I’m reluctant to wish for changes in society given the history. Communism and other utopias were supposed to be improving the society and yet they brought tyranny and genocide.
I wish society to be better, more tolerant, and more sustainable. I want it to have better education and better conditions for children. I know what we currently have comes from thousands of years of human development. Any quick “improvement” may turn out to make things worse. As a result, the things I’d change are mostly small:
- Walkable cities with developed public transport and no cars
- Legalize and regulate most recreational drugs
- Start restricting generative AI
Walkable Cities
The problems with cars are vast. Traffic jams, lack of parking space, air pollution, CO2 emissions, and car accidents. Thousands of people get injured, disabled, or die every year in Bulgaria only because of cars. For years, I believed electric and self-driving cars were the solution to the problem but then I saw the electric scooters and realized something. The solution to the horse cars problem was not replacing horses with internal combustion (ICE) horses – it was cars. The solution to the ICE cars is not electric cars, it’s walking, cycling, and scooters.
Legalize Most Drugs
I would like most recreational drugs to be legalized to reduce their criminal distribution. I see no reason to put people carrying small amounts of weed in jail and would gradually extend that to other stronger substances. Also, vulnerable people consume these, and there’s no quality control, resulting in unnecessary life loss.
AI
I’d also force search engines and generative AI services to link to the source of each individual bit of information they generate. More regulation is needed in that area. It’s some kind of society-altering Wild West.
And of course, we talk about modern society. Most of the planet is anything but modern and may need more basic improvements, like access to education or clean water.
I find it funny writing about Utopias just a few days after completing a book about the person who invented the word. Sir Thomas More wrote about an island called Utopia (from Greek, no-place), and gave it features that were very far from his radical Catholic beliefs. Ironically, he was executed for sticking to one set of his beliefs. The word stayed but the author didn’t.
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