Utopian Thinking
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Utopian Thinking
Utopia denotes an imagined ideal society that, though nonexistent in reality, is envisioned as a perfect habitat for its members. The term gained widespread usage following the publication of Thomas More's 1516 book ''Utopia (More book), Utopia''. Building upon the work of sociologist Ruth Levitas, social psychologists have tested the functions of utopian thinking among people. Utopia is fundamentally a cultural and psychological concept, existing solely as symbols within people's minds. Empirical evidence supports the connections between utopian thinking and the three primary functions proposed by Levitas: criticism, change, and compensation. Theoretical models have been developed linking utopian thinking to established social psychological concepts such as collective action and system justification. Functions Theoretical background The term "utopia" gained widespread usage following the publication of Thomas More's book Utopia (More book), "Utopia" in 1516. Nevertheless, the ...
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Utopia
A utopia ( ) typically describes an imagined community or society that possesses highly desirable or near-perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', which describes a fictional island society in the New World. Hypothetical utopias focus on, among other things, equality in categories such as economics, government and justice, with the method and structure of proposed implementation varying according to ideology. Lyman Tower Sargent argues that the nature of a utopia is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. To quote: The opposite of a utopia is a dystopia. Utopian and dystopian fiction has become a popular literary category. Despite being common parlance for something imaginary, utopianism inspired and was inspired by some reality-based fields and concepts such as utopian architecture, architecture, Cyber-ut ...
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Political Spectrum
A political spectrum is a system to characterize and classify different Politics, political positions in relation to one another. These positions sit upon one or more Geometry, geometric Coordinate axis, axes that represent independent political dimensions. The expressions political compass and political map are used to refer to the political spectrum as well, especially to popular two-dimensional models of it. Most long-standing spectra include the Left–right politics, left–right dimension as a measure of social, political and economic Social hierarchy, hierarchy which originally referred to seating arrangements in the French parliament after the French Revolution, Revolution (1789–1799), with Classical radicalism, radicals on Left-wing politics, the left and Aristocracy, aristocrats on Right-wing politics, the right. While communism and socialism are usually regarded internationally as being on the left, conservatism and Reactionary, reactionism are generally regarded as ...
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Wikipedia Student Program
Wikipedia is a free online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger in 2001, Wikipedia has been hosted since 2003 by the Wikimedia Foundation, an American nonprofit organization funded mainly by donations from readers. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read reference work in history. Initially available only in English, Wikipedia exists in over 340 languages. The English Wikipedia, with over  million articles, remains the largest of the editions, which together comprise more than articles and attract more than 1.5 billion unique device visits and 13 million edits per month (about 5edits per second on average) . , over 25% of Wikipedia's traffic comes from the United States, while Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Russia each account for around 5%. Wikipedia has been praised for enabling the democra ...
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List Of Finnish Utopian Communities
__NOTOC__ List of Finnish utopian communities *Erikssons' exile sect (1732–1832), pietistic (120 members) *New Jerusalem, Sierra Leone (1792-1792) religious, enlightenment * Amurinmaan yhtiö, Strelok, Russia (1868-1872), socialist (50 members) * Chillagoa, Queensland, Australia (1900-1900), socialist (80 members) *Drummond, MI, USA, (1903–1930), Nationalistic, later socialist (250 members) Sointula, Malkosaari, British Columbia, Canada (1901-1905), socialist (1000 members) * Sammon Takojat, British Columbia, Canada (1905-1912), socialist, theosophic (50 members) * Red Deer plan, Alberta, Canada (1899-1899), nationalistic * Itabo, Cuba (1904-1908), nationalist, socialist (50 members) * Ponnistus, Cuba (1906-1909), socialist (50 members) * Redwood Valley, California, United States (1912-1932), socialist, co-operative (120 members) * Georgian Osuusfarmi, Georgia, United States (1921-1966), socialist co-operative (150 members) *Kylväjä, Soviet Union, (1920–1940), Socia ...
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List Of American Utopian Communities
A wide range of utopia, utopian intentional communities were founded across US since the 1700s. Several of them are active in the present day. Secular utopian socialism in the US during the 19th century included the Owenism, Owenite movement of the 1820s, Fourierism (1843–1850), Icarians (1848–1898), and Bellamyism (1889–1896). As well, several anarchist communities were established in the U.S. These included Home, Washington (founded in 1898) and the Modern Times (community), Socialist Community of Modern Times, founded in New York in 1851. Seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Nineteenth century Twentieth century See also * List of Finnish utopian communities * List of German utopian communities * List of Fourierist Associations in the United States * Federation of Egalitarian Communities * Fourierism * Icarians * List of intentional communities * List of Owenite communities in the United States * Owenism * Shakers References

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Qualitative Methods
Qualitative research is a type of research that aims to gather and analyse non-numerical (descriptive) data in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality, including understanding their attitudes, beliefs, and motivation. This type of research typically involves in-depth interviews, focus groups, or field observations in order to collect data that is rich in detail and context. Qualitative research is often used to explore complex phenomena or to gain insight into people's experiences and perspectives on a particular topic. It is particularly useful when researchers want to understand the meaning that people attach to their experiences or when they want to uncover the underlying reasons for people's behavior. Qualitative methods include ethnography, grounded theory, discourse analysis, and interpretative phenomenological analysis. Qualitative research methods have been used in sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, communication studies, socia ...
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United Nations Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towards long-term self-sufficiency and prosperity. Based at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York City, it is the largest UN development aid agency, with offices in 177 countries. The UNDP is funded entirely by voluntary contributions from UN member states. Founding The UNDP was founded on 22 November 1965 through the merger of the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance (EPTA) and the Special Fund in 1958. The rationale was to "avoid duplication of heiractivities". The EPTA was set up in 1949 to support the economic and political aspects of underdeveloped countries while the Special Fund was to enlarge the scope of UN technical assistance. The Special Fund arose from the idea of a Special United Nations Fund for Economic D ...
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Machine Learning
Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task (computing), tasks without explicit Machine code, instructions. Within a subdiscipline in machine learning, advances in the field of deep learning have allowed Neural network (machine learning), neural networks, a class of statistical algorithms, to surpass many previous machine learning approaches in performance. ML finds application in many fields, including natural language processing, computer vision, speech recognition, email filtering, agriculture, and medicine. The application of ML to business problems is known as predictive analytics. Statistics and mathematical optimisation (mathematical programming) methods comprise the foundations of machine learning. Data mining is a related field of study, focusing on exploratory data analysi ...
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Social Media
Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongst virtual communities and Network virtualization, networks. Common features include: * Online platforms enable users to create and share content and participate in social networking. * User-generated content—such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through online interactions. * Service-specific profiles that are designed and maintained by the List of social networking services, social media organization. * Social media helps the development of online social networks by connecting a User profile, user's profile with those of other individuals or groups. The term ''social'' in regard to media suggests platforms enable communal activity. Social media enhances and extends human networks. Users access so ...
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Dystopia
A dystopia (lit. "bad place") is an imagined world or society in which people lead wretched, dehumanized, fearful lives. It is an imagined place (possibly state) in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one. Dystopia is widely seen as the opposite of utopia – a concept coined by Thomas More in 1516 to describe an ideal society. Both ''topias'' are common topics in fiction. Dystopia is also referred to as cacotopia, or anti-utopia. Dystopias are often characterized by fear or distress, tyrannical governments, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Themes typical of a dystopian society include: complete control over the people in a society through the use propaganda and police state tactics, heavy censorship of information or denial of free thought, worship of an unattainable goal, the complete loss of individuality, and heavy enforcement of conform ...
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Thomas More
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, judge, social philosopher, author, statesman, theologian, and noted Renaissance humanist. He also served Henry VIII as Lord Chancellor from October 1529 to May 1532. He wrote ''Utopia (book), Utopia'', published in 1516, which describes the political system of an utopia, imaginary island state. More opposed the Protestant Reformation, directing polemics against the theology of Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli and William Tyndale. More also opposed Henry VIII's separation from the Catholic Church, refusing to acknowledge Henry as supreme head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. After refusing to take the Oath of Supremacy, he was convicted of treason on what he stated was false evidence, and was executed. At his execution, he was reported to have said: "I die the King's good servant, and God's first." Pope ...
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Abstraction
Abstraction is a process where general rules and concepts are derived from the use and classifying of specific examples, literal (reality, real or Abstract and concrete, concrete) signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abstraction" is the outcome of this process — a concept that acts as a common noun for all subordinate concepts and connects any related concepts as a ''group'', ''field'', or ''category''.Suzanne K. Langer (1953), ''Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key'', p. 90: "Sculpture, Sculptural form is a powerful abstraction from actual objects and the three-dimensional space which we construe ... through sensory system, touch and sight." Conceptual abstractions may be made by filtering the information content of a concept or an observable phenomenon, selecting only those aspects which are relevant for a particular purpose. For example, abstracting a leather soccer ball to the more general idea of a ball selects only the in ...
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