other

I know what you think about before you fall asleep. I know what hurts you and what you most desire. I can see your true beliefs hidden behind the lies that seep through your teeth. I know your darkest secrets. I know what arouses you, what terrifies you, what you think of yourself, and what you think of me. Your skull cannot hold you or hide you. Bits of you find their way to me, always.

At times these pieces of others overwhelm me. It is always hard to know myself.

I make a lot of money. It is easy to ascend in life when you know what others want from you. I have several degrees. It is easy to learn when you can reach into the minds of others for answers, and meaning. I try to avoid crowds. I don’t mind knowing what people think about each other. Sometimes that’s really quite fascinating, even entertaining, actually. It never fails to amaze me how often two people can share the share the exact same thoughts and remain convinced of their own isolation. Whether it is mutual attraction or philosophy, like minded strangers almost never interact. There are talkative people, but they tend to be the ones who think the least, and although they interact often with others, those others are rarely like minded.

The reason why I don’t like crowds is because in them there is always that man. The one, I think you know who he is. You don’t have to be a telepath to pick him most of the time. He’s the one who stares at you, sometimes discreetly, sometimes overtly. While he stares, he thinks about the things that he would like to do to you. Not as another person, one like himself, but as an object or a tool. He exists at all levels of society. He is always the one who poses the greatest threat to your career, your sanity, your body. My body. My sanity.

Sometimes he has already committed crimes and plans to commit more. He wants to rape you. Sometimes he wants you to know. He talks to you inside his mind. He tells you what he would like to do, in detail. He knows you can’t really hear him. He thinks you can’t hear him. He will probably do it to someone he can already manipulate, someone he knows. If you can, you find a way to trap him, catch him, convict him. It is hard though. You don’t want to be exposed. There are always more of him. You can’t always protect her.

You don’t like crowds because she is always there and he has already gotten to her. Inside her. Inside you. She doesn’t want anyone to know. She doesn’t want you to know. She doesn’t want me to.

Sometimes he thinks about you so hard that you forget how to think of you. Sometimes you wonder if it isn’t the other way around. Sometimes they make you feel like they are the ones who know what you are thinking.

You don’t like crowds because one really vile thought can make an entire river of consciousness feel murky and heavy and hard to drink. You have to drink it anyway, even if it makes you sick.

You prefer open spaces and living spaces. Open spaces are the only places where you can think clearly. they are the only truly peaceful places. Living spaces are the ones where people relax and stop worrying about what others think of them. When people are at home it is easy to get a feeling for what they really care about. Sometimes people let their minds wander into the most wonderful places when they are alone when everyone else goes to sleep. Mostly they just watch television though, or eat, or masturbate. If they aren’t alone they talk or make love. In any case, when they are at home they are honest with themselves. They know if they are happy with their lives and the choices that they have made.

You like it when people can be honest with themselves. It makes you feel like maybe one day you can be honest with them too. You get tired of changing yourself to suit others. You wonder what it would be like to be truly honest with yourself.

on work and on utopia

How can we define utopia? Perhaps we can measure how close a people are to it by measuring happiness. But this too can be tricky. After all, happiness that is synthesized by a drug is a different sort than happiness that is derived from activity. Let us use the definition for happiness that the American Psychological Association uses. This states: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:ov0WkfGG16oJ:www.apa.org/journals/releases/bul1316803.pdf+apa+definition+of+happiness&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Well, perhaps we can use happiness as our measure while leaving its subjectivity intact. Currently, the major problems that we have so far as making it possible for everyone to be free to experience happiness however it is defined pertain to philosophy and utility. In short people are unhappy either because they cannot find something conceptual or because they cannot find something physical.

First, physical problems must be solved, otherwise physical baggage hampers any quest for higher satisfaction. We must solve problems pertaining to food, water, shelter, energy, sustainability, comfort, and pleasure.

Sustainability is the key to resolving the first three of these. First, effective systems for distributing water for irrigation and drinking must be made available to all. The technology is available but can be made more efficient and affordable. There is enough food and water, but too much food and water is wasted. Another one of the first things that needs to go is the meat industry. It takes 10 times as much grain to feed an animal to feed a person than it takes to feed a person directly. Over the centuries people in cities have been further and further detached from the food, and particularly the meat, that they consume. If people wish to eat meat, they must be willing to sacrifice convenience in order to raise, kill, and eat it. Opening rooftops and building interiors for agriculture is the next important step.

Shelter should not be hard to provide for people. At minimum everyone should be able to sleep under a roof at some kind. That isn’t hard to accomplish. With brick and technology it should be possible to create affordable sustainable housing for all. Energy saved in efficient housing, transportation, and storage is the most important step toward energy stability. Increases in the efficiency of solar and wind can free us entirely from fossil fuel. Lastly, effective contraception and (at least online) education must be made available for all. Meeting all of these necessities allows us to begin increasing the level of comfort and pleasure for all.

From this point on happiness becomes an increasingly psychological problem. We can make increases in technology to provide better tools (or drugs), but only projects and people can provide continued and meaningful satisfaction. Now, when it comes to projects there is some philosophical disagreement about what types of projects make people happy. I think that it differs from person to person. Because of this, I think that the most important thing is to make sure that everyone has choice when it comes to work. If everyone is to be happy everyone must be able to work on the types of projects that they most enjoy. As physical labor becomes increasingly machine assisted then increasingly obvious it should become more natural for this shift to occur. Right now, the value of a person is wrapped up in the work that they do. Hopefully, in the future the value of a person will become more intrinsic. The value that a person has will not be wrapped up in what they do for society but in how or whether they engage with society. I also think that markets for physical things will be largely replaced by markets for virtual things. Of course many people will still be focused on physical luxuries, but most exchanges will be virtual and free. Most people will be able to find happiness and fulfillment through virtual projects and interactions. The virtual will only continue to better match and eventually surpass the real.

If physical scarcity can be conquered (and it definitely can!), only the scarcity of ideas will remain. Models of socialism or capitalism in the Marxist sense, models dependent on a working or labor class, can be replaced by new models of socialism. A society could come to exist in which all are equal and the only way that one might ascend is not through conventional capitalism but through charity. If our physical needs are met, most of us are willing to work on the projects we love for free. Those who have ideas that people find worthwhile to pursue can be given excess resources. Ideas and affections can come to replace currency and physical goods in everyday life. Currency can continue to be used for the trade of physical luxuries, but all people should be entitled to minimum physical necessities. All that would remain is the conquest of immortality and the exploration of space.

A Happy Society

An exorbitantly wealthy scientist once wished to create a perfectly happy society. Genetic engineering would be its key. The first batch of people all died during infancy. The tolerance levels for the poisons that their brains had been programmed to release with negative emotions were simply too low. As soon as an infant began to cry, it would die. After the sixth batch or so, the strategy was perfected. Sadness, anger, and other “negative” emotions would cause severe pain or even death. The scientist created a perfectly happy society.

Every year there are inevitably a few dozen deaths, mostly children and adolescents. If a person can make it twenty years or so without slipping into a fetal depression, they tend to keep the healthy habit of happiness up for life. Those who are not so brave, or so cowardly, die a slow and painful death. Poison secreted from their brains creeps down the veins in their arms and back, chilling the tips of their fingers and toes. They die a lonely death, clenching groin and buttocks. A tear-stained corpse will be found shortly after on a hard street or a soft bed.

Only one murder has been committed since emotional conformity was actualized. The science was killed in cold blood. Nobody stopped the murderer, there were no police because there was no crime. Some expected the assassin to die there next to its maker, but the assassin simply walked away. Apparently the perpetrator not of a crime of passion, but one of simple necessity.

Two generations after the assassination the trait still persists, a cursed cancer of the heart. One can only hope that their descendants will be truly happy.

The Jovial

There is a great city far far away. The people there are very happy and very prosperous. The city is filled with large beautiful structures and parks. Elegant works of art and long dancing arcs look down upon the streets below. All of the carriages float above the ground as if by magic. There are fine restaurants and magnificent plays. Performers gather around the city market places. Little children eat ice cream scream with delight and the amorous play indoors under fine silks.

But there is a price. Deep underground, far from the sunlight and the sounds of sex and laughter, there is a child who wiggles and screams all through the day and all through the night. These are no fits of delight.

It is the great machine, that fine invention which so many years ago saved an entire civilization from certain doom. It is indeed the engine of utopia. It comes at a price, this is true, but a small price to pay to allow countless lives to thrive. What is the chronic torture of a single soul when weighed against the infinite prosperity in complete health and thorough satisfaction of entire people. When any people are faced with such a choice, the great machine is the sole solution, the universal panacea. 

Is it worth it, you ask? The suffering of one for the benefit of all. Is not the answer an obvious one?