What America really needs

Well, the Panama Canal is exactly that, built mostly that way.

Panama Canal is the biggest NIMBY project ever
- Because it was built at the thinnest part of the content and used existing lakes?
  Pretty sure Omaha would have loved an East\West canal across the continent.
It connected several lakes in the narrowest part of the continent. Not ‘exactly that’ at all

If they could do it in ancient Greece then Americans can do it today for sure!

Also: although planned over 2000 years ago, it wasn't really made by ancient Greeks. They gave up and made a road to transport ships on it instead of actually digging. Only in modern time did they actually finish the canal

Anything is possible with enough nukes!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare

I love the 1950s, the solution to any problem was just "idk, have you tried nuking it?"
- Definitely. And just like today with ‘ai’
This might also make it really easy to hit the 2 degree climate target.
- More like the -2 degree Celcius average World temperature target.
Can't just let them go to waste!

Florida kinda has this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okeechobee_Waterway

About 36 feet above sea level though. How are we gonna clear a waterway from coast to coast, though? C'mon, boffins, let's sort this out!
- Locks and dams. Thousands of miles of locks and dams.
- SHOVEL!

"I get my kicks... on Canal 66."

My first thought was if this was remotely possible on this scale, how many things would be disrupted and changed from the water movement alone. The Panama canal has to have locks because of the ocean differences, but no way would you have locks spanning a few hundred miles across. This thing would have tides back and forth.

Panama canal has to have locks because of the ocean differences
It's actually mostly due to the landscape of Panama, including the lake it uses to traverse and the mountains. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans don't different that much, maybe a few feet. And mostly due to tidal differences.
- Oh, so it's like an escalator for ships up and down.
Plus literally chopping down a large stretch of both the Appalachians and the Sierra Nevada would be insane.
- Or could just go over tbh
- Just made the entire river underground! A big underground river spanning thousands of miles. It'd require a hell of a lot more work but it wouldn't disrupt things on the surface as much.
My first thought too. This needs a Randall Monroe ‘What If?’ explanation.
There's a sea level canal in Greece, the Corinth canal. And it has pretty strong tidal currents.
I wonder if, hypothetically, we could use such currents for more efficient power generation compared to the current tidal power generation.

Goodbye, Kentucky

Actually, guys, maybe we should hear them out?

Assuming the river would be identical in depth and breadth to the Panama canal, if every man, woman, and child in the US picked up a shovel they would need to move 305 cubic feet of dirt each. So if we all just moved 1 cubic foot of dirt per day, we could pull this off in a year.

Hey, you're a numbers guy right? What's to say we take all that extra dirt and make an island? Asking for a friend
- Hawa-II, this needs to happen. Opening date is June 13, 2025.
Let's fucking goooo
That’s how the Soviet gulags built canals and railroads btw. Lots of deaths

Do it small scale first and turn Florida into an island.

Then push it away
- The Caribbean has suffered enough

it could solve the water crisiseses

Dude all you need is 4 square meters and 2 water buckets
Infinite water glitch
- Infinite food glitch
Would also solve some of the rising ocean levels too!
- It annoys me that you're correct
I think I'd hate to live downsteam from where the Mississippi is bisected.
I wonder if that river would remain salty for its entire existence

I feel like there has to be an easier way to solve the homeless problem in San Francisco.

I don't trust anyone South of the Mistersippi river.

This will require more bridges, which creates more jobs. It's genius!

In which direction would it flow?

From the center to the borders, due to rain.
- I wouldn't be so certain about that. Evaporation might be stronger similar to the mediterreanian sea. So water would flow from both sides into the channel.
  But such a project probably disturbes weather patterns and ocean currents all together. Hence, I don't think we can be curtain until we've tried it. Now grab your shovel. FOR SCIENCE!
It'd probably depend on the tide.

Literally described the Mississippi river.

If we could connect the Missouri to the Snake River we could do pretty much the same thing. There's a seaport in Idaho already
- Technically, it's already done!
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parting_of_the_Waters
Except the map makes it look like a thousand times wider than the Mississippi.

With the low resolution I can't quite tell if I would suddenly live on the beach or underwater

Depends on if you can outrun a shovel.
- From the people who brought you Sharknado: Shovelanche.

we need efficiency IV tho

Diamond should be enough, making that many beds to mine netherite seems excessive especially since the update
Creeper farm for gunpowder
Dig a bunch if sand
Craft TNT
Place two blocks of TNT spaced out by 5 blocks
Light first TNT with the flint thingy
Run along side it for the experience
Bring buckets and cobblestone for inevitable underground lakes of water and lava 8 .Collect all the cool things you uncovered
Ask gf/bf to come look at your accomplishment (optional)

Most cost-effective would be to use the Photoshop eraser tool.

First I was excited thinking about South Canada and North Mexico, but unfortunately they screwed up the one opportunity in history to fix Oklahoma's awkward 'protrusion', so I can't with a clean conscience support and vote for this. Better luck next time.

But a bit more south would be easier. Oh, wait.

I could get on board with a moat around Texas and Florida
- Check out bdonvr’s comment about the Okeechobee Waterway. We could just cut Florida off following that line, then we could build a bigger moat around Texas with all the money will save by letting Florida go!
- Grab a saw for the Florida part

All you need is time and a LOT of shovels........

Nope. Just MS paint and one brush.

The Mississippi already does that, but south-north instead of east-west.

Well... it did. And then climate change happened
A long stretch of hot, dry weather has left the Mississippi River so low that barge companies are reducing their loads just as Midwest farmers are preparing to harvest crops and send tons of corn and soybeans downriver to the Gulf of Mexico.
- Oh. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
- That's not climate change; that's just a precedented drought and media trying to cash on doomscrolling climate change. It's done the exact same thing almost every year. Rain has always been somewhat random.

That's a gnarly cliff in Colorado

Ke~~~~ky.

Mostly for social reasons. We definitely have the technology and resources.

And if abandoned halfway we could just turn it into a park.

The Marjorie Harris Carr Cross Florida Greenway follows the path of the abandoned Cross Florida Barge Canal.

https://www.floridastateparks.org/learn/history-cross-florida-greenway

Now build a land bridge and connect this up with Panama

I like this idea. However, I have one small issue: this river appears to go directly through my house...

Just put some fresh sealant on your windows. Should hold.
Isn't that a good thing? Free river!
Why don't you just sell your house and move?
now I know more or less exactly where you live!
- 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

No one in the north wants Missouri. I'm south of them and I don't want them.

I'm in Missouri and can't find error in your logic.
- Truth be told as long as I could move north of that line I would be okay with Missouri staying where it is.

I mean this is a pretty good visual representation of what they did when they built all the highways, just more spread out and the negative implications being mostly pushed off onto whoever didn't have enough political capital to resist them, i.e. minorities.

Tbh, building a mountain and tearing it down again would be about as useful as half of existing jobs.

You eliminate San Francisco but leave Washington D.C. ?

Test

Your comment worked and is visible, if you were wondering.
- Thanks, yeah i was seeing if it would even post