[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.)

Let me try "1984 in a good way": Everyone is pervasively monitored, but the information is also available to everyone; after a period of adjustment, everyone becomes comfortable with the elimination of privacy and returns to their hedonic set-points, but with a massive resulting increase in global productivity, and ultimately happiness, arising from the additional information available to everyone but the elimination of secrets.

It's not so much "1984 in a good way" as it is "one negative-seeming aspect of 1984 rebuilt into a world that can arguably be seen in a positive light, and is clearly a weirdtopia".