Grandiose Schemes

I'm sure most of us can remember pretty well when it was that we 'woke up,' if you will. I have found becoming aware of the absurd levels of manipulation and corruption prevalent in modern society to be simultaneously a blessing and a curse. While I am grateful for the knowledge I have gained, it is burdensome and I am not the only one who has expressed this sentiment. I find myself spending days in a stupor, attending class and work with a newfound animosity toward the consumer society in which we live. I look at people everyday and realize that the vast majority of us are hopelessly dependent on this machine called society that sucks the life out of everything and everyone.

Think about it. It's not as if we don't have the resources or capital to solve just about every problem that faces the average American today. The money that the government utilizes for whatever it feels like on any given day is ours and so logic would propound that said money should be spent in ways of our choosing. Yet this is not the case, and our only real wall are the people in government who claim superiority over us by virtue of the fact that they run our government.

The government works for us. We own it. not the other way around.

So I got to thinking one day about how much better things could be if systems of support and governance were in place that were decided on by us or, at the very least in our best interest (heaven forbid).

I'm thinking on a national scale, and in terms of complete reform. If you were able to reform the social systems of the United States, what would you put in it's place?

The main focus I feel should be moving as far away from consumerist structuring as possible. I feel we have the potential for and very well should be (had corrupt elements not intervened) an intelligent, capable, and successful society.


For Example:

Housing -
Instead of hiring contractors or carpenters to build houses, therefore forcing you to either borrow excessively or pay through the nose, why is the average American not able to construct their own shelter? I figure the government could fund clinics or companies whose sole purpose is to educate you on all aspects of home building and provide materials (or means to obtain materials) so that a person may construct their own house. I'm thinking they could run programs from everything from house design to affordable energy. The government of the people should educate citizens on how to sustain themselves and provide them with simplified means of doing so.

I understand this is a rough idea and my lack of knowledge in home construction limits my scope of ideology. But you get my point. I truly believe we could do it better. Our government is either corrupt or incompetent and neither bodes well for us.

Anyone have ideas of their own? You can expand on mine or cover things like food, clothing, entertainment, education.

If you could completely reform society, what would you turn it into?

when it comes to housing or construction in general ... the emphasis is on safety. you probably are allowed to build your own house but if it doesn't pass council (or whatever you local govt body is) requirements ... it'll be condemned and you won't be able to live in it.

otherwise ... what's stopping anyone building houses and selling them only to have them fall down around the new owners heads?

reply to post by ll__raine__ll


The government is not our parents. They don't have to take care of us hand and foot to make sure we don't harm ourselves (not that they do in many other cases). I think it is up to the people to decide which purchases are good ones and which are not. Perhaps a council(or whatever) with building codes that is not mandatory that people can either buy constructions that follow the codes or choose to buy ones that don't.

Very good point. But it begs the question: why is it that you can 'probably' build your own house and not you 'can'? I know that people are able to build their own houses on their own property if they have the know-how. My point though is why don't most people know how to go about doing this. Why doesn't the government use those billions of dollars it apparently has lying around to make self-home building easier and more accesible. I feel that's something that should be emphasized, yet it appears as though it is one of the many things that is purposefully convoluded so people will say 'f-it' and pay someone else to construct it for them. I don't see a reason to remove saftey standards and whatnot as they're in place to keep us, well, safe.

And so I reiterate my original question: If you had control and the best interest of present and future America in mind, how would you rework society?

The government is not our parents. They don't have to take care of us hand and foot to make sure we don't harm ourselves (not that they do in many other cases). I think it is up to the people to decide which purchases are good ones and which are not. Perhaps a council(or whatever) with building codes that is not mandatory that people can either buy constructions that follow the codes or choose to buy ones that don't.

I like it. Personal responsibility is a must. While I agree with maintaining basic safety codes, a knowlegable and educated person should be able to determine for themselves what they accept as 'safe.'

The government works for us. We own it. not the other way around.

That's the kind of reasoning that makes people into allowing despots to govern over their land without any constraints. They work for us, so if they do a bad job we simply have to push the button and they will be fired... riiiight. When was the last time the US government had to obey to a massive popular decreet, or vote, or referendum? Bush was the less popular President in US history, despised even by many Republicans, but still he was able to go through TWO mandates without ever being limited or deprived of his powers. Why was'nt he fired if he works for you?

Representative democracy is total bullocks, a demented illusion that's just as gross as Santa Claus, but for supposedly educated adults.

reply to post by cancerian42


so once the 'non govt approved' house has changed hands a few times and records are either lost or non-existant ... what's stopping it being brought and sold by unaware buyers?

or say you built your own house and invited a tonne of people to your house-warming and the building collapses around all the party-goers heads? say they all died ... who do you think the families would be looking to for answers as to why that happened? why that was "allowed" to happen?

. When was the last time the US government had to obey to a massive popular decreet, or vote, or referendum? Bush was the less popular President in US history, despised even by many Republicans, but still he was able to go through TWO mandates without ever being limited or deprived of his powers. Why was'nt he fired if he works for you?

I don't disagree, but I think you misunderstood my post. I completely realize that the governance that we have now is a sham devoid of it's former glory. That does not change the fact that by law the government answers to the people.

But in saying this you must realize that the steps for accountability and control have been so hoplessley veiled and complicated that it is difficult to get anything done from the bottom. Compound that with the general withholding of information as well as the spreading of disinformation, and you come a little closer to realizing why this grand social experiment is falling down around us.

That being said, that is still not the focus of my post. This is a hyppothetical situation, and I thought that was clear in my op. Apparently not.

i mean - i do kind of hear what the thread author is saying. i spent the better part of last year renovating and restoring a dilapidated old house that was only fit for bulldozers when i started and i know what it is to have to jump through the seemingly absurd local govt requirements.

on the other hand - we have this massive fault line running straight down the middle of our country and apparently we're 50 years overdue for the BIG ONE to hit. when it does though ... a lot of lives are going to be saved due to our strict building code.

so once the 'non govt approved' house has changed hands a few times and records are either lost or non-existant ... what's stopping it being brought and sold by unaware buyers?

or say you built your own house and invited a tonne of people to your house-warming and the building collapses around all the party-goers heads? say they all died ... who do you think the families would be looking to for answers as to why that happened? why that was "allowed" to happen?

Why do you assume records will end up lost or nonexistant? In this era of computation? And still, the emphasis there is on personal responsiblity. If you're going to buy a 'non government approved house,' then I would think you would damn well inspect it yourself. Then the responsibility is all yours. Who is to blame for the death of all those party-goers? You are, for letting that many people onto a dance floor without knowing how much weight it could handle.

[edit on 15-12-2008 by CSquared288]

reply to post by CSquared288


yes exactly. you're responsible but that's little to no comfort for the friends and families who lost their loved ones is it?

is everyone who builds a non-regulation house/building going to alert every single person who comes into that house/building that it's 'non regulation'? could you guarantee that?

edited to add: in my lifetime i've been into literally thousands of houses and buildings, i'm sure you all have too. imagine if we'd have had to check the safety of all of those constructions before we entered them? imagine the time and energy spent having to do that? i probably wouldn't have bothered for myself but i'm damn sure i would check out the safety of any buildings my children are going to either enter, be in, work in or reside in. that alone would be a time consuming headache. but i believe taxes are paid to take these particular headaches away from us. it's a part of having and paying for "infrastructure".

[edit on 15-12-2008 by ll__raine__ll]

Originally posted by ll__raine__ll
so once the 'non govt approved' house has changed hands a few times and records are either lost or non-existant ... what's stopping it being brought and sold by unaware buyers?

The records can be kept by the councils that created them available for public review. It is up to the buyer to investigate the records before buying.

or say you built your own house and invited a tonne of people to your house-warming and the building collapses around all the party-goers heads?

I would inform the visitors to also check the records if there is doubt to the safety of a structure. I think it would probably be visible if the building was in that bad of a condition, or maybe it could be intentionally covered up, but in that case it would be the owner's fault more so than the visitors' since he/she knew it was not safe. The owner could be charged with murder.
You know we didn't always have building codes and very few incidents such as these occured.

yes exactly. you're responsible but that's little to no comfort for the friends and families who lost their loved ones is it?

is everyone who builds a non-regulation house/building going to alert every single person who comes into that house/building that it's 'non regulation'? could you guarantee that?

First off, why would you ask me if I could guarantee something as inane as that? You asked who would be to blame and I gave you your answer. I don't in any way feel it would be necessary everyone who builds a non-regulation house to inform visitors of such. But I do feel that those builders (assuming as you do that they care about the party-goers as well as their friends and family) would take the neccessary precautions before allowing large numbers of people into their home.

So I'll say it once more: personal responsilbity. And to address what you are alluding to, moral responsibility as well. You're coming from the perspective of the average unknowing joe building a house, while I'm thinking of the hypothetical educated joe who knows how to build his own house safely because the governing body that exists chose to teach him how to do so (which I mentioned in my initial post). You're asking what happens after said massive accident, and I'm saying that odds are it won't happen because the person who built it has a stake in it on many levels.

[edit on 15-12-2008 by CSquared288]

Originally posted by cancerian42
The owner could be charged with murder.

again i'll ask ... what comfort would that be to families who lost loved ones? it's not going to bring their dead back.

You know we didn't always have building codes and very few incidents such as these occured.

lots of countries either don't have building codes or don't enforce them. but then when they get hit with a magnitude 6 earthquake, such as india did not so long ago, hundreds of thousands of people die .... why do you think that is?

again i'll ask ... what comfort would that be to families who lost loved ones? it's not going to bring their dead back.

Again I still don't get your point. Why do specify the need for the comforting of the friends and families of loved ones lost in housing accidents? What comfort is available when people die in car accidents? from smoking? from malfunctioning machinery. Hell, where's the comfort when people die of cancer? The only difference between today's world and this hypothetical situation is that now the person cannot hide behind the company that built their house. They take (say it with me)

personal responsiblity.

lots of countries either don't have building codes or don't enforce them. but then when they get hit with a magnitude 6 earthquake, such as india did not so long ago, hundreds of thousands of people die .... why do you think that is?

And, again, if this hypothetical government for the people is doing it's job in the best interestof it's citizens, then I feel the education of self-home building would entail informing the potential builders of their available means of constructing 'earthquake-resistant' housing or whatever. We already have this technology, all it takes is the informing of the public.



[edit on 15-12-2008 by CSquared288]

reply to post by CSquared288


look i'm not trying to upset you here but i just don't believe you're actually grasping the enormity or possible consequences of what you're proposing here.

yes in an ideal world we'd all be allowed to do what we want and would be able to rely on "personal responsibility" to see us through.

but it only takes a few people who don't give a toss about things like that and they can wreak havoc on the rest of the community. hence we need laws, bylaws and all sorts of regulations to protect the greater community.

it sucks ... i know that much but the alternative is worse.

Originally posted by CSquared288

again i'll ask ... what comfort would that be to families who lost loved ones? it's not going to bring their dead back.

Again I still don't get your point. Why do specify the need for the comforting of the friends and families of loved ones lost in housing accidents? What comfort is available when people die in car accidents? from smoking? from malfunctioning machinery. Hell, where's the comfort when people die of cancer? The only difference between today's world and this hypothetical situation is that now the person cannot hide behind the company that built their house. They take (say it with me)

personal responsiblity.

lots of countries either don't have building codes or don't enforce them. but then when they get hit with a magnitude 6 earthquake, such as india did not so long ago, hundreds of thousands of people die .... why do you think that is?

And, again, if this hypothetical government for the people is doing it's job in the best interestof it's citizens, then I feel the education of self-home building would entail informing the potential builders of their available means of constructing 'earthquake-resistant' housing or whatever. We already have this technology, all it takes is the informing of the public.



[edit on 15-12-2008 by CSquared288]

because some things are foreseeable and avoidable. and that's expected in this day and age. ask the americans for example ... they sue over everything, lol ... they're the kings and queens of what's 'foreseeable and avoidable', lol.

I am not upset and I apologize if it seems that I am becoming so. However, you are talking without really saying anything.

but it only takes a few people who don't give a toss about things like that and they can wreak havoc on the rest of the community. hence we need laws, bylaws and all sorts of regulations to protect the greater community.

Please give me an example, in this context (as you seem to have some reason for saying this), of how a few people who don't care about personal responsiblity would wreak havoc if this system was nation-wide.

Originally posted by ll__raine__ll
lots of countries either don't have building codes or don't enforce them. but then when they get hit with a magnitude 6 earthquake, such as india did not so long ago, hundreds of thousands of people die .... why do you think that is?

People that live in countries like these will disagree, because they do not have the money to follow the codes. Some people have to focus their income on things like food. You can make excuses for why mandatory codes are best, but those who cannot afford houses like that are either forced to break the law or go homeless and ultimately many more lives in the predicted future would be lost due to homelessness than to earthquakes.

because some things are foreseeable and avoidable. and that's expected in this day and age. ask the americans for example ... they sue over everything, lol ... they're the kings and queens of what's 'foreseeable and avoidable', lol.

haha okay i'm bringing my tone down a bit. I myself have strayed a bit off topic. Yes you are very right. Today people will sue over anything. I believe though that this is because people defer responsiblity to the money (wherever it was spent) when it comes to these situations, forcing those searching for retribution to their only available outlet: lawsuits.

So do me a favor and think of it this way:

Assuming the vast majority of people in society were advocates of personal responsibility (in both practice and belief), how would you reform this nation for the better?

I'm not thinking in terms of how to get there or anything. View this as a completely separate universe with the only difference being that we are in control.

who knows, maybe the way to attain these ideas will emerge in time

[edit on 15-12-2008 by CSquared288]