Well put. I enjoyed Monk and Robot as well, and it is a nice idealistic future the author envisions. But it seems to effectively be heaven on earth: in the sense that people's sinful tendencies have been removed. The line dividing good and evil, contra Solzhenitsyn, no longer cuts through every human heart. Or what evils there are are extremely minor... I think we see a little pettiness, a little failure to empathise, but no cruelty, and as you say no greed or desire for status.
And while it's nice enough to read about, any attempt to devise such a society in the real world is going to have to be robust to bad actors, to people who are cruel and mean just because they can be. (At least until Jesus comes again to truly remove all sinfulness.)
Well put. I enjoyed Monk and Robot as well, and it is a nice idealistic future the author envisions. But it seems to effectively be heaven on earth: in the sense that people's sinful tendencies have been removed. The line dividing good and evil, contra Solzhenitsyn, no longer cuts through every human heart. Or what evils there are are extremely minor... I think we see a little pettiness, a little failure to empathise, but no cruelty, and as you say no greed or desire for status.
And while it's nice enough to read about, any attempt to devise such a society in the real world is going to have to be robust to bad actors, to people who are cruel and mean just because they can be. (At least until Jesus comes again to truly remove all sinfulness.)