These two articles share a common thread. Liberals love to rhetorically bemoan the haves and the have-nots, yet liberals create a society in which they are the haves. And that's a common theme in science fiction utopias. Science fiction utopias are disguised dystopias.
On the one hand, you typically have a privileged class that exists within a "perfect" metropolis. The inhabits are the product of eugenics. They are cocooned within a technological paradise, where every creature comfort is met. Their lives are physically pampered and pleasant.
But then you have others who subsist outside the metropolis. Outside the domed city or over the wall. It's this separation that makes the utopia possible.
The outside world is lawless, primitive, wild. Devoid of technological amenities.
Yet there's also a sense in which the utopian metropolis is dystopian. In order to achieve this artificial utopia, their lives must be totally regulated. All important decisions are taken out of their hands. A rulebound existence in which they have no freedom. That's the price they pay for their luxurious, risk-free existence. They are kept under round-the-clock surveillance. Any infraction, any whiff of dissent, is severely punished.
Although existence outside utopia is rough and hazardous, the inhabitants enjoy freedom. That's the tradeoff. More control, less freedom. More freedom, less control.
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