And on its material side a modern Utopia must needs present these gifts as taken, and show a world that is really abolishing the need of labour, abolishing the last base reason for anyone’s servitude or inferiority.
Utopia through technology is not a new idea. The quote above is from H.G. Wells. The ‘Hacker Ethic’ is just the latest iteration of this.
Utopian thinking has always surrounded technology. There were hopes that the car, television, telegraph, radio, airplane would all bring about the ‘perfect society’. Some people probably thought the printing press would revolutionise society and usher in a heaven on earth.
In theory utopian ideas, and ideals, look good. They are imnocent and pure. Once released into the actual world these ideals get sullied and people become disillusioned because they haven’t brought about the ‘right’ changes. Then someone else will come along, identify what went wrong and come up with a new idea that will bring about the hoped for utopia.
This quest for a utopia on earth is a form of secular religion. The original idea is pure but it becomes corrupted, people have not followed the true path to the letter, there needs to be a destructive event to bring the people back into the fold. To bring about the hoped for paradise you need to follow ‘the path’ set out in a book, or manifesto, live and act the right way then, and only then, will you attain a nirvana. Except heaven is not after death but on earth.
Jennifer Stisa Garrick is merely preaching to the converted. A sermon on what went wrong with the original dream and how to put it right. She is a hellfire and brimstone preacher exhorting the true believers that they have let the true way fail and they need to fix things. She is an oracle predicting the future and the future is terrible. The utopian vision is falling into a dystopia. The people need to be shown the right way.
The internet is changing but that has always been its nature. It started as DARPANET, a defense project, it then dropped the ‘D’ and became ARPANET. Eventually it became the Internet. It was small and mainly confined to institutions and the select few - then came hypertext and HTTP. The World Wide Web extended the internet into homes and to the masses.
Once an idea goes mainstream it has to interact with the real world. And the real world is messy with competing views on how to live and what to use technology for. The ideas and technology get purposed for many different uses — some beyond the original intentions and thoughts. Some of the uses become anti-thetical to the utopian ideals. At some point regulation and laws will always come. The masses want to be protected and they look towards their government for that protection.
To keep something pure it has to be kept small and protected. Small utopian communities have a better chance of surviving and staying true than massive upscaled ones.
The ‘Communist Manifesto’ led to Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. The hippie ideals led to Charles Manson and crystal methamphetamine. The internet has led to ISIS and the ‘dark web’. But people still claim that the original ideas can be saved and brought back inline. That something went wrong and if we just tweak it here and there then it will bring about the promised land.
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