Utopia
by Thomas More · first published 1518
12% recommend88% neutral
First published in 1516, Thomas More's Utopia is one of the most important works of European humanism. Through the voice of the mysterious traveler Raphael Hythloday, More describes a pagan, communist city-state governed by reason. Addressing such issues as religious pluralism, women's rights, state-sponsored education, colonialism, and justified warfare, Utopia seems remarkably contemporary nearly five centuries after it was written, and it remains a foundational text in philosophy and political theory.
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…background for further reading in philosophy, but it's a dry start. Russell's Unpopular Essays is a good deal more fun to read. Other things I'd recommend for wading into the waters of philosophy would be Utopia by Sir Thomas More, or Meditations on First Philosophy by René Descartes.
on “Ask HN: Best Philosophical Books?” ↗…expected. Someone from a first world country in 2026 unironically defending that "thieves should be shot" needs to take a hard look at himself. Probably a good idea also to read the first few pages of Utopia by Thomas More, a fucking 510 year old book where the author explains why this is such a crushingly stupid (not to mention morally repugnant) way of thinking.
on “Leaked Chats Expose the Daily Life of a Scam Compound's Enslaved Workforce” ↗Very much enjoying the classic "Utopia" by Thomas More, as well as "Faraday" by James Hamilton
on “Ask HN: What's the best book you read in 2021?” ↗…mouth, and I must scream (Herlan Ellison - short story) 7 - The art of simplicity (Dominique Loreau) 8 - On anarchism (Noam Chomsky) 9 - The difference engine (William Gibson, Bruce Sterling) 10 - Utopia (Thomas More) 11 - Sophie's world (Jostein Gaarder) 12 - Rete padrona (Federico Rampini - essays about the 'dark side' of the corporate web) 13 - The art of discarding (Nagisa Tatsumi) 14 - Symposium…
on “Ask HN: What books have you read in the first half of 2016?” ↗…knowledge (even though I feel like I retain 1% of what I read), and to enjoy reading too (with the pleasure book) On my to read next list, I have: - High growth Handbook (Elad Gil) (Pleaure book) - Utopia - Thomas More (Technical) - Beyond the rift - Peter Watts (Pleasure) - Manufacturing consent (Noam Chomsky) (Technical) - Children of time - Adrian Tchaikovsky
on “Ask HN: Do you read books regularly? Fiction or nonfiction?” ↗They used to be more common maybe, but even the titular "Utopia" by Thomas More had slavery. Sometimes the "perfect" settings were imperfect due to the times they were written, often they were intentionally imperfect, and that was the point. E.g. consider HG Wells…
on “Patrick Stewart has died” ↗…around as a group they bite each others's fingers off like in the first three minutes. Just to figure out who gets to fuck, basic pecking order, right off the bat. Ten fingers is like ten shirts. In Utopia Thomas More...well one of his characters, he specifically wrote that book within a book to defray responsibility...said if you have ten shirts you are a clotheshorse. Too many clothes. Because they…
on “JWST: Identification of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere” ↗…them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves [outlaws] and then punish them." Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), Utopia, Book 1 Here's an idea for a frighteningly ambitions startup: Kill the prison-industrial complex! How? Fight crime! It costs a lot of taxpayer money and social wealth to keep things the way they are.…
on “The Caging of America” ↗…can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws." -Sir Thomas More, "Utopia", 1517
on “The NSA is Commandeering the Internet” ↗Which books do you think created the best Perfect/Utopia worlds? or others not list here? 540 BC - 400 BC, Analects of Confucius, Confucius 380 BC, Republic, Plato 1516, Utopia, Thomas More 1602, The City of the Sun, Campanella 1726, Gulliver's Travels,…
on “Ask HN: Which books do you think created the best Perfect/Utopia worlds?” ↗> Utopia my ass It actually IS a Utopia, by Thomas More's original definition; a society that appears idyllic and perfectly organised on the surface, but is only maintained in that state by everyone doing what…
on “Sweden's cashless society is no longer a utopia” ↗FYI, St. Thomas More, who coined the term Utopia, seems to have been intentionally ambiguous about whether the term was a transliteration of eutopia (good place) and outopia (no place).
on “The Way We Hire Is All Wrong” ↗…would destroy the "value" of the book in many people's eyes. But I'd like to ask the Royal Library this question: Would you rather have in your possession the Louvain edition of Thomas More's Utopia, with "ROYAL LIBRARY" written in Sharpie on the bottom, or would you rather that the book had been sold at Christie's for 140,000 GBP, and you have nothing? I know which I would choose. But…
on “The Anatomy of a Crime Discovery After 25 Years: A Case of Book Theft (2007)” ↗…between giving 100 poor people money and giving all the poor people (or even everyone) money. A bit unrelated, but the article mentions that these ideas have been around a long time, citing Thomas More's "Utopia." However, they fail to follow up with the modern connation of the word, that utopia is unachievable. We've tried these ideas again and again, in American utopian societies of the 1800s, in communes,…
on “Free Cash to Fight Income Inequality? Stockton, CA Is First in US to Try” ↗I took a philosophy course on utopian literature. My biggest takeaway is that every utopia has some marginalized group for which the society is less than a utopia (more like a dystopia). In Thomas More’s Utopia, this was a literal caste…
on “The Good Life: What can we learn from the history of utopianism?” ↗