Summary of BetterWorld: A Concise User's Page

essay

(I once called this concept of creating the final and best social system for humanity 'Bruce's Perfect World'. Realizing my ego needed less massaging I dropped my given name from the title and it became 'Perfect World'. Enough cards and letters (okay, emails and Tweets) convinced me that it COULDN'T ever be 'perfect'. Now I'm calling it BetterWorld and I'm sticking with that moniker. For now.)

I tend to meander. It's just the way I write, splashing my ideas willy-nilly across the page. To encapsulate the mania and collect my thoughts neatly for you I'm putting all the notes for Betterworld right here, in bullet-point fashion, within three main topics.

1) Elimination of specific capitalistic or democratic systems no longer needed in BetterWorld;

2) Merits of living under the social system known as BetterWorld;

3) Methods or steps taken to reshape Democracy into BetterWorldism.

BetterWorld will Eliminate:

• Money

• Ownership

• Government

• Imprisonment

• Advertising

• Hierarchy

• Waste

• Pollution

• Most competition (including professional sports)

• Dominance

• Politicians

• Hunger

• Most disease and illness

• Redundancy and duality

• Irrelevant and substandard products

• Busywork

• Accounting

• Spying to gain upper-hand

• Religion

• Superstition

• Familial priority

• The 'blame' cycle

• Speculative or unprovable concepts

• Tolerance for ridiculous and unresearched claims

• Individual daily driving

• Loopholes and preferential treatment

• War

• Corporate takeovers

• Corporations

• Corporate status

• Intolerance

• Ignorance

• Persecution

Deleting the above 'faults' from our current social system leaves room to add new, logical patterns of modern socialization like these:

Merits of BetterWorld

• No homelessness

• Free medical

• No poverty

• No hunger

• Scant obesity

• Scant psychological disorders

• Scant illnesses

• 10-20 hour workweek

• 'Family' approach to conflicts

• Scant unappealing occupations

• Free full education

• Constant job placement

• Computer accessibility

• Redesigned education system

• Redesigned merit system

• Freedom from religion

• Freedom from intimidation

• Freedom from fear

• Constant countrywide support

• Vast reduction in accidents

• Freedom to practice art

• Job typing and matching

• Sexual freedom

• True child-friendly society

• Highly green: ecologically responsible

• Athleticism encouraged using a vast array of programs

• Natural, fresh and delicious foods

• Vegetarianism not encouraged

• Meat consumption reduced

• Free door-to-door public transportation 24/365

• Frequent vacation time

• One person one vote; directed voting

• Cooperation replaces competition

• Emphasis placed on science, inventions in new tech, species advancement

• Practical designs for stellar expansion of species

• Interaction encouragement; social preparation

• Open exchanges encouraged

• Increase in robotic assistance for dangerous tasks like mining, radioactive work

• Adaptation of 'eternal lives' through software

• Work on life elongation

• Renovation of city into clean and modern spaces

• Reduced childbearing to goal of 1 billion worldwide

• New crops for modern usage

• Clean energy; elimination of petroleum products

• New building practices and materials make structures much more durable

• New long-distance transportation-- airless levitating railroad tube exceeds 15,000 mph.

• Free modern attractive lodging for all

• Relocation encouraged

• Job switching encouraged

• Vastly reduced alcohol/drug use

• Vastly reduced noise pollution

• Reduced air traffic

• Near 100% automated recycling

The above conditions will fall into place once we take the following steps:

Method

• Secure initial funding as a private loan (500 billion)

• Secure land (200 square miles)

• Obtain secret status

• Demilitarize project

• Secure & location-shift like-minded volunteers with top skills

• Purchase machinery to build city and infrastructure

• Build initial, temporary city nearby

• Develop city control software

• Develop human skills testing program

• Develop modern education program

• Design city utilizing modern concepts

• Develop new materials

• Build final city core components

• Create renewable energy power source

• Develop self-cleaning city priorities

• Develop internal transportation

• Move citizenry into new city

• Continue to draft qualified citizenry

• Begin outreach programs into other cities under corporate banner

• Sell outer cities on benefits & savings of new education

• Train all children in nation under new education

• Sell energy, new materials to outside sources; use income to repay loan

• Create vast, automated farm network; give surplus food to needy

• Offer needy free housing/education/training in gated local communities

• Train needy and comb for qualified citizenry

• Create robotic machinery plant

• Build robotic mining machinery using 'vine' approach (tracks from surface to multiple veins for moving machinery and ore)

• Find and tap ore sources

• Structure city enrichment/entertainment programs

• Increase support to outer cities

• Offer replacement confinement programs for outer prisoners & retrain

• Design & build stable geothermal power plant

• Create tremendous scientific research facilities for cutting edge information

• Offer changeover designs for outer cities and assistance with construction and maintenance

• Design individual voting system to replace government

There. No meandering, no tangent-chasing.

But also, no explanations. Explanations are below, in a section I call

Explanations

The idea that BetterWorld can bring about all these changes seems unbelievable, until you take one important fact into consideration:

The conversion process will take at least a hundred years. A century. Maybe two.

Slow changes will be made year by year, month by month. The people who are against BetterWorld will be dead of old age before BetterWorld is fully implemented, leaving it free for the others who grow into it from birth and know no other system, and the ones who originally fit the BetterWorld concept by nature. Enclaves of stubborn, greedy and selfish people will be left behind to live out their strife-filled existence in relative comfort, enclaves that will be razed after the last member has passed.

Betterworld will come into being with the effort of a few like-minded people with a wide variety of expertise: Scientists in every field of human endeavor, experts on the human condition, empathetic and tireless believers in the cause. Building a secret (at first) city to live the BetterWorld way and iron out any flaws in the system will make way for outreach programs to other cities through benevolent shell corporations a la United Way, providing hope for the needy, housing and food and education and training, easing stress and reducing crime. New believers will be found and trained to work within each city and over time, conversion of the entire city to BetterWorld becomes more likely. People will be enticed into a volunteer program which offers all the perks of success in the old system: better housing, more free time, quality medical care, abundant food. Labor is then freed up for more logical work, and competition becomes impossible as low quality producers are revamped to make better products and other wasteful or pointless practitioners are eliminated (like excessive packaging or the 'pet rock').

Slowly eliminating punishment and replacing it with training frees up a lot of man-hours as court jobs, confinement jobs and capture jobs are phased out. Wide scale directed learning slowly weeds out harmful beliefs to modern society, like superstitions, religions and wive's tales, freeing up even more man-hours, labor which is better served in the overhaul of human infrastructure and environmental clean-up.

Reduction and ultimate elimination of money as a trading medium and ownership of products relaxes the entire system. Rather than individuals fearing others who might 'steal' their 'belongings', a logical and computerized distribution of suddenly plentiful resources guarantees each human has what they want, when they want it. Educating each individual logically prevents their upsetting the balance with an unnecessary hoarding instinct. People won't be clamoring for the best music system or window treatment when all products are constructed of top quality and are freely distributed.

Individuals will be educated to their natural talents and steered away from learning for which they have no facility and which then provides no service. Often several areas of expertise emerge and future employment is keyed to these talents, allowing a person to cycle between multiple occupations, bringing excitement to work, eliminating the boredom of repetition and increasing the breadth of experts in every field. Jobs which are considered 'bad' are given top priority for redesign, either modifying the job to make it more palatable or increasing the automated component, i.e. waste treatment or trash pickup occupations.

War will be considered a last resource, because it cannot be eliminated until the entire planet operates under BetterWorld, so defensive capabilities will continue to be produced. Believing all human life is valuable, including those of the 'enemy', defensive methodology will be created which cripples offensive capability without harming human life, all while a compromise contingent offers nonviolent solutions to the conflict.

Because so much individual business travel occurs through redundancy and poor resource allocation, computerized flow charting stringently streamlines and matches city needs to localized resources. No longer will a specialized workman have to cross the city to reach a job when another qualified workman lives a block away. Creating an efficient and thorough public transportation system eliminates traffic, pollution and stress. Eliminating private vehicles eradicates registration and insurance nightmares, parking and traffic tickets, endless repair bills. A city motor pool allows anyone access to a vehicle for travel between cities, but autonomous control of the car means virtually no more accidents, injury and death.

Much of business labor currently lies in tracking: the materials, employee hours, product quantity and locations, and of course the money. In a directed computerized allocation design, raw materials can reach their destinations without storage or accounting, so that only the products

which are currently required

are created. The mountain of paperwork which follow any money path disappears when money does, eliminating many dull and unrewarding office jobs. Of course, direct money jobs disappear as well: Bankers, collectors, accountants and bookkeepers, cashiers, lenders legal and otherwise, armbreakers.

Religion, sex, physical health orbit around each other in a complicated mess in today's society. Religion attempts to interfere with human sexual desire and limit it to childbearing within a sanctioned pairing. Human desire is crushed down and causes unnatural behavior. The stress of modern society causes many to become too exhausted to maintain physical fitness. The pressure outlets of vast food resources and passive entertainment take their toll on the body, bloating it and prompting unattractiveness, reducing the chances of sexual gratification. BetterWorld promotes reasonable work hours, healthy food, physical entertainment and welcome sexual contact, while reducing the number of children created by these congresses to reverse and stabilize the bacteriological growth of the human race. Better health leads to trimmer bodies, happier people and greater sexual interest.

Eliminating the lies and misinformation coming from most controlling religions allows the citizenry to blossom like flowers. No longer will the unlikely and unproven 'Heaven' and 'Hell' govern individual behavior; knowing that both good and bad exist in the now as literal heaven and hell overlapping our reality will spread the realization that all of our actions have immediate repercussions, both good and bad. The religious 'out' of asking forgiveness at the moment of death so that one's soul can live in bliss for eternity morphs into a nonsense story like the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, greed-based stories which pass into the collective unconscious as ultimately damaging to the minds of our children.

The standard model of allowing our children to create their own micro-society amongst themselves will be scrapped as it becomes apparent that our earliest memories tend to guide our entire lives. All child behavior will be subject to constant scrutiny, either through adult intervention or modern computerized caretakers which assess every social interaction for learning potential. School changes drastically when free-form playtime and it's hazard potential is replaced with careful virtual exercises designed to make children aware of the synergy surrounding other's emotional responses to their actions, and only when the lessons have become ingrained are children encouraged to interact in group situations.

Teenagers are a special problem because new hormonal levels cause irrational behaviors during the change to adulthood, and special programs will be implemented to help them make that transition, while preparing them for the new expectations of adulthood.

The methods we currently use to transit from childhood, to the teen years, to adulthood, to our senior years are seriously skewed by the outdated value systems we employ. People are placed in a virtual pecking order and settle into their life roles, almost invisibly arranged into 'worth piles' from which they can neither escape nor alter, setting up a lifetime of disappointment, fear and anger. Often emotional safety valves blow, causing damage and tragedy to our society, propelling the misery forward into a bleak future.

There is a better way.

Copyright 2011 Bruce Ian Friedman