http://www.openwikitopia.org/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Hels0823&feedformat=atomOpenwikitopia - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T22:56:42ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.34.0http://www.openwikitopia.org/index.php?title=User_talk:Oruanger&diff=62User talk:Oruanger2013-04-01T05:57:15Z<p>Hels0823: Created page with "[http://www.lizmy.com/ jordan high heels] Basic safety and many types of forms of high-heeled shoes, such as Nike High Heel Pumps acquire a free of charge conquer. Typically r..."</p>
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<div>Utopia is ECLECTIC and everybody doesn't do the same things.[http://www.lizmy.com cheap jordan heels for sale]<br />
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All or any architecture is different from one other. <br />
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Everyone is rich including the environment and other animals. <br />
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The flag of utopia should be a bicycle. EXERCISE, NOT POLLUTING, AND SAVING MONEY, efficient perfect design. Cars are dystopian in this respect.<br />
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In design a Utopian item is like a Swiss army knife with many functions and built without planned obsolescence and to give as many benefits as possible as opposed to any bad side effects. see comparison of cars to bikes. Design is customizable and able to be printed out of recycled materials or inflatable or extruded clay, 3d printed solar fused sand (glass), etc, etc<br />
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Permaculture is Utopian. Food can easily be everywhere.<br />
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The internet is Utopian. <br />
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The quickest way to have a Utopia would be for the federal reserve conjure a million dollars or more for every american citizen and deposit it into each persons bank account (instead of depositing it in the banks bank account, loaned into existence and exponentially multiplied as is done now.) and make inflation illegal. Make resources abundant and truly scarce resources (after all ingenuity)can inflate in price.<br />
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Marijuana is Utopian It cures cancer and 16 other diseases, and should be legal to consume and grow. <br />
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In Utopia all of your wildest dreams will come true, providing they don't hurt anyone else. This is practical. This is possible. We will have the choice to live lives of adventure if we so choose.<br />
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College is free and indefinite if desired.<br />
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Funding for projects is easy. Resources are made abundant through ingenuity.<br />
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Medical care is free, because PAYING FOR YOUR LIFE IS RANSOM, and medical knowledge is the legacy of all humanity. Selling organs is illegal and so should it be illegal for a doctor to sell your own organs to you.<br />
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As another small example: Baking soda is Utopian it has 1000 uses it is non toxic.<br />
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City streets should be closed to cars, shipping in lighter than air dirigible packages. or pneumatic tubes. <br />
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Pneumatic tubes replace street trash cans and everything is recycled by being siphoned off into tubes for cycling back to raw materials.<br />
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All electricity should be wireless, solar and wind and electric. Nuclear power plants that are built for 50 years but can poison for millions is dystopian. Coal is dystopian: causes cancer, hurricanes, drought, mountain destroying, water poisoning. <br />
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Everything must be renewable.<br />
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Non recyclables are eaten by trash eating bacteria (existing) <br />
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All Minerals are mined from de-salination processes.<br />
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The use of petroleum should be illegal. Airplanes will be lighter than airships (but shaped and functioning like airplanes, (existing)), Spaceships will be Kevlar inflatable solar sail ships with cycling ecosystems aboard launched from the very upper atmosphere, not the ground with a swimming pools worth of toxic fuel as is done now.<br />
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Buildings are preferably not rectangles with triangles on top, this is an inferior design and easily collapsible. Round shapes with bubble windows for instance will stand up to hurricanes and earthquakes. <br />
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All rooftops in cities must be farmed or gardened if otherwise unused.<br />
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Prisons should be mental institutions where people regain their pride in humanity through study and arts while being separated from society temporarily. Permanent separation from society for truly abhorrent crimes, but still not conditions of torture or unnecessary discomfort.<br />
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Wind turbines which collect 16 gallons of water per day from condensation (existing)should green the desert and provide abundant electricity to new residents.</div>Hels0823http://www.openwikitopia.org/index.php?title=Promethealand&diff=59Promethealand2013-03-27T11:22:15Z<p>Hels0823: </p>
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<div>Promethealand is a place that you can blend imagination with reality. “Imagined communities” of Promethealand do not need cities or villages. All spaces are open to everyone who wants to participate. If people would like to build their communities based on ethnicity, religious belief, music taste, favourite sports, political sensitivities…etc., they can do so. Anyone can start, join, or switch from one community to another. Every self-organized individual is involved in cultivating and sustaining their communities through developing and acting upon personal and social realities. Everyone has the right to be mobile – that means everyone feels free to travel and discover new places and communities. That also means every community welcomes different individuals/groups since what is different always challenges and stimulates creative thinking.[http://www.lizmy.com jordan heels for women]<br />
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Everyone is free to interact with resources and everyone is responsible for their sustainability as well as progress of their communities. Production is not limited to the manufacture of material goods, but it also transforms and generates knowledge, images, communications, and forms of life. The dynamic collaboration and interaction of differences lie at the heart of such commons-based production that affects and engenders all facets of social life. Every community’s future depends on a set of creative projects that rely on the concerted effort in shaping and bringing them out. <br />
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Everyone has the right to education which aims not only to teach minds critical thinking, but also to provide a space and tools for creativity and imagination. What education tries to encourage is not competition, earning money or being successful. Its primary aim is to furnish the creative needs of individuals so that they can control social conditions of their existence through their imagination. Therefore, the production and distribution of surpluses are not related to individual needs or ambitions, but they matter for the progress and prosperity of communities. Those self-organized individuals do not exert power over each other and their creative values are equal. Production systems are not hierarchically assigned and depend on every individual’s contribution on an equal basis. <br />
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The political structure aims to maximize the autonomy of differences – different groups, social structures, demand, and modes of living- by extending equality to everyone. Since every individual’s first and foremost identity is based on his/her creative needs, each cultural and individual particularity is welcomed. Those creative needs are channelled to the public space so that they can be tied together through strands of common identity, egalitarian principles, and collective benefits. Every member of society has the right to and responsibility for utopia – which assumes a continuous transformation in society to provide the fullness and wholeness of life for every individual as well as their communities.</div>Hels0823http://www.openwikitopia.org/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=58Main Page2013-03-27T11:20:30Z<p>Hels0823: /* Chickens */</p>
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<div>Utopia, broadly conceived, is a vision of a world not yet in existence that is different from and better than the world we inhabit now. Utopia as a philosophical ideal or a literary text entails no input other than that of its author and no commitment other than time and interest on the part of its readers, but Utopia as the basis of an alternative society necessitates the participation of its population. <br />
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Wikitopia aims to put the promise of Utopia in action: Create a space where we can collectively imagine alternatives, build, transform, and revise truth(s), and insist on reimagining the imaginary. Anyone can add and edit Wikitopia so feel free to start contributing, discussing, and imagining. <br />
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* If you don't know how to start, please click [http://wiki.theopenutopia.org/index.php?title=Help:Contents here].<br />
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== In the Beginning ==<br />
There was Thomas More's ''Utopia'', so this is where we begin: with excerpts of his vision of an ideal society. But what was ideal for More in the 16th century is far from ideal for us. We need to re-think and write-over his vision to collectively create our own. Let's begin <a href="http://www.lizmy.com">[jordan high heels]</a>[http://www.lizmy.com jordan heels for women]....<br />
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== Geography ==<br />
The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred miles broad, and holds almost at the same breadth over a great part of it, but it grows narrower towards both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent. Between its horns the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself into a great bay, which is environed with land to the compass of about five hundred miles, and is well secured from winds. In this bay there is no great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbor, which gives all that live in the island great convenience for mutual commerce.<br />
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== History ==<br />
Utopus, that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name), brought the rude and uncivilised inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of mankind. Having soon subdued them, he designed to separate them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite round them. To accomplish this he ordered a deep channel to be dug, fifteen miles long; and that the natives might not think he treated them like slaves, he not only forced the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to labor in carrying it on. As he set a vast number of men to work, he, beyond all men's expectations, brought it to a speedy conclusion. And his neighbors, who at first laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no sooner saw it brought to perfection than they were struck with admiration and terror.<br />
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== Political Structure ==<br />
Thirty families choose every year a magistrate, who was anciently called the Syphogrant, but is now called the Philarch; and over every ten Syphogrants, with the families subject to them, there is another magistrate, who was anciently called the Tranibore, but of late the Archphilarch. All the Syphogrants, who are in number two hundred, choose the Prince out of a list of four who are named by the people of the four divisions of the city; but they take an oath, before they proceed to an election, that they will choose him whom they think most fit for the office: they give him their voices secretly, so that it is not known for whom every one gives his suffrage. The Prince is for life, unless he is removed upon suspicion of some design to enslave the people. The Tranibors are new chosen every year, but yet they are, for the most part, continued; all their other magistrates are only annual.<br />
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The Tranibors meet every third day, and oftener if necessary, and consult with the Prince either concerning the affairs of the State in general, or such private differences as may arise sometimes among the people, though that falls out but seldom. There are always two Syphogrants called into the council chamber, and these are changed every day. It is a fundamental rule of their government, that no conclusion can be made in anything that relates to the public till it has been first debated three days in their council. It is death for any to meet and consult concerning the State, unless it be either in their ordinary council, or in the assembly of the whole body of the people.<br />
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These things have been so provided among them that the Prince and the Tranibors may not conspire together to change the government and enslave the people; and therefore when anything of great importance is set on foot, it is sent to the Syphogrants, who, after they have communicated it to the families that belong to their divisions, and have considered it among themselves, make report to the senate; and, upon great occasions, the matter is referred to the council of the whole island. One rule observed in their council is, never to debate a thing on the same day in which it is first proposed; for that is always referred to the next meeting, that so men may not rashly and in the heat of discourse engage themselves too soon, which might bias them so much that, instead of consulting the good of the public, they might rather study to support their first opinions, and by a perverse and preposterous sort of shame hazard their country rather than endanger their own reputation, or venture the being suspected to have wanted foresight in the expedients that they at first proposed; and therefore, to prevent this, they take care that they may rather be deliberate than sudden in their motions. <br />
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== Social Structure ==<br />
To return to their manner of living in society: the oldest man of every family, as has been already said, is its governor; wives serve their husbands, and children their parents, and always the younger serves the elder. <br />
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In the temples the two sexes are separated, the men go to the right hand, and the women to the left; and the males and females all place themselves before the head and master or mistress of the family to which they belong, so that those who have the government of them at home may see their deportment in public. And they intermingle them so, that the younger and the older may be set by one another; for if the younger sort were all set together, they would, perhaps, trifle away that time too much in which they ought to beget in themselves that religious dread of the Supreme Being which is the greatest and almost the only incitement to virtue.<br />
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== Property==<br />
in Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity, and though no man has any thing, yet they are all rich.<br />
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Every city is divided into four equal parts, and in the middle of each there is a market-place. What is brought thither, and manufactured by the several families, is carried from thence to houses appointed for that purpose, in which all things of a sort are laid by themselves; and thither every father goes, and takes whatsoever he or his family stand in need of, without either paying for it or leaving anything in exchange. There is no reason for giving a denial to any person, since there is such plenty of everything among them; and there is no danger of a man's asking for more than he needs; they have no inducements to do this, since they are sure they shall always be supplied: it is the fear of want that makes any of the whole race of animals either greedy or ravenous; but, besides fear, there is in man a pride that makes him fancy it a particular glory to excel others in pomp and excess; but by the laws of the Utopians, there is no room for this. <br />
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In their great council at Amaurot, to which there are three sent from every town once a year, they examine what towns abound in provisions and what are under any scarcity, that so the one may be furnished from the other; and this is done freely, without any sort of exchange; for, according to their plenty or scarcity, they supply or are supplied from one another, so that indeed the whole island is, as it were, one family.<br />
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== Wealth ==<br />
They prefer iron either to gold or silver, for men can no more live without iron than without fire or water; but Nature has marked out no use for the other metals so essential as not easily to be dispensed with. The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless.<br />
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If these metals were laid up in any tower in the kingdom it would raise a jealousy of the Prince and Senate, and give birth to that foolish mistrust into which the people are apt to fall--a jealousy of their intending to sacrifice the interest of the public to their own private advantage. If they should work it into vessels, or any sort of plate, they fear that the people might grow too fond of it, and so be unwilling to let the plate be run down, if a war made it necessary, to employ it in paying their soldiers. To prevent all these inconveniences they have fallen upon an expedient which, as it agrees with their other policy, so is it very different from ours, and will scarce gain belief among us who value gold so much, and lay it up so carefully. They eat and drink out of vessels of earth or glass, which make an agreeable appearance, though formed of brittle materials; while they make their chamber-pots and close-stools of gold and silver, and that not only in their public halls but in their private houses. Of the same metals they likewise make chains and fetters for their slaves, to some of which, as a badge of infamy, they hang an earring of gold, and make others wear a chain or a coronet of the same metal; and thus they take care by all possible means to render gold and silver of no esteem; and from hence it is that while other nations part with their gold and silver as unwillingly as if one tore out their bowels, those of Utopia would look on their giving in all they possess of those metals (when there were any use for them) but as the parting with a trifle, or as we would esteem the loss of a penny!<br />
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They find pearls on their coasts, and diamonds and carbuncles on their rocks; they do not look after them, but, if they find them by chance, they polish them, and with them they adorn their children, who are delighted with them, and glory in them during their childhood; but when they grow to years, and see that none but children use such baubles, they of their own accord, without being bid by their parents, lay them aside, and would be as much ashamed to use them afterwards as children among us, when they come to years, are of their puppets and other toys.<br />
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== Labor ==<br />
Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them that no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are instructed in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and partly by practice, they being led out often into the fields about the town, where they not only see others at work but are likewise exercised in it themselves. <br />
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Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all, every man has some peculiar trade to which he applies himself; such as the manufacture of wool or flax, masonry, smith's work, or carpenter's work; for there is no sort of trade that is in great esteem among them. <br />
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All among them, women as well as men, learn one or other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most part, deal in wool and flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving the ruder trades to the men. The same trade generally passes down from father to son, inclinations often following descent: but if any man's genius lies another way he is, by adoption, translated into a family that deals in the trade to which he is inclined; and when that is to be done, care is taken, not only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may be put to a discreet and good man: and if, after a person has learned one trade, he desires to acquire another, that is also allowed, and is managed in the same manner as the former. When he has learned both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the public has more occasion for the other.<br />
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And thus, since they are all employed in some useful labor, and since they content themselves with fewer things, it falls out that there is a great abundance of all things among them; so that it frequently happens that, for want of other work, vast numbers are sent out to mend the highways; but when no public undertaking is to be performed, the hours of working are lessened. The magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labor, since the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labor by the necessities of the public, and to allow the people as much time as is necessary for the improvement of their minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists.<br />
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== Leisure ==<br />
The rest of their time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and sleeping, is left to every man's discretion; yet they are not to abuse that interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise, according to their various inclinations, which is, for the most part, reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures every morning before daybreak, at which none are obliged to appear but those who are marked out for literature; yet a great many, both men and women, of all ranks, go to hear lectures of one sort or other, according to their inclinations: but if others that are not made for contemplation, choose rather to employ themselves at that time in their trades, as many of them do, they are not hindered, but are rather commended, as men that take care to serve their country.<br />
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After supper they spend an hour in some diversion, in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls where they eat, where they entertain each other either with music or discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and mischievous games. They have, however, two sorts of games not unlike our chess; the one is between several numbers, in which one number, as it were, consumes another; the other resembles a battle between the virtues and the vices, in which the enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agreement against virtue, is not unpleasantly represented; together with the special opposition between the particular virtues and vices; as also the methods by which vice either openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue; and virtue, on the other hand, resists it. <br />
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Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure they reckon all that delight in hunting, in fowling, or gaming, of whose madness they have only heard, for they have no such things among them. But they have asked us, “What sort of pleasure is it that men can find in throwing the dice?” (for if there were any pleasure in it, they think the doing it so often should give one a surfeit of it); “and what pleasure can one find in hearing the barking and howling of dogs, which seem rather odious than pleasant sounds?” Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs run after a hare, more than of seeing one dog run after another; for if the seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure, you have the same entertainment to the eye on both these occasions, since that is the same in both cases. But if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak, harmless, and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce, and cruel dogs. Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the Utopians, turned over to their butchers, and those, as has been already said, are all slaves, and they look on hunting as one of the basest parts of a butcher's work, for they account it both more profitable and more decent to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to mankind, whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal can only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure, from which he can reap but small advantage. They look on the desire of the bloodshed, even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is already corrupted with cruelty, or that at least, by too frequent returns of so brutal a pleasure, must degenerate into it.<br />
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== Slavery ==<br />
They do not make slaves of prisoners of war, except those that are taken in battle, nor of the sons of their slaves, nor of those of other nations: the slaves among them are only such as are condemned to that state of life for the commission of some crime, or, which is more common, such as their merchants find condemned to die in those parts to which they trade, whom they sometimes redeem at low rates, and in other places have them for nothing. They are kept at perpetual labor, and are always chained, but with this difference, that their own natives are treated much worse than others: they are considered as more profligate than the rest, and since they could not be restrained by the advantages of so excellent an education, are judged worthy of harder usage. Another sort of slaves are the poor of the neighboring countries, who offer of their own accord to come and serve them: they treat these better, and use them in all other respects as well as their own countrymen, except their imposing more labor upon them, which is no hard task to those that have been accustomed to it; and if any of these have a mind to go back to their own country, which, indeed, falls out but seldom, as they do not force them to stay, so they do not send them away empty-handed.<br />
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== Sex and Domestic Relations==<br />
In choosing their wives they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous, but it is constantly observed among them, and is accounted perfectly consistent with wisdom. Before marriage some grave matron presents the bride, naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow, to the bridegroom, and after that some grave man presents the bridegroom, naked, to the bride. We, indeed, both laughed at this, and condemned it as very indecent. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of the men of all other nations, who, if they are but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious that they will see every part of him, and take off both his saddle and all his other tackle, that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them, and that yet in the choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a handsbreadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which may lie hid what may be contagious as well as loathsome. <br />
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But it frequently falls out that when a married couple do not well agree, they, by mutual consent, separate, and find out other persons with whom they hope they may live more happily; yet this is not done without obtaining leave of the Senate, which never admits of a divorce but upon a strict inquiry made, both by the senators and their wives, into the grounds upon which it is desired, and even when they are satisfied concerning the reasons of it they go on but slowly, for they imagine that too great easiness in granting leave for new marriages would very much shake the kindness of married people.<br />
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They punish severely those that defile the marriage bed; if both parties are married they are divorced, and the injured persons may marry one another, or whom they please, but the adulterer and the adulteress are condemned to slavery, yet if either of the injured persons cannot shake off the love of the married person they may live with them still in that state, but they must follow them to that labor to which the slaves are condemned, and sometimes the repentance of the condemned, together with the unshaken kindness of the innocent and injured person, has prevailed so far with the Prince that he has taken off the sentence; but those that relapse after they are once pardoned are punished with death.<br />
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== Culture ==<br />
Both dinner and supper are begun with some lecture of morality that is read to them; but it is so short that it is not tedious nor uneasy to them to hear it. From hence the old men take occasion to entertain those about them with some useful and pleasant enlargements; but they do not engross the whole discourse so to themselves during their meals that the younger may not put in for a share; on the contrary, they engage them to talk, that so they may, in that free way of conversation, find out the force of every one's spirit and observe his temper. <br />
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They never sup without music, and there is always fruit served up after meat; while they are at table some burn perfumes and sprinkle about fragrant ointments and sweet waters--in short, they want nothing that may cheer up their spirits; they give themselves a large allowance that way, and indulge themselves in all such pleasures as are attended with no inconvenience.<br />
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Thus you see that there are no idle persons among them, nor pretenses of excusing any from labor. There are no taverns, no ale-houses, nor stews among them, nor any other occasions of corrupting each other, of getting into corners, or forming themselves into parties; all men live in full view, so that all are obliged both to perform their ordinary task and to employ themselves well in their spare hours; and it is certain that a people thus ordered must live in great abundance of all things, and these being equally distributed among them, no man can want or be obliged to beg.<br />
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== Philosophy ==<br />
They examine what are properly good, both for the body and the mind; and whether any outward thing can be called truly good, or if that term belong only to the endowments of the soul. They inquire, likewise, into the nature of virtue and pleasure. But their chief dispute is concerning the happiness of a man, and wherein it consists--whether in some one thing or in a great many. They seem, indeed, more inclinable to that opinion that places, if not the whole, yet the chief part, of a man's happiness in pleasure; and, what may seem more strange, they make use of arguments even from religion, notwithstanding its severity and roughness, for the support of that opinion so indulgent to pleasure; for they never dispute concerning happiness without fetching some arguments from the principles of religion as well as from natural reason, since without the former they reckon that all our inquiries after happiness must be but conjectural and defective.<br />
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== Religion ==<br />
Though there are many different forms of religion among them, yet all these, how various soever, agree in the main point, which is the worshiping the Divine Essence; and, therefore, there is nothing to be seen or heard in their temples in which the several persuasions among them may not agree; for every sect performs those rites that are peculiar to it in their private houses, nor is there anything in the public worship that contradicts the particular ways of those different sects. There are no images for God in their temples, so that every one may represent Him to his thoughts according to the way of his religion; nor do they call this one God by any other name but that of Mithras, which is the common name by which they all express the Divine Essence, whatsoever otherwise they think it to be; nor are there any prayers among them but such as every one of them may use without prejudice to his own opinion.<br />
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Their priests are men of eminent piety, and therefore they are but few, for there are only thirteen in every town, one for every temple; but when they go to war, seven of these go out with their forces, and seven others are chosen to supply their room in their absence; but these enter again upon their employments when they return; and those who served in their absence, attend upon the high priest, till vacancies fall by death; for there is one set over the rest. They are chosen by the people as the other magistrates are, by suffrages given in secret, for preventing of factions: and when they are chosen, they are consecrated by the college of priests.<br />
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The wives of their priests are the most extraordinary women of the whole country; sometimes the women themselves are made priests, though that falls out but seldom, nor are any but ancient widows chosen into that order. <br />
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== Healthcare ==<br />
But they take more care of their sick than of any others; these are lodged and provided for in public hospitals. They have belonging to every town four hospitals, that are built without their walls, and are so large that they may pass for little towns; by this means, if they had ever such a number of sick persons, they could lodge them conveniently, and at such a distance that such of them as are sick of infectious diseases may be kept so far from the rest that there can be no danger of contagion. The hospitals are furnished and stored with all things that are convenient for the ease and recovery of the sick; and those that are put in them are looked after with such tender and watchful care, and are so constantly attended by their skillful physicians, that as none is sent to them against their will, so there is scarce one in a whole town that, if he should fall ill, would not choose rather to go thither than lie sick at home.<br />
<br />
I have already told you with what care they look after their sick, so that nothing is left undone that can contribute either to their case or health; and for those who are taken with fixed and incurable diseases, they use all possible ways to cherish them and to make their lives as comfortable as possible. They visit them often and take great pains to make their time pass off easily; but when any is taken with a torturing and lingering pain, so that there is no hope either of recovery or ease, the priests and magistrates come and exhort them, that, since they are now unable to go on with the business of life, are become a burden to themselves and to all about them, and they have really out-lived themselves, they should no longer nourish such a rooted distemper, but choose rather to die since they cannot live but in much misery; being assured that if they thus deliver themselves from torture, or are willing that others should do it, they shall be happy after death: since, by their acting thus, they lose none of the pleasures, but only the troubles of life, they think they behave not only reasonably but in a manner consistent with religion and piety; because they follow the advice given them by their priests, who are the expounders of the will of God. Such as are wrought on by these persuasions either starve themselves of their own accord, or take opium, and by that means die without pain.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Crime and Punishment ==<br />
They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many. They very much condemn other nations whose laws, together with the commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a bulk, and so dark as not to be read and understood by every one of the subjects.<br />
<br />
They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause.<br />
<br />
Their law does not determine the punishment for other crimes, but that is left to the Senate, to temper it according to the circumstances of the fact. Husbands have power to correct their wives and parents to chastise their children, unless the fault is so great that a public punishment is thought necessary for striking terror into others. For the most part slavery is the punishment even of the greatest crimes, for as that is no less terrible to the criminals themselves than death, so they think the preserving them in a state of servitude is more for the interest of the commonwealth than killing them, since, as their labor is a greater benefit to the public than their death could be, so the sight of their misery is a more lasting terror to other men than that which would be given by their death. <br />
<br />
As they fright men from committing crimes by punishments, so they invite them to the love of virtue by public honors; therefore they erect statues to the memories of such worthy men as have deserved well of their country, and set these in their market-places, both to perpetuate the remembrance of their actions and to be an incitement to their posterity to follow their example.<br />
<br />
<br />
== War and Foreign Policy ==<br />
They detest war as a very brutal thing, and which, to the reproach of human nature, is more practiced by men than by any sort of beasts. They, in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war; and therefore, though they accustom themselves daily to military exercises and the discipline of war, in which not only their men, but their women likewise, are trained up, that, in cases of necessity, they may not be quite useless, yet they do not rashly engage in war, unless it be either to defend themselves or their friends from any unjust aggressors, or, out of good nature or in compassion, assist an oppressed nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny.<br />
<br />
If they agree to a truce, they observe it so religiously that no provocations will make them break it. They never lay their enemies' country waste nor burn their corn, and even in their marches they take all possible care that neither horse nor foot may tread it down, for they do not know but that they may have use for it themselves. They hurt no man whom they find disarmed, unless he is a spy. When a town is surrendered to them, they take it into their protection; and when they carry a place by storm they never plunder it, but put those only to the sword that oppose the rendering of it up, and make the rest of the garrison slaves, but for the other inhabitants, they do them no hurt; and if any of them had advised a surrender, they give them good rewards out of the estates of those that they condemn, and distribute the rest among their auxiliary troops, but they themselves take no share of the spoil.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Travel ==<br />
If any man has a mind to visit his friends that live in some other town, or desires to travel and see the rest of the country, he obtains leave very easily from the Syphogrant and Tranibors, when there is no particular occasion for him at home. Such as travel carry with them a passport from the Prince, which both certifies the license that is granted for traveling, and limits the time of their return. They are furnished with a wagon and a slave, who drives the oxen and looks after them; but, unless there are women in the company, the wagon is sent back at the end of the journey as a needless encumbrance. While they are on the road they carry no provisions with them, yet they want for nothing, but are everywhere treated as if they were at home. If they stay in any place longer than a night, every one follows his proper occupation, and is very well used by those of his own trade.<br />
<br />
If any man goes out of the city to which he belongs without leave, and is found rambling without a passport, he is severely treated, he is punished as a fugitive, and sent home disgracefully; and, if he falls again into the like fault, is condemned to slavery. <br />
<br />
<br />
== Homes ==<br />
The town is compassed with a high and thick wall, in which there are many towers and forts; there is also a broad and deep dry ditch, set thick with thorns, cast round three sides of the town, and the river is instead of a ditch on the fourth side. The streets are very convenient for all carriage, and are well sheltered from the winds. Their buildings are good, and are so uniform that a whole side of a street looks like one house. The streets are twenty feet broad; there lie gardens behind all their houses. These are large, but enclosed with buildings, that on all hands face the streets, so that every house has both a door to the street and a back door to the garden. Their doors have all two leaves, which, as they are easily opened, so they shut of their own accord; and, there being no property among them, every man may freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten years' end they shift their houses by lots.<br />
<br />
Their houses are three stories high, the fronts of them are faced either with stone, plastering, or brick, and between the facings of their walls they throw in their rubbish. Their roofs are flat, and on them they lay a sort of plaster, which costs very little, and yet is so tempered that it is not apt to take fire, and yet resists the weather more than lead. They have great quantities of glass among them, with which they glaze their windows; they use also in their windows a thin linen cloth, that is so oiled or gummed that it both keeps out the wind and gives free admission to the light. <br />
<br />
<br />
== Gardens ==<br />
They cultivate their gardens with great care, so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in them; and all is so well ordered and so finely kept that I never saw gardens anywhere that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. And this humor of ordering their gardens so well is not only kept up by the pleasure they find in it, but also by an emulation between the inhabitants of the several streets, who vie with each other. And there is, indeed, nothing belonging to the whole town that is both more useful and more pleasant. So that he who founded the town seems to have taken care of nothing more than of their gardens.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Dress and Appearance==<br />
Throughout the island they wear the same sort of clothes, without any other distinction except what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes and the married and unmarried. The fashion never alters, and as it is neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the climate, and calculated both for their summers and winters. Every family makes their own clothes.<br />
<br />
As to their clothes, observe how little work is spent in them; while they are at labor they are clothed with leather and skins, cut carelessly about them, which will last seven years, and when they appear in public they put on an upper garment which hides the other; and these are all of one color, and that is the natural color of the wool. As they need less woolen cloth than is used anywhere else, so that which they make use of is much less costly; they use linen cloth more, but that is prepared with less labor, and they value cloth only by the whiteness of the linen or the cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the fineness of the thread. While in other places four or five upper garments of woolen cloth of different colous, and as many vests of silk, will scarce serve one man, and while those that are nicer think ten too few, every man there is content with one, which very often serves him two years; nor is there anything that can tempt a man to desire more, for if he had them he would neither be the warmer nor would he make one jot the better appearance for it.<br />
<br />
If any man should reproach another for his being misshaped or imperfect in any part of his body, it would not at all be thought a reflection on the person so treated, but it would be accounted scandalous in him that had upbraided another with what he could not help. It is thought a sign of a sluggish and sordid mind not to preserve carefully one's natural beauty; but it is likewise infamous among them to use paint. They all see that no beauty recommends a wife so much to her husband as the probity of her life and her obedience; for as some few are caught and held only by beauty, so all are attracted by the other excellences which charm all the world.<br />
<br />
The Prince himself has no distinction, either of garments or of a crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried before him; as the High Priest is also known by his being preceded by a person carrying a wax light. <br />
<br />
<br />
== Chickens ==<br />
These husbandmen till the ground, breed cattle, hew wood, and convey it to the towns either by land or water, as is most convenient. They breed an infinite multitude of chickens in a very curious manner; for the hens do not sit and hatch them, but a vast number of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal heat in order to be hatched, and they are no sooner out of the shell, and able to stir about, but they seem to consider those that feed them as their mothers, and follow them as other chickens do the hen that hatched them.[http://www.lizmy.com www.lizmy.com]</div>Hels0823http://www.openwikitopia.org/index.php?title=Utopia_without_government_change&diff=57Utopia without government change2013-03-27T02:07:02Z<p>Hels0823: </p>
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<div>Creating Utopia in america with no need for change in laws or government. <br />
<br />
Corporations are governments. Lawyers and lobbyists are the adapters. Under current local laws whatever they may be just like any other suburban street, but in a place with relaxed building codes. (or floating 3d printed balloon cities.)<br />
<br />
[http://www.lizmy.com www.lizmy.com]A successful company which is worker owned buys a large lot of beautiful land near a city and a mountainous region. A low income apartment complex is built by 3d printing houses in any shape imaginable covered in gardens of every useful plant which can produce food sold in farmers markets in nearby towns. Solar wind and hydro power=free electricity. Communal workshops, art studios, pottery, 3d printers, bio labs, science labs, green houses for winter, with solar hot tubs in them. Freshwater pool, waterfall, Rain collection and filtration. Recycling into 3d printed inflatables and dirigibles. Lazier people can pay drastically higher rent, but a lower rent requires more community up keep and 3d house building, cob house building, earth ship building, tree house building, sculpture, gardening, (fun). Bike roads that go far purchased/ reconstituted from defunct rail lines. No sprawl. No normal. No ugly dystopia. Gaudi-like, Buckminster Fuller-like, bubble-house-like, Any design imaginable but if it is too ugly it can be voted out. Convention of discrimination against rectangles with triangles on top. Some people go to work at normal jobs some people work in the company, some people go to school. Every apartment has some private out door space. Strong preferences for natural globular shaped architecture like the architect Xavier Sensosian, but there will be a head house and a salt molecule house, a mountain house, an arm house, basically anyone's fantasy printed out with plumbing and circuitry easily accessible for repairs. A lake with boats, floating bikes...</div>Hels0823http://www.openwikitopia.org/index.php?title=Techtopia&diff=56Techtopia2013-03-27T02:02:29Z<p>Hels0823: /* Diversity */</p>
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<div>== Design ==<br />
A door meant to be pushed will never be pulled. No more than three, indiscriminate buttons or switches will ever be placed in the same space. Internet pathways will always have clear direction that leads to the desired outcome. The number of affordances in a given artifact will be comparable with the number of constraints, so that clear direction will be clearly outlined in a cognitive map. User Manuals will become obsolete because the use of any object or system will be intuitive. <br />
<br />
== Diversity ==<br />
[Jordan Heels For Sale][http://www.lizmy.com Jordan Heels For Sale] Design does not discriminate against any individual because of issues of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or disability. This does not mean, however, that all artifacts are created assuming that all demographics of potential users have the same use cases for them. Because there are sociotechnical contexts that surround any object or system, designers think actively about each type of user before finalizing its structure. For example, the classic analysis of gender and cockpit design, reminds us that the anthropometric differences between men and women, but also between users of differentiating age, ability and ethnicity. Having learned this lesson, design enables users to make modifications to meet individual physical and psychological needs (Weber 373).<br />
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Semantically too, designers try to address as diverse an audience as possible. If an individual finds their identity is not represented in a menu of selections or if their intended use not advocated by a digital network, they alter the code so that their differences become less marginalized. The next user to encounter the system, would then be included within the confines of its use. The word “other” would cease to exist.<br />
<br />
== Morality ==<br />
In the Utopian world of Values Embodied in Information Technologies and Digital Media, computer systems are be both moral entities and moral agents. Computers are moral agents because designers and programmers do not create systems with an eye only toward efficiency and usability. Rather than systems that consider only the best way to accomplish a given task, Utopian computer systems objectively weigh the potential outcomes. While this type of control coming from a computer seems problematic, the morality engine would be the result of a collaborative project, allowing experts and lay people from varied fields have a say in the values embedded in a system--values that would directly go toward how the system operates.<br />
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Since systems are created with a particular moral bias, users sacrifice some of their agency to assimilate to the system's design. This is not truly a sacrifice, though, as the values of computers are neither totalitarian nor puritanical. Human agency exists across an extremely wide spectrum of socially acceptable behavior. The morality of systems does stuff users’ ambitions into tiny pre-described boxes; it creates a vast world of available actions, all of which can be broadly defined as, if not “good,” at least “not bad.” Instead, moral choices associated with technology should be easily understood and communicated through the technology as to promote iteration, development and change in the technology. As technology is co-constituted with those who use it, an easy understanding of the moral choices in the design of a particular technology are necessary.<br />
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Built-in morality designed by a large group of humans also guards against the danger of technological determinism, which “blinds us to the forces that shape the direction of technological development and discourages intervention” (Johnson, 204). The morality exhibited by computers is unmistakeably human-made, thus “the design of computer systems...come[s] into the sights of moral scrutiny” (Johnson, 204). In this Utopia, computers have morals, but their morals spring from a constantly evolving human source. The helpless feeling of technological determinism is completely absent because everyone knows where the buck stops, and the ease with which the system can be updated for changing times.<br />
<br />
== Neutrality ==<br />
Powerful private organizations, governments, rich citizens, and poor citizens experience a completely level playing field in the online world. User traffic and web content is handled is handled exactly the same way no matter the source.<br />
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A leading factor to online neutrality is an intellectual property system that relies on a public tax and donation system rather than an outmoded one-to-one system where each song, movie, or other creative work has an individual price tag. Since piracy is not a concern, ISPs and other gatekeepers have no incentive to throttle access speeds based on “illegal” content transfers. Since there are no illegal uploads or downloads, and the creators of the digital space do not give special treatment to the rich and powerful, there is no justification for digital access to vary in any way based on content, source, or destination.<br />
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== Pluralism ==<br />
The Platonic ideal is both unattainable and incoherent. No perfect whole or ultimate solution exists, and a society that pursues such a solution cannot be a happy or just society. Pursuing a perfect solution ignores the pluralism of values that the many rational members of a society have. Even though we may criticize or disagree with the values of others, we all share some common values as rational human beings. These commonalities make it possible for us to understand each other.<br />
<br />
When clashing values (between constituent groups, between individuals, and even within an individual) come to fore in technological design, designers will not pursue their ideal while ignoring the values held by other members of society. Instead, they will consider all competing values and then make informed choices. In choosing one thing, something else will inevitably be lost. <br />
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These trade-offs will not be dictated solely by subjective judgment. Designers will strive to maintain equilibrium in society and avoid creating an intolerable situation for some members of society. Those values that are commonly held by the majority of mankind cannot be traded for others. Furthermore, designers will use sound judgment in making practical decisions between values. They will analyze problems, evaluate what principles apply, and seek guidance from relevant disciplines in order to make rational decisions.<br />
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== Privacy ==<br />
The "right to be forgotten" is implemented correctly and respected by all parties.<br />
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Users are given control over their own data and the ability to share it or hide it on their own terms.<br />
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== Security ==<br />
Digital locks are applied only enough to give inventors and creators the incentive to work. Digital Rights Management is not so pervasive that it curtails the creativity of the general public. All users will be given easy “access to information, freedom of expression, privacy, encryption research, freedom to tinker, education” (Kerr, 253) and every right to encourage the rights of authors, designers, small businesses and educators. The result will be a maximum market efficiency<br />
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If someone encounters a lock and has the knowledge to disarm it, there will only be legal repercussions of equal or lesser to the amount of harm done to the original owner of the information in question. The mere act of unlocking is not in itself a crime, only the reappropriation of any information behind the locks for means that disenfranchise the individual or corporation who put it there. <br />
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Control and agency on the net should be equally distributed among those who have the education to wield the data appropriately. Rights and protections should not be given based on money, market standing or political affiliation.<br />
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Users are sufficiently educated and motivated to practice good security habits. Additionally, providers and producers design with security in mind instead of cobbling it together out of a fear of bad media exposure.<br />
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== Standardization ==<br />
The ease with which information--from medical records to books borrowed from libraries--are accessible no matter the part of the country or the brand of IT hardware or software used. Proprietary file types do not exist. If the information exists, and it is relevant to, and the property of a user, they can access it no matter what.<br />
<br />
Encrypted personal online lockers are used to store each individual’s information. Users can choose if and when to access any of their information--no one is forced to confront data he/she does not wish to access. Since all of the files use standardized open source software, this requires no extra effort on the administrators’ side either. After a short period of adjustment and extra clerical work, the system was successfully put into place, and it now operates at no inconvenience to governments, doctors, small business owners, or any other data holder. When personal information is generated on an individual, it manifests in a standard form and waits in a personal locker that the user can choose to access, or allow temporary access to other doctors or the like, if and when he or she deems necessary.<br />
<br />
== Law and Control ==<br />
Online and other connected systems not only are designed to embody the sorts of values noted elsewhere but contain a sufficient awareness of those value systems at play so as to flag value conflicts of protocols, data routing, legal ambiguities, etc. for proper adjudication and negotiation in the offline world. Should emergent biases develop over time as value systems and technologies shift, they are exposed rather than merely propagated.<br />
<br />
Attempts to control the behaviors of users via design (architecture), rather than via fiat or some other modality (Lessig), should be carefully considered. While designating control functions to technological design is attractive in that it circumvents some of the enforcement difficulties inherent in other modalities, it also may prevent a user's conscious reflection on the value of various options for action, and can unduly restrict the user's agency. As such, whenever possible, technologies should be designed so as to permit a wide range of user actions, and where decisions are structured or "nudged" by the technology, this fact and the reasons for it should be designed as transparently as possible.</div>Hels0823http://www.openwikitopia.org/index.php?title=Main_Page&diff=55Main Page2013-03-27T02:00:45Z<p>Hels0823: /* In the Beginning */</p>
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<div>Utopia, broadly conceived, is a vision of a world not yet in existence that is different from and better than the world we inhabit now. Utopia as a philosophical ideal or a literary text entails no input other than that of its author and no commitment other than time and interest on the part of its readers, but Utopia as the basis of an alternative society necessitates the participation of its population. <br />
<br />
Wikitopia aims to put the promise of Utopia in action: Create a space where we can collectively imagine alternatives, build, transform, and revise truth(s), and insist on reimagining the imaginary. Anyone can add and edit Wikitopia so feel free to start contributing, discussing, and imagining. <br />
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* If you don't know how to start, please click [http://wiki.theopenutopia.org/index.php?title=Help:Contents here].<br />
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<br />
== In the Beginning ==<br />
There was Thomas More's ''Utopia'', so this is where we begin: with excerpts of his vision of an ideal society. But what was ideal for More in the 16th century is far from ideal for us. We need to re-think and write-over his vision to collectively create our own. Let's begin <a href="http://www.lizmy.com">[jordan high heels]</a>[http://www.lizmy.com jordan heels for women]....<br />
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== Geography ==<br />
The island of Utopia is in the middle two hundred miles broad, and holds almost at the same breadth over a great part of it, but it grows narrower towards both ends. Its figure is not unlike a crescent. Between its horns the sea comes in eleven miles broad, and spreads itself into a great bay, which is environed with land to the compass of about five hundred miles, and is well secured from winds. In this bay there is no great current; the whole coast is, as it were, one continued harbor, which gives all that live in the island great convenience for mutual commerce.<br />
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== History ==<br />
Utopus, that conquered it (whose name it still carries, for Abraxa was its first name), brought the rude and uncivilised inhabitants into such a good government, and to that measure of politeness, that they now far excel all the rest of mankind. Having soon subdued them, he designed to separate them from the continent, and to bring the sea quite round them. To accomplish this he ordered a deep channel to be dug, fifteen miles long; and that the natives might not think he treated them like slaves, he not only forced the inhabitants, but also his own soldiers, to labor in carrying it on. As he set a vast number of men to work, he, beyond all men's expectations, brought it to a speedy conclusion. And his neighbors, who at first laughed at the folly of the undertaking, no sooner saw it brought to perfection than they were struck with admiration and terror.<br />
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== Political Structure ==<br />
Thirty families choose every year a magistrate, who was anciently called the Syphogrant, but is now called the Philarch; and over every ten Syphogrants, with the families subject to them, there is another magistrate, who was anciently called the Tranibore, but of late the Archphilarch. All the Syphogrants, who are in number two hundred, choose the Prince out of a list of four who are named by the people of the four divisions of the city; but they take an oath, before they proceed to an election, that they will choose him whom they think most fit for the office: they give him their voices secretly, so that it is not known for whom every one gives his suffrage. The Prince is for life, unless he is removed upon suspicion of some design to enslave the people. The Tranibors are new chosen every year, but yet they are, for the most part, continued; all their other magistrates are only annual.<br />
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The Tranibors meet every third day, and oftener if necessary, and consult with the Prince either concerning the affairs of the State in general, or such private differences as may arise sometimes among the people, though that falls out but seldom. There are always two Syphogrants called into the council chamber, and these are changed every day. It is a fundamental rule of their government, that no conclusion can be made in anything that relates to the public till it has been first debated three days in their council. It is death for any to meet and consult concerning the State, unless it be either in their ordinary council, or in the assembly of the whole body of the people.<br />
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These things have been so provided among them that the Prince and the Tranibors may not conspire together to change the government and enslave the people; and therefore when anything of great importance is set on foot, it is sent to the Syphogrants, who, after they have communicated it to the families that belong to their divisions, and have considered it among themselves, make report to the senate; and, upon great occasions, the matter is referred to the council of the whole island. One rule observed in their council is, never to debate a thing on the same day in which it is first proposed; for that is always referred to the next meeting, that so men may not rashly and in the heat of discourse engage themselves too soon, which might bias them so much that, instead of consulting the good of the public, they might rather study to support their first opinions, and by a perverse and preposterous sort of shame hazard their country rather than endanger their own reputation, or venture the being suspected to have wanted foresight in the expedients that they at first proposed; and therefore, to prevent this, they take care that they may rather be deliberate than sudden in their motions. <br />
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== Social Structure ==<br />
To return to their manner of living in society: the oldest man of every family, as has been already said, is its governor; wives serve their husbands, and children their parents, and always the younger serves the elder. <br />
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In the temples the two sexes are separated, the men go to the right hand, and the women to the left; and the males and females all place themselves before the head and master or mistress of the family to which they belong, so that those who have the government of them at home may see their deportment in public. And they intermingle them so, that the younger and the older may be set by one another; for if the younger sort were all set together, they would, perhaps, trifle away that time too much in which they ought to beget in themselves that religious dread of the Supreme Being which is the greatest and almost the only incitement to virtue.<br />
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== Property==<br />
in Utopia, where every man has a right to everything, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full no private man can want anything; for among them there is no unequal distribution, so that no man is poor, none in necessity, and though no man has any thing, yet they are all rich.<br />
<br />
Every city is divided into four equal parts, and in the middle of each there is a market-place. What is brought thither, and manufactured by the several families, is carried from thence to houses appointed for that purpose, in which all things of a sort are laid by themselves; and thither every father goes, and takes whatsoever he or his family stand in need of, without either paying for it or leaving anything in exchange. There is no reason for giving a denial to any person, since there is such plenty of everything among them; and there is no danger of a man's asking for more than he needs; they have no inducements to do this, since they are sure they shall always be supplied: it is the fear of want that makes any of the whole race of animals either greedy or ravenous; but, besides fear, there is in man a pride that makes him fancy it a particular glory to excel others in pomp and excess; but by the laws of the Utopians, there is no room for this. <br />
<br />
In their great council at Amaurot, to which there are three sent from every town once a year, they examine what towns abound in provisions and what are under any scarcity, that so the one may be furnished from the other; and this is done freely, without any sort of exchange; for, according to their plenty or scarcity, they supply or are supplied from one another, so that indeed the whole island is, as it were, one family.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Wealth ==<br />
They prefer iron either to gold or silver, for men can no more live without iron than without fire or water; but Nature has marked out no use for the other metals so essential as not easily to be dispensed with. The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless.<br />
<br />
If these metals were laid up in any tower in the kingdom it would raise a jealousy of the Prince and Senate, and give birth to that foolish mistrust into which the people are apt to fall--a jealousy of their intending to sacrifice the interest of the public to their own private advantage. If they should work it into vessels, or any sort of plate, they fear that the people might grow too fond of it, and so be unwilling to let the plate be run down, if a war made it necessary, to employ it in paying their soldiers. To prevent all these inconveniences they have fallen upon an expedient which, as it agrees with their other policy, so is it very different from ours, and will scarce gain belief among us who value gold so much, and lay it up so carefully. They eat and drink out of vessels of earth or glass, which make an agreeable appearance, though formed of brittle materials; while they make their chamber-pots and close-stools of gold and silver, and that not only in their public halls but in their private houses. Of the same metals they likewise make chains and fetters for their slaves, to some of which, as a badge of infamy, they hang an earring of gold, and make others wear a chain or a coronet of the same metal; and thus they take care by all possible means to render gold and silver of no esteem; and from hence it is that while other nations part with their gold and silver as unwillingly as if one tore out their bowels, those of Utopia would look on their giving in all they possess of those metals (when there were any use for them) but as the parting with a trifle, or as we would esteem the loss of a penny!<br />
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They find pearls on their coasts, and diamonds and carbuncles on their rocks; they do not look after them, but, if they find them by chance, they polish them, and with them they adorn their children, who are delighted with them, and glory in them during their childhood; but when they grow to years, and see that none but children use such baubles, they of their own accord, without being bid by their parents, lay them aside, and would be as much ashamed to use them afterwards as children among us, when they come to years, are of their puppets and other toys.<br />
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== Labor ==<br />
Agriculture is that which is so universally understood among them that no person, either man or woman, is ignorant of it; they are instructed in it from their childhood, partly by what they learn at school, and partly by practice, they being led out often into the fields about the town, where they not only see others at work but are likewise exercised in it themselves. <br />
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Besides agriculture, which is so common to them all, every man has some peculiar trade to which he applies himself; such as the manufacture of wool or flax, masonry, smith's work, or carpenter's work; for there is no sort of trade that is in great esteem among them. <br />
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All among them, women as well as men, learn one or other of the trades formerly mentioned. Women, for the most part, deal in wool and flax, which suit best with their weakness, leaving the ruder trades to the men. The same trade generally passes down from father to son, inclinations often following descent: but if any man's genius lies another way he is, by adoption, translated into a family that deals in the trade to which he is inclined; and when that is to be done, care is taken, not only by his father, but by the magistrate, that he may be put to a discreet and good man: and if, after a person has learned one trade, he desires to acquire another, that is also allowed, and is managed in the same manner as the former. When he has learned both, he follows that which he likes best, unless the public has more occasion for the other.<br />
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And thus, since they are all employed in some useful labor, and since they content themselves with fewer things, it falls out that there is a great abundance of all things among them; so that it frequently happens that, for want of other work, vast numbers are sent out to mend the highways; but when no public undertaking is to be performed, the hours of working are lessened. The magistrates never engage the people in unnecessary labor, since the chief end of the constitution is to regulate labor by the necessities of the public, and to allow the people as much time as is necessary for the improvement of their minds, in which they think the happiness of life consists.<br />
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== Leisure ==<br />
The rest of their time, besides that taken up in work, eating, and sleeping, is left to every man's discretion; yet they are not to abuse that interval to luxury and idleness, but must employ it in some proper exercise, according to their various inclinations, which is, for the most part, reading. It is ordinary to have public lectures every morning before daybreak, at which none are obliged to appear but those who are marked out for literature; yet a great many, both men and women, of all ranks, go to hear lectures of one sort or other, according to their inclinations: but if others that are not made for contemplation, choose rather to employ themselves at that time in their trades, as many of them do, they are not hindered, but are rather commended, as men that take care to serve their country.<br />
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After supper they spend an hour in some diversion, in summer in their gardens, and in winter in the halls where they eat, where they entertain each other either with music or discourse. They do not so much as know dice, or any such foolish and mischievous games. They have, however, two sorts of games not unlike our chess; the one is between several numbers, in which one number, as it were, consumes another; the other resembles a battle between the virtues and the vices, in which the enmity in the vices among themselves, and their agreement against virtue, is not unpleasantly represented; together with the special opposition between the particular virtues and vices; as also the methods by which vice either openly assaults or secretly undermines virtue; and virtue, on the other hand, resists it. <br />
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Among those foolish pursuers of pleasure they reckon all that delight in hunting, in fowling, or gaming, of whose madness they have only heard, for they have no such things among them. But they have asked us, “What sort of pleasure is it that men can find in throwing the dice?” (for if there were any pleasure in it, they think the doing it so often should give one a surfeit of it); “and what pleasure can one find in hearing the barking and howling of dogs, which seem rather odious than pleasant sounds?” Nor can they comprehend the pleasure of seeing dogs run after a hare, more than of seeing one dog run after another; for if the seeing them run is that which gives the pleasure, you have the same entertainment to the eye on both these occasions, since that is the same in both cases. But if the pleasure lies in seeing the hare killed and torn by the dogs, this ought rather to stir pity, that a weak, harmless, and fearful hare should be devoured by strong, fierce, and cruel dogs. Therefore all this business of hunting is, among the Utopians, turned over to their butchers, and those, as has been already said, are all slaves, and they look on hunting as one of the basest parts of a butcher's work, for they account it both more profitable and more decent to kill those beasts that are more necessary and useful to mankind, whereas the killing and tearing of so small and miserable an animal can only attract the huntsman with a false show of pleasure, from which he can reap but small advantage. They look on the desire of the bloodshed, even of beasts, as a mark of a mind that is already corrupted with cruelty, or that at least, by too frequent returns of so brutal a pleasure, must degenerate into it.<br />
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== Slavery ==<br />
They do not make slaves of prisoners of war, except those that are taken in battle, nor of the sons of their slaves, nor of those of other nations: the slaves among them are only such as are condemned to that state of life for the commission of some crime, or, which is more common, such as their merchants find condemned to die in those parts to which they trade, whom they sometimes redeem at low rates, and in other places have them for nothing. They are kept at perpetual labor, and are always chained, but with this difference, that their own natives are treated much worse than others: they are considered as more profligate than the rest, and since they could not be restrained by the advantages of so excellent an education, are judged worthy of harder usage. Another sort of slaves are the poor of the neighboring countries, who offer of their own accord to come and serve them: they treat these better, and use them in all other respects as well as their own countrymen, except their imposing more labor upon them, which is no hard task to those that have been accustomed to it; and if any of these have a mind to go back to their own country, which, indeed, falls out but seldom, as they do not force them to stay, so they do not send them away empty-handed.<br />
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== Sex and Domestic Relations==<br />
In choosing their wives they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous, but it is constantly observed among them, and is accounted perfectly consistent with wisdom. Before marriage some grave matron presents the bride, naked, whether she is a virgin or a widow, to the bridegroom, and after that some grave man presents the bridegroom, naked, to the bride. We, indeed, both laughed at this, and condemned it as very indecent. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of the men of all other nations, who, if they are but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious that they will see every part of him, and take off both his saddle and all his other tackle, that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them, and that yet in the choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a handsbreadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which may lie hid what may be contagious as well as loathsome. <br />
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But it frequently falls out that when a married couple do not well agree, they, by mutual consent, separate, and find out other persons with whom they hope they may live more happily; yet this is not done without obtaining leave of the Senate, which never admits of a divorce but upon a strict inquiry made, both by the senators and their wives, into the grounds upon which it is desired, and even when they are satisfied concerning the reasons of it they go on but slowly, for they imagine that too great easiness in granting leave for new marriages would very much shake the kindness of married people.<br />
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They punish severely those that defile the marriage bed; if both parties are married they are divorced, and the injured persons may marry one another, or whom they please, but the adulterer and the adulteress are condemned to slavery, yet if either of the injured persons cannot shake off the love of the married person they may live with them still in that state, but they must follow them to that labor to which the slaves are condemned, and sometimes the repentance of the condemned, together with the unshaken kindness of the innocent and injured person, has prevailed so far with the Prince that he has taken off the sentence; but those that relapse after they are once pardoned are punished with death.<br />
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== Culture ==<br />
Both dinner and supper are begun with some lecture of morality that is read to them; but it is so short that it is not tedious nor uneasy to them to hear it. From hence the old men take occasion to entertain those about them with some useful and pleasant enlargements; but they do not engross the whole discourse so to themselves during their meals that the younger may not put in for a share; on the contrary, they engage them to talk, that so they may, in that free way of conversation, find out the force of every one's spirit and observe his temper. <br />
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They never sup without music, and there is always fruit served up after meat; while they are at table some burn perfumes and sprinkle about fragrant ointments and sweet waters--in short, they want nothing that may cheer up their spirits; they give themselves a large allowance that way, and indulge themselves in all such pleasures as are attended with no inconvenience.<br />
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Thus you see that there are no idle persons among them, nor pretenses of excusing any from labor. There are no taverns, no ale-houses, nor stews among them, nor any other occasions of corrupting each other, of getting into corners, or forming themselves into parties; all men live in full view, so that all are obliged both to perform their ordinary task and to employ themselves well in their spare hours; and it is certain that a people thus ordered must live in great abundance of all things, and these being equally distributed among them, no man can want or be obliged to beg.<br />
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== Philosophy ==<br />
They examine what are properly good, both for the body and the mind; and whether any outward thing can be called truly good, or if that term belong only to the endowments of the soul. They inquire, likewise, into the nature of virtue and pleasure. But their chief dispute is concerning the happiness of a man, and wherein it consists--whether in some one thing or in a great many. They seem, indeed, more inclinable to that opinion that places, if not the whole, yet the chief part, of a man's happiness in pleasure; and, what may seem more strange, they make use of arguments even from religion, notwithstanding its severity and roughness, for the support of that opinion so indulgent to pleasure; for they never dispute concerning happiness without fetching some arguments from the principles of religion as well as from natural reason, since without the former they reckon that all our inquiries after happiness must be but conjectural and defective.<br />
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== Religion ==<br />
Though there are many different forms of religion among them, yet all these, how various soever, agree in the main point, which is the worshiping the Divine Essence; and, therefore, there is nothing to be seen or heard in their temples in which the several persuasions among them may not agree; for every sect performs those rites that are peculiar to it in their private houses, nor is there anything in the public worship that contradicts the particular ways of those different sects. There are no images for God in their temples, so that every one may represent Him to his thoughts according to the way of his religion; nor do they call this one God by any other name but that of Mithras, which is the common name by which they all express the Divine Essence, whatsoever otherwise they think it to be; nor are there any prayers among them but such as every one of them may use without prejudice to his own opinion.<br />
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Their priests are men of eminent piety, and therefore they are but few, for there are only thirteen in every town, one for every temple; but when they go to war, seven of these go out with their forces, and seven others are chosen to supply their room in their absence; but these enter again upon their employments when they return; and those who served in their absence, attend upon the high priest, till vacancies fall by death; for there is one set over the rest. They are chosen by the people as the other magistrates are, by suffrages given in secret, for preventing of factions: and when they are chosen, they are consecrated by the college of priests.<br />
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The wives of their priests are the most extraordinary women of the whole country; sometimes the women themselves are made priests, though that falls out but seldom, nor are any but ancient widows chosen into that order. <br />
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== Healthcare ==<br />
But they take more care of their sick than of any others; these are lodged and provided for in public hospitals. They have belonging to every town four hospitals, that are built without their walls, and are so large that they may pass for little towns; by this means, if they had ever such a number of sick persons, they could lodge them conveniently, and at such a distance that such of them as are sick of infectious diseases may be kept so far from the rest that there can be no danger of contagion. The hospitals are furnished and stored with all things that are convenient for the ease and recovery of the sick; and those that are put in them are looked after with such tender and watchful care, and are so constantly attended by their skillful physicians, that as none is sent to them against their will, so there is scarce one in a whole town that, if he should fall ill, would not choose rather to go thither than lie sick at home.<br />
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I have already told you with what care they look after their sick, so that nothing is left undone that can contribute either to their case or health; and for those who are taken with fixed and incurable diseases, they use all possible ways to cherish them and to make their lives as comfortable as possible. They visit them often and take great pains to make their time pass off easily; but when any is taken with a torturing and lingering pain, so that there is no hope either of recovery or ease, the priests and magistrates come and exhort them, that, since they are now unable to go on with the business of life, are become a burden to themselves and to all about them, and they have really out-lived themselves, they should no longer nourish such a rooted distemper, but choose rather to die since they cannot live but in much misery; being assured that if they thus deliver themselves from torture, or are willing that others should do it, they shall be happy after death: since, by their acting thus, they lose none of the pleasures, but only the troubles of life, they think they behave not only reasonably but in a manner consistent with religion and piety; because they follow the advice given them by their priests, who are the expounders of the will of God. Such as are wrought on by these persuasions either starve themselves of their own accord, or take opium, and by that means die without pain.<br />
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== Crime and Punishment ==<br />
They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many. They very much condemn other nations whose laws, together with the commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a bulk, and so dark as not to be read and understood by every one of the subjects.<br />
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They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause.<br />
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Their law does not determine the punishment for other crimes, but that is left to the Senate, to temper it according to the circumstances of the fact. Husbands have power to correct their wives and parents to chastise their children, unless the fault is so great that a public punishment is thought necessary for striking terror into others. For the most part slavery is the punishment even of the greatest crimes, for as that is no less terrible to the criminals themselves than death, so they think the preserving them in a state of servitude is more for the interest of the commonwealth than killing them, since, as their labor is a greater benefit to the public than their death could be, so the sight of their misery is a more lasting terror to other men than that which would be given by their death. <br />
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As they fright men from committing crimes by punishments, so they invite them to the love of virtue by public honors; therefore they erect statues to the memories of such worthy men as have deserved well of their country, and set these in their market-places, both to perpetuate the remembrance of their actions and to be an incitement to their posterity to follow their example.<br />
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== War and Foreign Policy ==<br />
They detest war as a very brutal thing, and which, to the reproach of human nature, is more practiced by men than by any sort of beasts. They, in opposition to the sentiments of almost all other nations, think that there is nothing more inglorious than that glory that is gained by war; and therefore, though they accustom themselves daily to military exercises and the discipline of war, in which not only their men, but their women likewise, are trained up, that, in cases of necessity, they may not be quite useless, yet they do not rashly engage in war, unless it be either to defend themselves or their friends from any unjust aggressors, or, out of good nature or in compassion, assist an oppressed nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny.<br />
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If they agree to a truce, they observe it so religiously that no provocations will make them break it. They never lay their enemies' country waste nor burn their corn, and even in their marches they take all possible care that neither horse nor foot may tread it down, for they do not know but that they may have use for it themselves. They hurt no man whom they find disarmed, unless he is a spy. When a town is surrendered to them, they take it into their protection; and when they carry a place by storm they never plunder it, but put those only to the sword that oppose the rendering of it up, and make the rest of the garrison slaves, but for the other inhabitants, they do them no hurt; and if any of them had advised a surrender, they give them good rewards out of the estates of those that they condemn, and distribute the rest among their auxiliary troops, but they themselves take no share of the spoil.<br />
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== Travel ==<br />
If any man has a mind to visit his friends that live in some other town, or desires to travel and see the rest of the country, he obtains leave very easily from the Syphogrant and Tranibors, when there is no particular occasion for him at home. Such as travel carry with them a passport from the Prince, which both certifies the license that is granted for traveling, and limits the time of their return. They are furnished with a wagon and a slave, who drives the oxen and looks after them; but, unless there are women in the company, the wagon is sent back at the end of the journey as a needless encumbrance. While they are on the road they carry no provisions with them, yet they want for nothing, but are everywhere treated as if they were at home. If they stay in any place longer than a night, every one follows his proper occupation, and is very well used by those of his own trade.<br />
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If any man goes out of the city to which he belongs without leave, and is found rambling without a passport, he is severely treated, he is punished as a fugitive, and sent home disgracefully; and, if he falls again into the like fault, is condemned to slavery. <br />
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== Homes ==<br />
The town is compassed with a high and thick wall, in which there are many towers and forts; there is also a broad and deep dry ditch, set thick with thorns, cast round three sides of the town, and the river is instead of a ditch on the fourth side. The streets are very convenient for all carriage, and are well sheltered from the winds. Their buildings are good, and are so uniform that a whole side of a street looks like one house. The streets are twenty feet broad; there lie gardens behind all their houses. These are large, but enclosed with buildings, that on all hands face the streets, so that every house has both a door to the street and a back door to the garden. Their doors have all two leaves, which, as they are easily opened, so they shut of their own accord; and, there being no property among them, every man may freely enter into any house whatsoever. At every ten years' end they shift their houses by lots.<br />
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Their houses are three stories high, the fronts of them are faced either with stone, plastering, or brick, and between the facings of their walls they throw in their rubbish. Their roofs are flat, and on them they lay a sort of plaster, which costs very little, and yet is so tempered that it is not apt to take fire, and yet resists the weather more than lead. They have great quantities of glass among them, with which they glaze their windows; they use also in their windows a thin linen cloth, that is so oiled or gummed that it both keeps out the wind and gives free admission to the light. <br />
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== Gardens ==<br />
They cultivate their gardens with great care, so that they have both vines, fruits, herbs, and flowers in them; and all is so well ordered and so finely kept that I never saw gardens anywhere that were both so fruitful and so beautiful as theirs. And this humor of ordering their gardens so well is not only kept up by the pleasure they find in it, but also by an emulation between the inhabitants of the several streets, who vie with each other. And there is, indeed, nothing belonging to the whole town that is both more useful and more pleasant. So that he who founded the town seems to have taken care of nothing more than of their gardens.<br />
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== Dress and Appearance==<br />
Throughout the island they wear the same sort of clothes, without any other distinction except what is necessary to distinguish the two sexes and the married and unmarried. The fashion never alters, and as it is neither disagreeable nor uneasy, so it is suited to the climate, and calculated both for their summers and winters. Every family makes their own clothes.<br />
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As to their clothes, observe how little work is spent in them; while they are at labor they are clothed with leather and skins, cut carelessly about them, which will last seven years, and when they appear in public they put on an upper garment which hides the other; and these are all of one color, and that is the natural color of the wool. As they need less woolen cloth than is used anywhere else, so that which they make use of is much less costly; they use linen cloth more, but that is prepared with less labor, and they value cloth only by the whiteness of the linen or the cleanness of the wool, without much regard to the fineness of the thread. While in other places four or five upper garments of woolen cloth of different colous, and as many vests of silk, will scarce serve one man, and while those that are nicer think ten too few, every man there is content with one, which very often serves him two years; nor is there anything that can tempt a man to desire more, for if he had them he would neither be the warmer nor would he make one jot the better appearance for it.<br />
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If any man should reproach another for his being misshaped or imperfect in any part of his body, it would not at all be thought a reflection on the person so treated, but it would be accounted scandalous in him that had upbraided another with what he could not help. It is thought a sign of a sluggish and sordid mind not to preserve carefully one's natural beauty; but it is likewise infamous among them to use paint. They all see that no beauty recommends a wife so much to her husband as the probity of her life and her obedience; for as some few are caught and held only by beauty, so all are attracted by the other excellences which charm all the world.<br />
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The Prince himself has no distinction, either of garments or of a crown; but is only distinguished by a sheaf of corn carried before him; as the High Priest is also known by his being preceded by a person carrying a wax light. <br />
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== Chickens ==<br />
These husbandmen till the ground, breed cattle, hew wood, and convey it to the towns either by land or water, as is most convenient. They breed an infinite multitude of chickens in a very curious manner; for the hens do not sit and hatch them, but a vast number of eggs are laid in a gentle and equal heat in order to be hatched, and they are no sooner out of the shell, and able to stir about, but they seem to consider those that feed them as their mothers, and follow them as other chickens do the hen that hatched them.</div>Hels0823