And wonder about what the equivalent would be for current younger generations? Or in what ways they would benefit or take advantage of it?
Like the homestead act. The idea that the government could just decide "this land isn't being used in a way that benefits us somehow, let's act like we are its owners and divy it up to people in a way that will somehow benefit us" and then they did that, and people were able to acquire large plots of land, and I don't know enough of the history to know who the those homesteaders are, who exploited the act, who their descendants are, etc. But if I had to take a random guess a lot of them might have been involved in the cattle industry or something.
I find myself idly wondering if there was a remix of that act today, that had our updated knowledge about various aspects of human society, what would that act look like? Would homesteads be economically focused, or environmental? In what ways would people take advantage of and exploit it? Like I can imagine a bunch of cryptomining farms or some shit but what if efforts were put towards environmental restoration? And given our history I can't imagine the US government would just give land back to Native Americans, but what if Indigenous peoples counseling and decisions on how land should be managed and distributed was at least included as part of the act?
I dunno. I just know I don't have anything positive to say about American politics, politicians, or the US government for anything, and sometimes I find myself wondering what it would take to change that perspective.
Plus, I've been making my own payments towards a multi acre parcel of land in Nova Scotia, and homesteading feels at least tangentially related to my own plans of turning it into a community, so I guess it feels like there are some similarities I might need to be aware of for its development.