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From: [email protected] (SweetPoly)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: dystopia, at last...
Date: 9 Sep 1995 06:39:40 GMT
Organization: Mr Wizard's
Lines: 81
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References:
NNTP-Posting-Host: stripe.colorado.edu

In article ,
Kronos Traveller wrote:

It's a good thing fall is here: I think you may have overindulged in
sparrow fledging and bat-patrolling this summer (maybe those were some
of Sourcerer's 'Bee-Mice' we saw in the twilight, not bats...).

>After reading technical boy's and Nightfly's latest post and after a discussion
>with SweetPoly, I realize that I need to define Utopia as I see it.

Yes, "utopia/dystopia" require definitions when discussing them in this
alley. I was glad you wrote, clarifying what you meant by "utopia". If
you want to write with "Rand Mode" set to full, that's your business. I
still think you spent too much time out in nature, and not enough time
online this summer.

First: A
>utopia is a society where people have learned to respect the ideas and beliefs
>of others even if they don't agree. It is a democratic society where everyone
>participates. There is no congress because we the people vote on proposed laws
>and regulations. Intellectual freedom is encouraged even between people who are
>diametrically opposed. There is no atrocity tolerated (t.b.'s def'n of utopia
>is very similar to my vision of dystopia - see Huxley's Brave New World for my
>vision of the ultimate dystopia), no discrimination tolerated, and grit in the
>machine is welcomed for providing a forum for debate.

Frankly, it sounds like what I thought the future would be when I was a
little kid. I'm from the "Ungeneration" too, and it is hard to explain to
people who weren't there at the time what it means to have really been a
"child of the sixties". That sense of optimism and hope, that in spite of
the bullshit we saw on television about the viet nam war, and the other
violent aspects of the sixties, we simply *knew* that it was going to be a
better world when we grew up. I hardly have the language for it, it was
so long ago... Watergate really had a powerful effect on us. It is easy
to sit here now and say that *of course* the government is corrupt -- all
governments are corrupt, but it is hard to describe the grief and sorrow
of watching what was happening, and knowing what was happening, from
within the context of the 6th grade (for me). I mean, teachers brought
television sets into school, so that we could watch those hearings -- it
was awful. What's worse is that now, nobody understands why: rot and
corruption are so much 'in your face'.

So, I guess I know where you're coming from, and even something of your
ranting. We had to keep going, even when NASA went down the tubes and we
realized we weren't going to go to the moon afterall. The 70's definitely
had their good points (pot for $20/oz, for one thing ), but then the
country elected Reagan, and the Ungeneration got caught up in surviving,
like everybody else. Now, though, we are in our mid-thirties. There
aren't very many of us, and we are demographically invisible. But I look
around me, and in one field after another, especially computing, it seems,
a lot of really good work is being done by people in their early-mid
thirties. I can recognize something done by a member of "my generation"
by attitude alone -- it is very distinct, although hard to define .

Yes, my vision of utopia
>is not likely to come about with regards to the human race. It is however, an
>ideal with which to focus my energies. Hence, I hope to be an educator. And if
>a.cp readers decide that activism is a virus to be avoided then so be it.
>Technical boy may not like my brand of activism, but in my version of utopia
>that doesn't matter. His ideas are just as valid of my own. Lastly, as I
>mentioned before, agreement is not necessary. It will not lead to the
>totalitarian society that Nigthfly supposes. But we all have to participate.
>I'll leave it at that for now and y'all can let me know what you think.

What I think is that you are trying to live your life now in such a way
that you can have a positive influence on the future within the reach of
your personal actions, and by trying to be an example. You know as well
as I do that people can be real stinkers, but that that's no excuse for
you to roll over and play dead -- or argue endlessly about "what's a
dystopia"? I think that your brand of "activism" is actually one that has
been espoused here often: make a difference where you are. And if you
want to get more active -- the threat is real, well, that's not exactly a
bid for position of "Dictator of the Planet". I know you know you can't
change the world... but that it is possible to make it a little better
around you. And as long as we're still alive, it's possible to continue
doing so -- you don't have to retire, and let "innocent youth" be the
idealists.

Idealism from within the paradigm of controlled folly is powerful.

PS How are your viruses doing? Mutating nicely, I hope? @:)

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