Mankind is slowly working its way toward Utopia

"Utopia is impossible, so it's not even worth shooting for. As long as mankind is flawed, and mankind will ALWAYS be flawed, an earthly Utopia is simply impossible" That's what most preachers, pundits and professors will fill your head with these days. To this, I proudly say: "BULLHOCKEY!!!"

Instead, as I look back two or three thousand years into history, and compare where we are today with where we were then... Utopia seems just around the next corner.

If you're within the domain of conventional wisdom, however, I'd love to hear from you!

According to Google: "Utopia is an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. The word was first used in the book Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More."

Sir Thomas argued that such a place could never exist, and in my opinion, he gives a poor, almost counter-intuitive description of what it would be like.

So let's let our imaginations run with this. Let's take a look at the problems of the world today, and do away with them to create our Utopia of tomorrow.

1.) Mass starvation and poverty throughout much of the world. The cure? Governments which are failing the needs of their people need to become governments which meet the needs of their people. Tyrants and central planners need to be disincentivized from running their countries the way they currently do. While self-determination is largely a good thing, those leaders who abuse their powers should, for the good of mankind, be toppled. A way to accomplish this is to give current administrations a set amount of time to bring their countries up to such-and-such a standard of living. Those who can't or refuse to comply will find the collective weight of those countries who do want to attempt to establish a global Utopian ideal upon their doorstep forcing them to change.

2.) Education. Countries which are further ahead on their individual roads to Utopia need to reach out to the serfs, peons, and poor of struggling countries and inspire them not to settle for their supposed lot in life. The masses need to become optimistic. They need to become productive, which largely means they need to become educated. To this end, all countries need to defend common human rights, and invest in schools, libraries, internet infrastructure, and whatever else positively affects the subject countries.

3.) Ownership of private property is imperative. People need to believe that they are working for something tangible. As societies come closer and closer to the Utopian goal, they'll see that this becomes less and less necessary.

4.) Utopia will mean different things to different people, but insofar as it is possible, the world's movers and shakers need to provide the support and protections to each group that identifies its own form of 'social nirvana.' For instance, Utopia to Tasmanian tribesmen may be a very primitive sort of existence, while to Americans it may be a technological wonderland, etc. Mankind can create different facades on the face of these wonderlands. To a child, paradise is an amusement park, but Six Flags has a different look and feel from Disney World which is different from Knott's Berry Farm, etc.

5.) All religions should take a back seat to reason. While many religious people couldn't imagine life without their devotionals, etc., there will never be any peace on earth as long as billions of people are squabbling over the relative truths and falsehoods among their wholly unprovable religious claptrap. Religion is philosophical baggage of a most tedious sort which needs to be tossed overboard as soon as the opportunity affords itself. Secular humanists need to press home their arguments for a better life through reason.

6.) Although we call it Utopia, there will still be sickness, and people accidentally slipping on the ice, or improperly wired devices starting house fires, etc. But nanotechnology and other advancements may aid in stamping out the most common illnesses, while weather control may help prevent unwanted storms, or bring much needed rain to areas suffering drought. New and better technological improvements will create a safer, more efficacious environment for all.

7.) Hollywood, and the like, always enjoy making movies or stories about Paradise going awry. They often show how a lack of adversity leads to a sterile, institutional, and drone-like existence which no one would enjoy. Part of the Utopian challenge is to ensure that life remains fun, exciting, and challenging. If this means taking bodily risks in extreme sports, or hi-stakes gambling, or drug induced hallucinations, etc., these all could be accommodated to some degree. People would know the risks associated with their addictions and be willing to start over at the bottom and work their way back to their level of comfort.

8.) Ultimately, Utopia consists of all governments cooperating one with another; people being valued by their respective governing authorities; communities looking out for every inhabitant; and inhabitants being educated and productive members of society who also value one another.

9.) In the event that criminals or criminal organizations should still persist, an area of the world very much the antithesis of Utopia would be established as a penal colony. After freezing their asses off for a few months, criminals would be allowed to reconsider their place in the Utopian society. Frequent offenders would be permanently banished for the good of everyone else, or, in the case of a mass murderer, their life function would be terminated in the quickest, humanest, method possible, their remains being dissolved, flushed down the nearest loo, and donated to the communities sanitation department.

What triggered this whole line of thought was another thread which was moaning about how bad things are these days... how society is going down the tubes. I reminded him that he wasn't suffering under Roman persecution, or his town was not under the threat of being invaded by the likes of Attila the Hun or Tamerlane. He was not under the threat of the Spanish Inquisition or living a horridly tedious religious life like the Puritans. We have come a long way, with hot and cold water in every home, a Walmart in every town, electricity and natural gas at our fingertips. Oh, we have it so tough! There are no more lumberjack bunkhouses full of lice and bedbugs, nor cattle drives or prairie towns subject to attack by the Apaches or Comanches, or what have you. There are smooth highways to take us cross country and airlines to take us to Europe in a matter of days instead of weeks. This isn't Utopia, not yet... but it could be just around the corner.

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Unfortunately I couldn't read your link at all-sorry.

Nevertheless, we ARE overhauling a good part of governmental positions... you've no doubt heard the term: Draining the Swamp! ;-)

I couldn't agree more about electing scientists and naturalists, as well as naturists ! ;-)} Well, how about some mathematicians, and by that, I don't mean Krugmanite Keynesian economists. But good we agree on that point.

We disagree, most vehemently, I might add, with this assertion: "using ideological ideas to say that utopia is even possible, mankind would need to transcend from a finite existence which we are all bound by, into a realm of infinite possibilities, which is beyond human understanding."

Why should that be? Look, we are coming into the dawn of full automation. Bit by bit, more of society's dirty work is going to be handled by droids and drones. People will be free to follow other pursuits other than cranking out widgets at the factory. Fix-it droids will keep the labor droids running at 90+% efficiency. Monetary algorithms will preven wild market fluctuations. Urban farms will alleviate inner-city hunger. New, better, faster ways to solve problems will be invented. Increased surveillance (corporate, not necessarily Big Brother) will protect assets and reduce crime. As secular thought replaces religion, more meaningful social mores can be adopted. In other words, won't it be great when a mother nursing her baby is viewd with awe and tenderness instead of lewd and lascivious behavior. Won't it be great when I'm more offended that you didn't touch me, than you gave me an unwanted touch. Won't it be great as people learn to overcome whatever their biological circuitry says and actually choose WITHOUT SHAME to be gay, bi, straight, or flavor of the month.

When you consider how long man wallowed in his superstitious state, and how fast we are advancing on every scientific front--Mars rovers, Higgs bosons, gravity waves, quantum computers, nuclear fusion, driverless cars, duct tape, wd-40... well, OK, you get the picture... but these advances HAVE to lead us toward a better future. Could someone eff it up? Yeah, but already we're seeing a great improvement as indictments for Hillary, Podesta, and the most corrupt among us become closer to a reality.

There is SO MUCH that can be done WITHIN our bounds of human understanding, if we can just find the proper motivation. Man is understanding the consequences of his own actions more and more, but with every new problem come innovative thinking on how to solve said problems.

I contend not that we COULD BE, but that we ARE as close to Utopia as we've ever been, and that every day seems to be another step in that direction.

During most of my waking hours, I am a very content person. I have a nice home--nothing fancy--but adequate heat, light and amenities. I have a woman who's put up with me for 23 years. I have a bit of debt, but nothing that's going to break my financial back. In other words, I'm already very close to having a one-man utopia. But I envision something larger.

I see everyone walking around with the world's collective knowledge at their fingertips, that is, it's as close as the internet on the smartphone in their pocket. I see three-dee printers creating amazing products that never could have been assembled any other way. I see wealthy entrepreneurs creating some mind-blowing creations that promise to make life so much better for us, and ALL OF THESE THINGS are being done with only that 10 or 20% of their brains functioning, as you mentioned.

So, Utopia, as I see it, is when no one is starving, homeless, or suffering unnecessarily. It's when everyone is living comfortably, whether they are employed or not. It will occur when we learn to control all the things that can be controlled. This is probably doable with 50% of our current brain capacity!

One crucial factor in getting us to the objective, is teaching kids how to avoid making costly mistakes, like dropping out of school if they're not going to pursue further education on their own, having kids out of wedlock, having kids before they're ready to support them, and blowing their money on hair dye, piercings, tattoos, and other non-essentials. We need to redefine morality in a manner that is more in keeping with human nature, not as these dusty old contradictory Testaments recommend. If we do learn how to use 40% more of our brain, then yippee hurray... we can improve further faster, but if people can make ideal lives for themselves now on an individual basis, there's no reason why they couldn't group together and form a utopic society.

Your notion that we are a virus is a terribly depressive bit of nonsense that demands refutation. If you REALLY thought that way and had the best interests of the planet in mind, then you would go around preaching to people the need to kill themselves, and when the second to last person on the planet offed themselves, you would follow suit. That is the opposite, most dystopian scenario I can think of. “Man is too dumb to live in harmony with the world and should therefore destroy himself.” That statement is anathema to me.

You doubted the wisdom of creating A.I. as well… the robots might take over the world. I suppose some evil scientist could program mass destruction into the droids, or a military application goes awry, or something, but, as FDR would say, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

Well, I'm glad that I've at least swung you from "Man is a virus that needs to be eradicated..." to "Hey, my utopia is living out on the back 40 suckin' on a ginger root!" We're making progress! Others may feel that your way is the way to go so, if I'm ever elected Dictator of the World, I'll set aside some vast tracts of wilderness for the Outdoorsy Utopians, and large metropolitan indoor Utopian societies for the comfort of those who don't care for 20 below zero in a buffalo-hide tent.

Your job will be to shepard your outdoorsy folks with sage advice on how to maintain equal hunting and gathering rights for all, and to steer people into living harmoniously with each other. Are you going to allow my indoorsy people to sell your outdoorsy people plastic lawn chairs, or are all your folks going to have to sit on stick furniture? Developing certain protocols like this will help us live in harmony. You want to capitalize on things like ginger root, but to do experiments on other as-yet unnamed and undiscovered roots, you'll want access to a research lab with beakers and flasks and bunsen burners. That takes civilized people with manufacturing knowledge. Or else you can ask grandma to chew on a new root and see if that cures her spots. It might, then again, it might kill her. It'd be better to have access to a laboratory, I think. We'll still want to monitor conditions statistically... making sure some areas aren't being overhunted while others are being left pristine.

No matter what happens, I think we're in for an interesting future.