Instead of focusing too much on all of the things that are currently wrong, could you please help paint a picture of what a future utopian society could look like?
My vision is heavily inspired by Terence McKenna. I imagine a world as it might have existed during prehistoric times. Lush forests teeming with exotic wildlife, clean air, and crystal clear water. No highways full of billboards, no parking lots, no shopping malls, and no cars. Just safe grounds and paths for humans embedded deep within all of this nature.
At a birds-eye view, it may look as if humanity has completely abandoned technology and regressed back into its childhood. Yet if you were to look out through the eyes of one of these utopian people, you would see the most wonderful augmented reality display.
Information, communication, entertainment, education, global economies… almost everything has been de-materialized. Humanity’s ceaseless pursuit of technology has been mostly divorced from our physical environment and mother earth is bustling with life again.
The only technologies that remain in the real world are those that help all of us live happy and healthy lives (modern medicine, delicious food, solar power, etc) all the while the shared virtual reality in our eyes is limited only by our collective imaginations.
We are finally living in accord with nature without having to forsake our innate desire for knowledge and progress.
Well, we could all move into a matrix-like universe where we’re gods, I guess. Then all we’d need for civilisation is server farms and the infrastructure to maintain them.
More near-term, if I was dictator for a day I’d impose a wealth cap between at maybe 10 or 15 million CAD and a guaranteed income you can live a very basic but comfortable life on. I feel like that would solve most problems. This could be applied globally too (with some ramp-up time) if we’re assuming world government. Climate change could be addressed with a carbon tax high enough to fund the offsetting of the pollution’s social cost.
I’m a wonk and I could go on, but those are the biggest things.
Dictatorship is never a good thing even if the dictator is benevolent because it removes the choice of the people of who they want to be represented by
I needed a magical way to answer the question, though!
I’d actually go further - dictatorships don’t really exist, just steeply tapering autocracies. The dictator is at the top, but just like everyone else they spend their days avoiding being knocked down the pyramid, and they can’t know and often don’t care what people are doing a couple steps down. Meanwhile, the people who aren’t right on top get absolutely fucked by whoever is a couple steps up from them, with the step in between acting as intermediaries.