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What is your idea of a Utopia?


Tranquil Claw

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I have always been fascinated with how history has often repeated it's mistakes over and over. If every grand mind in the forum got together, maybe we can change this, do something good for the world as a whole. This could all start with a few simple questions. What in your eyes is a perfect world, a utopia? 

 

 Brought to you by Equestria's newest philosopher, Tranquil Claw

 

I'm thinking of starting a daily question for the forum to answer and discuss. Should I do this?

 I'll let you decide. 

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The only way to have a true utopia, is if there is nothing. with nothing, everything is functional because nothing exists. Everyone is happy because there is nobody. There will always be disfunction if there is somebody. Therefore, a true utopia is not possible in this universe. That is my thought on this subject matter.

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I'm thinking of starting a daily question for the forum to answer and discuss. Should I do this?

 I'll let you decide.

I like the idea of some daily questions. Mind if I help?

 

My ideal society is already here. Sure at the moment there are a ton of quarrels and problems humanity needs to fix, but if you look closely enough, you'll see that the change is already here. There are so many people looking to invent viable alternatives to crude oil, there are so many grassroot movemnts spreading the transcendental ideas of peace, community with diversity, and preserving nature.

 

But the opposite of these is true also, and there is an overall balance.

 

Supplementing the politics tag, I'll go ahead and say I think the world may be better if nations were no longer recognized by anyone. What could happen if we didn't nationalism or sectionalism, or if their definition ment something different?

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I'll start off my idea, first one problem I notice with the world is the natural tendency for greed, all human beings have had this moment at one point in time when all they can think of is how much they want something. Money is also a contributing factor in this. 

 

I've been toying around with the thought of creating a system that doesn't grant power (in this case money) based on what you have, but instead off of what you have given. The opposite of greed is generosity, so if somehow we promoted generosity without giving in to greed, maybe that could help improve, but the fact that one cannot have something good without something evil to balance it nags at me. Is it possible to get around this obstacle?

Edited by Tranquil Claw
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     Basically the idea is that, for every activity a person does for the benefit of others he/she will be rewarded based on the amount of effort they put into it. If you do nothing for the good of the whole, the whole will still support you with a basic shelter, healthy food, and other basic needs. Contributing to the whole gives you a sort of general credit that you can use to requisition things from the government (more on that separate aspect later). It is a form of communism combined with capitalism that uses a process of elimination to ensure that many people who are generous end up accidentally at the top of the chain. Becoming a leader requires that you have gone above and beyond anyone's expectations and have a desire to contribute stronger than those around you. That is because in this system, the leader is stripped of almost all their privileges to ensure that he/she is dedicated enough to fulfill a goal to the point of breaking. The length of leadership will last for as long as the people will it to be. If one's goal is seen as right but cannot be fulfilled in a short period, it can eventually be fulfilled as long as the people are willing to let it. The system of leadership must be both capable of having no leader and many leaders without corruption. This is basically as far as I have gotten with the idea.   

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Hmm. So everybody has a baseline of worth which is reflected in the amount of goods they have, and in order to attain more, the individual must become a benefactor to their community? How does stripping the leader of privileges inhibit the leader from changing face? How can one achieve nationwide change when they no longer have the resources to accomplish the fact? Are the resources moved to a body such as America's executive, legislative, and judicial branches?

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@@Tranquil Claw,

An immediate flaw I notice is the support of any member, regardless of integrity. It does not pair well with your idea that humans have innate greed—or furthering that, moral detachment. The idea of welfare has been problematic for some time, as there are people who actively abuse the system for benefits without productivity (see Maine for examples). You system provides more incentive for the morally detached to remain unproductive members of society.

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@@Tranquil Claw,

An immediate flaw I notice is the support of any member, regardless of integrity. It does not pair well with your idea that humans have innate greed—or furthering that, moral detachment. The idea of welfare has been problematic for some time, as there are people who actively abuse the system for benefits without productivity (see Maine for examples). You system provides more incentive for the morally detached to remain unproductive members of society.

My goal is to create a system that encourages you to find a niche in society through long term struggles. The current system in the US is flawed because the people who are rich only want to be even more rich. Power can never truly be distributed evenly (as communism pointed out) but it can be fluctuated wildly in such a way that people who abuse that power find themselves toppling to the ground. The media is a problem of it's own, providing a route of indirect control to many of the people capable of pulling those kind of strings. A system that recovers from mistakes and corrects them on it's own is one that we need now. What do you think would fix this problem you stated?

Edited by Tranquil Claw
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No one can develop such an ideal to fit practical application because self-correction stems from rationalism, not idealism. That would put the pressure—and subsequent blame in failure—on the individual, and each individual in such a society would require a capacity to effectively and independently reason. Do you believe that condition exists today? If not, do you believe it could ever exist without genetic perfection/manipulation? If so, what are reasons that some might be unable to think in such a critical manner?

Edited by Wubtavia
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@@Tranquil Claw,

An immediate flaw I notice is the support of any member, regardless of integrity. It does not pair well with your idea that humans have innate greed—or furthering that, moral detachment. The idea of welfare has been problematic for some time, as there are people who actively abuse the system for benefits without productivity (see Maine for examples). You system provides more incentive for the morally detached to remain unproductive members of society.

Tranquil's system does work with greed. Humans like stuff, and in order for us to get more stuff according to this system, one needs to be helpful to some level of the organization of life.

 

I do have to agree though @, it seems like Zipf's Law plays out in favour of the delinquent. Do you think a system of reprimanding like the Babemba Tribe would work here?

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@@SugarfootWillie

 

I believe it [reprimand] could work with two conditions: the society is a closed system; every member of the system has been loved equally an unequivocally. How can one expect an individual with a "fractured" view of equity to respect others in the society unconditionally?

Edited by Wubtavia
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Hmm. So everybody has a baseline of worth which is reflected in the amount of goods they have, and in order to attain more, the individual must become a benefactor to their community? How does stripping the leader of privileges inhibit the leader from changing face? How can one achieve nationwide change when they no longer have the resources to accomplish the fact? Are the resources moved to a body such as America's executive, legislative, and judicial branches?

Your first assumption is correct. You will start off with the bare minimum to survive and are given incentive through advertisement and exposure to change the world around you and better yourself in the act. Media is an extremely effective tool in the hands of those who mean good and those who mean harm. In this case the people who are capable of using such tools are the advisers and supporters of the goals put forth by the leader. The leader(s) are in charge of keeping the goals that they want to change the country with on track while the advisers and an elected representative community are tasked with helping them achieve this and spreading their ideals. Leaders do have some power, that is all the power necessary to complete their goals but no more. Completing a goal that positively affects the country is the highest honor a citizen can have, and it is reflected in their retirement if said person chooses to. The resources used for country wide goals are held collectively by all relevant branches of government and can only be redistributed if there are ample left for completion of current goals. These resources are the form of tax that is issued from local community storage. Each of these storage stashes are collected from the local community and used like trading cards between governors who are kept in check by local community managers. Community managers are people who represent their local niche like the environmentalists, industrialists, etc. and are elected by their likewise supporters. Governors are elected from the community managers and must reach a minimum required experience in multiple areas (they must have support from multiple of the community managers to be elected, support from two conflicting groups is a sign of an ideal governor). This form of government will need additional ironing out but can be summarized as leaders>advisers>representative community>governors<>community managers>citizens.     

 

 

I can hear peoples brains popping from the amount of information I just posted. :lol:  :D

Edited by Tranquil Claw
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@,

 

I don't suppose an institutionalized utilitarian philosophy would aid this fractured view would it? Or (despite it fallacious nature) long-term egoism?

 

The only reason I offer egoism is because it makes sense to a lot of people despite the fact that it is self-contradictory.

Edited by SugarfootWillie
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I don't think it would be impossible to achieve a utopia without giving up some things that make us human, like opinions and original thought. In a utopia, there would be no arguing or clashing of ideas, because we would all agree on everything. however, it is our differences, even if they cause conflict between us, that make everyone beautiful.

Edited by McDude
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The only way to have a true utopia, is if there is nothing. with nothing, everything is functional because nothing exists. Everyone is happy because there is nobody. There will always be disfunction if there is somebody. Therefore, a true utopia is not possible in this universe. That is my thought on this subject matter.

 

That was some deep stuff, I love your interpretation, though.  :lol:

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@@SugarfootWillie

 

It could, provided morality is something one can realize through rationalization and not unfounded belief (I would not deign to use the word objective for morality, though for the sake of prosperity an established set of beliefs should exist, provided they can be appropriately explained and agreed upon). But then how would one convince another that their morality is the absolute correct one to follow if the other has used their own brand of reasoning to draw a different conclusion? I suppose, then, that the highest chance of a society to be morally incorruptible would indeed lie in utilitarianism.

 

Perhaps. I would have to think on that one a bit more.

Edited by Wubtavia
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I'm thinking of starting a daily question for the forum to answer and discuss. Should I do this?

 

Ah sure, why not? If the question you start with is the idea of utopia then it's hard to say no to the prospect of future brain teasers.

 

 

Your first assumption is correct. You will start off with the bare minimum to survive and are given incentive through advertisement and exposure to change the world around you and better yourself in the act. Media is an extremely effective tool in the hands of those who mean good and those who mean harm. In this case the people who are capable of using such tools are the advisers and supporters of the goals put forth by the leader. The leader(s) are in charge of keeping the goals that they want to change the country with on track while the advisers and an elected representative community are tasked with helping them achieve this and spreading their ideals. Leaders do have some power, that is all the power necessary to complete their goals but no more. Completing a goal that positively affects the country is the highest honor a citizen can have, and it is reflected in their retirement if said person chooses to. The resources used for country wide goals are held collectively by all relevant branches of government and can only be redistributed if there are ample left for completion of current goals. These resources are the form of tax that is issued from local community storage. Each of these storage stashes are collected from the local community and used like trading cards between governors who are kept in check by local community managers. Community managers are people who represent their local niche like the environmentalists, industrialists, etc. and are elected by their likewise supporters. Governors are elected from the community managers and must reach a minimum required experience in multiple areas (they must have support from multiple of the community managers to be elected, support from two conflicting groups is a sign of an ideal governor). This form of government will need additional ironing out but can be summarized as leaders>advisers>representative community>governors<>community managers>citizens.     

 

 

I can hear peoples brains popping from the amount of information I just posted. :lol:  :D

 

Actually I get what you are saying. Sounds an awful lot like Plato's Republic, the great grandfather of utopian models.

 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ 

 

Okay everypony, we get it "not possible, humans are flawed." That is not the question posed, the question is "what is YOUR IDEA of utopia?"

 

To actually answer the question, I will first say that one man's Heaven is another man's Hell, so this very much is MY idea.

 

I've actually written more than a few short stories and outlined fictional universes that, to me, seemed utopian.

 

-One is a world lead by warrior-philosophers. As much men of action as men of thought. Masters of the martial arts, and thus masters of being good people. Because anyone who knows the raw techniques but doesn't treat his fellow man with respect, is not a master, just a highly competent thug. On the flip side, anyone who posses a great deal of knowledge but no will to stand before his enemies can't call himself a king. The world I have created where this happens is a world of peace, where evil hides in the shadows because it would be crushed under the might of those who have faith in humanity and purpose to existence. Granted this setting is for an outright fantasy story not a science fiction utopian model.

 

-That is reserved for the story I called Theotech, a post human Singularitarian version of this that I think would be necessary to achieve utopia. Where the colonized universe is run from on high by Post-Singularity A.I. Superminds but whom are so advanced and think so much faster than us, their will is often not fully realized by even transhuman minds. Such a society would be post-scarcity and the individual empowered by the freedom to augment their minds and bodies however they please. The individual is more powerful and more free than any human in history but that freedom is protected by the Arche-Techs, who love their creators and ask nothing in return. Such would be the closest to a true Thearchy as could be scientifically achieved. (Not to be confused with a Theocracy.) If this sounds familiar, I did take some inspiration from Banks' The Culture and Orion's Arm.

My utopia would be a lot simpler than most: A world where I wasn't in pain all day every day.

Yes.

 

Would be nice but I can see where there would be problems. For one thing people who actually have a disorder and can't feel pain have chewed their own tongues out of their mouths.

 

Not that I'm saying you are wrong just reasserting my disclaimer from earlier. "One man's Heaven is another man's Hell."

Edited by Steel Accord
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@,

 

Morality and philosophy in general is a subject that is open ended. One can convince another that their morality is incorrect when you have contraindications within the morality. Or maybe if there are fallacies within the argument such as circular reasoning or the slippery slop.

Edited by SugarfootWillie
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Would be nice but I can see where there would be problems. For one thing people who actually have a disorder and can't feel pain have chewed their own tongues out of their mouths.

 

Not that I'm saying you are wrong just reasserting my disclaimer from earlier. "One man's Heaven is another man's Hell."

I wasn't talking about having no pain. I was talking about having a fully functional body, that feels normal amounts rather than my normal daily aches and pains. Not congenital analgesia, which makes a person feel no pain, and then they end up dying because they don't realize they're bleeding internally.

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