Internal GPS in Utopia

We come full circle back to Bill Joy's vision of dystopia. Without a clear and precise internal GPS, or conscience, any rogue individual in Utopia, with the multiplying power of enabling technologies, can wreck havoc on the rest of society. There is always a need to balance the freedom and privileges granted to individuals, and the harmony and security needed to maintain an orderly society.

Utopia is built on the harmonious relationships among all its citizens. The internal GPS of its citizens must, therefore, be tuned to detect the boundaries which disturb those harmonious relationships. As any child learns very quickly, although it is good to have freedom, there is also a price to pay if freedom is not balanced with self-discipline. When a child steps beyond the boundary of appropriate behavior, it is the responsibility of the parent to teach discipline. As it is said in Paul's Second letter to the Corinthians, "Love is patient, love is kind..." Teaching discipline, indeed, teaching of all forms must first and foremost be patient and kind, providing a consistent framework of examples, role models, and clear boundaries. Children do not respond well to vague harsh words, hypocritical coarse language, or unevenly dispensed cruelty. To build into children a GPS for utopia requires thought, time and energy. Those who wish to enter utopia without paying the price will end up nowhere.

Similarly, those adults who violate the discipline of society must be taught to cultivate their own GPS. Just as a global positioning system requires the objective framework of multiple coordinated satellites' calibrated time signals, so too the individual conscience requires the objective framework of a higher power, that transcends time and culture, that survives the critique and analysis of experienced wise souls. Societies and cultures may differ in many ways, but they all share similar core values. Utopian institutions must devote time and energy to cultivate and nurture these core values that span the globe and millenia. Instead of punishing the poor and mentally ill by putting them together in a den of drug infested horror, instead of punishing out of vengeance, utopian justice requires each individual to be parented by society, to cultivate an internal GPS, to correct past mistakes, to re-calibrate towards a new perspective.

In cases of true pathological abnormality, where there is no hope of rehabilitation given the current state of resources and knowledge, the anti-social individuals must be isolated in order to protect society, and other individuals from harm. What criteria can we use to decide when forgiveness and patience can no longer be justified? This has been the core question of philosophers and political thinkers since Plato. The answer each society gives in response, signifies its level of civilization and maturity. In times of material scarcity, when times are tough, we respond with less patience and love, than in times of prosperity and peace. There is never an easily definable "true" answer. Ideally, we will forgive as many times as Christ taught us. But we live in reality, not in utopia.

Indeed, even in today's world, nations live in diverse realities, where some are literally dying from hunger and thirst, while others are dying from obesity and drowning in luxury. It is not easy to judge what is "right" when the criteria depends on so many different factors, which even in today's information age, are not always clearly defined.

Is there hope to cultivating internal GPS for children and adults in preparation for Utopia? Is peace and harmony but a distant dream or fantasy?