Generation Utopia

Since this project is called “Generation Utopia” and I’m aware that that is a terribly cheesy name I want to explain why I chose it, why I think it builds such a strong, concise vision and what I mean by the term “utopia”. So let’s rationalize some cheesiness. As a side note, this is a supplementary article, which I don’t recommend unless you have read others, especially the Caveman-Smartphone Metaphor.

Different interpretations of the same thing: Best possible lives for everybody

To keep it simple, I really think the standard Wikipedia definition of “utopia” is perfectly fine, which calls it “an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens”.

Of course, there are many different forms of what people imagine as a utopia. The visions range from more religious and mythical versions such as Shangri-La to a futuristic society like Star Trek. I also often hear the argument that a happy life is not about technology or a better economy and more things, but that it’s just about being happy and that people should live in harmony with nature and each other etc. I’m actually perfectly happy if people want that lifestyle and I think, ultimately, a good life is largely about your mindset and attitude.

But no matter the lifestyle choice, people usually still want cancer drugs and vaccines and all the good aspects that come with modern science and technology that actually enable such ways of living. Hence, no matter how people want to live their “perfect” lives in the future, in a utopia even, without maximizing our scientific and technological potential people won’t have that privilege at all.

So in the end, regardless of your interpretation of what a utopia is, we can all agree that it’s about a world in which people live a near-perfect life. Hence, the common goal is a world in which that is possible and that in turn is only possible by advancing enough (especially technologically and economically) to establish an environment in which everybody can live best possible lives.

Why not just be “normal” and not worry too much about this utopia business?

So why should we bothered to build a utopia anyway? People often comment that I’m wasting my time thinking about making the world a better place, sometimes because they think there is nothing we can do anyway or perhaps because they don’t have any ideas of what to change. Hence, the question is why we should strive for a utopia.

First, I think that regardless of whether the goal is a utopia or not, a common goal we can agree on is to improve life (especially in the developing world). Personally, I simply developed a habit even as a kid of constantly complaining about things not working well enough and I can’t stop thinking about inefficiencies as well as ideas to solve problems. In my mind that’s the most worthwhile thing we humans can do.

For example, traffic is one of the few things that have arguably gotten less efficient over the past one or two generations and I believe we can all agree that we should look for solutions to get from A to B faster, more sustainably etc. The same applies to health care. How could anybody not care about making health care, let’s say 20% better (which could mean 20% cheaper for the same service quality, available to 20% more people at the same cost or just 20% more effective/life-saving). Now if you do the same with education, housing, the food industry, manufacturing and so on, and you have built yourself a better world with a 20% stronger economy, where people live longer etc. It might be annoying at first to think about problems all the time, but once you have solutions things generally, well… get better.

There might be more specific things you care about, like going on more holidays or working fewer hours, but that’s the point: When we combine all the different things every single person cares about and try to maximize the prospect for every single person to get what they want then we are doing it right. Hence while I concede that it sounds rather cheesy to “build a better world” or a “utopia”, it’s nothing more than the culmination of loads of little improvements and changes that virtually anybody thinks are great (e.g. better health care). And eventually, the end result of that continuous process of marginal improvement (i.e. innovation) would be a utopia.

At a more philosophical level, the goal with this process is to maximize happiness and minimize suffering step-by-step. That implies, first, that everybody has at least a certain living standard (e.g. through universal basic income) and secondly, that every person has the opportunity to pursue their own happiness. This is a critical point, because of course a great life is still down to the decisions individuals make, even in a “perfect world”. After all, millionaires can be depressed. But the main point of my idea of a utopia is to build a system – societal, political, economic – in which everybody gets the maximum opportunity as well as support to live a great life.

So I think a few features that a utopia should have would include universal basic income (also for the currently developing world); cures to all diseases and ideally ageing itself (ultimately, if your health is bad nothing else matters); high levels of equality and virtually no crime, racism, sexism – the list goes on. It would be a sustainable world, a just world, a happy world for everyone.

Critical thoughts

However, there is another key criticism here which is that we should not be too naïve or ideological about this. There will still be some degree of hardship, e.g. kids might still have to go to school even though they’re “happier” playing video games all day, because getting an education has tremendous value and allows people to live more fulfilling lives. Furthermore, many of the dramas about life will probably not go away, and one could argue whether they should. Your first love and heartbreak; failing a test or business; fights and reconciliations… The only perfect life, in theory, would be a drug-induced state of absolute bliss, for the rest of your life. But I think most wouldn’t want that either. It’s too much for this article to cover and too philosophical, but I guess without any risks or pain life might not be as great of an experience overall.

Another point I’m simply not sure about is how perfect we should make things, how safe and comfortable etc. For example, the only way to create a perfectly safe world would be through constant surveillance. A 1984-like world comes to mind. On the other hand, people would then still get injured or even die in accidents that could be prevented.

Anyway, all this nitty-gritty philosophy aside, I think for now it’s quite simple what we need to do. There are still a lot of messed up things that need fixing or improvement, starting with the obvious things like extreme poverty, climate change, traffic, massive economic-inequality and so on.

How are we going to do that?

So how do I propose we can get there? Of course, the entirety of my thoughts, ideas and research will be covered over time in this project, but here’s a quick version. First, we need to really max out on science (what we know about the world) and technology (potential applications of that knowledge into tools, medicine etc.), which are applied to solve problems or make improvements (in the economy). Furthermore, politics needs to set the holistic framework (e.g. ethical, legal) for society to live in and finally, individual members of society need to make the best of their opportunities. Some of the key science breakthroughs would be in medicine, key technologies would include robots and artificial intelligence and lastly, major political and societal change would be needed. But more on this in other articles. The great thing is that even if we never make it to a utopia, the world is still becoming a better place along the way.