more ways to change America

In a continuation of yesterday's post...

Here are some more ideas of things to change or goals to set that would help prepare America for a long-term, sustainable, and generally better future.

11. Food. Genetically engineer within 10 years a plant that can produce nutrionally-complete food for humans. (Not calories, just nutrients. Using seeds and/or leaves, so that the plant can remain productive continuously rather than needing to be uprooted to harvest.)
12. Housing. Genetically engineer within 20 years a tree that can be grown (within 50 years) into a hollow living shell for housing 1-3 adults. (I suggest modifying the baobab, but some other large tree could work.)
13. Education. Create a public-domain resource for teaching material on all subjects from gradeschool to 4-year college degree. (Similar to Wikiversity and Wikibooks.)
14. Accountability. No counsel may earn more than twice what their client receives in legal judgements for any court case involving harm to the client (physical or mental).
15. Accountability. Any one (citizen or corporation) accused of any form of negligence may request a pre-trial "common sense review". A special jury (similar to grand jury) will review the situation to decide if the average person should simply "know better".  If they decide the accuser should have known better (hot coffee, cigarettes, etc.), then the trial ends before it even begins and the accuser has to pay a fee equal to what the court pays the review jury for their time.  At this point, the accuser may choose to forgo monetary rewards in their lawsuit and seek instead a judgement to force the accused to change their behavior.  In this case, the common sense review does not end the legal process; a normal trial is held.
    

There are other thoughts knocking about in my mind, but they're not firm enough to express yet.  I think I'm done with my list for now.  :)