by Arnold East
The questions of work and jobs have been partially answered by these above descriptions. However, there are more in depth concerns that must be raised. Foremost is its allocation. Allocation of jobs will be based entirely on age. Those younger and fitter will do the physically tougher work; farming and construction, and while their life progresses, the physical workload of their occupation will diminish accordingly. Those nearing the end of their lives will be placed in jobs that are suited to them; working on a production line or in a hospital. This method of labour allocation ensures work done by each according to their own abilities. What this means is that there will be no choice of occupation. Of course, that is the goal. The abilities of those of like age will be the same, and thus they naturally will have the same job. Also relating to jobs is the amount of production that should be derived from work. It would at first seem, with the benefits of genetic modification having been championed, that the amount of production achieved should be as high as possible. This is not the goal. Instead, the speed at which citizens complete work should be perfectly calibrated through genetic modification and conditioning in order that production should be no more and no less than is necessary, whilst ensuring that work will make up all the time not spent on sleeping, eating and cleaning. That is to say, citizens will have no leisure time, and will be conditioned and genetically modified so that their rate of work, multiplied by the amount of time they work will produce the exact amount of output that is necessary. This will mean that there will be no surplus nor deficit of energy, produce and time; with perfect efficiency the supreme guiding principle.
While we have discussed birth, we have neglected to speak of death. Death in the new world will be a voluntary act of suicide. Sixty years is enough of a time to enjoy existence, to contribute to the maintenance of utopia and to live the good life. It is also short enough so that life does not become a burden on others, so that death comes gracefully; the mind having not lost its lucidity and psyche. An acceptance of death is both noble and practical; this fact will be made clearly known to all who live in the world. They will understand their duty when their time comes. In this way, the efficiency and overall happiness of the society is maintained. If there were no impetus for a structured recycling of population, then slowly but surely the state of society will begin to decay. The fluctuations in population will result in imbalances between people and jobs, and will undermine the egalitarian nature of the world. If the old are removed from their job, then others will have to work more to maintain their life. If they remain, the wellbeing of a younger generation will diminish, and their sense of purpose will be totally absent; what would have been their job remains occupied by a septuagenarian who performs poorly. Death will not be a choice, but through deep conditioning, it will be a voluntary and agreeable act. The citizens will approach it with peace.
As has become evident, the economic model of this new world will not be based on any exchange of goods or any equivalent of money. Money, through its implication of a private economic system, would undermine control. Thus, there will be no free market; no ready exchange of goods for cash. Necessities: food, water, clothing, shelter and tools, will be distributed free of charge by the state. Nothing else will be needed or wanted. Nothing else will exist. The perils of our capitalist society have already been laid out. It has become clear that monetary systems do not work. If we try to maintain money in the new world, we would be committing a blatant act of suicide. In keeping something so obviously destructive, we would show ourselves to be stupid. However, the exchange of goods could also precipitate a rebirth of the capitalist model in the new world. This is a legitimate concern. Of course, goods will never be provided in excess; it will always be the exact amount needed for optimal nourishment, happiness and work. Conditioning, will also play a role in making trade a detestable idea and make sure that what every citizen gets will be exactly what they want. With these measures employed, our previous self-destructive economic system will never reappear.
Administration
The leader of the commune will not be subject to the same conditioning the others receive and will live separately. The necessity of this leader is debatable, but its inclusion is warranted on the basis of unforeseen circumstances that may disrupt and destroy the commune without separate intervention. Maybe a glitch in a system wreaks havoc on the conditioning of the citizens who then become rebellious. The leader's job will be to fix this up and return the society to its previous state. The leader will also be responsible for smoothing the edges to allow the greatest efficiency. Maybe the genetic code of the citizens is slightly off, making them weaker than they could be and unable to complete enough work. Again, it will be up to the leader to make the tweaks to achieve a more perfect state. All of this means that the leader must know in depth everything about the commune. While this may seem like too much power invested into the one person, it should be known that even though the leader is not subject to the same conditioning as the other members of society, they will still be conditioned. This conditioning will make sure the leader is deeply patriotic, to such an extent that it would sacrifice its life if necessary without hesitation. It will also understand that its sole purpose is in its monitoring, improving and saving of society. It will not interfere with world in any other way, and will mostly be confined to its own residence. The leader will also be conditioned to condition its heir in the same way. The heir will be taught anything and everything that will be required to replace the leader. Optimally, they will eventually grow to become a replica of the previous leader, and this process will continue forevermore.
On top of the leader, there will be a central control of all the communes, responsible for saving the world from the most catastrophic of threats. Incoming asteroids, invading aliens, superbugs, natural disasters, a rogue commune; these are all problems that will be dealt with by this central control. This central control will comprise of a small township of free-thinking individuals, who are allowed and able to further scientific progress. Even then, they will only be working on preventing and dealing with the aforementioned events. Defence systems, vaccinations, and the like will be all within the domain of these people. They will be the ones who launch the rocket that destroys the asteroids on a collision course with earth, the ones who negotiate peace with aliens, the ones who seek and destroy a new virus. But of course, their own existence may be termed a catastrophic threat. Their freedom allows the possibility of selfishness; some may try to harness the communes for their own good and to improve their own lives. Some might want to just destroy the world. To have people with this sort of power seems like a recipe for disaster. Then again, maybe it's only in this capitalist every man for themselves society that fosters this thinking, and the people who have lived their entire lives away from it will never even consider putting themselves before the greater good. But even if this is not true, I contend that this would be an evil that is necessary. It would be dreadful if, through much sacrifice, this utopia is finally achieved, only for an asteroid to crash down and destroy all progress. It is a matter of probabilities. If the probability of all the world-destroying events occurring was less than the probability that this central control would betray the state, then it would be hard to justify having this group of potentially havoc creating individuals. But the fact is that this is probably untrue, and a colossally destructive event would be more likely to occur than betrayal. This group will exist; a risky but important safeguard.
Happiness
On the topic of happiness, developments have occurred that have resulted in new understanding, and have shed some light on how needless and ridiculous the systems that run our current world have become. The developments in question have occurred in the field of hedonic adaption, a concept first raised a century ago. Recently released, decade long studies have all but confirmed this phenomenon. What is it? It was a theory, now a tenet, which describes a fundamental feature of our happiness levels. According to hedonic adaption, our happiness level has a baselin
e, determined largely by genetics, which it always reverts to. Happiness levels of lottery winners and people who become paraplegics see a sudden rise or dip when the altering event occurs, but years later, these levels revert to the level they were before the event. Thus, there is almost nothing that can be done that can tangibly change happiness in the long term. Material pursuits are useless. Social pursuits are useless. Achieving them will not allow us any long-term happiness. Some people then point to the extreme happiness of monks as contradictory evidence; and its true, monks are a lot happier than most other members of the general population even though in their genetics, they are fairly representative of the general population. The reason for this is that their lives are, like the citizens of the new world will be, extremely structured, with all their desires totally suppressed and meditation takes up a large portion of their ascetic lives. It is only from a full immersion in this lifestyle that allows them to reap the benefits. And this immersion still constitutes control, whether self-imposed or by the state. It is control which allows them to reach their state of bliss. Enemies of my proposition will indubitably hypothesise a world in which we all live as ascetics; another utopia, without all the technological impositions that I have proposed, which they illogically take exception with. While I concede that this world would indeed be great, there are some obvious problems with it. First and foremost is reproduction. A very short-lived utopia it would be indeed if modern technology and sex were both removed. Since its very essence is in its lack of any modern technologies, hard test tube babies and other artificial reproductive technologies would be excluded. Thus, sex would be necessary in this world. But there is clearly a reason those beatific monks live in pure chastity. Sex represents a relinquishing of control, a giving in to the most primal desires of our condition. And since utopia requires us to quash these sorts of desires, the same desires that cause us to be violent and to lust for power, sex would pose an inherent contradiction. Without its restriction, the whole system of self-imposed control would collapse. So a monk based utopia would either destroy itself if it excepted sex from control, or it would die out in a single generation; everyone having died of old age. Also, in contrast with my proposition, achieving this monk based society is totally impractical. It would require most of the world to change their mindset from one extreme to another. For this to happen without the use of any technology could take hundreds if not thousands of years. And by that time, we'd be lucky if our earth had not turned to a barren wasteland through human maltreatment.
It may be of some consternation that a realistic transition from our society to that of my proposition has not been detailed, especially since this would be necessary for comparisons to be made with any other utopia. Thus, I will explicate. First, there must be consensus reached among those in power to work together in achieving this utopia. Then the birth rate must be substantially decreased. As this is happening, the first commune should be created, and during this process, the logistics and planning of the commune should be carefully studied and perfected. The birth of a new commune will require some outside intervention. While the commune only has babies and children, work will need to be outsourced. Food, accommodation, clothes, education, direction and the like must be provided from the outside, but this must be done with minimal interference. After a few decades, the commune should be self-sufficient, and thus more and more should be set up, with all the new efficiencies gained from studying the creation of the first commune. With several communes having been created, and a significant proportion of the world population having been diminished, the main focus of the production in the non-commune world should be focused on the creation of communes. Eventually only a small population will exist. They will be invited to voluntarily join the central control group as explored earlier. The rest of the non-commune population can be eradicated by a variety of methods. Perhaps an artificially created virus that the citizens of the commune are genetically resistant against and the central control is immunised or any other quick and effective means. Of course, my outline has been quite simplistic. There will be many challenges and difficulties faced by those who want to bear this world into fruition that an armchair designer has not foreseen or decided to expound. And this only heightens the importance of exercising full control over the commune and making sure that any possible world destroying events are suppressed by any means possible. Even if some of the methods described may seem unethical, all the sacrifices and effort required to create this utopia will be for nought if it fails. A colossal waste. And so, my proposition has a clear path forward, a path leading directly to utopia. On the other hand, in turning a blind eye to technology, the ascetic utopia sacrifices longevity as well as practicality. While mine is realistic, the other remains a pipe dream.
Before my digression, in discussing happiness, I neglected to mention that the relativity of happiness is also present in another form. Events that cause changes in happiness are judged relative to others instead of being absolute. For example, if you received a massive pay rise of one hundred percent in just a year, you would likely be ecstatic, but this would only be true because this pay rise is a lot more than the normal annual wage growth of between 2-5%. If instead, average annual wage growth was to be 200%, then you would not be so happy, as you would quite clearly have been short-changed. Even if it were just your co-workers receiving a bigger pay rise than you, you would still be annoyed and unhappy. This does not just apply to money. Breaking your arm is both extremely painful and a massive inconvenience. You would be almost definitely saddened if this happened to you. But, if this occurred because of a plane crash, and everyone else on the plane had smashed skulls and spines, then you would be grateful, and likely, very happy. You survived scot free compared to those who became paraplegic because of the incident. The implication is, with an uneven distribution of happiness causing resources, there is little chance for universal happiness, since happiness is relative. Because of this relativity of happiness, one person's gain is another one's loss, even if they both have a gain in happiness causing resources. If one person gained more, the other would justifiably be peeved and unhappy. Perfect equality is the solution to this. Everyone getting the same available happiness causing resources for the same amount of work will see no disparity in happiness levels. Then, if the base happiness level is lifted through genetic modification, citizens of the new world will live in a world of persistent joy.
A new technology that I have not mentioned earlier, but which may be of great utility in the new world are BCMs or Brain Chemistry Modifiers. For those unaware, BCMs are internal head implants generally placed in the neck, above the bulging discs, and connected to the brain, which it can subtly alter the chemistry of. Since chemicals and hormones are inextricably linked with emotions, the BCM is able to change feelings and emotional states through its injection and extraction of such substances. Hormones such as dopamine and serotonin are directly linked to surges in short-term happiness, while cortisol shares a similar link with stress. BCMs are able to modify and control these chemicals. It can work in conjunction with conditioning to force a stronger positive response and greater happiness for acts that are conducive to conformity, while also amplifying stress hormones in those who may have any thoughts, ideas or act in a way that opposes societal benefit. BCMs can serve a special role in allowing the permeation of utopian values into the deepest recesses of the minds of the citizens, while also assisting in the strengthening control over the population. In terms of hedonic adaption, BCMs can help avoid the diminishing returns of happiness. Through its manipulation of happiness causing chemicals, it can maintain happiness levels and avoid its gradual loss. The only question mark over BCMs are over its necessity. My belief is that all other practices employed in this utopia should be sufficient to maintain it. Genetic engineering coupled with hard test tube babies and conditioning should ensure that control over the society is enough for utopia, so BCMs can be seen as a waste of resources, time and effort in a perfectly efficient world.
But safeguards are important. The fact that BCMs take the level of control to another level, removing almost any possibility of dissatisfaction and the destruction of the state through a revolt of the citizens of the commune. Through BCMs, their lives can be almost perfectly controlled. And with this technology used correctly an even greater society beckons.