Utopia, Gene's Machine, and Power

On the 11-30 episode of Anarchy X there was a discussion about utopian society and what it would take to create it so I decided to post this on my blog and on the Aardvark Lounge. A premise of this was that we would have to remove our cultural, religious, and political differences and couple this new phenomena with our technological feats in order to get rid of death, aging, and the struggle over possessions with fancy replicator machines. This would lead to a decline in the need for greed. And thus we would have all we wanted and be able to have a utopian society. Although I have oversimplified the discussion as it took place, this seems to be the gist of it. But one problem was whether, after we have removed monetary greed from the equation, as Shian said “then all is left is power, the control over other human beings” shian This is the root of our situation. Be it religion or oppressive government they embody the belief that there must be only one right way to live.( This is a major component of Younger Cultures or Taker Culture as illustrated masterfully in “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn). I agree with Matt that the need for control is based on fear. I disagree that “we will always have currency” as Matt said. There are plenty of cultures who have existed without currency, some of them still exist today (see a book called “Original Wisdom” I think by Robert Wolfe). If we could have via a machine all that we could want, then would we instead of being the same lazy fuckers we are today become engaged with the world around us and begin to strive towards enlightenment? That depends on how we get there I suppose. I don’t think we can get rid of our religious, cultural, and political differences until we are far along that path already, and our ideas of what we “need” have changed dramatically. So long as we hold the illusion dear that tells us we need more stuff, prettier pictures on our TVs, bigger, faster cars, and whatever else the marketers and profiteers tell us we need then even if the day comes that our technology grants us a planet with a life expectancy, and a machine that can make our food, shelter, and a form of energy that doesn’t destroy as it keeps us warm and mobile, then that machine will be owned by someone, guarded by someone, and you will only get what you want as long as they get what they want. Traditionally, money or power. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors felt the same way about fields of food and the onset of agriculture as we would about Gene’s replicator machine. But someone had to work the fields and most importantly someone had to guard the food from these miracle fields. It didn’t do away with toil, it began a new age of servitude. It didn’t grant us a better life by giving us what we thought we wanted, it gave those who didn’t feel like gathering their own food a way to have others do it for them. We have been destroying, conquering, and yearning for the good life ever since. 10,000 years of Cain’s folly. My point, I guess, is that in order to have a utopian society we must walk the path that is already before us, we must strive for enlightenment in order to get there, it is not a reward or something we may pursue in our free time once we are there, because in today’s world with peak oil facing us, 70% of the world’s topsoil destroyed, 20,000 acres being cut down a day, 20% of the world’s children starving, and carbon filling our atmosphere, choking us with pollution, filling our waters with mercury, we do not have the luxury of answering humanity’s greatest questions once we have our utopia, but only through the pursuit of utopia and our greatest spiritual truths will we, or our descendents ever have the gift of awaking to a world that doesn’t kill us in its own death throes.