[…] this blog are the insightful comments I get on a lot of random topics I rant about. For example, my Utopia/Dystopia post prompted Ludvikas to recommend reading Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect – an online novel […]

might i suggest reading daemon by daniel suarez. follow it up with the sequel freedom. not only are they amazing reads, but also on topic with your post.

As interesting and disturbing as some of these technological-singularity utopias and dystopias can be, I think that those suggested by Orwell and Huxley in 1984 and Brave New World are much more compelling given that we’ve had several decades to approach these authors’ hauntingly accurate predictions. They show how society need not have any more technological advance to collapse completely—neither features technology we don’t already have, or couldn’t willingly reproduce in a few months.

For a more modern example, The Unincorporated Man is a novel approach to constructing a utopia/dystopia, depending on one’s opinions on personal freedom.

@ Adrian:

Yes, it’s like if you pull enough layers from an utopian setting you will eventually get to the ugly and opressive shit. It is just a matter of digging deep enough, or stepping back and looking at the big picture.

Ain’t human nature wonderful? :)

@ Alphast:

This is indeed a problem, and one without an easy solution but I feel like the counterpoint here is globalization and cultural convergence.

I look at it this way: young kids in these stratified, Balkanized regions are now growing up using the internet.Many of them probably have functional grasp of English even if they were never formally taught the language. Many of them have interest and hobbies that reach across national and cultural barriers and socialize online with people of vastly different cultures every day. Weather they want it or not, they are slowly becoming citizens of the world. Yes, they may still hold the prejudices and tribe/class/national grudges but the optimist in me wants to think that this wonderful global communication network we have will slowly rub them away. Not completely, but enough to allow progressive voices to be heard.

Of course the same technology can be used to organize and focus the hate fueled, prejudiced groups.

But you make an interesting point.

Did you ever read Singularity Sky by Charles Stross? I’m not actually sure if I reviewed it here – it might have been one of the rapid-fire things but it is actually relevant to this discussion.

The basic premise of the book is this: what would happen if a deeply stratified, divided, culturally backwards society gets post-singularity technology over night. Basically a traveling fleet of information traders shows up on a planet that was purposefully held at victorian era technology level by the ruling class, and starts dropping technology from the orbit in exchange for folk stories, old books and any other information they deem worthy of cataloging. People get their hands on stuff like nano-molecular assemblers that can make anything out of dirt and air, thermonuclear weapons,etc…

What do they do? They start a revolution to abolish the ruling class but soon enough no one cares. I mean, it is hard to care about politics if a guy riding a robotic dragon is launching nukes from his ass, aiming them at a 50 feet purple skinned rabbit who just happens to be building an upside down pyramid made out of diamond in your back yard. In the end people end up abandoning all these post-human toys and turn back to the same oppressive government that they tried to abolish for years, because it offers them at least a semblance of stability.

I guess the point is that post-scarcity economies that we theorize about won’t happen overnight. We will have to sort of grow and mature into them.

Here is the thing though: we use the technology to shape the world to suit us, but in turn it also shapes us. Our technology will change the way we think. I have no doubt that we will invent new classes of social and economical problems as quickly as we solve the current ones.

I mean, if you told an ancient greek or a person from the middle ages about our current living conditions in US and/or Western Europe they would likely think we do live in some technological utopia. I mean, we have no plagues, no famine, we can travel to any point in the world in mere hours, and send messages just about anywhere in seconds. Our medicine can cure ailments that were considered lethal in their times. It is all a matter of perspective.

@ Liudvikas:

I most definitely will. :)

@ Luke Maciak:
Be sure to share your opinion, when you’re done :)

Dammit, I was going to say Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. Good read…

For me, the most likely dystopia (and the one we are going towards fastest at the moment) is not a post apocalyptic one, nor one where misery comes from lack of energy. Energy can easily be found in other ways than fossile fuels. Most world economies are already trying to get away from these (except the USA and China but that’s because they are extremely conservative countries with a vision on short term gains only). I am much more concerned about socio-political Lebanization or Balkanization of the world. Lebanon today, like the Balkans some years ago, is a society which combines extreme social stratification and inequalities and extreme tribalism and nationalism. Add to it the fact that private companies have corrupted these places, practically replacing the normal power structures, and you have a recipee for disaster.

And don’t think that such situations are particularly unstable. These places (like our world tomorrow?) have been like this for ages, periodically experiencing massive flares of violence. But the main structural aspects remain, the power shifting towards one of the corporatist, religious or ethnic group rather than the other. Nonetheless, we could call it a stable state of unbalance (like in physics). It is one where Humans would be extremely unhappy, yet unable to change their lives in any significant way.

Utopia’s are dystopia’s. We humans couldn’t live without imperfection.

@ Liudvikas:

Uh, very interesting – thanks for the link. I’m reading it right now. The party in the first chapter is very reminiscent of the careal killer convention from Neil Gaimans Sandman.

Well utopian and dystopian societies are just a step apart. Most likely if we ever reach singularity it won’t be as perfect as it’s supposed to be.
I highly recommend you to read “The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect”, it is available free on the internet – http://www.kuro5hin.org/prime-intellect/
It conveys one rather real fear in utopian society, if everything is perfect, then there’s really no meaning to eternal existence.