[SEQ RERUN] Building Weirdtopia

MinibearRex

Today's post, Building Weirdtopia was originally published on 12 January 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Utopia and Dystopia both confirm the moral sensibilities you started with; whether the world is a libertarian utopia of government non-interference, or a hellish dystopia of government intrusion and regulation, either way you get to say "Guess I was right all along." To break out of this mold, write down the Utopia, and the Dystopia, and then try to write down the Weirdtopia - an arguably-better world that zogs instead of zigging or zagging. (Judging from the comments, this exercise seems to have mostly failed.)

Discuss the post here (rather than in the comments to the original post).

This post is part of the Rerunning the Sequences series, where we'll be going through Eliezer Yudkowsky's old posts in order so that people who are interested can (re-)read and discuss them. The previous post was Eutopia is Scary, and you can use the sequence_reruns tag or rss feed to follow the rest of the series.

Sequence reruns are a community-driven effort. You can participate by re-reading the sequence post, discussing it here, posting the next day's sequence reruns post, or summarizing forthcoming articles on the wiki. Go here for more details, or to have meta discussions about the Rerunning the Sequences series.

Today's post, Building Weirdtopia was originally published on 12 January 2009. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):

Utopia and Dystopia both confirm the moral sensibilities you started with; whether the world is a libertarian utopia of government non-interference, or a hellish dystopia of government intrusion and regulation, either way you get to say "Guess I was right all along." To break out of this mold, write down the Utopia, and the Dystopia, and then try to write down the Weirdtopia - an arguably-better world that zogs instead of zigging or zagging. (Judging from the comments, this exercise seems to have mostly failed.)

For a trick, try "the dystopia, except in a good way!" as a starting point. The reason this works is because most of the dystopias are built on opposing dreams of the future had by actual humans, which are usually not too bad, you just have to reconstruct that ideal in a way that wouldn't suck.

Part of what makes dystopias dystopian is that they make people worse: they stifle their people's tendencies towards compassion, wonder, creative problem-solving, and other "good" impulses; and develop people's tendencies towards cruelty, deceit, submission to abuse, indolence, wireheading, or other "bad" impulses.

As such, I'm not sure how "dystopia, except in a good way" works out. What would We or 1984 be "in a good way"?