Protopia...............

 

Utopia is also impossible because it is friction which propels progress. Without the pressure of new problems, there is little reason for advancement. Some people think of utopia not as a destination but as an ideal, but even that is misleading because utopia ignores the inherent tradeoffs in every benefit. We don’t get better without also earning some new problems. Problem-free is a stagnant death zone, and nothing we should aim for.

-Kevin Kelly, from here

thanks Chris

Pondering.............................

 

...........................................utopia.

There is a tyranny in the womb of every Utopia.

-Bertrand De Jouvenel

Against utopianism............

Utopianism always begins as an awakening. It ends, if it is allowed to run through its phases, as a tyranny of the pure. There is a slower path. It lacks ecstasy and salvation. It is not rough or revolutionary. It can feel like a letdown, particularly to the young and the impatient. It accepts imperfection as the price of freedom. It chooses a decent polity over a redeemed one. History suggests this is the wiser bet. Its lesson is unromantic and, for that reason, trustworthy: whenever we try to storm heaven, we tend to wake up in a very familiar place, counting the costs and wondering how the rope we thought we could use to pull ourselves up became a noose.

Dustin Sharp, as he concludes this essay

the vital yet messy questions.........

 

The prevailing ethical framework of the [Silicon] Valley, a techno-utopian view that technology would solve all of humanity's problems, has devolved into a narrow and thin utilitarian approach, one that casts individuals as mere atoms in a system to be managed and contained.  The vital yet messy questions of what constitutes a good life, which collective endeavor society should pursue, and what a shared and national identity can make possible have been set aside as the anachronisms of another age.

-Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska,  The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West

bewildering complexities................

     It would be good to be able to say that we should dispense with visions entirely, and deal only with reality.  But that maybe the most utopian vision of all.  Reality is far too complex to be comprehended by any given mind.  Visions are like maps that guide us through a tangle of bewildering complexities.  Like maps, visions have to leave out many concrete features in order to enable us to focus on a few key paths to our goals.  Visions are indispensable—but dangerous, precisely to the extent that we confuse them with reality itself.

-Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles

 

need.......................Part 2

 . . . But to conduct political argument as though these factors are too far from the realm of ideas to deserve a mention is to ignore all the limits that must be borne in mind, if our political philosophy is to be remotely believable.  It is precisely the character of modern utopias to ignore these limits - to imagine societies without law (Marx and Engels), without families (Laing), without borders or defenses (Sartre).  And much conservative ink has been wasted (by me among others) in rebutting such views, which can be believed only by people who are unable to perceive realities, and who therefore will never be persuaded by argument.

-Roger Scruton, Conservatism: An Invitation to the Grand Tradition

On "relative wealth"...............

 If our system is so unfair and “exploitative,” then why are tens of thousands of people every year willing to risk their health, even their lives, to try to get here? It’s because even poor people are rich, by comparative standards. The US is a marvel, but our friends on the left have to deny that, because admitting it would mean that their imaginary utopias are not actually better than the system we already have.

-Michael Munger, from this post

via

On the vision thing........................

Intellectuals are often shortsighted, failing to see what is before their very nose. Their object is to obscure the obvious and to make complex the simple, so that they are then needed to lead humanity away from its ignorance and stupidity. With the inexorable rise of tertiary education, we have more intellectuals than ever before, and yet final enlightenment seems as elusive as ever. Man remains a problem-creating animal.

-Theodore Dalrymple, as he begins this post

via

It's likely fallen off the cliff here of late, but......

The Gross Domestic Product.  So, what is it really?  Well, that's easy you say:  the GDP is the sum of all goods and services that a country produces, corrected for seasonal fluctuations, inflation, and perhaps purchasing power.
     To which Bastiat would respond:  You've overlooked a huge part of the picture.  Community service, clean air, free refills on the house — not of these things make the GDP an iota bigger.  If a businesswoman marries her cleaner, the GDP dips when her hubby trades his job for unpaid housework.  Or take Wikipedia.  Supported by investments of time rather than money, it has left the old Encyclopedia Britannica in the dust — and taken the GDP down a few notches in the process.

-Rutger Bregman,  Utopia For Realists:  How We Can Build The Idea World