Characterising utopia
When we consider how good the best possible future might be, it's tempting to focus on only a handful of dimensions of change. In transhumanist thinking, these dimensions tend to be characteristics of individuals: their happiness, longevity, intelligence, and so on. [1] This reflects the deeply individualistic nature of our modern societies overall, and transhumanists in particular. Yet when asked what makes their lives meaningful, most people prioritise their relationships with others. In contrast, there are strands of utopian literature which focus on social reorganisation (such as Huxley’s Island or Skinner’s Walden Two ), but usually without acknowledging the potential of technology to radically improve the human condition. [2] Meanwhile, utilitarians conceive of the best future as whichever one maximises a given metric of individual welfare - but those metrics are often criticised for oversimplifying the range of goods that people actually care about. [3] In this essay I