Creative
Ideas for Theses
This
is to be considered an advisement to those of you who
are about to construct a thesis. To such as you I
begin with the obvious that you should plan its
construction with care. You will want succeed in the
course of course, however, one must do more than
demonstrate knowledge of your chosen field, competency
in the design of a research project or your capacity
for the undertaking such projects as may be of use in
the real world - as it might be called. And, of course
you should expect to do your best in demonstrating
these abilities. To that common list I would then add
talent. You must design a thesis that is at once rich,
varied, deep, tapping into issues of import, which are
ripe with the possibility of creating positive effects
for society not just a particular subset of such; In
this worthy endeavor I am certainly willing to lend an
assist. For you I have assembled herein a
collection of thoughts, which may be viewed as
prompts, points of departure or even just food for
thought, when in the preparation for the construction
of a thesis
I will
haste to add that there are secondary purposes in
providing this information. I am a creative creature
and have had many, many ideas that I simply cannot
use, meaning that I do not have the capacity to
undertake effecting these ideas no matter their
usefulness and how dearly I would love to see them put
into effect. So these ideas are all of a piece. Each
encourages the development of a perspective, that goes
beyond the simple creation of new knowledge, which is
at the heart of all research and thus a given thesis,
but engages the spirit with inspirational motivation
to "touch the world" for the better. Many are projects
of a grand scale with an implied consequential
beneficial effect of positive social restructuring. In
essence, I think you and those who are guiding your
path would much rather take up a chance to explore the
exciting possibilities of making a real difference in
the world than "be ordinary" Thus I am suggesting that
what I mean by putting forth your talent is to take on
one of these or a similar challenge and demonstrate
the value that there is nothing better than crafting a
thesis designed to construct a better
future.
There
are still further other purposes. As I've said many of
these ideas have been designed to affect the course of
human social evolution through social, or other kinds,
of engineering. I may also hope that these ideas, by
their nature, will cause one who even considers them
to alter their perspective regarding their view of
what constitutes a "good" thesis is and so effect, for
the better, the construct of their thesis - whatever
it may come to be. I ask, in this way, about the
ultimate purpose of human development and education.
While I hope the reader will to do their best at
making a positive difference in the human community on
this, our world, it is also my hope that the evaluator
might then also consider, as a metric to measure the
value of other proposed ideas, by considering how far
reaching, important and vital to human progress a
thesis is. I urge persons in those positions to take
advantage of their circumstances to create a thesis of
vision, of impact, of simplicity and demonstrative
use.
Last
other reason, I believe that we should all be engaged
in the task of bettering the state of human society
and it is for that purpose that I offer these ideas
for use by any. One final note, if any of these are
unclear and or a reader would like clarification; I am
available via email to provide further details on
these ideas.
1)
Measuring the Health of Society
The
argument can be made that the state has a vested
interest in the well being of its members. If the
state has a vested interest in the health and well
being of its members, how is that "concern" to be
measured and or analyzed and what are the implications
of such findings for the review of government medical
programs, environmental policies, health and safety
regulations, product regulation and various other
areas of law or oversight? The proposal is to consider
a study, which categorizes the causes of death in a
given location, county, state or nation. Essentially
the collection of such data would compare the number
of deaths that are due to "social causes" meaning
those deaths in which the "social factor(s) were high
or very high to those of "natural causes", meaning
those deaths for which the societal factor is low or
very low. While the definition of "social causes" and
"natural causes" would be essential, providing as they
do the basis for debate and discussion, it would
behoove anyone wishing to use this thesis idea to
clearly define those terms, see the following
paragraph, In essence, however, this process of
categorizing the deceased into these two categories
and creating a ration between the two would allow a
true measure of the effectiveness of how well a
society in provides its members with health and well
being. Just thinking about this issue in this way
would open up a whole realm of thought concerning how
this measure should be made, what it shows and what it
means for the review or revising of policy.
For
example, I hold that deaths due to cigarette smoking
and alcohol abuse are social causes because things
like that are known to be harmful yet are legally
bought and sold, that is to say allowed and
sanctioned, by society. Likewise deaths due to poor
medical practice, murders, gun deaths, DUI's have
considerable social factors - as would deaths due to
the unavailability of health care, or the use of
dangerous products, devices or machines. On the other
hand deaths due to "old age", or simple accidents
would tend to be in the natural causes category. Some
categories of death, notably suicide, may have to be
done on a case-by-case basis.
2)
Restoring North America to pre-human
status
This
project requires the gradual removal of humanity from
both North and South America. The essential idea is
that if everyone in those two continents were to
"return" to their homelands, no matter how distant,
this would dramatically cause positive changes in the
"homelands" and could include coastal zones of up to
400 miles. This would have the consequent result of
resettling hundreds of millions of people and so
effect a kind of integration through
immigration.
3)
Building an orbital ring
city
This
would be an engineering feat for the most part. But it
would require such a vast amount of every kind of
resource that it would unify the social and industrial
energies of the planet. The benefit of which would be
beyond debate. The thesis would involve the
practicability of the engineering of the project. The
ring would orbit the earth to create a gravitational
effect. Materials from the solar system would be
employed.
4)
Building another planet
This
would, again, be an engineering project. It would also
be a study of the idea and how it would be
accomplished, to what ends and what it would mean for
humanity. Remote controlled robotic devices would do
all the work. The materials of the solar system would
be garnered and put to use. Asteroids and other
similar objects would be nudged out of their orbits
and set to "fall" into place, a region either between
Earth and Venus or Earth and Mars. These would form
the metallic core. The components for water and
atmosphere would be harvested in a similar fashion,
when the time came, from the rings of Saturn, the Oort
Cloud of by redirecting comets. The power for all this
would come from solar panels on the robotic agents or
from larger stations. Once the robotic devices had
electrical power they could harvest ice, melt and then
gassify it to produce thrust and the ability to effect
tiny changes in very large objects which change their
orbital pattern. If, perhaps, millions of these
devices were in use it would not be long, some few
decades, before a core would be taking
shape.
5)
Can man alter the instinctual behaviors of animals so
as to enhance their survival and/ or compatibility
with humans or human society
6)
Terra-forming the Earth, a large-scale socioeconomic
transformational policy what are the advantages,
challenges, reasoning?
Target
zones could include the Sahara, Australia's out back,
restoration of coral reefs and more
7)
The cost and benefit study for a space program
dedicated to the practical removal of nuclear
pollutants.
8)
"Flooding" a town or locality with Social Services: a
trial investigation to determine the effectiveness of
providing a population with adequate employment,
health services, and self-help cooperatives.
The
"effectiveness" would be estimated by comparing the
subject town to any number of others with similar or
comparable demographics. Again, public records and
data, such as those from actuarial tables, the result
of health studies and medical knowledge would allow a
speculative paper to be created which could be the
basis for seeking grant funding.
9)
Community Gardening: Funding a service for urban areas
which plants gardens in yards, fruit bearing trees and
more to supplement local food supplies, provide work
programs and nutritional education.
10)
Interstellar communications by effecting changes in
the solar appearance or in the signals it gives
off.
This
might, in part, relate to 7th
idea.
11)
Replacing the military in both budget and purpose,
with a corps dedicated to the reparations of all war
damage, mass emergency rescue, infa-structure repair,
renewal and food production, habitat restoration and
maintenance and developing sustainable power
sources.
This
would be a computer simulation, of course. The simple
speculation based upon providing the members of the
"armed forces" the current and or projected cost of
their salaries as compared to the "value added" for
the large array of tasks which would improve living
standards, improve health care, nutrition, personal
solvency and have the added advantage that every
dollar spent on the program would be invested in local
economies as they create large numbers of jobs for
these workers
12)
The manner in which manufacturers would be encouraged
to pre-cycle their products, which is to say build
into their design the manner in which the materials
would be recycled efficiently.
This
would be a speculative study on the amount of waste
that could be reduced were manufacturers encouraged to
build in "recyclability" to their product lines. It is
my contention that many common products could be
redesigned to produce less waste or be more easily
recycled. It could be possible that a simple code
affixed to any produce provides the recycler a credit
or bonus of some kind.
13)
A "smart kitchen"
The
"smart stove, would be a household device that
measures the electricity of gas used in the course of
a given meal, day or week. It could also calculate the
cost of the energy based on the local rates which the
user could input. This would be coupled with a
monitoring system that would also let you know the
temperature of food inside cooking containers so that
the device could alter its energy output to make its
energy use more efficient. This "self monitoring"
would be applied to refrigeration units as well and
even broken down to its compartments. This relates to
idea #23
14)
The construction and design of a "restricting 'prison'
helmet"
This
would be a speculative study on the use and or effect
of this device.
This
device is affixed to a wearer's shoulders and encases
his or her head and in this part it very much
resembles a motorcycle helmet. However it is
actually a remotely monitored and controlled and is
monitored 24/7 and 365. The remote operator can see
and hear what the wearer does. The wearer's position
is always known as are his or her vitals, blood
pressure, heart and respiration, perspiration other
metrics could be measured as well, blood sugar,
alcohol content, the presence of drugs and some or all
of these could be used, even remotely to determine
whether the person may or may not be lying. If need be
the remote monitor could close either a transparent or
opaque face shield, communicate with the wearer,
render the wearer unconscious, deafen them, provide
electric shock or a variety of other input, even data
streams from the web, voice and telephone and
video.
The
purpose of this helmet would be to control the wearer
using a variety of means. The first purpose would be
to manage the most violent of offenders without
resorting to physical violence or weapons.
Secondarily, various "grades" of helmets could be
developed to allow finer management of prison
populations and/or to monitor those who have been
released to society but for which a measure of control
is still needed.
This
device would reduce prison populations, create a large
pool of new jobs have an enhancing effect on the
social services such an individual needs.
15)
The "New World Model"
This
would be the consideration of the means by which
"positive" world model would be made. Much as computer
models are used to create global models for the
warming effect, population growth and economic
forecasting so can a model be made which is designed
to "test" how well global society would function if
the destructive forces such as war, economic waste,
poor health, lack of equitable income distribution,
poor farming techniques, as well as the "social costs"
of crime and poverty eliminated. Granted it would be a
magnificent computer model to construct but it would
be instructive to develop the overall concept for,
once it was created the theoretical applications for
the model would be many.
16)
Health Plan One
Perhaps
an idea whose time has come, speculate this: If
research were compiled concerning how an individual
could augment their ability to enhance their health
via diet, exercise, mental, emotional practices and
the extensive use of natural amendments to each of
these areas so as to measure the survivability of a
human, given the best possible environment. What
would that consist of? How would the research
take place? What would the results tell us? How
could the simplest and or most accessible of this
information be disseminated and how could its
effectiveness be determined?
This could, of course,
have a crowd sourced" "crowd verified,"social
networking aspect in which knowledge best proactive
and active health practices could be disseminated,
evaluated and have that body of knowledge available to
as many people as possible. If the governments do not
really take care of health care, we, the people, can
certainly do whatever we can to make a difference in
our lives. That would be the overarching appeal of
smaller studies.
17) Public School
Teacher's Abuse; Principles for
Principals
A research project
into this area of public education. The state of
affairs could be inferred from publicly available data
as long as the data are interpreted in a valid manner.
Direct research; interviews and a call for teachers to
provide direct accounts of how a school site manager
is effective and positive or ineffective and negative.
The interviews and stories would then be considered
with the original data set to allow the researchers to
construct set of principles,. standards if you will,
of a teacher's expectations for students, parents,
administrators as well as the district, states and
national institutes of education. It is my contention,
my reason for inspiring this line of investigation,
that site managers, commonly called principals, are an
unexamined factor in the success and failure of
teachers and thus the whole educational system. (I
have conceived of the idea to begin this research
using a writing contest as a means to get a good
sample of direct testimony. The research would have in
mind the creation of a "popular nonfiction" book meant
to inform the public so there is move to improve the
lot of teacher's who suffer from abuse, either
systemically or personally from whatever
source.)
18) Middle School
Advanced Studies Program, suitable for High School or
Middle School students:
This would be a
special studies elective class. It would require the
students to attend one hour a day. Each day of the
week would focus on a different area of the
curriculum. For example, Mondays would focus on
music. The students would warm up, practice and
perform during each session. The objectives would be
improved play, performance skills, technique and to
demonstrate compositional skills. Tuesday's
focus would be literature. Students would present
pieces either by reading or recital and these
presentations would include drama, poetry, literature
and essays all of which would be follow by discussion
and or debate. In this area classic literature,
philosophy, poetry, essays all would be useful. The
objectives would be the development of advanced
reading skills, practice at presentations,
participation in discussion and debate and the
management of investigation into relevant social
events - either current or historical.
Wednesday would focus on the crafting stories,
essays, commentary, persuasive writing, humor and
more. Each day would consist of project oversight, one
on one meetings with authors, co-authors or teams with
the teacher, presentations of finished works or the
discussion of works in progress. Worked into Tuesday
and Wednesday would be exercises in clear thinking,
logic and chess. Thursday would be reserved for
Social Studies, here the focus would be on the
identification of social issues or concerns and the
formation of cooperative groups who design projects to
analyze or effect, for the better, the identified
social issue or concern. This would include the taking
of surveys, opinion polls and the creating of activist
projects designed to effect society for the better.
Again discussion and debate could be a part of this
program. Friday would cover experimental
science and math. The objective here is to demonstrate
a professional understanding of the scientific method
and to undertake studies, provide demonstrations, do
experiments to generate new knowledge or to verify
already established knowledge or in order to clarify
theoretical principles. Math and Art would be combined
in an ongoing project based effort to create scale
models directed by the teacher or by the curiosity of
the students.
The overall theme for
each of these five areas is to create new knowledge or
bodies of work, a new composition, a new story or
poem, a new understanding of an ancient text, a better
understanding of a social issue based on an action
plan to investigate or effect it and new knowledge
based on empirical proof.
Ancillary to this
would be group tasks, such as a collective fund
raising effort. This could be as simple as organizing
to sell recyclable material, holding bake sales,
setting up a student run store or other such ideas.
The class would determine how to raise the funds and
what to spend their funds on.
I would very much
appreciate someone undertaking to run an "elective
like" study group to see just how well it would work.
19) Optimum
Developmental Influence, a longitudinal
study(ies)
By providing a set of
women planning to be come pregnant a complete support
system allowing them to behave in the optimal fashion
so as to enhance the development of their offspring.
This would include prenatal care, physical and
psychological care, optimizing body care and this
would continue after birth. Explorations would be made
of alternative care, such as infants learning to swim,
and the effects of music and physical contact for the
child and mothers. Factors to be enhanced are diet,
exercise, education and certain other factors known to
influence the successful development of a human being.
This would be continued until the second year of the
child's life. These children would be compared to a
control group which incorporates all the relevant
factors.
A secondary study,
with completely different sets of children. The
factors that will be studied are: hydration, vitamins
and other health related supplements, a balanced diet,
exercise and meditation.
A tertiary study, this
one involving a comparison between a group of children
who do not have access to telephones, cell phones, the
internet, television, radio or recorded media. Both
the control and the experimental group would be living
in an area remote from the influences of society and
from each other, of course. I believe that there will
be substantial differences in the psychological states
and social-emotional development when comparing the
two groups.
20) Direct
Democracy, a developmental model:
Ideally a small town
would be used to determine the effectiveness of direct
democracy. By this I mean that those individuals
elected to serve the public, politicians, would not
pass regulations or laws, rather they would propose
such to the public which would then decide on the
merits of any given proposal. Using the internet those
managing the town in any capacity would be charged
with the responsibility of informing the public of
actions they believe would serve the "public good" but
it will be for the votes, the citizens to decide any
matter. Also citizens, or groups of such, would be
encouraged to organized and advocate making their own
propositions, regulations and laws. In sum managing
the town would be completely transparent cooperative
venture. Voting records would be public, transparent,
verifiable and secure.
21) Confederation
of Independent American States:
This plan incorporates
the ideas in numbers 23 and 14. In sum the idea would
begin in the United States where the indigenous
peoples would network themselves in the fashion
indicated in number 14 to create a model for a true,
transparent and 100% accountable democratic governing
system. It would allow the entire population of
indigenous people to coordinate their efforts,
resources, and intentions to not only better their own
lives but to demonstrate that real democracy can be
effective. I would suggest at least one goal which
would be for the first peoples to reestablish their
sovereignty over the reservations they currently
occupy and secondarily reclaim all lands that were
lost to them in preparation for idea number two,
perhaps.
Hawaiian
and Alaskan independence
Subsidiary to this
larger idea are two smaller ones. These would be
feasibly studies on a gradualist approach to
Hawaiian independence. As the island nation was
brought "into the fold" in a questionable fashion
and some of the islands are free from the most
obvious forms of cultural colonization a gradualist
approach would be for the unoccupied islands to
secede from the union first. This would be followed
by successive changes until the entire chain is
independent. A similar process could be implemented
in Alaska with parts of that state and, ultimately,
perhaps, integrating with Nunavut.
22) Palestinian
Independence:
This is another
feasibility study regarding a troubled people. It is
posited that that Gaza declare its full and complete
independence from the West Bank and petition to join
the community of nations in the world. That is the
first stage of this plan. The second stage is for the
new nation of Gaza, should they decide to keep that
name, is to not only make absolute and complete peace
with Israel but to also sever all ties with it. Gaza
would seal its borders with Israel and pursue opening
borders with Egypt and constructing a port that would
enhance and develop trade. A peaceful and prosperous
Gaza would result. This new state would contrast
sharply with the West Bank. The third stage would be
the dawning, in the consciousness of the peoples of
the world, of not only how different the two
Palestinian states are but why they are so different.
The fourth phase would be Israel seeing the value in
treating the West Bank Palestinians as they have the
Gazan Palestinians. In sum this would be a social
psychological "set up" where the "good" Palestinians
cause the world to decry, in ever clearer terms, how
Israel treats the "bad" Palestinians on the West Bank.
23) New
Cooking:
After considering how
much fuel and electricity is demanded by current
culinary practices, regarding food "train" from
creation , to preparation and its preservation - I
wonder, wouldn't there be a way of changing those
preferences so as to reduce our "dietary dependence"
on gas and electricity. See idea #13.
I ponder how much we
might be able to reduce the energy input required to
prepare our foods which may be taken to include
production in all its phases, from farm to shipping,
packaging, wholesale, retail, kitchen prep and cool or
other kinds of storage. Back yard gardening could be
included in this study as well.
It may begin with the
simple idea of "cooking ahead" that is to say
preparing large quantities of rice, beans, pasta and
other foods which are consumed during a given time
periods without cooking. It may include recipe design,
cooperative cooking behaviors involving neighbors,
family or friends. It can include preserving, cold
storage and slow cooking and more. Once does not need
to cook to eat as much as one does.
One might also
consider how to determine what kind of diet would
allow a given person to meet the nutritional
requirements as set out by health experts or agencies.
This could a simple constructed web resource which
allows a person to input certain data and be given
access to the output which would include some dietary
suggestions which provide the kinds and amounts of
foods which would satisfy a person's needs. The site
would allow the user to control for vitamins,
minerals, micro-minerals and herbal supplements, there
would be a way of inputting illnesses and so allow an
output for dietary, herbal, self care and plans for
supplements.
In sum although we
begin with a collection of data to be analyzed for its
"energy footprint" we then proceed to run an
analytical process determining the effectiveness of
the food system to deliver what a given individual
needs.
24) Intra/inter
planet holographic communication:
Long ago an
experimenter determined that one effect of trimming a
plant is that the plant responds. When plants that
were connected to lie detectors were damaged the
readings of its conductivity changed. The speculation
is this. If one were to "train" a plant to respond to
electrical stimuli, in a Pavlovian fashion, say by
associating light or warmth with induced stress and
then clone that both plants would retain the training.
After that is determined, the clones are absolutely
separated. Then one plant is stimulated and as this
happens the other responds. This then is the heart of
instantaneous, non web-based communication. This would
be limitless and instantaneous. The plants could be
grown as cells in a culture with a grid work of input
pads made of very fine, extremely thin and highly
conductive material. Very very slight degrees in the
stimulus/input of one plant would be read in the
responses of the other.
25) Eugenisis Research
This idea concerns researching the design of a
project meant to explore how we might enhance the
evolutionary development of the human species. The
term eugenisis is not to be confused with the
discredited eugenics theories and movements of
previous centuries. I created this new term for a
purpose, while the unfortunate historical context of
the other closely related term is brought to mind by
this one, this approach is exactly opposite, while the
former term, implies an attempt by a dominant subset
of a population attempting to improve itself, this
refers to a grass roots approach, a cooperative
effort, a community effort, meant to improve lives via
a common interest in mutual welfare.
So then, allow me to proceed. First, this idea is
timely because we are increasingly capable of
affecting our own evolution simply because any set of
individuals can determine traits they wish to forward
as well as those they do not and can make personal or
group decisions with those ends in mind - that is
simple enough. Second, we know how to make mutagenic
compounds, Agent Orange for example, and we know
genetic changes can be made by other means, radiation
or X-rays for examples. Third, we can read our own DNA
and have begun exploring how to modify that molecule
by various means. In sum, we are aware enough, capable
enough, and have the means to alter our evolution
already. For this reason I submit that this idea is
not far fetched and perhaps those with noble aims
should take note and consider that this idea is being
considered by those with not so noble aims, just
saying.
Since the evolutionary process is constant, changes
are happening all the time. And here we come to the
crux of my inspirations, as it is my contention that
amid the numerous historical accounts of people who
were either born with, or developed, inexplicable or
unbelievable capacities and or demonstrated knowledge,
skills, or abilities for which there is no rational or
scientific explanation - are those whose genetic
makeup are the cutting edge leading the species, as it
were, onto what it is becoming or will become. To be
simple, I am talking about people who could be called
psychic, who demonstrate various forms of extra
sensory perception, those who have transcendent
abilities, which cannot be explained by science as we
know it.
My speculation is that if these individuals represent
the leading edge of our evolutionary development, then
it may be worthwhile to study these individuals,
determine which, if any, have genetics as the most
likely source of their capacities and so indicate the
direction our evolution may be taking. The research
could then be to find the genetic basis for these
exceptional characteristics. I believe the difficulty,
or one of them, would be to determine which kind of
ability or person, had a genetic component, and which
were produced by environmental circumstances,
conditions or events.
The following are some of the obvious considerations
involved if something like this effort were to be
undertaken by individuals, groups, or large
organizations deciding to cooperate to produce a
better human being. What would society's role or
responsibility be regarding any such an effort? What
are the moral and ethical considerations of any such
an effort? Would the answer to those questions depend
on the abilities being demonstrated? All these
questions, and more, would be part of the necessary
philosophical prerequisites and, I feel, make for a
very interesting paper.