Utopia on earth and morality without guilt (with Joe Carlsmith)

<p>What are some of the challenges of defining utopia? What should a utopia look like? What are concrete versus sublime utopias? What are some of the failure modes related to various conceptions of utopia? Is it really that hard to create a shared, positive vision of the future? What is the value (or disvalue) of creating new people, especially in relation to the utopic or dystopic state of the world? What is &quot;whole-hearted morality&quot; versus &quot;morality-as-taxes&quot;? How can we encourage people to be more moral without harming them psychologically (e.g., by loading them down with guilt)? Which sorts of worldview changes are reversible? Where does <em>clinging</em> fit into the constellation of concepts like valuing, caring, envying, etc.? How does non-attachment differ from indifference? Is clinging always bad? Is philosophy making tangible progress as a field? Is philosophy's primary function to show us how our questions are confused rather than to give us direct answers to our questions? Has philosophy given us a clearer picture of what consciousness is or isn't?</p><p>Joe Carlsmith is a research analyst at <a href="https://www.openphilanthropy.org/">Open Philanthropy</a> and a doctoral student in philosophy at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on risks to humanity's long-term future. He has a BPhil from Oxford and a BA from Yale, both in philosophy. His website is <a href="https://www.josephcarlsmith.com/">josephcarlsmith.com</a>, his blog is <a href="https://handsandcities.com/">handsandcities.com</a>, and his Twitter handle is <a href="https://twitter.com/jkcarlsmith">@jkcarlsmith</a>.</p>