Okay, I said I’d get down to details in setting up “photopia.” Well, where do we start? The first question is how do you start such a thing from where we are now? In the past the founder would be a prophet. Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, Joseph Smith, L Ron Hubbard (!). For my founding I’ll settle for a trillionaire with virtually unlimited resources of artificial intelligence. Then he’ll have to be a humanitarian, a philanthropist, a lover of mankind. Because he’s going to have to take the long view. He’ll know that to save mankind he’ll have to start by rejecting a good chunk of humanity at the start. Because as humanity currently exists, there is a definite percentage of the population that can’t be included in an optimized human environment. There is a twenty percent group that is hopeless. Some of them are uncontrollably violent. Some are completely unwilling to do work. Some are anti-social to the extent that they habitually commit various types of crime. It goes without saying utopia has no place for such individuals.
The system that our founder builds must begin by trying to select a core of people that are unmistakenly outside of this 20%. The only way that the system can be founded is to start with the best starting material. So extremely careful biographical research into the initial candidates will have to be performed to rule out any unacceptable or even sub-optimal individuals. Ideally, married couples and even families of the highest quality should be incorporated in the starting material. This will build additional stability in the structure.
But one thing that will be true is that even within this foundation of selected individuals there will need to be a continuous weeding out mechanism for people who fail or for the offspring who will be identified as failures. And if offspring are rejected, often the parents and siblings will find it impossible to stay inside the group. And not because this community is a hermetically sealed bubble. Everyone inside will be in contact with the outside world continuously. But if children of group members become dangerous, they must be kept outside of the community and that is hard to enforce unless the rest of the family is ejected. So, it becomes apparent that policing the group for anti-social activity will become one of the most important activities of the administrators.
And as I mentioned in the earlier installment of this essay, those who are ejected are given the equity that they’ve earned in the community when the leave so that they can find their own place in the world. So, what exactly are the rules of this club? Well, the founder gets to decide those. If he’s wise, these rules are ones that will tend to increase stability, prosperity and social cohesion. What exactly these rules are may be dependent on the values and personal traits of this “prophet.” And ideally, there could be a number of different foundations to allow for the different but equally valid personality types that exist in our species. And maybe some of these will be failures and some will thrive. But over the course of time by trial and error a calculus for creating human communities could be derived.
Now, what happens to those who can’t be included. Well, nothing. They’ll be on their own. This assumes that the larger human community still exists outside of these enclaves and that it has to deal with the full spectrum of human types. And that is why prisons and welfare exist. And that brings up another point. How would these societies be viewed by the outside world. My guess will be; poorly. I believe many nations would try to destroy them or at least force them to accept members that they would reject. And for that reason, the location of these societies may be one of the most important questions that the administrators will have to decide. Of course, trillionaires can do wonders with the right amount of bribery. But let’s just say that a nuclear weapons program may be a necessity for this utopia of mine.
When I write the next installment (and I may have to think about it for a while) I think I’ll talk about education.
Research the UN/Amalgamation of Regional Militia(ARM)-run society of Larry Niven’s “Known Space” universe. The short story “Jigsaw Man”, the novel “A Gift From Earth”, and the “Flatlander: the Collected stories of Gil “The Arm” Hamilton”. In these stories, Medical Care has become the key to control of human society. Transplants provide indefinite life, and transplant material is always in short supply, so more and more crimes (including false advertising and flying your car over populated territory on MANUAL control) can get you sent to the Organ Banks. I have seen reports that the Chinese may already be doing this with… Read more »
The older I get, the less attractive becomes the idea of very long life.
“Sibyl, what do you wish?” she answers only:
“I wish to die.”