I would rather read a paragraph of your thoughtful and positive article than 10 or 12 pages of the morning’s political updates. It puts the responsibility on the doer, not on the viewer.
I guess most people are protopists. The term "protopia" is useful but will struggle to compete with its extreme rivals. The middle ground is no spectacular attention grabber.
I came across your definition in Sarah Housley's 'Designing Hope' - 'protopia' is the word I've been looking for to describe my own views on sustainable futures, as I build a business in this sector. Thank you for sharing your extended description, I look forward to reading more!
This is also the way of life. Evolution only “succeeds” by finding local homeostatic solutions, not frozen perfection. To survive in the constant companionship of entropy, evolution has created structures and builds organization that delays the inevitable in newer and more stable ways.
The critical issue with society is that it has allowed for accumulative dynamics to take hold that do not allow for this kind of strategy that places population wide benefit as the core goal of civilization. Even when that’s the stated goal, what’s actually occurring is that the agency of a few is magnified, and the control they wield shapes the agency of a huge percentage of the population.
A successful protopia thus needs a way to measure the agency of individuals and ways to ensure inequality doesn’t harden to quash agency.
Totally agree. The best example that comes to my mind is the economic protopia of America between 1860 and 1960. Who would guess becoming an economic superpower would be the outcome of a period with a civil war, two world wars, a Great Depression and many other booms and busts.
Love this — have you been following the work of Daniel Yudkin and the Beacon Project around potentialism? That and protopia seem like they could be very good idea friends.
The problem with utopias, at a minimum, is they presuppose that human desire can ever be fully satiated, individually or collectively. The problem, or at least invitation, of a protopia, is one of discernment around what it aims at. As our capacity accelerates, this question becomes increasingly important.
Protopia echoes "professional" too much on my tongue, especially when the Professional Managerial Class is the opposite of the Working Class for a lot of populists
I kept substituting "uptopia", as in "line goes up, world more gooder" and updog
Is there any way that these rather abstract thoughts can be connected to what’s happening in the real world right now? I think that could strengthen the credibility of the thesis. For example, the looming prospect of World War III (which remains hypothetical)? Or the fact that nuclear weapons proliferation is ramping up to unprecedented levels (which is not). Or other aspects of planetary polycrisis? Can the latter be addressed in many meaningful way as you suggest with this kind of incremental thinking? Given the urgency of militarism’s hold on world events, I find it hard not to think about the articles I’ve seen in Wired celebrating the use of AI in warfare and how they relate to where we are right now geopolitically.
The final message is one of the most powerful you can give to a person: you don't need to be a hero to make a difference, you only need to be a little better than you were yesterday. And if everyone did this, today's invisible 1% would become tomorrow's extraordinary world. Not an unattainable utopia, but a livable protopia. And this, perhaps, is the only future worth imagining and building.
My new favorite word. I can’t read this without thinking of Christopher Nolan’s movie “the Odyssey“. In his version, the Trojan war initiates the beginning of the dark ages. Also, 1% growth is not good enough for Wall Street or boardrooms, and politicians can’t get elected on one percent growth promise. Do these mindsets deter civilization’s progress? And so I wonder if protopia is like Moore’s Law: it is not a goal but the general result of human endeavors. Many years ago, I was in charge of a suggestion system in a factory. One thing I learned after 10 years of thousands of suggestions was that the big one, suggestion, was actually result of the accretion of many small suggestions.
I used it euphemistically: “the big suggestion”. The one suggestion that made the big, overall improvement… Or at least it appeared to. With my exposure to the all of these suggestions submitted to the system, I realized that the BIG one would have never happened without the tiny ones before it. So your thoughts on the 1% resonates with me for many reasons. And to add, it is the author of the BIG suggestion who garners all the accolades. Thank god for those who realize they are standing on the shoulder of 1% giants.
This is so beautifully and so realistically optimistic-- thank you! The sky is the limit for humanity if we all just keep trying to iterate in the right direction.
I don't disagree with anything you said in theory—just the way the word utopia is being used.
Literarily, the word utopia has always been used as an impossible world worth working toward. It is the perfect future that will always be just past the horizon. The word has been used that way ever since Thomas More coined it as a contraction between "no place" and "good place."
In this way, the idea is *not* that we can eliminate the problems of life. No one thinks we can do that. It is that we can eliminate one at a time in pursuit of an ideal we will never reach. The moving goal post is inherent to utopia.
And second, you say to aim for prototopia. But that's not really a destination—utopia is! Sure we will make life better incrementally, exactly as you imagine. But we still need to have a vision for where we are going. America would never have become a democracy if Thomas Paine didn't first paint a utopian vision of a country without the British Monarchy. If the colonies had instead aimed for a more incremental version they would have just tried harder to lessen taxes under the monarchy.
The grand visions, the impossible utopias, are the necessary destination we need to reach toward with our incremental progress. Even while knowing that we will never get there and that we might learn along the way that there are better utopias to reach for.
I think the way you use the word utopia is what I mean by protopia; while the way most people use utopia is not the way you use it. Rather than try to retrain people to use utopia in a more refined way, as you are, I think it is better to use a different word. I understand you think "utopia" is beautiful as it is, and would like to redeem it, but I think it is better to make the distinction and leave less chance for confusion with a new word.
I would rather read a paragraph of your thoughtful and positive article than 10 or 12 pages of the morning’s political updates. It puts the responsibility on the doer, not on the viewer.
I guess most people are protopists. The term "protopia" is useful but will struggle to compete with its extreme rivals. The middle ground is no spectacular attention grabber.
The "pro" in protopia may also come from the "pro" in prompt — to spark an action.
I came across your definition in Sarah Housley's 'Designing Hope' - 'protopia' is the word I've been looking for to describe my own views on sustainable futures, as I build a business in this sector. Thank you for sharing your extended description, I look forward to reading more!
This is also the way of life. Evolution only “succeeds” by finding local homeostatic solutions, not frozen perfection. To survive in the constant companionship of entropy, evolution has created structures and builds organization that delays the inevitable in newer and more stable ways.
The critical issue with society is that it has allowed for accumulative dynamics to take hold that do not allow for this kind of strategy that places population wide benefit as the core goal of civilization. Even when that’s the stated goal, what’s actually occurring is that the agency of a few is magnified, and the control they wield shapes the agency of a huge percentage of the population.
A successful protopia thus needs a way to measure the agency of individuals and ways to ensure inequality doesn’t harden to quash agency.
Totally agree. The best example that comes to my mind is the economic protopia of America between 1860 and 1960. Who would guess becoming an economic superpower would be the outcome of a period with a civil war, two world wars, a Great Depression and many other booms and busts.
Love this — have you been following the work of Daniel Yudkin and the Beacon Project around potentialism? That and protopia seem like they could be very good idea friends.
Hmmmm, interesting. I may try and write an antithesis ;)
The problem with utopias, at a minimum, is they presuppose that human desire can ever be fully satiated, individually or collectively. The problem, or at least invitation, of a protopia, is one of discernment around what it aims at. As our capacity accelerates, this question becomes increasingly important.
Protopia echoes "professional" too much on my tongue, especially when the Professional Managerial Class is the opposite of the Working Class for a lot of populists
I kept substituting "uptopia", as in "line goes up, world more gooder" and updog
Is there any way that these rather abstract thoughts can be connected to what’s happening in the real world right now? I think that could strengthen the credibility of the thesis. For example, the looming prospect of World War III (which remains hypothetical)? Or the fact that nuclear weapons proliferation is ramping up to unprecedented levels (which is not). Or other aspects of planetary polycrisis? Can the latter be addressed in many meaningful way as you suggest with this kind of incremental thinking? Given the urgency of militarism’s hold on world events, I find it hard not to think about the articles I’ve seen in Wired celebrating the use of AI in warfare and how they relate to where we are right now geopolitically.
The final message is one of the most powerful you can give to a person: you don't need to be a hero to make a difference, you only need to be a little better than you were yesterday. And if everyone did this, today's invisible 1% would become tomorrow's extraordinary world. Not an unattainable utopia, but a livable protopia. And this, perhaps, is the only future worth imagining and building.
My new favorite word. I can’t read this without thinking of Christopher Nolan’s movie “the Odyssey“. In his version, the Trojan war initiates the beginning of the dark ages. Also, 1% growth is not good enough for Wall Street or boardrooms, and politicians can’t get elected on one percent growth promise. Do these mindsets deter civilization’s progress? And so I wonder if protopia is like Moore’s Law: it is not a goal but the general result of human endeavors. Many years ago, I was in charge of a suggestion system in a factory. One thing I learned after 10 years of thousands of suggestions was that the big one, suggestion, was actually result of the accretion of many small suggestions.
Sam, could you say more about the "big suggestion"? what was the big suggestion?
I used it euphemistically: “the big suggestion”. The one suggestion that made the big, overall improvement… Or at least it appeared to. With my exposure to the all of these suggestions submitted to the system, I realized that the BIG one would have never happened without the tiny ones before it. So your thoughts on the 1% resonates with me for many reasons. And to add, it is the author of the BIG suggestion who garners all the accolades. Thank god for those who realize they are standing on the shoulder of 1% giants.
Kevin, I am also thinking of how your “March of Nines” fits in with the 1%. I have to noodle on that one.
This is so beautifully and so realistically optimistic-- thank you! The sky is the limit for humanity if we all just keep trying to iterate in the right direction.
I don't disagree with anything you said in theory—just the way the word utopia is being used.
Literarily, the word utopia has always been used as an impossible world worth working toward. It is the perfect future that will always be just past the horizon. The word has been used that way ever since Thomas More coined it as a contraction between "no place" and "good place."
In this way, the idea is *not* that we can eliminate the problems of life. No one thinks we can do that. It is that we can eliminate one at a time in pursuit of an ideal we will never reach. The moving goal post is inherent to utopia.
And second, you say to aim for prototopia. But that's not really a destination—utopia is! Sure we will make life better incrementally, exactly as you imagine. But we still need to have a vision for where we are going. America would never have become a democracy if Thomas Paine didn't first paint a utopian vision of a country without the British Monarchy. If the colonies had instead aimed for a more incremental version they would have just tried harder to lessen taxes under the monarchy.
The grand visions, the impossible utopias, are the necessary destination we need to reach toward with our incremental progress. Even while knowing that we will never get there and that we might learn along the way that there are better utopias to reach for.
But then, you know this about me 🤓
I think the way you use the word utopia is what I mean by protopia; while the way most people use utopia is not the way you use it. Rather than try to retrain people to use utopia in a more refined way, as you are, I think it is better to use a different word. I understand you think "utopia" is beautiful as it is, and would like to redeem it, but I think it is better to make the distinction and leave less chance for confusion with a new word.
Yes, well said. We're saying a lot of the same thing, I'm just reclaiming the old word for that purpose while you're using a new one!
Thanks for mentioning animal welfare. The scale and severity of the suffering really casts a pall on human progress....