Utopian Puns

I remembered a short story I read some years ago where the planet earth is invaded by aliens. The humans aren't able to fight back because society has become an anarchist paradise and technology is particularly advanced with the exception of medicine, farming, some electronic conveniences like lights. It is portrayed as a idyllic society where life is easy and most people don't work for a living.

I know there are many stories that involve a society regressing for bad reasons (pollution, corruption, disaster). But does anyone know of stories that involve societies where technology is low in a positive way? They seem rare.

Many right wing politicians and commentators make the common critique of socialism that it is a Harrison Bergeron style dystopia where everyone, regardless of their job or position, makes the exact same amount of money. Another common critique is that, of course, socialism is for and by the lazy, the NEET's who wish to sit at home all day and collect a state issued paycheck. Some of this comes from the confluence of "socialism" with social democratic welfare state reforms by both the right and liberal left (Sanders, AOC, etc).

Without getting too online obsessive, or that the machinations of some socially incompetent freak really do matter that much, it also is necessary to realize that there is a not-insignificant portion on social media and on sites like reddit who simply do not want to work and envision a society in which robots magically do all the work and they sit at home and just watch porn all day. Of course, technological advancements have allowed us to work far less than we have in the past. But still, I feel many of these critiques that we don't truly need to work anymore are born of the fact that much work today in capitalist society seems utterly pointless: perhaps it's your office paper pusher who does little besides fill out excel spreadsheets almost no one will ever actually look at, or service industry workers whose only function is to serve others- no doubt, this will foster a feeling of hopelessness or pointless: why am I doing this? Why is this even really necessary, if I'll bring home the same wage regardless of how many I serve or how many spreadsheets I fill out.

The goal of socialism is to bring all workers under a syndicate of a newly formed state. Work is now done for the benefit of society as a whole. No doubt, this will mean a democratized work place, in which elected trade union officials are subject to recall at all times and earn an income equal to that of the workers. Work will not go away but will go towards the benefit of mankind and society as a whole. After all, the goal here is to advance a human race more focused on helping their fellow man regardless of skin color or sexuality, not to encourage a society where all can simply sit at home and just do absolutely nothing. The latter is more reflective of the inherently selfish and narcisstic tendencies present in a populace so utterly atomized and demoralized the ultimate dream is to simply unplug from society entirely. Surely, this should not be the goal of any kind of

Set in the 25th century, this book has a very interesting, if optimistic, vision of what lies ahead for humankind. Gendered pronouns have been done away with, geographical nations have given way to 'Hives' , which you can choose based on your interests, automated flying cars have made transit convenient and safe, smartphones have evolved into wearable 'trackers'..

And yet, underneath this veil of Utopia, human nature lurks, with all its vices and moral connundrums. There are children picked at infancy for becoming 'set-sets', a sort of sophisticated human-machine, there is political bickering, tensions between world leaders, dissatisfaction among masses about the rulers' policies, great powers that need to be guarded against misuse..

I really enjoyed the vision brought up of the future, and it is to the author's credit that the book's world feels plausible and real. I also liked the narrative voice, belonging to a frustrating and yet vaguely likeable main character.

On the flip side, the use of pronouns was deliberately misleading in some parts (e.g. in a scene, the narrator calls someone 'she' because he cared like a mother.) I am still unsure about the sex and gender of some characters. And while on the topic of sex, the sexualization of a scene towards the end was off-putting. Every dialogue, every action was preceded by a sexual gesture, by everyone present.. why?! It was nether titillating, nor did it add anything substantial to the plot.

And while on plot, be warned that this is only half a story. It continues in the second book of this series.

These are minor misgivings though, and overall, this was a very good read, intriguing and thought-provoking in equal measure.

Now with the "Chobani ad without the ad" going viral, I've read comments, that reach from disbelieve to outright hostility. The first one being motivated by the simple believe that we cannot have an utopian future, the second motivated by the believe that Solarpunk would in fact not be utopian for them.

Let's talk about attainability first. Here is the thing: Most of the technologies, that would be needed for a Solarpunk future already exist or are at least being investigated by science right now. The reason why we are not already on 100% renewable energies is capitalism. The big coal and oil companies hold a lot of leverage over the politicians and stop or at least slow the expansion of renewables. Heck, the richest few people of the world on their own have enough money, to in fact pay for the building of renewables for the entire world! But they won't, obviously, because the return on investment is not high enough. The same goes for stuff like public infrastructure. The sad truth is: There is more money to be made in cars then there is in public transport. And that's how capitalism prevents the necessary technological changes to occur.

Basically: To attain a solarpunk future, capitalism must go.

But that is not only due to the needed technological change. Solarpunk is more then just technological change. Solarpunk also presses for societal change. For more equality, both more equality for minorities, but also as in an end of classism. Meaning more financial equality. Again something that is not possible under capitalism. Meaning, that basically Solarpunk aethetics with a capitalist society is just greenwashed Cyberpunk.

Now this might make it feel, like it is not attainable. How can we end capitalism. To this I want to quote Ursula K. LeGuin.

> We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable - but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.

We can resist capitalism. We can end capitalism. We just need to fight, instead of waiting for it to end. We do not have the time for that, due to the world literally being endangered by capitalism. (Climate change and such.)

This brings me to the people, who do not believe that Solarpunk can be utopian.

These tend to fall in one of two categories: Those who have a wrong idea of what a Solarpunk future might entail (which is partly a fault of the sola

There are way too many dystopian books, in my opinion. Can anyone suggest a utopian book?

I'm looking for animes that show humanity extremely advanced and great, whether through technology and science or magic.

Something in the sense of federation in star trek (in the part of civilization on earth and not the space part) in which humanity lives in a utopian world without disease, wars, famines, etc...

I’m making an alternate post-apocalyptic world where humanity evolved and turned into the Neo-people, but a fraction of them turned their backs on them and became Remans instead.

Neo-people follow different versions of Neo-philosophy (depending on the country), which has made the world a happier place to live in, but is still not perfect as criminals, pirates and many more threaten people like old times.

But the question is why would they commit it if the world is already happy enough?

https://twitter.com/aaronbastani/status/1475162577110016010?s=21 For context 14 billion is how much money is needed to renovate the houses of parliament. A better future is possible for everyone, the establishment just always ensures money is spent on their priorities instead rather than the majorities

"An outlook that ceases to look for what is new and potential in the name of “realism” has already lost contact with the present, for the present is always conditioned by the future." - Murray Bookchin, Toward an Ecological Society

Utopian thinking is often derided in our culture as something that is at best vapid and at worst authoritarian and controlling. It is my opinion that this derision of social speculation is a tool of control for hegemonic forces.

What Is Utopian Thinking?

To make my case, first I will present the understanding of utopian thinking that I am working with. In my opinion, utopian thinking is characterized by the idea of the infinite perfectibility of social forms. It is guided by some set of principles for what a good set of social relations can look like, and is set on working to make those social relations a reality. Utopian thinking is based on a perpetual critique of what is in pursuit of what should be.

This of course gives utopian thought a critical character. What distinguishes utopian thought from more "realist" thought is the grounding in a set of principles and a willingness to imagine existence beyond our current social forms. Utopians are thus critical of any notion of an "end of history", instead seeing the ever unfolding of positive human potentialities in the future.

What distinguishes utopian thought from more idealistic thought is that it goes beyond mere principles, being willing to imagine the concrete social forms that could be created to embody those principles. This gives utopian thinking its revolutionary edge. Not only does it proclaim that the current social order is inadequate, that it fails to meet some standard, it goes on to paint a picture of what a superior social order could look like.

The Validity of Utopian Thinking

Utopian thinking relies on one central premise: that social forms are not set in stone. That they are created by human beings and thus can be replaced or torn apart by human beings. The evidence of this fact is obvious throughout history. From the ascension of urban society out of nomadic society, to the eventual rise of liberal democracies from the ashes of feudalism, the fact that humans can modify their own social conditions is clear. By what right do we then assume that capitalism is the last form of social life? How is it that we decided that this one, crisis ridden and ecologically unsustainable mode of existence must be the only one possib

When Lore bought the Timberwolves, no one really paid attention to him at all, everyone’s eyes glanced over his name for A-Rod. Seemingly, this was just another typical transfer of ownership with a celeb investor for publicity or whatever.

Then I randomly came across the billionaire’s grand vision for a Utopian city that he’s planning to have up and running within 10 years - Telosa The futuristic metropolis that we’ve all seen in the movies, but brought to life. And not in some Disneyland type of way either. Seriously, watch their video on their site. From what I’m gathering, Lore seems genuinely legit about this idea of creating the blueprint of efficiently ran cities to help push society in an innovative direction.

So that got me thinking. Did Lore buy the Timberwolves with the plan of relocating the team to this Utopian city? If this city becomes a reality, it will hit the news cycle then leave just as quickly with some inspiring headlines popping up every few months or so. Most sadly won’t give a shit too much and soon it’ll become an afterthought for the majority.

But if that city has an NBA team, the whole grand plan starts to feel a little more legit. When this city is up and running, people will be yelling into the void on how this Utopian vision is destined to fail for whatever reasons they read on Facebook. If that city has an NBA team, the overall outlook becomes more positive and makes you think hey, this Utopian city might just actually work out I mean if they can support an NBA team surely something’s going right. Maybe this Utopia might just prosper.

So that’s my theory - Marc Lore wants to build a city designed so efficient with Utopian ethics, that future cities try to emulate it and society progresses. And an NBA team legitimizes and elevates the whole process of winning over people’s opinion of Telosa.

Some other thoughts:

• On their website, they mention plans of building “state-of-the-art sports stadiums”

• The Timberwolves are a smart team to buy for this situation as they’re cheap in terms of sports franchises. They would just be a pawn in this strategy. If all you really need is a team to relocate, why not just get the cheapest one?

• The Timberwolves also play in a small market with a relatively low number of fans, traits that relocating teams almost always have

• A-Rod is used as a figurehead for this. If you read “Marc Lore buys Timberwolves” who the fuck cares, just another faceless billi

I read this article from the economist magazine and it mentioned that non-monogamy and free-love were important concepts in several utopian communities, and I am curious to know more about this history and in particular any book recommendations about these connections. Thanks!

Basically what's said in the title. Preferred would be a sci-fi -ish setup like in Arcane, where it's basically two different cities almost, with their own bars, shops, etc. all adjusted to the environment. a possible friendship between those two different worlds would be interesting aswell, like Caitlyn and Vi from Arcane or Adam and Eden from the movie Upside Down.

Incase what I demanded above is too specific, I would also appreciate non sci-fi ish pieces, maybe being set in the middle ages? For example a peasant in contrast to his liege/king or industrial age with a factory worker in contrast to the rich society celebrating at parties. Friendship between those two contrasting worlds would again be appreciated where one part maybe shows the other what living under his conditions look like.

Doesn't need to get too political btw, but can be, often it's part of the narrative anyways. I know there's not too many movies or series out there, featuring this phenomenon, but incase I missed one please let me know ^^

No, I’m not trying to push some religious agenda. I don’t really know what that would be. I just wonder if it could spark some interesting conversation.

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even people who used to believe in anarchism have said things like "its a good idea but wouldn't work" whats a good response to this?

Set in the 25th century, this book has a very interesting, if optimistic, vision of what lies ahead for humankind. Gendered pronouns have been done away with, geographical nations have given way to 'Hives' , which you can choose based on your interests, automated flying cars have made transit convenient and safe, smartphones have evolved into wearable 'trackers'..

And yet, underneath this veil of Utopia, human nature lurks, with all its vices and moral connundrums. There are children picked at infancy for becoming 'set-sets', a sort of sophisticated human-machine, there is political bickering, tensions between world leaders, dissatisfaction among masses about the rulers' policies, great powers that need to be guarded from misuse..

I really enjoyed the vision brought up of the future, and it is to the author's credit that the book's world feels plausible and real. I also liked the narrative voice, belonging to a frustrating and yet vaguely likeable main character.

On the flip side, the use of pronouns was deliberately misleading in some parts (e.g. in a scene, the narrator calls someone 'she' because he cared like a mother.) I am still unsure about the sex and gender of some characters. And while on the topic of sex, the sexualization of a scene towards the end was off-putting. Every dialogue, every action was preceded by a sexual gesture, by everyone present.. why?! It was nether titillating, nor did it add anything substantial to the plot.

And while on plot, be warned that this is only half a story. It continues in the second book of this series.

These are minor misgivings though, and overall, this was a very good read, intriguing and thought-provoking in equal measure.

I'm looking for animes that show humanity extremely advanced and great, whether through technology and science or magic.

Something in the sense of federation in star trek (in the part of civilization on earth and not the space part) in which humanity lives in a utopian world without disease, wars, famines, etc...