Imagining Better Futures
Part 1 - Anarchist Technology
Preface
As much as I’ve greatly been looking forward to this… and even though I spend a LOT of time imagining these better futures… I’ve also been procrastinating a lot on actually sharing said futures. I think I procrastinate due to several reasons: vulnerability, fear and anxiety, perfectionism, and maturation. Sharing these futures is very much like sharing my heart and soul.
In sharing these visions, I’m sharing my hopes and dreams for what a better world can (and should) look like. Thus there’s the inherent fear and anxiety of people not just poking holes, but ridiculing, ignoring, or just downright tearing it apart with reckless abandon and eviscerating me through the jagged shards of my broken dreams…
There’s also the knowledge that as much as I might share, there are countless details, big and small, that I will miss with these visions. My ideas could be misunderstood, lacking, or even manipulated due to these inevitable holes. I want to be able to put forth bulletproof visions of the future… but I know that such a thing is impossible, and misses the point.
The whole reason I think it's so important to do this at all is because I think more people need practice imagining better futures, no matter their level of fidelity. These visions should be open to critique and collaboration, to foster a more communal shared future. And these ideas inevitably change as we mature.
There are many ideas I had before that I no longer wish for, because I've learned more about what good looks like on a personal and societal level. I know that any ideas I share are prone to being wrong years down the line… and yet I know it's still important to share them anyways. Because if we never take time to imagine what the future could look like… if we never allow ourselves space to just daydream… if we never dare to be ambitious about what the world can look like, then we leave ourselves to be nothing more than dead leaves being carried on the winds of those who did dare to dream. And those dreams may not be ones you share.
So with all that said… Here goes.
Acknowledgements
Shout out to Jordan, from my discord, who posed a great question to me a while ago:
“I know you've talked about companies outside the context of capitalism. Is there a company you'd wanna start like that?”
Here’s what I said:
“Ooooh buddy, so much!!
I want to start a company to create and elevate anarchotech: technologies that teach, support, and strengthen functional anarchism. Things like social platforms where people can connect on a peer-to-peer level and there are no follower-influencer type relationships. Or resource sharing sites where you can share any resource peer-to-peer without a central authority or medium or money. Or tools to save one's environment from destruction and even rewild more easily.
I want to start companies/projects around egalitarian science and history. Where everyday people are able to do science and discover the history of everyday people. So instead of doing science in a reductive, elitist way as is commonly done, it's instead more approachable, accessible, and systemic. And instead of discovering history only from the perspective of the 'victors' or 'great men' or other powerful institutions, we are able to discover how the average person lived. We can see the ways in which history was primarily developed through democratic means and such.
I also want to do things like create ways to pass on knowledge far into the future with minimal loss or alteration. I want to do things like create methods for more ecological ways of creating advanced technologies. I want to help establish a thriving space exploration program that allows anyone and everyone to go to space in a sustainable way. I want to create simulations that people can use to test how their changes and ideas will impact society (ecologically, socially, economically, physically, psychologically, etc).
There's just SO many things!! More conscious transhumanism, talking with other animals, better spiritual practices, sustainable food production, sensors for everything (ie better able to sense ones body, chemical effects, ecological impact, etc), organic tattoos, trans-mogrification (of one's own body as well as other objects), real-life super powers, talking with plants, fungal internet, better games (that are both fun and practical), better tools for making music and other arts, new artistic experiences (like synesthetic concerts and psycho-active simulations), even ethical porn, and psychological remediation for people struggling with trauma and mental health conditions, and non-problematic drugs, and so and so forth.
There's just COUNTLESS ideas I want to work on. Some of which will be their own companies, some just projects, or whatever.”
I want to expound on some of those countless ideas to help explore more of this ‘better future’ I keep talking about.
I’ve talked through some of these in my podcast as well, which you can find here: Imagining Better Futures, but I hope to roll them out in a more rigorous and systematic way through text.
Also, super shout outs to Alex from Solarpunk Stories!! He invited me to guest write on his substack, and that also was a huge inspiration for this as well. As of writing, Part 1 is out now! And Part 2 will likely be out soon too.
In fact, I’ve been meaning to be at least a little bit more concise, so I actually ended up splitting this newsletter into multiple parts as well. You can expect another 3-4 editions in this particular series (so far). 😀
Anyways, let’s start with AnarchoTech, which feels like the most exciting, foundational, and practical concept that I will try to implement ASAP!
Anarchist Technology
The current way in which technology is built is inherently hierarchical and exclusive. Most people don’t understand how most technologies work. Most people don’t get to create new technologies by their own hand, or even recreate old ones. Most people don’t even recognize what technology is (hint: it's not just computers). Most people are therefore missing out on a key aspect of human potential. There needs to be more avenues, mechanisms, and knowledge about this incredibly foundational tool we as a species use to make our mark in the world, for better or worse.
By understanding what technology really is, we can build technologies that actually do more good than bad… that are not exploitative, corruptive, or exclusive to the rich and powerful… that are instead empowering, radically accessible, and communal while also being personal.
So what is technology? It is the application of knowledge. Specifically the application of scientific knowledge towards practical uses, especially in industry. However, one could retroactively deem any invention humans have created as technology, from fire to language to multitool rocks to clothing and more. In modern times, that also means medicine, sanitation, writing utensils, trains, even food, and so on. Pretty much every facet of our lives is made possible by technologies, new and old. And yet, most of us have no idea how any of it works, or how to reproduce it, or how to fix it, much less adapt it if need be.
Most technology is made by a small percentage of people. Sure, division of labor is useful, and obviously not everyone can understand everything, nor has any desire to know. But that does not mean we should make technology increasingly more inaccessible and even hostile to casual tinkering. There’s a rightful battle for the right to repair against Apple, and concerns around licensing with companies like Unity, for instance.
But some huge problems that very few people even recognize are things like:
the inability for people to even grasp the concept of technology being something that they too can and should participate in.
the inherent power imbalance of technology that is not actually neutral, but instead designed to empower certain people over others.
the degradation of technical literacy around not just how to use something as designed, but how something works and thus how to tinker with or reproduce it themselves.
the way a lot of these technologies, from cars to foods to social media, sugar-coat the huge downsides of these applications… even making them seem like they are solving problems when they’re just sweeping them under an expensive-looking rug.
People need to recognize how a lot of technology is a direct result of the corruption, bastardization, and/or weaponization of science… of knowledge for the purposes of profit and power rather than actually solving meaningful problems.
When I think of ‘AnarchoTech’, I think of systems, tools, strategies, practices, and concepts that foster and/or are founded on anarchic principles. Things like egalitarianism, consensus-building, decentralization, community, autonomy, sustainability, and so on. When I think of ‘anarchotech’ I think of applications of real science that are evenly distributed, accountable, and participatory.
That means every aspect of technology should embody these values in a very real, material way. So let’s break down each of these principles.
AnarchoTech should be Sustainable
This means we should be able to account for the various externalities and potential impact of any piece of technology across its entire supply chain.
That means the way in which resources are sourced should be largely local, transparent, and carefully measured. We must be able to measure the impact of extracting any raw materials; looking at everything from how its extraction may affect the water tables, the soil quality, the ecological biodiversity, the air quality, the aesthetics, the psychological dependencies, and so on. Yes, this is a lot. But it's what conscientious humans did for thousands of years.
Many indigenous cultures who valued the environment saw it as an integral part of their very identity. Not as a mere thing to be owned and used, but as a living, breathing entity that had its own needs and desires. They understood that you couldn't just cut down trees willy-nilly if you wanted wood. You instead would have to find the trees that are diseased or were already going to fall. You would ensure something else took its place, or at least fostered the next generation. You would do rituals like burying fish and other meals as ‘offerings’ to the forest, which served as a means of fertilizing the soil with new nutrients they otherwise would not have gotten.
Even when you take and use that wood, you do so with care. You ‘pray’ or ‘speak’ to the wood as you strip and carve it down. Looking for any blight or other issues, thereby allowing you to gain a better understanding of the wood and its ‘feelings’. This process would end up eventually creating incredibly high quality products that felt like they were still alive in some way.
In fact, many spiritual practices were used for that purpose: to pass down wisdoms across generations, creating cultures and traditions that were environmentally conscious by default.
What if we could create modern-day spiritual practices that ‘automated’ the protection, fostering, and growth of the environment into the human psyche?
We could have apps that prompt you to meditate outside, and really become aware of the depth of the natural world.
Games or even live streamed specialized drones that see things from the perspective of various flora and fauna.
Augmented reality glasses that gave you cool little gifs when you cleaned up an area or cared for an indigenous plant/animal.
Visualize the impact of mining, fracking, woodcutting, etc as sprites/fairies dying or perhaps just showing the decay and increased entropy degrading the area.
Even create sensors and algorithms that help translate the various signals trees and other life forms send each other into a form of communication we can understand and appreciate.
Perhaps that means no more mass production or industrialization, … or perhaps that means completely reconfiguring industry to work in a much more thoughtful and intentional way, like how the Menominee go about their forestry… Either way, the point is that AnarchoTech starts at the inception of any new technology.
As you follow it down the supply chain, this intentionality should persist. When we process those raw materials into products, we should be fastidiously measuring any and all ‘waste’ or pollutants, from heat to water to trimmings to defects to all manner of byproducts. We should minimize said waste to itself be used for something else instead of just thrown away.
Furthermore, most every product should be built to last, so that as we use products, we know that we won’t need to get another one for a long time. For products that benefit from iterative improvements, they should be built with modularity and interoperability in mind, so that people can simply replace just the parts that have been improved, rather than throwing the whole thing away to buy another.
Once you’re done with a product, you should be able to upcycle, recycle, or even gift it to someone else to reuse. We can vastly reduce our waste if we simply fostered a culture of reuse… of seeing used products not as second-rate (or worse) things, but as even more valuable products because they’ve been of service to other people, and because they have their own histories now.
For example, take the concept of ‘if walls could talk’ and make it real by granting every product a sort of database that people can use to share stories of what they used that product for. Kind of like used books with writing and notes in them, but done more intentionally and consistently with most any kind of product. Imagine being able to see the love and memories generations of people had with a bookshelf or a phone or a chair or even a house and so on. Of course, you could always opt to not look at this history and to not add your own, but I think many people would value things a lot more, and the sharing of those things, if they could see the stories we tell with them, and the memories we had.
AnarchoTech should Decentralize and Distribute Power
Another aspect to think about is the decentralization and distribution of power. Many tech companies (and companies in general) today aim to become monopolies. Not just maximize profit, but also to maximize power. It forces all users to live with whatever anti-consumer dark patterns, terrible customer service, and enshittification companies want to do once they destroy any chance of competition. For all that capitalism likes to wave the flag of competition, any good capitalist hates competition and does their utmost to ensure there is no competition. They achieve this by any means necessary: from rigging the game through biased regulations, to locking in customers through data and network effects and closed gardens, to manipulative marketing and social engineering, to acquiring or otherwise bankrupting any potential competitors. At the very bottom of this stack is actually making the product better. That’s usually the last thing done, or only ever really done as a byproduct of one of the more powerful means of achieving market dominance. Just look at nearly any big tech company and really analyze if the technology actually got better or simply more broad, more pervasive, more ‘sticky’, and more addictive.
This is certainly not to say companies never make good products. Obviously they do, but usually that happens first, when the company is just a small group of passionate people. As soon as the company gets big enough to receive any sort of major investment, the quality of the actual product takes a nosedive (or the ‘product’ becomes its scale and ‘value’ as an investment vehicle, rather than actually solving whatever problem it was originally supposed to solve).
So it is incredibly important that a better world has technologies that counteract and discourage this sort of behavior, and at the same time incentivizing and making the right type of behavior far more attractive, easy, and profitable (and I mean that holistically, not just in the fiduciary sense).
AnarchoTech would therefore break the ‘bundling and unbundling’ binary cycle… instead creating a world where interoperability, individualized customization, and localized community building is the default. What that looks like is technology companies that do not seek to be the ‘everything app’ or do ‘all the things’. Nor even a super specific product for a super specific niche (which is really just meant to find a unique monopoly by finding the ‘riches in the niches’).
It looks like platforms that are built on public property first, rather than private (in both the digital and physical world). Sure, there could still be things hosted/supplied by private companies, but there should also be just as many, if not more, things hosted by public municipalities and hyper local communities, and even easy ways for everyday people to host their own services.
Pretty much all tools/services should be modular and moddable, where people can mix and match aspects of different products together.
Imagine being able to have your own personal patreon that was hosted on your own devices (or your local neighborhood’s), rather than the company’s. You could take elements that you like from Patreon, some from OnlyFans, some from Twitch, some from YouTube, etc to create your own personal service. You could even have services that help make that user experience incredibly seamless and simple.
Companies wouldn’t be trying to build the biggest business where everybody is locked onto their platform, but instead creating services and tools that people can use however they like. There should be platforms that work more as a confluence of various products and services that click together like a beautiful and dynamic living ecosystem, rather than a stale, overly-manicured, mono-cultural closed garden. We should be fostering ecologies rather than creating astroturf.
We should be able to take our data anywhere, to interoperate with anyone, to customize any part of the thing, and to create anything we can imagine!
Most importantly, anarchist technology should allow everyday people to function outside of the purview of markets, monopolies, and property. Meaning people should be able to live aspects of their lives, or even their entire life, without being required to buy something or interact with a government they did not explicitly choose to participate in.
This may sound completely foreign and even impossible today, but that’s exactly how humans have lived for most of our time on this Earth. If we call ourselves ‘advanced’, it makes no sense that we can’t figure out how to make this a viable lifestyle even with modern amenities.
It’s the ultimate form of accountability for economic and legal systems. If people can truly opt out of said systems (or better yet, are autonomous by default but can opt-in if they so choose), then that means they have true freedom. And that means said systems that are able to thrive are truly exceptional, since they no longer require forced participation to function.
Anarchotech should empower people to do this even in our modern, interconnected, and populated world by creating tools for autonomy and naturally limiting the scale/reach of power.
Tools for autonomy should allow people to grow their own food sustainably, to find and clean their own water, as well as to build and modernize their own shelter. This should allow people to live ‘off the grid’, form their own grids, or completely invent their own unique system of infrastructure outside of any economic marketplace or state government. This is more than achievable even today. There’s no reason why only billionaires and eccentrics get to build their own cities! Especially when it's the everyday people who actually know how to do farming, carpentry, plumbing, urban planning, and so on that will actually end up doing the work.
Tools to limit the scale and reach of power should allow people to live in a geographic (or even virtual) area without the permission or harassment of some overarching power. These tools should discourage, defang, and decolonize the spread or reinforcement of unnatural barriers such as political states and private property.
Explaining the issues of states and property deserve their own book (or at least its own chapter), but the short of it is that the idea of property beyond what one is actively using is inherently domineering and unfair. It encourages hoarding, greed, war, and xenophobia. To maintain ‘private property’ beyond what one can or is using requires technologies that inherently favor an authoritarian use of power. Therefore, we should create technologies that fight said authority. For instance, we should have more copyleft, and less copyright, more bridges and less barriers, more privacy and less surveillance, more mutual aid and less warfare, more land co-ops and less private estates. So on and so forth.
We should bring back the commons. We should have far more shared property where people all know that they have a responsibility to take care of the space, because they all use the space and benefit from it. The ‘tragedy of the commons’ is not only a farce, but a dastardly propaganda campaign to literally rob the common people of the power they had, all while making them feel like it was for the best.
Anarchotech can help bring back the commons by making most technologies more accessible in both the building and the profiting. Through participatory design, open source development, and co-operative profit sharing we can make technological development a far more communal phenomena.
Instead of the typical developer > user framework, there is a meaningful pro-sumer relationship, where technologies are created by, for, and with the same people using them; where entire communities are actually engaged in how a technology gets made, ensuring that everyone (or at least far more than now) knows the impact, the costs, and the limitations… Thus far more people can repair, customize, and/or assess the technologies they use.
Here are a few more ideas for specific applications that could be implemented today:
Music players that allow people to download music from any platform to a personal device. And play or remix that music any way they want. All without running afoul of copyright thanks to gray areas of personal use and fair use…
Imagine having a music service where you can easily create your own personal music player, remix songs without worrying about copyright, and share that music effortlessly. Through simple metadata tracking, you’ll always get the credit for your creations. This takes the power away from mega corporations and back to individual people to own, create, and share music however you wish.
AI that allows you to instantly understand legalese, to be updated of TOC changes, and to find easy but effective ways of fighting for one’s rights and freedoms by perhaps sending disputes, finding alternatives, or even unionizing and/or boycotting.
Ways to build your own social media that's more a personal Rolodex where you can control your network and ‘feed’, spin up your own community servers easily, and create a space that feels like your own virtual home.
At-home recycling kits that are able to take apart trash and use it as raw materials to create new products, or at least sources ideas on how to reuse, upcycle, and recycle what you have.
Governance tools that allow communities to make decisions together, facilitate consensus-building, and maintain documentation accessible to all.
And so much more!!
AnarchoTech should be Communal
(Egalitarian, Consensual, and Autonomous)
Finally (at least for now), we should be able to easily do the one thing that makes us human… that distinguishes us from every other species on this Earth: create communities.
Though there are many other social creatures, none are able to create social relationships to the extent that we can as homo sapiens. We can create communities as small as a couple, or as large as the global population of humanity.
We can create families beyond blood, societies that span generations, and even commune with other species as readily as our own.
The only reason our modern day ‘society’ feels so incredibly divisive, hateful and lonely is not due to some nebulous, illogical concept of ‘human nature’... but because of the technologies we (or rather people in power) have created to hoard that power.
Sure there has always been violence, but never on the scale of global wars that genocide entire populations.
Sure there has always been disagreements and bigotry, but never on the scale of racism and sexism and all manner of discrimination that cements it into the very structure of our lives.
Sure there has always been greed and selfishness, but never on the scale of capitalism and imperialist states extracting resources from across the globe and destroying whole cultures, environments, and histories in their wake.
It is the technology of hierarchy that turns the power of community against itself until it implodes, spreading like a cancer before its apoplectic demise.
Those who grasp for power know that it is in their best interest to take that power from others, whether that be through force, or even ‘voluntarily’ (i.e. through subtle and not-so-subtle coercion). They know that by making the masses fight each other and squabble over the scraps, they can maintain their hold without question. If they can convince you that you belong down in the dirt… or that you have little to no skills or value… or that you should trust your decision-making ability to them… or even that you should compete with everyone else for ‘limited resources’... then they win.
They know that if they can cripple the ability for people to come together, to depend on each other instead of the power structure… to put borders around their facsimile of ‘community’... to redefine the very concept of community to mean nothing at all… then they win.
Those who hoard power know the power of community.
We need to take that power back.
Communities should be intimate, intentional, and empowering. They should inspire social relationships that every individual chooses for themselves.
Communities should be opt-in, consensual, and autonomous. They should be something you consciously choose to participate in, and can do so meaningfully; where your opinions, desires, and needs are met.
Communities should have the power to determine their own lives… no more and no less. They should be able to be self-sufficient little towns with their own governance systems, mini-economies, and access to resources.
We should have technologies that help us do all of these things.
Communal Living Suite of Tools
Imagine a suite of tools that has everything one needs to find, start, and/or maintain an autonomous community. Though these tools would be focused on physical domiciles, they could be used for virtual communities as well if you can’t find people you wish to commune with in your local area.
Governance systems should help people make decisions, keep records of meetings and decisions made, automate simple administrative tasks that would otherwise fall into the cracks, offer a repository of conflict-resolution and consensus-building strategies, even soft and hard power analysis that can quantify or at least signal if their may be power imbalances (and abuses of said power), as well as any other tool that may help communication, decision making, and governance all locally. You should not have to depend on a federal, state, or even a municipal government to make decisions and laws that pertain to your little community.
These larger government structures should start and end as bonds between communities to facilitate cross-community agreements rather than the sole arbiter of law and order that’s only a few steps removed from feudalism.There should be various ways to handle Food production in a sustainable and locally efficient way. Global supply chains are an amazing feat of modern-day industry, but its absolute folly to have entire populations either completely dependent upon the food production half a continent (or more) away, or upon the growing and selling of cash crops that destroy their own local environment. People should be able to scan their environment to see what indigenous edibles are in the area, the quality of the local water table, and the growing conditions for potential crops. This data should serve as the basis for estimating how many people can live in that area sustainably, what can be foraged and how often, what can be grown and the impact those crops may have, and even the health benefits or dietary content of said foods (ie the calories, protein, vitamins, etc you may get).
For any urban farming practices, it should also help analyze the potential energy/water needed to produce the extra food you need (and see if that will ultimately be worth the costs). If we have this sort of information, then it would be far easier to see what is actually needed from international supply chains, thereby vastly decreasing waste, overproduction, cash crops, environmental degradation, over-dependence, pesticide use, and the huge footprint from transporting all of that.Resource pooling is a key part of food management, but also of any other production and industry. It is stupendously ridonculous that our society seriously thinks its “more efficient” to mass produce pretty much every product that can be mass produced where it just sits on store shelves, in warehouses, and ends up in the garbage more times than not all under the name of ‘convenience’ or ‘supply and demand’. We could instead be sharing products that we don’t use on a daily or even monthly basis. As mentioned in the wonderful Srsly Wrong podcast about library socialism, it makes no sense for everybody to have to go buy their own hammer, when you could just borrow your neighbor’s. Many of us have dozens if not hundreds of objects throughout our lives that we could just borrow or give to someone else when not in use instead of throwing it away.
We should have systems that help facilitate this resource sharing in one’s community. This way, the scale of industry doesn’t have to be nearly as ponderous, and we could get back to the inherent altruism that humans are in fact extremely good at. This could extend to buying in bulk, communal cooking, and any other area where it’s more efficient for people to just share. There is really no damn reason why big box stores and big are the only ones that can benefit from these economies of scale. Nor does the ‘scale’ have to be exclusive to the scale of planet-polluting industry.One of the biggest accomplishments of modern society that many people think they’d have to give up if they move to a post-capitalist, more sustainable future is infrastructure. Things like indoor plumbing and running water accessible 24/7, electricity and air conditioning, even refrigeration and indoor ovens can be on this list. Plus roads, rail, and air travel. And of course.. Internet. Well, there is no reason why we’d have to give all of that up. Infrastructural tools can and should also be part of the hyper-local communal suite.
Many, if not all, of these massive things are created by simply linking together little networks into a larger grid. Not only can we still do that, but we should also ensure each (or as many as possible) of those smaller networks are themselves self-sufficient. Instead of depending on a centralized water filtration plant, or electrical power plant, or waste disposal yard, or internet server farm, or whatever… we should enable each community to do at least part of the work themselves. We should teach people how to clean their own water, repair their own piping, hook up their own power lines, host their own servers, and so on. Wherever possible, we should utilize technologies that aren’t inherently dangerous to handle without expertise or expensive hardware.
We should also ensure infrastructure does not cost more to maintain than a community can handle. And the costs for said infrastructure should be shared proportionally. Instead of carving roads everywhere, we should have more mass transit, walking and bike paths instead, since those are easier to manage or share (in the case of rail). And perhaps even consolidate infrastructure such that big projects like a heavy rail line can also be where larger water, electricity, and/or sewage pipes are set up as well.Finally (for now), we should empower local currencies and marketplaces where communities don’t have to use the state/federal currency if they don’t want to. They could have their own internal accounting system for keeping track of transactions, and primarily use gift economy, library economy, or other forms of exchange and accounting, if anything formal is even needed. This creates a far more resilient, redundant, and healthy macro-economic system since the cost of living is no longer dependent on whatever the investment-fueled commodities markets are doing (or whatever the hell they are called). In short, we should stop hinging our entire livelihood on the whims of a made-up system playing with imaginary numbers that does not and cannot care for your life. Any ‘value’ that may come from stock markets should not dictate how much it costs to buy food, or a house, or even your phone bill. (In fact, you should be able to get all of those things without participating in a larger ‘market’ at all).
We should be able to have communities that make enough food, or other goods, that supply their own power and water and medical help and so on that they can offer all of these things for ‘free’ (i.e. as just a part of living and working within the community).
It should be noted that a community is not a bunch of strangers that happen to be stuck together. It’s a group of people that actually care for one another. It's friends and family and acquaintances that all want to look for each other; that feel included and connected. We’ve largely lost that feeling in modern times. Even the last holdouts in gaming, church, or work communities often feel conditional or contingent upon your shared interest.
I think that communities can and should go beyond just having a shared core interest. It should be a group of people that care about each other as people, regardless of their interests. Yes, this may be hard to imagine on some level. How else do you get to know someone but through shared interests? I think it's the same way you make meaningful friends. By being in places, events, or circumstances where you see the other person as full people and not just for a singular interest or ability.
Many of us made friends in school, because it's a place where you mix and mingle with people for hours at a time, nearly every day, for years. This is how most of humanity has lived and made friends. But instead of this just happening on the grounds of some campus (which is often not a great environment), it was a part of everyday life. A village, a marketplace, an inn, or even game trails, rivers, and so on were places that you could and would mingle with people doing all sorts of things. You could get to know people as people. Not merely as a ‘coworker’ or a ‘classmate’ or a ‘shopper’ or whatever.
These are the sorts of environments we need to foster today. That starts with bringing back third places, which can and should be any number of locations in one’s daily life.
Our neighborhoods should be places where it's enjoyable to hang out and get to know each other. It’s not quite the same as merely a small town where everyone knows each other, or even a city block (though that's probably closer), it's like Hogsmead or hang out spots in MMO lobbies or a vibrant downtown city center where there are things to do and people to see, yet time to slow down in the park.
Our jobs and schooling should not take up so much of our time, nor segregate us from other people for that entire time. They can be like co-working spaces, libraries with study halls, or community innovation labs where you can easily and fluidly work, learn, and even play together with people from all walks of life if you so choose.
Our stores should not be these stale, purely transactional, altars to consumerism, but instead marketplaces where anyone can buy, sell, trade, or just hang out. I know many places outside of the US have bazaars (and we do have ‘flea markets’), but this should be something any community can do themselves, not just these giant affairs.
There is just SO MUCH we could be doing better. I feel like I have endless ideas and dreams about what those could be. Perhaps some of these are ‘unrealistic’ or won’t solve as many problems as I’m hoping, or harder to do then they seem… but as I mentioned in the very beginning, the point is to try… to dream.
When it comes to imagining better futures, we shouldn’t just aim for the moon, we should aim for the stars. Only then can we hope to land amongst them.
As always, this ended up being longer than I intended, I probably added nearly 2,000 words in the last few days as I ‘finished up’ this piece. Yet there’s still more that I want to say!! So for now.. We’ll stop here.
If you’re interested in these ideas, please feel free to comment or even make your own articles or videos or podcasts in response. I’d love to discuss any and all of these, even if it’s just you disagreeing and tearing them apart. That would suck, but I am confident in my ability to learn and grow regardless (and in the fact that you probably can’t be more critical than I am of myself… and that these ideas can stand on their own merits.)
Feel free to check out these other links with ideas that have inspired some of what you’ve read here:
https://librarysocialism.org
How We Can Build A Solarpunk Future Right Now (ft. @Andrewism)
Bringing Back The Ancient Viking Forests of Iceland | Rewilding Iceland
How to build neighborhoods we actually like | Hard Reset by Freethink
In the next installments of this series, I’ll delve into the other items I mentioned in the Acknowledgements section. Things such as citizen science, people’s history, truly emergent technology, advanced spirituality, visualizing chaos/determinism, anarchic storytelling, and much more!!
Also… remind me to actually take the time to create my own visuals next time! I didn’t want to spend who knows how long trying to track down some cool (ethical) art, so it’s unfortunately kind of bland. But hopefully my words are engaging enough! 😅