Utopia Now!

On DailyKos Mark Sumner says.

I’m beginning a project. It has three parts, not one of which is simple.

First, I want to define Utopia. A Utopia for today—the best shot that we can make at laying out the design for a perfect society. By that I don’t mean flying cars and replicators. I mean a society that exists in post-scarcity conditions. One where people can find challenges but not necessarily hardship. Where economics offer opportunity, without requiring oppression.

Second, I want to create a path to Utopia. If there is something we should be working toward … how do we get there? If the ideal society is classless, what steps do we need to take to remove class? If the ideal society requires reducing inequality, what’s the first step to shrinking that gulf?

And finally, I want to start pressing these goals, both in personal politics and on the politicians I support. Because if we don’t have a vision of utopia in mind, the alternative is always some version of what we’ve seen before.

I replied.

Part of Utopia for our society is Universal Health Care and Basic Income Guarantee. I will also add Housing For All. How can it be Utopia with homeless? Homeless by choice, I’m good with that. Freezing your ass off because you can’t pay rent. Not so much.

Part of the path to Utopia is bottom up decentralization. A perfect example of this is the rocket stove. For twig burning cultures they provide real help and they are made from old tin cans. All that needs to be disseminated is the information. DIY. How to.

I would like to see a similar approach to electricity. Solar panels, batteries, cell phones, and led light can provide the essentials for living in the information age, off the grid. There are many people working on this. Part of this needs to include lowering expectations about what is the proper amount of electricity for an individual or household to use. (Honestly, this is aspirational for me. I live in an all electric house with way to many computers.)

More info here — http://mixremix.cc/2018/12/01/wireless-networking-in-the-developing-world/

I also see the fediverse as showing us the path forward. Decentralized social networks, like Mastodon and PeerTube can provide a path out of our current corporate social network dystopia. Looking back in history both Internet Relay Chat and Email provided decentralized communication services using standards for interconnection. This is a far better model than the Facebook/Twitter there shall be only one approach.

Thanks,

Hairy Larry