What if people paid in $ for crimes instead of jail time? Like paying a traffic fine, as an example.

Jail time seems unbalanced for the crime committed and jails are crowded. A murderer gets a few years, insurance fraud gets more than murder, all depending on the randomness of Courts, judges, and expensive lawyers. Eating a person you've just killed on a bus... it happened in Canada and he was out in a few years. I've yet to see anyone murdered come back to life but it seems murder is not all that costly in time. Maybe... it could be counted on a different scale. Cash value instead of time served. It's a start.

I think the old idea of work houses could be brought back. Prisoners work in order to buy their freedom, eventually. I don't see that ever happening these days. Like capital punishment, it isn't likely to come back. (Capital punishment and the death penalty are not the same thing. Young people don't know and assume a lot).

So, just fine them and let the credit agencies nag at them for payment. If its good enough for people who haven't committed a crime, other than getting in debt, why not? A little stress and endless calls from credit agencies always tracking them down, isn't too tough a punishment.

I don't think jail time was ever working as punishment anyway. It was supposed to reform people. How can you really ever reform or punish someone for a crime like murder? Other crimes like assault, robbery, etc. as long as no one was killed. There should be a line somewhere. It gets complicated when you decide if "left for dead" is the same as murder/ killing. I think so. Why should a killer benefit from the luck or determination of someone else to live.

So most criminal activity could be set as a dollar amount payable to the Canadian government (or whatever the local government is). Not as a punishment just a heavy fine. A better deterrent than jail. For one thing it will cost the government less than housing, feeding, entertaining them. Making use of credit agencies means the government won't have to hire extra staff, unless it goes through Canada Revenue, which I guess it must at some point. Of course, payments for crimes will not get any tax credits or refunds. That would be silly.

Maybe the government could collect enough to lower taxes. I just keep finding all kinds of good options for this idea.

As land becomes more valuable and there are more people needing burial plots, old cemeteries will be dug up for new bodies to replace the old. Think this is not possible? It is already happening (or soon will be) in Cape Town, South Africa.

Graves have been "moved" all over North America. Old family farms with their family plots, gone. Old local churches with their small cemetery plots, gone. Replaced with roads, assorted buildings. Moving or replacing old graves for new might be a little less heard of, but I'd be surprised if it were entirely new.

I understand the idea about pulling down statues, burning books, and trying to change how history is viewed, but I am concerned about censorship.

Changing a point of view can be done without destruction, like burning books, toppling statues, defacing graves, and so on. People don't need to destroy things in order to change perspective.

The people in history had a different perspective, a different lifestyle. They lived in the times as they were. Their choices were based on what life was like, what they knew and understood about the world. In their world, at that time, they believed in what they were doing.

Times change, attitudes and ideals develop and evolve. That doesn't mean everything about the past is terrible or wrong, or should be destroyed. One negative should not cause the destruction of everything else that was positive and important and good.

A new, different perspective can bring fresh understanding of history, without attempting to vilify people or erase them from history. Talk about people in history, but without censorship or bias. Give people the facts, about the accomplishments and failures of people in history and see them as human beings, as people like ourselves but different.

In time, future people will look back on us, our deeds, ideas, and very likely have a different perspective than we do now. I hope they will also choose to have understanding and view us in perspective. I would not like us to be censored or erased from history because future people don't agree with our ideas or actions.

Exploring the Abandoned Planet (urban exploration after people)

We may think about life after death but it's our own death we consider. What happens to the planet, the culture, machines, and animals we leave behind when (if) there were no people left on the Earth to maintain and build them?

Whether you think about something small like a goldfish in a bowl or big, like pollution... have you ever wondered how much impact humans have on the planet and how the Earth would change once we were all gone?

Life After People is a video series based on the idea that people (all of us) have disappeared from the planet. There is no discussion about what happened to us. Once the documentary begins we become irrelevant (except for everything we have left behind and how we left it).

If you have seen the series or one of the movies, do you watch it for the science fiction, the illustrations of abandoned civilization or out of curiosity to see what happens to everything when we (who think we are so important) are not here any longer?

I must admit, as an urban explorer (one who explores abandoned, derelict and ruined places and things) I do love to soak in the illustrations. I could spend the entire length of the documentary just pouring over the details of the ruined places. I would enjoy time to look at still images and catch all the details of the abandoned cars, roads, homes, and all the rest.

However, this series is so great because they go beyond the everyday places and things you would think of. Places like abandoned amusement parks, churches, historical monuments. Things like domestic livestock, family pets and oil leaking from cars in parking lots over time. The series of movies would have to go on forever to capture every last detail but you can find out so much in just an hour, or two.

The Neverending Adventure of our Planet, Life and Everything

I'd like to live forever. Not because I'm afraid of death but because I want to see how the story goes here on our planet. How far do people evolve and what big inventions and changes come along? Can we clean up the planet, control over population and give the animals some habitat back? What happens to the planet.. does the sun die out and leave the Earth cold, barren and out of luck? Does the moon last or some day get hit by space junk we created? So many questions, all leading to the end of time, and farther. How long can the story go? We don't even know where it all began. So many questions and so few answers we can count on 100% as fact. I'd like to know!

We can read so many ideas in science fiction but no one really knows anything, it is all just ideas based on what we know or think we know so far.

If I could have my three wishes... the first would be for health and losing weight, the second would be to live forever and be able to get around exploring the world and seeing it al for myself. Actually seeing it all, rather than reading about it in paper and print. As a bonus I'd take photographs with a digital camera which never runs out of battery life or memory space.

The third wish I would keep in reserve, you just know something will come up and I'm going to need that extra wish somewhere through all time and space.