# How would you change the world? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 10, 2003, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194 "2003-03-10T01:41:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![hansel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6bbea6/32.png) [@hansel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hansel)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/21 "2003-03-11T04:46:50Z")
Annually, everyone would have a month-long orgasm. ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/22 "2003-03-11T05:53:53Z")
[ul][sup] **What month?** [/sup] ;)[/ul] ---
**Author:** ![kniz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@kniz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kniz)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/23 "2003-03-11T05:58:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Polycarp \* > \*\*How would _I_ change the world? > > A little at a time. > > By persuasion, not compulsion. > > Just like I am. 🙂 \*\* [ul]😃 [sup] **I’ve suspected that you were up to something, Poly.** [/sup][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 9:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/24 "2003-03-11T09:09:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hansel \* > \*\*Annually, everyone would have a month-long orgasm. \*\* …and at last there would be piece on earth! I can _too_ spell! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/25 "2003-03-11T13:39:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by kniz \* > \*\*[ul][sup] **What month?** [/sup] ;)[/ul] \*\* Oct-oh-oh-oh-ber ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/26 "2003-03-11T13:48:32Z")
So, any of you who wanted to abolish religion… could you be a little more specific (do you mean abolish all belief in the supernatural?) - do you honestly feel that **Polycarp** and **cjhoworth** are fair trade for Jack Chick and Fred Phelps? ---
**Author:** ![Pere\_D\_Oxy\_Moron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/85f322/32.png) [@Pere\_D\_Oxy\_Moron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pere_D_Oxy_Moron)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/27 "2003-03-11T15:10:46Z")
How about if I become the change I want to see in the world? (Gandhi) ---
**Author:** ![agentfroot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/779978/32.png) [@agentfroot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/agentfroot)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/28 "2003-03-11T17:13:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mangetout \* > \*\*So, any of you who wanted to abolish religion… could you be a little more specific (do you mean abolish all belief in the supernatural?) - do you honestly feel that **Polycarp** and **cjhoworth** are fair trade for Jack Chick and Fred Phelps? \*\* Never! I wouldn’t trade them for anyone! As for abolishing religion, I think it would only cause more problems. Religion is something a lot of people really hold on to, and they’d be lost without it. It also provides people with moral codes (ok, so some of the “morals” are stupid or controversial, but there are many decent moral codes, like the belief that killing people is wrong), and without morals, the world would be in a state of total anarchy, and people would contantly steal from each other, kill for the heck of it, let their sexual passions run wild, etc. Though I wouldn’t complain if Jack Chick and Fred Phelps were, say, stranded on a desert island somewhere… ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/29 "2003-03-11T18:03:05Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by agentfroot \* > \*\* As for abolishing religion, I think it would only cause more problems. Religion is something a lot of people really hold on to, and they’d be lost without it._\* Indeed, people “hold on” to religion, as demonstrated by the fact that after more than seventy years of official suppression in the Soviet Union, religion sprang back like a person coming out of a coma. But that’s the world as it is. The OP asked how one might make it better if one could. I _know_ it’s impossible. > [@](#): > > \*\*It also provides people with moral codes (ok, so some of the “morals” are stupid or controversial, but there are many decent moral codes, like the belief that killing people is wrong), and without morals, the world would be in a state of total anarchy, and people would contantly steal from each other, kill for the heck of it, let their sexual passions run wild, etc. \*\* That “morality” in many cases comes from religion in the world as it is by no means proves that religion is the only teacher of morality, unless you believe that atheists are all basically criminal personalities. Moral codes can be derived from reason as well as from authority. We don’t need authority to tell us that killing, stealing or unrestrained sexual passions are wrong and not to our ultimate benefit. That’s where teaching kids _how_ rather than _what_ to think comes in. People like **Polycarp** would be as kind and “moral” without religion as they are with it, because that’s their nature. Such people would be the teachers of ethics in my religion-free world. Children would learn by modeling their behavior on such good examples. People like Jack Chick (and an example in my own history whose name you’d probably know, but to protect the family I won’t reveal) pervert both morality and religion. Perhaps without such personalities religion wouldn’t be so bad. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2003, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/30 "2003-03-11T21:31:08Z")
> [@](#): > > People like Polycarp would be as kind and “moral” without religion as they are with it, because that’s their nature. Such people would be the teachers of ethics in my religion-free world. Children would learn by modeling their behavior on such good examples. True, but (speculatively)people like Fred Phelps would still be dangerous assholes without religion, so if taking away religion doesn’t make **Poly** worse or Phelps/Chick better, what’s the point? ---
**Author:** ![Largo62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/45deac/32.png) [@Largo62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Largo62)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/31 "2003-03-12T00:22:13Z")
I’ve heard a lot of rigid, and I thought hateful, philosophy from many sources, not the least of them a patriarch of my own family. But Fred Phelps makes my family’s old man look downright tolerant. Believe it or not, before I read this thread I had never heard of Fred Phelps. I Googled the name, and was horrified at what I read. I thought I had seen hatred before, but I was instructed afresh in the ways of evil by that hateful man. I had read Chick tracts with some amusement, because of his simple-mindedness. But Phelps is pure evil. You may be right, **Mangetout** , that lack of religion wouldn’t make such people better, but religion does furnish Phelps and his ilk with a forum that at least some (and I emphasize _some_) religious people will follow, not because they are equally hateful, but because religion has conditioned them to accept whatever they hear from a pulpit. Too bad every hateful sermon of Phelps couldn’t be followed by a message of tolerance and caring by **Polycarp**. I know not all Baptists (probably few) swallow the Phelps hard line. “God Hates America”? Fred Rogers is languishing in Hell? Sheesh! :rolleyes: I learn something new from this forum every day, and some of it isn’t pretty. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/32 "2003-03-12T00:26:16Z")
I don’t know; it is arguable that, in the absence of religion, Phelps would find some other thing to obsess about; sure it gives him a convenient outlet and excuse, but there are plenty of other things for people to argue over and plenty of other standards to judge people by. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/33 "2003-03-12T00:49:04Z")
Well, gee… some observations I’ve made over the years are as follows… (1) No matter how well off you are, **if you want** , you can still find something to whine about. (2) Human beings have a real prominent design flaw - it’s called the ego. And yes, I’m as guilty as sin! 😃 (3) A bright child raised by dumb fuck parents with screwed up principles and beliefs invariably ends up pretty fucked up themselves regardless. So, in the context of making the world a better place? My points are as follows… firstly, the world is currently full of the “haves” and the “have nots” it seems to me, and at the risk of sounding like some “pie in the sky socialist whack job” (which I’m not by the way), I rather think an awful lot of regional conflicts are still, to this day, caused by certain regions feeling “oppressed or exploited” by those who are a member of the “haves”. As such, people in the “have nots” countries have something genuine to whine about, and our goal should be, as members of the “haves”, to reduce any and all legitimate reasons for complaints in countries less fortunate than ourselves. In theory, this would eventually consign us all to complaining about artists like Britney Spears - which ultimately is rather benign. My point? People are still going to complain - the goal should be to minimise the “really serious” reasons to complain - nebulous definition that that is of course. As for Point (2)? The fact that all humans everywhere have rampant egos? Man… that’s a tough one… only time and evolution and shitloads of prozac are gonna fix that one. Seriously though… I honestly believe what I’m about to say is true… 70 years ago the Communist philosophy was exploding all over the world as a supposedly “better way of doing business”. It ultimately ended up being just another form of colonial conquest with very little substance to it. At the moment, I truly perceive the empowerment of the Islamic movement as being another form of this sort of colonial conquest - and in reality, when all’s said and done - it’s just ego and tribalism at work. That is, the desire to be able to say… “Hah Hah, we’re better than you etc etc”. None of it is noble of course, and yes, I’m very much aware that Christian Missionaries still go about trying to do the same thing themselves too. It’s all ego… and it all sucks. And Point (3)? Man, I reckon there’s probably a potential Einstein born once a day around the world - statistically it’s got to be quite possible at the very least? And yet, what chances do such children have to maximise their potential if they’re growing up in an environment where ALL of the cultural pressures are conspiring against them? And further, who says potential Einsteins have to be male as well? In so many countries around the world at the moment, young girls with amazing intellects are being taken out of school and are never getting the chance to come within 5 light years of their potential. That REALLY sucks if you ask me. Lastly? The simplest, easiest fix in the whole world that we could apply, right now? To make the world a better place? I would ban all men everywhere, in every country in the world, from holding any further positions of power or government. I would make politics, the world over, a thoroughly female affair. And in case you’re wondering, yeah, I’m a guy, and sometimes I’m ashamed to be one. We are so incredibly aggressive it seems, compared to the more caring and nurturing nature of the female of the species. ---
**Author:** ![bong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@bong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bong)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/34 "2003-03-12T01:10:15Z")
I would turn christina aguilera and the like into ten foot tall Cthulhu lookalikes for a laugh. Then i would buy everyone a beer and make children smarter and annoy televangelists. ---
**Author:** ![Moonchild](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@Moonchild](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonchild)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/35 "2003-03-12T01:32:23Z")
Here’s one that’s not on a fantasy level, doesn’t require some evolutionary step in the way man thinks, and wouldn’t take years and years to reap results: **Ocean Wave energy.** More specifically, push forward scientific efforts to generate elctiricity for the masses by harnessing the push-pull action of the ocean waves. Ocean waves are an endless, consistent, powerful and ubiquitous force that is virtually untapped. The vast amount of world population is on the coastlines and is therefore accessible to it. We could do this. Not that difficult. There are a few programs out there (many in the U.K.), but just not enough global effort in terms of business awareness or or government support. Bet your bottom dollar (or pound) if we were talking about enabling a special effect for a movie or coming up with he technoligy to make the jump from Windows 2000 to Windows 2010, the powers that be would have the technological kinks ironed out in three months. Get our energy from the Ocean Waves and suddenly: no need for nuclear reactors (or dams); Lessen in a major way our reliance on fossil fuels (majority of electricity comes from burning oil to turn water into steam); clean up the planet in a major ecological way. It would also neuter the leaders in the Middle East by lessening our needs for their oil. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/36 "2003-03-12T02:08:51Z")
Interesting idea **Moonchild**. Another idea, along similar lines, is to also make use of tidal movements - the bigger the better… One theory is to design large canals with turbine generators which allow water to flow at least a kilometer or more inland. The turbines can be setup every 50 yards along the canal and the water simply spins them - on the way in… AND on the way out… Of course, the question naturally gets asked - what do you do if you’re a land locked country? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/37 "2003-03-12T08:52:59Z")
Harnessing tidal energy slows down the rotation of the earth! - the project is nothing more than a conspiracy toward longer working days for the masses. ---
**Author:** ![Phnord\_Prephect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df705f/32.png) [@Phnord\_Prephect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phnord_Prephect)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/38 "2003-03-12T11:03:29Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Exoskeleton \* > \*\*If we’re assuming Godlike powers here, let’s cut to the chase and start by removing everyone’s ability to perform physical violence on any other human being. You can’t hit, restrain, shoot, launch a missile at, bomb, poison, run over, strangle, stab, drop a piano on, etc. anyone. I guess I’d have to restrict this to intentional actions; I mean, you’d have to be intending to do harm to someone – whether the victim wants it or not. \*\* A nice idea, but let’s tweak it a bit… everybody has exactly the same abilities to avoid damage as a cartoon character. I’m thinking specifically of that wascally wabbit Bugs Bunny (tm WB) (that cover me? Please don’t sue!!!) Cartoon characters can be hit, restrained, shot, launched at by missiles (??), bombed, poisoned, run over, strangled, stabbed, landed upon by pianos, etc… and not hurt by it. Shot in the head? Fine, you’ve been shot… your face is blackened by soot, and your hair (if any) goes all zig-zaggy. Tied up by bad guys? Ya just slip out of the knots… this allows you to be tied up SOMETIMES, ya know, when you WANT TO BE. Piano falls on you? You walk like an accordian for a couple seconds, then go on about your life. We can still fight, still have wars, still go about our normal business. But nobody gets hurt. Where’s my magic lamp when I need it? No more messing around wishing for texans to become president, I’m doing something USEFUL with my third one! q;} ---
**Author:** ![Phnord\_Prephect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df705f/32.png) [@Phnord\_Prephect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phnord_Prephect)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/39 "2003-03-12T11:05:51Z")
Oh, and Exoskeleton? Bingo. Thou Art God. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 12, 2003, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194/40 "2003-03-12T11:51:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Phnord Prephect \* > **Cartoon characters can be hit, restrained, shot, launched at by missiles (??), bombed, poisoned, run over, strangled, stabbed, landed upon by pianos, etc… and not hurt by it. Shot in the head? Fine, you’ve been shot… your face is blackened by soot, and your hair (if any) goes all zig-zaggy. Tied up by bad guys? Ya just slip out of the knots… this allows you to be tied up SOMETIMES, ya know, when you WANT TO BE. Piano falls on you? You walk like an accordian for a couple seconds, then go on about your life. We can still fight, still have wars, still go about our normal business. But nobody gets hurt.** I _LOVE_ this idea; ket kicked in the face and you spit out all your teeth, but a few seconds later they are back again… Frying pans would be the weapon of choice, I think. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-would-you-change-the-world/160194.md?page=3)