Your Personal Utopia

[marshlander]

My personal Utopia? I'm living in it.

[HumbleTangerine]

Agree, but there needs to be a floor that people can't fall below, and a ceiling (to prevent the extreme inequality we now face here in the USA).

Absolutely, that's the kind of system I support.

[Chase]

In addition to convincing people to have less children, we need to start colonizing the ocean and outer space. For colonizing the oceans there are already many ideas for types of floating cities and other types of high tech ocean living. In fact, some say a circle of billionaires are planning on constructing their own nation via high tech floating cities in international waters. It isn't my kind of conspiracy but billionaires certainly have the power and we probably have the technology, plus the idea of billionaires constructing a libertarian paradise for billionaires to hide their money seems very plausible. I guess it might be like that movie "Elysium" (which I haven't seen yet) only instead of a Standford Torus in orbit it'd be a floating luxury city-ship.
Speaking of Stanford-Toruses ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_torus ), my idea of a paradise would be that we need to start building many of them, or at least conjugations of the design, anyway, throughout the solar system. Some in Earth's orbit, some in Martian orbit, some in Jupiter's orbit, some in plain solar orbit. We'll savage the materials from Mars, the asteroid belt, various moons, etc. Americans are addicted to doughnuts so I'm sure many of us will be very eager to live in giant, megalithic doughnuts that are constantly spinning for the artificial gravity. Hopefully within the century we will have mastered nuclear fusion (not nuclear fission, not related to Chernobyl) power that should help power many of them, and we will construct legions of drones that will be in constant control around the space-habitats to prevent any meteorites and other debris from smashing into them.
The field of robotic engineering will be put on steroids so the farming section of space habitats will have minimal labor done on the part of the inhabitants.
Basic food and housing will be socialized. No matter how incompetent the parent is, every child will at least grow up in a decent house and be fed a nutritional diet. Many parents out there are incompetent cooks, and so prepared meals will actually be provided for children. With all the robotic engineering being socialized that will help pave the way for robots to prepare food, children in schools will be taught why the diet they are provided is nutritional and how to cook on their own if they prefer.
There will not be "equality" in the sense that lazy people will be given the most humble living and the hard-working will be given finer living standards. Education up to the doctorate level will be socialized, so it will be fair game for everyone. Children will live with their parents, and young adults can be cramped together in dormitory buildings like at universities, seeing as how in my space habitats all children will be brainwashed to obsess over education anyways. In my space habitats, better apartments will be given to the soldiers who risk their lives fighting the space battles to prevent those evil barbarians back on Earth from attempting to invade my precious outer-space paradise. Better apartments would also be rewarded to those who agree to do more or harder labor.
The entire society needs to have a superb understanding of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. This society will also always attempt to brainwash all children in the schools to be sappy, hippy, wishy-washy, hugging, non-bullying, loving, happy, wusses. A failure to feel empathy will be viewed as a mental disorder and treated as such by psychologists and other medical doctors.
With necessities covered, the citizens will be constantly encouraged to seek to better themselves and the society through work and education. The will to work and learn will come from the need to escape boredom, the awareness of the need to maintain the space habitat, the awareness of the need to defend the space habitats from the barbarians on Earth, and an obsession that will be on trying to build interstellar spacecrafts so the people can finally leave the solar system for another star and have planets of their own and be free once and for all from the evil barbarians on Earth.
Eventually, through the millenniums, the space habitats will turn into vast, post-scarcity wonderland's like Iain Banks's Culture Series. Through technology humans will attain greater power than that ascribed to the ancient mythical gods, and everyone will live in a heaven in the one life they know they will have.
The end

PS - it will never happen and within the millennium our entire species will probably be wiped out in a great world war anyways

[Bowyn Aerrow]

May I just ask why you personally believe "equal resources for everyone" is fair?

Me, personally, I want everyone in my utopia to have enough resources to live stable, satisfactory lives, but I sincerely believe that people who work harder deserve higher profit. If I do a good job and dedicate myself to it, while my neighbour slacks and doesn't achieve nearly as much as I do, I think it's just fair that my rewards are higher than his. If there's no form of meritocracy and hard work isn't rewarded, I believe society has reached a stage of severe unfairness.

It's fairer than the current system where millions are starving to death, billions live in poverty, millions if not over a billion without clean drinking water, billions without decent health care.

There is no such thing as 'working harder'. This is a myth conception of a society that places personal value on what a person does for a living.

Value is a myth - based on a currency system which is a false system.

Also understand that 80-90% of the jobs on earth can be done by a machine, more efficiently and faster than any humans. Over the next 20 years that number will be close to 100% with only a very few jobs needing to be done by humans.

The whole 'I work for money' concept is not based on real need for people to be slaves. Its only still happening because we have a stupid economy that isn't very economic - in fact its not economic at all.

[Kha]

a room with internet connected

[VidasParalelas]

I am concerned about global population and it's negative impact on our planet. I would like to see programs put in place to either temporarily or permanently sterilize people who would be willing to have this procedure performed of their own free will. People sho are willing to do so could possibly receive tax breaks for life as an incentive.

In addition, I'd like a more aggressive approach put in place to finding stable homes for orphaned and abandoned children. It doesn't seem right that so many children are brought into this world who are not wanted and in so many instances people are not even trying to plan a family yet they pop out a few kids anyway. There are so many children who need a loving home environment.

[meninlove]

In addition to convincing people to have less children, we need to start colonizing the ocean and outer space. For colonizing the oceans there are already many ideas for types of floating cities and other types of high tech ocean living. In fact, some say a circle of billionaires are planning on constructing their own nation via high tech floating cities in international waters. ..(and rest of amazing post)

PS - it will never happen and within the millennium our entire species will probably be wiped out in a great world war anyways

Or.... apologies for the post if it's too down (but there is a good ending to the story)

' Over There, in the world as Men knew it, an illness was progressively and subtly unfolding itself, unlike any seen in the planet’s long, long history. Dreadful, complicated, the environment that made the world liveable was coming apart. Manufactured chemicals had found their way into the very cells of all that lived. The sky had developed holes in the protective envelope that stopped dangerous radiations from reaching the delicate stuff of life. Right down to the atomic, those tiny orbiting bits that made up the fabric of existence, there was an encroaching corruption. It affected Man in more than just physical aspects. Emotional balances were being knocked out of kilter. Anxiety and denial warred with each other in the human heart. Depression over the unspoken knowledge that the world was, after all, finite, weighted the aspirations of the human soul like heavy stones. As always, humanity had science and religious faith to mitigate these effects, but both were starting to fail. Depressed, sad, hopeless and resigned to a much believed in apocalyptic future, humanity accelerated the degradation of the world by vast consumption of the very things that needed to be spared. Doing so seemed to alleviate feelings of concern and foreboding with a temporary happiness that seemed all the more sweeter for its fleeting warmth. The waste from this consumption found its way into the geological makeup of the world. Areas that were uncorrupted, unpolluted were now scarce and isolated pockets. Weather patterns had intensified. Great deserts were born and conversely, incursions of the oceans into and over the lands of Men occurred. Storms of hitherto un-experienced proportions caused massive destruction. Large numbers of the displaced became refugees in their own countries. Whole species of animals were dying out. Balances had been lost, and the world’s natural self, plant life, animal life, insect life and the lives of the microscopic began to invade each others’ territories, seeking survival. Existence was a slow and creeping poison, as pervasive as the air that was beginning to kill those that depended on it for life. Canisters of the invisible death that Man had eventually harnessed to produce the electrical power so absolutely necessary had been tossed into the oceans and were beginning to disintegrate, releasing lethal emanations that would last eons as they dispersed. '

However, two people who had used the Ribbon Of Beauty and destroyed it in the process, helped change it all. *grins*

[cftxp]

I have a few main points for mine:

• It would likely be an idealized combination of libertarianism and a degree of socialism
  
• When it comes to social policy, it would include provisions where discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated - especially by the government itself.
  
• It would also emphasize individual rights, and so for the most part, victimless crimes won't be prosecuted, though social programs will allow for things like rehabilitation.
  
• I probably would like for healthcare to be extended for everyone, but in the same way as they currently do so in Taiwan or France. However, there will be special attention paid to more than just physical health, there will also be programs available for mental and emotional health which ideally, will allow for the end to the stigma that surrounds psychological/psychosocial conditions.
  
• When it comes to foreign policy, I wouldn't encourage war but if it's close to inevitable then it will happen. However, I would hope that imperialist policies will not be imposed on any nation.
  
• This will likely be a business-friendly society where free enterprise and a market economy will exist, though with some consumer protection measures as well as a strict policy that limits land and resources available for business to only be half of the total reserves. Of course, this will be for the purpose of making sure that our natural resources aren't depleted. Also, individual rights will be extended toward the workers where a living wage will be required in addition to the aforementioned anti-discrimination policies.
  
• Policies would also be in place where alternative energy sources, whether it's for research or production, will be encouraged with some subsidies.
  
• Some subsidies will also be available for various fields from the arts to STEM fields.
  
• Education will be the most important aspect of society but the emphasis will be put on having well-rounded and unique citizens, not jobs.
  
• Finally, there will be welfare schemes within the country, taxes will not exceed 50% of the total income though other social programs will be available with the goal of reducing crime and lifting as many citizens as possible from poverty.
  

That was a long list, but I think that at least American society would be better with the implementation of some of these policies. So basically in my utopia, there will be choice and the ability to be unique since in my opinion, the difference (even politically) in our societies allow for a great degree of diversity when it comes to innovation and creativity.

[LJay]

I may not be young enough to believe that a utopia is possible. Or am I?

[Aike]

I can't seem to disengage myself from political debates whatever forum I go to!

Some students described more or less communist societies where absolute equality is in focus. One girl basically described an anarcho-capitalist society where all functions usually associated with governments are handled by private operators. Most of them however described a non-communist socialist society where the government strives to maintain equality and justice through collectively financed welfare.

The instructions confused me at first, because I wasn't sure what degree of realism to use in my own presentation. Was I supposed to describe my ideal society based on perfect, adjustable circumstances or based on what's possible to achieve based on society in its current stage? I discovered that I have two personal utopias. One is based on the unrealistic assumption that citizens in the society would be at all times just, peaceful and responsible; in which case an anarchocapitalist structure is the most appealing to me. Absolute freedom of choice in a private market that works splendidly.

The anarcho-capitalist utopia of absolute individual freedom actually comes close to the traditional communist one. The latter, in the tradition of Marxism at least, describes the communist society of the future as a society where technological development has diminished the absolute amount of labor necessary to provide the means of subsistence for people and where every individual is free to develop his/her capacities as s/he likes and express him/herself free from domination and exploitation. (The model of a future communist citizen for Marx was an artist!) A communist agrees with an anarcho-capitalist that the freedom of the individual should not be repressed. What they disagree with is how to bring this situation about and what the conditions of its possibility are.

This is why ideology proper is not only to be found in the explicit content of a utopian vision of a desired society (freedom of the individual, equality of gender, race, etc. etc.) but also in the implicit assumptions, which condition this vision and lay down the range of reforms considered practical and possible. And that is why the debates between liberals and social-democrats about, for example, economic reforms are not only technical/practical in nature but also ideological, for ideology also determines what is (or rather what appears) possible and impossible to do. That is not to say that in reality absolutely everything is possible, it is only ideology that prevents us from seeing it, but that we should think more systematically instead of dealing with this or that reform.

Considering the above said things, the following quote, in my view, is utopianism par excellence:

In reality I believe such a society to be impossible, which brings me to my second, more realistic utopia. This one is pretty much based on social liberalism. A capitalist economy regulated by a government to ensure certain standards of quality and responsibility are upheld. A welfare system comprised of reasonable governmental subsidies, free education and access to care financed through collective taxes. Private schools and hospitals that are strongly regulated to avoid corruption and overall a very strong respect for human freedom. Obviously this entails, amongst other things the decriminalization of narcotics.

Now, from my Marxist point of view, this is utopian because the welfare state is premised on the idea that the interests of the working people and capital (corporations and finance) can be reconciled when there exists a permanent contradiction between the two (to simplify to the utmost!). That is to say, the interests of the majority of the people can only be served by the abolition of the class society, regardless of how unrealistic the possibility of that happening might appear.

I don't think there is a system that exists that wouldn't screw people over and ruin utopia, again the pitfall of human nature. I could wax long on this but for brevity I'll say that perhaps the biggest obstacle is the tribal circuits where some people are seen as having more rights than others, and the amazing ability of the human brain to rationalize, all aggravated by the brains of many people LITERALLY unable to think rationally when it comes to politics (example) which I believe also applies to religion (though I'm not aware of any studies on that). The only way to solve that is to change the brain...a thought that horrifies me even more than "kill everyone who isn't like you." The people most eager to change the brain of everyone else would be the last people who should (assuming anyone should have that ability).

I think there exists a danger in this misanthropic view of human nature, namely that it mystifies the concrete oppressive structures of the society and blames the mythical "human nature" for the suffering we see around us. Nothing is more convenient for an exploitative CEO or a cruel politician than a perspective, which removes the spotlight from the institutions they represent and the decisions they make and puts the blame on the bad evil sinful human nature.

Moreover, we shouldn't even put the blame on greed (like many leftists like to do). It is not the greed of private persons that causes the accumulation of wealth to the very few but the logic of capital itself that compels its representatives to act in greedy ways. So it's not because we have evil people in charge that private companies exploit their workforce. If you're a CEO of a private company, it doesn't matter if you're a Mother Theresa, you are simply forced to comply to the rules of competition, which drive you to jack up the rate of profit by exploitation. (If you don't generate enough profit and expand your company you are finished if the competition is fierce.)