Utopia here on earth

The topic of the week is science fiction. On Thursday I visited the British Library's new Out of this World exhibition and last night I took part in a Little Atoms podcast recording about techno utopia at the Free Word Centre in London. I was joined on stage by Ken Hollings, the mind-bendingly brilliant writer and Gia Milinovitch, the technology broadcaster who was one of the BBC's earliest web users in the 1990s. It was moderated by open rights expert Becky Hogge, who I worked with at openDemocracy moons ago.

The idea of manmade utopias goes back at least a few hundred years. But the big question for us was whether such utopias can exist or if they'll always be imaginary. It happened to coincide with Adam Curtis's documentary last night on BBC Two, about the radical ideas of Ayn Rand, which seemed to suggest that trusting the wisdom of the markets, mediated by technology, will doom us to destruction. Ken made the point during the discussion that, given nature is so often dangerous and cruel, it makes little sense to believe that we can create ideal communities without danger or cruelty. But then again, we never seem to abandon the idea that we can improve life on earth using good technology. One of my themes in Geek Nation, for example, is how Indians (and in fact this also applies to South Koreans and Chinese) are convinced that we have the power to transform society for both the rich and the poor through things like electronic governance, genetic modification and nuclear power.

We discussed all this, plus privacy on the Internet, the curiously British fear of change and other interesting ideas. But if you missed the live event, don't worry, the podcast is available online on the Little Atoms website.