We find it very difficult to imagine any kind of future we would want to live in. Today we’ve become so aware of the downsides of innovations, and so disappointed with the promises of past utopias, that we now find it hard to believe even in protopia - that tomorrow will be better than today. Because a protopia contains as many new problems as new benefits, this complex interaction of working and broken is very hard to predict. Protopia is much much harder to visualize. Protopia is a state that is better than today than yesterday, although it might be only a little better. I think our destination is neither utopia nor dystopia nor status quo, but protopia. The big bandits keep the small bandits to a minimum. In fact in real broken societies, the outrageous outlawry we associate with dystopias are not permitted. Ruled by fear, their society is hobbled except for the benefit of a few, but like the pirates at sea (see The Invisible Hook) there is far more law and order than not. Real dystopias are more like the old Soviet Union, or Libya, rather than Mad Max or Bladerunner: they are stifling bureaucratic rather than lawless. In a sense rapid greed rapidly cures dystopias. The outlaws and underworlds that seem so exciting at “first demise” are quickly taken over by organized crime and militants, so the lawlessness becomes racketeering, and over very little time, racketeering becomes a type of corrupted government - all to maximize the income of the bandits. They flash chaos, but then quickly self-organize. The flaw in most dystopian narratives is that they are not sustainable. But just because dystopias are cinematic and dramatic, and much easier to imagine, that does not make them much more likely. (See my previous post on Collapsitarians). Who can’t imagine an apocalyptic last-man-on-earth world, or a world run by robot overseers, or a disintegrating megacity, or simple armageddon? There are endless possibilities of how the modern civilization collapses. Dystopias are certainly fascinating, and a lot more entertaining than most utopias. Yet dystopias, their dark opposites, are possible, though unlikely.
I don’t have to worry about that nightmare because utopias are impossible. I have not met a utopia I would even want to live in. (That doesn’t stop critics from accusing me of being a technological utopian.) My aversion to utopias goes even deeper. Your Attention is Cheap: $2.50/per HourĮvery utopia is a fiction, with necessary flaws that prevent it from ever becoming real.