What would your utopia look like?

  • Thread starter enamdar
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In summary, the concept of utopia has been explored in literature and there are various versions ranging from Thomas More's original Utopia to H.G. Wells' Men Like Gods and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. The idea of a utopia raises questions about who it is designed for and what trade offs need to be made for its success. Some believe that human nature needs to be changed in order to achieve a utopia, while others argue that it should arise naturally. However, history has shown that attempts at creating a utopia often lead to dystopia. Ultimately, the concept of utopia remains an ideal, with different interpretations and visions.
  • #1
enamdar
3
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How would you design your eutopa or utopia, your perfect world. What would be the government, society, technology, and culture?

Actually More's original Utopia isn't so bad. A tad limited by the 16th century, but generally quite agreeable. Actually quite a few dystopias especially Brave New World, don't seem so bad either. And I would love to live in one of Ayn Rand's "collectivist" dystopias.

Note that the word Utopia does NOT mean "no place" though we have emphasized that side of it historically which says something in itself. It is a combination of outopia and eutopia (good place).

So how would you design your earthly paradise?
 
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  • #2
when i kill the cancer this will be my utopia i am trying to do it but its look like that he will win in the end
 
  • #3
Well there's a conversation stopper if I ever heard one...

Best of luck.
 
  • #4
You should read Walden Two by Burrhus Frederic Skinner. It is the most realistic utopia that "exists". I just bought the book today after a good read in the library. :smile:
 
  • #5
enamdar said:
How would you design your eutopa or utopia, your perfect world. What would be the government, society, technology, and culture?

Actually More's original Utopia isn't so bad. A tad limited by the 16th century, but generally quite agreeable. Actually quite a few dystopias especially Brave New World, don't seem so bad either. And I would love to live in one of Ayn Rand's "collectivist" dystopias.

Note that the word Utopia does NOT mean "no place" though we have emphasized that side of it historically which says something in itself. It is a combination of outopia and eutopia (good place).

So how would you design your earthly paradise?

Try H.G. Wells "Men Like Gods". My utopia is fully described in that book. Complete with social constructs, govt, tech... etc.

We, as a collective bunch of maniacal humans, have just started to scratch the surface of Well's Utopia as it is described in his book. Highly recommended by me.
 
  • #6
enamdar said:
How would you design your eutopa or utopia, your perfect world. What would be the government, society, technology, and culture?

Actually More's original Utopia isn't so bad. A tad limited by the 16th century, but generally quite agreeable. Actually quite a few dystopias especially Brave New World, don't seem so bad either. And I would love to live in one of Ayn Rand's "collectivist" dystopias.

So how would you design your earthly paradise?

I'm glad you do note that there's something to be said for dystopias. The big question is for whom the utopia is for. For one individual, for a small group of elite, for one nation, for humanity, or for the biosphere herself. The more inclusive the utopia is the more trade offs in some transcendental qualities (FREEDOM, DIGNITY,SAFETY) must be made. A paradise has to be defined before you can set up a plan for implementation. Maslow's hierarchy of needs may be a good guide for deciding which qualities and self affirming social feedback loops need to be designed to maintain stability. Since humans will be the primary implementors we have to either work within the mental, physical, and social limits of the human animal or change the human animal to suit our goals. I have noticed that literary utopias usually describe HOW people SHOULD behave to create the utopia. On the other hand in literary dystopias we are told HOW to MAKE people behave to create the dystopia. Frank Herbert's Hellstrom's Hive would be a great place to live if you were one of the pheromone controlled eugenically bred hive workers.
 
  • #7
Huxley's "Island" was his vision of an actual utopia. That's an interesting one. A true "utopia" would probably involve humans rewiring some of them hardware, like in David Pearce's hedweb site.
 
  • #8
Margaret Atwoods Oryx and Crake. Oryx creates a utopia. Of course he messed up because some humans still are around but hey its close enough.
 
  • #9
Galteeth said:
Huxley's "Island" was his vision of an actual utopia. That's an interesting one. A true "utopia" would probably involve humans rewiring some of them hardware, like in David Pearce's hedweb site.

I think that a utopia would only arise were any "re-wiring" done "hands-off" so to speak... more like as in naturally selected. And I don't mean where people are eaten by robots if they behave inappropriately.
 
  • #10
I'm easy my utopia would be the U.S.A getting back to the "spirit of '76"
 
  • #11
enamdar said:
And I would love to live in one of Ayn Rand's "collectivist" dystopias.

Which ones? Surely you don't mean the one in "Anthem"?
 
  • #12
Sorry! said:
Margaret Atwoods Oryx and Crake. Oryx creates a utopia. Of course he messed up because some humans still are around but hey its close enough.

Actually 'Crake' creates his utopia by infecting the world with a deadly virus and creating blissfully ignorant human mutants. Oryx is Crake's sexslave girlfriend.

Power to the pigoons!
 
  • #13
What's with all this intellectual stuff? Think simple. Think Beach Boys. "Two girls for every guy". Since the Beach Boys are now old and craggy, they would probably add eliminating all those nasty old guy problems (prostrate, libido) to the list.
 
  • #14
Jasongreat said:
I'm easy my utopia would be the U.S.A getting back to the "spirit of '76"

You want to fight the British?

enamdar said:
And I would love to live in one of Ayn Rand's "collectivist" dystopias.

Yeah, be funny to watch John Galt get tea-bagged.
 
  • #15
God gave it a shot with the garden of eden. It was perfect until he could not resist tossing in a snake to liven things up.
 
  • #16
Chronos said:
God gave it a shot with the garden of eden. It was perfect until he could not resist tossing in a snake to liven things up.

Well, God is human too. He just got jealous at Adam and Eve for living as comfortably as he did and needed an excuse to make them suffer.
 
  • #17
Do you mean my personel Utopia (benevolant dictator of a small nation modeled on an idyllic view of England but with better weather and woman who regarded satisfying their Lord's every whim as an act of pleasurable duty) or a Utopia where I would have to interact with other humans as an equall?
Jobrag
 
  • #18
On the difficulties during the development of an Utopia...

from: H.G Wells "Men Like Gods" or "Mr. Barnstaple takes a holiday".

The long diastole in Utopian affairs that had begun with the great
discoveries, passed into a phase of rapid systole. What plenty and
pleasure was still possible in the world was filched all the more
greedily by the adventurers of finance and speculative business.
Organized science had long since been commercialized, and was
"applied" now chiefly to a hunt for profitable patents and the
forestalling of necessary supplies. The neglected lamp of pure
science waned, flickered and seemed likely to go out again
altogether, leaving Utopia in the beginning of a new series of
Dark Ages like those before the age of discovery began...

and the realization that...

All societies were based on the limitation by laws and taboos and
treaties of the primordial fierce combativeness of the ancestral
man-ape; that ancient spirit of self-assertion had now to undergo
new restrictions commensurate with the new powers and dangers of
the race. The idea of competition to possess, as the ruling idea of
intercourse, was, like some ill-controlled furnace, threatening to
consume the machine it had formerly driven. The idea of creative
service had to replace it. To that idea the human mind and will had
to be turned if social life was to be saved. Propositions that had
seemed, in former ages, to be inspired and exalted idealism began
now to be recognized not simply as sober psychological truth but as
practical and urgently necessary truth.

and the methodology... briefly...

The impression given Mr. Barnstaple was not of one of those violent
changes which our world has learned to call revolutions, but of an
increase of light, a dawn of new ideas, in which the things of the
old order went on for a time with diminishing vigour until people
began as a matter of common sense to do the new things in the place
of the old.

The beginnings of the new order were in discussions, books and
psychological laboratories; the soil in which it grew was found
in schools and colleges. The old order gave small rewards to the
schoolmaster, but its dominant types were too busy with the struggle
for wealth and power to take much heed of teaching: it was left to
any man or woman who would give thought and labour without much hope
of tangible rewards, to shape the world anew in the minds of the
young.
 
  • #19
baywax said:
On the difficulties during the development of an Utopia...

from: H.G Wells "Men Like Gods" or "Mr. Barnstaple takes a holiday".
Baywax, I looked in my library for "Men Like Gods". What is so special about it? For me, it just didn't stick...
EDIT: For me it was a critique of society. Are there any ideas about how these "problems" can be fixed?
 
  • #20
A utopia is not possible when humans have needs, feelings.. thoughts..
A utopia can only be made with machines.
But I think in some ways, individuals can experience something close to utopia in specific settings.
So I guess my utopia would be just like the world is today. I don't think I'm smart enough to create a better world than we have now..
 
  • #21
Willowz said:
Baywax, I looked in my library for "Men Like Gods". What is so special about it? For me, it just didn't stick...
EDIT: For me it was a critique of society. Are there any ideas about how these "problems" can be fixed?

The part I liked was that every one is a professional everything. You put 6 months in as a neuroscientist... then 6 months as a structural engineer... then 6 months off taking care of your personal needs... then back to the old grind of... say... teaching languages... like math.

The other part I liked was how HGW alludes to these almost subconscious understandings of electric or other motors running the vehicles that seem to be using waterways as roads. He has addressed many of the challenges we have today without actually knowing what he was tackling... as this was written in 1928. Specifically you can see how he foresaw science going overtly commercial and then, in his Utopia... the spirit of service in science not seen since the IIWW. Once everyone has attained the freedom of a higher standard of living... without stepping on the majority of the population's toes (via pollution, corruption, slavery etcetra), no one has envy of the neighbours, everyone works together to attain and maintain serenity. I'm sure he even came up with a properly contained area where you can go and have a war that wouldn't touch civilians or state budgets.

Mostly what enthralls me about this little book is the fact that it was written practically 100 years ago and describes many of the social and scientific developments we see today. That's Wells for you I guess.
 

1. What is the definition of utopia?

A utopia is an imagined or ideal place or society where everything is perfect and everyone lives in harmony.

2. How would people govern in a utopia?

In a utopia, people would govern through a fair and just system that represents the needs and wants of the entire community. This could involve a democratic process, with equal representation and decision-making power for all individuals.

3. What would the economy be like in a utopia?

In a utopia, the economy would be based on principles of equality, sustainability, and cooperation. Resources would be shared and distributed fairly, and there would be no extreme wealth or poverty.

4. How would social issues be addressed in a utopia?

In a utopia, social issues would be tackled through open communication, empathy, and a strong sense of community. Education and awareness would also play a crucial role in preventing and resolving conflicts.

5. What role would technology play in a utopia?

In a utopia, technology would be used to enhance the lives of individuals and the community as a whole. It would be developed and used responsibly, with a focus on sustainability and improving the quality of life for all.

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