Oh, I think that it's quite possible, but lets all just hope that it never happens.

Lol, Why is that?

In my experience I've found it difficult to achieve consensus amongst even just a few people on mundane topics, like coming up with a core set of values or a marketing plan for a business they own collectively, so I don't think reaching unanimity on such contentious matters as politics, economics and cultural values is plausible.

I am curious, though, as to the details of your particular utopia? Even if only in broad outlines. Maybe there's some hypothetically perfect society that most people would agree upon, at least in principle. Again, that seems extremely unlikely - people are so varied in temperament, outlook, and other essential things that creating a shared set of values and guiding assumptions which everyone could agree upon seems an impossibility.

You know what they say. Don't find perfection. You'll only ruin it!

You call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye. However, that's due to modern civilization operating more often using the simplest memory centric organization and, in fact, the only criteria ever discovered for predicting anyone's career potential is how much working memory they possess. The republican party, for example, has finally proven to be organized along the lines of a flock of chickens. Those of us with less memory tend to be more creative, while those with better memories tend to save their brain power for when it can have a greater impact. What that means is computers and a Theory of Everything will soon be able to help elevate civilization above their lowbrow slapstick of relying upon the simplest systems logic and make something more like Utopia possible.

How much exactly is anyone's guess at this point, but it would be a self-organizing process that, according to annual surveys of scientists around the world, will require another 400 years before the current progress of the sciences slows to a crawl and several millennia for humanity to put all that data to productive use. However, other data suggests we may see significant improvement within seven generations as the worst of the truly dysfunctional crap is sorted out.

I don't see why we can't try to progress to a utopia - it's a fallacy to claim that just because there hasn't been progress in the past means there will be no progress in the future. Yet I highly doubt we'll ever get to a utopia, simply because of the metaphysical truth that humans are imperfect and thus any human society is going to have imperfections; any "perfect" landscape is "ruined" by the presence of the imperfect. Perfection and humanity are thus incompatible. It's not that just because we haven't made progress, we won't make any future progress - it's that any substantial progress is inhibited by our own nature. The reason we didn't make any progress in the past was because we're not meant to progress substantially. To progress requires us to change our nature, and I'm not sure if we're capable of doing that.

I think that's the destiny of human achievement. We're always striving for perfection, because we get a glimpse of what it's like when we experience the beautiful. But the desire for perfection is the desire to implement the beautiful, which is inherently short-lived, over a long-term period. And that just doesn't work.

The literal meaning of "utopia" is no place. So, you can seek perfection, but, by definition, you can't find it.

Only under the false assumption that it would be impossible to find or construct a highly desirable place. I think utopia is both possible, and purposeful to seek.

This is a very undeveloped idea but my idea of a (perhaps eutopia is a better word) is the end of all human suffering. If find the root causes of all kinds of suffering then we use technology and science as a means of ending it. We could get to the point where AI does all of our work for us and takes care of us completely. We could use 3D printing to print food from some sort of raw material.Those are just a few, but ideas like that could eliminate the need for us to work to live and we could have all our basic desires satisfied. If our desires are satisfied and we give up our control of being the most powerful species to AI, We could all live relaxing, adventurous lives and have no source of immediate stress or need to really think at all.

"Utopia"

It's a strange day
No colours or shapes
No sound in my head
I forget who I am
When I'm with you
There's no reason
There's no sense
I'm not supposed to feel
I forget who I am
I forget

Fascist baby
Utopia, utopia

My dog needs new ears
Make his eyes see forever
Make him live like me
Again and again

Fascist baby
Utopia, utopia

I'm wired to the world
That's how I know everything
I'm super brain
That's how they made me

Fascist baby

Goldfrapp

Perfect is the enemy of good. If you're perpetually unsatisfied with where you are because it's not where you want to be, you're gonna have a bad time. When the future is looking bleak sometimes it helps to go through it looking backwards.

Utopia/Dystopia both fictions, but they are useful for describing the limits of society's structure, each point toward very different the futures. More's fiction was more like an optimistic satire suggesting solutions. The end of Yeats's "Second Coming" poem a dystopian premonition written shortly after WWI.

The darkness drops again, but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Seems like a thoroughly sound assumption to me. Given the human beings can start an argument in an empty room 1000 miles from any other soul the idea that they could ever be satisfied with any state of things, no matter how perfect it may seem initially, is frankly preposterous. That's one of the reasons C S Lewis postulated that there would be work for us still in heaven and pictures it in the Narnia books as an infinite process of moving further up and further in.

By all means travel hopefully but do not wish to arrive.

To discuss its possibility under the assumption that it would be impossible is circular nonsense. Moreover, utopia is a place, not a state of mind. The possibility that one may argue or feel dissatisfied, in any place, has little to do with the possibility to find or construct a desirable place.

A desirable place does not have to be desirable for everyone at the same time. It might take some experience, effort, some knowledge etc. to get to understand that it is desirable. A place which is desirable for most people who know and understand something about human nature and societies might qualify as utopia. A place in which no-one argues and everyone is perpetually satisfied is indeed no place, it does not exist. But utopia is a place, and possible as such to find or construct.

If find the root causes of all kinds of suffering then we use technology and science as a means of ending it. — Montfort

"A just machine to make big decisions
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision
We'll be clean when their work is done
We'll be eternally free and eternally young."

Donald Fagen, I.G.Y. (The Nightly, 1983)

Does anyone here think that its possible for humanity to reach a point where there is a unified view of what is best for us? — MonfortS26

Oh, I think that it's quite possible, but lets all just hope that it never happens. — Wosret

I doubt that it is possible, but I also hope that it never happens. The "perfect society" must, of necessity, be a dead end, and a likely rigid, oppressive one. There can be no further change in a perfect society, no individuality, no novelty, no innovation. It would be a static hell, all watched over by machines of loving grace.

Still, it might be very fruitful to think and read about utopia, as long as we don't make "perfection" the enemy of "the best we can do at the time".

It's wrong foundationally, which is why most everyone is wrong about literally everything. They have no idea what anything at all is.

In this case, it is always wrong because it's a sky hook. Utopia always means you swooping in to save the day, and telling everyone what's best. It's always just the wish to populate your own little fantasy world with real people. We should definitely do the best we can, individually, but we can't make anyone else do that. We can't force freedom, or command happiness.

Sorry about the tone of that, of course people known what plenty of things are, I was in a bad mood. Blah blah blah "I have sole access to the truth" blah blah blah "strongest in the world" blah blah blah.

No need to apologise at all. I think there is a very real sense in which everyone is wrong about literally everything! At the very least it should be in our minds as a possibility as a corrective to hubris!

I think there is a very real sense in which everyone is wrong about literally everything! — Barry Etheridge

There's a self referential paradox there... personally I solve those by being two people. I get to be the one that's always wrong, but keeps forgetting about that part.

I understand. I have been in a totally, unreasonably, wonderful mood for maybe 5 years, but for a couple of decades I was pretty much in one long foul, judgmental, murderous, population cleansing bad mood. The kind where earthquakes, hurricanes, and mere tornadoes wouldn't get rid of a satisfactorily large number of people -- thermonuclear options were needed.

We're all better now. All cases closed. All death sentences commuted. All imaginary executions reversed. All the dungeons in my mind emptied (I converted them to luxury condos). I took my place on the great Mandala as it moves through my brief moment of time.

Utopia.

There have been some utopian efforts that worked out pretty well, at least for a while --10, 20, 100, even 200 years. 1600 years if you count monasteries. However, the vast majority of utopian experiments are neither nasty nor brutish, but they are very short.

The utopian socialist community at New Lanark in Scotland, SE of Glasgow, was established by Robert Owens, the 'founder' of utopian socialism. New Lenark lasted from 1788 to 1968. It was a better place to live than most towns dominated by the industrial revolution, but a communist utopia (self liberated and self governing it was not. (New Lanark is now a World Heritage Site.)

Shaker communities were religiously inspired utopian communities and there were a number of them that existed for 100-200 years in the United States. Shakers were inventive, as well as communitarian (but celibate) and among their inventions are The flat broom, the circular saw blade, the spring clothespin, a rocking chair, buttons, and the paper seed envelope. Their design innovations in construction of domestic spaces are numerous and very significant (think cabinets built into walls).

Benedictine communities, religiously inspired, have existed since the 7th century. Benedictines are a voluntary community, sort of communitarian, but very much governed by rules of the Church. If I remember correctly, Benedictines elect their abbots (CEOs). Monasteries are, for the most part, spiritual enterprises, are utopian in a sense, but Benedictines have long been involved in the world, operating universities, for instance.

What these institutions reveal is that is possible for a select group of volunteers to come together and fulfill ideals in long-enduring communities. New Lanark, and other utopian socialist communities, self-sustained their populations by the usual biological method. The religious utopian communities are usually celibate, so need to operate outreach efforts to continue--sort of like The Philosophy Forum -- it isn't expected that your children will replace you as a poster when you finally(!) drop dead.

This is Utopia, nor am I out of it.

Not until perhaps after death.

What is the purpose of society if not striving for utopia though?

It's possible in the sense that actions are ultimately limited by limits to growth.

I'm reading Walden by Thoreau at the moment and it has made me think about the other utopia/dystopia books I have read. I have come to the conclusion that utopia is unobtainable and that that is probably a good thing because it would supress creativity and individuality. It really depends on what you want to achieve with utopia. If you want individuality and freedom to believe what you want then there will always be wars etc. If you are aiming for a society where society comes first and is more important than any one individual then peace could possibly be achieved.

Ideally individuality and the freedom to believe what you want are only valuable in a society where individuals have to put in effort for survival. If society was self-sustaining and an easy life was entitled would we still need said individuality and freedom? Would we even want it?