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What's yours? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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.

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[-] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Train racing. No I will not elaborate.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I'm listening

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

with multi-track drifting of course

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

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?

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[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

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
[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

High speed rail running the 'spine' of the americas - people should be able to go from Alaska to the far end of Chille and not need to transfer (although one imagines a number of stops along the way)

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

obviously, this would also be paired with a lot more freight rail, with the goal of eliminating as much intra-americas cargo voyages as possible. Really, that would be the true aim of the project, but the high-speed passenger line would be the forward face of it.

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[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I would go hard on pushing public nudity as fine. I don't want to be naked in public but human bodies are normal and nothing to he ashamed of.

Americans would fucking hate it but they'll get over it.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Hell yeah unironically. Nudity is literally just not wearing clothes and is not worth being embarrassed about.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I don't consider normalizing nudity a crank position. Honestly I think it's going to end up being an essential part of feminism at some point, desexualizing and destigmatizing the body outside of sexual contexts. And it's 100% achievable. Nudity taboos are entirely cultural and vary widely over time and across cultures.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago
[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

The extent to which North Americans, among others, are absolutely incapable of being normal about nudity is disheartening in the extreme.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

what's that quote on women's satisfaction with sex in the GDR?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I feel like there would be a crimewave of public wanking

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[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I would put arcades in the public libraries and by extension nationalize professional gamer-gulag

Yes id still do the rail/green energy/mass housing megaprojects, but those arent crank enough

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I would be like Hoxha but build earthships everywhere instead of bunkers.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

A circular underground tunnel for bikes. Cyclists have little umbrellas that they open up when they enter the tube and everyone rides clockwise. There are mudflaps at the entrance and exits.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Reading other comments, don't put me in charge.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

ghibli socialsim.. comfy

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

So many agroecological community gardens, so many communal kitchens, bread ovens, and collective food system infrastructure. All food is now grown in agroforestry systems where the farms are also biodiverse refuges for fauna and flora. I would be the single-minded food dude, like corn-man-khrush but for mindful food production.

Also, everyone learns (from other people) to forage local herbs and mushrooms.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Lithium in the water supply makes a dent in the suicide numbers, but it's been a long time since I was crazy enough to put real thought into it.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Putting lithium salts into the water supply maybe isn't actually the worst idea in the world. It definitely would need more study in terms of how this might impact people taking medications which interact poorly with lithium.

I think the real answer is that people need better access to mental healthcare.

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[-] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Just put battery in your water supply think-about-it

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[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)
[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Weird, I used to take lithium on prescription and I'm like 80% water.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

humans aren't 80% water in the same way a nearly full glass of water is.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Okay but that lithium pill isn't going to set a nearly full glass of tapwater on fire either

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

it's probably not pure lithium. And also it only burns in proportion to the amount of lithium you put in but lithium and water causes a fire

plus anti-depressants have side effects and medication can interact with other medicine people take so probably just make anti-depressants freely available but you need to get them from a pharmacist is the best way

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Lithium in pharmacology specifically refers to lithium salts, usually lithium carbonate or lithium citrate. It's not elemental lithium but it is still just called lithium, regardless of which salt is prescribed. Clarification is usually done by specifying a brand example for generics.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

we told you about throwing car batteries in the ocean

we fuckin told you dawg

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Maglev network featuring a 100 mile long vactrain built into a mountain range that yeets a rocket into space (and eventually a space station that can refuel/launch the vac trains to a lunar station. That is correct, you will be able to take a train from Mumbai to the moon.)

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

El sistema everywhere

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Tubes!

  • All mail (letters and small items) to be delivered by a pneumatic tube systems. Civilian tubes are free. Business post cost increases considerably so only important things are sent. I don't want fifteen tubes landing a day with junk mail in them. Parcels to be delivered by traditional post people, but better compensated and with less punishing rounds thanks to lower amounts of corporate mail.

  • New tunnels beneath water to be made of indestructable glass like an aquarium. Other policies will have reduced pollution and helped rewild the rivers and oceans for more to see. More underwater tube tunnels to be built to reduce reliance on planes and boats.

  • Vertical mega-gardens/farms in transparent towers. Tops extend upward to save space and capture sunlight, bottoms extend downward for natural geothermal warming to reduce energy consumption. Different ambient temperatures based on geothermal depth would allow for growing plants and produce native to different climates. No more shipping flowers or fruit across the planet! More tall green towers! See argriculture happen in real time!

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this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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chapotraphouse

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