Deep Utopia

Article

Deep Utopia is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between October 17, 2024 and April 01, 2026. The archive places it in contexts such as “His latest book breaks from his usual oeuvre. In Deep Utopia , he asks”; “If you made Zizek write fiction, you would get Deep Utopia”; “Deep Utopia feels less like an academic paper”. It most often appears alongside 1108 R St, 11841 Wagner Street, 131 Colonie Center.

Metadata

  • Category: Books
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: October 17, 2024
  • Last seen: April 01, 2026

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

October 17, 2024 · Original source
His latest book breaks from his usual oeuvre. In Deep Utopia, he asks: “What if technology is really really good?”
We can start by bounding the damage. Our deep utopia will know how to wirehead people safely. So worst-case scenario, if you absolutely can’t figure out anything else to do, you live in perfect bliss forever. Bostrom urges us not to reflexively turn up our noses at this outcome. Wireheading grosses us out because our best approximations for it - drugs, porn, etc - are tawdry and shallow. Actually-good wireheading would be neither. You could walk through the woods at sunrise, experiencing a combination of the joy you felt at the birth of your first child, the excitement Einstein experienced upon seeing the first glimmers of relativity, and the ecstasy of St. Teresa as she gazed upon the face of God. That afternoon, you could walk somewhere else, and feel an entirely different artisanal combination of blisses. “It feels so good that if the sensation were translated into tears of gratitude, rivers would overflow.”
If wireheading seems too meaningless, you can add in wireheaded-meaning. People often say that an MDMA trip or mystical vision was the most meaningful experience of their lives. It would be trivial for our Deep Utopians to hack your brain to see a world in a grain of sand or heaven in a wildflower. We're gonna mean so much, you might even get tired of meaning. And you'll say 'please, please, it's too much meaning. We can't take it anymore, Professor Bostrom, it's too much!'
April 01, 2026 · Original source
Contact: Joe Nash Contact Info: helsinkirationalish[@]gmail[.]com Time: Wednesday, May 6th, 6:00 PM Location: Oluthuone Kaisla, Vilhonkatu 4. I will have the book Deep Utopia on the table. Coordinates: https://plus.codes/9GG65WCW+PW Group Link: https://www.lesswrong.com/groups/a995jZ2y2s9qWxjEy