Government Weirdtopia: all nations operate as divisions of a single organization. these subdivisions are further divided into even smaller divisions which are also divided in turn. This pattern continues until it reaches the point of bands approximately the size of hunter-gatherer bands so as to allow full optimization of social relations. each band exerts major control over issues of concern, as well as weaker influence over matters concerning other bands, thus allowing any band to be overruled if it strays too far from what its neighbors consider rational. Bands exert more influence over other communities in nearby locations than those in distant lands. the exception to this is that a community will hold more influence over several communities a random distance anywhere above 2000 miles away than over communities in its immediate vicinity. citizens of one community will be encouraged to simultaneously view neighboring communities as both separate nations and neighboring towns. Any citizen can change the world with a good enough idea that spreads far enough, however more weight shall be given to the opinions of those deemed more trustworthy through carefully administered and highly organized tests designed to test wisdom and competence. Groups of representatives meet to decide issues concerning larger areas, however these representatives must first be proved highly trustworthy and the positions are low paying and temporary, so as to eliminate corruption and ensure that only competent citizens who are truly concerned over the state of the world can hold any real power of much difference from their neighbors.
in this way all states will have complete authority and the power to act swiftly only while making rational decisions, while at the same time being completely restricted when making decisions that can be construed as foolish or malicious. and i DARE someone here to think further outside the box on this issue.
someone here
Me too, specifically, I dare you!
As hard as it is to come up with good solutions to problems, starting from scratch and ignoring what you already thought of is even harder. You're not done once you answered once only (by the way, I haven't thought of one at all). KND 8:35:12 thought of something, has KND 8:40?
This isn't an Olympic event where you can only win one medal; the same person could win the silver and the gold in this, unlike in the 100 meter dash...not that it's a competition.
One entry per person makes more sense if the goal is to ...
Utopia and Dystopia have something in common: they both confirm the moral sensibilities you started with. Whether the world is a libertarian utopia of the non-initiation of violence and everyone free to start their own business, or a hellish dystopia of government regulation and intrusion—you might like to find yourself in the first, and hate to find yourself in the second; but either way you nod and say, "Guess I was right all along."
So as an exercise in creativity, try writing them down side by side: Utopia, Dystopia, and Weirdtopia. The zig, the zag and the zog.
I'll start off with a worked example for public understanding of science:
Disclaimer 1: Not every sensibility we have is necessarily wrong. Originality is a goal of literature, not science; sometimes it's better to be right than to be new. But there are also such things as cached thoughts. At least in my own case, it turned out that trying to invent a world that went outside my pre-existing sensibilities, did me a world of good.
Disclaimer 2: This method is not universal: Not all interesting ideas fit this mold, and not all ideas that fit this mold are good ones. Still, it seems like an interesting technique.
If you're trying to write science fiction (where originality is a legitimate goal), then you can write down anything nonobvious for Weirdtopia, and you're done.
If you're trying to do Fun Theory, you have to come up with a Weirdtopia that's at least arguably-better than Utopia. This is harder but also directs you to more interesting regions of the answer space.
If you can make all your answers coherent with each other, you'll have quite a story setting on your hands. (Hope you know how to handle characterization, dialogue, description, conflict, and all that other stuff.)
Here's some partially completed challenges, where I wrote down a Utopia and a Dystopia (according to the moral sensibilities I started with before I did this exercise), but inventing a (better) Weirdtopia is left to the reader.
Economic...
Sexual...
Governmental...
Technological...
Cognitive...