"No gods or kings, only man"

[nixubaby]

I think that it could have a chance of working, but only if it was in a lot smaller scale than the original rapture and if its inhabitants were reasonably intelligent. I know it would be hard to sustain that kind of system, let alone create it. I was just intrigued by the idea.
Anyways, Didn´t rapture have the kind of basic moral codes and laws but people tended to forget those after altering their genes and growing obsessed with adam, or am i completely wrong.(haven´t really looked into this)

 

[Spiner909]

It would just be exactly what Andrew Ryan feared: he became a dictator. It would work only temporarily, just like in the game. It could not last forever.

 

[Distorted Stu]

nope

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nnnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooooopppppppppppppppeeeeeeeeeee

I lol'd

OT: No, it would never work. People would just use the freedom to gain power and eventually try and claim everything for themselves.

 

[TheHappo]

Ryan didn't fully represent his city in Bioshock. Up until the discovery of ADAM according to the residents the city was functional and beautiful. He was obsessed with the self that he couldn't take Fontaine being bigger than him when Fontaine reaped the benefits of ADAM. Ryan didn't regulate ADAM, and then went all totalitarian on the city. Fontaine's a far better representation of the city... so it still didn't really work out in Bioshock, obviously, but there we go.

I think that a society would definately benefit without religion, and certainly with less standing in the way of scientific advancement and artistic expression. It does however need some moral foundation, and some level of social care.

 

[ghstman]

The problem with Ryan's utopia is the impact of greed. If everyone is looking out for number one, that opens the door to greed and from there nothing is off limits if it is in the interest of self preservation. For an interesting read on the subject look into Thomas Hobbes's "Leviathan". He talks about the structure of society and why he feels it is the way it is. The important part I'll summarize is this:

In a world without laws (which he calls the state of nature or the state of war), everyone is only going to be concerned with keeping themselves alive. This means that you will do anything you need to preserve your own life. If you have to murder a child to steal food from it, you would. Eventually, we all come to the concession though that it is in the interest of self preservation if we all agree to some limitations on our freedoms (I'll give up my right to kill you if you give up your right to kill me) because otherwise life is "solitary, nasty, brutish and short".

In Ryan's world, one focused on looking out only for one's own self interest might be tempted to slip back into this pattern. Is murder illegal in Rapture? Yes. But the splicers do it because once anarchy reigns it is in their best interest to do so, for their own personal gain. The same could be said for the smuggling in Rapture, and the reason Ryan's response was so violent against Fontaine. Ryan was looking out only for himself, so when someone started cutting into his pocket, his reaction was violent and merciless (as was Fontaine's counter reaction to Ryan, but in the interest of spoilers, I won't say what it was. Anyone who has played the game though knows exactly what I'm talking about).

There's more to be said about the counter to this, and I could throw in some John Locke as being the model for the counter example of Dr. Lamb and why that didn't work, but I'm not as well read on Locke, so I'll leave that up to you to research. (Suffice for now to say that Locke believes that we will only do what we need to survive, and nothing more. Suppose we found an apple tree, Locke would have us only taking as many apples as it takes for us to feed ourselves and pass out the rest of our neighbors so they can eat too. Hobbes would have us beating people with a fallen branch so we could keep the tree for ourselves.)

 

[Yumi_and_Erea]

If you're lucky (and I mean very, very lucky) you can keep it up for 2 generations.
The moment the original founders snuff it however, the whole things goes down the piddle-pipe.

 

[Nemu]

Nope. No way. It's like communism; great on paper, not so great in practice.

Pretty much this.

All too soon the "human" factor would kick in.

 

[Kollega]

I'll make one statement on the matter. Some people here insist that humans are inherently dicks. I, on the other hand, say that humans are not inherently dicks - but they most certainly are WHEN YOU ACTIVELY ENCOURAGE THEM TO. So Objectivist utopia is the most impossible of all utopias - can there really be a utopia (i.e. "free happines and hugs for everyone") built on "dog-eat-dog" mentality? Short answer: NO. Long answer: NO, because "survival of the fittest" contradicts with "happines for everyone".

Hell, a Communist society of similar size has more chances of working, and that's saying a lot.

 

[creatiwe]

it would work and be pretty good society, but it would need a strong ruler that would not let the society get outa control.

 

[AntiAntagonist]

If people never changed and were without sickness or scarcity it might work.

People do change over time whether they intend it or not. That leads to changes in outlook and beliefs.

Sickness in its many forms affects the mind and body. Temporary diseases can permanently change a person's life, demeanor, sanity and relationships.

Scarcity pushes the mind towards both trade (literally, socially, intellectually and physically; which is generally noble) and dispute (argument, competition, underhandedness and war; in varying degrees of ignobility). Dispute is the very thing that is hard to regulate, and indeed is a common topic of debate. One could also more generally argue that people's personalities and sickness are either scarcities themselves, or large contributing factors.

Attempting objectivity in government is a huge challenge as we are not all created equal (we strive for equality in justice). In fact the very problem with Andrew Ryan's creation was that everyone had egos without prescience, or in some cases common sense (like say, testing the long term effects of plasmids or giving instant fire to people living in an enclosed oxygen-rich environment).

 

[Mikkaddo]

ah, well the problem is if everyone is allowed to "reach their potential" then you have to question what that potential is. After all, as Fontain in Bioshock 1 says in so many words "no matter how many top tier jerks you got down here, SOMEONE still has to wipe the shitters"

And also aside from that, you would HAVE to create a utopian city of nothing but aetheists, because the chances of creating a city that doesn't allow "faith" or "religion" yet has citizens that FOLLOW a religion . . . it will fail, GARUNTEED.

Just look at how it goes to try and keep people from talking about religion out in the public today.

 

[Susano]

The problem with Ryan's utopia is the impact of greed. If everyone is looking out for number one, that opens the door to greed and from there nothing is off limits if it is in the interest of self preservation. For an interesting read on the subject look into Thomas Hobbes's "Leviathan". He talks about the structure of society and why he feels it is the way it is. The important part I'll summarize is this:

In a world without laws (which he calls the state of nature or the state of war), everyone is only going to be concerned with keeping themselves alive. This means that you will do anything you need to preserve your own life. If you have to murder a child to steal food from it, you would. Eventually, we all come to the concession though that it is in the interest of self preservation if we all agree to some limitations on our freedoms (I'll give up my right to kill you if you give up your right to kill me) because otherwise life is "solitary, nasty, brutish and short".

In Ryan's world, one focused on looking out only for one's own self interest might be tempted to slip back into this pattern. Is murder illegal in Rapture? Yes. But the splicers do it because once anarchy reigns it is in their best interest to do so, for their own personal gain. The same could be said for the smuggling in Rapture, and the reason Ryan's response was so violent against Fontaine. Ryan was looking out only for himself, so when someone started cutting into his pocket, his reaction was violent and merciless (as was Fontaine's counter reaction to Ryan, but in the interest of spoilers, I won't say what it was. Anyone who has played the game though knows exactly what I'm talking about).

There's more to be said about the counter to this, and I could throw in some John Locke as being the model for the counter example of Dr. Lamb and why that didn't work, but I'm not as well read on Locke, so I'll leave that up to you to research. (Suffice for now to say that Locke believes that we will only do what we need to survive, and nothing more. Suppose we found an apple tree, Locke would have us only taking as many apples as it takes for us to feed ourselves and pass out the rest of our neighbors so they can eat too. Hobbes would have us beating people with a fallen branch so we could keep the tree for ourselves.)

I always took his state of nature to mean Anarchy, does that fit?
Also, did he say that to have a functioning society, you also must have a state of nature somewhere so that people have a choice?

ah, well the problem is if everyone is allowed to "reach their potential" then you have to question what that potential is. After all, as Fontain in Bioshock 1 says in so many words "no matter how many top tier jerks you got down here, SOMEONE still has to wipe the shitters"

And also aside from that, you would HAVE to create a utopian city of nothing but aetheists, because the chances of creating a city that doesn't allow "faith" or "religion" yet has citizens that FOLLOW a religion . . . it will fail, GARUNTEED.

Just look at how it goes to try and keep people from talking about religion out in the public today.

I really don't get it. A lot of people have said in this thread that Religion and this society wouldn't work, and I see no way how a city with mixed theist/atheist would work out any differently from a pure atheist, or pure theist society.

 

[Doitpow]

it would work and be pretty good society, but it would need a strong ruler that would not let the society get outa control.

But the whole point is that there is no ruler and no regulation. Thats not Ryan's dream. That's just a pragmatic dictatorship.

 

[tkioz]

I'll make one statement on the matter. Some people here insist that humans are inherently dicks. I, on the other hand, say that humans are not inherently dicks - but they most certainly are WHEN YOU ACTIVELY ENCOURAGE THEM TO. So Objectivist utopia is the most impossible of all utopias - can there really be a utopia (i.e. "free happines and hugs for everyone") built on "dog-eat-dog" mentality? Short answer: NO. Long answer: NO, because "survival of the fittest" contradicts with "happines for everyone".

Hell, a Communist society of similar size has more chances of working, and that's saying a lot.

I think the number of active connections a human can have to other people is some where around 150, almost triple that of apes and other social animals, but after that Human brains aren't good with abstract numbers when it comes to human suffering, we don't scale it up that well, tell someone there is a dead man outside, they'll be shocked, tell them someone killed a hundred men and they'll be horrified, tell them a million died and they'll express horror but not really feel it. The old expression "kill one man and you're a murder, kill a hundred and you're a mass murder, kill a million and you're a conquer" really does make sense.

When it comes to keep your family fed you'll do almost anything, it's hard-wired into us, kill a man and doom his family to feed your own? not nice, not moral, but you'll do it if its your only choice, it's bred so deep into the human condition you can't not do it.

So yes, people are dicks, but as I said before, we need to be dicks, it's an inherent part of the human condition, need, want, desire, greed, those things we see a negatives kept out ancestors alive at the expense of others.

It's easy to talk about charity in a world of plenty.

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

I take it you are not familiar with the works of Ayn Rand.

Are you familiar with the works of Francis of Left 4 Dead fame?

OT: It's surprising such a smart cookie as Andrew Ryan didn't predict that it couldn't work.

 

[Mother Yeti]

I take it you are not familiar with the works of Ayn Rand.

The widely discredited-openly bitter about bitter about her birthplace-ridiculed by the entire academic world for over half a century-based on fundamental misunderstandings about human cognition Ayn Rand? or a different one?

Yep, that one.

I take it you are not familiar with the works of Ayn Rand.

Are you familiar with the works of Francis of Left 4 Dead fame?

I do not get this joke.

 

[tkioz]

I take it you are not familiar with the works of Ayn Rand.

Are you familiar with the works of Francis of Left 4 Dead fame?

OT: It's surprising such a smart cookie as Andrew Ryan didn't predict that it couldn't work.

Smart people can be stupid too, by that I mean they can allow what they want(in this case a perfect world) to overrule what they know. It's one of the thing scientists are told over and over again not to do.

 

[Monshroud]

A world without religion, sure. As George Carlin said "if you do your research you discover that God is one of the leading causes of death. Millions of dead Mother F*&#ers all because God said it was a good idea."

Now I don't think that Andrew Ryan said anything about no morals or ethics. I think it was more about other people not imposing their beliefs on you. So if you had a problem doing something, you didn't have to do it. You weren't forced to do something you didn't agree with.

Actually I think Andrew Ryan's biggest mistake was that he kept a monetary based society. Had he removed money from the equation things may have turned out differently.

 

[jthm]

Nope. No way. It's like communism; great on paper, not so great in practice.

Actually communism has never been fully tested, if I recall correctly the part where it all went tits up has been the early middle part of communism, the part where everyone is under the jackboot, later on comes the good communism, at least in theory.

Again the problem with communism is people are dicks.

The problem with communism is that none of you seem to know what the fuck it is.

Marx never supported a move over to communism now way of going about things. He predicted that free markets would eventually fail (like Rapture, or the United States if you want a slightly more plausible storyline) and adapt by becoming gradually more Socialist (unlike rapture, like the U.S. is painfully starting to do and like most of Europe has done) as the government takes control of key portions of the economy to prevent disaster and abuse. Eventually, Marx theorized, we could live in perfectly equal communes were we each had equal say in the running of our own lives and competition wasn't necessary as we simply did what we were able to and trusted others to do the same for the betterment of our societies.

It is true that communism has never been tried, because it isn't a system that can be implemented, it's just the natural result (in Marx's view) of societal evolution.