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Comment by WillAdams | Hacker News Reader

The problem is, tales of the land of the happy nice people doesn't make for much of a story, or

“. . . the newspapers of Utopia, he had long ago decided, would be terribly dull.” ― Arthur C. Clarke, _2001: A Space Odyssey_

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Or the matrix take -

> Agent Smith tells Morpheus that the first, "perfect" Matrix failed because humanity requires suffering, leading them to create a simulation based on the "peak of your civilization"—1999. Smith highlights that the machines actually took over during this era, making it their civilization rather than humanity's. The choice of 1999 provided a stable,, yet inherently flawed, era characterized by 90s technology, post-Cold War optimism, and, crucially, the necessary amount of human misery to prevent the simulation from failing.

The thing about _The Matrix_ is that the world-building was much more interesting than the premise (to make a world in which comicbook superheroes made sense).

Not seeing why human misery is necessary --- that line always felt propaganda-like --- a utopia would arguably be more stable since there would be less striving for change.

> there would be less striving for change

Precisely, there would be nothing to strive for.

As an engineer I often say "If everything in life went to plan it would be a very boring life indeed"

Yes, so the "computer" would continue running in this state without change --- which is presumably what the machines in charge wanted --- if there's supposed to be a reason which makes stress pleasing to the machines please state it in plain and simple terms (English is not my mother-tongue).

Your thinking that its the machines being pleased by the state is 100% wrong.

WHY would a machine need a simulation at all?

In the original draft, the machines were using human brains as a networked computer. The simulation is necessary because sensory input and simulation is how human brains compute - it's for the humans, not the machines. Unfortunately the studios thought that was too complicated and we wound up with "lol batteries" and none of it makes any sense.

Also, I mean, because without that there wouldn't be a movie.

Yeah - the whole point of the simulation was to keep the brains engaged. A distraction if you will, from the fact that they aren't actually doing anything.

Star Trek TNG was an interesting utopia. I want more of that. (Not more Star Trek, more utopia sci-fi).

But it kept getting undermined every other episode, to say nothing of things such as Section 31.

Section 31 wasn't in TNG. And I wouldn't say the utopia got undermined in TNG either. When you (fairly rarely) had corruption or villainy inside Starfleet, those people were always treated as rogues who were acting on their own, and were decisively defeated by the utopia. It isn't like in DS9 where the writers flirt with the idea that maybe the Federation can't work without a dark side; the TNG writers play the utopia straight.

Fair point.

One of the earliest books to look at this in an interesting way was John M. Ford's _How Much for Just the Planet?_ (depending on how one looks at it and one's tolerance for humour)

That's just lack of imagination.

Well, Ursula K. LeGuin did author _Always Coming Home_, which I quite enjoyed, but it's a very different book which only seems to have a niche audience.

I disliked _Always Coming Home_, substantially because it felt misandrous though the less optimistic setting probably also played a role (a post-industrial Earth with a rape victim as the "protagonist" and not a heroic victim who transforms evil and suffering into good). It did seem to be exceptional in literary quality, a strong extension of the divided story mechanism in _The Dispossessed_ (and _The Left Hand of Darkness_? — I do not remember how that novel was laid out). I did not listen to the audio produced for the books, so I did not receive the full experience, but the literary quality of the novel was excellent (in my opinion). (I especially liked the simple squirrel drawing, an odd bit of trivia to remember.)

(I thought the acknowledgement of life when killing a mosquito was an interesting cultural aspect.)

I did kind of wish that a monastic-like community (or university?) had been presented as seeking more benefit from the City of Mind. Unlike the tribe that asked how to make airplanes (which failed in their military objective), the monks/scholars would train to ask good questions, seeking to restore the land and encourage communication and cooperation among humans. Having even a small bunch of humans interested in such larger issues would have been more optimistic (and perhaps realistic as the existence of an actual Oracle might encourage some people to be scholars, making connections and asking questions). Of course, a ten volume novel would have been even less popular, and LeGuin clearly was motivated to write a more gritty novel.

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