Dystopia vs utopia

[freakymax.675]

Dystopia vs utopia

what about little philosophy talk.
What do You think ?
where conheads are leading us cyberpunks ?
Is the utopia within dystopian society possible ?
Maybe only chosen ones have acces ?

 

[freakymax.675]

I was just wandering. For some really powerfull corps with all resorces and technology, that maybe it's possible to build utopia for children of the chosen ones.
Maybe such a place exist and awaits for discowery, maybe it's forgotten lost in some corporate war ?
what do you think punk ?
Maybe You can imagin how it looks ?
what kind of place it is ?

 

[A T Ś]

Well, as far as I know basic rules seems to be:

1. Utopias don't exist.
2. Each(or at least most of them) dystopia results from a failure of earlier planned to be utopia...

***MINOR DE:HR SPOILER ALERT***

And you have got many example's not only in novels, movies and games but in real life as well... Socialism was de facto utopian concept which was to create a non caste society wellfare instead it turned into a psycho confidential society manipulated by the aristocratic, imperialistic murderers who called themselves communists... Even in Deus Ex which I finished yesterday btw You have got utopian concept of cybernetics and augumantation which are supposed to work as a cure for weak humans who are more often exposed to antropological pollution etc. but in fact it devides society for those who can afford being superhumans and the rest... It was pushed even further when Hugh Darrow had emitted the signal which modified the bahavioral system of the augumented people and changed them into zombie-like creatures...

In a more coherent words: There is never black or white and that is why utopia doesn't and can't exist...

ergo there is ofcourse a place for utopia in a dystopia because, at least in my view, if taken as a whole it is still a dystopia.

Another aspect can be perception which of course can turn everything upside down and 180 degrees. Because what if a dytopia is a contrary of utopia we have to define one or another. Ok ask ppl what is utopia then? You will receive more or less similar anwsers... But hey! World nowadays is a very complex system there more aspects then happiness and welfare... If you would go into details with each and every man or women and ask them how the utopian economy, politics, science, art etc. should look like, there would be as many anwsers as people you asked...

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

The very high up corporates, (CEO's, Presidents, Vice Presidents, etc...) live in the lap of luxury. They eat real food, they go to the Opera, they pay people to bid on Rembrant's and Monet's, they play golf on private islands, they live in lavish penthouse suites and they drink the finest spirits and wines. They also wear real leather and organic fabrics tailored into the latest designer clothes. Their private medical care is unparalleled and even their drugs have next to no side effects.

They also live with the fact that they are always on someones 'hit-list', so they are never truely safe. They are always looking over their shoulders, not just for guns in the shadows, but knives in their backs.

So, is that a utopia, or is the fact that there is always someone ready, (and waiting,) to kill them a deal breaker?

For me, Spider is right on the money:

There is never black or white and that is why utopia doesn't and can't exist...

 

[LexiiO]

Uotpia only exists on the paper. Dystopia exists in the real world, in our world, today, now.

I think what fascinates me the most about Cyberpunk and Dystopian societies, is, that they are possible. And they will probably happen in a way we today cannot even imagine. Maybe not the Cyberpunk as some of us love it or see it, but isn't Cyberpunk, just like Steampunk and many other subcultures always a matter of interpretation? Is Ghost in the Shell the same as Cyber City 808? Hell naw.

Sometimes when I discuss the topic wether Cyberpunk will happen, then my answer is always that:

Today we cannot know wether a downfall of human society will really happen as it is predicted in many of these movies. We cannot say if cities will ever be filled up with that huge cyber aspect and androids like in Total Recall or other Cyber movies. We also cannot predict if we will ever estable huge cities in outer space like in Mass Effect. All of that is so far away. But I think, what we can expect, though - or rather what I expect - is a society much like in movies like Blade Runner or, yes, Ghost in the Shell or in Jin-Roh. Maybe a little bit like in the books of Gibson. Where society hasn't gone all punk - there are still normal people like you and me, but where that downfall of the society itself is already complete and perfect. But the point is, this will concentrate on the great cities.

I think rural areas with a lot of nature, like Bavaria or mid west states in the US or whereever, they will still be the same, more or less, even in thirty or fifty years from now. Its always the places without a lot of new century technology where the "change" moves slowest - or doesn't come at all. Areas like southern Bavaria (Where I spent a lot of my youth), the people there, outside the cities, they have another understanding of technology. They don't fucking need it and they know it. They never needed it and will not. They have their amazing culture and their green landscapes and mountains and clear lakes and these landscapes are stunning and beautiful in every season. The people there don't need smartphones or high speed internet because they have better things to do. Things that people in the big cities laugh about.

So what I think, is, Cyberpunk - in which way ever - WILL happen, but only in the cities. Not in the way it happened in the PnP game, or something like that. We, the people, will create our own world of Cyberpunk. This, or the apocalypse by pushing the red button. But there will always be areas where the people are still "normal", and many people will realize they want to live there.

My opinion.

 

[Decatonkeil]

I was just wandering. For some really powerfull corps with all resorces and technology, that maybe it's possible to build utopia for children of the chosen ones.
Maybe such a place exist and awaits for discowery, maybe it's forgotten lost in some corporate war ?
what do you think punk ?
Maybe You can imagin how it looks ?
what kind of place it is ?

A utopia only for a handful of people, and one handful chosen by a corporation at that, is a dystopia. Corporate governments and laws are what I see as the more realistic application of anarcho-capitalism we can see in the future. Of course, the anarcho part would refer to the elimination of the state part, as private owned armies and security and laws that are decreed in favor of the powerful few EVEN MORE THAN THEY ARE NOW would make it less anarchic than it would seem for some. Robocop, while being reduced to a particular smaller case is a cautionary warning of things like that. And for me that's what Cyberpunk is: a cautionary warning. It's not reactionary sci-fi (William Gibson says his works were aiming at giving people sci-fi that wasn't reactionary like Starship Troopers, Ender's Game or all those invasion stories were the martians stand for commies), it's not about the fear of change, it's about how it can all go through the shitter, but unlike post-apocalyptic stories, it's... I wouldn't say more subtle because some very cool cyberpunk isn't subtle, it's like a harsh vision of what we pretty much are already doing.

 

[wisdom000]

I agree with what OEDO and Deca have said... except for one thing. We don't choose our cyberpunk, it's chosen for us. Companies like Wal-Mart, Monsanto, Del-Monte, Halliburton, BP, Fannie Mae,........

Greed.... the elite capitalist dogma of Profit above all else and damn repercussions. That is what is creating our dystopia. People who treat 1984 like a how-to book, and see Ayn Rand as a visionary. Governments beholden to corporations, and too divided by party lines to work for the greater good. That is what is creating the overriding sense of paranoia leaving us handicapped in the onslaught of the future. The cyberpunks are the ones who see this coming, who warn us it's happening now, who fight against it, or retreat altogether to try and whether the storm.

Utopia requires people to work together, united in their efforts to promote harmony, tolerance, and community. It requires a governing body concerned with the well being of it's citizens. This is not something we are moving towards, it's something we are actively moving away from.

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

 

[wisdom000]

And this is why dystopia is the inevitability

 

[freakymax.675]

Spider jerusalem .

" 1. Utopias don't exist.
2. Each(or at least most of them) dystopia results from a failure of earlier planned to be utopia..."

1 - Maybe I asked a wrong questions . Anyway . You have had sad what we all i suppouse know by reading a Gibsons books and other Cyberpunkish stuff.
by definition Utopia is comonly translatet as " no place" . So that's by definition and by a concept of itself cannot exist .
And another but - this therm "utopia" were constructed in 19th century. Long long ago. And thats What I was thinking that progress, evolution (call as You like)
thechnoogy, education, and finaly all together - can lead to theory that in some circumstances some realy "special " people can build
society which has a marks of utopia. I don't think all humans all earth.
From this side I think utopia it's possible, even if for just a specyfic - short - some thime after which has to fall or change to dystopia. (but another -why ? )



" But hey! World nowadays is a very complex system there more aspects then happiness and welfare... If you would go into details with each and every man or women and ask them how the utopian economy, politics, science, art etc. should look like, there would be as many anwsers as people you asked... "


- yes thats what I have asked. Thats my point - If we can not define what it is exactly utopia - How we can say that's not possible ?
And another thing if for group of say 10 000 people lets call them - Utopist - If they agree for one conception of utopia and they start building this society.
That will probably work for some time - what if they are living in cyberspace only ? Maybe that will help ? Make dream more possible.
Cyberspace is "no place" maybe 19th century theory didn't foreseen ? Some people in 21st century may belive in theory may become some closed
specific comunity like sect.

- Deus ex - I didn't play yet but i know it's quite good game. I liked first one. And yes - I know what wou mean but that is just so common aproach.

2 - Offcourse, but in a conception of cyberpunk . I was thinkin more freely about this idea even droping little bit cyberpunkish vision.
....................................

Chrisweb -
" So, is that a utopia, or is the fact that there is always someone ready, (and waiting,) to kill them a deal breaker? "

If group of top 100 people - aristocrats - rich, powerfull and so on can build a place where just chosen ones have acess, And live there as happily as they imagin,
Would that be an utopia for some time ? Maybe someone hunts them and try to destroy this place but in a therms of definition in a short thime they will be in utopia.

"There is never black or white and that is why utopia doesn't and can't exist..."

- would you like black coffe or white ?
I can answer grey - but that dosn't make sense.

 

[schiff]

I was just wandering. For some really powerfull corps with all resorces and technology, that maybe it's possible to build utopia for children of the chosen ones.
Maybe such a place exist and awaits for discowery, maybe it's forgotten lost in some corporate war ?
what do you think punk ?
Maybe You can imagin how it looks ?
what kind of place it is ?

I remember NOiSE took this to the extreme, along with most of cyberpunk themes, but didn't make much of it other than pew-pew and general insanity. There is also this free online book analyzing GITS SAC and that's something which may interest you since GITS is basically about this stuff, somewhere in between cyberpunk and post-cyberpunk, and so is anything else taking inspiration from gits (like deus ex or Eden It's an endless world). 2ND GIG also applies the SAC theme to the first movie and comes up with a very nerd idea about a super structure that feels like a metaverse.

You can look for the book in the off topic section in the thread about books.

 

[freakymax.675]

Schif - thanks i will have a look at this.

 

[Sydanyo]

"Utopia" is a paradox. The premise of a utopia is that everything is good, perfect even. Well, you can't have good without bad.

If everything would be good, then either there'd be absolutely no variance in things whatsoever, which would mean everything would be grey, bland and pointless, or, if there would be variance, then the worst of the good would become bad, and then there'd be no more utopia.

 

[Sardukhar]

I agree with what OEDO and Deca have said... except for one thing. We don't choose our cyberpunk, it's chosen for us. Companies like Wal-Mart, Monsanto, Del-Monte, Halliburton, BP, Fannie Mae,........

Utopia requires people to work together, united in their efforts to promote harmony, tolerance, and community. It requires a governing body concerned with the well being of it's citizens. This is not something we are moving towards, it's something we are actively moving away from.

Yerp. Very much so. Things like voter apathy and wilful ignorance of environmental and political choices, or lack thereof, are making the world our kids are going to have to live through.

Well, that and the Chinese. Who are scary. They care not for utopias, preferring to feed the 1.7?1.8 billion of their people. Necessity is...enduring.

 

[freakymax.675]

" "Utopia" is a paradox. The premise of a utopia is that everything is good, perfect even. Well, you can't have good without bad.

If everything would be good, then either there'd be absolutely no variance in things whatsoever, which would mean everything would be grey, bland and pointless, or, if there would be variance, then the worst of the good would become bad, and then there'd be no more utopia. "
...............................................

Paradoks sounds close. And You can't have good without bad souns like cliche.

what about a try to brake a Paradox .

example. - We as a race create an experiment - something close to matrix.
Where we have people in a state of lifetime dream.
Then when this dream goes on they live in perfect place , society and so on, in Utopia.

and the most interesting part -
if we follow the idea of bad as necessity and part of humanity ( so called realistic approach)
we desingn a dream whitin that dream where you - as member of utopia will be automaticly switchet
in to the same enviroment (copy of oryginal dream, ouer utopian reality ) as soon as you can think of a
crime or a "bad things" in the terms of some law or rules of utopia.
In this second enviroment (mirrored copy of Utopia) let's call it ( I'm not gona be original ) Dystopia, You will
comit crimes which You were thinking of in Utopia , the wildest deams and not allowed actions.
As soon as You finish you comming back with no actual consequences visible in the first place.
And no costs, no changes in Your living in Utopia.

that will actualy make existance of Utopia possible and probable in a general therms.

what do you say ?

is that solving anything ?