If you had to remake society, what would you do?

Answering the question truthfully, could get a person in a whole lot of trouble.

Everyone would be allowed to correct every one else’s kids in matters of manners, respect and politeness.

Make everyday a holiday where people don’t have to work, go to school, or stress themselves to make a living. Just have fun. Enjoy in all of life’s pleasures and not worry about tommorow. All this while people are still able to grow and subsist, live in harmony, and raise kids who are mannerful, polite, and good. I know that sounds totally unrealistic, irresponsible and undisciplined, but in my dreamworld that’s how things would be. Lol.

Public stoning for forgetting to send thank you cards.

or maybe it’s the barbiturates

I would abolish all monetary systems. Replace the idea of land ownership with land stewardship. Nations would not exist as separate entities, there would be no borders to dispute. Human rights now would include public transit, all forms higher education, computer and internet access. All plants would be legal to cultivate. World citizenship (privileges and voting rights) would require two years or more serving the planet in the military or police service. There would be egalitarianism for women and men, and all skin pigmentations.

Sustainability would be law. There would be consequences for poor choices for the planet and rewards for the contributions made to the planet by individuals. Agriculture would be completely rethought. Everyone would work, but there wouldn’t be jobs as there are today. Tasks would be carried out by everyone, people would have “jobs” to do, and work. Everyone’s career would be to make the world a more sustainable, and more prosperous, in which way they saw fit. Thoughtful design would be required for everything manufactured. Resources would be treasured, especially natural resources. Green cities would be built to accommodate the population increase. Africa would have paved roads. LA would not.

We would invest in ourselves, the human species, the planet, in all forms of life. We would build flexible and efficient infrastructure. Plastic would be replaced with more sustainable materials, ones that would biodegrade. Our landfills mined and sorted for useful materials, not our mountains. In order to have a public opinion about something, you would have to have knowledge of the subject. You childhood cannot officially have taken place unless you skinned your knees at some point. Tape would not come in the color red. Everyone would own one tree, that they planted as a youth, that they would guard with their lives. Transparency, and honesty would be mandatory for anyone with any form of authority or power. Innovation and science would be encouraged. Judges would be allowed to judge, no mandatory minimums. Fistfights would be excusable in specific situations. Duels would be legal.

&

Onions would be illegal.

Rainbows would be required to rocket out of everyone’s ass and everyone would get their fair share of muffin sunshine and gumdrop trampolines.

…& chipped beef in cheese sauce would be illegal.

Whatever Lemmy says is the law of the land. If he commands you to eat the rich, lemmydammit, you do it.

Anyone that wanted to be ‘civilized’ would be asked to stay where they were. I would move to the other end of the valley, and put up a no tresspassing sign.

Well, here’s my world:
I would get rid of money (too). People would work because they were following their passions, not because they have to work: wage slavery. Since we all have naturally diverse interests, that freedom wouldn’t cause a problem, there’d be a natural spread. It would make the world better, because people would care about what they’re doing, not figures on paper. Quality would be valued over quantity; mass production wouldn’t exist.

People would focus on doing what they find best to do, because they don’t feel tied to meaningless jobs by the necessity of earning money.
They’d be able to let go of things they found out later weren’t so good (fossil fuels as one example) because they would be able to move to better things.

We would use alternatives to fuel that don’t pollute, we would stop putting cheap fillers and preservatives in foods, we would stop taking shortcuts, because we would be working for the betterment of everyone, and the enjoyment of ourselves.

Change would come quicker because we’d have less system weighing down on our imaginations.
Life wouldn’t be complicated, because we wouldn’t make it so. It would be fullfilling.

We would work around nature, not destroy it and build on top of the earth we killed:
—Transportation would be creative. In forests, rather than chop down the trees, a zipline system would be built that wouldn’t interfer with the rest of the environment, and people would all have their own thin, small, yet strong, halter they attach and disconnect to fly through the trees. Instead of railways being built and roads being paved, transportation would take to the sky.
—Instead of miles and miles of suburb, housing would be integrated into the natural landscape. Tree houses, cave houses, underground houses. They’d be smaller, just big enough for what you need, and the world would be our collective ‘yard.’
No one would own land, it would all be the Earth, and we’re just living on it with all the other life.

We wouldn’t sacrifice any technology or art or culture. We would embrace, integrate, improve. People would be free to invent and create, and be exposed to the rich culture of the entire human race.

With that exposure and openness, everyone would be free to, and be encouraged to, be fully themself.

Education would be handled much differently. The intent would be to open minds to wonder and possibility rather than to fill with knowledge and have-tos. People would be encouraged to listen to their inner self and where it pulls them, and along their journey of self discovery, and all of life, they’d get to experience a little of everything the world has to offer.
I don’t think there would be institutions where kids have to sit down all day, and definitely no textbooks where the information of the world has been minced, biased, watered down. It would all be natural. The experts of every field (experts because they want to be) would get to instruct the kids, and the kids would learn the basics of it all. We’d all be very educated, enjoying the process, and left with a richer and more fluid mind. Higher education would be deciding where to turn your focus, how pinpointed the focus would be, who to have as mentor(s).

Government would be truly among the people. I imagine a website where everyone gets easy access to an equal say for everyone else to hear—I guess kind of like here on Fluther. Putting the internet’s capabilities to good use, to connect people. Things would be decided collectively. If that’s too large of a scope, perhaps there would be smaller areas each with their own self-government. World meetings would be held annually where a random, or nominated group that no one ran to be in and that changes every year, would gather together.

And we wouldn’t fear the natural world. Just as we embrace each other we would embrace other life. Maybe not as literally (no hugging a lion) but with the same appreciation. We’d give them space, understand them, not shoot/squish/trap them.

Wow that’s longer on paper than in my mind! Yikes…

Absolutely nothing.

Hundreds of thousands of people, fucking up over hundreds of thousands of years, is why we are where we are now. I want no part of it.

i will sit back and do what i do best, drunkenly bitch about how it should be done without actually doing anything. hey, i should run for public office!

The role of government would be to keep up infrastructure, judicial, and protection/defence. Also, what could be done by the private sector would be done by the private sector.

First, we kill all the lawyers…

I couldn’t resist.

Cool! I’ll defend you @WasCy!

@WasCy, @Dutchess_III – As a lawyer, I’d kill the two of you.

Then, after that was out of the way and I was safe – I’d let things go on as they were…telling people that if they acted in a manner that harmed another, they’d get the boot to one of the “civilized societies.”

@Dutchess_III “Everyone would be allowed to correct every one else’s kids in matters of manners, respect and politeness.” well said honey. When I was young none of us kids ever got away with anything lol, there was always a neighbour around, I miss that terribly. Kids were safer because of it. In the same way, I remember when I was young in our little street whenever one of the women had a baby, for the first couple of weeks after she brought the baby home, each of the women in our street took turns going to her home in the morning to make sure her other children were fed, washed, dressed and off out the door to school. It was such a lovely close little network where everyone in our street knew everyone else. Mums could go off shopping or whatever because there was always at least one neighbour lady sitting on her verandah knitting or sewing or reading so that meant there was a pair of eyes watching out for all of us kids. Neighbours (even good ones) nowadays say hello in passing, and mostly keep themselves to themselves. It’s become such an isolated, lonely world, it seems to me.

As to the question, @DancingMind is right, we have the internet, put it to good use. Forget the squabbling over whether to use first past the post, AV or proportional representation to elect our MPs to parliament, there should be in every single household a control panel to allow us to vote on issues so that it is the peoples voice that is heard not party whips, lobby groups or big business buying legislation to smooth the way for more profits. While we’re at it, can this control panel also have a big red button that you can use to give any MP a good sized electrical charge when they act like a toddler because (if anyone else watches BBC Parliament.. its not really just me is it?) these people are being paid over 3 times the national wage plus all of the expenses and they do at times act like total buffoons! The big red button would at least be able to keep them awake during debates…. hang on… we need a big red button for the House of Lords too, those guys use that chamber as a nap room, while watching I always half expect blankies to be handed out :-)

You know expanding on the internet idea, so long as security aspects are improved, and each control panel recognises each registered voter (think science fiction… think chip implanted in the hand or something similar) we wouldn’t need these overpaid buffoons at all actually. Maybe some day eh? proper government with proper representation of citizen’s views.