Would you want to live in a Utopia if you have no free will?

Go read "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas".

Quote from rainbowblink224

It would be kind of like The Giver (the book, not the trash movie).

I like being able to do my own thing and not get punished, it may be a "perfect" world but my brain prefers the poopy reality we have now

Quote from aristophenes

Go read "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas".

I was just about to mentioned that lol

I only read it after listening to and watching Spring Day

Quote from selfmate

I was just about to mentioned that lol

I only read it after listening to and watching Spring Day

Seriously, if people haven't read it, it's a short story and you can find free versions online.

And Ursula K Leguin is a master storyteller. There's a reason people tell you to read her stuff. Take half an hour in the middle of the night, find the story, and read it to better yourself.

Quote from aristophenes

Seriously, if people haven't read it, it's a short story and you can find free versions online.

And Ursula K Leguin is a master storyteller. There's a reason people tell you to read her stuff. Take half an hour in the middle of the night, find the story, and read it to better yourself.

well that's the thing its hard to find out about good books if you've never heard of them before right?

how did you hear of the book in order to read it?

no, i am satisfied with my current life

my country is great except poverty, but even though we are in poverty we will never be hungry cuz we have lots of livestock that can provide meat & various kinds of traditional dairy products

Quote from selfmate

well that's the thing its hard to find out about good books if you've never heard of them before right?

how did you hear of the book in order to read it?

It's a short story, not a book.

I heard about it because Ursula K Leguin is a very famous author, and I read both the Earthsea series (which is fairly light fantasy) and her book "The Left Hand of Darkness" before going through nearly her entire catalogue. "Ones who walk away from Omelas" is a VERY VERY FAMOUS short story, btw. It isn't difficult to hear about it if you circulate in sci-fi circles. It's kind of a legend there.

that is a solid no from me

Quote from aristophenes

It's a short story, not a book.

I heard about it because Ursula K Leguin is a very famous author, and I read both the Earthsea series (which is fairly light fantasy) and her book "The Left Hand of Darkness" before going through nearly her entire catalogue. "Ones who walk away from Omelas" is a VERY VERY FAMOUS short story, btw. It isn't difficult to hear about it if you circulate in sci-fi circles. It's kind of a legend there.

that may be true but i'm not that familiar with her other work...

I was more of a fantasy guy myself lol - dragonlance, forgotten realms...

but is it really utopia without our free will?

Quote from selfmate

that may be true but i'm not that familiar with her other work...

I was more of a fantasy guy myself lol - dragonlance, forgotten realms...

Hahaha, then Earthsea is the read for you. Earthsea was Harry Potter before Harry Potter was a thing. Many of her other works are more somber (Left Hand of Darkness, while an absolute masterpiece in the genre of fantasy, isn't a light or easy read).

But like I said, Omelas is a short story. It won't take you long. It will definitely make you think, though.

I guess this would be sorta like Singapore. You have foreigners, Malay, Indian, Arab, and Chinese people living together in a prosperous capitalist society, but with tons of rules with harsh punishments (of course I'm just oversimplifying here). In this case, I'd be OK in living in such society.

Utopias with a catch are usually a step up compared to what we have anyway assuming the catch is just a small and reasonable compromise, in this case it's the lack of "free will".

Now let's say there is a chip that removes some of the free will. Like we get programmed to not violate certain rules. It has to be a voluntary choice to get this chip and by doing so, you can live in such "perfect" society where everyone will have enough resources to get their basic needs fulfilled plus opportunity to achieve their dreams. As long this chip doesn't have some secret catches, this is probably still fine assuming every single member of the society including people who enforce it have it and personal individuality is still guaranteed.

Now in a dystopia masked as utopia the same scenario would be different. For instance, same scenario with the chip, but the chip makes everyone not be able to be unhappy, so they can endure the most excruciating of works and make everyone accepts whatever rule decides by the governing body. Of course not in this case.

I didn't reach The Giver, but from the excerpt, it doesn't seem to be a utopia per se thou. More like on the lines of starting ideal, but revealing something dark underneath which isn't what utopia is about. I'd consider it a dystopia in disguise than utopia with a catch trope.

The problem of the idea of utopia is creating the perfect society. However, society is made of flawed humans, so people always fall back to the catches of such theoretical societies and end up creating dystopias instead. I guess the only way to reach somewhat resembling utopia original meaning would be humans transcending to something less flawed.