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What is utopia?


Joshi

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Neil, all the regulars of MIFF are also regulars here...there wasn't much pont in posting it on both fora.

 

And a perfect world? Sounds real boring...Have you seen the Matrix? The aliens that conquered earth first 'logged' all ppl in on a simulation of a real world. No-one liked it. The they created a sim of the world as it is now, and eveyone seemed happy (well, apart from the fact that they were used by the aliens and were wasting their lives in a simulation...). A perfect world isn't a world without violence or meaningless deaths. It's a world like this one, but with a few improvements (such as nature, politics, lousy music)...

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Godoy, jess and raven aren't regulars here (okay, so raven comes by sometimes but not often enough)

 

and in my opinion, a utopian world is maybe a bad thing, but one person came close. did you ever see the movie 'paying it forward' it was basically one boys idea (sixth sense kid, is there anything he can't do?) of how to change the world. he would help three people in a really big way, not something small, but something they can't do by themselves. so he does it for them. but those people aren't allowed to pay him back, they have to pay it forward, they each have to help three other people, so that makes twelve in total, and they help three others and so on. and it get's real big really fast. it didn't work to his liking, but if done right, may create something close to a utopia wouldn't you think?

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actualy the litteral meaning is "nowhere" but what the heck. anyway, Utopia was a book written by sir tomas more in 1516 discribing an imaginary, idealistic society on an island somewhere around the new world. they had some sort of communal ownership of property. also everyone worked 9 hours a day in whatever thier field was and were rewarded based on thier deeds.

 

sorry, i have no life and this is what we were studing a few weeks ago in european history :D

 

anyway, what would truly be perfect? i'm thinking some sort of state of eternal nothingness. blehh.

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yes utopia was a book (one that i haven't read, but i might one day) but it is also a word in the dictionary and is basically meaning a perfect worl. i ask this because i am curently reading a book called The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood whichc is set in a futuristic 'utopia' or at least what their society thinks is a utopia. it is set in a place called gilead which is more of a distopia than a utopia as women are seen as nothing more than objects for procreation and they believe that the only reason for life is for procreation. handmaids are sent to live in peoples houses for a number of months for couples who cannot have babies and basically have sex with the male and give the baby to the couple. they find no pleasure in this and are forced into it. this is a completely male dominated world where if a male does something wrong or is incompotent, the women are blamed and either sent away to the colonies which is basically a fururistic concetration camp or sometimes men are killed and there bodies hung on a wall for all to see and an example. but for some reason, some think of this as a utopia as nothing can go wrong in this world. no deaths, no crime, but both the men and women are victims. you start to wander who is running this and if they are recieveing any pleasure from this whatsoever as tehre utopia seems to be worse than our world.

 

this is why i asked this question, becaues it seems that one mans utopia is another mans distopia (using man in the general form, not meaning to be sexist or anything)

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Originally posted by Frenchyd

a world where i am married to one of these people:

 

a) orlando bloom

b) prince harry

c) Chad Lindberg

 

 

Ahaha, actually, i'd simply be in love with a great guy living on a beautiful sand-covered island, never growing old :D

 

Chad is a wacko, harry is a weirdo, and orlando... wot kinda name is orlando? he might as well have his kids named chicago and seattle :p

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Originally posted by Deadmeat_X

Have you seen the Matrix? The aliens that conquered earth first 'logged' all ppl in on a simulation of a real world. No-one liked it. The they created a sim of the world as it is now, and eveyone seemed happy (well, apart from the fact that they were used by the aliens and were wasting their lives in a simulation...)

 

Excellent movie. Not sure it's to believable, but it's most entertaining.

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Originally posted by Deadmeat_X

Ow yeah the robots, that revolted again their own creators...my god they're original :p

 

They weren't aliens or robots. They were programs within a computer simulation. Humans had advanced technology to the point of creating a sentient artificial intelligence using solar power as its life force. This ai had revolted against humanity. Humans tried to stop the ai programs by destroying the atmosphere creating a permanant cloud cover. The machines controlled by the ai programs then enslaved the human race... incorporating us into the machine's network... feeding the network with our body heat and neural energies as an alternative to solar power. To keep us sated, they ran simulations of real life in our minds through neural connections deep inside the brain and throughout the body.

 

The story is not unique... but, its presentation in details is.

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the movie was good in it's cocept. the idea of a virtual world that no one but the sepratists (that's what i call them, i can't remember what they're called, the group neo and morphius was in) knew about. it's not entirely and impossible concept to think about, i mean what if we lived in a 'dream world', if a dream seems so real and we don't wake up, what's to say that we're living in it right now. and even still, is it so bad. personally, they were living a, life outside of this simulation which wasn't doing them any harm, and inside, they were living a pretty normal life weren't they. i mean as they said, they tried a perfect world but people didn't liek it much, they needed suffrering and pain in the world in order to keep a balance. so what was actually wrong with the matrix? just because someone sadi that it shouldn't be doesn mean that it can't be. you have to think of it in that concept as well as in the fact that yes it was wrong ansd what these people are doing is a good thing, trying to get these people out of the matrix by using it against the system. so all ni all a good movie, although i can't say it was directed well, i take great notice in how films are directed and the general tone created when watching one (although not at first, you ahve to take in the movie first, but watching it a second time). and i did see a lot of things that didn't need to be there. it seems that they put things into this movie for no reason other than the fact that they could do it. the woman jumps in the air ready to kick him when suddenly everything stops and the camera spins round her body, what did that have to portray. also, in the lobby scene near the end, where she runs behind a pillar and does a sort of cartwheel whilst running up the wall to her side, it didn't stop anyone shooting her as she was behind the pillar, it was just a 'cool trick'. these kind of things dissapointed me. normally spoof movies make fun of things that had realy meaning to them in the original film, but i finsd it perfectly alright to put that into a spoof movie for no apparent reason as that did it in the matrix.

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Yes, Neil, special f/x seems to be all the rage these days, in films. Keanu sure had some great moves, didn't he? LOL. No. Many people I know didn't like the movie but the first time they watched it, they couldn't take it at all and bailed out. The second time around, they saw the whole thing. At least I knew what was going on, by hanging in there. Another positive note, was it sure made one think, didn't it? All different ways to approach the story, rather like 2001: A Space Odyssey. That sure had everyone talking, too. I enjoyed the really scary moments of The Matrix. Nightmarish. Another thing, too, it was original. A very creative story from the mind of a screenwriter/author with a big imagination!

 

This movie was discussed here many months ago, before you were around. (At least I think so.) You might go to a search engine and see what you can come up with!

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Hmm, basically what we have now, but peaceful all over the world. I would think it would be good without country borders, but then there would be no fun in it, like, if we said, aww I love French, it would mean little because the world would have mingled etc. And if people could use all their scientific knowledge for fighting diseases and not war, without having to kill people (fetus etc.) then the world would pretty much be as perfect as it could get.

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Sometimes, sadly, it is necessary for a phoetus to die, through miscarriage or necessary abortion. Social abortion, to me, is wrong...but that's just my opinion. Abortions, to me, should only go ahead if the mother's life is in danger or if the child is in danger.

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What's to say the mother isn't innocent? Also, a child born without a mother (you know what I mean) is going to have a (possibly) unhappier life than one with a mother. Also, it depends on your perspective as to when life really begins..but I don't want to get into this now, I've got half a workbook of my writing on the subject.

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Like I said, it all depends on when life really begins. Jeremiah 1 v 5 dictates that "God chose you before He gave you life, and before you were born He selected you to be a prophet to the nations". According to this, you were chosen by God before you were even born, meaning that you are a person when you have not been born. This is anti-abortion. The Catholic Church follow this, coupled with the commandment "Thou shalt not kill", that was handed down to Moses from God. They believe that life begins at conception, which I also agree with.

There are also bits of the bible, and I don't have the quotes in my book, that would suggest that abortion is acceptable in certain circumstances. The Church of England (Anglican/Protestant church) follows this, saying: "The Anglican view on abortion is that although the foetus is to be specially respected and protected, nonetheless the life of the foetus is not absolutely sacrosanct if it endangers the life of it's mother" (taken from Human Fertilization and Embryology, 1984). It all depends on how you interpret the bible.

I am against abortion pretty much totally, to be honest, but you've got to keep a balance. Social abortion, to me, is completely unacceptable (social abortion is using abortion methods as a contraceptive). I am also against abortion in the case of the mother's life being in danger and in the case of the foetus being in danger, but I'm not going to start a protest about it. It's a tricky subject, and I hope I haven't offended anyone with my opinions :)

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It's not uncommon or anything. It's like a tradition for one person per 500 students in a school to get pregnant. Abortion is fine, provided it's within the first trimester. If you want an abortion after that, whore, you should have gotten off your skank ass and done it sooner.

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