The future is not a force of nature. It is a design project – and that means someone is always setting the brief. What are its unquestioned assumptions?
The manufactured despair section is the sharpest part of this for me. Naming apathy as an engineered output rather than a natural response to bad conditions reframes a conversation that's been stuck for years. And the bifurcation point about foresight is right on time. The practices that can be automated will be. What remains valuable is whether institutions will actually fund the slower, harder expertise they claim to want. Looking forward to the frameworks.
What the manufacturers of despair seem to miss in their considerations is that hopelessness is actually even more dangerous than hope. Hope (not merely wishful thinking) pushes for constructive change that allows for transition period, but hopelessness can lead to outright destruction that always spins out of the predictability perimeter. Unfortunately, too many in the positions of leadership seem too ignorant of historical patterns to care.
The doomscroll economy is banking on: "Hopelessness can lead to outright destruction that always spins out of the predictability perimeter" And most leadership hasn't internalized it either. Excited to keep reading as you publish here more.
I appreciate your thoughts and writing so much. For those of us who have seen the old oppressions shift and dismantle, we own the future a better story of possibility and the creative iteration of hope. Your "stack" provides a framework to identify the aspects of our liberation that we can collectively work on manifesting. I reject the "bosses of bytes" futures.
To be honest writing the Futurism You Were Sold Was a Weapon nearly drove me insane but I feel it was necessary to get in one place the 2 decades of reading and experiences that actually led me to work on Protopian World Stack… for many of these folks future making is like an abstract mind game for us it’s a question of survival. Sending love and appreciation — hopefully we get together in LA soon — or wherever else it might be!
Monika, this is a great manifesto against the ambient nihilism of 2026. We are watching techbros orchestrate exactly the future they deem best for the rest of us, whether we asked for it or not. I just finished a show called Paradise, and one character perfectly captures this: tech billionaires building AGI to save mankind while they're the ones actively destroying it. That fiction lands differently when you realize the brief for our actual future is being drafted in rooms we aren't invited to enter. (Sorry to bring sci-fi into this. The topic is painfully real.)
But the human moments in your piece are what cut through. It's the antithesis of believing our salvation runs on an AI algorithm. The astronauts circling the Moon, and the most memorable image being them holding each other, grieving, naming craters for lost loved ones. And your line about ancestors surviving gulags and camps not so we could surrender space now. That's the real counterweight to the sterile fantasy.
Thank you so much dear one! Really appreciate this from you. Just published the new piece and it’s definitely a bit more of a somber read but I felt it was necessary before I can hopefully get into more inspiring things with the upcoming 4 essays on Protopian World Stack. I’d love us to co-write sometime 🥹💕
The manufactured despair section is the sharpest part of this for me. Naming apathy as an engineered output rather than a natural response to bad conditions reframes a conversation that's been stuck for years. And the bifurcation point about foresight is right on time. The practices that can be automated will be. What remains valuable is whether institutions will actually fund the slower, harder expertise they claim to want. Looking forward to the frameworks.
What the manufacturers of despair seem to miss in their considerations is that hopelessness is actually even more dangerous than hope. Hope (not merely wishful thinking) pushes for constructive change that allows for transition period, but hopelessness can lead to outright destruction that always spins out of the predictability perimeter. Unfortunately, too many in the positions of leadership seem too ignorant of historical patterns to care.
The doomscroll economy is banking on: "Hopelessness can lead to outright destruction that always spins out of the predictability perimeter" And most leadership hasn't internalized it either. Excited to keep reading as you publish here more.
I appreciate your thoughts and writing so much. For those of us who have seen the old oppressions shift and dismantle, we own the future a better story of possibility and the creative iteration of hope. Your "stack" provides a framework to identify the aspects of our liberation that we can collectively work on manifesting. I reject the "bosses of bytes" futures.
To be honest writing the Futurism You Were Sold Was a Weapon nearly drove me insane but I feel it was necessary to get in one place the 2 decades of reading and experiences that actually led me to work on Protopian World Stack… for many of these folks future making is like an abstract mind game for us it’s a question of survival. Sending love and appreciation — hopefully we get together in LA soon — or wherever else it might be!
Monika, this is a great manifesto against the ambient nihilism of 2026. We are watching techbros orchestrate exactly the future they deem best for the rest of us, whether we asked for it or not. I just finished a show called Paradise, and one character perfectly captures this: tech billionaires building AGI to save mankind while they're the ones actively destroying it. That fiction lands differently when you realize the brief for our actual future is being drafted in rooms we aren't invited to enter. (Sorry to bring sci-fi into this. The topic is painfully real.)
But the human moments in your piece are what cut through. It's the antithesis of believing our salvation runs on an AI algorithm. The astronauts circling the Moon, and the most memorable image being them holding each other, grieving, naming craters for lost loved ones. And your line about ancestors surviving gulags and camps not so we could surrender space now. That's the real counterweight to the sterile fantasy.
I can't wait to read the rest of your work.
Thank you so much dear one! Really appreciate this from you. Just published the new piece and it’s definitely a bit more of a somber read but I felt it was necessary before I can hopefully get into more inspiring things with the upcoming 4 essays on Protopian World Stack. I’d love us to co-write sometime 🥹💕
This is amazing work. Can’t wait to follow over the next few weeks.
Thank you so much! Always open to all critical feedback and suggestions.