Vladimir_Nesov comments on Rationality Quotes September 2011 - Less Wrong

7 Post author: dvasya 02 September 2011 07:38AM

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Comment author: Thomas 05 September 2011 01:48:46PM *  9 points [-]

The majority dreams about a "just society", the minority dreams about a better one through technological advances. No matter there was 20th century when "socialism" brought us nothing and the technology brought us everything.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 05 September 2011 02:35:21PM *  13 points [-]

Echoing a utopian meme is analogous to stamping an instance of an invention, not to inventing something anew. It is inventors of utopian dreams that I doubt to be more numerous than inventors of technology.

Comment author: gwern 05 September 2011 07:36:06PM 3 points [-]

And let's not forget how many millions of patents there are; I don't think there are that many millions of utopias, even if we let them differ as little as patents can differ.

Comment author: Thomas 05 September 2011 03:19:44PM 2 points [-]

You may be right here. Utopias are usually also quite uninnovative. "All people will be brothers and sisters with enough to eat and Bible (or something else stupid) reading in a community house every night".

Variations are not that great.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 10 September 2011 03:31:26PM *  1 point [-]

Can you invent a utopia? A utopia is an incoherent concept about a society that contains too many internal contradictions or impracticalities to ever exist. Thus, it cannot be invented any more than a perpetual motion machine can be.

If you do consider utopias inventable, what's the difference between "inventing a new utopia" and "having a new preference"? You want X; you dream of a world where you get X, inventing Utopia X.