Your perfect society

[SekoETC]

I started thinking about some stuff. There are lots of problems in the world, like over-population and cruel treatment of animals. So lets think of ideas for fixing the world. People might have a different image of what a perfect world would look like.

1. Fixing overpopulation

There are too many people and more are being born all the time. Even though in developped countries people are only having one or two children in the average and putting off having children until they're 30, poor and uneducated people are having kids because 1) they need them to bring in income or 2) they don't know how to use contraception or can't afford to buy it. So the problems are money and contraception.
My solution: Pay people to get sterilized. After you get your tubes cut, you don't have to worry about birth control (well, you could still get STD:s but you'll avoid those by sticking to just one partner).

For people who want lots of children, they should adopt. There's plenty of orphans in developing countries. Mainly people should adopt from nearby regions and within their own cultural and language group but often that's not possible.

2. Globalisation

I hate globalisation. Also transporting things a long way pollutes the air. My dad told me of my cousin buying a fur-lined parka from Greenland and noticing it was in fact made in Hong Kong. Also I've notised that many key chains and other souveniers sold here are made in China, even if they had Lappish themes.
My solution: It should be illegal or heavily taxed to import items that can be produced locally on the region on where they are sold. Souveniers should be produced by artisans, not in some sweatshops in Asia. They are already priced so high as if they were made individually. With increased import taxes, things like oranges and other exotic fruits would become more rare and expensive, but that would make them special. Just like back in the old days. People are taking everything for granted nowadays. Making things more expensive and only available certain times of the year would make them appreciate them more.

3. Quality standards and fashion industry

Clothes should be made to last. They need to be finished properly. Nowadays they have yarn hanging out of them and they come with extra buttons and beads and stuff because the original ones are sewn on so poorly that they're gonna come off anyway. Currently clothes are produced for the eye, not for durability. They are worn for a season, then discarded as out of fashion. This produces loads of waste and bleaching and dyeing the cotton cloth pollutes environment. Also model industry gives people a distorted image of what people should look like, because many designers are gay and what they want the women to look like is teenage boys. You may claim that I'm being offensive but what other explanation could there be?

Solution: Quality standards for clothing, each article needs to be manually checked. Fashion shows must be banned. Many of their productions are totally absurd and impractical. Clothing needs to be such that it can actually be worn. When clothing is made durable, there's no reason to throw it in the trash. Flea markets should be supported and using them should be made positive ("fashionable") instead of something that only poor people and hippies do.

4. End to unnecessary animal testing

I don't think it needs to be tested how something functions when swallowed in large quantities because sensible adult people do not eat beauty products, and kids should be taught not to do so as well. If someone is stupid enough to eat detergents or make-up and gets sick from it, it's their own fault or their parent's fault, not the fault of the producer since those products are not meant to be edible. Also makeup is not supposed to be put in the eyes. Makeup that goes near the eyes should be tested just there, near the eyes, not in the eyes. It should be tested on humans who can tell when it starts to burn and they want to wash it off. People should be paid for offering themselves as test subjects. This way unemployed people could make some money. Also the research on growing artificial tissue to be used as testing material should be encouraged. Also people should be informed that it's possible to be beautiful without makeup and that makeup in fact makes your skin age faster, just like hair dyes make the original color of your hair fade. If you want to look healthy, eat healthy and live healthy. Also companies shouldn't force their employees to use makeup (some do).

5. Stop maltreatment of production animals

We don't need factory farms. We should go back to how things were a few decades back. Animals should live outdoors with plenty of room to move around and do what's natural to them but they should also have shelters. Animals should be slaughtered on the spot or within a walking distance instead of being taken off in trucks. People may think that cutting a living animal's throat is cruel but in fact if you do it right, severing the major blood vessels leading into the brain prevents processing of pain and other stuff. The animal quickly blacks out. After that blood should be properly drained. After that is done, the meat doesn't spoil that quickly. The bodies could be taken away in a refrigerated truck if need be, but the goal is to produce food as close to the eaters as possible.

Also animals should be taken care of on a personal level. Also people in towns should at least once in their lives be taken to meet the animals that they eat, so that they would know that they are living, feeling creatures. If people would only be allowed to eat the animals they are ready to kill themselves, that might limit meat eating quite a bit but might be hard to arrange.

I'll continue later

[SekoETC]

5b. Genetic altering of animals

Increasing production through making animals eat more than what's healthy for them should be banned. If you want bigger animals, you should also make sure that their legs get stronger so that they can bear the increased weight of the body.

5c. Hunting and raising animals for fur

Raising minks and such in cages is unnatural and cruel. But I don't see why people couldn't hunt wild animals for their fur. The meat should also be used. If it's not fitting for feeding people then it can be fed to pets. Hunting small animals should be done in traditional means, by trapping, but traps should be checked regularly or they should have electronic surveillance so that when an animal is caught, it can be finished off or released before it has time to start chewing off it's limbs and such. Smart animals would avoid the traps and this encourages natural selection. Also the animals can live in their natural environment.

6. Traffic

Private cars should be limited to families of 4+ members. The concept of family can be expanded. If you and a group of friends are willing to register as a family, you can get a car. But private individuals could not own cars.

Public traffic needs to be expanded. On long distances train is the official means of transport. For medium distances and on scarcely populated regions, people should be transported by buses. The maximum distance to a bus stop should be half a kilometre. On urban regions a bus should come every 5 to 10 minutes. In the suburbs 10 to 15 minutes during rush hour and every half an hour otherwise.

Using bicycles and walking should be encouraged. Related to this, healthy people should not use the elevator unless they're carrying something big/heavy or going to a very high floor.

7. Trade

On suburban regions the maximum distance to a store should be 1.5 km, preferably less. On urban regions it should be every few blocks or so. On rural regions there should be a shopping van that comes weekly. There might be a need for a milkman separately. Shops would be small and only have basic items that people need in their every day lives. For more unusual products people could place an order either at the store or online, and the product would be shipped to their local store. People would be encouraged to have block meetings and decide what they would like to eat in the next month so that the shop can order things that people really like instead of having to order separate things for everyone.

Private enterprise should be regulated. It doesn't make sense that in my town there are dozens of kebab restaurants and none of them serve falafel! They all have the same selection! Also there are tonnes of hairdressers, and that's just silly. Coming up with individual ideas should be encouraged while the number of similar restaurants and stores in a town should be limited. If some enterprise is charging too much or giving poor service, another entrepreneur may opt for a chance to do it better/cheaper, but if they fail then they must switch to something original.

The money that comes from taxing imported items should be used to support the foreign producers and encourage them to create worker friendly conditions.

8. Work

Limiting import, encouraging local production, ordering personal care of animals and having manual quality inspection of products has already produced jobs in this vision, but if there's still need for creating jobs, the average work time of 8 hours can be taken down to 6. This means that they can hire one more person for every 3 there is now. Insurance costs and such should be arranged so that it doesn't cost any more to hire several people to share the work. Just think of this, which one is better, that one person gets depressed and watches TV all day while 3 people work their ass to the bone and don't get to see their kids growing up or that all of these people work the same amount, the pay is a bit lower but healthcare costs will also be lower and everyone is less likely to get a burn out.

Amount of nursing staff should be increased, they should get more respect and better pay. Tasks should be divided according to education so that assistants do the cleaning up and so, leaving educated nurses to do the medical work what they were trained for.

In general there should be an attitude campaign that teaches people it's valuable to take care of other people. If there was enough people willing to help then old people wouldn't have to wear diapers, they would have someone around to help them to the bathroom.

Also it should be possible for people to hire a cleaning lady or a maid for an affordable price, without having to be millionaires.

Since people spend so much time on their working place, there should be more affordable diners with good food. This is more healthy than people bringing in or buying sandwiches and drinking coffee all day.

9. Raising children

Kindergartens and play groups should be encouraged because that's where kids learn social behaviour, but the group sizes should be kept small, max 15 people, with enough people to look after the kids. Also kids shouldn't be there all day, they should have time to get to know their parents. This is eased by the shortened work days described in previous chapter.

People should not be left alone raising children. Getting pregnant without being in a solid relationship should be discouraged but sometimes it just happens, or sometimes you make kids with a person who dumps you or you realize you can't get along. In cases like that people should team up. I'd even encourage communcal living for single parents. Things will be easier when there's always someone keeping an eye on the kids, the kids have friends to play with and you can take turns in cooking and cleaning up.

Also there should be plenty of sex education and awareness campaigns for teens so that they wouldn't get pregnant when they're too young to be ready for it. There should be more means for setting rules and discipline. Many of the adults today are so childish that they can't set rules for themselves, let alone their children. That's a tough issue and I'm not sure what could be done to that...

10. Education

Groups should be kept small, max 25 or 26 students. For elementary school children the max distance to a school should be 1 km, for high school children 3 km.

Psychotic and abusive teachers should be discovered and kicked out but also teachers shouldn't be too soft. They should have methods for disciplining students in a way that matters, though not violently. There could be a janitor or security officials who could be called to remove a student from class if he is acting threateningly. Also students should have a place to go to when they're feeling restless and can't concentrate on teaching. Hyper-active children should be sent to run around the school and burn off excessive energy instead of letting them stay in class and ruin the lesson for everyone else.

There is a problem with overall slackness in schools. Students are tired. There should be proper ventilation in classrooms and the chairs and tables should be ergonimic. If students were required to stand up when the teacher enters the classroom as well as when they are answering a question, this would bestow an air of respect and also give them some physical exercise. Students should be required to sit up straight and not turn around to chat with their friends during class. If there's teamwork then that's different. But during lectures people should be silent and listen. Once it happened to me in upper secondary school (equivalent of senior high) that the psychology teacher walked out of class because no one was answering her questions. Well, teachers shouldn't ask stupid questions to which everyone knows the answer and can't really get no credit from answering. But if students are refusing to answer, there should be a written quiz since either everyone knows the answer or then no one does.

Physical education should be mandatory in all stages, including university. But for younger kids it should be about the joy of movement, not jumping exactly the right way or winning competitions. For older kids it should be about maintaining and raising your physical condition and introducing you to different forms of sports and exercise. A teacher should not tell a kid, especially a young one that he or she is doing something wrong, at least in front of other children. If there is a child who fails to grasp how some movement should go, they should be taught personally until they get it right. If something is done fast then it's hard to figure out what the heck happened. Things should be done slowly at first and not expecting everyone to be perfect.

There should be a chance for trying out different forms of handicrafts and forms of art. Art should concentrate on expressing yourself, not obeying strict orders. If someone doesn't want to do something then they should be given alternative options, instead of just saying either you do this or I drop your grade. In fact, arts and crafts should not be graded at all. Particularly good work can be given individual praise and less skilled performance can be given suggestions for improvements.

In Finland, the school day is max 8 hours, mostly just 6. Some days can be as short as 3 hours, now that's just silly. The day should start with gymnastsics to wake people up and make sure everyone breathes properly so that they won't be all sleepy in class. School should offer a warm lunch and it should be made locally instead of some central kitchen. Food should be nutritious and taste good. Also there should be a snack in the afternoon. After that there would be optional arts and crafts or sports. Students could choose what they want to do and it wouldn't be so that if you pick one then you can't do anything else. You could attend different groups on different days.

Kids should have kitchen and cleaning shifts so that they would learn to do some real work, and this will balance out all the sitting in class.

School uniforms might be a good idea, or at least there should be a dress-code. I think it's totally RIDICULOUS how teenage chicks wear jackets that are so short that they reveal the small of the back, and their jeans are so tight that they can't wear leggings or woolly pants beneath. Also they can't wear a cap because it messes up their hair. This leads into them shivering and hiding in the corridors or toilets because it's too cold to go outside. Umm, it wouldn't be cold if you dressed up properly. Also teenage girls should eat more. Banning fashion industry and offering some healthy role models should help. Young women should be taught what a woman ought to look like, certainly not like a boy. Woman have big tits and fat hips and that's natural!

It should be possible to get a job with less education than what's the average nowadays. It's silly that people have to spend the best part of their lives studying theory. At least here should be work placement periods ever since high-school, and not just once a year. How can kids decide what they want to do when they grow up when they haven't had a chance of exploriing different options?

11. The Internet

Spammers can already be tracked so they should be prosecuted. It should be made impossible to send tons of messages at once. Maybe email services could be regulated, and people could opt for only accepting email from service providers that have agreed to blocking mass postings. There's only so and so much messages a person can send in a day.

Pornographic material should be restricted to .xxx area but it should be possible for adults to gain access without a credit card. There should be international identifying services that are trustworthy and don't sell your information anywhere.

Internet users should be identifiable and even when someone is using a nickname or posting on anonymous boards, it should be possible to track them down if they're posting illegal or hateful stuff. A lot of people act like total retards because they think they cannot be tracked down. Well your IP address is recorded, and it can be banned but that also harms other people with the same ISP. People should be required to have an ID to access the Internet but only proper authorities could connect them to what sites they are visiting.

[wichita]

Yay! A socialist paradise!

Mä haluan asua suomessa. Ne voisivat tapahtua siellä, mutta ei ikinä olla amerikassa.

I'm all for encouraging public transport and stuff like that. A bit more regulation over private businesses would go a long way as well, but you can't go too far with it or it will no longer be private business anymore. It's a weird balance between governmental regulation and personal freedom. Both are prone to bouts of incompetence, because no matter what, a human being is involved as some point in the process.

It's such a complicated process, understanding the madness of society, that after twenty eight years I have just about given up. I used to write about this type of stuff for English assignments in college, much to the amusement of my professor.

[Doug R.]

So lets think of ideas for fixing the world.

Me as dictator. Was that so hard?

[formerly known as hf]

Re: Point 1:

Yes - the world is overpopulated. Given how the developed world consumes. We could support the number of people in the world. We'd just have to give up burgers...

'Hunger' in Africa is not because there are too many people, but because (briefly and simply) they have been forced by global consumption and commercial habits to produce for the West, rather than be self sufficient. Hence natural disasters and the global economy impact more now than they ever did.

As for not knowing about contraception (or not affording it) - that's not quite it. Female education has been shown to be the largest predictor of infant mortality and birth rate. Educate the women, enact cultural change. Gender enequality is one of the largest factors when it comes to birth control. no matter what the country.

2.
Can't disagree much with that. Food miles are likely to be the next big thing on the agenda. In the UK at least.
Though I disagree with 'anti-globalisation'
I prefer an alternative form. There's no denying some of the benifits - but it needs to be a form of globalisation that is internationally democratic, and has environmental welfare at the fore - not
1. Bannanas as the only product in South America / NAFTA
2. ???
3. Profit!

and similar...

3.
It's not just the fashion industry. Vast swathes of the consumer culture relies upon generating waste. (Quote, Ergo proxy anime: Generate waste citizens. It is your duty!)

4.
Cosemtic testing on animals? Does this happen anymore. I thought EU regulations controlled it. Oh, ok, BBC says by 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2661797.stm
So, yes, almost - yay. EU rockx0rz

5/6
Again, can't disagree much.

I'm going to skip the rest. I vaguely agree with the base agruments - but the particulars of solution sound too much like 1960s the Eastern Bloc for comfort...

11.
I disagree entirely. The Internet holds the greatest potential for free speech in all forms. It also has the potential to be the most important public domains for political activism (The Zapatistas anyone?), social change and cultural expression. It is a haven for many people, and has the potential to be a place where cultural norms can be challeneged and reformed.

Additionally, that does also mean it has the potential to be utilised for potentially dangerous forms of expression.

Yet having it controlled in any form, for any reason reduces this potential. We've already seen how commercial the Internet has become. Capital exchange structures most of the Internet in a greater way and far more subtley than it does in the 'real' world, and American socio-economic hegemony has increased. But the potentials are still there, and still grow. They cannot be lost.

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.



Seriously, Seko - you make many good points - but your solutions are pretty much Communism. That didn't work. It's not going to work.

Not that the answer is Libertarianism either. The state most certainly has a role to play - a central one and more powerfully than it does now. Largely in education, and in international integration - also in control of capital exchanges, especially flows of taxes and a support for public sector provision.

But this should never, ever, be at the expense the kind of individual liberty we have come to expect. Democracy works solely upon individual liberties and collective action. Neither should be limited in any form, and both should be encouraged.

Power and control in the way you are suggesting is ripe for corruption. never, ever, think that any body of power has any interest in mind other than the maintenance of that power.

Neither be blinded by rules and regultation. Rather, power is much more heterogeneous, much more owven into the everyday than any Act or legislation or tax. Change will almost always be bottom up and almost always go unnoticed.


An ideal society does not exist. It cannot exist. Such are the heterogenous desires of people. Cooperation, productive friction and compromise are the only solutions. We may only ever have varying personal dystopias, struggling for mythical future utopias.


Change is the only true nature of human society and culture. No one should ever be afraid to resist change they do not like, and fight, in any means they feel is necessary, for change they desire.

And yes, a terrorist might say that. I would agree. If I am prepared to be sympathetic to the causes and means of the Zapatistas, the various Palestinian movements and other groups labelled terrorists - I must be prepared to accept the rationale behind the IRA, Islamic and other bombings, if not their desires.

We currently live in my ideal dystopic society - as it is still one where there is potential for change.

[Antichrist_Online]

The perfect society is one without me in it to cock up and ruin the lives of those who improve mine....

[Doug R.]

11. The Internet

Spammers can already be tracked so they should be prosecuted.

The best solution is to create email domains that are for minors. Any pornographic spam sent to these domains would be the same as if your kid was handed a porno pamphlet on the street and prosecuted accordingly.

[mtm21]

The perfect society is one without me in it to cock up and ruin the lives of those who improve mine....

Not true!

[SekoETC]

That's a good point, Doug. But it might be hard to make kids stick to using protected emails and staying out of the adults only areas. Also there should be enough educative material on non-restricted sites so that kids are not totally severed off learning anatomy or seeing art that involves nudity.

Re: 11. My system is based on the trust that the people organizing it are non-corrupt and informed, not trying to censor things that aren't harmful.

Re: 1. If women are uneducated then the men should be considerate enough not to abuse them but to take care of them, as it was intended. Maybe society has always been perverted but in many cultures or at least in the Middle Ages, women were considered children, lesser in understanding and thus needing protection and restrictions. Well, I know from myself that I can think and I can make decisions and take care of myself although I'm vulnerable to some things but so are men. In cultures that don't want equality, men should live up to their position as caretakers. If they cannot fill that task then they deserve women rising to an equal or higher status.

Re: 4. Even if EU regulated animal testing, we can't say the same for China and other countries like that. And where do you think most of the stuff is produced?

I kinda prefer Communist ideology. People haven't managed to make it work because the leaders have been greedy and placing themselves above the masses but if it was possible to find non-selfish managers then it could work. When I hear things about East Germany, I feel nostalgic. I think they had a good start. They were self-sufficient. So they had to make cars with walls made of cardboard but at least they were local. And if you have to wait for months or years to get your own car then you'll be sure to appreciate it more. Although some people sold their cars at the black market before they even got them...

Back to the Internet: When I see people posting blogs about attempting suicide, or beating someone up at school, it makes me feel that there is not enough intervention. If a person is proud about being a bully and feeling no one can stop them, the society is very much perverted. Or how about a teenage girl telling how they went shoplifting in several stores, names mentioned, and how they got arrested and how, after her dad came to pick them up, they are planning to do it again. Kids who can't learn and whose parents cannot control them should be put in a facility. They can't feel that they can do anything because they're minors. If parents cannot put limits to children and teenagers, the authorities must. And kids must learn that in society there are certain rules and if you break them, you will be punished.

This is a utopia, a dream. Due to people being greedy and biased things could never work. But that doesn't mean we should stop dreaming.

People don't have to comment on my ideas. They may raise thoughts in your head but you could just start writing from your own perspective without stopping to read what others have said. It's your dream society, everyone has their own ideas.

[formerly known as hf]

My perfect society, then, if we are just going for blue skies dreaming - would be a 24/7 orgy of food, sex, food, more sex, more food, some quakewars, some defcon, some S.T.A.L.K.E.R (in a dream-world where it lived up to the hype of an emergent, seamless world), some system shock 2, copious amounts of hardcore trance, hardcore lo-bit, chiptune, some grime for good measure, and MUSE playing when I wish with the most elaborate stage shows ever, followed by even more food and even more sex of increasingly perverse and deviant forms.

But it ain't gonna happen, izzit?

[DELGRAD]

A perfect society is relative.
One person's perfect society can be anothers nightmare.
Hitler saw his society as perfect.
Do not search for what cannot be obtained.

[DylPickle]

Hitler DID obtain his perfect society.
...
It was just a little short-lived :p And it's a damn good thing.

Personally, I think communism is a wasted dream for anyone. It just straight up can't happen. A true commune could, perhaps, work out on a very VERY small scale, but even that would eventually come to an end, probably sooner than later. Power is appealing to everyone, even those that don't know it. You can be in that position and have all the "right' intentions, but you'll eventually just want to dominate.

My perfect society is impossible too, as the invisible hand doesn't always work as ideally as hoped for, and needs the odd outside influence.

Ending bullying and such is entirely cultural, however. I think it's possible. Barely so, but still. It could happen, but you'd need a HUGE step forward by a hell of a lot of people to make it even 95% socially unacceptable, all over the place. Sadly, it comes down to that power thing again. It will near certainly never change.

[DELGRAD]

Hitler DID obtain his perfect society.

Like I said, a perfect society is relative.
Hitler saw a perfect society and the Jews saw a nightmare.

And just so you know. I am not Jewish.

[DylPickle]

Yeah, I guess I could have (and should have) put in that I agree with that 100% Delgrad. For all I care, your statement above is universally correct, but even THAT is my opinion, relative to my personality and values. It's some kind of crazy circle, ain't it?

[DELGRAD]

It's some kind of crazy circle, ain't it?

Not so much cazy. Just∞.
All the same anyways.

My first say on this perfect society.
Parents are the mayjor player in this.
I myself found myself in a few nonproductive roles.
My parents taught me what was needed to overcome an prevail
over my miss deeds. Parents are a major key to a more
"perfect society".