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What Does Paradise Look Like?
Malcolm and Simone have a thoughtful discussion about the meaning of utopia, examining why abundance, luxury, and leisure often fail to bring lasting happiness. They reflect on wealthy people they know who seem unhappy despite having everything, and posit that utopia may actually lie in having the opportunity to meaningfully impact the future and matter.
Malcolm suggests that living during a pivotal point in history provides that chance to matter. Simone notes people likely imagine utopia as simply spending time with loved ones, but Malcolm argues experiencing abundance reveals its emptiness. They discuss the ennui displayed in The Great Gatsby, and debate how to convey this truth to their kids.
Ultimately they conclude utopia isn't defined by material comforts, but by the chance to pursue intrinsic values and make a difference. Even those with privilege can achieve this if they use their position wisely.
Malcolm: [00:00:00] But here's really when people go into fantasy worlds. Right. This, this, I find really interesting. The most persistent fantasy world concept, you know, like in D or D or something like that is you was a group of people who are diverse, meaningfully diverse, often actually different.
Malcolm: And who do you actually get along with are working to change something that ends up impacting the future of that entire universe, that that fantasy that you get was in the most commonly created fantasy world actually falls into this model that we have of what true happiness comes
Simone: from. But most people would never intentionally sign up for that, like not for the world because it's a lot of work and it's scary and they might have to.
Simone: Sleep outside, a fox might chew on their head.
Would you like to know more?
Simone: Malcolm Collins. Hello.
Malcolm: Hello, Simone [00:01:00] Collins. I love you to death. And today we are going to talk about what I think is an interesting topic that I was musing on. So I was , watching one of these shows, right? Where they have the You know, the island made of gold or the city of gold, right? And it really got me thinking about okay, so you go to an island where there's a city of gold or gems or something like that, you know, the classic trope is you get to this place and obviously the signs that we now associate with status and luxury don't actually bring you any happiness.
Malcolm: They're not actually of utility was in this island because they are. So abundant. And then it got me thinking about utopias throughout history and what would a utopia be within our modern context. So historically one of the most common types of utopia. And I think that this is the one that's really talked about in the Bible is a land where whenever you plant crops, They always grow like this is the Garden of Eden, right?
Malcolm: So it's, it's a land where you can always have food, like food isn't scarce. But you still have to [00:02:00] put in some level of work for that food. You know, they had the, the, at least as much foresight to understand a land where just food appears as soon as you want it. That would be a, a, a nightmare, even, even to these, these early people.
Malcolm: They were quickly able to to understand that concept, but today, if you just had a land that produce food, whenever you put stuff in it, or food, you could work for, I guess, on a treadmill and then food exists I think most people would find that to be a dreadfully boring and uninteresting and disengaging place.
Malcolm: So then this started to frame for me, okay, what is a utopia these days? What does a utopia look like these days? So I want to hear your thoughts first.
Simone: First, I think utopias are more defined by an absence of things that p
Published on 2 years, 2 months ago