108 - Brainstorming VI 🌏
Hey there, !
Previous posts:
- here (initial idea post),
- here (businesses I want to see that don’t exist yet),
- here (absurd products bought in pairs)
- here (businesses that take advantage of things you don’t use at home) and
- here (stupid businesses that can help you get rich)
- here (businesses for Asian-Australian kids)
Today’s theme is How to save the world. A lot of these ideas are probably ripped straight from a variety of science fiction books I’ve read, so they might get wild but don’t worry! That’s what brainstorming is about:
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Push a button, save a tree: Taking advantage of the human’s impulse to make…well, impulse decisions. A while back, Westpac NZ trialed an ‘Impulse Saver’ app which tried to counter the behaviour of impulse spending. Instead of making it super easy to spend, why not make it super easy to save? And in this case, why not make it easy to save…a tree? Click the button to save a tree - by donating $X to a nominated charity when you’re in the mood (e.g. One Tree Planted or Carbon Positive Australia or Trees for the Future). This could be supported by a fun lil’ app showing your actual impact of how many trees you’ve donated to building!
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The Rich Redistribution: Every year, on a given day, we get a list of the people who have had the highest average wealth across the year, do a lottery of the top 50 of them, and whoever gets picked has to redistribute their wealth to the rest of the country (and keep maybe like ~$1M or something. Threshold TBD). In my head, what will happen behaviour-wise is that they’ll hide these funds overseas / with their friends and family - but honestly, if they’re making that much money, it’s at least being split up amongst more and more people. Also with this idea it would be best if every country did it at the same time so you can’t hide the $$ anywhere.
- If it doesn’t work, then instead I would propose a Billion Dollar Party where we would do the same thing, but every person on that top 50 list has to throw a public party. Whoever has the worst party (based on a popular vote) has to redistribute their wealth (starting from the top of the list). This will satisfy their egos, bring rich people into competition with each other re: throwing a party for the rest of the world, and also still help to redistribute the wealth.
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Space junk retrieval service: There’s a bunch of precious metals and debris fizzing around the earth from previous satellites being blown up; just like any good waste processor on Earth, surely there’s a need for a service that can collect all that shit, clean up our orbit, and re-extract the useful materials to recycle!? I think there are a whole host of logistical problems with it, but we gotta dream big, y’know?
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Watersphere AI - Assuming a wider adoption of desalination plants to increase the amount of freshwater we have access to (which is about 1% of 2.5% of the total water on Earth), I thought there might be knock-on ecological effects to taking water out of the water cycle system for our own consumption. This made me think that the optimal way you’d work this out is with some sort of AI that could balance the needs of the environment with the amount of freshwater being taken out of the sea in different oceans around the world every year / potentially real-time to ensure that we aren’t plundering the sea too hard. Though if we had this AI then it probably could work out a lot more than this…
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Filament Recycling program: This makes the major assumption that 3D printers become way more common in the future. Based on the amount of plastic you recycle in your recycling bin, you could be reimbursed in filament - a certain amount of spool per gram of recycling that you provide. This means that the more waste you create, the more material you get; so you’re incentivised to either sell it to people who are going to use it to make some cool shit, or learn to use it yourself to be more savvy with things around your house!
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Deep sea vent energy: There are these really deep sea vents that are essentially connected straight to the magma in the crust of the Earth that spew out copious amounts of heat and chemicals into the sea - almost infinitely. Is there a way to harness that energy? I’m not even sure if it’s technically more renewable, but it’s something different to greenhouse gases at least. Maybe it’s something a floating city would use on the sea as a power source (as an alternative to solar) that they’re anchored around…or maybe somewhere people can harvest sea flora and fauna abundantly? Hmmm…might need to rethink this one.
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Carbon balance: Kind of like personalised carbon credits, we should balance the carbon being used across different activities; charge for those which are more carbon-emitting, and pay those who are reducing their output. e.g. Charge a fee for driving (i.e. registration or insurance fees), but reimburse people who are choosing public transport / cycling / walking. Don’t know the logistics of this but it would incentivise people to be on the receiving end rather than the paying end - and also makes people more conscious of what they’re choosing to do with their money.
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Kid teachers: A variant on those international ‘sister’ schools where you’re really only sending letters every so often, or some pictures about what you’re doing to schools in developing nations. The next stage is to have a lived experience where they are, and try to teach them the stuff you’re learning / have learnt in your classroom. Pair off with people in a class, and be each other’s teachers for things. It would likely need to be at the Year 9/10 level or higher, to make it more impactful and leave a deeper impression on what should be done about poverty across the world. This would obviously run into logistical problems re: where they live, what they eat, supervision etc. and the option of having a reverse trip as well, but it’s an idea!
Chat soon :)
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✔️ Real Life Recommendations
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Saul’s Sandwiches - Two locations currently in Melbourne; one in Carnegie, and one in Hawthorn. American-inspired sandwiches that are incredibly tasty and extremely well worth the trouble to go and get. I’ve tried the Eggplant Parma sub (very good for a non-meat sandwich), the Saul’s sub (a massive combination of lovely cold meats) and the Roast Pastrami (TOP TIER). Pairs well with picnics and lovely sunny days.
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Star Wars: Visions - Star Wars, but if it was anime. Each episode is a different vignette of stories from across the galaxy, and the short movies are fascinating. A lot of them follow classic anime storylines in small 15-20mins chunks, and pay homage not only to Star Was but also to cinema. The first episode, for example, is one of my favourites, being an homage to Akira Kurosawa, as well as a SICK LIGHTSABER BATTLE right up front.
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Reversing ocean acidification with aggressive CO2 removal will take more than 700 years - okay. Add it to the list of ‘really massive problems’ that the current generation will never be able to deal with.
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A fun project using machines to handwrite things - engineers are really cool and nerding out on this stuff is my vibe. Apparently this company sends letters to people across Texas to help them apply for tax relief or something. Manufactured authenticity, sure, but for a good cause?
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Take a look inside a dark store - want to know what a dark store looks like? Gamifying and taking advantage of the gig economy, as with most of these types of businesses.