What is the most powerful but under-appreciated way we can shape the future?

Yes- Making our own neighborhoods and communities safe, beautiful, friendly, tolerant, cared for, functional and environmentally conscious. If every single person in America got to know their own neighbors and did two hours of work each week in their own area to help make it a better place to live, then ALL of America would be all right. People would be sharing garden foods they grew, they would be helping each other fix things by sharing tools knowledge time and work. If neighbors knew that someone needed food or assitance, they could get together and help out, share what they have, baby sit, take an older person to the store or shop for them etc.

It's not about just helping people on the other side of the planet. There are people who need help very near each of us. Last winter-here in Mid Michigan- a homeless man died in a small park that was four blocks from my house in a beautiful college town neighborhood. He froze to death overnight out there. No one knew he was there until he was found. THAT is a tragedy. Think Global. Act Local.

d a solution now. There is one and this country, of all of them is smart enough to find it. Give us the pride back, Value the people. All of them.

Pickup our own garbage from the streets, etc and think about where it goes when we do toss it out and think about every piece of paper we touch as a once living thing. Plant a tree a year and nurture it the way you do a child! Clean a street, creek, beach. Explain to your children why they have to help you-they imitate what you do, so go do! Get offended when others don't. Treat every child as your own if they are riding their bike in the street, stop the car and ask-does your mother know you are doing that? They amazingly will stop the nonsense and look at you for just a moment, in wonder that someone not a parent cared enough to take a stand.

Go back to the presidents council on physical fitness days and shape up our children. Grow some good food and teach your child to do it too. Then let them eat it!

Remind people the value of community just in case we need to be one someday!

Be someone that someone else can trust to do the best right thing and let it start with you!

Appreciate intelligence and value it appropriately.

Stop sending jobs overseas. Just stop and if our people aren't good enough here-teach them

Plant a tree a year and nurture it the way you do a child! Clean a street, creek, beach. Explain to your children why they have to help you-they imitate what you do, so go do! Get offended when others don't. Treat every child as your own if they are riding their bike in the street, stop the car and ask-does your mother know you are doing that? They amazingly will stop the nonsense and look at you for just a moment, in wonder that someone not a parent cared enough to take a stand. Go back to the presidents council on physical fitness days and shape up our children. Grow some good food and teach your child to do it too. Then let them eat it! Today's generation is working hard to prevent global warming and reduce our use of foreign oil, while they should be worried about why are children are ranked new the bottom when it comes to education.

While saving the planet is something that we should be concerned with I am sure that if you start teaching the fundamentals of Oil consumption, and fossil fuel use, along with building more advanced buildings that take advantage of natural light and rain water.

Plant a tree a year and nurture it the way you do a child! Clean a street, creek, beach. Explain to your children why they have to help you-they imitate what you do, so go do! Get offended when others don't. Treat every child as your own if they are riding their bike in the street, stop the car and ask-does your mother know you are doing that? They amazingly will stop the nonsense and look at you for just a moment, in wonder that someone not a parent cared enough to take a stand. Today's generation is working hard to prevent global warming and reduce our use of foreign oil, while they should be worried about why are children are ranked new the bottom when it comes to education.

While saving the planet is something that we should be concerned with I am sure that if you start teaching the fundamentals of Oil consumption, and fossil fuel use, along with building more advanced buildings that take advantage of natural light and rain water.

First, I think that it is insane for one person, like Bill Gates, to make so much money (how many billions of dollars can one person spend in one lifetime?). Therefore, I think there should be a cap on income, and an absolute cap on personal wealth. If a person reaches the wage cap, that person can not get another raise. A person who reaches the wealth cap may not make any further income from any source until their account drops by a given percent. This would free up money (read: resources) to ensure that everyone can live in dignity and good health.

The extreme division of resources (represented by money) is so disproportionate that we have people starving on one end; and, on the other end, people with so much wealth couldn't use it in many lifetimes .

This disprportion is what keeps certain corporations 'in power', driving harvesting and use of the world's resourced. It forces people to be divided into 'master/slave' relationships (even though we have abolished the term 'slavery', we still hold a similar position regards our 'bosses'); wherein the few have the majority of the resources and the rest do all the labor and live on the lowest incomes. A more equitable distribution of wealth (resources) would make life more livable for all by assuring that nobody goes without because of the greed of the few.

Second, I have read somewhere that about 85% of money put into the welfare system goes to 'administrative costs'. Therefore, I think that the people who administer welfare, in any form, should be required to live on the same income, with the same benefits as those they administer.

This way, there would be more money in the system for those poor for whom it was earmarked in the first place; and would give the administrators more empathy for those they 'serve'.

Of course, I realise these are ideals, and not necessarily practical. While I can dream as good as anyone, I do not have the skills to know how to impliment such reforms. This is a job for the 'economists'.

Dennis Miller disclaimer: "Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong."

Have fewer children.

All the problems the earth now faces -- warming, pollution, water shortages, species extinction -- are caused by overpopulation. If there were only 1 million people on Earth, or 10 million, even 100 million, we couldn't cause these problems if we worked at it day and night. Soon there will be 10 billion, and no technology or wise lifestyle choices can support that many humans without overheating the atmosphere, depleting safe water, and wiping out the habitats of hundreds or thousands of other species.

Nobody wants to face this. Reproduction is the predominant drive in every species. But we have the choice either to succumb to that drive or to use the one facility that should differentiate us from other species -- reason -- and make the tough choice to reverse population growth. A one-child policy would solve the problem in just a few generations, and life would be more pleasant for the smaller population that remained.

It's a radical, and difficult, choice. But it's the only realistic hope we have.

Pickup our own garbage from the streets, etc and think about where it goes when we do toss it out and think about every piece of paper we touch as a once living thing. Plant a tree a year and nurture it the way you do a child! Clean a street, creek, beach. Explain to your children why they have to help you-they imitate what you do, so go do! Get offended when others don't. Treat every child as your own if they are riding their bike in the street, stop the car and ask-does your mother know you are doing that? They amazingly will stop the nonsense and look at you for just a moment, in wonder that someone not a parent cared enough to take a stand. Go back to the presidents council on physical fitness days and shape up our children. Grow some good food and teach your child to do it too. Then let them eat it! Today's generation is working hard to prevent global warming and reduce our use of foreign oil, while they should be worried about why are children are ranked new the bottom when it comes to education.

While saving the planet is something that we should be concerned with I am sure that if you start teaching the fundamentals of Oil consumption, and fossil fuel use, along with building more advanced buildings that take advantage of natural light and rain water.

The people less well cared for in the world are the working class the underclass all over. They do the work while everyone up the levels skim off them and live off them. Granted someone needs to organize but look at this example medical care when I was a child was relatively inexpensive then along came the big business people who made it into an insurance industry. Now you have all the middle men there along with people who are paid to keep an eye on the fraud along with the investors and owner managers of the corporations getting their funding while paying lower fees for medical care than those who pay cash. The people who actually support the insurance medical care system seem to be the working class who cannot afford insurance because they have to pay the full fee and cash at least on a montly payment plan if they want to own anything because these corporates call and harrass along with do everything they can to ruin the credit of those who do not pay the medical fees who have less money intimidate and harrass them to no end even though they are not suppose to be allowed to do this with medical care. They do this by hiding the fact that they are actually going after an unpaid medical bill. And we all pay for the illegals who cannot be tracked who use the emergency rooms then do not pay who have nothing to loose by doing so because they have no Identification nor social security numbers so those who hire and encourage illegals to come here are really costing all the system more. And they have busted immigration at the border constantly taking bribes, carrying people across in immigration vehicles such that the tighter they make the border the more they can get for bringing them in illegally.

In foreign countries they are enslaved often as young adults and worked until they die in bad conditions. We need to give away birthcontrol not more food to make more babies in these countries so that all working class has more power in the world and is appreciated more because the rich I have worked for damned sure do not do anything but go on vacation year round on the sweat and suffering of the working class.

I think we over look our potential for shaping a better future...

Small things....like closing the tap water while you are brushing, or making manure from your kitchen garbage like leafy veg, eggs etc can make such a difference to save water, reduce chemical usage...

Its a little effort on our path to do so but wht a great resource would it be if we all did it!....

We should know about issues ..like...famine, poverty, genocide, diseases, racism, know wht different religion teach....knowledge is power...we can become a resource to fight all these issues....only if we know we will be able to something abt it...ignorance of such things is a very big loss of resource....it think ingronace

We have lost sight of how a small effort on our part can make a difference.... why not just give a kind smile when you wake down the grocery store isle?

We should raise our kids with a good knowledge and realization of hardwork, tolerance, self respect, nature, simplicity thatz the best resource we can give to our future...our kids are the future...

shaping the future - nice....

Till now money motivated us to create a better future, but now it is becoming a barrier for development.

I have observed that a competitive environment promotes a healthy and successful future. But competition also causes inflation. People are driven towards money, and 'trust among people' is becoming increasingly dependent on money.

In a different perspective, money is used as to appreciate a person for a job well done, which at an initial stage motivates the person but mostly ends up in creating an artificial barrier for a persons capability in relation with the available money in hand.

solution:

Instead of money being a motivator, just the beauty of work should motivate people. This will need a mix in work profiles by removing artificial barriers between them.

For example, consider Future workers working in the coal mines. Even they can be motivated in their work. i.e Modify their work profiles such that their job also includes high profile work.

- say researching presence of fossils under coal mine

- inculcating knowledge to find the presence of any other type of fuel under the mines. Say natural gas

Basically to make them do the work of what the people in a higher paid jobs and profiles would do. It might take some time to implement, but this will reduce time taken to finish the whole project and also give a healthy direction to the future.

Taking into consideration the fact that our education system is becoming more and more practical and innovative, there wont be a problem to produce this super skilled labour.

If this works, then there wont be huge difference in the pay scale between the lowest paid worker and the highest paid manager. Inflation would be reduced. Science would improve.

Finally it might even result in a complete monopoly in all fields of work, but there will be a healthy internal competition within project groups just to excel in quality of work.

Send the analysts to the jails and the streets and find a solution now. There is one and this country, of all of them is smart enough to find it. Give us the pride back, Value the people. All of them.

Pickup our own garbage from the streets, etc and think about where it goes when we do toss it out and think about every piece of paper we touch as a once living thing. Plant a tree a year and nurture it the way you do a child! Clean a street, creek, beach. Explain to your children why they have to help you-they imitate what you do, so go do! Get offended when others don't. Treat every child as your own if they are riding their bike in the street, stop the car and ask-does your mother know you are doing that? They amazingly will stop the nonsense and look at you for just a moment, in wonder that someone not a parent cared enough to take a stand.

Go back to the presidents council on physical fitness days and shape up our children. Grow some good food and teach your child to do it too. Then let them eat it!

Remind people the value of community just in case we need to be one someday!

Be someone that someone else can trust to do the best right thing and let it start with you!

Appreciate intelligence and value it appropriately.

Stop sending jobs overseas. Just stop and if our people aren't good enough here-teach them here! Bring those people from other places that you think do a better job, bring them here and let them teach our people. I know and many others do it's not about our talent it is about the money!

Remind the country how we became the nation that they are proud of and what they have to do to keep it that way.

Stop lying, start trusting the public to understand and make good decisions too.

Feed the minds of our people and stop telling them what to think. Start asking them questions and by doing so you may actually learn a lot. And last but not in any way least-remember this is a democracy not a dictatorship!