It is crucially important to have something to fight for instead of just resisting. Having a long term goal is what keeps us motivated and resilient in light of near term setbacks. Sadly American politics is utterly bereft of a bold vision at the moment (the recent book Abundance falls comically short of its title).
A great inspiration for a positive vision of the US today can be found in the original Star Trek from the late 1960s. We are still a long way from some of the extreme technological capabilities, such as the Tricorder, and others such as the Transporter may never be feasible. But a lot of what was depicted is here today, including powerful laser beams and computers with voice interfaces that are vastly knowledgeable.
So what would a Star Trek vision for the US look like? The following is my top of mind list. I look forward to comments from readers and expect to revise this over time:
Energy too cheap to meter - build out solar, storage, high voltage DC transmission and nuclear aggressively. Invest in making fusion a reality.
Highly automated production with short supply chains - build out robotic assembly of machined and 3D printed parts
Universal basic income - everyone can take of their needs with all work optional but replaces all other social programs, available only to citizens
Simplified tax code - tax all forms of income equally and do away with deductions, allowances, exemptions
Modern transport infrastructure - build a high speed rail network
Reclaim land - rewild parts of the Midwest by subsidizing nature rather than ethanol, green the western deserts
Cheap high quality healthcare - reduce cost and speed up time for drug approvals, allow AI to practice medicine
Free education - encourage states to provide vouchers for personal AI tutors and to make it easy to start new schools
Small, highly efficient federal government - focus on defense, national digital ID, balanced budget
Mandatory social and community service - bring people from all walks of life together for at least 1 year
Non-interventionist and collaborative stance - participate in international efforts only as part of a large coalition and work with other nations on global issues
Spacefaring - invest in in cheap and reliable launches, assemble larger spaceships and stations in orbit, land on Moon and Mars
My plan is to turn each of these bullet points into a separate blog post. The posts will lay out the rationale and start to sketch out what it would take to achieve this over the course of a decade. If you think that some of these are far too ambitious for a decade, I suggest you consider what the US achieved in terms of capital mobilization during World War II.
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