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The Frozen Village of Fourneshore - Chats and Discussions => Howling Wind Tavern - General Discussion => Topic started by: HannahB on November 17, 2016, 09:21:00 PM

Title: Utopia and Dystopia
Post by: HannahB on November 17, 2016, 09:21:00 PM

Video from Ted-Ed

This video recommends a lot of great authors and books (as well as a few other media).

However I'd like to hear what you think about it's bookends... I think a lot of us have a utopia in mind, how we would change the world to make it better... but if you think about that what would it take? What would the world look like if you could mould it to the shape you wanted? What would the collateral damage would be?

Also (if you maybe don't want to answer that tricky question) what are your favorite fictional dystopias and utopias?

Title: Utopia and Dystopia
Post by: Laurentus on November 17, 2016, 09:56:04 PM

99% of humanity would be dead, and the rest would work together in a world where resources aren't a problem anymore, spread out in communities with populations no larger than 3000.

Title: Utopia and Dystopia
Post by: HannahB on November 17, 2016, 10:32:07 PM

Laurentus posted on November 17, 2016, 09:56:04 PM

99% of humanity would be dead, and the rest would work together in a world where resources aren't a problem anymore, spread out in communities with populations no larger than 3000.

Wait... is that you utopia or dystopia...? I literally can't tell...

Title: Utopia and Dystopia
Post by: Laurentus on November 17, 2016, 10:36:47 PM

Utopia. For me.

Title: Utopia and Dystopia
Post by: HannahB on November 17, 2016, 10:41:54 PM

Quote from: me on IRC

I mean each of those left would be literally Hitler as well as needing to enforce authoritarian birth control programs to maintain population harsher than China['s one child policy], and stricter work schedules to maintain standard of living than Stalin...

:))

Well done taking this thought experiment to an interesting level :D

*HannahB pats Laurentus on the back :)

Title: Utopia and Dystopia
Post by: Laurentus on November 17, 2016, 10:43:43 PM

Oh, it wouldn't be government mandated. The government wouldn't exist. It would just sort of work out that way.

Title: Utopia and Dystopia
Post by: HannahB on November 17, 2016, 10:47:19 PM

hmm, interesting... so would the community just force out anyone who has too many kids? Or who doesn't pull their weight?

Title: Utopia and Dystopia
Post by: Laurentus on November 17, 2016, 10:49:39 PM

I don't mean 3000 as in a set limit. I mean it in the sense of the world recently having ended, so like, there aren't many people, and they find it optimal to live in small communities that are just large enough to have varied chores (not jobs).

Title: Utopia and Dystopia
Post by: Mathyland on November 17, 2016, 11:06:14 PM

John Christopher's series, "The Tripods" is a dystopia. The world is run by three-legged robots with three tentacles that "cap" people. Capped people have a metal cap welded to their head at the age of 14. Their hair eventually grows over it. The caps allow the Tripods to mind control people and set them back to medieval times, even though it is the future.

Title: Utopia and Dystopia
Post by: Elbbsas on November 19, 2016, 03:16:08 AM

Now that brings back memories of year 11. TED talks are great, and that art was gorgeous.

I'm very fond of dystopias and utopias as a fictional trope, but I've always figured making a perfect world is impossible (namely because my introduction to the concept was Animal Farm). Still, inventing them is a whole lot of fun.

For instance, take a world filled with monsters turned up to eleven, with zombies, skeletons, dragons, and the usual evil-monster fantasy tropes. Then, take a race of people that managed to de-fang these monsters by banishing and diluting their essense across the multiverse. The people thus have made a somewhat perfect world, at the cost of screwing over the rest of the multiverse.

Then, say some people disagreed with dumping their problems into other worlds and tried to find a better option, except they screwed up and instead broke part of the system, thus allowing some monsters back into World A.

Obviously the answer to this problem is to systematically kidnap thousands of people from millions of realities and force them to fight off the monsters. Because they aren't real people, right? They aren't "us" and "we" have families, brothers, sisters, parents, children to look after and "we" already faced their screams. And these people things from other worlds are easily replaceable, while "we" have fought for so very long against these demons, "we" deserve a break.

We deserve this.

Bottom line? Pushing your problems onto other people does not equal a perfect world. Heh. Inventing dystopias is fun, a lot more fun than utopias.