoi polloi.
Downtown land values are too steep to waste catering to cars, when there are alternatives. Public transport, taxis, bikes. For buggers sake, people can get off their lazy asses and walk a few blocks in areas like that, stop the lazy whining!
Cleaning
Parts Washers
Speaking of cars... When I see cars designed with all those vents, scoops, slats, spoilers, and other paraphernalia, I cringe. Don’t they know or care that someone has to wash that crap? And don’t get me started on the dash!
With that in mind, in addition to dishwashers for the kitchen, we could also have large “dishwashers,” actually parts washers, which would be equipped with an extreme gentle cycle, and equipped with a closed cycle to allow you to use other fluids, such as non-flammable/non-toxic solvents for a cleaning solution, instead of water. You could situate these machines in the basement or garage. Hard-to-clean areas of cars and houses could be built to be disassembled so you could wash them in this washer. Headlight and taillight covers, grilles, dashboards, light covers, light fixtures, etc.
Things like those industrial parts washers exist, but we’re talking a consumer appliance.
Shoe Washers
The Japanese are right to take off their shoes before entering the house, but why not a motorized brush and soapy water system that you step on before entering a house, to clean the soles of your shoes for you?Insect Removal
We’re also pretty cavalier about insects getting in the house. Okay, this is a wild fancy, but after some consideration, it seems it might be possible to mount something like an old jet engine to vents in the house ceiling, fire it up, and hoover up all the mosquitoes? It would work, though the cost, noise, and other factors might make it impractical, but wouldn’t it be worth it to be rid of those creepy buggers?
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