A Star Trek Vision for the US
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.
Image credit: Fandom
the country is gone, there is only the question of what comes next: (1) the thielverse version or (2) something else. obviously we want option #2 here. i believe it starts with a massive neo-luddite movement. this should not be interpreted as anti-technology, but rather technology coupled with a strong labor movement. pushing AI/tech without labor considerations will only get you lumped into the thielverse, rather than being able to leverage the enormous and growing populist, anti-thielverse movement that will be a force to reckon with in the years to come.
Number 10. Only as one can we build a better future. Division is our destruction.
I love number 7... btw I'm not waiting! AI has already given me farrrrrrrrr better medical advice than my human doctors.... Obviously I'm no fool and have triple verified any serious advice.! But yes, with AI "licensed" to practice and therefore with the associated gained trust healthcare costs can dramtically decrease and quality of care and diagnoses can dramatically improve!
Number 1 and Number 6 may imply it but they don't explicitly say "it"... By "it" I mean that I have always thought that if there were one thing you would do with limitless "free" energy it would be build and operate massive near-terraforming scale desalinization plants to provide limitless clean drinking water and agricultural irrigation. I'm sure there are much more transformative and exponential pile-on effects of near-zero energy costs but I've always thought there is nothing more necessary and primal than... water....
LOL... never had a paragraph.com account until now.... Not sure exactly why I entered "Zenvy" as my whatever-it-prompted-me-for... other than maybe someday I'll actually put something on Zenvy.com (-: [If I remember to keep renewing it LOL]
The Captain's Log is most utterly important. For education..many company owners have a journaling book or a book where they have their notes. I think thats the root of their success. Constructivist / Iterative thinking