Searching for Utopia
b'For centuries, writers and philosophers have imagined what a perfect world might look like \\u2014 if only we had a chance to start over, build it all from scratch. The term "utopia" comes from ancient Greek. It literally means "no place," but it\'s also a pun on "eutopia," meaning "good place." In other words, it\'s a good place that doesn\'t exist. But that hasn\'t stopped a never-ending stream of dreamers and seekers \\u2014 from political and economic theorists, to dictators, hippies, and religious zealots \\u2014 from trying to create utopias of their own.
So, what is it that makes the idea so seductive? Who is attracted to a more perfect world? And what happens when it all goes wrong? On this episode, we explore modern attempts at real-life utopias. We\'ll hear about an AI researcher\'s doomed mission to establish a post-apocalyptic community in the Scottish Highlands, what it\'s like growing up in a utopian community, and the dark side of efforts to build sustainable smart cities around the world.'