Can a utopia exist?

[SithLord]

Not a perfect utopia, but maybe a limited one. I'm thinking of the way we view our future. Do we think it'll be like Futurama where things are basically the same, but our prejudices have shifted to something else, or something like Star Trek where, at least in TNG, Voyager, DS9, and on, it's essentially a utopia on Earth while they experience weird crap going on elsewhere. There's no hunger, no economic problems, no more war, etc. on Earth and the way it's described sounds amazing. (There's even a some Cracked material that suggests that maybe the reason they go out exploring so much is that their own culture is so perfect it's boring.)

 

There are other versions of our future predictions as well, but I'm curious what others believe.

 

Personally, I'm not sure whether a utopia can exist, even if limited to a small area or not. I'm not sure human nature would allow itself to become the idealic future Star Trek imagines, and I'm more prone to thinking we'll end up like Futurama where everything is basically the same, but different. 

[crazy ace]

7 minutes ago, SithGirl said:

Cracked material that suggests that maybe the reason they go out exploring so much is that their own culture is so perfect it's boring

I see someone else is an avid cracked reader?

As for me, I see humans as always f*cking things up. I think its what we do best. Therefore, at least any conscious attempts at a utopia will fail, as evidenced by previous attempts.  For starters, most people are slightly tribe-minded by nature. Further, people tend to search for something to complain about. Humans literally can't ever be happy.

[SithLord]

5 minutes ago, crazy ace said:

I see someone else is an avid cracked reader?

I used to be, now less so. I loved their video series but when (I forget his title and name because my memory sucks, but he was imporant) quit/resigned, their stuff seemed to just disappear. Most of their videos, did, anyway. Their articles are still nice, just harder for me to consume while doing multiple things at once. 

[Alawyn-Aebt]

22 minutes ago, SithGirl said:

There's no hunger, no economic problems, no more war, etc.

If just those three things, I would say possibly yes. The etcetera part, definitely no.

 

Hunger is rapidly diminishing, especially when compared to fifty years ago. The progress is stunning actually. The evidence disproves whatever few Malthus-supporters are hanging around still. Getting it to completely disappear would be hard, especially as Marginal Utility would be working against you at that point, but we eliminated smallpox.

 

Economic problems, this kind of depends on how you define problems. Not impossible though if you define economic problems in the broadest way possible.

 

War, this one requires a good argument but it is possible to logically argue that war could be eliminated. People are usually rational. Even when people are irrational to outside observers they are usually rational to themselves. Leaders, being people, are therefore rational to themselves. Hence we must make war an irrational option, but not just irrational to outside observers but to everyone involved.

 

As for an overall utopia with more than just those three features you specifically mentioned, no. Utopias are impossible because in an effort to make one thing perfect we make another thing imperfect. Justice vs. Kindness, Diversity vs. Equality, Freedom to Choose vs. Freedom from Fear, etc. All of these do not always go together and taken to their extreme destroy the other.

[Fraggle Underdark]

It's worth remembering just how amazingly peaceful our modern world is. For example if you look at ancient history it's full of devastating wars between city-states, slavery, etc. If we look at the modern world and look at just the US for example there are 300+ million people most of whom would not even think of going to war with each other. And even the few people who want war are stopped by the governmental framework and system, it's not like New York is ever going to invade New Jersey. (And when we talk about internal US factions "going to war" these days we meant intense rhetoric and pursuing legal opposition, not literally walking into a town and burning it to the ground.)

 

On a broader scale there are more and more connections between people around the world. It would be shockingly bizarre if Japan and the US actually went to war again.

 

This isn't to say it couldn't possibly happen, like if somehow a terrible dictatorship takes over in either country. And of course there are many dangers to pursuing Utopia, especially by that name. (A safer route is to just keep trying to make things better and better without aiming for perfection.)

 

But if someone living in 3000 BC looked at our modern world they wouldn't be able to grasp how this many people can exist without constantly killing each other. They might think "well I guess a powerful king will exact vengeance on them if they do so that stops them" but would be shocked to hear "no seriously the people don't even want to do that." And keep in mind that humanity has had agriculture for ~10,000 years so from a timeline perspective warring city-states are much more typical.

 

My point is that it can be hard to say what human nature is capable of just from looking at current society. We've already become so much more peaceful than we used to be. 

[ForceGhost]

Eventually, probably so. War and climate change are two problems that will have to be dealt with before one is created though.

[Philip027]

If it can it sure as hell won't be made by us, or for us.

[uhtred]

I think its difficult. Different people have such incompatible ideas of the future:   pleasant low stress life in harmony with nature?  Galactic empires?   I don't think you can have both. 

[Balance]

I don't watch much Star Trek but I thought they were basically in the military and thats why they were always visiting other planets, etc.? So I'd think that most people would only travel for vacations (assuming no need for business travel). But why would they need to go anywhere if they already live in a vacationish place? I'd guess most travel would be a simulation, and have real life in their communities. But i'm pretty sure that my idea of a normal life is not the same as someone else's so I dont' see how it would work. To me a normal life without tons of problems would be fabulous. If I wanted a tv show, movie, book, etc I'd watch or read those, I don't need them in my real life.

[uhtred]

8 hours ago, Balance said:

I don't watch much Star Trek but I thought they were basically in the military and thats why they were always visiting other planets, etc.? So I'd think that most people would only travel for vacations (assuming no need for business travel). But why would they need to go anywhere if they already live in a vacationish place? I'd guess most travel would be a simulation, and have real life in their communities. But i'm pretty sure that my idea of a normal life is not the same as someone else's so I dont' see how it would work. To me a normal life without tons of problems would be fabulous. If I wanted a tv show, movie, book, etc I'd watch or read those, I don't need them in my real life.

For me, as I've gotten older, boredom is the big problem. I could retire now, and live comfortably for the rest of my life.  The way I'm wired though, I need novelty and  stimulation. So I like to travel, do new things.   

 

There is just so much variation between people that I think we would all want different utopias, and many of them are not compatible. 

[Gloomy]

I don’t think so, because there will always be someone who is dissatisfied with the way things are. Even if everything is “perfect”, some people would probably become bored and depressed if they never experience any adversity.

[Jusey1]

Yes but it is difficult to achieve since some people are just naturally bad/evil.

[gisiebob]

I Don't think it's possible, or at least likely, with the current understanding of how society works. but I think we are capable of it.

 

I like to keep an eye out for stories where the utopian setting is a background element, like in much of startrek, as these illustrate how human strife and struggle might be painted within a utopia instead of against one

[Cheshire-Cat]

I don't think it would be possible because different people would have different ideas of what it would entail. Lack of food and economic stability is basically what communism set out to do, but some were always more equal than others.

 

In terms of war as long as people have opposing view points it's going to occur. Warfare has changed significantly over the past hundred or so years from guys sitting in ditches shooting at each other to a now more distant warfare controlled by people sat behind computer screens shooting rockets at each other, or digital warfare with people hacking systems, stealing data, and bugging (to name a few).

[Zectarash]

Just a heads-up that the article gets a bit dark.

 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-mouse-utopias-1960s-led-grim-predictions-humans-180954423/

 

Sorry, I immediately thought of the Universe 25 rat utopia experiment when I saw this thread. I've seen some articles focus on the excessive social interaction and tendency of the rats to cluster together, other articles focus on the fact that the rats didn't really have anything to do, since they had all the food, water, and space they needed with no predators or environmental dangers.

 

In any event, it's entirely possible that a utopia, or at least our idea of it, would drive the people living in it insane just like with the rats.

[Gatto]

 

[PoeciMeta]

If all humans get magically cured of greed and confirmation bias, yeah, sure. 

[DuskFire]

N....O....

[Nick2]

Not in this world.  The human animal is too violent.

[PoeciMeta]

It's kinda sad when you know we have technology available to make such cool stuff but the ones who control resources decide to use them otherwise, notably for their own profit. 

[Gatto]

 

[Switters]

16 hours ago, Gatto said:

 

God I love David Byrne

[SorryNotSorry]

No, it can't, for the simple reason that one person's dream is another person's nightmare.

 

The fictional Republic of Gilead in the Handmaid's Tale is a good example. There are people who want to live in a rigid, intolerant theocracy because to them, that's about as close to a Heaven-on-Earth as one can get. To the rest of us... well, that's probably one of the reasons why Margaret Atwood wrote the book in the first place.

[Howard]

I also thought of of the mouse utopia experiment and rat city.

Much like the rodents, I believe if we do achieve an utopia, we would be like much the rodents in the experiments and show deviant behaviors. In case of rats, the females stopped caring for the young, in case of mice, they stopped caring for mating. I'm not sure the exact way humans would become deviant in a utopia, but from I know from evolution, we evolved from an environment and if the environment changes too much, too radicaly, we are no longer fit. It is of my opinion that a 'perfect' world become dystopian.

The closest we can do is for our planners make room for the downtrodden, to expect misery and help those in need. I believe humans evolved to strive in front of adversity. Getting rid of the adversity in effort to create a utopia would redefine humanity and is paradoxicaly dystopian.

[PoeciMeta]

Ah, um. Good points. I didn't see utopia as being perpetually on holidays with everything immediately available. My vision was something like extremely developed, well-used science that managed to fix our greater problems (ahem, climate change, extreme inequalities and stupidity), not necessarily more. Just a world without horrors, nice enough? 

 

Besides, yeah, there is no progress in a perfect world. What would be left to do? 

[Karst]

I think that a post-scarcity society might be possible at some point in the future.  Compared to a few hundred years ago, we've already made huge strides in things like gender equality and preventing infectious diseases.  However, I doubt it would be possible to create a single setup that would please absolutely everyone.  People are always going to have different ideas about how things should work.  In addition, new problems are always going to arise.

[Karst]

On 1/12/2020 at 1:32 PM, Howard said:

I also thought of of the mouse utopia experiment and rat city.

Much like the rodents, I believe if we do achieve an utopia, we would be like much the rodents in the experiments and show deviant behaviors. In case of rats, the females stopped caring for the young, in case of mice, they stopped caring for mating. I'm not sure the exact way humans would become deviant in a utopia, but from I know from evolution, we evolved from an environment and if the environment changes too much, too radicaly, we are no longer fit. It is of my opinion that a 'perfect' world become dystopian.

The closest we can do is for our planners make room for the downtrodden, to expect misery and help those in need. I believe humans evolved to strive in front of adversity. Getting rid of the adversity in effort to create a utopia would redefine humanity and is paradoxicaly dystopian.

It's dangerous to come to too many conclusions from a single experiment.  We're not rodents, and, unlike the animals in those experiments, we have the ability to alter our environment.

[Howard]

11 hours ago, Iridium said:

It's dangerous to come to too many conclusions from a single experiment.  We're not rodents, and, unlike the animals in those experiments, we have the ability to alter our environment.

Actualy, it was 2 experiments. I agree that we have the ability to control our environment but otherwise I don't think we are much different than other animals. Rodents have been used in various psychological experiments, like flight or flee reactions, with some degree of success.

[Skycaptain]

One person's utopia will almost certainly not be someone else's utopia. 

[gisiebob]

9 hours ago, Skycaptain said:

One person's utopia will almost certainly not be someone else's utopia. 

well, we haven't made good progress on a society where you can murder anyone you want, but I think we have done decent work towards a society where you can expect not to be murdered. lots of work left to be done in that category, to be sure. but are you suggesting that sort of freedom from being killed is worthless because it oppresses the freedom to kill others?

 

I think you can define utopia as a useless concept, sure. but is that useful?