Mankind is slowly working its way toward Utopia

"Utopia is impossible, so it's not even worth shooting for. As long as mankind is flawed, and mankind will ALWAYS be flawed, an earthly Utopia is simply impossible" That's what most preachers, pundits and professors will fill your head with these days. To this, I proudly say: "BULLHOCKEY!!!" Instead, as I look back two or three thousand years into history, and compare where we are today with where we were then... Utopia seems just around the next corner. If you're within the domain of conventional wisdom, however, I'd love to hear from you! According to Google: "Utopia is an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. The word was first used in the book Utopia (1516) by Sir Thomas More." Sir Thomas argued that such a place could never exist, and in my opinion, he gives a poor, almost counter-intuitive description of what it would be like. So let's let our imaginations run with this. Let's take a look at the problems of the world today, and do away with them to create our Utopia of tomorrow. 1.) Mass starvation and poverty throughout much of the world. The cure? Governments which are failing the needs of their people need to become governments which meet the needs of their people. Tyrants and central planners need to be disincentivized from running their countries the way they currently do. While self-determination is largely a good thing, those leaders who abuse their powers should, for the good of mankind, be toppled. A way to accomplish this is to give current administrations a set amount of time to bring their countries up to such-and-such a standard of living. Those who can't or refuse to comply will find the collective weight of those countries who do want to attempt to establish a global Utopian ideal upon their doorstep forcing them to change. 2.) Education. Countries which are further ahead on their individual roads to Utopia need to reach out to the serfs, peons, and poor of struggling countries and inspire them not to settle for their supposed lot in life. The masses need to become optimistic. They need to become productive, which largely means they need to become educated. To this end, all countries need to defend common human rights, and invest in schools, libraries, internet infrastructure, and whatever else positively affects the subject countries. 3.) Ownership of private property is imperative. People need to believe that they are working for something tangible. As societies come closer and closer to the Utopian goal, they'll see that this becomes less and less necessary. 4.) Utopia will mean different things to different people, but insofar as it is possible, the world's movers and shakers need to provide the support and protections to each group that identifies its own form of 'social nirvana.' For instance, Utopia to Tasmanian tribesmen may be a very primitive sort of existence, while to Americans it may be a technological wonderland, etc. Mankind can create different facades on the face of these wonderlands. To a child, paradise is an amusement park, but Six Flags has a different look and feel from Disney World which is different from Knott's Berry Farm, etc. 5.) All religions should take a back seat to reason. While many religious people couldn't imagine life without their devotionals, etc., there will never be any peace on earth as long as billions of people are squabbling over the relative truths and falsehoods among their wholly unprovable religious claptrap. Religion is philosophical baggage of a most tedious sort which needs to be tossed overboard as soon as the opportunity affords itself. Secular humanists need to press home their arguments for a better life through reason. 6.) Although we call it Utopia, there will still be sickness, and people accidentally slipping on the ice, or improperly wired devices starting house fires, etc. But nanotechnology and other advancements may aid in stamping out the most common illnesses, while weather control may help prevent unwanted storms, or bring much needed rain to areas suffering drought. New and better technological improvements will create a safer, more efficacious environment for all. 7.) Hollywood, and the like, always enjoy making movies or stories about Paradise going awry. They often show how a lack of adversity leads to a sterile, institutional, and drone-like existence which no one would enjoy. Part of the Utopian challenge is to ensure that life remains fun, exciting, and challenging. If this means taking bodily risks in extreme sports, or hi-stakes gambling, or drug induced hallucinations, etc., these all could be accommodated to some degree. People would know the risks associated with their addictions and be willing to start over at the bottom and work their way back to their level of comfort. 8.) Ultimately, Utopia consists of all governments cooperating one with another; people being valued by their respective governing authorities; communities looking out for every inhabitant; and inhabitants being educated and productive members of society who also value one another. 9.) In the event that criminals or criminal organizations should still persist, an area of the world very much the antithesis of Utopia would be established as a penal colony. After freezing their asses off for a few months, criminals would be allowed to reconsider their place in the Utopian society. Frequent offenders would be permanently banished for the good of everyone else, or, in the case of a mass murderer, their life function would be terminated in the quickest, humanest, method possible, their remains being dissolved, flushed down the nearest loo, and donated to the communities sanitation department. What triggered this whole line of thought was another thread which was moaning about how bad things are these days... how society is going down the tubes. I reminded him that he wasn't suffering under Roman persecution, or his town was not under the threat of being invaded by the likes of Attila the Hun or Tamerlane. He was not under the threat of the Spanish Inquisition or living a horridly tedious religious life like the Puritans. We have come a long way, with hot and cold water in every home, a Walmart in every town, electricity and natural gas at our fingertips. Oh, we have it so tough! There are no more lumberjack bunkhouses full of lice and bedbugs, nor cattle drives or prairie towns subject to attack by the Apaches or Comanches, or what have you. There are smooth highways to take us cross country and airlines to take us to Europe in a matter of days instead of weeks. This isn't Utopia, not yet... but it could be just around the corner.