10 ms·
Ask HN: What would you do if you were president?
the title says it all, I want to hear HNers ideas and plans
- fsflover 5y agoPardon Snowden and Assange.
- usrbinbash 5y agoDepends: President of what country exactly?
- readonthegoapp 5y agoUS
- jvln 5y agoCall in all inteligence heads and ask the most important question: do aliens exist?
- fsflover 5y agoHow do you know? You're not OP.
- readonthegoapp 5y agoCommon sense Assume OP is using common sense in good faith
- usrbinbash 5y ago"President" is not exclusively the title of the head of state of the US.
- 1cvmask 5y agoAbolish civil forfeiture. Limit qualified immunity for all government employees especially police and prosecutors. Pardon Snowden, Assange and Daniel Hale etc. Remove the absurd restrictions of the Treasury regarding KYC and AML thus lowering the costs for the poor to be banked. Cut back on the sprawl of over 800 foreign military bases. Stop economic sanctions as a weapon against poor countries. Stop meddling in other countries affairs. Strengthen following the UN and its laws. Eliminate illegal activities like the surveillance state. Save money from the 1.25 trillion national security budget and spend it on Medicare for all. Remove a lot of the rules and regulations and onerous compliance on startups and smaller companies. Change federal procurement rules that currently favor the large elite companies and the entrenched. Limit the effects of bribery, corruption and "lobbying" in setting government rules and regulations.
- readonthegoapp 5y agoThis plus Worldwide no nukes policy -- nuclear-free zone called earth and space Attack global warming like the wwiii-style emergency it is Truth and reconciliation commission Limit power of supreme court and balance it out, term limits, and more Support worker co-ops Push for publicly funded campaigns End corporate personhood Allow black people and dem voters to vote Nationalize big pharma and healthcare and energy -- thus ending covid, etc. Try for all of the above at least
- 8bitsrule 5y agoGreat lists. We'll need a benevolent Monarchy though.
- giantg2 5y agoNothing - because it's never going to happen.
- simonblack 5y agoThrow away zero-sum policies. Introduce only win-win policies.
- sigmaprimus 5y agoMandate Mandarin language classes for everyone 30 years old and younger. Pull another Roosevelt and buy/confiscate American gold at 5000 USD/ounce, then re tie the US dollar to gold at 10000 USD/ounce to ensure hegemony for the next 100 years..(Before China does it first with their citizens gold)
- LinuxBender 5y agoProbably nowhere near as much as I intended once I find out how that office actually works. I like the things that people are proposing in this thread but I also imagine there is some unseen barrier that seems to prevent the same intelligent well meaning people from reaching that level of office. Honest question for to your question for the people of HN. Can anyone think of a time in history where someone with the intelligent and critical thinking qualities of the people on this thread have ever attained even close to that level of office? FDR? I am not a historian but I suspect some of you are. Am I being too cynical?
- ldjkfkdsjnv 5y agoI would turn areas of government bureaucracy into some sort of capitalist system, where employees of the government seek to get huge bonuses for reducing inefficiency.
- mikewarot 5y agoStop the policy of drone strike kill lists every Tuesday. Explain why it's a bad idea to make it harder for the next guy. Declassify all the cases where we killed civilians because of bad intel. (probably 90% of all strikes?) Pardon all the whistleblowers, and make a concerted PR push as to the good they do for the country. That's about all I could actually do, everything else would be stopped by the RepubliCratic donor class who actually control things in Washington, DC.