My megaproject ideas are mostly pretty standard. I'd build a high speed rail network across North America, and build and expand metro and regional rail systems in and around every city. I'd turn all cities and suburbs into fifteen-minute cities. I'd decommodify housing, and build ten million units of public/social/non-market housing, mostly three bedroom units. I'd link those last three policies together by building TODs around the new Metro and rail stops. And I'd build bicycle networks in every town and city and connect them to the TODs. I'd build bridges and walkways across skyscrapers. I'd put a bidet in every American toilet (uses less water than toilet paper apart from being more comfortable). Fiber internet in every home. A heat pump in every home. An induction stove in every kitchen. Phase out fossil fuels and power everything with Pumped Storage Hydropower and Geothermal. I'd make the US go Metric.

But my truly crazy, obsessive idea would be to bring back the French Revolutionary calendar. Or I'd purge all French influences from English.

(page 3) 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] Dolores@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (4 children)

your proposals are all quite nice but none of them would knowingly ecocide half a continent & cost/generate more power than has ever been used by humanity for the simple goal of refilling the LA River

oh yeah, its NAWAPA TIME

[–] Nagarjuna@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

[–] robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

at least crop out the ifunny watermark if you're going to repost from those shitters.

[–] Nagarjuna@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Why would I put effort in to posting a Screencap of a years-old Twitter post?

[–] nohaybanda@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

gigachad-hd

[–] Wheaties@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

I think this is my favorite

[–] mustardman@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Don't you leave us hanging like that. Copy the relevant paragraph from wikipedia so I don't have to google

[–] Dolores@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

The North American Water and Power Alliance (NAWPA or NAWAPA, also referred to as NAWAPTA from proposed governing body the North American Water and Power Treaty Authority) was a proposed continental water management scheme conceived in the 1950s by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The planners envisioned diverting water from some rivers in Alaska south through Canada via the Rocky Mountain Trench and other routes to the US and would involve 369 separate construction projects. The water would enter the US in northern Montana. There it would be diverted to the headwaters of rivers such as the Colorado River and the Yellowstone River

"The environmental damage that would be caused by that damned thing can't even be described. It would cause as much harm as all of the dam-building we have done in a hundred years."

"the hydrologic anti-Christ"

"the most outlandish water development scheme to emerge in the past 50 years"

The power demands for pumping this amount of water over such obstacles would be more nuclear and hydroelectric power than yet exists in north america, the excavations so titanic that civil engineering grade nuclear explosives were proposed.

[–] EnsignRedshirt@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

I’m in. I don’t even understand why we would do it or what the ultimate implications would be. I just want something to believe in, and this is worthy.

[–] wtypstanaccount04@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Oh man this also involves Project Plowshare? lets-fucking-go

[–] wtypstanaccount04@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

i'm listening

[–] Zuzak@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Sure, but think of how many more desert golf courses we could have!

[–] Dolores@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

conquering gravity, water, and distance, destroying the yukon and northwestern territories for these treasures most sublime: cheap water for californian cash crops & golfcourses freedom-and-democracy

[–] FALGSConaut@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

In addition to massive expansion of the north and south American rail systems my megaproject would be a rail link across the Bering Strait to connect AfroEurasia to North and South America. My dream is being able to travel from Cape Horn to Cape Town almost entirely by rail

[–] wtypstanaccount04@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Building a coherent rail network for Africa is a must

The Bering Strait rail link if built could decimate the entire container ship industry. DO IT sicko-blur

[–] NoGodsNoMasters@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

My crank project is a massive geoengineering project to restore Lake Megachad and then expand it beyond its previous greatest extent to create Lake Gigachad

[–] Frank@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Now that is a crank prject i can get behind.

[–] hypercube@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (3 children)

the orbital solar condenser + ground based collection disk from simcity 3000. like normal solar power but spicier

[–] DefinitelyNotAPhone@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

There is no problem that cannot be simultaneously solved and made cooler by the unmatched power of the sun.

[–] Beaver@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

I'm definately in the Orbital Solar Power camp of madcap dictator projects

[–] Zoift@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Besides telecom and pure exploration, this is the only reason to actually go to space at all.

[–] ElHexo@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Offworlding all industry?

[–] Zoift@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have serious doubts we'll ever come close to a space elevator.(or launch loop or rotovator or unobtainium of the week) Which tends to raise a lots of questions as to how exactly we'll ship ballistic toasters.

Power is easy. Masers and rectenna arrays have decently good conversion rates and are light, cheap, and dont require slowing down 11km/s loads of space kipple.

[–] ElHexo@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

We've been deorbiting humans for half a century, it's presumably easier for toasters.

The real challenge is speeding things up to escape the gravity, not nearly as easy compared to slowing them down. You'd need to launch an astonishing amount lot of equipment to offworld power production, which is why you'd develop a space industry in the first place.

[–] Zoift@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

You'd need to launch an astonishing amount lot of equipment to offworld power production, which is why you'd develop a space industry in the first place.

Agreed, you'd need an astonishing amount of equipment to do anything up there. Which is why i can't imagine a logistics system on both sides of the gravity well for finished goods ever making sense. Heat shields & parachutes only get you so far when you start scaling up from a several people in a hollow capsule to bulk freight loads. Retrobraking adds a gas tax that scales with the rocket equation.

Any tech you have for making a self-contained, pollution-sequestering factory in orbit could probably be built on the ground a whole lot easier and cheaper. Which is why i dont think we'll end up having orbital factories without a scifi-ass megastructures or nuclear rocket engines & the headaches they bring.

But we'll probably keep slinging shit into orbit for a long time. Panels are cheap & getting lighter. Mirrors are cheaper & lighter still, and can multiply the effect of panels you have. And its all scaleable and implementable with current tech. Yeah, you're never going to off-world all power production with beamed solar this way, but it's a workable vanity project.

[–] a_blanqui_slate@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

I'd start math education with formal logic, elementary number theory, and mathematical language in the first grade. That way everyone has a chance to actually understand the math they're expected to manipulate in high school.

[–] EnsignRedshirt@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

I'd make all detached single-family homes near an urban center illegal and start replacing them all with a combination of low-rise attached units for families, and apartment complexes for people without kids (notionally, I'm fine with some intermixing). Make sure that there are services and amenities within walking distance of all newly-densified housing, and run bus service and light rail everywhere. Then I'd ban private vehicles anywhere within view of a skyscraper. You will live in a pleasant, walkable community with greenspace and accessible services, or you will be sent to the reeducation camps.

Also, big bronze statue in a park. Big enough to provide ample shade to park goers in the summer.

[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

My crank project would be a vast public domain and publicly owned version of the Library of Congress, for literature, movies, shows, games, and pretty much any and all media in danger of being lost to time, copyright bullshit, tax write-off skullduggery, or the like. A big part of that project would be attempts to retrieve and restore media that is already considered lost. sicko-wistful

[–] wtypstanaccount04@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Let's be real, your crank project would be designing the Silicon Valley gulag

[–] Mardoniush@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Where's the crank part? We can just put a wall around it and make it one of those closed cities they stuffed politically compromised scientists into to work.

[–] NPa@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

The Walled City of Silicon. Fake VCs dispensing fake money for fake web3/crypto/blockchain projects to keep these guys docile and happy. Actually we wouldn't have to change anything..

[–] soy_disantra@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A truman show-esque reality TV program, where donald trump is planted as a regional manager of a small chain restaurant and monitored 24/7.

[–] soy_disantra@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

oh and trains, I guess, space trains

[–] Moss@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

I would bring big efforts to resurrect the Irish language by having all sporting events, news broadcasts etc in Irish, having Irish be taught in school before English, having social events where people are expected to speak Irish etc. However this would merely be a Trojan horse for my real goal: slyly take out gendered pronouns from Irish and have everyone's pronouns be gender neutral by default, and only otherwise if specified.

It should be obvious that I'm Irish but we can apply this to any Anglophone country. England speaks Irish now, fuck you

[–] Ho_Chi_Chungus@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Antarctica colony. Big ass bronze statue staring out over the ocean north like the Colossus of Rhodes

[–] HiImThomasPynchon@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Doc Savage vibes.

[–] WoofWoof91@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

i'll put chemicals in the water to make the ~~frogs~~ everyone gay

and more dog infrastructure

and retirement homes for cows

superheroes are illegal now

fursonas are mandatory

free kalashnikovs for the unemployed

mao gets beatified

make werewolves real

drag the moon closer

[–] JuneFall@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Night trains from everywhere to everywhere would be neat. Including neat sleeping cabins so that the population of the world can migrate by climate phases and joy.

But since I played openttd make it river canals and ships that are trolley boats.

[–] Gosplan14_the_Third@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

They're a relic of the cold war even here in Europe. Only ÖBB runs night passenger trains covering mostly Germany, Austria (since ÖBB = Austrian Federal Railways) and Northern Italy.

In many cases, due to cuts, ran-like-a-business principles, understaffing and underinvestment, here in Germany it can be hard to get anywhere by train after 9 PM. Bus Night lines are more common, but that's a big city thing.

[–] wtypstanaccount04@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

A fellow Openttd player! Post a screenshot!

Here's one of mine:

[–] PaX@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago

Global grid of computers for collective use. Like a public cloud. The primary purpose of this would be for economic planning (and voting on priorities for the plan) but also for any other purpose (research, providing services, data storage and distribution, etc).

[–] GarfieldYaoi@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Two words: Climate Stalin.

The entire economy will be mobilized to solving the climate crisis, to the point where even finding a job will be a total non-issue. The pigs that are polluting nature to death will pay for all this with every penny they got, they have stolen more value than they can ever stuff down their throats. Oil oligarchs and media talking heads will all be tried at the Hague for crimes against humanity. Many useless treats are going to be banned, and yes, we're coming for your Funko Pops, white boy.

One very important detail and job would be hiring a bunch of artists, architects, designers, etc. I want to ensure that my regime looks aesthetic yet villainous, so whether or not I fail as Climate Stalin, 13 year old boys in the future will look to me and not Prince Nick Fuentes II as the badass supervillain to idolize, and eventually support. Also, the people deserve a much more beautiful world than the one I had to endure.

Oh wait, idiots like Nick Fuentes would be seen as scum because I did a cultural revolution where I beat in that delinquency isn't cool.

load more comments (1 replies)

[–] replaceable@hexbear.net 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Create an artificial language with no exceptions to its rules, then teach it in every school in the world, so that the whole humanity spoke one language.

Also ban smoking

load more comments (2 replies)

load more comments