A perfect society? [updated]

[iago]

Picture this:

20 years in the future, genetic manipulation is common.  Due to the advancement of science, the following suggestion is made:

Genetically engineer two races, derivatives of humans.  One would be leaders, and the other would be citizens.  The leaders would be engineered to be good and perfect leaders.  The citizens would be subservient, adept at labour, and would be engineered to worship and obey their leaders under any circumstances.  Humans would cease to exist instantly, to make this thought problem work (since apparently using a clean planet confuses the issue too much). 

The leaders would fairly steriile, and would breed only enough to sustain themselves.  The citizens would be reasonably fertile and would breed quickly. 

Everybody would be engineered to get happiness out of doing their work, whether it be leading or labour.

Everybody will be happy and productive.  There would be no crime, and the civilization would be strong.

Would this be a good move to make?  What are problems with this?

[trust]

There's no individuality, or ability to prosper or come up in life. It's like the movie Antz, you're either a warrior or a worker...

[rabbit]

*cough*

This is almost exactly the same as Aldous Huxely's "A Brave New World" (which is a very good book, btw).  No time to post now, but I'll elaborate later.

[Joe]

That sounds more like a nice AI then a world, really.

[Eric]

Unless I'm missing something, their offspring wouldn't take on their parents traits through standard child birth — the children workers would have to be taught to worship the leaders and the children leaders would have to be taught how to be good leaders which could cause a number of problems in a countless number of scenarios including: premature death of parent(s), parents failing to teach children everything that they knew (degradation of the system over time), and ofcourse our natural desire to question authorities and seek individuality.

[MyndFyre]

It's a good thought experiment to make.  Unfortunately it's already been done!

Okay, perhaps it hasn't been done under the conditions you've specified.  But that's okay -- it's similar nonetheless.

One of the things we value as humans is our diversity.  Of course, it's a constant source of strife, but it's also our greatest strength, I think.  We are adaptable as situations demand, we can learn from our mistakes, and those of others.

To create a homogeneous group of laborers and another of leaders would be to strip us of our diversity.  For example, one logical step after this would be to strip people of their racial identities and distinctiveness.  This was portrayed in the book The Giver, for instance, when the main character (Jonas) was given all of the memories of the world and began to see that sameness was not all it was cracked up to be.

Similarly-themed, the movie Equilibrium takes place in a future in which everyone has been stripped of human emotion, allowing (as the main antagnist says) "everyone to lead identical lives."  There is no strife, save for those who refuse to take the drug eliminating human emotion; consequently, only one law-enforcement agency exists -- the one designed to wipe out any last vestige of human emotion.  The protagonist, First Cleric John Preston, discovers the dizzying highs of human emotion *and* individuality when he accidentally (so it seems) drops his daily dose of Prozium (the emotion-removing drug) after killing his partner for being a "sense offender," and begins to understand what the people he has made a career of destroying are yearning for.

Finally, I can't seem to stop praising Demolition Man for the great social criticism movie that it is.  It pretty much depicts the same scenario you do, Ron, and you can see from watching about 10 minutes of the movie exactly what's wrong with that situation.  ;)

All told, besides literature, there is logical reason to *not* do this too.  For one, who's to say what the "perfect" leader would be?  Nobody is perfect (well, except me, but that goes without saying), but who isn't going to say that I'm *not* the perfect leader to increase his kid's chances of staying in power?  Plus, we'll lose the differing viewpoints that diversity offers.

That's precisely why things like racism are bad for our society -- they discount (as your example does) the contributions of a particular subset of people.

[Sidoh]

Very well put, MyndFyre.  The Giver was a good book.  The Island also reminded me of this type of situation, though there was a "normal" world outside of theirs.

I think anything that threatens our way of life is going to be viewed negatively by the majority of the people who discover it.  We like the way things are, for the most part, and would not be willing to sacrifice this.

Supporting such a world would practically handing your freedom away.  You would not have the freedom to run for a leader or change your role in life; I don't think that's something that many people wish to accept.  What is the point of life if there is no happiness?

[Kaleeko]

Not all things being considered, it would  be a perfect society. The way put, it would be genetically engineered that everyone be happy. That's what everyone wants, is to be happy, right?

Wrong. The problem with the function of a "perfect society" is that, for some strange reason, a component of humanity is suffering. Without suffering, the worth of life is zilch, and therefore existing at all becomes animalistic -- only a fight for survival. A major part of humanity is that we've evolved past that. Without suffering, there would be no heroes, no choices, no concept of good or evil or love or hate; well, possibly the concepts, but in a perfect society, it would be devoid of such things. Without suffering, humanity ceases to be what we've strived so long to call "human".

Suffering causes bad choices and therefore the deviation from perfection.

This has been Liesl's rant about why she thinks perfection is stupid. Har har.

[MyndFyre]

for some strange reason, a component of humanity is suffering.

You hit it on the mark, but it's not for "some strange reason."  It's simply because without the bad we would have no means by which to judge good.  :)

[iago]

Good responses, I enjoyed reading them. 

And to cease the speculation, I'll tell you where I got the idea from: Star Trek DS9.  The Founders are "gods".  The Founders genetically engineered the Vorta to be leaders and to treat the Founders as gods.  And the Founders genetically engineered the Jem H'adar to be warriors.  It's an incredibly strong empire because the Founders are considered gods and can never e wrong. 

[MyndFyre]

Good responses, I enjoyed reading them. 

And to cease the speculation, I'll tell you where I got the idea from: Star Trek DS9.  The Founders are "gods".  The Founders genetically engineered the Vorta to be leaders and to treat the Founders as gods.  And the Founders genetically engineered the Jem H'adar to be warriors.  It's an incredibly strong empire because the Founders are considered gods and can never e wrong. 

Ironically enough, though, the Founders *were* wrong when they invaded the Alpha Quadrant.

I thought the entire scenario put an interesting perspective on the nature vs nuture debate.  For example, do Vorta *know* from birth that the Founders are gods?  Or are they simply indoctrinated that way?  Furthermore, how did Odo know that he had to go to the Argolis Cluster?  Was that knowledge imparted to him just after birth?  The canon suggests that he was genetically engineered to know it.

[iago]

x86] link=topic=4691.msg53014#msg53014 date=1138670617]

Good responses, I enjoyed reading them. 

And to cease the speculation, I'll tell you where I got the idea from: Star Trek DS9.  The Founders are "gods".  The Founders genetically engineered the Vorta to be leaders and to treat the Founders as gods.  And the Founders genetically engineered the Jem H'adar to be warriors.  It's an incredibly strong empire because the Founders are considered gods and can never e wrong. 

Ironically enough, though, the Founders *were* wrong when they invaded the Alpha Quadrant.

I thought the entire scenario put an interesting perspective on the nature vs nuture debate.  For example, do Vorta *know* from birth that the Founders are gods?  Or are they simply indoctrinated that way?  Furthermore, how did Odo know that he had to go to the Argolis Cluster?  Was that knowledge imparted to him just after birth?  The canon suggests that he was genetically engineered to know it.

They repeatedly say that the Vorta and Jem H'adar are genetically programmed to obey the founders as Gods.  So yes, they *know* from birth.  I'm sure it's also indoctrinated in them, too. 

Well, there are two ways of looking at the Odo problem, I guess.  I don't think the knowledge being imparted to him just after birth would be likely, because he couldn't even take a shape when he was born.  So that leaves two options:
a) He was genetically modified to know instinctively to go there.  The Founders are obviously adept at modifying (not necessarily engineering) the "instinct" part of the genetic structure, so it's logical that they'd be able to program Odo that way.
b) All founders are born knowing either i) to recognize the Argolis Cluster, or ii) be drawn towards other shapeshifters.

I think that, of all those options, b-ii) would be my choice. 

There is a fatal flaw with a) and b-i) -- the inital contact with the Founders is made in episodes 3.1 and 3.2 in the Argolis cluster.  Later, in I think 3.20, Enabran Tain and the rest of the Obsidian Order attack that planet; however, it is discovered that the Founders were moved to a new world.  As a result, any Changeling that was away from the planet (the 100 sent out, like Odo) would never be able to get back.

The reason I like b-ii) is because in episode 4.11, a Founder takes the form of an Admiral.  When Odo walks by him, he senses it.  Then, in episode 7.14, the other Changeling comments, "I came here because I could sense you" (or something similar).  It seems that Changelings can sense the presence of each other, and I'm pretty sure ther's at least one other episode where a comment about them sensing each othe ris made.  The Great Link, being an ocean of Founders, is probably extremely easy for another Changeling to sense, the way Odo did.  But that's all just speculation, they never go into details.