[Apollia]

Originally Posted by ns123

This probably should be in a political thread,

Perhaps. I sure do wish more governments would apply the Golden Rule, though.

Anyhow, though, if I've wandered too far off-topic, I hope a moderator will please yell at me.

but it's interesting to see the conversation directed this way. This is what communism's (or socialism's) goals were, a noble endeavor, for sure. The problem is implementing this in the world we have now has never worked. Ever.

Well, communism and socialism aren't exactly what I had in mind. I loathe taxes, and those systems are way too tax-happy and otherwise obnoxious for my liking. Maybe something different than anything that has been tried before would work better. No, I don't have a clear idea yet of exactly what form it should take.

And the issue with this is, no one seems to agree on what "minimum of what they need to survive" entails.

Well, whatever will prevent physical death, I guess, and also hopefully assure that the person isn't held back by ill health, hunger, etc. on their quest to get ahead in life and improve themselves.

But, I would like it if people were given a bit more than just the essentials (nutritious food and drinks, and a place to live which will keep you from dying or being made too uncomfortable to get anything useful done by heat, cold, or whatever else the outdoors can throw at you). I think also giving people free electricity, hot running water, internet access, free education, and a free public transportation system would be good.

And also, what about the rest of the world who consciously choose not to do this?

It wouldn't have to involve force. If someone doesn't want their free stuff, they don't have to accept it.

Also, I would want all of this to happen without forcing anyone to pay taxes, and also without forcing, for instance, utility companies, housing providers, food manufacturers, educators, etc. to just give their stuff and services away to the needy, or force them to adjust their prices.

It's a tricky problem, but I think it all might be possible somehow if the currency system is revamped so that the government doesn't have to steal from its citizens in order to have funding - instead, the government could just create more money to spend, and resort to various ways to control monetary inflation such as taking any money paid to the government (like for postal service, etc.) out of circulation.

I know there are many ways this could go horribly wrong, but maybe someone could experiment on a small scale first before testing such a system on an entire nation.

Do we force them at the point of a gun (gov control, taxation, imprisonment)?

Of course not. Overall, I'm against coercion except when it's a matter of stopping certain people from physically hurting others.

If so, does that not make us what we did not want to become?

Yes, it would.

Anyway, this is quickly becoming what I am not wanting to discuss - which is implementation on the physical world. So I digress.

OK, just ignore the above if you don't feel like discussing it. The below too, for that matter. I know I'm quite the windbag at times.

But on a philosophical level, back to the possibility of this utopia:

Is a wonderful happy utopia really what we want?

It's what I want, and I would be surprised if the majority of people would strongly disagree.

Without strife, struggles, we would never be pushed to improve or progress.

I agree with what Playlife said. Quote of Playlife's post: "My view is that we can evolve and progress without external pushing too. The desire to improve and invent new things would come from within, not from outside necessities."

Besides that, I would add that outside necessities usually just depress me and make me even less apt to be creative. They're a challenge I just don't want and which I don't see any reason why they should even exist.

Would it be better that we progress on our own, without failure?

Well, I'm guessing in a utopian system, people who just "mooch" and would never accomplish anything would probably still widely be regarded as failures - maybe even more so, since they would have fewer valid excuses not to get something significant done, excuses like lack of time and energy due to having to slave at a job because they're afraid of losing their home, health care, etc.

We are all different and motivated differently.

People could reject the free goodies and keep the motivation of homelessness, poverty, and starvation if they wanted.

People who are the best successes in life have become that way because they hit rock bottom, because they failed miserably and rose above it. And went on to do tremendous good in the world.

I don't know about that. I always wonder how much more starving artists and/or geniuses like Edgar Allan Poe, Vincent Van Gogh, Nikola Tesla, etc. might have achieved if they hadn't ever had to even think about how to make money, but could devote all of their time and energy to their art, or science, or whatever else they felt like working on.

I'm not justifying murder, or war, or any of that. I'm just not too sure that this utopia is possible, or even the outcome we should desire. You know what the road to hell is paved with, right? There is a leg of truth in that.

Yes, I agree, sometimes well-meaning people can really make a mess of things, especially if they try to force their twisted ideas of morality on others too much, like people who are against something as harmless as, for instance, homosexuality.

To further illustrate my point: ever seen the Yin Yang symbol?
Yin and yang - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
dark and light - good and evil, in balance.

Yep, I like that symbol.

Also, in the movie the Matrix, the line where Morpheus is saying something like, the first crop (of harvested people) the matrix was a utopia, and they lost all sorts of crops. Then the matrix became what it is (which is the world today) and it worked. No more massive crop losses. Do you believe that? That if everyone is in this utopia the point of life, our physical experience, would be over?

Nope, I think the world might end up more like Star Trek.

If you ever watch that, no one has to worry about things like poverty or homelessness anymore, but they have plenty of other, more interesting things to worry about, like getting assimilated by the Borg. What fun...

I should mention, I've never watched The Matrix yet, so, I probably am not fully understanding your analogy. Without understanding what it is, though, "harvested people" doesn't sound too nice to me.

Also, in Star Wars (can you tell I'm a geek?), they always want to bring Balance to the Force. They never want to have everyone happy in some sort of utopia.

Maybe they just never said so.

There's always this emphasis on balance.

I believe the Golden Rule is just a guideline to help the light - since the current physical world seems tipped towards the dark. To bring balance.

I do like balance, in an abstract sense, but when it comes to actual good and evil, no question, I prefer 100% good. And if I were forced to decide between what we have now and a Star Trek-like utopia, I'd choose the latter probably without hesitation.

If we contain evil, instead of destroy it, would we get more new evil created? What if the act of destroying the evil is really bringing the balance - since new evil will be created in its place and that's just the way of the universe? If we somehow manage to create a utopia, would that not do away with this balance and destroy us all in the end?

Who knows, maybe everything really boils down in a cosmic sense to fantasy writer Michael Moorcock's idea of Law vs. Chaos, with the Balance in between them, where both too much Law or too much Chaos lead to inhospitable conditions for life. Law and Chaos - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I dunno, just some musings. I'd love to know everyone else's opinion. I'm not here to agitate, I love these discussions!

Same here.