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[malimbar04]

I was thinking recently - what are the minimum barriers to be useful in a America (or other similar country)? I mean usefulness in the sense that someone is contributing to society. I'd assume someone would need to:
- Be active in the financial system (have a job, buy products, save money, build companies, etc)
- Be active in the social system (donate time/money to charities, vote, affect your local government, support/start social programs, improve living/working conditions, etc)

It occured to me that it's not easy to change these things for the better. Further, at some level it actually becomes nearly impossible. Where is this level? Well it depends of course on what the climate is. In order to get a job, you need a minimum of:
- some social skills, hopefully learned through family/school at an early age
- a place to shower
- a place to sleep
- transportation
And without these things, you can't have even the McDonalds jobs, which require no training whatsoever. What about when these jobs run out, and we're left with jobs that do require some prior training? Well, I can think of:
- clean clothing, preferably a suit to show you're a "higher" class of person.
- far better social skills that previously needed, in order to impress the interviewers
- people who can vouch for your skills (a college degree, previous work employers)

And if you want an even better position, you have:
- even BETTER social skills
- the ability to deal with government regulations (paid lawyer(s) most likely)
- the ability to regulate/hire employees
- the ability to out-compete others
- the ability to get a loan (for equipment, employees, office/work space, etc)
- an idea

And what about the political/social arena? Yes, the ability to vote is a basic requirement, as is a certain amount of liberty and flexibility in developing social rules. Since I'm a USA citizen, I'm assuming my own political scenario for minimum requirements. So, other minimum requirements:
- registration to vote
- access to accurate information (which is nearly always lacking)
- a knowledge of the positions of all candidates
- the ability to guess what those candidates will proceed to do once in office
- the desire and time to do the above
- the ability to regulate candidates and replace them easily (currently done when new terms are voted for)
- the ability to regulate and replace laws that do not represent people (currently done through the judicial system, newspapers, and passing new laws)


So the main question is how can we lower these requirements? Also, what other requirements are there that I haven't described? There are probably lots of those. I figure if we get all these barriers roughly understood, than this becomes a relatively simple engineering problem to fix our political and financial problems.

***IDEAS from forum***
free transportation, particularly bus networks.
(Levi)

 a co-op that does a bunch of small support things like:
- Has a bunch of nice suits that a person can rent for a day.
- Tool rentals for Do-it-yourself projects
- Manages an extremely simple investment fund(Like an index fund) for people looking to save for the future.
- Cheap seminars for teaching people basic life skills like cooking, gardening and home repair.
(Levi)

public works programs (temporary government employment ala FDR), at cost of military.
(Flying dice, critiqued by Luke_Prowler)

Refocus military toward public works.
(PnX)

tax-subsidized education
(Cryptfeind)

[Necro910]

So the main question is how can we lower these requirements?

"Do not ask for a lighter load, but ask for a stronger back"

[Flying Dice]

So the main question is how can we lower these requirements?

"Do not ask for a lighter load, but ask for a stronger back"

Just about sums up what I would have said. Look what lowering requirements and standards got us in our public education.

[Criptfeind]

Anyway. despite the way he said it Necro is true to a point. You can't really lower much. Maybe though massive socializing of the economy you could lower the social ability requirement. But then you would end up with people in jobs they can do but do not want to do I guess.

What you CAN do on the other hand is help people meet these requirements though social (Yeah I just used the same word three different ways. High-Five.) programs, free or reduced cost of education. Ect.

[Flying Dice]

In all honesty, FDR gave us a perfect example of what you can do to employ a whole lot of people: public works programs; set people to work building and repairing infrastructure nationwide. As for how to pay for it? Maybe trim a little slice off the edge of that fat military spending roast.

[Levi]

I've always thought transportation should be free, particularly bus networks.

I'd love to see a co-op that does a bunch of small support things like:
- Has a bunch of nice suits that a person can rent for a day.
- Tool rentals for Do-it-yourself projects
- Manages an extremely simple investment fund(Like an index fund) for people looking to save for the future.
- Cheap seminars for teaching people basic life skills like cooking, gardening and home repair.
- etc

[Luke_Prowler]

In all honesty, FDR gave us a perfect example of what you can do to employ a whole lot of people: public works programs; set people to work building and repairing infrastructure nationwide. As for how to pay for it? Maybe trim a little slice off the edge of that fat military spending roast.

Problem with that is that the military employs a lot of people too. Not just soldiers but engineers, scientist, and quite a few others. You'd be trading one type of job for another

[Pnx]

The CCC was one of the best things to happen to the US. I think recapturing some of that dynamic would be a good idea.

One thing I've noticed is that when the military sets its mind to things it really gets the job done. Whenever there's a disaster it's usually the military that picks up the pieces. So maybe we should simply be refocusing the military a little.

If you asked the military to do some public works, I'm pretty sure the job would get done pretty fast, and I imagine there's a large pool of potential recruits out there who would be willing to get involved if it doesn't involve the war business. I know I would.

[Funk]

useing the army for mass labour for a public works program.
or use the unemployed at a lowage(statemin) with help from the army (i.e. tents, food, leadership) to do the work.

anyone that is willing to work on anykind of public works program will most likey spend the money in the short team, in the local area.

[malimbar04]

I've started to compile our ideas on the beginning thread, regardless of how well I agree with them . then I'll use my other replies to debate different points (and such).

Sacrificing military or refocusing the military toward non-military needs I think is a mistake, particularly if you want to LOWER the barrier to entry for people who want to work. The military is extremely expensive, and is less than efficient when dealing with structural problems at home. Even if it were not though, the military adds a huge barrier, as not everyone is allowed to join. The young, the elderly, the less-than-healthy, are all forbidden. Those who are of a discriminated minority, or have a history with crime etc, are often discouraged from joining. Then the application process takes months, before the training begins.

low-cost education sounds like a great idea, but how would this be done? If this simply means that the government pays for it (or subsidizes it), then we're just shifting the problem from student loans and scholarships towards extra bureaucracy and taxes, along with the extra regulations that such bureaucracy would inevitably have attached to it. Then we just create extra social problems that libertarians complain about right now.

I really like the idea of a co-op, though I'd assume it would rely on hefty donations to run? Free transportation also sounds good, but only of real use in cities (where it's already often employed).

[Criptfeind]

low-cost education sounds like a great idea, but how would this be done? If this simply means that the government pays for it (or subsidizes it), then we're just shifting the problem from student loans and scholarships towards extra bureaucracy and taxes, along with the extra regulations that such bureaucracy would inevitably have attached to it. Then we just create extra social problems that libertarians complain about right now.

I really don't have any idea at all how it would work. I could take some random stabs like a tax hike, or that students can not afford education thus it is more important to shift the burden off them and onto a system that can even if it does create some waste.

But I don't know if that is true. I can't really give anything close to a plan.

[Montague]

I'm not really sure what 'minimum barriers to be useful to society' means. To me, anybody who isn't living out in the wilderness as a hermit is contributing to society one way or another. Even a bum that turns in 5$ of aluminum cans a day and spends it on malt liquor is contributing to the economy and to society.

Also, if anything, the military is probably a net drain on society. It's only real justification for existing is to defend the country against violence and act in other emergencies. Its impossible to quantify what value it as such. That said, they are not really there to sweep streets and dig ditches for the benefit of the civilian economy, they are supposed to train for warfare and their other purposes. The Army Corps of Engineers already does a lot of public works, but that's what they do in wars as well, so building bridges and building levees for public use is training for them and a good use of their time, but otherwise a civilian firm could do the same thing for less money.

Also, the reason huge FDR workfare programs are not used so much anymore is because advances in technology and technique makes manpower less relevant today for these sorts of projects. It doesn't take 5000 people in a moving camp to lay down railroads anymore. Skill, expertise and equipment are more important for efficiently completing projects and there are already existing commercial and government firms that have them.

[thobal]

Plus, when the military starts being the primary builder and maintainer of infrastructure it opens up a huge can of worms.

[lemon10]

In all honesty, FDR gave us a perfect example of what you can do to employ a whole lot of people: public works programs; set people to work building and repairing infrastructure nationwide. As for how to pay for it? Maybe trim a little slice off the edge of that fat military spending roast.

Problem with that is that the military employs a lot of people too. Not just soldiers but engineers, scientist, and quite a few others. You'd be trading one type of job for another

The military does employ a lot of people, but for the most part provides no real benefits besides employment (and going off to fight wars in other countries with no real gain politically or economically to America), whereas the same amount of money put into infrastructure would both create jobs, and help our failing infrastructure, something that is of long term help to the country and is desperately needed.

[Luke_Prowler]

The military does employ a lot of people, but for the most part provides no real benefits besides employment (and going off to fight wars in other countries with no real gain politically or economically to America), whereas the same amount of money put into infrastructure would both create jobs, and help our failing infrastructure, something that is of long term help to the country and is desperately needed.

I agree that infrastructure is very important, but research in military usually get used for a less deadly purpose later, same as research in NASA lead to a lot of thing we used to day.

All in all, if the point is to create more jobs, there's better ways.