7 ways to imagine a better world
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
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It’s concerning how much I trust Leena over the people who run the country
The NHS national service idea is BRILLIANT.
Elspeth Nicholson I agree. It’s just finding a way to keep the skills up though as you do lose them very quickly!
Totally! before it was military service, now it's health service! how amazing is that!!
To build on idea three: COMMUNAL LIVING! I think the fact that we live in such isolated units is crazy! You create locally-public spaces for a collection of living spaces. I think that with even some infrastructure we could naturally create small local communities which adds to the idea of trusting your neighbour and sharing time, resources and space. This naturally leads to exposure of different classes and ages of people in a young person's life and creates so many opportunities to help each other out just because we want to. I would recommend Abstract S01E04 on Netflix for this topic. If we put greater thought into the architecture and the nature of our landscape we could change how everyone interacts with each other!
In Aus we have long service leave. Long service leave is from the idea of a long break after 10 years so you have time to travel to the uk to visit family, it’s from colonisation. Some fields now have portable long service so you take it with you to your next employer. I’m hoping for a national portable long service leave scheme.
Ooo that’s really interesting I didn’t know!
leena norms It’s pretty good. I hope portable will become national then more people would be able to access it even if they change jobs. At my workplace under our agreement we can access it pro rata after 7 years. I’m pretty keen. I never knew it was unique or why it existed until I read a story about it last year. www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-08/portable-long-service-leave-should-be-national-says-expert/11267374
I think they're all pretty cool (especially the NHS one, although I was worried you were going to say national service in the army for a second), but the first is my favourite, I like the slightly chaotic energy of it, get me to Latin America!
chaotic energy is v accurate 😂
Always welcome, we are quite chill with "immigrants" around here! (Except the ones form first world countries that come with a saviour mentality or a "oh this poor country is so exotic it's gonna help me learn as a person" like we are a prop for development lol)
What do you all think about one passport being from a nation in the West or the global North and one being from one in the global South? I think it could create even more balance in perspective and potentially economic opportunity if all the nation states did it.
The two passport idea: I love it! The two main problems I see are 1) there are lots of countries and LOTS of languages. How do you organise to teach kids of the same country/language? Would every city have a place for every language? When a country has more than one language, does the kid get to chose which one to learn? and 2) the refugee thing, that way you would, while having an easier time in the new country, be split from your family and friends at random.
I also love all the other ideas, have mostly also thought about stuff like the "one year of non-military service for everyone (paid but mandatory)" and "how to raise a child with the least stress on one person"
Related to the village raising a child point - adults living alone is so crazy. It would be awesome if it became normal and accepted for adult friends to live together and have their own community and help together. Housing would suddenly be affordable, support would always be around, and chores and jobs could be shared around to ease the burden on everyone to always do everything
I get really frustrated when people tell others to stay in their lane and not discuss anything they don't have a background in. People who don't have expertise tend to be more creative and have ideas that can push boundaries. They are more willing to question why things are done a certain way and I believe this is really important in things growing and evolving!
I love ideas like this, I actually feel afraid of going back to normal after all this, I want to be able 1) have more control over my career and earn a good income 2) have time and space to be able to learn , explore, be creative.
The system just doesn’t work for anyone at the moment and I worry about when I have children that I won’t get to spend any time with them because I would have to work so much to then just have to pay childcare for someone else to look after them. That they don’t grow up with a rich and varied childhood, basically I worry... a lot and we need change and I hope coming out of this virus we will have some change for better. I am loving all the creativity and community spirit and time to just pause, breathe, take in this wonderful world we live in.
Can we add make public transport more of a thing outside of big city centers
As someone who has a summer Job in a tourist attraction in the uk, there should be a scheme where people get paid holiday weeks/weekends to go and stay somewhere else in the uk! Tourism industry is taking a huge hit cause of how cheap it is to go away abroad, where there are still plenty of things to do in parts of the country you may not have visited before, and still having a paid week or weekend of work could cover the financial aspect and thus eliminating the need for the use of planes too
Omg yes - house swaps and people allowed to work from home for a period perhaps?
leena norms yes I’m so into that idea! Plus allowing people to make the most of different areas or ways of living while contributing to the local economy with minimum effort in terms of travel
The idea for "a year after school to do something" sound really good. We tried that in Germany but I think it can be improved lots. So we had that army service year for men after school in Germany but it stopped a couple years ago. You could do a year of community service instead if you didn't feel comfortable being in the army. But a lot of people were really just bored during that year, they were not really doing or learning a lot. Now you can work in an area of interest for a year if you want to and get some work experience. Most of the time it's in a cultural or medical field. Unfortunately it's paid very little and young people get exploited a bit for their workforce.
The passport idea is interesting but then some people learn spanish and french which would be more handy in a global aspect than maybe lithuanian or an indian dialect. And you would need people who can actually teach all those languages which might be tricky. But I really like the "get to know the world" aspect of it.
Absolutely genius; love the NHS service idea, and would love to see the dual passport situation as a novel... 🙃
I literally teared up for a moment thinking about how grateful I am Leena exists.
First of all, I'm from Germany, so sorry, if I mispell some stuff. I actually had the same idea as you to imagine some "What if" scenarios, but I didn't really feel comfortable putting them out there because like you, I'm no expert on these things. I really liked your idea number one by the way. I spent a year abroad in the US and it really helped me to understand that the german way of doing things isn't the only or the best and that you don't acutally have to judge everything by "better" or "worse" but you can simply call something "different".
But I also wanted to share one of the ideas I came up with:
What if we had a system of rotating job areas. This ties in with the idea that I don't think that it was anyone's dream as a kid to become someone who cleans public toilets etc. So what I mean is that there are some really unsatisfying jobs which are paid horribly. In my scenario there would be different job areas like "creative jobs", "jobs in the health system", "jobs in the finance sector", "jobs probably no one likes (toilet cleaning, ...)", ... Obviously there would be a fair payment for all jobs because unsatisfying jobs that no one likes should at least be paid well and it would also close the gap between rich and poor. People would then rotate in the different areas. Now of course there are personal preferences and I get that some people (me included) couldn't work in a job where they had to see blood or broken bones sticking out of a person, this is why I said "areas". So within the area there would be the possibility of personal choices, so that someone, who, for instance, can't see blood could work maybe with analyzing x-rays or something. Then there is the problem that many jobs require years of university (doctors for example) and that not everyone can study medicine, the law, computer science, and every other subject on the planet. So as a solution I think that people should still have a "favorite" area (which would also be the area for which you went to university/college for) and this rotating job thing would be a sort of "community service year" every 5 years or so, where you have to work in some areas that are unpopular and don't require a lot of training. I know that the idea is probably not realistic at all, but I think if everyone had to do some work outside of their comfort zone (like if bank managers had to pick up the trash in the park once in a while) there would be more appreciation for each other. Also, the class system would be broken up because I feel like this "every human has equal worth" is not as evident as it should be (sometimes I feel that the media or society or whatever unconsciously suggests that for example homeless people are worth less and celebrities are worth more than the average person (the death of a famous person gets like 5 minutes news coverage while homeless seem to be a blind spot, generally speaking. Just saying, I have not heard anything in the main media about how the Corona Virus and the lockdown affects homeless people)).
So this comment is way longer than I intended and I hope my point came across the right way :)
I like this! It's kind of an extended version of the 'once you've worked in retail/food/cleaning, you never treat people in those jobs the same' etc? Agree - I've seen 1 or 2 things about homelessness but no where near enough in media. x
@@leenanorms Yes exactly. It's about awareness, appreciation and really putting yourself in other people's shoes (is that an english expression as well?)
Brilliant idea! I'd like to add that maybe this should be part of the school curriculum. Like mandatory internships.
I don't know whether there are even internships in European school systems. I'm from Malaysia and we don't have that here. In fact the conventional wisdom is nose to the grindstone til you graduate. But I do feel that leaves secondary school and even some college graduates woefully unprepared for the working world. God knows I was.
Brilliant! I had the same thoughts about my field ( psychology) and how a change of work environment can prevent burn out.
One of my teachers did this, she's a big shot and she works as a professor, and also as a therapist BUT she rotates in public v.s. private practise every few years to prevent burn out. She said that working as a public service therapist she gets all the structural support she needs ( but can't choose how many/which patients to see in a day), and it's the opposite in the private sector.
What I'm saying is, all jobs have downsides and a bit of a rotation can help individuals avoid burn out by changing the downsides every few years!
4:30 as someone with 3 passports, all I can say is please make this a thing. Such a good way to fight ignorance. I’ve had some xenophobics talk to me about people with double passports (with the assumption that they’re always poor and stupid, not worthy of sharing a country with) and then I was like “haha, I have three passports. Surprise! Gotcha bastard!”
How do you have 3 passports? Which countries?
Okay I’m voting leena for prime minister, who else? 🙋🏼♀️
A possible issue with having an emphasis on local art is that some areas are more diverse than others. This might be very isolating for some. Also, it may cause bigotry, as someone from Northern Ireland, this is a huge problem for us. Obviously I know it’s a lot more complicated than that. Although I totally agree we need more of an emphasis on local art and other avenues of life. xx
As someone who’s worked in hospitality the idea of a four day week is kind of terrifying because that would add more strain on those who work in hospitality in terms of both their physical and mental health.
Your ideas are so cool!
In Australia we kind of have that military mixed with the education thing you were talking about. You can apply through the military to do a university course and the military will pay for it all (no debt or anything) but then after you have your degree you "owe" the military a certain number of years service (this could be you just in the reserve force for a few years, or using your degree to advance military technology, or being in active service for a few years (I'm not 100% on how it exactly works)). One of my cousins did this and has like 4 PhDs through it (that's an exaggeration but like he's got a lot of degrees and has been highlighted in news articles for his work and stuff).
Also, with the bit about raising kids I think it's such a good idea. I watched a documentary once where they put young kids and old people together for a while to see what would happen and it was beneficial for both parties. I think if we redesigned both the aged care and child care facilities we could do something similar. Like have child care centres at old folks homes. That way the kids have lots of people (both adult carers and the old people) watching and playing and teaching them, and the old people get more interaction with the "outside" world. I reckon it would be better for everyone.
I've always jokingly said that everyone should do 1 year of customer service at least, as they do military service in other Countries. But jokes aside, I do think it's an experience everyone should actually have.
I love the double-passport idea though! I think it would also tackle the issue of cultural appropriation, as more people will learn how to respect other cultures instead of unthoughtfully embracing it.
short summary to recap:
1) two passports when born
2) year training NHS
3) communal parenting structure
4) shorter workweek, lifelong learning
5) more space for longer holidays
6) bin seasoned fashion
7) more local art
On idea no.3 I've been thinking of this as well: I've been thinking of communal kitchens & gardens. Where the kids would go & play and be looked after by the people who look after the gardens & kitchens (this is kind of casual). The community would put a % of their pay towards this so those people get paid.
These strange and unprecedented times have really put into perspective my level of privilege. It has made me so much more passionate about the necessity of Universal Basic Income. Where I'm from so many people simply cannot shelter in place and have enough money to afford to live. So many individuals are being forced to choose between having enough money to eat and their health and safety and they shouldn't have to make that choice. There should be a social safety net ready to catch people in times of crisis. I am so incredibly lucky that my mother works a safe salaried job that allows her to work from home but people shouldn't have to rely on luck to live.
Books vs Movies yes it’s sad to see that here in America the charities that are being talked about the most are not to benefit research or hospitals but to simply feed people
"people shouldn't have to rely on luck to live" is like a gut punch and should be shouted from the rooftops 👏
This is not my idea but I thought it was a very good one. Basically it was like everyone in American college/university has to take a mandatory year off and go to another country to do community service without them having to worry abt it getting in the way of their education or like the money aspects of it. So basically just like a mandatory exchange student/community service thing that is free and yeah I think it could be pretty cool and insightful and make more well rounded Americans
Hey, a few things:
1) I'm a Finnish-speaking person from Finland and in my country it is mandatory to study two languages at school (on top of studying your native language). One is always the other official language of the country (so for me Swedish) and then you have to pick one other (most of the time English). Don't know if it would be accepted that everyone had to study a third one too (although some people do do that voluntarily - like me).
2) Our country has apparently longer paid leaves than the UK. I work for the city and since I have kept my job for over a year, my paid leave days for a year (from May 1st 2020 until April 30th 2021) are 28. And you only need to use the days for weekdays so one week off of work means 5 used paid leave days. And if there are holidays (Independence day, Easter, Christmas etc) those don't count. So basically I have 5 weeks and three days worth of holidays for a year. The day count goes up with work experience so after 15 years you have "full holidays" aka 38 days of paid leave to use as you will (and as your employer agrees). But these do vary between fields of business.
Also there is a system where when you have enough work experience (and if your employer allows) you can have 6 months off of work with some payment (not full wage but some money) and your employer has to hire either a recent graduate or an unemployed person as the substitute. That is how I got some of the work experience in my field just after graduation (and back then one could have even a full year off of work with the system).
3) YES TO MORE LOCALISED CULTURE! The more I spend time online, the more I have friends from other countries, the more I use English, the more I grow to appreciate my own language and my own country because there is nothing like Finland and Finnish. But also because (in a worldly scale) I am in the minority where our language is weird and our foods are weird etc, it's easier to speak about the stuff that is already available in English (using English here as a replacement for a lingua franca or just a common language because English is the common language for me in these instances). There is Finnish music that I lovelovelove but because the lyrics are great and not easily translatable or understandable I don't really share it with people who don't understand Finnish. Or why would I speak endlessly about my favourite books that are available in Finnish but not in English because the person cannot share my enjoyment? Or tv shows? Or movies?
Sorry this got so long.
I have had a similar idea of #2. My version is; so college is really expensive in the United States right, so to get a large grant for your college, after high school you intern and do public infrastructure/community building work for like a year. So this could be on a larger or local scale and would involve building roads, schools, hospitals, maintaining local/national parks, maybe some sort of community project like a garden. These projects are specifically to help whatever community/ state you're in. ALSO you are sent somewhere different outside of your home state and you're put with a team of people (which inevitably would be from different states, backgrounds, class, races, etc). This would allow projects that wouldn't be able to start to get done, you are helping a community, you have the experience of starting a project and finishing it with a team of people. The government saves money on these projects and you get your tuition paid for and are more cultured with the different types of people/ places that are in your own country.
Idea 6 is a personal obsession with me. Thank you for mentioning it!
Leena, I love your brain! All of these ideas are excellent.
I also love your third idea because it truly does take a village and I think each family being its own separate island is just unnecessary. Why does every house need every tool, a lawnmower, every single countertop cooking appliance, etc? This would be a great way to create a greater sense of community, which we in individualist countries surely need. Maybe it would even make everyone more tolerant?
Great ideas!!!
Your bit about holidays made me realise the real reason why I've struggled to have the motivation to go abroad for holidays. I could never justify going for just a long weekend. It just feels appropriative and really not good for the environment. Always get a good nugget from your vids!
100% agree with semi manditory Medical Training!! I wish in highschool we had a course like this where students learn about how to do CPR(and not forget it straight away), taking blood, basic anatomy training and using basic medical equipment and do it on the regular. Even 'medical clubs' at school as a co-curricular school activity!
I love the second idea! Here in Austria, boys have a mandatory six month program either in army training OR in medical training after they‘re finished with school - and we‘re working on doing an equivalent for girls too eventually (we‘re a bit behind on that ... but slow progress is still progress I guess 😅) - it‘s called Grundwehrdienst (for the army thing) and Zivildienst (for the medical/community service thing) if you want to look it up 🙋🏻♀️
Also, I really love the idea/plan to give an Interrail pass to every 18 y o with EU citizenship! After uni, my partner and I went to Scotland with Interrail but after one month we were in France and saw a real life sand dune and thought about going to Greece afterwards and that never would have happened if we weren‘t to cheap to pay the Eurostar and Thalys tickets upfront
I love the NHS one!!! Having everyone with stronger knowledge and skills of health is gonna be so good! Like a whole society would be so much healthier.
Also I love the double passport one. I love having the culture of my parents in China and the culture of the US where I live. I think that’s something everyone should experience.
What you post is so beautiful and silly and inspiring and heart warming and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️
lmao the reference to adnan had me in stitches, WE NEED ANSWERS, i still think about that podcast
I just wrote a story about a woman who works so much that she cannot relax when she takes a day off.
I love how your ideas made me think. Great video, Leena!
When you started about 2 passports I was like ermmmmm and by the end of the explanation I think it's a genius idea and hopefully in the next 200 years it will happen!! #mindblown
But Leena - why are you not in politics? I would vote for you (if I were in UK, obvs)
Ps. In Croatia we had mandatory military service (for men) until I think 10 years ago, and I swear, you can really tell a huge difference between men then and now. It's not a masculinity (whatever that is!) thing either! There is just a difference in generations. The military generations seem more grateful and practical.
I really like all these ideas! I really want to deal with ALL the issues and bad things about the [fast] fashion industry by training a lot of people to be tailors and having tailors be a fixture of every neighborhood. Thus, a huge reduction in the carbon footprint of clothing, no more sweatshops, no more clothing sizes that restrict what's available and shame people, and you'd probably wear and mend and keep up your clothing better because it was made just for your and thus fits much better. I feel like both ideas could co-exist!
One idea I definitely think should be a thing is teaching life skills at school. We need to be taught the cost of living (council tax, food, water sewage, wages, etc) as everyone I know was shocked when they left school to find they didn't know how much money it takes to live. Beyond this I think it should include learning about how basic stuff is made (clothes, ready meals), as well as how to cook something simple and healthy. I'm sure there's a lot of things on the list of life skills we wish we'd learnt at school, and the frustrating thing is there is already a class aimed at that (it was called P.S.H.E when I was at school) but nothing beyond contraception was ever actually taught.
Agreed!
Holymoly leena, I just heard idea 1 and am genuinely blown away!!! That is galacticly cool. I hope your book is about that :)
I love the passport idea! Also the life long learning is something I’ve thought about a lot recently! It would make it so much less scary to choose to focus on a specific career if you knew you’d always be learning new, transferable skills alongside that which could take you somewhere completely different. I like the NHS idea in theory but I would hate to do it myself... I think I’d have to do something behind the scenes as medical stuff just makes me feel a bit ill. But I guess there are options for that :) Maybe there could be a couple of other essential services that people could choose between as well as the NHS. Like farming or education? But I think the idea of everyone using a year of their education to support essential services is a great one. Or to volunteer with local charities :)
I love all of this!!! Love to see you revisit these this year and new ideas you’ve had!
Great video, best attitude ever. Just from personal experience- What happens when you can't/ don't want to participate in some of this learning/experiencing. I've spent most of my adulthood having stress induced episodes, loosing the ability to think, communicate, and remember as well as move my body, and experience my senses in a regulated way. I've been depressed and even suicidal when pain was a full body reality. Believe me, get thee to a doctor need not apply. Enjoying the little things, experiencing yourself as you are, and not trying desperately to focus on anything but what is truly the core of you caught by looking sideways at yourself, well, they make a life. I'm a person who enjoys deeply digesting great and often unexpected mental meals, but I also know what it is to spend years trying not to digest too much, to ride the fine line of keeping myself just stimulated enough, to fail and live in inevitable pain. I know what it is to hunger for exploration, but to feel my body shake and my legs stop responding far enough from home to be in danger. I know what it is to hunger for the color and life of new places, the slow blooming pleasurable surprise, and know that some surprises, and some inevitablities in those places will leave me overwhelmed and in pain, knowing it wasn't worth it after all. (Being able to keep a memory is a privilege.) I know being scrubbed raw and angry by other people, knowing that no one understands, or has the grace to respond in a helpful way to me as I am, as I will be, no ifs, ands, or buts about it, when I look at myself, use my love, and do what I can to protect myself. Alone can be a heavy horror, and also the only balm a person can have. I was never meant to fit neatly into the society of others, trapped in routine. I knew it in school and felt I could never act on it in a big enough way to know it, use it, and fight for the change I needed. It didn't seem enough to hate things and say so. No, I had to act civilized, gather context, wait for more evidence, for a way to talk about it. I had to let the futility of my situation press me down, and out of both hope and desperation, I would plan for the person I would be when I got to choose. I built the cathedral walls from everything I was, but the me I discovered when everything else was ripped away, the last bits of me that didn't quite have enough space to come out into my great work. Me, a human flower, and what could I do with it? What could I nourish? What could I do when sacrifice was no longer the zenith of existence? I could at last listen to myself, and catch glimpses of my soul. Still, I lived in a mess. I have tried to be employable, useful, and found I could not keep the skills I built. It is simple to call me broken, to deny that I might still be meant for this world. Certainly, I take resources to live, I cannot pay back. I am no Stephen Hawking with a master work to justify the efforts to keep me alive, or the spouse and children (though I cling to my family for meaning when nothing else has a prayer). Still, we are all at one point useless, helpless, a mess of trouble, and the only precious, meaningful spark in creation. Does this justify suffering? I don't think it can or should, but if we abandon this truth, I know that nothing of our beautiful utopia, our hope for the future can remain. Whatever good, whatever selfless work we hope will bring us all the virtues we hold dear, can only retain any meaning, any reality, when this bloom is honored. I jumped straight from Astrology and alchemy to these videos, so please forgive my dramatic turn of phrase and vaguely religious imagery. Still, I have to wonder if there is any such thing as a humane society living in any concept of it that does not include more than lives shared in society. Or perhaps what I mean is somewhere in the contemplation of humane civilization while somehow containing the absolute rulership of the wilderness antithesis in the paradigm.
This video reminds me a lot of a reading seminar I had in Uni on the book "envisioning real utopias" by erik olin wright, which was basically proposing a lot of different ideas to restructure the world different to capitalism. Some of the ideas had been tested, some where completely imaginary. It would be so great if this global crises could lead a few people to reimagine the way the world could work and things would actually change.
Just looked this book up and it looks super interesting! Might have to put that on my tbr
All of this is brilliant. love.
You continue to impress me with your extraordinary thoughts and refreshing ideas, Leena! I also love your way with words and that your criticism never seems preachy. The first idea with the different passports blew my mind!
The NHS idea is brilliant, I wish I could have some paid basic training so I could help out some more during pandemics or demonstrations etc.
I liked your NHS service idea - reminded me of a Ted talk Bill Gates did five years ago where he basically warned the world that we're not ready for the next pandemic. He suggested that each country should basically have a budget and contingency plan in place, incase of an outbreak - similar to a defence budget/plan incase of war. Instead of mandatory training for everyone maybe a volunteer based NHS reserves (same concept as the army reserves). The plan could also include things like pop up hospitals and PPE ready to go as well.
Have you read Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy? It's a novel that's actually a big infodump about the author's idea of a utopian society. I loved it. His ideas about women were a little condescending, but other than that, it was great, especially for something written in 1887.
thanks for making these!!
I am also binational, and I think your first idea about circumventing nationalism by giving people two nationalities is excellent. If you want to find ways to develop this idea further, I would recommend reading Jürgen Habermas' work on identity and nationality, which is amazing and relatively easy to read & understand, unlike other German philosophers. It's been an eye-opener for me. Love your work, as always
One thing that I’m trying to do with this lockdown (and that your videos have helped me with) is to use the time and mental space I suddenly have to think creatively about the person I want to be and the knowledge gaps I want to fill, but that point you made about feeling like you can’t have grand ideas unless you’re an expert feels like a bit of a barrier in my head to pursuing what my utopia would look like. This was really helpful and empowering to hear right now.
Anyway, LOVE the nhs national service idea and would maybe extend it to other industries, particularly those that society doesn’t value, and have maybe a rota of a couple of years where you learn about different industries or trades. Also I think it’d be grand if we had physical areas carved out in place of countries (or as well as?) for people who agree on how society should be organised and move and live there based on that collective agreement.
Going to think more about this over the next week!
I always feel like I learn something when watching your videos🌻 Thank you and keep safe 💛
Rather than a year out to work in the NHS, maybe having mandotory first aid training at school would be better? We're at school to learn after all? I think that this virus is especially showing us the problems with our education system. We're not taught many life skills, like gardening or fixing clothes, or basic first aid and the more theoretical things that we learn are also not being tested properly, as seen by our whole education being based on one set on a levels which are now canceled. Maybe a positive thing that will come out of this situation is a better education system (hopefully) 🙂
I have no idea of the quality of it, but if I remember correctly first aid training actually was added to the British National Curriculum last year!
Yes we 100% need more practical skills taught in school, I know we got rid of many home economics classes because they were very housewife-focused but we need to be teaching children actual life skills such as first aid, cpr, growing and cooking food, sewing clothes, understanding your taxes, etc..
Enjoyed this thoughtful and clever video 💛 😊
The only idea that I had a visceral reaction to was the first one because I am imagining my closeted 16 year old self being terrified to go on an exchange to Russia for a week and not feeling safe enough to tell my parents and friends why I am so scared and don't want to go.
I loved all the other ideas though
I LOVE this video! This makes me feel happy & excited about life again and your ideas are great! Thank you!
Aw yey I’m so glad
The double passport thing sounds so cool omg
is the all together now banner a sign? ;) esp falling down first and then getting back up
Omg PROBABLY!
I love what you said about not having to be an expert to have ideas.
You are amazing!
I adored this video! I love learning more about your perspective on the world
i honest to god cannot choose my favourite they are all BRILLIANT IDEAS
I agree with every one of these, I especially love the idea of being part of a group of people raising a child/children, because I want to have a child but also very much don’t at the same time! Also with travel, I live in Australia and have never been overseas because as much as I want to see other countries the idea of spending all that money and time to fly to the other side of the world only to tick off a few tourist spots sounds awful to me. I’ve always loved the idea of moving around to different places to properly experience them (especially as my family moved to a big tourist spot for 4 years when I was a teenager and it such a great experience). That requires the kind of flexible job I don’t have but it would be lovely if that became a more commonplace thing.
my partner and I have been talking about the concept of mandatory civil service for years now. A year in high school, where students are mandated to volunteer for a non profit, medical, housing or other organization as part of their education, no exceptions, no option to buy out of the program if they go to private school. I imagine it would do a great deal , especially in a country as disjointed as the US
I think the longer holidays and stopping seasonal fashion are great and also seem easily achievable. I saw knowing nothing about those industries work 😂
This was so nice and uplifting to listen to.
LOVE LOVE LOVE the idea of having 10 co-parents. I don't know if I want kids, but I would sure as hell like to pass along my environmental consciousness to the next generation! It's an opportunity to raise more well-rounded humans and puts less resource constraints on the biological parents. It would at the very least broaden family units, teach us how to better socialize, empathize and consider other ways of thinking.
My thoughts exactly.
First one is my favourite, as it would hugely increase love and understanding towards other people and people from other nations. We would all get along much more and exiting beneficial unions wouldn’t be considered a good idea.
Adding to your fifth idea: boycot low cost airlines as you would cheap chocolate. Travelling thousands of miles by plane is not likely worse for the environment than travelling those thousands of miles by car/train etc. Travelling 100 miles is a different story and especially when it’s cheaper than an average evening out so people don’t appreciate the true cost and do it frequently.
I love the idea of everyone getting some basic medical training :)
I have always thought it would be better if workplaces would have holidays like school holidays length.
Also, as someone who's never going to have kids, I would be very happy to get to be helpful aunty to some other people's kids
I love that your videos make me feel both smart and happy :)
Really liked this video! I always look forward to hearing your take on things :)
I love so much about this. Your first is fascinating but unfortunately expensive. I think us richer countries would have to help fund countries with less money. It is unfortunate but money is still while we can essentially make the decision to travel somewhere and feel like we know that country. Also it is soo sad about Brexit because Erasmus is essentially this. I lived in a country totally different to Ireland for a year and it was a privilege to learn. In short term we need to be open to talking to people with very different backgrounds to ours.
This was a GREAT idea! I would love the idea of a year training to support the NHS and the double passport would be amazing, however if something were to happen which caused you to need to leave your birth country you would still likely be split from your family.
this was so fun and genuinely inspiring !!!!
The NHS idea terrifies me, being in the same building as a shit ton of needles brings me out in a serious sweat! Some kind of compulsory volunteer-based activity though would be good. It is something that is dwindling.
I really liked the 2nd idea! My mom was born in Canada and I was born in the U.S., the rules surrounding travel have always seemed strange to me.
The idea I've had that's a bit out there perhaps, is u know how machines are replacing workers? Well what if when a worker got replaced, they then owned and cared for the machine? And they'd make money off the machine while also putting money in when needed. Companies would take less risk and make a little less which I'm sure is why it won't happen but it's nice to dream sometimes.
I believe I heard Bill Gates speaking about how we should be training members of our military and military reserves on things like basic medical care so that they can shift from war to healthcare during a crisis like this. We have seen a bit of this with Firemen handing out self-test swabs to people getting tested for covid, but imagine how many men and women could be helping our healthcare workers right now if just our military corps were available to lend a hand.
I love the idea to end seasonal fashion! I'm thinking about buying a winter coat. And as the good quality winter coats range between 200-300€, which is out of my normal budget for clothes, it want to think about the decision carefully. This can take up to 2-3 month for me and by that time I can no longer buy a winter coat. It stresses me out and is the reason why I haven't had a good fitting winter coat for years now...
I'm sorry if you've already tried, but have you searched for winter coats in secondhand shops or websites? You might luck out on a great find :)
@@Mweexer Thanks, I might try secondhand shops next :)
Loved the ideas, I'm sure many things would need ironing out, but the sentiments are great.
My dad and I always imagine having a minimum automatic pay for everyone, so that they can pay (very) basic living expenses, shelter, food, etc. no luxuries, but enough to survive. That would take so much pressure off of people to perform, be productive, work work work. I am convinced that people want to work and be productive and therefore the majority of individuals would choose to work, but will be more flexible as to how much or what they choose to do and you'd be able to invest in your learning etc. obvious problems would be, I suppose that no one would choose to clean toilets or pick fruit...
The other idea we always come back to is, limiting the amount of money someone can accumulate. The cap can be relatively high, say 20million(? no one needs that amount of money). anything over would have to be given up for general use, e.g. building green spaces, research, medical resources, education... whatever it may be.
LOVE these ideas, all smart and I honestly believe a lot of them would improve the world. I just think that some are so complicated there would be a ton of bureaucracy involved, or (like celebrity culture) maybe not really be forcible?
Loooove the holidays idea
The passport idea is SO incredibly i'm studying international relations at the moment in uni. So I can think of a million road blocks to making this a reality but in my mind I do see a window where this could happen. And solve a lot of global issues at once.
These ideas are brilliant and hopeful and I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of a wide range of people having more influence in the upbringing of a child. I must also know the name of the case that you were talking about at the beginning because it sounds fascinating!
Omg I forgot to link - it’s the Serial podcast , if you missed it you must listen and help solve the mystery I’m DYING
I would love to sit at a pub and listen to you talk about ideas. I'll have to let UA-cam videos suffice. :)
Your point about there not being enough jobs is super interesting because it's the exact opposite of my experience. For the past 3 to 5 years, in Northern Ireland for sure but I would imagine in other places too as I've read some articles that focused on other countries, there has been a massive skills shortage which actually got worse and became a 'people shortage'. It's just one of the many reasons Brexit is a terrible idea. In NI, there are more jobs available than there are people to do them, which cannibalises entire industries and drives up wage inflation. I am part of multiple industry based task forces and this is seen in all sectors - fintech, engineering, manufacturing, hospitality, agriculture - and across all skills levels - from those jobs that are described as low skill to jobs that are highly specialised. I'm part of a social enterprise that were looking at some really innovative ways to help tackle these problems systemically - though it will be interesting to see what impact the 'Rona will have on the employment landscape over the next couple of years - whether it will rebalance things for a while or if it will be moot in the longer term.
please have more Gin...I want to hear more ways!
I love the NHS and passport idea!! I would love a world where humans don’t hurt animals and we all try to grow more food locally! ;)
I like idea number 1 ☺️ I remember you telling me about it with so much excitement at the speaker training day! I suppose my thoughts are about whether the 2nd passport would be totally random, or whether there’d be some element of international justice woven into it too. Like, being given 2 passports to 2 countries with strong currencies, health systems and infrastructure would be very different to being from Cameroon and given a second passport to Burkina Faso. Also, if you’re from a wealthy country you can probably travel to your ‘other’ country in a time of need, which is obvi not the case for most people (I think the stats are that 80% of people have never been on a plane!). Things like that. Perhaps if would be fairer if there was a more intentional matching of places with justice as the central organising principle? Idk. But I think anything that encourages true international cultural exchange would be brilliant - as you said, most international travel is not really about education, and I think our lack of meaningful international consciousness and governance structures is half the battle with climate change. Great video ☺️
I think you’d have to make sure that this wasn’t just a way for globally wealthy people to holiday/retire abroad and learn a second language essentially for fun (or just for ‘enrichment’) while impoverished people and countries were largely left in the same state. I mean, how dissimilar is this to the situation of many people already, just without the passport and legal citizenship? Many people around the world already have to learn English for economic reasons and hope to move to US/UK/Canada etc for safety or economic reasons too. You’d have to make sure that people from poorer countries who received passports from rich countries were genuinely welcomed there as citizens too (which sadly feels like a pipe dream sometimes, given what we know about how many people feel about immigration now) and that developing countries were supported if many of their citizens chose to move abroad if the economic prospects were better in their 2nd country (which, as I said, already happens all the time). You’d have to ask real questions about whether this benefited all people, not just citizens of wealthy countries, whether those moving from poor to rich countries would be treated with dignity and whether this would decrease global inequality or enhance it. It’s an interesting idea, but immediately throws up so many considerations!
Also also, would highly recommend Bullshit Jobs. It’s a fab book
I'm calling it now - make extracurricular and elective classes like sewing, cooking, woodworking, and basic IT skills mandatory/highly encouraged. No one should graduate high school not knowing how to make an omelet and darn their socks.
I think every single person who truly doesn’t need to be in their workplace to do their job should have the option to work from home. I think there’s this ongoing conversation that so many employers are flexible with remote work, but I’ve seen little evidence of that.
Also, four day work weeks, because I don’t think many people are well and truly working desk jobs for 40 hours per week and we haven’t revisited our work schedules in far too long.
this video is great!
About the swiss thing... I think there used to be a law that every house (or home not sure) has to have a bunker. Is that what they were referring to? I'm not sure if that rule is still in place though... I am german but lived close to the swiss border most of my life.
What if, instead of paying car insurance monthly or yearly or whatever (I don't even have a car so I don't know) to companies that always try to avoid actually paying up if possible...
You could just save up a certain amount, say £1000, or however much might reasonably be expected to cover damages, in your own personal car insurance account (separate from your other accounts) and if you have that amount you'd be allowed to drive?
The way it would work is, if you have the money, the bank issues you a special card which you need to keep with you when you're driving, and which the police might ask to look at, same as car insurance.
If there's some emergency and you need to withdraw that money, you have to go to the bank and turn your card in to withdraw from that account, and then you can't drive until you've deposited enough to top it up again.
Obviously anyone who works at a car insurance company would lose their job, which is the downside, but I think it would be good for everyone else.
(I'm Muslim and any transactions involving interest are basically not allowed unless super super necessary which is why I've thought about this. Car insurance is one of those exceptions, but only because there aren't really any other options.)
Omg the Serial cameo
IDEA 2!!!! Yes.
I loved your two passports idea haha :)
Korea is the same way with military service, every eligible man has to serve 2 years, and they have to be on the reserves basically until they retire. Personal guns aren't allowed in Korea, but every man in Korea is trained on how to properly use a gun anyways. France actually had this rule too up until like 2002, my cousin just missed having to serve, and my husband was only in middle school when they stopped it so he never knew anyone that did it.
I'm late to the party but Ensia is a great solutions-based outlets focusing on environmental stories :)
These are brilliant ideas, have loved watching your videos latley; I have a few philosophers and thinkers you might find interesting: Benedict Anderson and his concept of imagined communities and Martha Nussbaum and her global citizens. Hopfully looming into them could ocupy you for a few hours 🤣
Yesss when I studied political science Anderson's was a foundational pillar. Also Tony Judt!
@@kaitlinberanek4539 ohhh I'll have to look into him, Kwame Anthony Appiah and cosmopolitanism is another classic aswell who I loved studying
@@archerbradshaw8057 the tony judt is called Ill Fares the Land if you're interested ^^
@@kaitlinberanek4539 thank you! :))