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.

  • buddap [none/use name]
    ·
    1 year ago

    someone else brought this idea up a couple weeks ago but its been stuck in my brain ever since:

    1. seize all gold stores from the wealthy/governments of the world
    2. bring the best and brightest computer system engineers and scientists together and develop a new standard of solar-powered computing that emphasizes durability, accessibility, and low power consumption above everything else.
    3. melt down all the gold from 1 and use that stockpile to construct public computer services and interfacing devices that are handed out or otherwise available for everyone to use cheaply
    4. slowly spin-up new solar-powered datacenters, decommission/cannibalize existing datacenters and sell off those resources to recoup the costs of the project.

    thats the view from 10 billion feet up. i think it would be pretty neat.