$100 Quadrillion Dollar Infrastructure Plan

[XRay]

America kind-of-sort-of-maybe-or-maybe-not wants to spend a trillion or two on infrastructure. Here is a super condensed bullet point list from NPR, here is an easy to read summary from CNN, and here is the whole thing from the White House. I hope the plan passes, but I am prepared to be disappointed. The plan is ambitious, but due to scope, the plan feels a little vague, and in a way, the vagueness makes it feel less ambitious. If you have to overhaul your country's infrastructure, what are some of the things you want to have or improve upon? Oh, and fuck the price tag, you have unlimited amount of money. We are talking truly ambitious here, so it is okay to be a bit unrealistic. Basically, imagine playing City Skylines with a bottomless budget.

Here is my infrastructure wish list:

- REAL Hyperloop rail for passengers AND cargo
You know all the fancy high speed rail that Europe and Asia has? We have to top them with higher speed obviously, but we need it to stand out. Hyperloop currently does not live up to its namesake travelling at 760 mph. That is just regular sonic speed. Hypersonic speed is 5 to 10 times the speed of sound, so 7,600 mph would be nice. NYC to LA is about 2,800 miles, so a 7,600 mph train will make that journey in about 22 minutes, and if we push the speed to be a bit faster, we can get it to be under 20. Oh, and you like next day delivery? Well, how about next hour delivery? With how fast the trains can go, the rest of the hour can be completed by aerial drones.

- High speed rail
Since we got the REAL Hyperloop that travels at REAL hypersonic speeds, why are we still going for regular high speed rail? As much as I like to get from point A to point B in less than a second within a city, the G forces that we can experience from it will probably cause our breakfast in our stomach to travel up our esophagus, out of our mouths, fly into the air, and splatter all over each other and our fellow passengers. For comfort, I think intra-city subways and trams will probably be better with regular high speed rail. Stop to stop can still be in seconds, but it will just be a bit longer in ten or twenty seconds for comfort. Getting from the Bronx to Brooklyn or even Staten Island in under 5 minutes would still be amazing.

- Autonomous electric buses and vans
This helps compliments the intra-city high speed rail, and makes it easier for passengers to complete the last mile of their journey. Big buses are great for longer stops and larger groups, while vans would be great to help seniors, people with disabilities, and kids to get as close to the front door as possible.

- USPS with aerial drones
I have already mentioned this above, but I think this deserves its own spot due to how cool it is. If you are not an American and did not know, USPS (United States Postal Service) is our public postal service.

- High speed WiFi internet EVERYWHERE
While Fire Emblem Heroes does not need a high speed internet to play, you will still notice the buffering speed when the app starts and tries to connect to the servers, when you enter a map, and when you download updates. With ultra high speed internet everywhere, you can watch 64k videos on YouTube without noticing the buffering, and you can expose and send your dad's entire computer porn collection to your mom instantly.

- High tech public and private toilets and bidets
Fun fact. Americans are kind of gross. Instead of washing our dirty bums with soap, water, and dignity like human beings from a civilized culture, we wipe our soiled butts with dead trees and smear poop all over our smelly bottoms like savage animals. Before we laugh at other countries because they shit in a hole, we seriously got to do better ourselves.

- Free advanced health care for humans and pets
Curing cancer is the current holy grail in medical science, but making it affordable would be holy grail in terms of paying for it. I am not too familiar with health care in general, but I guess something more concrete to start us off with would be lower priced/free drugs and doctor visits, more research so finding cures is faster, and ambulance rides that do not cost like $5,000 dollars. And to make it over the top because America obviously deserves the best healthcare in the world, affordable health care for our fur babies would be good too.

- Nuclear power
The easiest way to get to zero emissions as quickly as possible is to utilize nuclear power in my opinion. Accidents do happen, but they are rare and far between, and I think it is a shame that some countries are turning away from nuclear.

- More housing
I am a little skeptical about making housing free (or nearly free), but it is either go big or go home, and I choose going to a big affordable home for everyone. The idea is that every family can have their own apartment to live in, and is also spacious and comfortable to raise multiple children too. A stand alone house for every family is not realistic in my opinion due to land availability, but an apartment for every family seems doable with high rises. Free temporary housing would also be nice to allow the homeless and other vulnerable people get on their feet before moving on to better homes.

- Put a man in Alpha Centauri
Elon Musk is already trying to put a man on Mars, so I think the government should handle something bigger that even Elon might not be able to handle. What is better than being an interplanetary species is to be an intersolar species. This is probably a super long term goal, since I highly doubt that humanity can literally reach for another star within my life time, but that does not mean we should not try and lay the foundation.

- Better education
Our education is a mess. We should start with paying teachers properly and teach our kids properly that the Confederacy is a permanent shitstain on our pants and it is absolutely nothing to be proud of. I also want critical thinking to be a core part of the education system to dispel dumbass conspiracy shit that is floating around the news and social media. After that, free higher education would be awesome. If we can have no cost PhD programs, we can attract a ton of talent; students do not have to worry about taking out loans and living paycheck to paycheck and just focus on making America smart again.

- Limit disinformation and propaganda
Also known as fuck Fox news. I am not sure what the right way to do it is, but until America is smart enough again, I think there should be something in place to punish people who spread conspiracy theories or espouse lies as truths. I am fine with people insulting each other with obscenities, but more serious shit like Dr. Oz and anti-vaxxers should be punished since they can seriously hurt people.

That is all I can think of so far. I may add more later if I am bored.

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, XRay said:

- Put a man in Alpha Centauri

Elon Musk is already trying to put a man on Mars, so I think the government should handle something bigger that even Elon might not be able to handle. What is better than being an interplanetary species is to be an intersolar species. This is probably a super long term goal, since I highly doubt that humanity can literally reach for another star within my life time, but that does not mean we should not try and lay the foundation.

Yeah...we should stick to actually getting Mars and a moon base up and running first. That's not just something that is unlikely in our life times, it could be outright impossible to organize in the span of humanity's existence. It's a distance that would take about 20,000 years to overcome with our current technology. We could possibly do it some day with an unmanned probe, but to send a human there we'd need a straight up colony ship with multiple generations born in space. And with basically zero profit but scientific interest that would come centuries to millennia later, there's basically zero incentive to do it with our world's current economic models. There's a reason we don't send people to Mars, and it isn't the in ability to do so, it's because robots are way more effective and significantly cheaper. I'm all up for space exploration, but there's a lot to be done at home first in terms of manned missions. And I don't think we should treat Elon Musk like he has a monopoly on Mars.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Jotari

[Interdimensional Observer]

45 minutes ago, Jotari said:

That's not just something that is unlikely in our life times, it could be outright impossible to organize in the span of humanity's existence. It's a distance that would take about 20,000 years to overcome with our current technology.

All you need is to find an immortal leader who began unquestioned rule over their country back in 4000 BC. And has since led their people primarily through the power of science, carefully directed at technologies they haven't actually learned about yet. Building stacks of doom to ward off foreign aggressors and some wondrous buildings that nobody else can ever construct. 

[Jotari]

4 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

All you need is to find an immortal leader who began unquestioned rule over their country back in 4000 BC. And has since led their people primarily through the power of science, carefully directed at technologies they haven't actually learned about yet. Building stacks of doom to ward off foreign aggressors and some wondrous buildings that nobody else can ever construct. 

Oh dang. I didn't consider that possibility. Best to start looking in the Darien Gap. Most likely place to find an immortal dictator that is also suitable for a space base due to it's proximity to the equator.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Jotari

[X-Naut]

And I imagine one of the unwritten provisions is "neutralize all indebted parties" or "officially redefine the national deficit as a suggestion," right?

[XRay]

A few more stuff I thought of.

- Free laptops and smartphones
We are offering people free phones for a while now, at least in California where I live, and I think that is great. Having a phone is crucial to help people get a job and stay connected. A phone is great and all, but a smartphone is even better. Similarly, having a computer is also crucial to help people get a job, education, stay connected, etc. If we are providing free high speed internet, we might as well go the last mile too and hand people devices to take advantage of that. I think every five years people can get a new device sounds reasonable.

- Green energy in every building
At the bare minimum, solar panels should be on most buildings' rooftops. While wind turbines are huge, there are also smaller footprint devices that can capture energy from the wind so I think those smaller devices deserve more investment, research, and development too. Geothermal energy should also be considered for every building, as the earth has a constant temperature that we can take advantage of to help power our heaters and air conditioning.

- Desalination
Since fresh water is so limited, I think we should consider using seawater more. I am not sure what to do with all the extra byproduct salt though.

On 6/1/2021 at 3:15 PM, Jotari said:

Yeah...we should stick to actually getting Mars and a moon base up and running first. That's not just something that is unlikely in our life times, it could be outright impossible to organize in the span of humanity's existence. It's a distance that would take about 20,000 years to overcome with our current technology. We could possibly do it some day with an unmanned probe, but to send a human there we'd need a straight up colony ship with multiple generations born in space. And with basically zero profit but scientific interest that would come centuries to millennia later, there's basically zero incentive to do it with our world's current economic models. There's a reason we don't send people to Mars, and it isn't the in ability to do so, it's because robots are way more effective and significantly cheaper. I'm all up for space exploration, but there's a lot to be done at home first in terms of manned missions. And I don't think we should treat Elon Musk like he has a monopoly on Mars.

It does not matter if Elon Musk owns Mars. We can just use eminent domain to claim the entire planet for ourselves!

On 6/1/2021 at 4:04 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

All you need is to find an immortal leader who began unquestioned rule over their country back in 4000 BC. And has since led their people primarily through the power of science, carefully directed at technologies they haven't actually learned about yet. Building stacks of doom to ward off foreign aggressors and some wondrous buildings that nobody else can ever construct. 

Speaking of 40K, Craftworlds are not a bad idea either. It is a good idea to have several space Arks as back up plans incase the world gets flooded from climate change or gets barbecued from nuclear weapons.

On 6/2/2021 at 8:48 AM, X-Naut said:

And I imagine one of the unwritten provisions is "neutralize all indebted parties" or "officially redefine the national deficit as a suggestion," right?

There is no such thing as a national deficit. There is only national investment!

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 minutes ago, XRay said:

Desalination
Since fresh water is so limited, I think we should consider using seawater more. I am not sure what to do with all the extra byproduct salt though.

Desalination is super-expensive I'm aware, does California actually have any plants already? But unlike landlocked desert states, it has the option of doing this at all, could save the state from depopulation. Climatic nightmares sank human civilizations in the past before.

 

10 minutes ago, XRay said:

Speaking of 40K, Craftworlds are not a bad idea either. It is a good idea to have several space Arks as back up plans incase the world gets flooded from climate change or gets barbecued from nuclear weapons.

Piece of advice, consider researching the digital uploading of human consciousness and memories, and quantum computers to store those consciousnesses. It could be significantly cheaper uploading everyone and then downloading them into new bodies at a later date upon arrival on a new planet than cryostasis, since bodies take up more space.

[XRay]

On 6/7/2021 at 7:31 PM, Interdimensional Observer said:

Desalination is super-expensive I'm aware, does California actually have any plants already? But unlike landlocked desert states, it has the option of doing this at all, could save the state from depopulation. Climatic nightmares sank human civilizations in the past before.

I think we have a few, although I do not live near one since I live inland, so I am not sure how independent the areas served by desalination are from natural fresh water.

Salt as batteries would indeed be cool, although I am still not sure if we can use it all. Once we have our sodium batteries in place, I imagine consumption would slow down since there would be less people adopting them. I usually keep and use my phone for at least few years, and I imagine car batteries and house batteries would last just as long if not longer.

[Acacia Sgt]

There's always molten salt reactors.