[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.)

Well, what are some human dreams that would lead to 1984, and can we reconstruct them? Alternately, what are some activities that are prototypical of 1984 but can be changed slightly to good end?

My list of dreams would be something like conformity, letting other people make decisions for you, using language as a tool of thought, eternal conflict against outgroups.

Activities would be things like surveillance, revision of history, getting disappeared into a state prison.

Now, can we use these ingredients to make something good instead of something bad? Well, maybe not getting disappeared into a state prison. But mostly, sure.

Why should the future be united, why can't we have factions like Eastasia and Oceania whose people view the other group as bitter enemies? What fun would the Horde be without the Alliance?

Why should the history of the world be readily accessible, rather than different groups revising history differently just to make it more awesome from their perspective, with true histories hidden and fragmentary? Herodotus thought it was a good idea to infuse his Histories with myth, maybe he was onto something, maybe it would make people nobler.

Or letting authority decide for you - this one's pretty easy. What if Big Brother was smart enough to make a command economy work just fine? What if it turns out that most people lead lives as happy and valuable as any when the choice of where to live and what to do for a few hours a day is removed from them? Reversal test it - if we had consistently been assigned the perfect house for us, had been told to pick up and move to unknown locales only to find out they were amazing, would most people really want to switch over to house-hunting?