Thursday, June 12, 2014

No-Place Like Utopia

This is a world of microcosmic obscurity and macrocosmic uncertainty. On the one hand, we can analyze the specific workings of a minor institution, determine why it is necessary, what it's purpose is supposed to be, how it functions, and whether or not it fulfills that purpose. On the other, we can examine the grandiose, and see patterns supposedly emerge from overwhelming data sets quantized by super computers and monitors.
In both cases, we are bewildered to find that numbers at the same time do not lie, and lack the virtue of true prescience. Yet, we proceed to make bold assumptions concerning very liberty-sensitive subjects. How can we do this confidently? Are we so bold?

A utopia would require, first of all, a technological infrastructure that comes as close as possible to that prescience virtue mentioned above. Secondly, it would require a means through which to enable positive eugenics without humanitarian atrocities. These two demands are inescapable problems, but at least with respect to the former, we can somewhat safely bring that condition to life as a thought experiment. Regarding the second notion, well, we must be so bold as to posit a system that enables eugenics... It's as simple as that.

One must keep in mind that Utopia is a word that really means "no-place," and to proceed with the abundant cognition that such no-place can never come to pass as long as it portends to express true utopianism is paramount, so long as the utopian writer desires to "try out" controversial ideas in the societies.

A concern to be addressed is the fact that utopianism is an ideal set of conditions hinged on ideological constructs. Such constructs are both the necessary enabling conditions and the major factors of conflict in any diversified society. One cannot make the claim that eugenics is necessary without some notion of the "pure" or actual elite person. One must acknowledge the ideological ruse a utopian espouses when his ideas encroach upon human heterogeneity. There are some preferred features the utopian requires in order to trust his agents in his no-place. Those features will necessarily exclude large swaths of people. As a result, the interested reader must be willing to render very real ethical problems into the abstract, see them as problems to be solved in a later iteration of the system and allow the ideas themselves to come together.

We all exist within boxes, connected to clusters of other boxes that we either voluntarily participate in or involuntarily are associated with simply in virtue of our existence. It is thus impossible to attempt a utopia without attempting to maintain a universe within which those boxes are allowed to persist. We mustn't do away with our ethical sensibilities, but we must be able to do away with certain "beliefs-because-they've-always-been-the-case." Ideology is both dangerous and inevitable, we must account for its influence in such a way that assumes it's effect on agents in the society, and engineer an approach to directing that effectiveness.

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