Chris Par’s “Try Out Green Utopia” (Daily Nexus, Feb. 2) is a prime example of the drivel that infests our campus like a stubborn mold. I will only briefly address this article for fear of dignifying it with too elaborate a response (and also because the Nexus limits Opinion responses to 300 words).

Fortunately, the column discredits itself in the first couple sentences, so my work is done for me. The very concept of a world without barter negates any possibility of progress. Lack of trade leads to lack of diversity in goods and services because every member is occupied by their own sustenance. If the brilliant inventor can’t trade for his tomatoes, he spends less time inventing and more time growing tomatoes, and sadly Par’s world-liberating technological advancements are never realized.

Even if we turn a blind eye to Par’s absurd disregard for pecuniary incentive, I wonder what kind of machine could, as Par puts it, “end poverty, solve the economic crisis, stop global warming and create world peace.” It sounds, to me at least, to be far beyond the scope even of nanotechnology (which, despite being a big word, adds no credibility to the column).

I’m sure these ideas sound great between bong rips on the way to the co-op but tragically, what I see when I read “Try Out Green Utopia” is pseudo-intellectual idealism that blissfully ignores the realities of the world we live in. It reflects a ’60s hippie mentality gone astray, a search for a cause that stinks of desperation. Without over-reaching myself, I think that the real solutions lie in cutting our hair, putting down our spliffs and grinding it out to make tangible progress.