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Will mankind build utopia?

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Will mankind turn Earth into a utopia?
Yes. 8%  8%  [ 2 ]
No. 88%  88%  [ 21 ]
I don't know. 4%  4%  [ 1 ]
Total votes : 24

Vigilans
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14 Apr 2012, 12:56 pm

The utopia of one is the dystopia of another


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androbot2084
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14 Apr 2012, 2:00 pm

That's why reservations need to be created for the people who do not wish to live in the utopia.



Vigilans
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14 Apr 2012, 2:02 pm

androbot2084 wrote:
That's why reservations need to be created for the people who do not wish to live in the utopia.


Would they be like Amerindian reservations, with all of the... "amenities"? :P


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14 Apr 2012, 2:15 pm

In Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World ' , reservations for savages were set up to accommodate the people who's traditions refused to allow them to accept the utopian society. Although the reservations had most of the modern technology with the exception of test tube babies. The reservations still clung on to the old institutions of marriage, motherhood, violence as a way of solving problems as well as capitalism being their economic model.



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14 Apr 2012, 8:15 pm

I don't believe that utopia will ever be attainable. If nothing else the blissful perfection will make our lives to boring for it to be a utopia. And while I firmly do believe that there are much better ways to organize society than how we do now, they do introduce some problems of their own.



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14 Apr 2012, 9:02 pm

Ragtime wrote:
Some politicians promise a lot, up to and even including utopia. This promise historically has been made, and still is being made today, in some of the world's most brutal regimes. It is always promised in order to get the society to agree to some radical change or set of changes. Changes that, funnily enough, always happen to ensure that things will get worse before they get better. But utopia is the carrot on the stick. Will mankind ever create it?


It's possible, but we'd have to do away with social pretense and religion IMO. Otherwise it will be a utopia for some and ignorance for anyone religion doesn't approve of. As long as we have to live with religion, there will be an elitist segment of society.



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14 Apr 2012, 10:05 pm

Vigilans wrote:
The utopia of one is the dystopia of another

I'd be glad my utopia being a dystopia for others.



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15 Apr 2012, 7:31 am

All capitalism is crony capitalism.



ruveyn
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15 Apr 2012, 7:53 am

blunnet wrote:
Vigilans wrote:
The utopia of one is the dystopia of another

I'd be glad my utopia being a dystopia for others.


and all socialism is crony socialism. Somehow the commissars and the aparachiks do better than the Proles. Always.

ruveyn



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15 Apr 2012, 7:54 am

Socialism works when people embrace socialism of their own free will.



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15 Apr 2012, 10:25 am

ruveyn wrote:
androbot2084 wrote:
A capitalism can offer is utopia for the lucky few while the rest live in misery.


Not true. A reasonable system of business and commerce can raise the standard of living for all. Even so, some people will do better than others because of individual and cultural differences. The problem in the U.S. is the large business firms and governments have formed an association or buddy-ship. We get Crony Capitalism rather than the real thing. Avoiding this kind of unfairness and corruption is very difficult to do, but it must be done sooner or later.

ruveyn


The key here is "reasonable", which, to me, means capitalism has to be managed prudently, not allowed to run rampant until it spins out of control and crashes. Basically what the West had between the end of WW2 and the advent of the Oil Crisis, when living standards exploded at rates never paralleled before or since.

That being said - I don't think capitalism is the end-all, be-all of economic evolution. Every previous system has felt that it is both natural, and the endpoint of development (which is a contradiction, if you think about it) and they have all been wrong. What comes next we can no more imagine, than a feudal lord could imagine a market where complex equations about the economy (derivatives) comprised about 80% of all assets in the world. But unless the world is ending soon, I don't imagine our system is the final system.



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15 Apr 2012, 10:29 am

edgewaters wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
androbot2084 wrote:
A capitalism can offer is utopia for the lucky few while the rest live in misery.


Not true. A reasonable system of business and commerce can raise the standard of living for all. Even so, some people will do better than others because of individual and cultural differences. The problem in the U.S. is the large business firms and governments have formed an association or buddy-ship. We get Crony Capitalism rather than the real thing. Avoiding this kind of unfairness and corruption is very difficult to do, but it must be done sooner or later.

ruveyn


The key here is "reasonable", which, to me, means capitalism has to be managed prudently, not allowed to run rampant until it spins out of control and crashes. Basically what the West had between the end of WW2 and the advent of the Oil Crisis, when living standards exploded at rates never paralleled before or since.

That being said - I don't think capitalism is the end-all, be-all of economic evolution. Every previous system has felt that it is both natural, and the endpoint of development (which is a contradiction, if you think about it) and they have all been wrong. What comes next we can no more imagine, than a feudal lord could imagine a market where complex equations about the economy (derivatives) comprised about 80% of all assets in the world. But unless the world is ending soon, I don't imagine our system is the final system.


I think the world was supposed to have ended last May.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer



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15 Apr 2012, 10:31 am

The goal of the capitalist war machine is to keep people out of the garden of Eden.



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15 Apr 2012, 10:31 am

Vigilans wrote:
The utopia of one is the dystopia of another


This. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.



ruveyn
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15 Apr 2012, 10:32 am

androbot2084 wrote:
Socialism works when people embrace socialism of their own free will.


Right. Please see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFFWFkDA ... h_response

Will the real socialist movement please stand up.

ruveyn



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15 Apr 2012, 10:44 am

Israel has the Kibbutz .