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.

Get rid of men and have a lot more cats.

But again, OP, this would require everyone to be and think the same. Never going to happen. There will always be people who will take advantage.

And if people can justify it to themselves, of course they steal from allotments. Equipment (not so much food, but give them the opportunity....) and anything else they can rob

Bulldoze ailing towns and cities and rebuild with plenty of green parks, enough infrastructure to support the community, make everything easy to get to on foot or by bike. Encourage local independent traders with low rent and open air markets. Employ people who live in that community to work in that community.
Sounds simplistic and idyllic but in my mind it works perfectly

You don’t appear to have solved the problem of hay fever. You appear to want to make it worse.

Put women in charge.

@YouJustDoYou

Put women in charge.

Second person saying this. Wouldn't it be better to have the best people in charge, regardless of sex? What is it about having a vagina that makes you a shrewd politician?

@GertrudePerkinsPaperyThing

Why are Merkel and/ or Ardern dreadful?

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

I think Hitler and Stalin were competent! Not that I'm equating either Merkel or Ardern to Hitler and Stalin, but just that being competent doesn't mean you're not dreadful.

Interesting (and slightly concerning) that most of the suggestions involve going back in time to an idyllic village life where everyone helps everyone.

Another Big Bang.

Stop people breeding until they can afford to independently support the children they create.

@GreenEggsAndHamPlease

Bulldoze ailing towns and cities and rebuild with plenty of green parks, enough infrastructure to support the community, make everything easy to get to on foot or by bike. Encourage local independent traders with low rent and open air markets. Employ people who live in that community to work in that community. Sounds simplistic and idyllic but in my mind it works perfectly

I like it, you can be in the new world with me. Oh and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea of employing locals to work locally.

I think even if we had a complete reset and started from scratch exactly the same things would happen.
You will never eradicate greed and ego.

@Unfashionable

Stop people breeding until they can afford to independently support the children they create.

Oh dear, where would we find cheap labour if the poor people stopped.

Make it a crime for supermarkets to throw good food away

@notacooldad

I think even if we had a complete reset and started from scratch exactly the same things would happen. You will never eradicate greed and ego.

Yes - THIS!

Ban car ownership. Massively improve public transport (and cycle paths) and have a rental system for cars if you need to go somewhere that doesn't have a public transport link.

Now what could possibly go wrong with that plan

employ people who live in that community to work in that community.

And what about the people who don't want their living and working lives in the same place? Presumably if they move house, it becomes an issue as "local" people are going to have all the jobs.

It sounds like the only way some people think we can sort the world is by being restrictive in the name of community living.

Educate the girls and women, see a reduction in population. Fund female businesses, see more women in the workforce working on initiatives such as period positivity. It’s a start at least.

What is period positivity?

And why are women more suitable to run businesses than men? Unless men can get pregnant, it will still be the women have children. Presumably in this women-led utopia, there would be loads more fully paid maternity leave/free childcare etc. Which would have to be paid for so those that don't have children will have to make up for those that do.

Scrap nuclear weapons and spend the money on education, healthcare, women's empowerment (eg small business enterprise) around the world.

Use a happiness index to measure progress rather than GDP. Impose meaningful curbs on carbon usage. Most of the ills in the west (isolation, obesity, pollution etc) would also be resolved to a great extent of we lived greener lives.

Omg I just looked up period positivity - relearning menstrual literacy???? WTF?????

There are good reasons we don't all grow our own food. Economies of scale and specialisation to start with. We won't feed the world by growing a dozen apples each. I probably wouldn't even manage that. Regarding the therapeutic value of gardens and gardening, I can see that argument, but let's not pretend we all want to go back to subsisting on what we can grow. It's hard work!

Another concept to look up would be the Tragedy of the Commons. Allotments work because there is ownership.

Ban car ownership. Massively improve public transport (and cycle paths) and have a rental system for cars if you need to go somewhere that doesn't have a public transport link.

Super idea, but we have spent the last 30 years building "out of town" everything which in turn is a PITA to access without a car.
Not everyone lived in the south-east with great public transport.