
Paradise Possible - Petiver
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2017/08/paradise-possible
======
mswen
A well written essay and review. A few musings of my own.

Discovery has improved greatly. Even if my set of beliefs, values and
preferences are quite rare I can still use the internet and related technology
to discover other like-minded people. Outcasts and eccentrics more easily find
that they are not quiet as alone in the world as their face-to-face experience
would lead them to believe. The outsiders can find those with whom they can be
insiders.

Social media and all forms of modern communication technology enable a form of
community without requiring geographical proximity. But is this sufficient?

Dispersed, technologically connected communities of like-mindedness still feel
hollow to me compared to villages and communities of people living together in
a communal way, face-to-face, sharing tragedies and triumphs and the very
human basics of sex, companionship and some form of family.

How is the instinct toward Utopia changing? What new forms of Utopian
experiments are possible today that were not in previous generations?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Related to your observations is a vision of utopia I particularly like, called
"Archipelago", by Scott Alexander[0]. The TL;DR of it, as I understand it, is:

\- people are free to form and move between physical communities as they like

\- there's a single central entity that does following:

a) enforces and protects the freedom of association and freedom of movement,

b) ensures, with overwhelming force, that no community starts a war against
another,

c) handles various practical details like economic issues of the type "what if
someone from community A moves to community B in order to take their free
education, and then moves back to A without ever contributing to B's
economy?".

The gist of the expected outcome is summarized by the last sentence of the
linked article: "the end result is that the closer you come to true freedom of
association, the closer you get to a world where everyone is a member of more
or less the community they deserve".

\--

[0] - [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-
atomic-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-
communitarianism/)

------
ilaksh
I believe we should rethink core technologies of our civilization such as
money from base requirements with a high-tech perspective. This does not mean
getting rid of money. It means upgrading it and augmenting it with other
technologies.

We need to integrate into society structures and technologies that not only
allow us to measure, analyze, and when necessary, work together, more
holistically, but at the same time need systems that are more decentralized,
resilient against over-centralization, and evolve more freely. It seems on the
surface that these are just opposed, but by taking a ground-up approach, doing
enough experimenting and iteration, and leaning on our newer technologies, I
do believe we can make dramatic improvements to society.

------
Ygg2
Problem with Utopia is simple. One man's Utopia is another man's Dystopia.
There doesn't exist a way that will satisfy everyone's wishes.

~~~
TeMPOraL
The problem with utopias we know is that they're... boring. 'Eliezer wrote a
lot of interesting things on the topic - [0][1].

> _There doesn 't exist a way that will satisfy everyone's wishes._

I disagree with that in terms of theoretical possibility. In practice, of
course it's not possible now (or in nearby future). But in practice, our world
is so, so far from a theoretical utopia that we still have a lot of space for
improvements without causing too much disagreements. It's also true we can't
satisfy _everyone_ , because some people harbour desires inherently
incompatible with desires of the rest of humanity - I'm thinking of various
sociopathic tendencies - but they form but a very small minority, and frankly,
their needs have to be accepted as not irreconcilable and ignored.

\--

[0] -
[https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Fun_theory](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Fun_theory)
\- a general summary of the post sequence.

[1] -
[https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_Fun_Theory_Sequence](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/The_Fun_Theory_Sequence)
\- the actual posts.

~~~
yourapostasy
> I'm thinking of various sociopathic tendencies...

This is a difficult, multi-faceted challenge to address. This behavior is
rampant in the world, and IMHO it is only getting worse at the moment. Up
until relatively recently, the US and some developed nations tended to express
less of this than the rest of the world, so I suspect overall relative wealth,
maybe even lower inequality, spread across a tremendous sector of the
population can ameliorate the tendency. Concrete examples are the product
return policies that in the past I observe tended to be fairly generous and
could only be commonly found in the US and some developed nations'
marketplaces. These policies are tightening up and in some cases dropped
altogether. There is a cultural element at play as well, complicating the
picture.

~~~
TeMPOraL
To be clear: I'm thinking of individuals and their values. Most people
generally don't try to harm others, and most of the bad things they (or should
I say, we) do can be explained away by pressures various systems of incentives
exert on them (us). The people whose values I suggested to ignore are the few
ones who think nothing of hurting others for their own gain, even when the
hurt is disproportionally higher than the gains.

