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A well written essay and review. A few musings of my own. Discovery has improved greatly. Even if my set of beliefs, values and preferences are quite rare I ca
by mswen 9y ago
A well written essay and review. A few musings of my own.
Discovery has improved greatly. Even if my set of beliefs, values and preferences are quite rare I can still use the internet and related technology to discover other like-minded people. Outcasts and eccentrics more easily find that they are not quiet as alone in the world as their face-to-face experience would lead them to believe. The outsiders can find those with whom they can be insiders.
Social media and all forms of modern communication technology enable a form of community without requiring geographical proximity. But is this sufficient?
Dispersed, technologically connected communities of like-mindedness still feel hollow to me compared to villages and communities of people living together in a communal way, face-to-face, sharing tragedies and triumphs and the very human basics of sex, companionship and some form of family.
How is the instinct toward Utopia changing? What new forms of Utopian experiments are possible today that were not in previous generations?
- TeMPOraL 9y agoRelated to your observations is a vision of utopia I particularly like, called "Archipelago", by Scott Alexander[0]. The TL;DR of it, as I understand it, is: - people are free to form and move between physical communities as they like - there's a single central entity that does following: a) enforces and protects the freedom of association and freedom of movement, b) ensures, with overwhelming force, that no community starts a war against another, c) handles various practical details like economic issues of the type "what if someone from community A moves to community B in order to take their free education, and then moves back to A without ever contributing to B's economy?". The gist of the expected outcome is summarized by the last sentence of the linked article: "the end result is that the closer you come to true freedom of association, the closer you get to a world where everyone is a member of more or less the community they deserve". -- [0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-communitarianism/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-...