My waking fantasy

My sleeping imagination provides a bizarre contrast to my waking one. In effort to cope with my condition, I frequently daydream of a world where suffering has been minimized to a point of being acute and temporary, and ultimately remedied upon detection. To make this fantasy believable, almost tantamount to a humanist religion, I envisage this alternate reality to be one where the world has been united under a single polity where science and effective altruistic morality pragmatically work in unison to achieve this utopia.

It is of course: pure fantasy. And from an outside perspective, this utopian paracosm may very well be considered a dystopia or an outright totalitarian wet dream akin to the World State depicted in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

In this apparently utopian fantasy world, I imagine a nest of artificial wombs, perpetually freeing women from the physical, economic, and psychological burdens of pregnancy — while simultaneously ensuring an optimal environment for fetal development. If this fantasy were a reality for instance, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder would be utterly eradicated. Furthermore, upcoming parents could be given a livestream feed of their developing child. A device could be placed on the belly of the mother (and father) that could relay the heartbeat and kicking sensation directly via a somatosensory system. No mother would die giving birth, and abortion would be effectively consigned to oblivion.

A person's life from birth would be guided along a pervasive choice architecture, limiting their choices in quantity to "nudge" them in a direction deemed ideal for their personal and socioeconomic development. If designed correctly, this choice architecture would appear emancipating rather than restricting. After all, why be presented options that will only lead to dead ends? Failure does not necessarily always offer a pathway for growth. Having too many options available can in effect become an oppressive obstruction, where the options suitable for you are hid by an overload that offer you no value at all. For the most indecisive, there would always be a "default" option that would be selected for its universal benefit, such as an opt-out system, or presumed consent, for organ donations.

To counter bullying in schools and workplaces, along with criminality, and assuming the dark triad personality traits are not outright eliminated through the germline engineering of humans or if possible through gene therapy, all children would be subject to compulsory testing initiatives, similar to that used to detect and transfer gifted students to specialized programs. These initiatives would test for maladaptive personality traits, specifically those that would harm the social development of others. Those found to have anti-social traits would be assigned to a mental health professional and have their treatment paid fully by the state. In this fantasy world, bullying and criminality is treated as a threat to public health, regarded as within the realm of medical professionals, and treated with preventative programs rather than reactive ones. Psychopaths and sociopaths therefore in this alternative reality would not be your CEO, parent, or other authority figure, but rather would be treated as a mental patient under close psychiatric observation and care — covered fully by the state apparatus. The costs of these preventative measures would be tiny in comparison to the grave social harms these individuals cause when left untreated. Research into these disorders would be taken very seriously and would be part of a massive public research program into mental illness.

I acknowledge fully that my waking fantasy, which could be considered my loosely defined utilitarian identity, is highly idiosyncratic and in violation of numerous social norms. I am sure if put into practice, it would likely violate human rights. However, I am markedly unconcerned for social mores in my fantasies. The holy regard for personal liberty held by liberals, the worship of the past by conservatives, and obsession with New Age culture by social progressives does not shape my moral philosophy or what may appear as amorality, at least in method. I also acknowledge that in my ideal world, I, and other schizoids would not exist. Schizoid personality disorder is a mental illness. It would be unrealistic to call it just some eccentric difference. The denialism of the negative quality life caused by disability, mental, physical, or otherwise, is delusional. It is why that while I definitely support assistance to the disabled, along with other protections intended to improve lives, I ultimately still yearn for the end of disability — not the preservation of it.