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While Mr. Fresco idea seems very reasonable, I think his mistake is attributing altruistic traits to everyone. Not everyone is altruistic. If there's a computer
by partycoder 9y ago
While Mr. Fresco idea seems very reasonable, I think his mistake is attributing altruistic traits to everyone. Not everyone is altruistic. If there's a computer system governing everything, there will be a strong incentive to build bias into it, or use for mass surveillance or even tyranny. Then, there are aspects in which radial cities would not be good:
- Epidemiology: you have everyone in this nice dome sharing objects. But one of them has a serious infectious disease. Now the entire population is at risk.
- Defense: An adversarial force including but not limited to extremists would just target the center dome, a place accessible by everyone.
You could argue that everyone would have what they need because of this egalitarian system, and there would be no violence. But take a look at communist countries and see what happens in practice.
However, it is true though that we are very inefficient and wasteful in terms of how resources are used.
- staticelf 9y agoWould be worth a try though, wouldn't it? The main idea is also to reduce manual labour as fast as possible so more people can afford to be altruistic.
- sebastianconcpt 9y agoMao and Lenin thought it was super worthy of trying, the material outcome wasn't as cool as the imaginary vision.
- staticelf 9y agoI don't really think it's the same as communism though.
- RoyTyrell 9y agoUntil we're living in a post-scarcity world with Star Trek replicators, and the ability to produce significantly more nearly 100% clean energy than could ever be consumed, everywhere on the planet where humans typically live I don't see how it's possible. Those would be the most basic limiting factors I can think of off the top of my head, and there are probably significantly more.
- xenu101 9y agoHe didn't believe humans were altruistic by nature, he believed they could be nurtured to be in an environment that rewards it. He was very much into behaviorism (B.F. Skinner) and similar concepts. The question whether such an environment can be designed and sustained is still open. However, if it requires a "societal collapse" to have his ideas adopted, then I'd rather expect the outcome to be more like a totalitarian communist regime. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.