What would you do in a Utopian Society?

There is some sort of technical problem, because strictly speaking the world is utopian already for me, because I'm not poor, I have everything I need and I'm not delusional about power enough to subjugate others into my fantasies, so more money and power is pretty pointless. Sure, you could get into technicalities such as having one less hour of work, but by the time a society makes such advances it's already quite different.

Things are good or bad from a subjective perspective, from other people the current world could be hellish, but the question of "what do I want in the end" remains valid. Truth is... Not that many things. Even knowledge is an empty shell if you don't have the motivation to use it.

Originally posted by Bentley
There is some sort of technical problem, because strictly speaking the world is utopian already for me, because I'm not poor, I have everything I need and I'm not delusional about power enough to subjugate others into my fantasies, so more money and power is pretty pointless. Sure, you could get into technicalities such as having one less hour of work, but by the time a society makes such advances it's already quite different.

Things are good or bad from a subjective perspective, from other people the current world could be hellish, but the question of "what do I want in the end" remains valid. Truth is... Not that many things. Even knowledge is an empty shell if you don't have the motivation to use it.

These are only limitations you set on yourself. They needn't exist, you could always strive to make it a better world for others in an act selflessness. But if you're content, that's perfectly fine too. However, the paradigm shift is a neccessary one.

In this day and age our problems are that pollution has made manifest air-born toxins that are producing an increasing rate of children being born with disorders like Autism, increasing the rate of immune disease, increasing number of children developing obesity, it's a eugenic nightmare. The madhouse of economic and political and foreign intervention is causing a lot of destructive conflict, econimics in many countries are leading to failures in governmental setups themselves, failures in advancing technology, in keeping education up-to-date, the rise of global debt, and there are more and more problems regarding the depleting natural resources, the increasing population, the damaged ecosystem, wildlife in turmoil, physical stress measured at an all time high.

This effects more people than you could believe, one day it will effect all of us, and I assure you we will do SOMETHING about it. Whether that something is good or bad will determine whether we achieve oblivion or paradise as a civilization. It is the Hopi Word Koyaanisqatsi, or, A Way of Life That Calls for Another Way of Living.

The truth is human beings were never really designed to run a civilization like this. If we call to God, nothing would happen, we need to become Gods. That is the core of my beliefs.

Civilization has gotten to the point where we need to change our ways, but as humans we can no longer do that, trapped by our genetic programming. So then, if God is not going interfere, we must do something radical. It is what God would want, or He would intervene here. Divine Communication.

Would a God care if a Type 0 Civilization annihilated themselves? That would seem like an irrelevant event, demonstrating unworthiness to shine with Him in the Light. God would consider a Type III Civilization, but not a Type 0.

Perhaps how dare be to us for being so self-centered, when we are so ingsignificant. Perhaps God is Mightier and Grander than we conviced ourselves.

I am a psuedo-athiestic in that any God or Gods to be worshipped is self-centered and humanocentric, psuedo-polytheistic in the sense that we could all transcend through Hindu-like circumanstances into Gods, part pseudo-monotheistic in that God is out there with some grand plan we cannot comprehend. Overall I take an agnostic stance, but with elements of spirituality in all the most vivid and creative ways.

Again, I'm not saying paradigm shifts shouldn't happen, I'm again saying that an utopian society from our point of view is pretty ambiguous because the notion of utopy itself can very well be here already. The problems with a no-barred holds utopia is that we aren't particularly attached nor fit to no-barred logics, it's easy to find pitfalls for most utopias because an actual utopia wouldn't really include us to begin with.

It's hard to provide coherent discussions when many of the starting positions are close to being non-sense.

Originally posted by Dolos
Would a God care if a Type 0 Civilization annihilated themselves? That would seem like an irrelevant event, demonstrating unworthiness to shine with Him in the Light. God would consider a Type III Civilization, but not a Type 0.

I always wonder about argument like this. Human care when vastly inferior things are wiped out. Why wouldn't God? And if his version of morality is that alien why should I care what he thinks?

Originally posted by Bentley
Again, I'm not saying paradigm shifts shouldn't happen, I'm again saying that an utopian society from our point of view is pretty ambiguous because the notion of utopy itself can very well be here already.

I disagree. Utopias are pretty much universally accepted at "the best world" given some limits. Best possible or best imaginable seem pretty popular since an absolute "best world" that we can't even imagine is impossible to actual talk about.

Leibniz believed we were in the Best of all Possible Worlds. Maybe that's what that troglodyte Bentley was referring to. sneer

Leibniz argument works for my proposes.

...In its trolling magnificence.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
I always wonder about argument like this. Human care when vastly inferior things are wiped out. Why wouldn't God? And if his version of morality is that alien why should I care what he thinks?

Being bitter against God's will has more terrible consequences in the Bible than in that ideology. God simply wants humanity, and all other forms of life in the cosmos, to get over themselves, and take their evolution into their own hands as oppossed to just spitting in a humanocentric fit of rebellion. God's not whiping us out, we are whiping us out by being afraid of what we could be. Why are we more important, why the center of the Universe? We're just more aliens, a particularly pathetic lot of aliens at that as violence is in our nature.

And most humans don't even give a ****ing shit about most of the lifeforms on this planet beyond looking at a food source. Look at how we are destroying their ecosystem. You can't come to terms with the fact that you're not on a pedastool, and that your survival depends on reason not superstition. That's the truth.

Originally posted by Cyner
Dolos!

The problem is that technology and a globalized world has emerged at a ridiculous pace. Human evolution cannot be expected to keep up with that. What's 150 years of innovation in the face of millions of years of evolution? Humans are still very naturally tribal and to change that may take a very very long time. Even in a few thousand years, if humans are evolving naturally there will still be a tribal mindsets are the dominant trait. Being tribalistic is how the human race has survived to this point. To change that will take a heck of a lot.

This is one reason I prefer Battletech lore to other science fiction settings. It's a very realistic look at humanity venturing out into the galaxy and technology in the future.

If we're incapable of putting a working civilization together, and we use exoskeletons to thin the herd or try to conquer other territories, it all starts with us being limited to our earth, and ends with us being dead. No visiting the Stars.

I say that destructive conflict for scattering across the globe will only end in death because we are regressing as a multicultural, global society that cooperates, into a bunch of seperate factions battle for conquest. Soon enough a tyrant will come along, factions will band together, we'll be right back where we started...that's assuming that any such scattering wouldn't end in nuclear annihilation in the first place...much less allow us to take control of evolving technologies and go conquer the universe as a bunch of primitive savages, that's not the way it works.

No, we either learn to cooperate and progress, or we regress. And since humans no longer have the ability to run this civilization into the future, we need AI. There is a lot of debate as to whether or not said AI could even be self-aware, most likely it could never be...mind uploading, transformations in human nature that lead us to immortality while gaining sensual and perceptual abilities that make us more alive than ever before, seems like a win win situation.

Of couse some don't see it that way, because they can't understand it accurately will always refuse to. It triggers an innate defensive retaliation in human nature, we are ignorant machiens by design. However understand this, if we do evolve, there will be no more fighting, because we we all be one universal tribe, equals and ethnically genetically 100% compatible beings. Equal in ability, but expressing individuality in the form of uniquely developed abilities and physical features, all as amazing as the next, avatar consciousnesses will accelerate in different ways at the same rate, the same pace. So we're all on the same page, all individual, all free of will, all banded on one tribe that accepts all beliefs and yet shares all beliefs in a clique sort of way. Finally, we are free from servitude of any minute form.

It isn't just defeating suffering, it is totally crushing and annihilating all hope evil has....pulverizing it's existence without sacrifice, comprise, without even the slightest effort, we smight it to ruin without compromise.

Humans just can't comprehend, fathom, accept, and will rebel, their primitive minds unable to understand a win win win everybody wins, no loss situation like this. And that's just Type I, that gets us on our way to galactic conquest.

Originally posted by Dolos
Being bitter against God's will has more terrible consequences in the Bible than in that ideology.

Which still makes caring foolish. God's morality is too alien to comprehend so you can never pick an action that is especially likely to save you.

Originally posted by Dolos
Why are we more important, why the center of the Universe?

I don't think anyone but the most fanatically religious people believe the Earth is the center of the universe anymore (in the Western world).

Originally posted by Dolos
And most humans don't even give a ****ing shit about most of the lifeforms on this planet beyond looking at a food source.

I know lots of people who are sad that things are dying. The fact that most people don't care hardly seems to matter. The point is that the morality you're giving to God is so alien to me that it is incomprehensible. I care less about other animals but I do care about their existence enough to be sad if one goes extinct, whether it effects me or not.

Originally posted by Dolos
You can't come to terms with the fact that you're not on a pedastool, and that your survival depends on reason not superstition. That's the truth.

You're the one saying we should try to become more and more like a callous uncaring deity, not me.

Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
You're the one saying we should try to become more and more like a callous uncaring deity, not me.

Noooo. I have never expressed that notion at all. I'm saying in order to save ourselves we have to be transcendental...or we just won't thrive. We're at this point, we have a choice, we're not going to be cuddled, we've reached the age, we're of age to make a choice. That choice will effect us, we have to choose what kind of humans we want to be.

I have a prediction for you: We'll **** that one up

Originally posted by Dolos
Noooo. I have never expressed that notion at all. I'm saying in order to save ourselves we have to be transcendental...or we just won't thrive. We're at this point, we have a choice, we're not going to be cuddled, we've reached the age, we're of age to make a choice. That choice will effect us, we have to choose what kind of humans we want to be.