How would you fix the worlds problems?

[Moneysavvymam]

I think i have it, I really do.
Everyone is using food banks, right? unemployment is rife. Depression, anxiety, suicide. Obesity. Anti social behaviour and crime rates.

Okay. Are you ready?

Community gardens and orchards. Free to pick what you like, children's and adults clubs to teach people when to pick, sow, etc. Not just food but flowers. Trees. Perenials such as rhubarb, kale and others. I really think that it could work.

I saw a TED Talk about a town who has a whole community or people who grow food in random places wherever there is a free bit of grass and I swear to god I think it could work really well.

I actually can't see a problem arising and if the problem is 'the economy' well how? Because when people are struggling to pay for food I really dgaf about the economy.
Allotments are a nice idea but many are full and have waiting lists of Years and years.

We have a couple of small, secret almost community gardens in a few big parks in our city and they are really cute, work well. Nobody ruins them and if someone took all of the cucumbers then there is a spirit of 'well I guess they needed them'. Part of the reward is in the growing and outside space and time.

Also flowers. There are so many people living in tiny flats with no or very little outside space. Wouldn't adding a few flowers be nice? Maybe a pear tree or 2.

Its the good life isn't it? A very frequent dream is packing up and living off the land. Well why not communal land? What good is that piece of grass? Needs cutting, is littered all over and what? Pooed on?

I'm not some radical who will go round digging up peoples gardens or anything but I was thinking about a previous poster who said that they sorted out their communal garden in their flats and only after she made it nice did everyone else start using it. Well wouldn't the same happen everywhere?
People pay money to go to botanical gardens, so there is a market for this (if you know what I mean)

There could be communal run compost bins which would dramatically reduce waste and green house gasses. That compost would mean almost no costs because that's the main one isn't it?
Classes could be held at libraries and community centres about seed saving.
Everyone could save their pot noodle pots and yoghurt tubs for plant pots. Arts and crafts fairs could have children painting them, I just can't see a downside.

That is how I would fix the worlds problems anyway.

In fact any utopian solution to the world's ills will fail.

Ban religion - people will just start up again.
Tax the rich at a high rate - they will hide their money
Build communities - only if everyone genuinely shares the same ideas

Share things - see above.

When it comes to it, people won't share things if it means they may lose out. Would you risk letting your child go hungry to ensure someone else's doesn't? It seems unlikely.

I think it is worryingly naive to think that we could all live happily and sustainably like that.

It is like redistribution of wealth. Give everyone the same amount of money then come back in a year - some will be skint, others will be rich.

Start small...help your local community first...the world problems will never be sorted...eg...there's always be war... There are commune allotments where I am and noticed since lockdown people are kinder and willing to help neighbours so maybe these small acts will become bigger acts. Don't run before you can walk...

I’d put children in charge tbh!

Failing that, I’d have a system where every continent had an equivalent of the EU, with all countries required to be members. Certain entrenched laws would apply to all, but in some areas (not affecting fundamental human rights, vested in the individual not in a culture or family) would be variable for the continent’s culture. The organisations would have power to enforce human rights laws, initially by fines and sanctions. The UN would have teeth and would oversee them all, with a security council made up of permanent members, one from each continent rather than the unfair membership we currently have, and additional temporary members.

Human rights laws would be there to ensure equal treatment for all, and prevent state abuse.

Very pie in the sky!

Also legalise cannabis. Growing hemp will not only reduce CO2, it will also allow us to use it for paper and clothing. Therefore freeing us from the need to manufacture synthetic materials and over consumption of cotton, wool or silk.

It also has the added benefit of being able to smoke it and get high or relaxed. Great for anxiety and chronic pain.

Ensure world-wide significant taxation on the Uber-rich - no more tax havens. NO ONE needs a billion pounds. No one needs a yacht or a private jet or whatever nonsense. This money can then be used to properly fund services.

I think you suffer from rich-country privilege if you think "services" is where money should go. The vast majority of people in the world live in countries where these are not a thing. (Basic education maybe excepted, that's quite popular in most places.)

One consequence of enforcing economic equality on a global scale would be that NHS would be dismantled and the UK population left to fend for themselves, and the money saved would be spent in Africa.

I know that's not what you're advocating, I'm just point out your perspective on where to draw the line with redistribution appears self-serving. A bit like that of the person who listed continents whose population could disappear, I suspect she wasn't including the one she was on.

I absolutely love your idea OP. But get rid of 99% of the population would probably be much better unfortunately.

Yes cos that worked spectacularly well in the UK and in Germany, didn't it? Oh, hang on... May was dreadful. Merkel is dreadful. And that leaves Thatcher!

Not to mention the vile abomination that is Ardern.

To quote one Philip Larkin*:

"Get out as early as you can
And don't have any kids yourself."

*I'm told that some of his views weren't very nice by today's standards (no idea if that's true), but I think he was correct in that specific quote.

Why are Merkel and/ or Ardern dreadful?

You might not agree with one or both of them, but both are surely competent?

I thought Jacinda Ardern was popular in NZ.

This genuinely surprises me.

Oust the tories/establishment/biased billionaire press.

Introduce universal basic income.

@londonrach

Start small...help your local community first...the world problems will never be sorted...eg...there's always be war... There are commune allotments where I am and noticed since lockdown people are kinder and willing to help neighbours so maybe these small acts will become bigger acts. Don't run before you can walk...

This was actually my thinking. So what if someone takes the lot? The point is building community and what brings people together more than a common enemy? Only messing. But really. So it wouldn't work this year but in 10 years, when all of ten year old now are 20 and are starting families they will have the knowledge and power and space to grow for themselves and their neighbours. Lockdown brought people together to help. It isn't mad.

People steal from allotments but people still have allotments. They just put up cameras or deterents and carry on.
People steal hanging baskets but people still grow flowers.

I also read somewhere that crime rates fall when places are looked after. So something as simple as a flower garden could be the answer. I truly believe that.

Half the population

@Tal45

I absolutely love your idea OP. But get rid of 99% of the population would probably be much better unfortunately.

Well I can't go around murdering everyone and I don't think we have too many, I think we have the wrong lives not the wrong numbers

If we’re going to reduce population, in effect by killing people, surely the answer is to kill everyone over a certain age, not by geography.

No saying it’s a good idea but surely we’d want to keep the young population

Very few people steal from allotments- even though they’ve got hundred of £ of stuff!
It’s an unwritten rule you sign up to, not to be a cunt.

@DollyDinkle

I would get rid of religion as it is mostly at the centre of all the problems in the world.

Absofuckinglutely!

I don't think there are any simple answers, there's no such thing as 'fixing' the world's problems.

What's a problem to me might be essential to your daily life, etc etc.

Also it's a bit 'western arrogance' to sit here on our computers speculating about how to fix the world. Lots of people throughout history have come unstuck thinking the same (and just wound up killing millions of people they didn't like).

@BloodyStupidJohnson

Agreed. Some of these replies are making me feel a little bit anxious. It makes me think of the Soviet Union under Stalin or Cambodia under Pol Pot. I realise that it wasn't the OP's orignal intention, but I'm not sure that I like this thread.

@bebanjo

The world is massively over populated. The earth simply cannot sustain this many people. Until the numbers drop to about 1/2 what they are now it’s all just arsing about.

Shame there’s not like… a virus to help with this…

I totally agree that we need more shared gardens and allotments. They’re great for exercise and mental health, and they create a sense of community. Waiting lists are 25 years long, there’s clearly a demand.

However I don’t think it will resolve food issues. Firstly because of the amount of space required - each person needs at least half an acre of land to grow enough food. Secondly because food tends to be seasonal, so you have loads in the summer and nothing in the winter unless you know how to pickle and preserve food and have room to store it. Thirdly because some people will do nothing and then steal all of the food, or even just vandalise it and waste the food. Four, because it’s a full time job to grow enough food so how would people go to work to pay their other bills? And five, it’s actually harder to grow stuff than you think, you need a lot of expertise and some years stuff just doesn’t grow depending on the weather and diseases and stuff.

I do think we should have more allotments to partially provide for our food needs though, and it would help with health issues. The government won’t do it though, because they don’t want to create any more allotments and they don’t own enough land.

[quote AutistGoth]@BloodyStupidJohnson

Agreed. Some of these replies are making me feel a little bit anxious. It makes me think of the Soviet Union under Stalin or Cambodia under Pol Pot. I realise that it wasn't the OP's orignal intention, but I'm not sure that I like this thread.[/quote]
Exactly, and that's how people like that end up in the positions that they do, isn't it? Because (usually) people put them there via the ballot box, usually to 'fix problems' as they see it. It's usually incremental and starts with 'reforms' to small things.

Very few people steal from allotments
Absolutely not true. I admit that vegetables are rarely stolen. But scrap men will climb the fence to steal an aluminium greenhouse or any other metal that’s not locked in the shed. We’ve even had entire hives of bees stolen, because a hive of bees is worth a couple of thousand pounds.