Is a Utopia possible?

[Burning Zeppelin]

We're doing Utopia (the book and the idea) in my English Extenison class, and I'm wondering what everyone thinks about the idea. If it wasn't for my stupid English teacher, and my general laziness when it comes to writing, I'd of written a Krispin length epic post, but instead I opted for a more discussion provoking thread, one with more questions than answers.

• What is your Utopia like?
• What would need to be altered to achieve it?
• Is your Utopia good for everyone equally, or just you?
• Is it possible to achieve in this world?

My major problem with a "utopia" is whether or not it is even possible. When I think of a utopia, I think of one which is good for everyone, and not just me. A utopia either has everything possible good present in it, or at least everything present in it is good. But sometimes this is impossible. Let's take individuality and equality as examples. (noting that since I have never experienced a world with a complete absence of individuality, I can not assume how life would be like if I was born and educated in a way that shows only a lack of individuality, and therefore am proposing a world where we all understand the concept of individuality). You can not have complete individuality, and total equality, in the same society. Even though they are not complete opposites, and it is really comparing apples and oranges, you could present it in this way. 100% equality = 0% individuality. 90% equality = 10% individuality. As said before, this isn't very accurate, and doesn't make much sense either, but I think you can see where I am going. The problem is, the lack of one of these concepts is seen as bad. So even if everyone is completely equal, the mere absence of individuality is seen as a burden on the person, and even society. Vice versa. Everyone being an individual is good and all, and individuality coexisting with equality is possible, but in a utopia evil is impossible, and the mere presence of individuality would lead to selfishnes and bigotry.

Something else you could argue over is having emotions vs. basing everything on rationality (since every 'evil' is directly linked to human emotions, and basing things on rationality would undoubtedly nullify even the concept of evil, as everything would be done for a reason).

What I wrote above isn't the main point of discussion here (though you can argue against it if you want, I know I've made some pretty grave mistakes), it's just some stuff I thought about on the bus on the way home. If it didn't make much sense, or if it was incoherent, sorry about that, I'm not very good at writing.

[placidchap]

I'm not very good at writing either so I will keep it short.  If humans exist, then no.

[Thought]

Depends on the scale of the Utopia. I'd say it is rather easy to have a small community that is Utopian, at least for a while. Consider Amish Communities; little to no crime, little to no poverty, etc. The problem comes when too many people get together; humans have an amazing ability to not agree on very basic things.

Consider the Atheism thread, or the FaithFreedom.org thread. Fairly intelligent people can look at the exact same evidence, using similar powers of reason, and come to utterly different conclusions. We see this in politics as well; one person sees H. Clinton as the whore of Babylon, another person sees her as the salvation of the nation and both people can be looking at the exact same evidence and using similar levels of reasoning.

Unfortunately, we can't attribute this entirely to upbringing; siblings can easily differ on any given issue. Nor can we attribute this entirely to our genes (consider, for example, that the identical twin of a homosexual individual will only have around a 20% chance themselves of being homosexual, though this is compared to the 2-3% of fraternal twins). So, then, if we don't even understand why two humans can look at the same thing and come to different conclusions (presumably this is due to a combination of nature and nurture, but we don't know enough to rule out a third, hereto unimagined, factor), how can we resolve such disputes?

If we are unable to resolve such disputes as they exist now, it seems even less likely that humans would be able to resolve (or prevent) such disputes from arising in Utopias. On a small scale, Utopias seem to be possible because dissidents have alternatives. That might lead us to think that numerous, small utopias might be possible, but that is only a glamour. Why, if humanity had several small utopias, would these not be like early nations? Over time they would come into conflict with each other and utopia would be lost.

So, in the words of Stephen Hawking, "I wanted to see your utopia, but now I see it is more of a 'Fruitopia'."

Humans are just such a disagreeable lot, wouldn't you agree?

[ZeaLitY]

Roddenberry's early The Next Generation Starfleet is my vision of utopia. One can choose a life of ambition or serenity with all the faculties of human achievement at one's disposal; there is nothing but freedom among the stars.

That vision sounds libertarian, but I don't have enough faith in the state of humanity right now to trust it with that kind of freedom. Anyway, John Lennon's 'Imagine' is a good launching point.

[Burning Zeppelin]

@Zeality: Geez, Imagine. When I was reading out my vision of a Utopia, my (stupid bitch of an) English teacher was like "hmm, that sounds a lot like the song Imagine".

@placidchamp: If we didn't exist, the entire idea of a utopia would become obsolete and irrelevant.

@Thought: A boy in my class proposed that his Utopia would go back in time, to those small tribes and what not. However, a utopia must grant its people freedom, and the people must be prosperous. This would lead to a rising population, and a larger intellectual base. This would lead to accelerated scientific development, and eventually, we'll just be back to where we started.

[placidchap]

That is similar to what I was saying, just in a round about way.

The entire idea of utopia is irrelevant because it can't happen, at least in this day and age.  Maybe in a few millenia, humans will evolve and put their petty differences aside and greed and power will lose its influence, but not in our lifetime.  So utopia or rather the discussion of the concept is nothing more than another way to try and tickle your brain.

Humans need order and structure to thrive which mandates a select few to be in "power".  Power leads to corruption which leads to, or rather away from any possible Utopia.  Even if those in power did not become corrupt, they can not possibly please every one of the society's citizens. 

A dystopia is far more likely.

[Thought]

Maybe in a few millenia, humans will evolve and put their petty differences aside and greed and power will lose its influence, but not in our lifetime.

Why should humans evolve in such a manner as to be less petty, less greedy, and less power hungry? It isn't like evolution has an end goal that is right, good, and just; rather, evolution is just the development of creatures to better suit their present environment. One, then, would need an environment in which greed and power weren't advantageous for human to evolve in such a manner.

[placidchap]

I did say maybe, I did not say evolution will happen that way.  To create the necessary environment needed for Utopia that I mentioned, I believe it is necessary for the human mind to be substantially different than it is now.  We are not capable, in our current state to do such a thing.

[BROJ]

Maybe in a few millenia, humans will evolve and put their petty differences aside and greed and power will lose its influence, but not in our lifetime.

Why should humans evolve in such a manner as to be less petty, less greedy, and less power hungry? It isn't like evolution has an end goal that is right, good, and just; rather, evolution is just the development of creatures to better suit their present environment. One, then, would need an environment in which greed and power weren't advantageous for human to evolve in such a manner.

I agree, wasn't it competition (synonymous with pettiness, greed, and power-hungry savageness in competition's purest form.) thats driven us to the top of the food chain and, as such, kept us alive all this long? So in short, our environment caused us to be the way we, we cause the environment to be the way it is now. (now that we're at the top, anyways.) and it all turns to be a vicious cycle, which we may or may not be able to break out of the cycle. (probably not, seeing as competition *is* a survival mechanism.) We, humans would have to be able to properly change our environment before we could change ourselves as a whole for the better, but in in order to do that we would have to be able to properly change ourselves as a whole in order to change the world for the better. So the real question is where do we start?

[Daniel Krispin]

Roddenberry's early The Next Generation Starfleet is my vision of utopia. One can choose a life of ambition or serenity with all the faculties of human achievement at one's disposal; there is nothing but freedom among the stars.

What about the Maquis?

[placidchap]

I agree, wasn't it competition (synonymous with pettiness, greed, and power-hungry savageness in competition's purest form.) thats driven us to the top of the food chain and, as such, kept us alive all this long?  

Competition alone did not put us on the top of the food chain.  Our evolutionary path has given us the some substantial advantages, namely; reasoning, planning, language, being bipedal and having opossable thumbs.  All of those probably came from evolving due to our environment which would include competition for scarce resources and the need to survive in general.  If it is more advantageous for humans to continue to be petty, greedy and power hungry, then not much will change, but I doubt that it is beneficial to the human race in the long run.  Which is why the only way to acheive Utopia is to evolve past our current state.  How that starts, I have no idea.  Probably through direct contact with the frozen flame.

[ZeaLitY]

Roddenberry's early The Next Generation Starfleet is my vision of utopia. One can choose a life of ambition or serenity with all the faculties of human achievement at one's disposal; there is nothing but freedom among the stars.

What about the Maquis?

Roddenberry had died by then.

Forward humanity has to contend with devolution. The artists, scientists, intellectuals, etc. are not breeding like apes; compare to the Arkansas couple who has now raised their 17th kid. That's their 17th sure-bet red-blooded bible-sucking neocon spawn, outnumbering whatever number of kids two intelligent people decide to make, if they decide to have kids. Ditto for a place like Japan; the death rate overtook the birth rate as part of that country's maturation, while places like China and India continue to spit out kids into lives of abject poverty and existence as a strain on the world's resources. Add in irresponsible parents and unplanned pregnancies, and you have a scenario in which selection favors the multiple stupid. There is a reason that "who's your baby's daddy" is a cultural meme, and it's not racism.





They tell us that
we lost our tails
evolving up
from little snails
I say it's all
just wind in sails

Are we not men?
We are DEVO
Are we not men?
D-E-V-O
Are we not men?
We are DEVO
Are we not MEN!?
D-E-V-O

[BROJ]

I agree, wasn't it competition (synonymous with pettiness, greed, and power-hungry savageness in competition's purest form.) thats driven us to the top of the food chain and, as such, kept us alive all this long? 

Competition alone did not put us on the top of the food chain.  Our evolutionary path has given us the some substantial advantages, namely; reasoning, planning, language, being bipedal and having opossable thumbs.  All of those probably came from evolving due to our environment which would include competition for scarce resources and the need to survive in general.  If it is more advantageous for humans to continue to be petty, greedy and power hungry, then not much will change, but I doubt that it is beneficial to the human race in the long run.  Which is why the only way to acheive Utopia is to evolve past our current state.  How that starts, I have no idea.  Probably through direct contact with the frozen flame.

All of those probably came from evolving due to our environment which would include competition for scarce resources and the need to survive in general.

Thats what I meant...

...but I doubt that it is beneficial to the human race in the long run.

From an objective standpoint, no it isn't.

How that starts, I have no idea.  Probably through direct contact with the frozen flame.

That would definitely put us far ahead in the evolutionary tree. 

[Thought]

If it is more advantageous for humans to continue to be petty, greedy and power hungry, then not much will change, but I doubt that it is beneficial to the human race in the long run.

To the human race, certainly not. However, evolution doesn't happen on the level of species, it happens on the level of the individual unit (however, kin-altruism, being a form of "group evolution," is still debated in scientific circles, to my understanding). It isn't a question on if it is beneficial to the human race, but if it is beneficial to the individual (and unfortunately such things often do provide short term benefits).

Forward humanity has to contend with devolution. The artists, scientists, intellectuals, etc. are not breeding like apes; compare to the Arkansas couple who has now raised their 17th kid. That's their 17th sure-bet red-blooded bible-sucking neocon spawn, outnumbering whatever number of kids two intelligent people decide to make, if they decide to have kids.

Technically speaking, then, the Arkansas couple, with their "bible sucking neocon spawn" are more fit to their environment (and thus, evolutionary superior) than the artist, scientist, and intellectual.

Of course, that is largely social; the libebots are not significantly different from the neocons (genetically speaking) to make this a matter of evolution (surely I am not the only one to notice the transformer overtones of calling some people "neocons"). Social evolution is not the science that biological evolution is (indeed, all things social aren't even always considered scientific).

… Can Clintlock or Ojazza save humanity from the evil clutches of McCainitron and Huckascream? Tune in next time on Transformers: Political Machines

[Burning Zeppelin]

Devo rocks.

And Zeality's grim look on the future reminds me a movie I've heard about called Idiocracy. Look it up.