From: mss2@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Michael S. Schiffer)
Subject: Re: Utopiae (Was: Amanda wants to be a Kesh)
Reply-To: mss2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 07:47:39 GMT

In article <Dec13.051252.71586@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU> arsmith@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Alan Smith) writes:

>"Y'know," Big Al considers, "That brings up an interesting idea.  I mean
>her idea of utopia and my idea of utopia are probably not the same things.
>At that, our ideas of a `good place' are not the same things.  We each have
>our soap boxes, and given our 'druthers, they'd be written in stone.

	"Or, to paraphrase a Chesterton quote about utopias I posted a
while back, whatever the ostensible form of government a utopia may
have, it is in fact a monarchy with the monarch being the writer.  It
therefore generally has the inherent problems of autocracy, however
enlightened."


  (Yes,
>actually, I do have a point, lemme ramble a little more)  But, life is not
>(as a rule) what we make it, so sometimes we get to, er, 'step back.'  Anyway,
>I was thinking, if you were going to step back, where would you step back to?

>"SO," Those who had fallen asleep suddenly snap awake, their note-taking 
>instincts coming back, "Call For Discussion: Favorite Mythological areas and
>cultures.  Where, Who, What.  Give virtues.  For extra credit, create your
>OWN area."

	"David Brin, I'm told, did an interesting variant on this at a
con.  `Through that door,' he said, pointing, `is any
science-fictional or fantasy universe you know of.  The door is one
way.  What, if any, universe would you willingly go through it to.'
When push came to shove, it was hard to find any takers.  Of course,
part of that probably has to do with abandoning all one's family and
friends, forever.  But there's also the fact that most fictional
universes are `interesting' in the sense of the Chinese curse.  Will
you walk into Tolkien's world, with its low tech and its powerful evil
forces?  The Star Trek universe, where entire planets are occasionally
destroyed and people who don't fit in are sent to `re-education
centers' (see "Space Seed")?  Heinlein's future history, with its
religious dictatorships and persecutions?

	"Of course there are good places to set down in all of those
worlds, if you have enough control and can get established
appropriately.  And none of those are even attempted utopias.  But the
utopian worlds tend to be worse, because people who do utopias
naturally know what sort of evils they want to eliminate (however
gentle the process is presumed to have been) and I'm not so sure that
all those things were evils, or that eliminating them could be
accomplished so gently in the real world.

	"Still, I'll attempt the game, taking as given that any world
is going to have suffering and evil and that the goal is to go for
minima of both plus sustainability (i.e. not a happy tribe which is
certain to be knocked over by Mongol or Conquistador equivalents
whenever they show up).  Two periods of Niven's Known Space series
come to mind: the Golden Age (between the development of technological
replacement for the organ banks and the first Man-Kzin war) and the
Ringworld era.  The first is only vaguely sketched in, but seems to
have a reasonably restrained planetary government for Earth, escape to
the Belt if that's still too constricting (and possibly to the
cometary halo after that, not to mention the colonies).  Clinical
Psychology has been made into a reliable medical discipline, but it
hasn't (yet, at least) been used for evil purposes on a large scale.
People live long, healthy lives on the whole, basically till the brain
wears out.  The biggest problem I see is that I don't quite believe
it.  A single central government like Niven's UN would by its nature
become more constricting, a scientific psychology would lend itself to
a truly horrendous tyranny, and that long world peace would either be
shattered by fanatics or the fanatics would be `cured'-- and I'm not
sure I _like_ the idea of government `psychists' deciding who needs to
be cured.

	"In any case, we don't see much of the Golden Age-- I know of
only three stories ("The Ethics of Madness", "The Warriors", and a
relatively recent one whose name escapes me), two of which come right
at the end.  So shift to the Ringworld era.  Even longer life now
thanks to boosterspice.  Psychistry seems to have gone by the wayside,
in part because four Man-Kzin Wars have established that humans really
need some of their aggression.  Most planetary governments seem
tolerable, though Earth shows signs both of overbureaucratization
(legislated fertility control, which I suspect would be harder for a
reasonably liberal government to enact than Niven recognized) and
near-anarchy (legalized pickpocketing, for example).  Commercial
teleportation is common and cheap, and ftl star travel is affordable.
There are lots of interesting aliens, but none is currently a threat
to humanity (with all due respect to the Kzinti :-) ).  The galactic
core has exploded, but that's not a current concern of anyone alive at
the time given the 10 millennia before the wave front hits.  The
Puppeteers are gone, and hence (mostly) no longer interfering in human
civilization.  For those who don't get involved in a story, life seems
fairly pleasant and interesting, one has a choice of places to live
from the very civilized and comfortable to the newest of colony
worlds.  And even if you do get involve in a story, Niven's
protagonists and side characters have a higher survival rate than many
authors' do.  :-)  Not a utopian world, but a decent place to live out
a two century lifespan."

Michael

-- 
Michael S. Schiffer, LHN, FCS	"Indeed I tremble for my country
mss2@midway.uchicago.edu	 when I reflect that God is just."
mike.schiffer@um.cc.umich.edu	 -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on
mschiffer@aal.itd.umich.edu	    Virginia (1784)
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