Mental/ physical changes to get an utopia

There are several tools and concepts available to create and support a utopia. Many are controversial and even illegal since they may involve manipulation of people and their capacity for free will. Creation of a workable Utopia is probably going to require fanaticism. That's because the creators will have to violate many of the assumptions and conceits about what it means to be a human being. There will be strongly held taboos that will have to be bent or broken. Can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Language- The Sapir Whorf hypothesis is the theory that the structure of an individual's thoughts and actions are determined by the language that individual speaks. The artificial language Loglan/Lojban was developed to test that hypothesis. Research is ongoing. On a darker note Newspeak in 1984 was developed to restrict the ability of the 'proles' to even conceptualize ideas like freedom and democracy. A Utopia should have a universal language that alters a persons ability to conceptualize himself and his community in a utopian manner. I'll let expert fanatics flesh that one out. :)

Pheromones- Chemical signaling is very important to many social species from insects to bonobos. In our nasal passages are Vromeronasal organs which bypass the olfactory regions of the brain and connect directly to our hypothalamus and amygdala which control memory, decision-making, emotional reactions, and important aspects of parenting and attachment behaviors, also control of pituitary hormones. In humans they have been inactivated. With current science we may be able to reactivate them and use them for social communion. A way of synchronizing the desires of individual with the needs of the,(dare I say it) hive. It's not as horrible as it sounds. Even now mothers can smell the difference between their infants and others. We just have to expand that ability and use it for other purposes.

Sex and reproduction- I have to tread lightly here since this is not an adult site and I don't want to get banned. Our current nuclear family is a result of industrialization and urbanization. When it succeeds its great but when it fails it's a social disaster. Bad for the community. Extended families were the norm long ago when we were less urbanized and more tribal. We may have to go to something that works better. Obviously there are too many people on this planet already so reproduction needs to be tightly controlled in any sensible community. Reproduction needs to be seen as a community responsibility not an individual right. Logically the entire gene pool should be managed scientifically much as we manage our domesticated animals. But since eugenics is a dirty word I'll leave that alone for now.

Community size- Dunbar's Number is the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. It's around 150. It's been verified in anthropology studies again and again and is used by business and military planners. A utopia should work with this number. It allows the community to impose social self control and reduces the need for bureaucracy and coercive controls on behavior such as laws and police. With the additional communication skills described above we may extend that number a bit but it's a product of our brain complexity. So don't get your hopes up. Utopia might have small 'villages' with a rapid transport system connecting to a central manufacturing center. The details can be fleshed out later.

Animal Models- Often Utopians want to think about insects or hyenas or wolves when looking at alternate societies. Insects are so far from us evolution-wise that they might as well be from another planet! We should be careful as to how much we can borrow from them. The wolf and hyena thing is a bit silly though I suppose it helps the human ego to compare us to such 'noble creatures'. A more interesting model is the naked mole rat, one of the few eusocial (hive like) mammals on the planet. Like us they live in packed communities. They have lost their sense of pain as a way of dealing with high carbon dioxide levels in their packed little burrows. We may have lost our vromeronasal sense to deal with crowding as well. Pheromone communication is extensively used to manage the workings of the hive.

Another animal model is the bonobos, among our closest living relatives among the great apes. Two big differences from chimps is (1) they have a matriarchal and relatively peaceful social structure and (2)they use recreational sex as a complex mechanism for social control. Once again since this is not an adult site I can't say much but it is worth a study by utopians. Previous utopian attempts had attempted to suppress sexual expression. Perhaps that why they failed. We are a highly sexualized species as demonstrated by the enormous traffic in ummm...NSFW pictures on the net. Perhaps a utopia should reflect that.

edited 7th Oct '14 4:18:51 PM by Zo0tie

Utopia has a specific meaning - that's why everyone here has prefaced their thoughts about its requirements with the caveat that it is "their" interpretation of it - and I'm betting no one was looking to More's Utopia specifically (which is a Crapsack World, even by his contemporary standards). Words evolve, and 'Utopia' has been conflated with 'Eutopia' in the dictionary - your personal definition runs close to 'utilitarianism' as well. (I have also pointed out ways to circumvent a majority desire for Utopia in establishing a utopia, and I think we all agree in this topic that it won't easily happen with human nature and free will - which do have standard meanings - being part of the equation.)

Going down the list... Sapir-Whorf shouldn't have much priority in a discussion like this (not even the right name for it, either); Language Equals Thought makes the case better than I can, but in general it's far too easy in most languages to 'invent' new words. Newspeak is a particularly bad example - a deconstruction, even - as it relied far too much on the context it was spoken in to serve its intended purpose (Winston's thoughts, as described in third person anyway, make it clear that it isn't working as well as it should be, necessity of the Ministry of Love aside). A much better solution would be to simply alter the Utopians' language production ability so that it is more limited - think Hawaiian here, but with the addition of making it impossible to pronounce loanwords. (Or alternately just giving everyone one of the many disorders that causes problems with language acquisition.)

Pheromones are so short-ranged and under-used in human biology that it's easier to adapt already existing technological methods towards Utopian conversion. We presently use sight and sound as our primary senses, and outside of another method of mind control I'm afraid I can't see pheromones as a useful device. (The Salvation War, or at least the first book, makes the point pretty well - modern air circulation systems would render it moot. Come to think of it, the second book also makes the point that one's conception of 'Utopia' is limited by their circumstances, though that word is never used as the inhabitants predate More by maybe 1500 years.)

The 'current nuclear family' is already on its way out anyway, at least in the US, and it is a sign that people already are going with something that works better. (The other way of looking at it is that 'the wrong people' are doing 'the wrong thing' when it comes to how a family is supposed to be... which is a load of Unfortunate Implications so it's probably not that.) I suspect it's on the decline in other countries where it also came to be expected, but don't have that data within reach. 'Eugenics' isn't a dirty word, it's the only word to describe what you're talking about (well, that and 'population control/management').

Dunbar's number is not meaningful on its own for a self-sustaining utopia, for two reasons. First, it is intended to be the (hypothesized) cap on in-person community cohesion and relationships, and not a total in all social communities - so long as the population members are kept separate, as with "The Machine Stops", you could increase the population to far more than 150. Second, it's heavily reliant on external necessities - environmental or economical (More's Utopia had a lousy climate too, I think) - to force the community to bind together. They'd have to want 'Utopia', in short, without any one or other personality dominating the group as tends to happen in real life. (Also, that number is incompatible with reasonable population growth. Even under an eugenics program with a Soviet-Romanian birthrate, 150 adults of reproductive age will only barely be enough to avoid inbreeding.) I would also be careful about applying Dunbar's Number willy-nilly - it appears to be being applied to various different types of social circles and interactions, without necessarily taking into account that those groups don't necessarily overlap (or are meaningful relationships). Even just taking work, personal, online, and family social circles as examples, it seems really unlikely that 150 is a cap on anyone's social circles.

...dude. Who here, on this topic, has looked to insects or animals models for help in building a utopia? (More certainly didn't.) Is that a reference to a Hive Mind (which doesn't actually occur in real life, with the typical application of it being some extrapolation of telepathy)?

And you want to say The Internet Is for Porn. But to say that we are a 'highly sexualized species' based on a means of access that is still limited by economical means is highly flawed, particularly as different cultures treat it differently.

In fact, I think that is the typical flaw in any argument for a Utopia - they assume a far more specific, easily described (mono)culture than what actually exists, essentially implementing or extrapolating personal cultural biases into an ideal. (This is why so many of my solutions from earlier would squash culture in the process.)

...y'know, this might also be related to why so many people seem to think eggs are the only ingredient in an omelet, but I'm not quite sure how.

I agree Deus that the definition and interpretation of utopia has evolved over time and everyone has their own take on it. I’ll let linguists and philosophers haggle over the distinctions between utopia, eutopia and utilitarianism and whether they are ‘bad’ or ‘good’. The OP defined his utopia with 5 qualities. I’ve provided him with areas of science that may provide avenues of research for tools to create stable utopia of the type he described. I am not saying they are the ONLY tools available, just some of the more modern ones that may not have been thoroughly vetted. Also note that free will is not on his list. He states disbelief that humans as they are can build utopia and asks what changes to people would allow them to succeed. Unless he means giving them a pedicure and new wardrobe he seems to imply he’s ok with some type of coercive change which may impact free will. Question: Is a person who has been genetically, socially, culturally modified to alter his free will capable of free speech? I don’t know. There is currently a lively debate among behavioral scientists whether free will even exists or is just a neurophysical illusion. So going down the list:

However we modify it, language is an important tool for building societies including a utopia. I think you have a point about the mutability of language. We may be able to develop some cybernetic tools to build language that resists change without some type of approval process. Some type of hyper-dictionary. Or very persistent spell checker. Or else we have to have built-in flexibility in construction that allows change without affecting the goal of promoting a utopian mindset. Lots of research is needed.

Yes pheromones are short ranged. So what? They still can function in small intimate groupings. Closed communities within the Dunbar number limit would be ideal places for pheromone interaction. In larger communities, possibly underground, unless you’re going to flood the air with deodorants and filter the heck out of everything with activated charcoal, pheromones are a great way to get people to feel union with the community. Note: must alter human pheromones so they smell better than halitosis and rancid sweat socks!

Yes the current nuclear family is on its way out, and being replaced by single mothers with transient fathers, lovers who don’t stick around, leaving poorly socialized kids and impoverished women who both continue the cycle of poverty and tax roll dependency. Don’t know what ‘better working’ family model you’re talking about. The ones I’m seeing are nothing to build a utopia on.

Once again Dunbar’s number is just a tool. The goal is to create culture that has a sense of tribal identity that allows the social interactions between members to self regulate society without getting too mired in government structure and policing. It worked successfully for tens of thousands of years before cities and countries. We just have to bring it back in a controlled modern form. Individual villages connect by a rapid transport system to a central manufacturing center where more complex social interactions take place. Individuals become part of ‘work teams’ of about 10 people from multiple villages that operate as mobile problem solvers and labor gangs doing work as needed. Teams will move from task to task to avoid stagnation and stratification. Workers will optimize communication by maintaining close proximity per the phenomenon shown by the Allen curve. I’m still not sure how overall control might work. Meeting in some dusty hall and applying Robert’s Rules of Order seems a bit outdated. Perhaps some sort of computer management AI with periodic input from individual work teams. Just a thought.

Yes population control/management is absolutely essential. Unmanaged population growth is just not compatible with utopia, especially now. Discussing what needs to be done to survive through the next (century, half century, decade?) and how to do it is beyond the scope of this post. There must be exchange between villages of ideas, people, and genes. Maybe voluntary, maybe not. They’re not going to be prisons. But reassignments will have to take place. If you fix population growth and restrict the size of communities not everyone will be happy with it. Movement to ‘somewhere better’ will just have to be accommodated.

Your ‘hive mind’ comment in your first post was what caused my insect comment. When you mention ‘hive’ insects immediately come to mind. The insect thing is a common trope for a dystopia. Frank Herbert turned it on it’s head by hinting that Hellstrom’s Hive were actually the ‘good guys’. I’m just cautioning about using insects as a model. In fact copying any alternative example too slavishly is a bad idea. There are unique human qualities that a bee, naked mole rat, or even a bonobo may not have. But if you’re going to build a new society best to look at successful collectives that currently exist in nature and take hints from them. The closer to us the better. Otherwise you’re handwaving. The idea that people are infinitely mallable (taubla rasas) went out with the cold blooded dinosaur theory. We are Naked Apes as Desmond Morris called us with millions of years of evolutionary baggage that a utopia will have to deal with.

Yes, were highly sexualized hominids. Freud said so and you may disagree with the good doctor but you’ll also have to disagree with the majority of behavioral scientists who think he’s right. Humans have been making pornographic art and fiction for centuries, long before computers, not to mention the sex and violence drenched history of our species. Maybe it’s time to decouple the two and use the sex part as a social control mechanism to end the violence. How? Well once again, that’s where the bonobos come in.

At this point 7 plus billion people are just too many to create a utopia for everyone. But seriously dude, do you really need a left handed Libyan flute player in a utopia? There is going to be some consolidation coming. Either we will do it humanely or Mother Nature will and she’s not a nice lady when you get on her bad side. I suspect utopia will start with small experimental (possibly underground) communities far enough from major urban centers so a major environmental, economic, social, political collapse will not affect them. Personally I think its coming. The utopian communities will troubleshoot their social systems and when the dust settles they’ll go out and set up a new world.

Yep, there’s more to an omelet than eggs. The sad thing is that utopian thinkers have been stuck for too long using the same old tired ingredients again and again to try to get people to behave. Religion, philosophy, law, education. I think its denial. One more religion, one more law, one more classroom and the problem of deforestation, rape, war, pollution will be solved! I’m not saying they’re totally useless but insanity can be defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Maybe we need to try a new recipe.

edited 9th Oct '14 12:59:06 PM by Zo0tie

Free will is a necessary component for free speech. As 'free speech' is largely a legal construct, the neurological debate about 'free will' doesn't actually have a whole lot to do with it.

There really isn't a good solution at all to the language problems you bring up, not when human creativity is part of the equation. The whole point of language is to describe, after all; a more productive solution from the standpoint of control would be to remove interpersonal communication entirely (or just not teach it).

Pheromones functioning in 'small intimate groupings' is not an exception, it's the primary reason it's not commonly used. Or, specifically, there are two problems with it. First, how do you accomplish physical labor efficiently when the system you're under forces you to remain in a literally closed group? Second, you'd have to extensively rework humans so that they aren't as reliant on circulating air for pheromones to work (and also make them susceptible to them in the first place...), and in a setting where that level of re-engineering is technically feasible you'd have to justify why a more efficient solution isn't available. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that doing so will raise far more questions than is really worth it.

Zo0tie, "nuclear family" has a specific meaning - broadly, a family group that is a pair of parents living with their kids. A family with more generations than that (as you'll find in a number of non-Western cultures) or no children at all isn't counted. I can't think of a way to make this less harsh than it is, but I'm not sure why you use only the economically struggling as a counter-example. It also isn't anyone's responsibility but your own to answer personal 'known unknowns', and if where you're currently looking isn't a stable foundation for something, continuing to look there for answers won't solve anything. (I apologize for my tone there. It is something that I think needed to be said, and I felt that 'quick and blunt' would make the point better than with tact.)

Again, Dunbar's Number seems to require external forces to work - simply shoving people into 150 person groups will fail, even when they have a common purpose. The 'work teams' plan will not benefit from the additional group cohesion that Dunbar's Number (which caps total relationships) dictates, as that would limit the population groups they are individually from. (The Allen curve doesn't have much to do with this either - it explains how technical engineers communicate, not on-site laborers. Robert's Rules of Order is already 180+ years old now and has been updated to keep up with the times; there's not much reason why it wouldn't work or couldn't be adapted - though again, it's not much use in a situation with standardized work orders and tickets.)

(Oh good, I'm glad we agree on the basics behind population control.)

While your caution is appreciated, the Hive Mind trope does not actually apply to anything naturally occurring in nature. There is no need to copy lower life forms, especially where they are specifically physically adapted to their colony structure to work. If the insect thing is common is dystopias, I'd appreciate it if you'd actually name them - or even better, link to them - though I would take that as proof they're not suited for utopias... (And if anything, a societal system adapted from that of a lower life form would be far more of a Hand Wave.)

Incidentally, are you aware that 'Men are infinitely malleable' is a 1984 quote? (About 2/3rds of the way through the third chapter of the third part, if you have the book in reach.) The idea there was the The Party had the hammer and the heat to mold men as it saw fit, but the actual form it takes is blatantly coercive persuasion, which in real life is overcoming the result of our collective evolutionary baggage with some ease, if anything.

...dude, don't quote Freud if you want to be taken seriously. His ideas were outdated before he was dead and in the ground, and are currently at best a simple framework for understanding the human mind. Incidentally, how would Asexuals respond to sex as a societal control mechanism, and why is that going to be more effective than, say, free happy-drugs for everyone anyway?

I would not kill off or remove from society a 'left handed Libyan flute player' solely because they are left-handed, Libyan, or a flutist, nor would I bother to identify them as such if they had skills besides that (as is extremely likely). There is no 'humane' way to implement a utopia, I think, though I'm open to the possibility (the 'app religion' from earlier is about as optimistic as I'm likely to get on my own).

I don't know what utopian thinkers you subscribe to (name them, by all means), but the Eastern sources I'm inspired by and have cited are a different recipe.

...speaking of which. Eggs, butter, water, frying pan and a spatula, plus some combination of veggies, meat, and a bit o' cheese - 'ts all ya need, man. The ingredients work, or else it wouldn't be a recipe. So long as you're trying to make what someone would call an omelet, it works, but calling scrambled eggs an omelet is pushing it.

Given the prevalance of sexual violence, I give a good long side eye to anyone who proposes or writes about sex as a social control of any sort. Some folks are already doing that, and they are shitty people.

Also, there are surely more modern psychologists than Freud that you could look at the research of? Because that guy's been dead for over a hundred years.

"Remove the human need for religion, alcohol, politics/inequality, and non-reproductive sex through genetic manipulation. In short, make everyone an irreligious teetotaler with no desire to outdo their neighbors - especially in bed."

An interesting requirement. I am curious about what the definition of "religion" is in this instance.

I am reminded somewhat of Plato's "Noble Lie" when he designed his ideal city in The Republic. A narrative (which may or may not be literally true) that espouses and exemplifies the values that are, to one degree or another, shared by all members of the community is an integral part of any community (theistic or otherwise).

An interesting examination of the concept of utopia is the Sybil System from the anime Psycho-Pass.

I've come to see 'religion' as... the need to believe, often as a group, in something that is 'bigger' than human understanding can fully comprehend in some way. In practice, I think it overlaps with the concept of a 'noble lie' somewhat, but the difference is in the breadth of the myth they try to tell and the intended effect - calling religion a noble lie is really selling it short, as they generally intend to make 'good' out of the world rather than just 'functional'.

...I'm really a little surprised that worship of the Internet itself hasn't caught on yet. Maybe I should use that in a story.

What do you mean by something "bigger" than human understanding. Sounds a tad vague. I mean, for the purposes for world-building, I find that precise definitions are really valuable.

Up to the individual. That's why I put 'bigger' in quotes and didn't bother explaining it much further than that in the first place.

Reading and skimming...

A "life app" sounds... uh... dystopian to me rather than utopian. I mean, what would it be? A thing on my wrist that nags me to exercise and say "Howdy, Neighborino" to my neighbor every morning lest it inject me with poison? Or alert me that the authorities who may "eliminate the problem from society are watching me?"

Furthermore, what people have said about an "app" sounding suspiciously like a replacement-religion brought back flashbacks to the time when I had a good friend who was a convert to Orthodox Judiasm. She LIVED HER REAL LIFE according to an app-like structure, and had emotional distress when the "apps" were not possible to live by (she visited me in Phoenix once, and we couldn't find any Kosher restaurants in that part of town and I knew of none) and "making do" was all she could do. She's a very lovely lady, who eventually got out of Orthodoxy for other forms of her religion, but just seeing her try to live by the ancient laws, the ancient "apps" if you will, down to food and clothing/modesty rules showed me that I could never be able to do the same.

There's also my "I fight authority even though it always wins" attitude. The biggest way to get me to do something is to tell me I can't or am arbitrarily "not allowed" to. Right now, I don't go to church and have a vague questioning kind of spirituality. The moment you tell me that your government has outlawed religion is the moment I start going to church again, and maybe even join a push-back movement. You tell me to touch my toes every morning, I will stay in bed. I'm a bipolar person who longs to just be happy, but if you try to force happiness on me, you'll set my anger switch on, just because.

In other words, I suspect that even though I'm what most people call a "good" person, I'm pretty sure I'd have to die for your uptopia because I'd willfully defy the app just because it's trying to nag me.

Jumping in to ask some questions. Does this utopia have any meaning? What did humanity sacrifice? Can people still experience a off day in said utopia?

I mean I've only felt good about my artwork when I get something right, because beforehand I've gotten something wrong. What meaning is there to a utopia and happiness if it is just there?

The idea is that there really is no 'utopia' that isn't in some way dystopic - the 'life app' just sounds the least-worst of all the possible options to me, particularly as it's the easiest to get out of. It may sound like a bad idea to you, but it appears to be similar to something someone actually paid someone to make. Whether you agree with it or not doesn't make it right or wrong, it just means you agree/disagree with it.

(Also, how many people know just how easy it actually is to control you through reverse psychology?)

There isn't any. The very idea of a Utopia is more of thought experiment, I think, and attempts to actually implement one pretty much always fail. I figured that the 'life app' was more of an external conscience than a guide to happiness or a set of rules to follow, Robo Cop 1987 style. ('Defend the innocent, serve the public trust, uphold the law' still makes for a decent human being; 'eat Kosher or starve' makes for a malnourished one under the wrong conditions.)

I'm not actually as easily controlled as you might think. I tend to see through things like that. If you actually *try* to control me like that, I usually get it and will push back against that. One trait that's remained with me all my life is that I'm freakin' stubborn. I'm pretty sure it's one of the traits that keeps me alive.

So, you know, any dystopia that is trying to build itself up into a utopia is going to have problems with criminals like me. And the people fit for the utopia will probably miss their me-type loved ones if a purge is required.

You'd definitely have to think and work long and hard to create a balance in the app. Some people (as mentioned above) live according to a strict life-code already, while most of the rest of us will try to live by simple rules and have to admit that we are hypocrites when we slip up. How would one go about perfecting a balance in something that would, presumably, actually be enforced by a code more pressing than "shame?"

I got you to respond, didn't I? (You disagreed, and felt the need to reply. Would you have said anything if I'd left out the double arrows, the 'whether you agree...' line, and the 'control you' line - which sounds stronger and more personally objectionable than 'manipulate you' or 'provoke you', since it implies that you don't have any power over yourself. Probably not; I could've responded solely to Echoing Silence instead as well. Be careful in the future - you don't want to get into the sort of situation where someone provokes you into doing something legally unwise. Sometimes you need to hold your tongue and think about what you're writing, and who's going to see it.)

EDIT: Just kidding! It actually was a total fluke.

Well, the quick answer is that you underestimate the power of 'shame' as you call it; there's less need for 'balance' as there is for widespread adoption, and it's similar to an immunization shot and herd immunity. It's not that everyone is following rules you aren't, but that everyone knows you are not following the rules they are. It's a quick way to get under constant surveillance, to never be trusted again, to get the short end of the stick in every possible interaction - in person, online, emotional, financial, etc. - with people who are hooked into the life app.

Imagine a world (and keep in mind I am speaking entirely in the hypothetical here) where you are not white, not straight, and are not seen as a sane or functional member of society by anyone (for reasons separate from race and orientation - perhaps you speak with an accent or fought on the wrong side of a war, or maybe you're not able-bodied). Maybe there are a few other things that mark you as 'different', maybe not, but those are just the easy ones to contemplate in this day and age and they'll do for an example.

Because you have all three going for you, pretty much everyone stiffs you, and you spend so much time looking for people who won't that you end up deciding that you can't find any, and are unable to break out of the death spiral. Of course, legally speaking none of that is allowed, but defending yourself is expensive. That is the power of 'shame', and that is part of why utopias are really hard to actually pull off - they don't play well with human nature. It's even in the title of the conversation: 'Mental/ physical changes', the implication being that raw humans simply aren't capable of utopia.

(This is also the problem with Teen Dystopia Novels(tm) - they have to leave far more space for a youth culture rebellion than would be realistically conducive to a controlling society, in order to sell books to an age group that simply doesn't realize this. It's wishful thinking, for the most part, as there really haven't been many teen-led rebellions in the real world. ...Well, there's 'student protests', but those don't have a great success rate.)

edited 25th Nov '14 11:07:02 PM by DeusDenuo