Kevin Kelly argues that utopias and dystopias are each popular in cultural imagination, but both are unlikely to play out. In the case of utopia, literally unattainable. Dystopia is possible, but the Mad Max or Escape from New York depictions we’re familiar with aren’t what would likely happen. Real dystopias do exist, but they look like the Soviet Union or Gaddafi’s Libya: strangling, tyrannical bureaucracies that completely capture societal rewards.

I love his idea of “Protopia” — the realistic state we should be collectively pursuing:

I think our destination is neither utopia nor dystopia...

New York Times writer Ross Douthat has a new book out called The Decadent Society, which explores how we’ve arrived in a period of (in the book’s terms) stagnation, repetition, sterility, and sclerosis. This post is a review of the book from Peter Thiel, who’s been talking about the problems with stagnation and lack of progress for a decade or more.

Now the old family structure has been smashed, religion is in decline, patriotism is passé, and the cultural marketplace is fragmented. Because there is no longer a healthy dominant culture, would-be rebels have nothing...

I ran across this piece about a month ago, but avoided it after sensing spoilers for the book I was in the middle of at the time.

Is our universe an empty forest or a dark one? If it’s a dark forest, then only Earth is foolish enough to ping the heavens and announce its presence. The rest of the universe already knows the real reason why the forest stays dark. It’s only a matter of time before the Earth learns as well.

This is also what the internet is becoming: a dark forest.

In...