This set of “rules” was created in the second decade of the twenty-first century by Echinatus (Steven) Wong, Hattai (Sonny) Ng, and Lakshmi Chowdhury, not for the purpose of religious dogma, but to gain recognition from governments for tax and gathering purposes. Ironically, it would be the followers of this newfound ‘religion’ who would spearhead the downfall of those very governments. Over the next several decades, the rest of The Ten would add to or modify the rules to suit their particular period in time.

What follows is the initial list of religious dogma submitted by the first Nutopians to their government (United States). Thereafter, there will be a brief explanation of each point, as given by Wong, Ng, and Chowdhury in a discussion from 2029. Nutopianismism, as it was referred to by the authors, began growing in popularity a few years prior and, not to have any distortion or bastardization of their words used after their death, the three founders released a clarification of their intentions and meaning. At this time, they also added three additional points. These, more philosophical than the first seven ideals. A sign of their age, joked Chowdhury.

The second portion of this document gives the history of the rest of The Ten, their teachings and what they added to the canon of what had become a widespread practice and, eventually, the foundation of most beliefs in our present. Like most religions and governments, Nutopianismism saw its own periods of extremism and backlash, which have been noted throughout, along with official decrees by the ‘Conquistador’, as it was initially referred to. Later the title would be changed to President, International Director, Nobody, and currently, Humanitarian Services Bureaucrat and Philosophical Explainer.

Philosophies, Dogmas, Rules, Regulations, Statutes, Commandments, Principles, Mission, and Canon.

The leaders, followers, and members of Nutopia agree, for the most part, that they believe in these ideas and agree to live by these precepts:

1) Nutopians believe in equality, humanity, and brotherhood of all people, regardless of skin color, penis/vagina status, personal history, toxic families, disability. In fact, we believe in inclusiveness of all, until they’re an asshole.

1. B) Personal beliefs and values should be rooted in honesty, integrity, and genuinity.

III) Nutopians don’t need to go around evangelizing/proselytizing.

Four) No children shall be allowed in our church. Members won’t indoctrinate their kids – or anybody else’s.

ε) Nutopians shall not destroy the environment, animals, people, or public property for profit or entertainment.

六) Holidays should be spent doing positive actions for the planet and each other, not rampant consumerism, factionism, waste, and pollution. If you’re going to spend holidays with people, for goddesses’ sake, do it with people you like.

٧) Until we can prove its existence and authenticity beyond a shadow of a doubt, we won’t collectively worship an entity, afterlife, guru, book, or god-in-man-form-guy. And even then, worship is stupid.

We hereby proclaim and declare this proclamation of our declaration on this, the eleventh minute of the second hour of the eighteenth day of the sixth month of the thirteenth-or-so billionth year.

Sonny Ng

Steven Wong

Lakshmi Chowdhury

****

On 19 September, 2029, Chowdhury, Ng and Wong gathered with those who had declared themselves “Nutopian” in order to clarify and amend their initial declaration. They were joined by Merriami Devi, who would be later declared the fourth of The Ten. While not officially ‘part’ of this discussion, her influence is no doubt seen in the responses of the three authors and their change in viewpoint in the preceding decade.

One (equality and humanity):

Chowdhury: Holy hell, we’re only on the first one and it already feels tedious. Do we really need to explain this one?

Wong: Yeah, dude. It seems simple, but people seem to have fucked it all up for the past dozen millennia-or-so. Black, white, brown, male, female, trans, gay, straight, poly. None of it qualifies you for any judgment from us. Be your best you.

Ng: Notice he didn’t say ‘nationality’ or ‘religion’. It’s one thing to be born into a shitty family or brainwashed into a religion or whatever, but once you’re old enough to think for yourself, you’re the one responsible for any bullshit that you do or say.

Wong: Seriously, we don’t care about your previous life choices. Make amends as you need to, but your hate is on you – and you’re guilty by association if you condone evil.

Ng: Oh, and people doing shit that’s against your religion is a you problem. Like, people doing drugs or having sex or any of the other rules Christians have for everybody else, we don’t have those. The whole reason we’re here is because we don’t want to leave anything up to interpretation for televangelist jackasses. If you don’t subscribe to our philosophies, you’re welcome to start your own religion. We’re proof of how easy it is.

Two (Honesty, Integrity):

Wong: Well, to start, we should define what we meant when we chose these specific words, since so many people seem to use them interchangeably. Honesty is simply not lying. Integrity is standing up for your beliefs. Genuinity is being yourself. Or, rather, not pretending to be anything you aren’t.

Chowdhury: To be clear, you don’t have to lie to be disingenuous. It could be a matter of not expressing yourself – to yourself. Integrity would be doing the right thing, even when nobody’s looking.

Ng: So to pass the test, someone…

Chowdhury: Hold on, bro. Let’s not get into rules and tests and shit.

Ng: My bad, you’re right. Maybe we’re trying to get too specific in clarifying these rules. The whole point when we came up with this was that people should be trusted to make judgments based on their values and act appropriately.

Wong: You’re right, though. If history teaches us anything it’s exactly that. People seem incapable of self-governing. Er, maybe that’s not the right way to put it. Obviously, everybody self-governs all the time, but they don’t make good or benevolent decisions. Not unlike real government.

Ng: Politicians are a good example of who not to be, for sure. Or, maybe not. I guess it’s not unreasonable to consider that these people actually are being themselves and since their beliefs are rooted in selfishness and manipulation, who am I to say they aren’t acting with integrity? Two out of three, I guess.

Wong (sings): “And two outta three ain’t bad.” Seriously, though, I think it might be an all-or-nothing sort of thing. Like, you can’t be a genuine person without honesty and vice-versa. Maybe I’m being too idealistic.

Chowdhury: That’s the whole reason we wrote this shit! Who would we be if we didn’t believe things could be better. That people could be better.

Wong: Definitely. Can we move on before we get too deep into semantics?

Three (Evangelism):

Chowdhury: (Laughs) A direct shot at Christians, obviously.

Ng: Right? The Religious Reich has gotten so out of control the last couple of decades. It had to be said.

Chowdhury: The last couple decades?? You mean the last couple millennia.

Wong: Okay, I think we get it. This shouldn’t take a whole lot of clarification – I hope. We believe that the Nutopian values should speak for themselves and we should lead by example instead of telling others how to live. If what we have to say is worth listening to, people will listen. Guilting or shaming them, punishing them or waging holy wars – literally or metaphorically – go against our core beliefs and do nothing to further our cause – whatever that may be.

Ng: Well said.

Chowdhury: Yes, very nice. Can I add that the cause’ of Nutopianismism isn’t to recruit and brainwash as many people as possible into our cult. Our only ‘mission’ is to live a life of value.

Wong: Definitely.

Four (No Children):

Wong: I remember writing this one. (All laugh)

Chowdhury: We’d just come back from John’s wedding.

Wong: Between that and just general exposure to kids in public and then hardly going out because of COVID, we were done with kids. Talking about how there should be more places besides bars where kids aren’t allowed, it made sense that we wouldn’t want them at our fictional church.

Ng: Yeah, and then we went down the rabbit-hole of all the terrible bullshit people do to their kids, not the least of which being indoctrinating them into cuckoo-pants religions and instilling this fear in them. And beauty pageants.

Chowdhury: And social media.

Ng: And marriages.

Wong: And schools. And jobs.

Ng: It seems logical to let kids be kids until they can understand abstract concepts. Not that we can hide the existence of Nutopianismism or any other religion. Nor would we want to. But if we prohibit them from any events or gatherings affiliated with us, it would discourage overzealous family members from trying to brainwash them.

Wong: What we came up with isn’t the end-all, be-all. It’s organic. It can change. It’s fallible. Limiting the free thought of future generations limits our ability to grow and adapt. The last thing we’d want is a bunch of jackasses trying to use our words to oppress and manipulate people in two-thousand years.

Five (Environment):

Wong: Why do all of these sound so simple? This is such a huge part of the world right now, with who knows how many thousands of industries. In this case, I think it’s better to cast a wide net.

Ng: At a base level, we mean not doing the obvious things like dog fighting or beating an animal. When it comes to profiting from animals, we mean anything where the animal can’t agree, which is most things. Meat factories and the like – they kill millions of animals for food, but we can produce protein-rich agriculture that costs less, uses land better, and has longer storage-life.

Chowdhury: Not to mention how livestock farming damages the environment itself. The amount of waste, erosion, water use, and air pollution are significant and can be easily mitigated by using non-animal products. Sure, meat tastes good and that fake stuff will never be the same, but I, for one, am willing to give up some small pleasures for the sake of the planet and untold number of lives I won’t contribute to harming.

Wong: Let’s not stop there. Fracking, clearing forests, water diversion. All of these are designed to make money at the expense of the Earth. That’s gotta stop. Since the capitalists aren’t going to stop, we have to use the only weapon we have, our wallets. By refusing to purchase these mostly-useless products, we can force them to give it up. Or at least give them reason to.

Ng: It says something about people and public property, should we talk about that, too?

Chowdhury: Well, exploiting people for labor is a big one, but people are starting to stand up for themselves a little more. Then there are the jackasses who use other people to make comedy videos or vandalize for views or whatever.

Wong: Those people are the worst. Seriously, I’d get rid of all of them and all of the profiteers to save one mole rat.

Chowdhury: Not going to argue with you there.

Six/Seven (Celebration/Worship):

Wong: Can we do these next two together? Okay, listen carefully. Any omnipotent, omnipresent being or beings, if they exist, could not possibly want you to waste your time worshiping them. It’s no wonder politicians and popes are always pieces of shit. When you deify vanity, you’re putting narcissists up on a pedestal.

Ng: Nice. And speaking of wasting time – spending holidays with people you barely know and don’t like has always been one of my pet-peeves. Like some narcissist god is going to be honored with lumpy mashed potatoes and my mother berating me for the fiftieth time? Who writes this stuff?

Chowdhury: I think it’s the trading of shitty plastic trinkets and kitchen appliances that’s meant to honor their god.

Wong: Did we talk about plastic waste already? Stop buying and throwing away plastic, people. Yeah, sometimes it’s useful – like for my computer – but not for disposable beverage containers and shit like that.

Chowdhury: Definitely. Disposable everything has turned this planet into a giant trash pile. Fuck, people suck.

Ng: Well, not everybody. We wouldn’t be here with all of these folks if all people sucked.

Wong: Anything else to say about these two?

Ng: Just that we don’t care if you believe in a creator or an afterlife. Believe whatever you want, but don’t expect the rest of us to do the same. As long as your god doesn’t tell you to do things contrary to these guidelines, welcome to Nutopia!

The following three tenets were adopted as part of the Kowloon Underground City way-of-life in 2031.

Live a life of simplicity, without excess or unnecessary waste.

Values deemed in high regard are generosity, creativity, and philanthropy. All involve giving what you have to others.

Body recycling is a spiritual and religious practice, as well as environmentally beneficial. Sky burial, sea burial, and tree burial are all approved practices of Nutopianismism. Their responsible practice shall not be impeded by government regulations or fees.