If you were in charge...
POSTED BY: SoupCatcher
UPDATED: Tuesday, May 3, 2005 08:30
VIEWED: 14890
PAGE 5 of 8
Quote:
Originally posted by piratejenny:Quote:
Just out of curiosity what would that "Basic Standard of Living" mean exactly?
a basic standard of living would simply be that even the poorest would have decent housing, food, and healthcare
the standard wouldn't be homelessnes or third world living conditions..everyone would be gauranteed at least a decent safe clean place to live, food, and healthcare!!
the quality of a persons life, would actually mean something!!!
Okies..sounds good:) A few questions first:
1) What constitutes Decent housing and food though? After all each person has their own definition of decent food and housing. If Bill Gates or Bill Clinton had to eat the food I eat and Live in the House I live in..they would both commit suicide. If I had to eat the food and live in the House that Richard Simmons lives in, I would probably commit suicide.
2) How much space will EACH housing unit take up? Will we have to clear forests to build these decent houses? Who exactly gets to build these houses? Will there be grass? Do we get to have pets too? Can we say no to having pets?
3) Does each person get their own room AND bathroom in this decent housing? What do we get in these rooms?
4) What amenities are we all entitled to? Big Screen TV WITH Digital Cable? Surround Sound?
5) Washer and Dryer? Big or economy?
6) Computers in each room? Dell, Gateway or Alienware?
7) Dish Washer? Human washed or electronic?
8) Do we also each get a Decent vehicle to drive? My 2005 Grand Prix GTP is pretty decent
, Though I could really really get into one of those new Ford GT's 9) What do I have to do and how often, to get this decent Housing and Food? The less the better my Papa always says..
10) What can I have that noone else is entitled to? What do I have to pay to have this entitlement?
PS.. Nachos with Beef and peppers hopefully shows up on your list of decent food?! *begs and pleads
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I would make citizenship contingent on reading comprehension at the eight grade level. In fact, I would make gun ownership contingent on reading comprehension!
A rifle in the hands of an idiot is a dangerous thing!
Hehe..only 8th Grade reading level? Does that mean that all 8th graders get to vote and own guns?
Personally, a rifle in the hands of a deranged genius is a dangerous thing as well:)
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Quote:If only we had some Mechanical Engineers working for us. Some of our biggest problems are a lack of proper engineering methodology. We’re all physicists; academics classically trained in purist physics. Not a single one of us knows how to think in terms of simple top-down engineering design. Always the big picture with us. But I digress.
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
Basically, I was just curious to see how well an effective mechanical engineering design process translated to asynchronous political design. I made some initial modifications (no shared definition of the problem space, benchmarking pretty much assumed, etc.) and kind of just jumped straight to the middle of conceptual design.
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Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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SOUP: WAIT!!! The idea is great, the timing... well, it IS just before tax time. Been too busy with taxes and IEPs and helping out a friend and getting my car fixed to give this any thought whatsoever. But I have lots of ideas. Hang out for another weekend.
Once we get past the brainstorming phase and the compilation phase, do we get to the tweaking and winnowing phase? (yuh? please??)
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Quote:
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
My main goal was just to try an experiment to see what kind of space we could create in terms of proposed solutions. So I was hoping for just a huge number of suggestions (leaving practicality aside for the moment). It's been my experience that the nucleus of creative and realistic solutions are often discovered following the suspension of judgement. I figured (based on the observation that fireflyfans are a pretty diverse bunch representing a shitload of knowledge) we could cast a wide net.
Ah...I misread. I thought you wanted more volume to the explanations, not the number of ideas. If I had known what you had in mind...
Sorry for any inconvenience! Quote:
Sometime over the weekend I'll do some content analysis of what we came up with (probably something pretty simple influenced heavily by alcohol: typing up sentence summaries, cutting them out, and then moving them around on a table and grouping them to see what categories drop out). Since we already appear to have gelled around the category of education that's probably where I'll stop. If I were doing this for real we would then negotiate some metrics to apply to some of the more realistic proposals to help in deciding what to move forward on in more detail. That's the point where judgement is brought back in.
Sounds cool.
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Conner- that's assuming eight graders read at the eight grade level!!
Actually, as part of my proposal I would make voting contingent on eight grade reading comprehension AND age 25 limit! Same age limit for military service. Research has shown that the human brain is still developing and vulnerable to chemical and environmental insults until about 25. That's why it's so much easier to get hooked on smoking when you're 19 then when you're 25. 19-year-olds believe they will live forever- that's why they make such good cannon-fodder.
I would take a VERY hard look at the laws of incorporation. The original idea is that corporations would be synthetic persons- able to assume liability and so forth. But over the years, coporations have become "super persons":
ultra-favorable tax laws
limited liability
responsibilties narrowed to fiduciary duties
"super free speech" backed by billion$$
enhanced legal protection (if a corporation steals from you that's a misdemeanor, if you steal from a corporation it's an automatic felony)
no restraint on corporate invasion of your privacy
I'd either knock corporations down to individual rights, or bring individuals up to corporate rights, but at the moment it's not even a level playing field!
I'd probably eliminate IP laws. They've been abused by corporations and no longer serve the purpose specified in the Constitution. The promise of money does not motivate ground-breaking research. I would increase grants to universities instead, where the real developments occur.
I'd pull our troops out of Iraq in a heartbeat, and close most of our military bases abroad, and stop militarily interfering in foreign countries unless our interests were TRULY at risk. (None of this "spread democracy militarily" bullshit. You cna spread democracy in other, better ways.)
I would reduce the work week to 35 hours.
I would institute single-payer, universal health insurance. As it stands, the health insurance sector is bleeding the rest of our economy dry and making us uncompetitive. In addition to 10% profits, health insurance companies have 30% "administrative" costs and they provide no service whatsoever. Also, the government as consumer could prolly negotiate a 15-20% reduction in medication costs. If we could provide health insurance with the same efficiency/ economies of scale as we do Social Security (6% admin costs) - and I see no reason why not- we would ALL get health insurance at less aggregate and per capita cost.
I would institute national standards of health care.
I would define "free speech" as the speech you do not have to PAY to distribute. That means standing on the street corner or opining on the inet. Anything else is "advertising".
Lots and lots more money for education. We SAY we're for education- maybe we should put our $$ where our mouths are.
SIMPLIFY THE TAX CODE. Give individuals and corporations the same breaks: Any entity (whether it is a family, business or farm( taking in less than $50,000 per year pays no taxes whatsover.
RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE. The economy is pulled by demand far more than it is pushed by investment. Consumer spending makes up 70% of the GNP. Despite the mantra of "trickle down", our fearless leaders in government know that. Look at what happened in the weeks immediately following 9-11- it suddenly became our patriotic duty to shop till we drop!!
I would seriously look at the whole concept of stock ownership. Publically-traded companies are under tremendous pressure to show quarterly profits which makes it very difficult to pursue long-term market or product development.
More to come!
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A couple of special ones:
Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, and Madonna will be banned from ever singing again. All of their albums and singles, to include CDs, Vinyl, cassettes, eight-track, electronic tape, DVD, or any other medium, including all electronic copies of said, will be confiscated. They will be ground down until no single piece is larger the one cubic millimeter, then they will be mixed with equal quantities by volume of magnesium shavings which will then be burned in a furnace with an oxygen rich environment. The ashes will be separated by molecular weight, flushed with tritium and sealed in steel reinforced lead canisters with garlic and holy water, which will then be encased in concrete no less then one meter thick. The concrete blocks will be buried one thousand meters below a mountain in the deserts of Arizona, which will then be filled in with concert, surrounded by an electric fence and populated with rabid, giant, flesh-eating, mutant rodents.
All Hollywood “activists” who complain about the environment and SUVs will immediately have all vehicle(s) with engine(s) greater then 2L/4cyl auctioned off. The proceeds of which will go to industries earmarked for environmentally friendly upgrades. Then all housing of any kind above a total of 1500 square feet will be confiscated and either donated to churches, homeless shelters and/or orphanages or be torn down for material to be donated to the Fannie Mae Foundation. The aforementioned activists may never again own a car or car(s) exceeding a total of 2L/4cyl engines or a house or house(s) exceeding a total of 1500 square feet.
Addendum: (16apr05 1203h - 1803Z)
And Norah Jones, Billy Joel, Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Waylon Jennings, Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Dean Martin, Aerosmith and the Beatles will be declared Saints and receive the Nobel Prize in Music.
Also we will create a Nobel Prize in Music.
-------------
Qui desiderat pacem praeparet bellum.
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Oh, and Firefly would be back as a series!!
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Conner- that's assuming eight graders read at the eight grade level!!
Actually, as part of my proposal I would make voting contingent on eight grade reading comprehension AND age 25 limit! Same age limit for military service. Research has shown that the human brain is still developing and vulnerable to chemical and environmental insults until about 25. That's why it's so much easier to get hooked on smoking when you're 19 then when you're 25. 19-year-olds believe they will live forever- that's why they make such good cannon-fodder.
I would take a VERY hard look at the laws of incorporation. The original idea is that corporations would be synthetic persons- able to assume liability and so forth. But over the years, coporations have become "super persons":
ultra-favorable tax laws
limited liability
responsibilties narrowed to fiduciary duties
"super free speech" backed by billion$$
enhanced legal protection (if a corporation steals from you that's a misdemeanor, if you steal from a corporation it's an automatic felony)
no restraint on corporate invasion of your privacy
I'd either knock corporations down to individual rights, or bring individuals up to corporate rights, but at the moment it's not even a level playing field!
I'd probably eliminate IP laws. They've been abused by corporations and no longer serve the purpose specified in the Constitution. The promise of money does not motivate ground-breaking research. I would increase grants to universities instead, where the real developments occur.
I'd pull our troops out of Iraq in a heartbeat, and close most of our military bases abroad, and stop militarily interfering in foreign countries unless our interests were TRULY at risk. (None of this "spread democracy militarily" bullshit. You cna spread democracy in other, better ways.)
I would reduce the work week to 35 hours.
I would institute single-payer, universal health insurance. As it stands, the health insurance sector is bleeding the rest of our economy dry and making us uncompetitive. In addition to 10% profits, health insurance companies have 30% "administrative" costs and they provide no service whatsoever. Also, the government as consumer could prolly negotiate a 15-20% reduction in medication costs. If we could provide health insurance with the same efficiency/ economies of scale as we do Social Security (6% admin costs) - and I see no reason why not- we would ALL get health insurance at less aggregate and per capita cost.
I would institute national standards of health care.
I would define "free speech" as the speech you do not have to PAY to distribute. That means standing on the street corner or opining on the inet. Anything else is "advertising".
Lots and lots more money for education. We SAY we're for education- maybe we should put our $$ where our mouths are.
SIMPLIFY THE TAX CODE. Give individuals and corporations the same breaks: Any entity (whether it is a family, business or farm( taking in less than $50,000 per year pays no taxes whatsover.
RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE. The economy is pulled by demand far more than it is pushed by investment. Consumer spending makes up 70% of the GNP. Despite the mantra of "trickle down", our fearless leaders in government know that. Look at what happened in the weeks immediately following 9-11- it suddenly became our patriotic duty to shop till we drop!!
I would seriously look at the whole concept of stock ownership. Publically-traded companies are under tremendous pressure to show quarterly profits which makes it very difficult to pursue long-term market or product development.
More to come!
*Rubs eyes*
*reads again*
*Rubs eyes*
Holy Cripes!! Signym..I think this is the first time I've ever read anything of yours that didn't have something I disagreed with in it. Well written and said!
PS:
If I were in Charge:
1) Bono would get Knighted.
2) Richard Gere would have his tongue removed along with that Gerbil he is rumored to be hiding
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