Reality is coming apart at the seams, it would seem. If you’re wondering why I haven’t sent you an AI-themed letter yet, it’s mostly because: A) I’d like to try and forget the work and money it’s costing me as a person who makes a living writing things, and B) the indisputable fact that the legions of people who yap incessantly about AI here in 2025 are among the most insufferable members of our species.
This caught my attention, however. Made me think The Matrix wasn’t a pipe dream – and maybe not even that far away.
Writing to you feels weird. Like texting someone who won’t read it for a century. But here we are, stuck between a world that’s clearly breaking and one we haven’t figured out how to build yet.
Here’s the thing: we’re supposed to imagine the future, but we’re really bad at it. Most of what we get fed is either dystopian nightmares or the same capitalism we have now, just with fancier phones and flooded cities. Mark Fisher (quoting Jameson) said it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. He/they nailed it.
But something’s definitely shifting. People are starting to realize that what we want – like, actually want – matters politically. Our desires either keep this broken system running or help bring something new into being.
Ursula Le Guin said the future is a kind of fiction, and she was right. We don’t have to accept Silicon Valley’s depressing version as the only story. We can write different ones. Slower, weirder, more human.
There’s this idea from Jacques Attali that every dying system contains hints of what comes next. And yeah, we’re definitely dying; supply chains failing, climate chaos, institutions crumbling. But in all that noise, we’re hearing something else. Mutualism replacing rigid hierarchies. Local communities thriving within global networks. Economies that measure health instead of just growth. The next thing isn’t going to show up complete, it’s emerging in pieces, visible in the cracks.
The problem is we’ve been trained to want the wrong things. We’re addicted to ownership, competition, endless accumulation – and these habits keep us locked into a system that’s literally killing us. Even people who want change often want it to be easy, comfortable, something they can buy into without real disruption.
So the challenge isn’t just building new systems. It’s rewiring how we imagine life itself. Making the postcapitalist world feel not just possible but genuinely desirable.
What if creativity wasn’t about competing but about contributing? What if technology helped people and ecosystems thrive instead of extracting from them? What if pleasure came from connection rather than consumption? What if status meant what you gave, not what you owned? What if growth meant maturing, not just expanding?
Writing to you instead of just about you changes something. It makes you real – not some abstract concept but someone we’re in relationship with. You’re not a prediction; you’re who comes after us. And you’ll inherit both our mess and whatever we manage to get right.
We’re trying to build you something that doesn’t eat itself. A world where abundance is about ecology, not money. Where resilience is collective, not just a personal brand. Where liberation includes everyone or it’s meaningless.
If we pull this off, your world will seem obvious. Just like feudalism looks absurd to us now, our obsession with markets and competition and individual success will seem embarrassingly primitive to you. Maybe you’ll laugh at how we measured everything in productivity and profit. Or maybe you’ll just be relieved we finally moved on.
I’m not writing this as prophecy – more like a reminder that we can shape what we want. Desire isn’t fixed. We can redirect it. The future isn’t something we just watch happen. It’s something we create.
If we learn to want different things, we’ll build different things.
And if we build different things, maybe you’ll inherit a world that actually works.
We’re still figuring it out. But we are actually trying.
Letters to 2120 