Which fictional worlds do you all think present a society that is as close to what you think of as a utopia? I’ll leave the definition of utopia up to each individual poster, as that’s part of what this thread is about. I’ll start by getting the easy one out of the way, that of the Federation as presented in Star Trek pre- JJ Abrams. This is a humanity that has overcome racism within the human species, and to the extent that it exists towards other species, seems to be justified such as O’brien and his views towards the Cardasians given his first hand experiences in war against them. They have also gotten past economic inequalities. They have managed to put together a group of like minded species, helping some of them get past similar bigotries in their histories, such as the Andorians and Vulcans prior to formation of the Federation. What other fictional worlds would you all nominate, whether TV, film, books, comics, or video games? All are fair game for this thread.
No fictional society is perfect because there has to be some sort of conflict to make it interesting, so the first thing that comes to mind for me is the Culture setting by Iain Banks, if you ignore the wars.
Ursula LeGuin’s anarchy moon world as depicted in The Dispossessed.
LotR after RotK would certainly be a nice place to visit, maybe even live. A trek across the lands would be wonderful. of course, you’d have to carry a weapon for the odd goblin.
But SF writers in general hate utopias, they much prefer dystopias.
The Fantasy world of Lord Darcy by Randall Garrett is a pretty nice place to live.
Omega man.
I expected Banks’ Culture to show up, but I think it’s a dystopia as humans aren’t really in control of their own destiny. It’s a future where humanity are essential the AIs pets. At least most people are comfortable I guess.
I think the AIs do not attempt to stop you if you (really or in your mind) find a better deal elsewhere and fuck off out of their jurisdiction and do your own thing.
Shangri-La in Lost Horizon was kind of unique in that it really didn’t have a downside except that which newcomers brought with them.
I could see myself living in John Varley’s “Eight Worlds” universe.
Sure, humanity has been evicted from Earth, and may eventually be evicted from the Solar System entirely, but for a long while there, life was pretty good.
It’s largely a post-scarcity society, with benevolent AIs doing a lot of the drudge work. We have almost perfect control over the human body, so everyone is as healthy as they want to be, and can actively modify their bodies as desired, even in some pretty bizarre ways. Humanity is spread out in a variety of habitats, with different cultures, and travel between them isn’t overly burdensome for most people.
There’s still conflict, but it’s mostly small-scale interpersonal conflict. Most people live most of their lives in comfort.
El Dorado in Candide.