# My proposoal for improved society. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 1, 2007, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003 "2007-08-01T16:49:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2007, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/21 "2007-08-01T21:12:56Z")
These sorts of Utopia always break down when one of the lovely blonde teenagers on the surface wanders down into the steam/furnace works where the undesirables toil in their isolation, raising uncomfortable questions about “Where did the Negroes all go?” and “Isn’t it funny that nobody who goes on ‘renewal’ on their thirtieth birthday ever seems to come back?” ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2007, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/22 "2007-08-01T21:22:09Z")
Somebody’s been reading early Heinlein. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2007, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/23 "2007-08-01T21:32:26Z")
[QUOTE=Small British Shop Owner] - The criminal, especially the petty ones. [/QUOTE] Ha, I just noticed this. Murderers? Rapists? Well, they can make the occasional exception. But no petty thieves, no sir! ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2007, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/24 "2007-08-01T22:10:45Z")
[QUOTE=Small British Shop Owner] As for whom I’d exclude: - The criminal, especially the petty ones - The idle - The chattering classes [/QUOTE] You forgot the lowbrows. Can’t let the lowbrows in either. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2007, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/25 "2007-08-01T22:24:57Z")
[QUOTE=Small British Shop Owner] Combining this insight with a quick glance at the pearl river basin, or, hell even Kaesong Industrial Region, here’s a somewhat novel proposal: The creation of special ultra low tax, ultra low government, fairly small (say around 1000 square miles) special adminidstative regions within a country. Children would not be allowed in, and the only people permitted to be citizens (or even allowed in!) of these regions would be those that met specific requirements set by the people of the regions themselves. [/QUOTE] Kibbutzes _encouraged_ children and the “great clubs” are not productive (except as a way to do some Old Boy Networking that has to be taken out and applied in the real world). So the premise that this is a wonderful idea is based on a denial of the shining examples on which it is based. Now, what are these little “homelands” going to produce? Where are you going to get sufficient workers to build an industrial base if you prohibit children and require every (childless) citizen to be subject to being blackballed by the rest of the crowd? I think we can safely eliminate a GDP from the calculations and we can eliminate having these little experiments continuing for so much as a half generation. Basically, they are places where self-absorbed people who do not wish to actually contribute to society can hang out and feel superior as they wither away until they come to the larger government begging for sustenance. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2007, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/26 "2007-08-01T22:34:41Z")
[QUOTE=BMalion] Somebody’s been reading early Heinlein. [/QUOTE] I was flashing on Neal Stephenson’s [_Snow Crash._](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash#Background) ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2007, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/27 "2007-08-01T22:46:15Z")
It’s too bad you are in Britain, because in the US, there is plenty of open land that a group could purchase and then set up whatever exclusionary rules that they like. I have heard of feminists setting up all women communities in Arizona. I would guess that there are some white separtist communities too. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2007, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/28 "2007-08-01T23:00:50Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84] I would guess that there are some white separtist communities too. [/QUOTE] Vermont 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2007, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/29 "2007-08-01T23:03:52Z")
What’s the debate here? ---
**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:** [August 2, 2007, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/30 "2007-08-02T00:07:14Z")
This is a local shop, for local people. There’s nothing for you here. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/31 "2007-08-02T00:07:57Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Do you mean, only childless persons can be initially admitted? Or that any member who later has a child has to leave? [/QUOTE] Im in ur SARS not fucking like the proletariat. ---
**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:** [August 2, 2007, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/32 "2007-08-02T00:23:19Z")
One thing I’m not quite clear on; how will this improve society? (as advertised in the thread title). Is it because it would select that group of people who want to live in a bizarre pseudo-anarchist enclave, and keep them out of circulation by placing them in said enclave? That might actually work. ---
**Author:** ![CaerieD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@CaerieD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaerieD)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/33 "2007-08-02T00:39:29Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] One thing I’m not quite clear on; how will this improve society? (as advertised in the thread title). Is it because it would select that group of people who want to live in a bizarre pseudo-anarchist enclave, and keep them out of circulation by placing them in said enclave? That might actually work. [/QUOTE] And these people are not allowed to breed, while everyone outside of this weird little enclave is still producing children. It sounds kind of like a eugenics program _against_ the bizarre pseudo-anarchists. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/34 "2007-08-02T01:06:14Z")
No children allowed so it wouldn’t be racial? Racial what? Racial conflict? The mind boggles. All I can think is that he hasn’t yet met anyone who is childless and yet strangely racist. Perhaps said people are anomalies and should be dealt with… I changed a great deal when I became a parent, but becoming racist was not one of them. If anything, I am more understanding of other cultures and races, due to my children becoming friends with people who didn’t live in my neighborhood as a child–Asian, Indian, black, and \ even English. (yeah, I know it’s not a race). I could see your lil compounds immediately drawing lines over gender or sexual orientation lines. Humans like categories and fear differences. Anyway, to spend anymore time with anyone who frequents the likes of Whites or similiar (pssst–membership used to be closed to small shop owners, and probably still is) would make my head ache. Frankly, it does now. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/35 "2007-08-02T03:51:40Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] One thing I’m not quite clear on; how will this improve society? (as advertised in the thread title). [/QUOTE] Yes, that’s more or less my question. Instead of putting criminals away from society, we put the best and brightest away from it. This improves it how? ---
**Author:** ![Kozmik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8dc957/32.png) [@Kozmik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kozmik)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/36 "2007-08-02T04:20:26Z")
Shouldn’t this be “My proposal for improved cafe society”? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/37 "2007-08-02T04:20:48Z")
It’s [Genetic Freedom](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=248043) redux! ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/38 "2007-08-02T04:52:30Z")
I, for one, think it’s a great idea. In fact, I would volunteer to help build a wall around the community. We don’t want the “wrong kind” winding up where they’re not wanted. And yes, society will be much improved. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/39 "2007-08-02T05:00:42Z")
[QUOTE=An Gadaí] What’s the debate here? [/QUOTE] Is **Shop Owner’s** OP an inane question or…wait, shit you’re right. My idea to improve education is to just take students in the top 5% and separate them from the rest. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2007, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003/40 "2007-08-02T05:27:52Z")
[QUOTE=Small British Shop Owner] And this is why both socialism and anarchy fail. Both systems have to take everyone on. We don’t exile people any more. [/QUOTE] True, but that applies with equal force to all more successful political systems. They have to accommodate everybody. In most cases, it seems to work out all right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-proposoal-for-improved-society/414003.md?page=3)