[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.)

doesn't sound like modern Europe, say.

Ah. Yes, spreading these problems worldwide would make things worse. I took the 'States adopt laws' to mean 'US states', not 'independent nations' as the more conventional meaning of state.

However, there are many places in the world where this is so. These places are dystopian in this fashion.

And yes, it's difficult to imagine those problems existing in complete isolation. I suspect that our world does not provide these problems with the minimum level of support.

I don't understand your last sentence at all.

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