Normally when we are asked to suggest improvements to a situation it is expected that we will suggest a tweak here or there to an otherwise perfect system. But I would re-do things from top to bottom.

For example, what would you suggest we do to improve the Social Security system? Make a change here or there? Change retirement age? Change benefit level? Change the maximum compensation that we take deductions from? Put the money into a locked box so it can't be tampered with by Congress? I'd change the whole concept.

I'd discontinue the system, throw it completely in the garbage because I think it is flawed beyond redemption, and institute a new system of providing retirement benefits, but I would also insist that the already accrued Social Security benefits must be paid, or else we've been utterly ripped off all these years. The new system would go like this:

For every dollar that you earn, your boss puts a dime into your IRA. Period. The end. You'd be financially secure in your 70s.

Another example. How would you improve the system of education in America? I'd completely change the focus from whatever the hell it is today (I have no idea what that is) to a goal of having every high school senior and every college senior actually working at least three different entry level jobs in his senior year, all three of which will most likely result in a job offer upon successful graduation, and the senior will have his choice of three jobs actually there waiting for him, and he can take one, two, or all three of them. That would be the goal of education, to set yourself up in a good job or two or three upon graduation.

Marriage. How would you change marriage? Allow gay marriage? Any other changes? I would make all marriages subject to prearranged time limits, and I'd have the system to generally have people in a new and different marriage, if they want to be, every 2 or 3 years. I'd change the concept of marriage from a permanent thing to a temporary thing. And I'd most definitely allow gay marriage and other types as well, including polygamy of all sorts. I'd basically let people do whatever the hell they wanted. Land of the free, home of the brave, right?

Child rearing. I'd change it a lot. I wouldn't make it fall on the two parents to support the children, so if dad and mom lose their jobs, the kid has nothing. I'd want a much more fluid system with a lot more security built in.

People have a tendency to think the present way is the best way or the only way, but that only shows a lack of imagination. Other societies can do things in completely different ways. Just because we do it one way doesn't mean that's the only way or best way to do it. Being closed minded to sweeping changes just shows a lack of imagination, a lack of the ability to think creatively, a lack of the ability to really think deeply at all.