New Worlds

[gL.edu] This article gathers contributions being developed by Alexander Jaumann, within the context of the Conceptual clarifications about "Utopias and the Information Society", under the supervisión of J.M. Díaz Nafría.

Teacher's Comments: This article requires the corrections indicated below: The references are incompleted and bad formatted according to APA style. There is a lack of consideration of relevant historical thinkers.

Abstract

This cyberutopia story is set in the far future in a technological advanced society. Different planets are populated each with a unique social and political system. The Story follows Xaver, a young man on a journey through this Universe. The Story explores the possibility of peaceful coexistence by enabling everyone to create their own ideal world.

New Worlds

Xaver lives in the year 2980 on Earth. In which country isn’t important anymore since humanity has been united long ago. He lives in a world without borders and limitless possibilities. It was a long and hard journey for humanity to reach this point. Xaver has learned all about how the world came to be from school. As far as he understood there was a lot of conflict and war on Earth. Many different opinions on how things should be done. And nearly no common ground. The start of the New Age began with technological advancements in space flight. Humanity started to explore its solar system and the resources and energy within it. Not long after, the construction of a Dysons Sphere around the sun started. A device thought only to exist in science fiction books became a reality. Multiple rings with solar panels on the inside facing the son rotating around it to collects energy. With this abundance of energy, new technologies where developed each week one more spectacular than the other. But humanity was still divided in the early stages of this new World. The first step that led to the unification of humanity was the colonization of Mars. Great vessels were built to ship humans and supplies to the new habitat. Naturally arguments started under which control the people from Mars should be or what political system they should inherit. But in time the people from Mars concluded that they should create their own independent political system with their own morals. As they started to be more self-reliant they build their own new Government from the ground up. They choose to pursue a Technocratic Government. With the idea of the decision-makers solely being chosen by their skills and expertise. Along process with many qualifying assessments and tests to find the best candidate for a given position. The foundation of this form of Government was to make decisions based on logic, rational and the use of the scientific method. The idea was to solve problems by finding technical solutions.

Xaver was always fascinated with this way of live. He just finished his school and decided to travel, as was common for people his age. His first stop would be Mars. His space shuttle would leave the next day at 10 am. It didn’t cost anything to travel to another planet, since it was seen as a basic human right to travel different planets. Everyday space shuttles traveling to many different places left Earth. It was as easy as taking a taxi. The next day he found himself bags packet at the launch site listening to the instructions of the flight crew. He was told the journey would only take about an hour. Most of it reserved for liftoff and landing. The flight alone only took a couple of minutes. About 250 years ago humanity solved the problem of faster the light travel. Xaver didn’t understand the technology behind it fully, but he didn’t need to. The next few hours were like a blur to him. He boarded the giant Shuttle, sat at his seat, and wonder what would await him upon arrival. Faster than he could realize an announcement was made that they had landed on Mars. There were no windows so the first time he saw the red planet was once he got off the plane into the arrival zone. He was standing inside a giant glass dome and looked at the red planet for the first time. Most of it looked rocky and sandy with a few different sized domes in the distance. Someone explained to him once that nearly all habitats are dome structured, it had something to do with being the optimal structure to hold the pressure difference, since the atmosphere was much thinner than on earth. The domes were connected through an underground network of tunnels. After been shown a place to stay he decided to explore the different facilities. He sat down at a bar and got to chat with a man setting next to him. He was a bit older than him and lived his whole life on Mars. Xaver asked him about his live here and they shared stories from their Worlds.

Since the whole planet of Mars was under one governing system. It was peaceful on Mars. Only people who supported this type of government came and everyone seemed to work for a common goal. Of course, not everyone was a fan of this type of government. Back in the day when the colony was just born, the people realized what opportunities would lie ahead with the possibilities given by the advancements in space flight. It was understood by humanity after many conflicts and war that some disagreements would never be solved. There needed to be some form of physical separation between different ways of live. The colonization of different plants seemed ideal for this idea to be explored further. Each human is unique and it’s only natural for different ideological principals to exist. Some would prefer to live in a technological focused society, others found peace living in ecological balanced with their environment. None of these different ways of live is objectively better then another. Each is the free expression of what a Person believes to be subjectively good. With this newfound wisdom humanity started to further explore its solar system and beyond. Many different planets were settled each which their own morals and political systems for a perfect world. In time even Earth was united under one governing System. After Lengthy discussions were held it was decided that Earth should be Democratic, and a Modern cultural hub on an interplanetary level.

After speaking with the man in the Bar for a while Xaver started to notice the small differences in the way they speak. The man used very direct and factual speech pattern whereas he himself spoke with more emotions. The language they both spoke was the same. Since back on earth before the colonization of Mars all languages naturally merged together to form one global language. This global language was then spread to every planet. So nearly everyone spoke the same language. This was an important step to eliminate the illusion of separation and to eradicate misunderstandings. Some differences in the language naturally emerged after a while on the Planets since different environmental factors created the need for language to be evolved. For example, the man explained that in formal setting on Mars they use hand symbols to go with a sentence. If someone gives a factual sentence which contents is globally recognized to be true, one points the index finger straight upwards to indicate that the sentence is a fact. If one gives an opinion about a topic it is shown by pointing the finger to the right. If the speaker, makes a sarcastic statement or a joke the finger is pointed down. This type of speech directly reflects the political system of Mars.

After saying goodbye to the man, he started to make his way back to his room. The next few weeks went by quickly. Xaver meet many different people and learn a lot about the planet, the politics and how everything plays together. After these few weeks he decided to move on since he has seen enough. After speaking with other travellers who just came from a planet known as Archon he decided to make this his next stop. He didn’t know much about it but heard that it was an Anarchist Planet. He wondered how they would live and how they kept things going if there were basically no rules. But he would find out the next day.

In the morning, he boarded a ship and within a couple of hours he was on Archon. It was a small blue planet with a breathable atmosphere. The gravity only was half of the gravity back on Earth, so first thing Xaver did when arriving there was jumping around like a kid on a trampoline. Somone spotted him from the distance and came towards him with a smile on her face. “First time on Archon?” the woman asked him. “Yes, how could you tell?" he answered jokingly. The women introduced herself as Andria and offered Xaver a place to stay for a while. Xaver was a bit shocked by the instant hospitality and warm welcome. When arriving at her place even more smiling people were greeting him. Andria showed him around the place and explained a bit about the way they live. The basically lived right in between nature. There were many different small houses surrounded by exotic plants he has never seen before. Green gardens with abundance of food spread around the area. Everything was free Andria explained, "The community keeps these things going on their own. Everyone plays their part voluntarily" She explained that they basically have no rules or form of hierarchal structures. It is a self regulating community with their most important ideal being self expression only limited by the boundaries of another person. Andria told him that she first came here 10 years ago and instantly fell in love with the place. Understandable, Xaver thought. After being invited for dinner, he was shown to a small hut hidden between massive ferns. He was unpacking his thing and thought to himself what else this world or other worlds had to offer. He had so much to explore, learn and experience.

After spending more time than he initially planned on Archon, Xaver continued his journey through the Universe visiting many different Planets and learning about different ways of live. He was amazed by the diversity on complexity of all these different planets. It was the ultimate form of freedom for him to explore this world. Everyone can travel anywhere anytime free of charge. People used this incredible offer, and it was common to travel to different planets once in a while. The people learned to empathize with different ways of live. Back when the expansion started people believed that this would ultimately divide humanity into many small far away societies. But the opposite happened. Since there was no longer any conflict of interest humans started to peacefully coexist. Before the beginning of this new Age humanity lived divided on the same Planets govern by fear of the unknown. After this new World came to be, people started to appreciate different ways of live and draw wisdom from many places. Through this whole journey Xaver managed to hold contact to his family back on earth. A form of internet which makes instant communication across the galaxy possible. Ideas can freely flow from on end of the universe to another. Even when separated millions of light years humanity was never closer together.

Epilog

Comparison with Americas Colonization

Similarities

The story shares many similarities with the colonization of America by European countries. First of all, in both stories new land is being explored. In the story “New World” the colonizing entity is the entire planet earth settling on new Planets. In Americas History the colonizing party is manly European countries settling on the newly discovered land of America. In both instances, the main driver is the pursuit of new opportunities that come with new land.

Furthermore, both story’s explore different types of government. In the story “New Worlds” we see a democratic, anarchistic and technocratic government. Many different forms of government are being explored with this newfound land. Similarly, during the colonization of America, manly 3 different types of governments were established: provincial, proprietary, and charter. Provincial governments were owned and controlled directly by the King. Proprietary governments by a chosen individual of the King, and charter governments which had been granted a little more autonomy. Besides these 3 main governments new ideas were also explored. For example the first Pilgrims created a self-governing system in plymouth. Especially the latter shares the idea of creating new settlements and exploring different systems based on own principals.

Differences

A significant difference between the colonization of America and "New Worlds" is the absence of an indigenous populations. The colonization of America raises many ethical concerns related to the mistreatment of the native People. In Xaver´s story, there is no indigenous population.We see an idealized vision of colonization, driven by the desire to express different political systems. In contrast, the colonization of America was fueled by the competition amongst the European countries, with the main goal being economic interest.

Comparison with the Book The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin is a science fiction novel set on a dual planetary system. One planet Urras is manly governed by a capitalist system with many different divided nations. The second planet Anarres is home to an anarchistic Society. The novel takes a closer look at these to different political systems, their strengths and weaknesses, and the conflict between them.

Similarities

Similar to my own story the Dispossessed explores a Universe where technology has advanced to the point that humanity is able to colonize different planets. Each planet hast their own philosophical and political ideas. Both stories emphasize on the difference in human opinions and the need to live out those Ideas.

Differences

One major difference between the two stories is that the Dispossessed has more of a dystopian perspective and focuses on the different problems of the two political systems and the conflict between them. In contrast my own story focuses more on peaceful coexistence. Emphasizing that different political systems can be optimal for different people and don't have to end in conflict. There is no need to impose own beliefs on other person since they live in a world with an abundance of resources and available habitats. This abundance allows for diverse ideologies to be explored without conflict of interest.