I had a friend who shares much of the same world view as I do text me last night. He told me that I need to “be careful if you are being the public voice for utopia. This could end very badly.” I am so thankful for this kind of feedback, but it was said to me by text, and I did not have time to dig deeper with the friend. I trusted him, but was confused on 2 points: I did not know I was becoming a voice of utopia, and if I was, then why was that a bad thing?

To address whether I am a public utopian, I only had to look at some of my recent writing and the testimony I gave on Friday for a Congressional Subcommittee on Quantum Computing . I am not a public figure in any significant way, so the public part might be a bit grand in implication, but I can certainly see that I am an out- of- the- closet utopian, no matter what I am talking about. In fact, it is embarrassing to see that with the disparate topics I address, I always say basically the same thing: Science and engineering have given us the opportunity to practically eliminate scarcity, if we commit ourselves to the importance of doing it. We just need to construct the future that we have already done the architectural renderings of. I speak of food production and the elimination of malnutrition, disappearing pollution, the decline of money being replaced by creative currency, and a work life that is enriching to the mind and soul. The general (though certainly not universal) response to this has not exactly been about danger, it has been about delusion. The obvious thing to dispute with me is not whether this utopia is a bad thing, or whether it is possible, but how human drives for power and status will cause a false scarcity, even of abundance. This is the way society has generally worked, and most people point out the growing wealth divide, which even if financial wealth no longer existed, systems of control for power might. There is also the question of making sure that a utopia for those that build it, is a Utopia that everyone wants. This has historically been more of an issue in some ways than it is now, and in other ways it is not. I have another friend who once said something that I have stolen to tell everyone. He said something like, if we would acknowledge that “1984” and “Fahrenheit 451” have already occurred, we can then figure out how to revolt against these new dystopian realities. I liked this thought, as it was a call for action that Orwell and Bradbury had already given us. Rise up against a society that has optimized for happiness by eliminating freedom and consolidating power, even if that power is a self-fulfilling creation of ours. “Big Brother” is an elusive figure watching us, and a physical fire starting department is searching for the remainders of those things that have the power to confuse us. While both authors fear witch hunts and fascists, the larger idea to me is that we need to avoid our own aversion to fear. This is where interpreting my views through the common association of utopianism is something I should explain, and distinguish it from a type of happiness and convenience seeking version of utopia.

There are two types of optimists that I think now are dangerous. The first are the views of Steven Pinker in “The Better Angels Of Ourselves” and Matt Ridley in “The Rational Optimist”. I have given these books to more people than I have almost any other books, and it is only now that I think that despite the truth of the observations, they are misguided. If you have not read either, I am doing them a disservice to so quickly describe them by grouping them together, but I will anyway. Both books look at the future by extrapolating the positive trends we have seen over the course of humanity, especially in the relatively rich world we currently live in. If we look at the metrics that count, we are doing fairly well quantitatively, especially in the present. Violence is low, starvation is rare, people are living longer and healthier, there are more democracies in the world than tyrannical dictatorships (we could argue how well this one is going actually, but I will not for the moment). If we look at these trends, life is only getting better, to the point where the famous statement by Martin Luther King Jr. during a speech that “the arc of the moral universe is long but bends towards justice” seems to be true. Even though I give out these books and have argued the same points, there is something that does not feel right about it. Am I not a Rational Optimist to not feel as good as I should? But I am not alone. Trump is president. People do not feel that their lives are better. This reactionary response to modernity is not just because we have 24-hour media that stresses the negative, though that is a part of it. There are actually more people who hate Trump than love him, but those people also do not feel the Pinker and Ridley optimism usually. I do not feel it, and I am guilty for that. I have so much, and feel so anxious. The reasons for this are not completely clear, but when I read the works of Jaron Lanier, who maybe ironically invented Virtual Reality, realize that the facts themselves cover up the lies of a manipulative society. It is not that the lessons of Pinker and Ridley are a lie, but the fact that they will produce any of Maslow’s higher needs may be. Those lies are almost completely “Fahrenheit 451” style lies. The types of progress that they speak of also exist in Bradbury’s world, but like that world we are being deprived of self-actualization by the over curation of societal values. We do ban speech, through literally outlawing certain books and other forms of art. We also shame people for speaking about the complexities of a changing world, and that shame destroys lives. We silence true discourse because it is inconvenient and often unpleasant to have ideological confrontation. Plato would not have had all night drinking discussions while philosophizing with people who only agreed with him. The academy that he created did not allow for it. Our academies, and our social circles demand it. We are actually unhappy because we agree with the people who surround us. Where there is no conversation, there is no potential. Where we cannot see something unpleasant to empathize with, we are left knowing that we have no power to make any changes that break the feelings of discontent in the improving world.

The other problem I have noticed is related. I have just realized this pit I often fall into is directly addressed in famous sci-fi novels, not just in the warning of Orwell and Bradbury. We address fear by manically searching for entertainment. This is not an original thought or something that most of us do not recognize. We cannot be alone with ourselves. What we also do though is confuse our entertainment for avoidance of loneliness, and discontent. This is a kind of a subtle point, especially when trying not to be confused with some of the normal concerns in the area. It is not that there are too many Netflix shows to choose from that is the problem. It is more the things that Tristan Harris warns against. It is the addiction of social media acceptance. It is the entertainment of a society that brainwashes us into believing we are communicating with others, when we are mainly seeking the dopamine rush of the invisible. Tristan and others speak much more eloquently about this specific problem, but I realize that probably more than anything this is where my type of utopianism can fall into the traps of current pleasure seeking. But it does not have to.

I am holding firm that a world with the elimination of scarcity is clearly positive. It is a process. Most people would not disagree with that, but the avoidance of the positive outlooks of information abundance that actually lead to suppression of discourse is something we need to be careful of. Here are a few things that could happen, and how we can take precautions now in order for our utopian plans to not turn rapidly into dystopian ones.

1. Make certain that abundance is not rationed out by governments. Central banks that control currency, welfare programs that make choices of who and when to give to people (as opposed to ideas like Universal Basic Income) are two examples of this. True abundance is not manipulated by the state, as there is nothing real to manipulate.

2. Avoid the temptation to see things as costing something when they are free, or that they are free when they actually do cost something. Right now, we all pay indirectly for what we feel is a happiness abundance on the internet, while we actually pay for it by being manipulated for corporate gain. This could happen with services for physical gains as much as it does for virtual ones. Even if we can print food and furniture, there is a possibility that what we print could succumb to pressures that may not be driven by financial gain in a post monetary future, but by a currency of status manipulations, which may be a new currency in itself.

3. Use abundance for self-actualization, not social approval. The luxury of having the lower tiers of Maslow’s hierarchy met, allow for the higher levels to be explored. This can come in strange ways that go against current trends. It can allow people to come together, because it is possible to do so. It can allow access to real books that others hand you, not that are recommended to you by an unknown algorithm. It can afford people the time to play music, and to go to concerts to be inspired by music, rather than using it to fill time on a Spotify channel for the few minutes it takes to get to work. The experience and the reflection on those experiences are also abundant.

Utopia has such a close relationship to confused delusion that it hides this bigger problem that it is actually much closer to dystopia. The yin and yang of abundance is a real thing, but only if we continue to succumb to the world that does not allow us to dream of the things that actually make the world better environmentally and psychologically. A utopia is plentiful in free stuff, but it needs to be plentiful in healthy stuff. It is dystopia to sacrifice freedom, knowledge, and discourse for happiness. It is utopian to see the world, and acknowledge that abundance is an opportunity to address fear, and suffering. It is a place where we are not distracted, or worked to early deaths, even if that work is well paying but uselessly anxiety ridden. Having is only truly having if we know what it is that we really want. The creation of utopia is the journey to knowing that. Even in the pursuit we need to reboot our contemporary acceptance of what is real, and build what is actually the society that humanity can now create.