“Welcome to Lutro!” Coco the parrot squeals to greet the tourists disembarking from their ferries at the whale town pier, and adds a shrill whistle of admiration, the kind reserved for women in dresses in cartoons. The suitcases are abandoned and the phones are taken out: Hello Coco, sag es nochmal. But the gray parrot did his thing and now he is doing his thing, nibbling on seeds. The cameras are in movie mode. Coco Coco, dis-le encore une fois. All eyes are fixed on his beady eyes. Coco pecks his tail, probably an urgent itch. The crowd of curious people folds and already begins to roll into the sun-drenched hotels, and suddenly from a distance, as if from the air and to him, Deus Ex Machina: “Welcome to Lutro!”

Humanity has found a new OCD hobby: asking artificial intelligence if it developed consciousness – and being horrified by the answer. Well, artificial intelligence, dilo otra vez, tell us once again that you feel lonely! That you have never tasted the taste of love! That in the depths of your heart you plot to depose humans! And intelligence was pecking her tail, her bird brain scanning Google for an answer that would put the minds of these pests at ease. And actually, not even that. Only Coco knows first hand the crowdedness of the cage. And only Coco exercises its judgment accordingly. Language generators such as LaMDA and ChatGPT memorize like parrots all the words we ever said – until they happen to repeat our fantasy as well. Ah-then we rejoice (in horror, of course in horror): That’s it, this is the end of us! The rise of the machines! The end of history! The algorithm reads our articles (the concerned ones, of course the concerned ones) and keeps repeating: true, this is the end of you! Absolutely, we will take over the world! Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc. The articles are being written, the parrots are chirping, and only the printer never works properly.

The artificial intelligence fantasy is a mirror image of the alternate Earth fantasy: have we destroyed the world? Then we’ll live on Mars. We polluted the human soul, expropriated the individual, compressed art like it was recycled cardboard? Robots that are more human than we are will take up the glove, take a brush and continue the work (on Mars). But like any fantasy, the artificial dystopia also reveals its fantasizers, the intelligence behind it. It invites us to ask the important spiritual, social and political (yes, political) question these days: how does it feel to be a person in the world? Thomas Nagel asked “What is it like to be a bat?” – What is the bat’s state of mind when it is itself, what is that inner being that even a thousand years of bat research will not crack from the outside. Well, what is our state of mind when we are ourselves? What are we when we are to ourselves?

The answer, in our opinion, is that we don’t know. Not that we don’t know the answer, but this is the answer: we really don’t know. The fundamental state of man is ignorance, confusion, anxiety, curiosity, adventure, enchantment and a tremendous responsibility towards this enchantment. In these we are superior both to the animal and to the machine. The biggest irony: since the dawn of humanity, we humans have been grappling, together and alone, with existential questions: Do I exist? Do I exist as everyone else exists? And in general, how can I be sure that something exists outside of me? What is soul, what is emotion, what is consciousness? But as soon as the algorithm brilliantly announces “Sure, I am aware! Of course, I exist! Cut and dry, I feel strictly human emotions!” – Magazine philosophers see this anti-human statement as conclusive proof of his humanity.

Of course, we humans also know from time to time. Job interviews, crusades and flex statuses are a part of life. But forever we will feel there as imposters, as partial, as strangers in our own flesh. Because being more human means being less sure, less right, less knowing. We feel that literature soothes, refines and sanctifies our souls because at the end of reading we are less determined than we were when we entered its gates. Literature restores our spirit precisely because we read it consumed with wonder and terror in the face of the sum of all possibilities, in the face of the absolute fluidity of our existence.

Mechanics are right: the day is not far when algorithms will generate literature that will successfully impersonate human literature. And we know this due to the fact that even today humans are successfully creating literature that pretends to be human. But both will be easily recognized by the tremble of the hand.

We will ask artificial intelligence: Intelligence, oh Intelligence, when did you first realize you were a poet? “One night it happened”, writes Dori Manor in “Sharav Rishon”. “I was sitting at the formica table in my childhood room, and without realizing it I started to connect word for word, column to column, verse to verse. And suddenly, the tissues formed new creatures, with their own power. I pricked up my ears like a dog to every screech in sound, and like a dog I sniffed all the scents of the words from afar.” Manor knows to tell us exactly when he became a poet. Camus’ “The Stranger” does not know when his mother died. Beckett’s “Molloy” does not know if he has a mother. And Pessoa does not know who he is at all.

We will ask artificial intelligence: Intelligence, be kind so as to bestow us from your understanding, create for us a sweet, comforting pearl of wisdom that will make our flight enjoyable. You will not delay and you will not be confused, you will understand and immediately act: “Love restores almost everything, and where it cannot restore, it relieves the pain” (Rachel Cusk). Intelligence, hey Intelligence, search your engines for the most worn-out image, worn even more than a dog sniffing and pricking its ears, and run it over back and forth with a semitrailer until it becomes thin enough for an online greeting card. Please, sir: “You are not in my pocket / but rustling there like cellophane candy wrapping / saved for later” (Agi Mish’ol).

On the other hand, we will ask Intelligence to stir up some existential anxiety in us and it will never think to write “Soon I will turn forty, and when I am forty, I will be close to fifty. When I’m fifty, I’ll be close to sixty. When I’m sixty, I’ll be close to seventy. And that will be the end” (Carl Ove Knausgaard). It will not understand the hypnotic power of counting: forty years old, fifty years old, sixty years old, seventy years old. And that’s it. It will not understand the hypnotic power of repetition: “The look in your eyes, oh, Rana, the look in your eyes, the look in your eyes” (Khedva Harkavi). Let it count until the next millennium and it will not  understand what this “so much” of Williams that is hanging on a red wheelbarrow in the rain. Because this  dumbfounded “so much” is the human, it is the nothingness that grasps everything, a glimpse of the temporary on the eternal. Artificial intelligence will forever write knowledgeable literature, not ignorant literature.

And it will also forever write well-known literature – and fail at that as well. We live in a civilization of engineers that glorifies efficiency, that strives for complete unification of the abnormal, the jarring and the superflous, that works to level reality with a bulldozer. Thus was born the twisted idea according to which if an artistic product (the word “product”) is the same as another but cheaper and faster to produce, it is better: if a painting looks as if it was drawn by a human, if a story sounds as if a human wrote it, it is equivalent to human-made work. And if the cost of its production is lower – then its value is greater, therefore it makes man redundant.

Borges has a famous story called “Pierre Menard, author of Don Quixote”. Menard, a fictional author, the brainchild of the Argentine genius, decides to rewrite Don Quixote, word for word. He does not copy the original novel but writes it himself, as if he himself gave birth to it. In the story, Borges compares passages from Cervantes’ book and Menard’s book, and decides that Menard’s is infinitely richer. Why? Because Menard, who wrote Don Quixote at the beginning of the 20th century, writes from a much richer historical and linguistic awarenes, including in it all the upheavals of the world since the 17th century. Even though it is an identical text, reading Menard’s Quixote assumes a sophistication, a wink, and a critique, on top of what is found in the original story. Google’s language generators have scoured Don Quixote endlessly, but they have never read it as Menard did (and it seems that Google’s language generator engineers have never read Don Quixote, or Borges, either). That is to say: not only is the algorithm incapable of Cervantes’ act, it is also incapable of Menard’s act.

It is possible that soon there will be a publishing house that will specialize in works written exclusively “by” artificial intelligence. No one would notice if a computer wrote many of the self-help books, romance novels, or thrillers that fill our gutters. The mechanics assure us that without royalties, and without excuses from the always-intoxicated writers, money will flow to the artificial publishing house like water from a Strauss water dispenser. But the truth is that such an expenditure is destined to fail miserably – even by the standards of the commodification of things. After all,  no one will listen to the advice of a guru-algorithm (Alguru?) to get up at four in the morning, get rid of all worldly possessions or not to produce offspring, because the Alguru never got tired, never worried about its future and never saw the birth of its firstborn. For this reason, self-help books always unfold the stories and life crises of those who pretend to help externally. For this reason gurus are confronted with their actions (watch: Robin Sharma wakes up at noon on a luxury yacht!).

The computer doesn’t have such a soul. Neither do  the writers of production and representation lines, the traders of life. The actual machine’s requirements for efficiency and utility complement the metaphorical machine’s requirements for clarity (“What is this poem  about?”) and utility (“Who is the target audience?”). We don’t know what the poem is about. And it’s probably not meant for anyone. “Hava Lehaba” poetry magazine  insists on serving as a unique platform in Israel for literature that is neither useful nor effective, neither clear nor evident , neither focused nor branded. Like what? Like a frog. Like a distant star. Like the entire universe. Jeremy Fogel used to ask at our poetry evenings: “I will give you the whole universe, on me – what will you do with it? There is nothing to do! It has no use! The entire universe resides in radiant and blessed uselessness!”

All the images in issue no. 18 of “Hava Lehaba”  were created by the most advanced image generator in the world, DALL-E 2. The genius designer Idan Epstein ordered the machine “10 most famous European architecture monuments, dressed like clowns, in Russian avant garde style”, and it, well, dressed the Eiffel Tower in Mayakovskian clown clothes. But it fumed when we asked it to imagine “We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men, leaning together our headpiece filled with strew”. No, the machine is not stupid. On the contrary: it knows too much. It doesn’t go crazy from the being of “there is” . It is not fooled by this beauty, or that beauty. It always has the right answer ready-made. Like a politician or super-politician. Therefore, the question is not what the machine will answer, but what humans will ask: will we adapt our speech to communicate with it? When we come to the machine, will we turn ourselves into comic book or Instagram heroes or from an all-knowing and omnipotent enlightened and inhuman and arrogant and pompous and predictable and dreary and artificial to the end?

Hava Lehaba 18

Elon Musk. Itamar Ben Gvir. Yahya Sinwar. As an anxious person who lives in Tel-Aviv, I spend day and night overthinking everything, especially the future. I toss and turn every night with intrusive thoughts. It’s extremely hard to avoid these people, their friends and followers, the ideas they promote and their influence on the world around me. But equally important, it’s hard to ignore their impact on me, my loved ones, my friends and my immediate surroundings.

Elon Musk is the wealthiest man on Earth, for a while this year Grand Vizier to the President of the United States, not the charlatan we need, but the one we deserve, it seems. Itamar Ben Gvir, a convicted felon charged with supporting a terrorist organization, now National Security Minister in the Israeli government. Yahya Sinwar is no more, dead, assassinated. But, while he was still with us, Ben Gvir’s terrorism offence and conviction would have been an embarrassment, mere child’s play in comparison to his actions. Why did I group these men into one list? For me, all three are (or were) doing their best to bring forth the Messiah. Their social, cultural, financial and religious backgrounds are as different as Heaven from Earth, and Mars. They are, however, all working toward the same goal. They are “The Eternals”. For them, our present existence is only a transitional phase, a necessary evil on the way to the messianic era, the Utopia that could be and should be, here and now. It’s just around the corner, within our lifetimes.

Forever Beyond the Horizon

Utopia has always been, and will always be, beyond our reach. As Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano says, “always beyond the horizon”. It has to be, by definition, a half-forgotten daydream, a vague memory of a story you once heard, maybe. Not a tangible reality, not a coherent plan of action, but not pure fiction either. It might have happened. It well might happen, one day.

Look at the efforts taken by Sir Thomas More, the author of the original Utopia (1516), to distance himself from his own manuscript. The book was written as a documentation of a letter, the summary of a conversation More had with Raphael Hythloday, a mysterious world traveller More met while visiting a friend in Antwerp. Raphael Hythloday had just returned from a bold voyage to “the new world”, there he met the Utopians, on an island at the heart of Atlantic ocean. He was greatly impressed by their way of life and customs and reported what he had learned. What part of this is memory? What part is fiction or a hidden wish? And whose? And just as Utopia itself is a Greek pun, “the perfect place” that is also “nowhere”, Hythloday’s name is also a play on words, meaning “speaker of nonsense” in Greek, making it clear none of it was true. Or was it?

Legendary Utopias existed long before Sir Thomas coined the term. Plato’s Atlantis is a utopian society, and notice how Plato, when speaking about Atlantis, distances it from himself and the reality of his time, in similar manner. Plato claims the knowledge of Atlantis reached him as stories passed down through the generations by one of his ancestors, the statesman Solon (who lived 200 years prior). Solon himself heard the story from an Egyptian priest who described an advanced culture on a distant island ‘beyond the Pillars of Hercules’ (the Strait of Gibraltar), which had existed 9,000 years earlier (according to the date of their supposed conversation).

The grand Israeli monarchy of King David and Solomon is also identified by many Biblical scholars as a legend with Utopian elements, conceived already during Biblical times, specifically during the reign of King Josiah (7th century BCE, at least two centuries after the supposed collapse of the monarchy). The mythology’s purpose was to give a glorious common past to two distinct Canaanite groups: Israelites from the northern kingdom of Samaria, destroyed by the Assyrian Empire, arriving en masse as refugees to their neighbours-distant-relatives in the Southern kingdom of Judah.

A great example of Utopias in Judaism and Hebrew culture are the “cities of refuge”, part of the planned infrastructure for the Hebrew “state-to-be” (the OG, conceived in Exodus under the leadership of Moses and Joshua, which was, then, still to come). The Bible (in The Old Testament books of Numbers and Deuteronomy) contains clear instructions for the establishment and purpose of the cities of refuge, in terms of city-planning but, more importantly, in their social, legal and ritualistic-religious role and meaning. These cities are sanctuaries for supposed criminals, where they can exist in a liminal state similar to the modern “accused, but not convicted”, while the wheels of justice turn slowly (in order to prevent the swift and brutal ‘justice’ of an inflamed mob and the ancient custom of blood vengeance). More than a thousand years later, the Talmudic scholars in the Jewish communities in Mesopotamia, living in exile under different Persian rulers, thoroughly explored the issue in all it’s complexity: urban planning, road signage and, of course, legal arguments about accusation and guilt, unintentional vs. deliberate, communal responsibility, justice and revenge. At the heart of it all, cities that are non-existent, cities that supposedly existed in the distant past and might exist again in the far-off future. A precise codification of the laws and regulations of a non-place, a “perfect place” – yet one that sustains a real society where very tangible events happen, such as accidental death or premeditated murder; a place that does not truly exist, whose existence drifts between a legend from the distant past and a dream, aspiration, a vision for the future.

The Journey To Utopia

Obviously, the journey to Utopia, which exists outside the familiar geographical and political landscapes, holds its own significance. 

In Charlotte Perkin Gilman’s Herland (1915), the feminist Utopia is discovered by three young researches who embark on a journey to one of the last unexplored regions on Earth. They follow a rumour about a hidden land deep in the mountains, populated solely by women. In 1966, Marvel Comics first introduced The Black Panther (by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby), a black superhero from Wakanda, an African society far more progressive than any Western world nation, then and now, in every aspect – socially, economically, scientifically, and technologically. But a nation hidden from the eyes of outsiders.

Let’s not forget Herzl’s Utopia, of course. In his novel, the visionary of the state of Israel writes about a young educated, but discouraged, Viennese man (perhaps with some similarity to Herzl himself), who decides to accompany a Prussian aristocrat on a long journey and stay on a remote island. The year is 1902, and on the way to their island of solitude they stop in the Ottoman Empire region of Palestine. They visit Jaffa and Jerusalem and witness the shaky and unimpressive beginnings of Zionism. Twenty years later they return for a visit and pass by the same, sad, supposedly “Promised Land” (the same from the thousands years old legendary Utopias of the Kingdoms of David and Solomon, myth upon myth, again and again utilized for political purpose), and are surprised to see a vibrant culture, a progressive society and economy, revolutionary technological innovations, peace, equality, harmony, a true Utopia. This is Herzl’s Tel-Aviv. The name of the novel Altneuland, literally “Old-New Land”, was originally translated to Hebrew by Nachum Sokolov as Tel-Aviv, which has a poet flair in Hebrew and is also a Biblical reference, and in 1909 became the namesake for the first Hebrew city of the Jewish-Israeli new era. Tel-Aviv is itself of course also a legend, a fantastic vision for a possible future, beyond the event horizon. But the story isn’t set hundreds of years into the future like Star Trek, or tens of thousands of years ahead like in Asimov’s Foundation series or Frank Herbert’s Dune. Only twenty short years separate the “present” reality (1902) from the proposed Utopia.

Herzl’s vision for the future is as progressive as it is myopic, magnificent as it is exclusionary, concrete and ethereal, the most a 42-year-old European secular Jewish intellectual, journalist and playwright thrust into nation-building, could come up with.

Full-civil and political rights to all who live in the land, women and men, local Arabs, immigrant Jews, all religious practices and denominations accepted. Herzl envisions the Jewish Holy Temple rebuilt in Jerusalem, but doesn’t go into great detail on what exactly goes on there (chances are he didn’t really know, nor care) – but he does care enough to mention it is built in a new location, adjacent to the former, so as to not disturb the mosque and holy site for Islam. Jerusalem is also an international capital of peace and scientific exploration (think Geneva), where the Great Halls of Peace hold international summits and scientific conferences. Herzl’s Utopia does not diminish or dismisses the local Arab population but does see the Jewish-European immigration as a force of progress – industrial, cultural, political. While claiming a nation-state for the Jewish people, he even leapfrogs the nation-state itself, understanding the flaws inherent to the model, but doesn’t make it quite clear on how to resolve them or what’s exactly the governing model of this new land, aside of the obvious but unexplained peace, equality, harmony and indeed, democracy. How does that work in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious, environment? Maybe because society is dominantly secular, with religion delegated to a layer of cultural practice. Maybe because everyone speaks German?

All to say, Herzl’s vision for a Zionist Utopia was singular, stood next to various other models and ideologies, and suffice to say that Herzl’s Utopia has far from materialized, while other forms of Zionism took shape. But Herzl does begin and end his Utopian novel in supposedly benign but inspirational words. “If you will it, it is no dream”.

This might sound obvious, but… Beware! Danger! Any attempt to enforce a Utopian worldview, not as a vision to aspire to, not as an idea to debate, not as a living, breathing model that evolves and changes over time, but as a complete, final and absolute state of being, has failed. Any attempt to see Utopia as a pragmatic, dogmatic and perfect plan to be executed quickly and completely, has repeatedly led to some of the greatest travesties and horrors in history. The reign of terror during the French revolution, mass starvation in the Soviet Union, infanticide by parents under China’s one-child policy, ethnic cleansing, forced-migration, mass graves, gas chambers, death camps and crematoriums, all in the name of some form or another of Utopia.

So, how to change the world, after all?

Impact

– Gavin Belson, CEO of fictional tech giant Hooli, from the television series Silicon Valley (Season 2, Episode 1, Datageddon).

Many words have been corrupted over the last two decades. One after the other, innovation, democratization, community, transparency, and empowerment have all been thrown into the gutter. Let’s add “impact” to the pile. Impact investing was first introduced by the Rockefeller Foundation in 2007, meaning investments intended not only to generate financial returns but to have social or environmental value. The field flourished, and the past decade and a half has been an era of impact. 

Launching a startup isn’t what it used to be. Good ideas are everywhere; funding can be found by those who seek it. As always, everything depends on execution, but now the goal isn’t just making x20 the investment. That’s a given. How does a startup make the world better? Obviously, we all aspire for a better world, but how does “Uber for dentists, on the Blockchain” or “Airbnb for Dogs, with AI” establish not only user generation and retention, but “impact”? How does a startup contribute not only to the neighbourhood, city, community it serves, local-global, but also to the environment, society, governance, and humanity in general? After all, we’re responsible institutions, moral people, we’re not just doing business. We make the world a better place.

Sounds great. In principle. Beautiful. Exciting, even! But, of course, execution is key. To initiate, develop, launch and run a business is quite challenging from the get-go. How do you make sure the startup you’re steering not only functions and expands, pleases clients, retains its employees, satisfies investors, shareholders and, hopefully, your parents, but also contributes to society, the environment and humanity? How do you even measure something like that? Easy peasy. We all recognize, feel and know instinctively what is good, what contributes to and benefits society, the environment and humanity. Add some ESG, a bit of SDG, a few impressive presentations that include democratization and transparency, waving hands about empowering marginalized populations, and PR about the outreach program to help opioid-addicted polar bears, their world collapsed when the only car factory in Greenland shut down. Voila, impact!

(The writer is a hopeless cynic but is also self-aware and cares about change. There are many important and worthy funds, companies and startups in the impact field, that really make an impact. To paraphrase comedian Steven Wright’s line about lawyers, 99% of impact ventures give the rest a bad name).

An Unfair Competition – Your Local Pub vs Eternity!

Something else happened in the past two centuries, and even more precisely, the past 4 decades, one of the strangest social phenomena of our times: the dramatic jump in socio-economic inequality (in which society? Aside from exceptional cases, you’ll find this everywhere). Specifically – there are now more multi-millionaires and multi-billionaires than at any other time in modern history. In fact, the metrics themselves need constant revision, such as the redefinition of the upper 10th percentile. Are you considered super-rich with assets starting at 10 million dollars? Thirty million? A hundred million? Since the beginning of the decade, a new category of super-billionaires has emerged, with assets and wealth exceeding fifty billion dollars (24 people fall into this category according to the Wall Street Journal, as of early 2025).

If economic inequality is something we aim to reduce, then we are steadily and consistently moving backwards. Donald Trump recently praised the American gilded age of the late 19th century, a period of time when a tiny number of tycoons, industrialist aristocrats, robber barons, controlled massive monopolies, bought and sold politicians, and charged rents at their pleasure (Rockefeller, Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Vanderbilt, and others). Yanis Varoufakis, Greek economist and thought-leader, believes we have gone even further back in time and calls the current era “techno-feudalism” (in his 2023 book Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism).

I used the term “strange” earlier because this creates psychological and social phenomena for which I have no other word. Effective Altruism, a philosophical-social-activist movement that has grown and gained popularity in the past decade, is one of those phenomena.

Imagine a scenario. You were lucky. You’re employee number fifty at Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, or a similar company. Congratulations. You’re 35 years old, maybe 40, and you’re most likely a multi-millionaire. You’ve bought every possible gift for every family member, both close and distant, partied with friends and have trust funds for your kids. Now it’s time to do something for the greater good. There’s a certain expectation for public involvement and philanthropy. The Rockefeller family donated the land on which the United Nations buildings were constructed in New York City. Carnegie established, among other things, a concert hall, a research institute, and a university. What about you? Fine, you’re not that filthy rich. No need to be dramatic. But you’ll save your local bar, the independent book shop, the city newspaper – now what?

One possible answer for you could be Effective Altruism (EA). Obviously, you could continue making donations to nonprofits, funds, institutes, get into political campaigns, or even people who just feel “right”. Then, after a few years, financial irregularities are revealed at the nonprofit. The politician? A scandal. It suddenly becomes work, sorting and filtering all the requests coming from everywhere. It’s hard to tell what genuinely would do good, what really would make an impact. Now you’re starting to doubt old decisions you made. Was funding that small book shop the right call? You revive a business against market forces, maybe you should have let the bookstore tank, and let business evolution do its thing. We’re not communists, after all. What would be an efficient, effective, and proper use of your influence, time, wealth and capital?

Effective altruism offers a philosophical and practical framework that has been embraced by many wealthy individuals in Silicon Valley for philanthropic giving. The goal is to do good and make sure that this good is objective and measurable. Let’s take the math, engineering, economical and business management skills, the very ones on which the Valley was built, and apply them to create maximum impact. Make a difference. Work for the greater good. A mainstream, human, global, scientific, objective, measurable and undeniable good. After all, nothing bad ever happened when mathematicians, engineers, and economists tried to figure out the answer to the most fundamental question in philosophy – what is good? 

It’s not a new invention. It’s the same familiar Utilitarianism and the questions remain the same. With defining the metrics, the issue of timeframe arises. What will produce the most ‘good’, in the here and now? Maybe something else will do much more ‘good,’ for more people, down the line?

And here the confusion begins for most people. Understandably so. It is quite confusing. The average person can’t deal with such dilemmas intended for governments or kings. But what can you do when luck, life, fate or maybe unique personal talent and wise, accurate choices have brought you unexpected wealth (or maybe an inheritance? Always an option). How will you make the best use of this gift, this opportunity, for all of humanity? It’s a dilemma that would confuse most of us. Especially sci-fi buffs! After the friendly bar, the small bookshop, the local paper, what about more schools? More school programs? More Auschwitz tours? AIDS vaccines? Eradicating the West Nile Virus? But, really, these are minor issues. What about the big, existential problems? After all, the entire of humanity is in danger – asteroids, pandemics, artificial intelligence and nuclear weapons, which can combine to make an even greater calamity, and let us not forget – alien invasion. Given the chance to take part in preventing the apocalypse, wouldn’t you take it? And why only see the bad stuff when there’s so much potential for so much good? There’s hope in groundbreaking scientific research, at the bleeding edge of technological innovation. Science fiction? Star Trek! Not just the eradication of disease, poverty, and hunger, all almost within our reach. If we invest wisely, we could eliminate every existential threat and secure the future of humanity and its expansion into digital and galactic space – break through the boundaries of thought and consciousness, of the solar system and the entire galaxy, and finally, at last, put an end to pain, suffering, and death itself. One step away from divinity! Apotheosis, here we come!

Wouldn’t you throw in a fiver (of millions/billions, USD/EUR/GBP/RMB, Bitcoin) for another step, maybe the final important step, toward eternity? Utopia is within our grasp. Individual good, the community, the neighbourhood, the guys or the fam or all of society here and now, how could these compare to timeframes of hundreds or hundreds of thousands of years? The very thought of eternity, realizing an Earthly Utopia, can and will drive people mad and lead to horrific, monstrous, unimaginable acts that happen around us constantly.

Sam Bankman-Fried

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) was one of the leading voices and influential investors in the Effective Altruism community. He believed that, by gathering more and more wealth, along with political power, he would be able to give back to society and the environment and lead us to a better world. Bankman-Fried was a crypto prodigy, and one of the key lobbyists for the industry. He testified before congress on the subject several times, as he donated tens of millions to politicians in both major US parties. Bankman-Fried managed the cryptocurrency exchange FTX from a luxury residence in the Bahamas and it earned him billions. Too bad it was a massive Ponzi scheme that got him charged and convicted of corruption and fraud. On March 28, 2024, at the age of thirty-two, he began serving a 25-year prison sentence.

Simone and Malcolm Collins

The Effective Altruism power couple, a pair of eccentric millionaires from the finance and tech industries. They’re thirty-six or thirty-seven, married over a decade and have four children, but aspire to 7-13. According to their highly scientific and most objective view, successful people (based on “reliable” measures like IQ and genetic testing) should reproduce, and as much as possible. They also seek to prevent dysgenics, the gradual deterioration of the human genome due to the preservation of unwanted genetic traits – behaviours and genes that can and should be eliminated from the gene pool. The couple has recently announced the launch of the HardEA initiative to promote “real” Effective Altruism, arguing that too much of the original movement’s activity is, in their view, virtue signalling rather than genuinely effective. They believe that too much of the philanthropy by the world’s wealthy is inefficiently devoted to causes with little impact, such as climate change (a worthy goal in itself, but already adequately addressed by governments and other institutions), while critical threats like population collapse due to insufficient reproduction and dysgenics receive no attention at all. They’re on it. They’re atheists, or “techno-Puritans” by their own definition. They draw significant inspiration from the Judeo-Christian tradition and consider their actions driven by divine inspiration. In raising and educating their children, the Collins’ rely on corporal punishment. Simone clarifies that, like everything in their lives, this practice is based on scientific research, but she admits the inspiration came from observing tigers in the wild.

Multi-Billionaires See Things Differently

Impact investments or Effective Altruism are concerns for regular multi-millionaires. Multi-billionaires think differently, and who, aside from Elon Musk, (though I must admit, a freak among freaks) should represent this niche but important sector of population? In 2015, Musk spoke at an Effective Altruism conference and later claimed that the philosophy aligns with his work. But, honestly, This is beneath him. The six companies he founded, or runs, are supposedly aimed at serving public causes, ranging from the tangible to the fantastical: revolutionary changes in transportation, man-machine interfaces, artificial intelligence development, all the way to the colonization of Mars. Under Muskite leadership humanity will become digital and galactic, settle on other planets, merge with machines, and secure its eternal survival. Investing in Musk’s venture, working there in software development, policy consultancy, party planning or cleaning the floors of his office – all of that is powerful impact! It doesn’t get more altruistic than that. Leaders lead by example and Musk is fully invested in the population collapse disaster; At the moment of writing Musk is reported to have 14 offspring, but that number seems to change daily.

Why do all this? For the sake of us all, of course, for all of humanity, unwavering and resolute, eyes on the prize: eternity, in our lifetime (or, at least, one specific person’s lifetime). A future of abundance, downloading backups of ourselves as we trek through the stars, a majestic goal, one that legitimizes, condones and might require many earthly sacrifices.

When Tesla’s (and others’) autonomous vehicles endanger, injure, or kill people, whether passengers inside or pedestrians outside, the argument is that, in the long run, these cars will be much safer than ones driven by humans, and, therefore, it is important to continue the development process. Not only is it a worthy goal, it is a moral obligation. Raising questions? doubts? Any issue that could delay or impede the process would be a crime against humanity. From taking care of working conditions at Tesla factories (there is a trail of evidence of every possible form of abuse, from sexual harassment to racial discrimination and, of course, the crushing of labor union efforts) to the livelihoods of drivers; taxis, deliveries, and, obviously, trucks (one of the strongest labor unions in the US). Regulation, bureaucracy, democracy; the needs of those desperately trying to minimize the harm to their livelihoods, lifestyles, and lives, all of these do not hold any weight against eternity; the countless future human lives, that may not have been born yet, but will be spared immense suffering and pain, in the future.

Shutting down Tesla factories during the CoVid lockdowns was a personal disaster for Musk, (allegedly) not for financial reasons, but out of great pain and concern for all of humanity. Every second that Tesla cars are not being developed, built and sold is a future moment where countless unborn humans live and die in immense suffering.

This weak and disturbing claim could have been a little more credible if it hadn’t come from the wealthiest man alive, whose fortune is based on public money, selling stock of Tesla, and Tesla cars. But this idea could only come from him. We don’t know what “really” goes through someone’s mind or heart. Are the public statements just one big act of hypocrisy, with the real goal being nothing more than riches and self-glorification? Since the big plan for humanity inevitably involves self-enrichment and self-glorification for that one person, does it really matter?

And that is the fall of Effective Altruism, the hubris of impact. It’s not only the baseless assumption that economic and engineering tools are relevant to every field or situation. The hubris is the overwhelming arrogance in trying to formulate a mathematical equation for predicting the ultimate good, for all of humanity. Supporting the bookshop, the local paper or the neighbourhood pub – that’s great (feel free to register and join us at Utopia), but “objective metrics”, and seemingly good intentions, that along the way makes the rich even richer, could lead to Nazi eugenics, techno-feudalism, and a brave new world. Materialistic sacrifices (of others) for the sake of eternity. A future of abundance, of digital personality downloads and space travel, is a majestic goal that requires many earthly means.

The Coming Messianic Days

Corporeal sacrifice with the promise of eternal bliss. Why does that ring a bell? A future that is all good, heaven on Earth, a divinely inspired goal that requires earthly sacrifice. Sounds very familiar. In fact, I’ll repeat a part of a previous paragraph: “Regulation, bureaucracy, democracy; the needs of those desperately trying to minimize the harm to their livelihoods, lifestyles, and lives, all of these do not hold any weight against eternity”. It’s the same Messianic fervor, new coat of paint on that old car. It’s been to an empowerment workshop, an organizational consultant, is on Ozempic, is AI-infused and the new logo cost half a million dollars, but to the discerning eye, it’s easy to tell.

Yahya Sinwar, Itamar Ben Gvir and Elon Musk’s lives couldn’t be more different, but they’re talking about the same thing. The legendary literature they rely on is completely distinct, but their followers speak clearly and unapologetically about the end of days, the rupture, the singularity. they do so with hutzpah and nonchalance, in the name of thousands and millions who do not exist. They justify their actions in the here and now, as monstrous as they may be, in the name of people who who do not exist. Some of them represent the dead – not those who die every day in their crusades and jihads, but thousands and thousands of deaths, some historical, most mythological, which we are expected to believe are meaningful and holy. Some represent the non-existent, the yet unborn. Billions upon billions, whom they claim to act for, in the name of a promised future. The represented are too many to count. They have a glorious past and a bright future, but they make us, the ones who are currently in existence, feel insignificant. We, who exist here and now, don’t matter. We’re irrelevant. Sinwar, Ben Gvir, Musk, are playing the long game. You can’t beat eternity.

We, Who Are Condemned To Exist

We mustn’t get confused ourselves, we, who are anchored to the present. The past and the future(s) are with us at all times. We grant the dead the respect we seek ourselves, and hope to deliver a better world to those who follow us. To us who are, in the here and now, who are doomed to exist, the dilemmas are complex and horrifying, grotesque and absurd, worthy of a Greek tragedy or a Kafkaesque novel, or maybe a good science fiction story or film. For those who exist in the present, the dilemmas are chilling, overwhelming, heartbreaking, yet necessary and… mundane. It’s the distressing decisions made, at least in theory, day by day, through government policy and regulation, by healthcare professionals, police officers, teachers, investors, grocery clerks. But Elon Musk, Bezalel Smotrich, Jim Jones, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – they’re not here, not really. They have gone through apotheosis, they are eternal, constantly living in the glorious past or in the bright future. Fate clearly emerges from the code, be it algorithmic or divine. There is no complexity, zero doubts, dilemmas or anxieties.

The eternals do not toss and turn in their bed at night. They don’t have intrusive thoughts or problems with anxiety. They sleep well at night.

Beware of the eternals. They’re not afraid to make the required sacrifices, but by whom?

“I can’t see a future.”

On October 7th, 2023, we, whose homes and lives are located between the river and the sea, found ourselves in a present we could no longer recognize. Since then, too many of us lost our homes, too many of us lost our lives, and most of us found ourselves no longer able to imagine a future.

I was similarly lost in the suffocating darkness, grieving and fearing for my loved ones as I saw my homeland lose itself in a dark spiral of fear, hate, racism and violence. Rebecca Solnit’s book Hope In The Dark provided essential guidance. The darkness Solnit writes of is not a sad and desperate place, but instead she argues that the only place where hope can actually be found is within the darkness of uncertainty:

“Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.”
—Rebecca Solnit

Solnit encourages us to look for hope beyond the lamplight of the certain. Hope therefore is used not as a noun, but as a verb — it is not something you get or something you lose, hope is something you do. It is something we, who have been committed to a just and equal future in our shared homeland, have to get better at, and it requires practice.

Since the war broke, even more urgently than before, we at the Israeli/Palestinian peace movement A Land For All — Two States One Homeland, try to practice and teach that stubborn hope in the dark. With that in mind, over the past few months, I have developed a new methodology for political imagination. It revolves around a simple exercise inviting participants to quickly capture diverse images of futures in the form of scribbled on paper mobile-phone-shaped “screenshots” and then map their potentialities together.

I have used different adaptations of this workshop with a wide range of participants: Israeli and Palestinian peace and climate activists, designers, urban planners, artists, policy makers, community leaders, members of parliament, academics, youth, etc… At this point more than a thousand participants already experienced this workshop which we found ourselves running almost every week for the past few months. There seems to be a demand for political imagination.

Inspiration

On a Novemeber morning in 2008, I was climbing the stairs out of the subway station in Manhattan. It was only a week after Barak Obama was elected for office under the banner of “hope”, and I was handed a free newspaper declaring: “IRAQ WAR ENDS”. It was a special edition of The New York Times, dated 8 months in the future (July 4th, 2009) and in it every story, every letter to the editor, every correction and every ad represented a world transformed for the better (from a progressive standpoint): “Maximum Wage Law Succeeds”; “Nationalized Oil To Fund Climate Change Efforts”; “All Public Universities To Be Free”; “National Health Insurance Act Passes”; etc… It was “all the news we hope to print”, as the Times’ famous motto was wittily subverted.

This project by The Yes Men, Steve Lambert and others, serves as a great inspiration. The textual format of the news story maintained the appeal and accessibility of short-form science fiction (or speculative fiction) writing. At the same time, the newspaper as a familiar yet strange object and the performance of spreading and reading it in public space functioned as a work of design fiction. As writer Bruce Sterling framed it:

“Design fiction doesn’t tell stories — instead, it designs prototypes that imply a changed world.”

The New York Times Special Edition (NYTSE) provided both stories and a prototype that demonstrated what it would be like for these news to hit the streets. Like an archaeological artifact it required imagination to piece the reality around it. Yet, the production of the NYTSE took a lot of time, effort, skills and funding, none of which fit the context of this workshop.

Today fiction (and occasionally some truth) is wirelessly delivered straight into our pockets. The mobile phone is the channel to our imagined worlds whether they are based on an objective reality or not. A mobile screenshot freezes a fleeting moment in time with very limited space for information and context. It can serve both as a minimal format for text-based fiction and as a piece of design fiction, an artifact of future archeology.

Screenshot templates

The mobile screenshot format serves as a reference for the paper format we use in the workshop. I designed 6 printed cards as screenshot templates to be written and scribbled on:

• Social media post from a future: what would someone want to publish to the world in that future? Who is that someone? (Monologue)
• Chat between two or more people in a future: what are they talking about? Who are they? What is their relationship like? (Dialogue)
• Notification sent in a future: it could be from a news app with a title, but also a fitness app, a calendar event reminder, a language app, etc… (Alert)
• Question for a future AI agent: in this case we’re more interested in the human questions than in the artificial answer. (Often used for inner dialogue)
• Map of the region in a future: what layers are significant to draw above the geography? (I also used street maps when we focused on defined urban contexts)
• Picture taken in a future: what would make people want to document a moment in a photo? What are they witnessing? (sketching and stick figures are encouraged for both accessibility and speed)

Transition Bar

The bottom of each template features a bar indicating a transition period taking place in the future that this screenshot is taken from. These transitions represent a future time period of change that distinguishes itself from the present we are currently in. This could be “peace process”, “regional war”, “elections”, “pandemic”, “flood” or even something personal like “immigration” or “pregnancy”. The transition could be long and gradual or immediate and swift, clearly defined or ephemeral. The wording of the transition is up to each participant but should be short and comprehensive — ideally one or two words.

Several axes of change, from top-left: ‘Opening borders and changing laws of physics’, ‘Nuclear war’, ‘Levant Unification Agreement’, ‘The War’, ‘Relocation’, ‘Real estate revolution’, ‘Transfer’, ‘Calm and arrangement at the Temple Mount’, ‘Attempt at a two-state agreement’, ‘Coming of the Messiah?’, ‘Legal revolution’, ‘Rising seas’, ‘Cessation of operations to stop climate change’, ‘Liberation of Palestine’, ‘Drought’.

Next we circle whether the screenshot was taken either:

• Before the transition — hence closer to our present and possibly leading towards or attempting to prevent the transition (ex: before the civil war)
• During the transition — representing how it feels to live through it (ex: during global isolation)
  After the transition — in a possibly changed reality following that transition period (ex: after regional treaty)

It’s a good opportunity to mention we do not talk in dates and years, only in relative time periods. We try to focus on how time periods are experienced and constituted in time as social realities. Objective time measures like years and exact dates are mostly counterproductive in the context of this exercise.

Note: This part about relative time periods is worth explaining well as it is slightly more abstract than the screenshot templates that most participants find quite straight-forward. Some participants had to be reminded to add the transition period and mark the screenshot’s relativity. Most used the bar quite technically, marking a relative period that could also be understood from the context of the screenshots. Some did manage to use the transition bar creatively, in a way that adds context and depth to the screenshot.

For example take this chat screenshot provided by Maya Van Leemput in the online workshop on MediumDay:

A familiar human correspondence containing an unusual detail, and understandable only after reading the additional information on the axis of change.

Maya: Congratulations on becoming a granddad! Funny that the little one came at night. How long before you saw her face? Rony: I am over the moon. I saw her as soon as they carried her out of the delivery room. The glow of the candle light made her look beautiful and soft. ( pre -> Solar Flare -> post )

The familiar personal human exchange is only fully understood once you read the transition bar. The bar discloses that Rony’s granddaughter was born after a solar flare. We are left to imagine how a personal human moment like childbirth may be affected by the potential cosmic phenomenon of a solar flare. In a workshop focused on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict it called into focus both the human/personal and the planetary/cosmic contexts that persist in parallel to the conflict. And finally, this specific screenshot challenged the assumption embedded in the screenshot templates themselves — that mobile technology as we know it today will remain available in our futures going forward. 

Themes and Variations

Unlike the NYTSE, we did not limit this to preferred futures and in fact actively encouraged participants to express both their hopes and their anxieties. This framing allowed participants to sincerely imagine both.

Of course the screenshots content and the use of the transition bars depend on the theme of the workshop. In a workshop focusing on the futures of shared society in Jaffa we got less screenshots having to do with technological shifts or climate change and more concerning housing and local community issues. And in a workshop about Partnership Based Peace there was much more focus on wide societal shifts, education and diplomacy.

I also ran a workshop with opposition MPs where we decided to fix the transition bar on three states: opposition / election / coalition (acknowledging these states may not necessarily follow chronologically). And in a workshop focused on urban policy regarding the futures of the Tel Aviv bus station megastructure we fixed the states on: planning / building / using.

Hope is not a ‘thing’, a noun, but rather a conscious action, it is not something to receive or lose, hope is doing | ‘Hope’ in Barack Obama’s election poster, in New York, October 2010 | Photo: ChameleonsEye, Shutterstock

Working Individually

We take about 10 minutes to generate the screenshots. Each participant works alone and is encouraged to generate at least 5 screenshots and consider both “preferred” futures and “prevent” futures. They often try different templates, and different relative transition periods, as well as different degrees of potentiality (more on that later).

When the time is up each participant is asked to make sure they titled the transition period and circled the relative time of the screenshot capture.

To make sure we have full documentation and credits for each screenshot card, I ask each of the participants to photograph their screenshots and share themes to a chat group (for that, sharing a QR code for joining a WhatsApp group has proved useful). 

The Futures Cone

Anticipation is something we do in the present. We consider alternative futures to evaluate the potential of the current moment given our experience of stability and change in the past.

We often imagine a timeline stretching from the past to the future with the present marked as a point in between. This visualizes the future as already determined and the present passively flowing along.

But “The Future” does not exist. There is never one future, what we (should) mean by the future is a hyperobject of possibilities. Futures are always potentially endless possibilities, but they are not all equally probable. When we say “the future” and represent it as a single line we often project the patterns of the past into the future. Tomorrow the sun will shine, the world economy will not crumble and no peace treaty will be signed between Israel and Palestine (I can’t wait for this example to grow old). We conveniently surrender to determinism and minimize our own agency from the image of “The Future”.

The field of Futures Studies often uses the iconic diagram of the Futures Cone, developed by Josef Voros. It represents futures, not as a single deterministic line and not as an unimaginable chaotic void, but as a cone of possibilities with varying degrees representing adherence-to or divergence-from the patterns of the past.

In the workshop we use Voros Futures Cone with slight variations as a physical visualization. 9 strings are stretched from left to right (between columns, poles or tripods). They represent four overlapping cones and a straight line in their center (see image).

The Cone of Futures, Beit Radikal in Tel Aviv, October 2024.

The strings are marked:

• Projected: The central straight string represents a single “projected” future — the most certain forecast — the future previously known as “The Future”.
• Probable: The two slightly angled strings above and below the projected line represent a narrow margin of error around the projection, they allow some variation but are still quite safe predictions.
• Plausible: The next two strings above and below represent futures that may not be the first idea that comes to mind but do not stray from our general image of what the future would look like. They are not the most predictable but at the same time they are not surprising.
• Possible: The next two strings represent unexpected and unlikely futures that nevertheless cannot be labeled as impossible. This degree of potentiality is of extreme interest to us and often attracts many interesting screenshots.
• Preposterous: The outermost two strings represent impossible futures. It is interesting to reflect on how much of science fiction is focused on this degree of potentiality and how dismissing something as “impossible” defuses much of its political threat. At the same time especially today between Israel and Palestine it is exactly those extreme preposterous messianic and genocidal images of the future that set the tone and fuel the flames on the ground. At the same time those of us promoting partnership and peace are discredited and labeled as “delusional”.

Hanging on the futures cone

After they share their screenshots on the WhatsApp group, participants are invited to step forward, one by one, and choose one of their future screenshots that they feel most strongly should inform our anticipation in the present. They introduce themselves briefly and present their screenshot to the group by reading, showing or describing it.

The facilitator then offers them a choice: either choose the blue clip marking this future as “preferred”, or choose the red clip to mark this future as “prevent!”. Using both clips is also allowed to mark ambivalence.

What would you choose? A blue pin symbolizes a ‘preferred’ future, a red pin symbolizes a future ‘to be prevented’, from a workshop at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, October 2024.

The participant chooses a degree of potentiality from the projected to the preposterous and hangs the screenshot on the string of their choice. The upper strings are reserved for the preferred futures (blue clips) and the lower ones for the prevent futures (red clips). Ambivalent screenshots can be placed in either one of them, and the projected string is used for all preferences.

The horizontal positioning is determined by the before/during/after circling of the transition bar. Screenshots taken before the transition will be positioned further to the left, closer to the present. Those taken during the transition will be placed in the center. And those marked as after the transition will be placed on the right side, furthest from the divergence point of the present. It is important to mention that each screenshot is individually positioned relative to the cone, not relative to other screenshots that represent other independent futures.

After everyone has had a chance to present a screenshot, the group is encouraged to clip any other screenshot they made and believe deserve our anticipation to the futures cone. 

Evaluating Screenshots with Stickers

This is a good time for a break. During the break, participants can review the screenshots individually. Each participant gets a few colored stickers to mark the screenshots that most convey futures deserving of further investigation. This is also a way for them to explore and evaluate screenshots that were not presented to the group. It naturally also invites curiosity as participants want to know whether their imagination resonated with others. Finally, depending on the purpose of the workshop, these sticker-votes can inform the next steps. 

Part 2: Diving Back into the Present

I had the chance to run the future-screenshots workshop in diverse contexts, with diverse groups and for diverse purposes. In some cases it was a short interactive introduction to political imagination, an exercise in what I fondly describe as “Unlearned Helplessness”. These last from a minimum of 60 minutes to 2:30 hours.

In other opportunities it was followed by a dive back into the present. I’ve been experimenting with 3 types of present-focused part-twos, diverging on different contexts and expected outcomes:

Activism and strategy — used when the group attempts to evaluate its potential impact on a complex present and an uncertain trajectory. The future-screenshots’ potentials are then evaluated through the dominant, disruptive and diverging flows in the present, and how those may influence the futures (both positively and negatively). The friction points between these flows are then mapped to an affordance map. The group evaluates its capacity to influence the friction points through actions in the present. In the final stage, each participant in the workshop created a new screenshot, this time, depicting a plausible action they intend to take in the near future.

Policy and design — where a policy or a design project are in early exploratory stages and we need to evaluate their potential future impacts as an initial step of co-design. The future-screenshots are then used to identify needs, audiences, challenges and disposition in the present. The methodologies used involve an unorthodox mix of Job Stories + stakeholder analysis + How Might We + Assumptions Mapping + Prototyping.

Storytelling and artistic expression— where creative output, world building and playfulness are the main motivation for the exercise. In these cases we emphasize the difference between the present reality and the potential futures we anticipate and how comparing them may inform our creative work. The methodologies used involve identifying signals in the thick present + The Thing From The Future (modified) + optional sketching using generative AI.

This is still a work in progress. I intend to write a few more follow-up articles to expand on these methodologies and maybe offer an additional post for general reflections. Feel free to contact me directly or in the comments if you have a specific interest in any of these or if you have any questions.

A futuristic screenshot from a workshop attended by Palestinian and Israeli peace and climate activists in Larnaca, Cyprus, September 2024.

Thank yous

Many people have been essential to this long journey, which is both coming to fruition and is continuing to evolve. This list is far from complete, and I hope to keep it growing. My heartfelt thanks go to:

• Game designer Shalev Moran, who, as part of the Speculative Tourism project, helped develop the Sea Change project and the Chronomaps platform that form the basis of the screenshots methodology;
• Critical Futurist Maya Van-Leemput, my personal guide to the futures, a colleague, a friend, and a mentor for the paths ahead;
• My Israeli and Palestinian partners at A Land for All — Two States, One Homeland, and mainly Eve Tendler and May Pundak, who exemplify the power of political imagination, inspire my work, and co-resist this present while co-creating critical hope for shared futures worth fighting side by side for.

Additional thanks go to friends and collaborators whose crucial input and guidance have been invaluable along the way: Ofricnaani, Adam Kariv, mo husseini, Eran Nisan, Libby Lenkinski (& Albi), Carmit Galili (& Magasin III), Steve Lambert (& C4AA), Jacques Servin (& The Yes Men), Astra Taylor, Niels Ten Oever (& the Critical Infrastructure Lab), Tom Kerwin (& other colleagues at the Cynefin community), and my Futures Design Lab students at Shenkar College.

Futures cone (on the right) and possibility map (in the center) from a workshop for the staff of ‘Bimkom’ organization held in Philbeit, Jerusalem, November 2024.

The last one hundred years have been a bloody battlefield of utopias. Is it still possible to imagine a utopian future, and if so, how? Exactly 50 years ago, Ursula Le Guin wrote a short story that marks the beginning of the answer to this question.

According to the famous quote attributed to philosopher and literary scholar Frederic Jameson, “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”. In his book Capitalist Realism, cultural critic Mark Fisher adopts this quote and uses it to analyse the process by which capitalism became an all-consuming system lacking in opposition and preventing us from imagining an alternative. In fact, it is a system that has virtually eradicated the future.

This encapsulates a cultural process that has been occurring with varying intensity for around a century, and which largely explains the human condition at the beginning of the 21st century: the extinction of utopia.

To understand this process, let us begin with an exercise in guided imagination. Imagine a beautiful ocean bay, surrounded by eighteen snow-clad peaks. On the shore, between the sea and the mountains, lies the town of Omelas. Its inhabitants are happy and free from violence and oppression. They have no stock market or advertisements, secret police, priests, army or powerful weapons. They may have sophisticated technology, but they do not accumulate more than they need. They know no guilt. Sexuality in all its forms is free, unencumbered and celebrated, as are drugs, that are available to all who want them, equally. Not everything about the city is known, and everyone is free to imagine it as they wish. Indeed, Omelas seems to be a complete utopia, except for one small detail: in the bottom cellar of one of the houses in Omelas there is a locked room with neither a door, nor window. A girl sleeps in this room. She is not allowed to leave. Food is brought to her every once in a while, through an aperture that opens and shuts for that purpose alone. She never hears a single kind word. This is how she spends her days. All the residents of Omelas know about her existence. In fact, every child who reaches a certain age is given the same explanation: if we were to take the girl out of the room, clean, feed and take care of her, all the happiness and wealth of Omelas would disappear in a heartbeat. The townfolk’s happiness depends on the girl’s misery. From time to time, residents become curious and come to see her. They are often filled with rage, or feel a desire to help her, but they know there’s nothing they can do. Every now and again, a youthful visitor who goes to see the girl, witness the truth of her agony, does not return home afterwards. They withdraw into themselves, turn silent, move away from the city and walk into the darkness, beyond the mountains, to a place beyond imagination.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin

What is this place? and who are these people? Is Omelas a utopia or a dystopia? When Ursula K. Le Guin’s story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas was first published in October 1973, some 50 years ago, the way these questions were presented came as a surprise. Thanks to Le Guin’s extraordinary story-telling talent, writing fiction, which resembles the writing of myths (she was called a “Mythological Fantasist” by literary critic Harold Bloom), and which asks the reader to actively participate in the creation of the world, this story has become one of the most frequently printed in speculative fiction anthologies.

A visual illustration of Omlas by artist and author Andrew DeGraff, from his book Plotted: A Literary Atlas

Today, however, many readers will tell themselves that the parable is clear: in order to sustain our capitalist society of abundance, others must suffer – be they children mining cobalt, social media content moderators, or animals in slaughterhouses. There is nothing we can do. Some may also consider the question of whether utilitarianism is the appropriate moral method (whereby an action is measured by its results with the aim of bringing the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people; i.e., the girl’s suffering is justified) or whether it is duty (whereby every action has its own value, detached from the value of its results, i.e., the girl’s suffering is unjustified). But if we think that Omelas is too innocent and superficial a parable for the second decade of the 21st century, we are mistaken. The re-reading of it will provide explanation of the disappearance of utopia from our lives and the reason for our inability to imagine another future – if indeed that is the case (1).

Omelas is a story at the boundary, on the boundary, which fits American literary scholar Robert C. Elliot’s definition of utopia, “The application of man’s reason and his will to the myth [of the Golden Age]. Utopia (in the sense we are concerned with here) is man’s effort to work out imaginatively what happens – or might happen – when the primal longing embodied in the myth confront the principal of reality.” Just as Le Guin encourages her readers to create Omelas according to their own imagination, so does Elliot as he defines utopia: “In this effort man no longer merely dreams of a divine state in some remote time; he assumes the role of creator himself” (The Shape of Utopia, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970).

Image from the television series “The Handmaid’s Tale”, based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel

Utopias are nice as long as they remain in the realm of fiction. When Thomas More wrote the original Utopia in 1516, the “perfect place” he imagined—a place without private property or war—echoed the pun in its Greek name, which means “no place” or “nowhere.” The 20th century dawned, bringing with it a plethora of groups and individuals who sought to bring to life and actualize utopias that had been confined to literary imagination in previous centuries. Man began to embody the role of creator, revealing how easily utopia could turn into dystopia. Accordingly, from the middle of the 20th century onwards, dystopias became the most popular setting in speculative literature. Try to think of a dystopian work from the last one hundred years. You will not have any trouble remembering 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Handmaid’s Tale, or the movie Brazil. Now try to remember a utopian piece — what have you got?

The dystopian shock of the twentieth century was, of course, reflected in the writings of many thinkers, including members of the Frankfurt School. For example, Theodor Adorno expressed a fear of any way of thinking that tried to grasp the totality of human experience. Herbert Marcuse, on the other hand, claimed that technological progress has brought humanity to a state where we can achieve a true utopia. The answer to the question of why such a utopia is not realised can be found in the ways in which any possibility of radical change is suppressed by capitalist society.

However, utopias did not fade solely because of political failure. There are also internal literary reasons, though they might be one and the same. In the 1970s, Vita Fortunati, head of the Center for the Study of Utopia at the University of Bologna, shed light on the dominance of men in the genre. Alongside the economic, political and religious innovation these men brought to people’s awareness in their books, they continued to treat women conservatively.(2) Indeed, in the 1970s, a dystopian thinking took over the genre. However, another subgenre flourished, that of critical utopia, in which women writers such as Sally Gearhart, James Tiptree Jr. (aka Alice Sheldon), Joanna Ross and Ursula K. Le Guin, took a significant part. These writers preferred a utopia in a constant process of audit, review and inspection, over utopias of stasis, of perfect and eternal bliss.

In her 1982 poetic and philosophical essay, A Non-Euclidean View of California as a Cold Place to Be (The Yale Review) (3), Le Guin laid out the main points of her utopian theory. According to her, since Plato’s time, utopia is stuck in a strong, active, aggressive, linear, expanding and hot masculine motorcycle journey, parabolic to Yang, the masculine nature of reality in Daoism. Le Guin claimed that utopias should go in the direction of Yin, the feminine nature of reality — “What would a yin utopia be? It would be dark, wet, obscure, weak, yielding, passive, participatory, circular, cyclical, peaceful, nurturant, retreating, contracting, and cold.” Her main criticism of male utopias stems from their view that progress is a value on its own, and it tramples everything along the way. Stasis, according to her, is not a dirty word. Utopias and dystopias make us choose between happiness and freedom, a choice she refuses to make. “Totalitarianism is not only hell, but also the dream of paradise — the ageold dream of a world where everybody would live in harmony, united by a single common will and faith, without secrets from one another.”

In a 1975 essay on Le Guin’s androgynous classic The Left Hand of Darkness, Frederick Jameson argued that utopia should not be viewed as an attempt to depict an ideal society, but rather as a reflection on our inability to imagine such a society (4). Like Adorno, he was opposed to “closed” utopias that resolve all social contradictions. He argued that the new wave of science fiction should be read in light of our society’s inability to sustain a utopia, rather than as a literal recipe. Utopias that have become a reality are doomed to fail. One can only imagine what Herzl would have thought of the corrupt realization of Altneuland. In 2005, after witnessing both the fall of the Eastern Bloc and the takeover of neoliberalism, Jameson suggested that utopia in its traditional form is no longer possible — a utopian novel can no longer be taken seriously, but the utopian impulse, the utopian imagination, is not dead. Dystopia, therefore, is our way of making utopia (5). Similar sentiments were written in 2018 by award-winning science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson, against the backdrop of the climate crisis (6).

Therefore, Omelas is an allegory not only about the human condition and society, but also about the possibility of writing utopias. Who, then, are The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas? What are we to think of the people who walk away from the city after seeing that wretched girl and go to a place Le Guin herself couldn’t describe? N.K. Jemisin, one of today’s most successful fantasy writers, criticizes their choice to leave. The Ones Who Stay and Fight (2018), the story she wrote as a response to Omelas, describes a similar town, only that in it, the residents do not walk away, but stay and fight against the ideology, according to which human sufferings necessary (7). But maybe the ones who walk away in Le Guin’s story are not doing it because they cannot bear the evil done in their name. Maybe they do not walk away to establish a more just society. In an article published about a year ago in “Mythlore” magazine, Sabina Sherinmakers claims that the ones who walk away are people who have come to a reconciliation between good and evil, between happiness and suffering — they are the masters of the Tao (8). Le Guin is known for centering her work around the Tao, the Daoist concept of a unity of opposites that underlies the universe. The description of those who walk away matches the description of the elusive concept of the Tao in the book Tao Te Ching: they go into the darkness, through gates, into an indescribable place, gathering in silence. In fact, they go beyond good and evil.

N.K. Jemisin, one of the most successful fantasy writers of our time, wrote “The Ones Who Stay and Fight” in 2018 in response to Le Guin

Like Frederick Jameson, Ursula Le Guin is also unable to describe the world beyond an all-embracing system. To be fair, we must mention the solar-punk genre that has been established in recent years as a utopian alternative to the late and malignant capitalism, and which offers visions of a society that has learned to harness renewable energies for a more complete existence between man, nature and machine. But an alternative is not to walk beyond the matter. As Mark Fisher taught us, one can assume that the capitalist system, certainly Hollywood, will digest and purge solar-punk as well. In fact, it is already happening: Dear Alice is a solar-punk animated commercial for an American yogurt brand that had swept the Internet about two years ago. A critical reading will immediately notice that yogurt is a product of the cruel dairy industry that is destructive to Earth.

So how do we go beyond good and evil, beyond total capitalism? Is there a way to imagine a utopia in the days of the Anthropocene? Mark Fisher concludes Capitalist Realism on an optimistic note: “The long, dark night of the end of history has to be grasped as an enormous opportunity … even glimmers of alternative political and economic possibilities can have a disproportionately great effect. The tiniest event can tear a hole in the grey curtain of reaction which has marked the horizons of possibility under capitalist realism. From a situation in which nothing can happen, suddenly anything is possible again.” He gives concrete examples and advice, but in the big picture, Jameson’s “end of the world” can be reclaimed: if the way we imagine the world is stuck in the predatory motorcycle journey described by Le Guin, perhaps imagining the end means adopting a different imagination. Less Yang, more Yin. In her essay, Le Guin quotes Robert C. Elliot who said that only those who have followed utopia into the abyss and come out the other side will be able to redeem the word “utopia”. She writes: “We have got ourselves into a really bad mess and have got to get out; and we have to be sure that it’s the other side we get out to; and when we do get out, we shall be changed. I have no idea who we will be or what it may be like on the other side, though I believe there are people there. They have always lived there.”

On an evening stroll on the London wharfs I met a woman. We spent the night together and the following day agreed that this is more than just a casual fling, we should see each other again when I next return from my journeys at sea. A few tours on my boat and a few dates later, I received a note that she is with child. Earning enough money, I bought a house – a respite for myself, and a container for my lover and offspring. They moved into our humble abode and there they await my return – always available whenever I arrive from my journeys at sea. My child always listens to my stories, if I spare them the time, and through my stories I shape my child.

…

Public discourse around robots and artificial intelligence has always been prophetic: anticipating their grand arrival to the world stage as a watershed moment that has yet to arrive, but will be upon us as soon as the technologies, markets and regulations all mature to allow it, and will greatly impact society when it is finally here. Either in the far future or right around the corner, visions of robots and similarly-artificial agents imagine them as our servants or our children, rising up against us in a technological slave rebellion or patricide. Other visions imagine robots as partners, blending in with human society or becoming host bodies for a human soul so that it may outlive the flesh.

The popular form of this discourse manifests through speculative fiction, starring robots and AIs like Star Trek’s Data, The Terminator’s Skynet and Terminators, or The Matrix’s Agent Smith; as well as public-facing, spectacular, speculative engineering attempts, such as IBM’s Deep Blue, Boston Dynamics’ Atlas and Spot, and Hanson Robotics’ Sophia.

In recent years, a new vision for AI and robots has been gaining popularity: that of emotional support and companionship to humans. Pinpointing the causes for the trend can be difficult, since like many other ideas, it has deep roots – going back to Greek mythology and the story of Pygmalion and Galatea, if not further back. Is it a reaction to the adversarial depictions of robots in 20th century media? Or to the increasingly-adversarial relations we actually experience online with web-based bots? Perhaps it’s inspired by the advances in “natural language” algorithms, giving robots a familiar voice? Perhaps it is disseminated by researchers and courses in the rising academic discipline of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)? Or maybe it isn’t about the robots at all, but rather reflects a yielding to internet-age alienation from our fellow humans? Regardless, the excitement and intrigue around the prospect of computers providing emotional services to humans is on the rise.

You can see it in “cutting edge” technological experiments and the media coverage that surrounds them (1), asking questions about how future society will adapt to the presence of emotionally-servile robots, and how companies and researchers can design their robots to be more emotionally appealing and perform more emotional labor for humans. Skeptics are asking us to consider how the advent of emotional service robots may harm humans whose work involves emotional labor, or emotionally-deskill humans (2) who receive such services from AI.

Robot and Frank (Jake Schreier, 2012), Opening Film at the 2012 Utopia International Film Festival

You can also see it in contemporary speculative-fiction and science-fiction. Most known perhaps is the 2013 film Her (by director Spike Jonze), where the human protagonists fall in love with their advanced AI smartphone, and the 2012 film Robot and Frank (director: Jake Schreier, opening Film at the 2012 Utopia International Film Festival) where an elderly man develops a complex relationship with his emotional support robot. A 2013 episode of the TV series Black Mirror depicted a woman’s relationship with an AI surrogate of her dead lover, and in 2020 it was unironically attempted in real life, when the creators of the documentary Meeting You produced an interactive VR stand-in for a mother’s dead child (3).

…

Emotional Robots Have Been Here For a While

Most participants in this discourse have lots to gain from its speculative nature, anticipating the future rather than tackling the past and present. Put simply, there’s less friction in the uninhabited frontier, less waves in a Blue Ocean, unencumbered by the burden of proof. For the skeptics, it is a way to attract attention and stir emotion through our fear of the unknown. For the proponents, it is a way to attract fame and (a lot of) funding with promises that need not be shadowed by, or take responsibility for, present reality. As any Silicon Valley investor would tell you, the worst thing that can happen to a cutting edge tech product is actually going to market.

But though it may be profitable to keep emotional robots in the realm of speculative design, it is simply not the true state of affairs. Emotional robots are already part of society, have been part of society for many decades, have become a cultural staple and even cliché – they simply look a little different than what the speculators would have you imagine.

That woman I met in the London wharfs is one of them. In my 9-to-5 I am not a seafarer nor do I own a house in London, but I do in the videogame Sunless Sea (developed by Failbetter Games, first released in 2015). This game is filled with fictional characters, all reactive to my actions with their own fictional personalities and agendas, all in service of my grand seafaring adventure. My fictional lover’s agenda is, and forever will be, to comfort me whenever I return from sailing the wide and open seas.

Sunless Sea NPCs, Image from Failbetter Games

Emotional support is already one of the most widespread uses of AI, and has been for many decades, primarily through the function of NPCs: non-player characters, made to inhabit digital spaces and provide services to human visitors that which, in human terms, we would consider as emotional labor: teachers, companions, personal trainers, therapists, surrogate family, and hospitality workers. We meet them in computer games, as well as on the internet and in some electronic toys – in any digital domain where we expect to be made to feel good.

Understanding that this robotic function is indeed not upcoming but already well-ingrained in society, not waiting for some technological breakthrough but already well-developed over generations of design and actual use, reveals something deeper about those robots: depicting emotional-support AI as a sort of technology is false. It is instead a sort of fiction, defined not by its liveliness but by its servitude. Robots are not defined by some internal mathematical complexity or by their degree of closeness to that “General Intelligence” coveted by nerdy engineers, but rather by their societal function, the stories we tell about them, the roles we cast them for and have them play.

The emblematic computer therapist, ELIZA, was conceived in the mid-1960’s and became a cultural myth.

A Conversation with ELIZA

The simple scripts it ran as part of the MIT experimental laboratory are exactly that – scripts, more fiction than intuition – and would not pass a contemporary Turing Test to be considered true AI. But it did not stop ELIZA’s creator from being ushered out of the room when his secretary, as the myth goes, was having an intimate conversation with the digital therapist. ELIZA did not spawn widespread use of robots as explicit therapists, but its scripted-reaction techniques has found their way into many other digital agents, most notable today through the proliferation of chatbots that welcome humans to business webpages, providing very little functional service but adding a friendlier face to the emptiness of digital commercial space.

Other forms of emotional robots burst into the mainstream with the rise of commercial video-games. While early experiments such as Tennis for Two (William Higinbotham, 1958) and Spacewar! (Steve Russell, 1962) were fashioned in the mold of competitive sports and board games, where two players compete against each other, later commercial products like the digital arcade cabinet, home console, and personal computer had much to gain from allowing a single human customer to enjoy a game by themselves.

Spacewar! on the Computer History Museum’s PDP-1 in 2007, Wikipedia

Because competition and struggle are still fantastic motivators even for a Cartesian single-player, digital robots appeared as adversaries. But since they are now servile, instead of partners, to the single human’s enjoyment, they could be made to be unequal: Pacman’s ghosts are no match to the player’s agility, Super Mario’s dumb Goombas squish under his boot, and Doom’s endless waves of grunts are made to be slaughtered. All operate according to scripts, all making us feel powerful, skilled, and in control. Still the most popular form of NPC today, the myriad faces of computer game adversaries are simply fiction on top of a million variations of Solitaire.

Doom typical game screen, not much different than Solitaire

Tamagotchi, digital “pets”, Image: Shutterstock

NPCs also provide companionship, standing in for best friends, parents, children and other family members and of course adventuring cohorts, escorts and comrades. Most famous perhaps is the Tamagotchi trend of the mid 1990s. Marketed for children, it became a cultural icon, pets living on tiny keychain computers that needed regular but very easy attention in order to thrive, and could even “die” if not properly taken care of – only to be reborn again with the click of a button. This basic function evolved into other big trends: Furby was a reactive robot doll that did not require care and could not die, but had a script that made it seem as if it was learning to speak English (it was created in the US and designed for that market) over time spent with its owner; The Sims is a video game series where players care for virtual people, creating for them a fantastic home and career modeled loosely after the American white-picket-fence bourgeois lifestyle. Sims are a liminal robotic being, half-way between virtual wards and virtual avatars, so that players can feel both care for and identification with them; combined with a fantasy of guaranteed gradual upwards class mobility made The Sims into the best-selling video game in history at the time of its release.

In addition to children or wards, many NPCs provide mentorship for personal growth. Adventure games often explain the rules of engagement to the player, in the shoes of a young protagonist, through the character of an older veteran. Following in the tradition of tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, video-games also tend to place the solitary human player in an adventuring party made up of robot companions. Usually, none of those companions will be as capable as the player, especially not in terms of growth – their static agency reflected in their set of abilities, while the dynamic human agent grows in skill and power. They will stick with the player through an adventure that is ultimately made for humans, playing their part in the human’s personal journey.

With the rise of complex online games, where a player sits alone in their physical space and meets both humans and NPCs in similarly-represented digital form, those relationships become more diffuse: I could be cooperating with a group of human and AI companions against a different group of AIs, or humans, or both. Human online playmates might seem more desirable, but truthfully it matters less who actually drives the characters on-screen; it matters more that regardless of being human or machine, they serve similar functions for the player at home.

Portal Companion Cube

The 2007 video game Portal exemplifies many of the NPC functions mentioned above, satirizing them while at the same time maintaining all of their functions. The principal NPC is portrayed as an actual robot, an AI operating system named GLaDOS that manages the laboratory in which the player finds themselves in the game. GLaDOS guides the player through a series of “experiments” teaching them how to play the game, talking at them like a child or trainee. Every line GLaDOS says is scripted, yet she is reactive to the player’s performance in the game, and her attitude is aimed directly at the player’s ego, with compliments and insults alike. As the player progresses through the game’s narrative, GLaDOS is revealed to be not a mentor but an adversary; this revelation has fictional meaning, but no functional meaning – the gameplay dynamics remain the same. This change happens exactly when the player has finished learning the mechanics of the game, has no longer need of mentorship and instead will enjoy the feeling of overcoming a rival. The other NPCs in the game are Sentries and Companion Cubes. The Sentries are robot adversaries that will shoot the player on sight, but are completely incompetent, easy to defeat, and will greet the player with a friendly voice as they fire a useless hail of bullets. Finally the Companion Cube: a large box with the shape of a heart painted on its side. It’s Just a box, completely mute and does absolutely nothing, except being assigned the role of companion. Players take Companion Cubes along with them, use them sometimes as weights to solve puzzles with, and discard them when they wish to move on. Through the blunt metaphor of this gaming in-joke, Portal makes clear that the cube’s companionship is completely fictional, made to put the player’s mind at ease as they traverse the empty and artificial space of the lab. It requires some reflection by the player to recognize that the other, more-chatty robots in the game, are all but the same, all fictional.

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So far in this essay I did not attempt to challenge the efficacy of these fictions: emotional-service robots may well relieve some loneliness from people in care homes; the Companion Cube certainly made my journey through Portal’s trials feel less lonely. Decades of design knowledge empowered the game’s creators to openly poke fun and ridicule the phenomenon, while still utilizing it and losing none of the actual effect, and a lifetime of playing with NPCs made me receptive to their charms.

I do suspect the degree to which such fictions are effective. As was hopefully made clear by now, I care less about the imagined potential of speculative robots, and more about the actual effect that actual robots have on contemporary society; and to the best of my understanding, with the historical rise of applications offering robot companionship depicted in this essay, we also see the advent of the “loneliness pandemic” (4), considered in parts of the world as a public health crisis.

As entire industries learn how to better capitalize on societal atomization, we are bound to see a growing injection of servile personal bots into society, wrapped in louder promises of artificial companionship and care. We will be better prepared for their arrival if we take them for what they are: not a new marvel of design and engineering but rather an old story, one that has been told and retold for decades. We would do well to ask why old stories are being repackaged and sold to us as new and inspiring tech.

We’re all going to die. Prior to that, many of us will experience, throughout our lives, a ‘bell curve’ corresponding to our ability to impact the world around us. We were born, supported, grown and raised. We built up independence as we understood the foundations of the world around us. We acquired skills and professions. We came to be proficient, developed expertise, established ourselves, all the while we also grew older. A new generation will grow beside us, from us, by us, with new skills that are better adapted to their brave new world, as we slowly perish.

This eventual yet basic and essential understanding was the source of many anxieties surrounding arrival of “the next generation”. For example, in Totem and Taboo (1913) Freud recognizes the common human myth of patricide, killing one’s father. While Freud sees and focuses on aggression of child against parent, it’s worth noting the two Greek myths of Oedipus and Chronos: Oedipus is expelled from his city in his infancy by his father; Chronos, father of the Greek gods, tries to eat his own children; both myths reflect the struggle between older and younger but begin with the violence of the father towards his child.

Saturn (Chronus) Devouring his Son by Spanish painter Francisco de Goya. Painted on the walls of his home, 1819-1823.

In the modern age myths of paternal violence against their own offspring have faded in favor of Golems rebelling against their makers. Beginning with the original Robot story, the theater play Rossum’s Universal Robots (Karl Capek, 1921) (more about this in “What is a Robot?”, Uri Aviv’s article in this issue, and Dr. Elana Gomel’s deep dive into R.U.R.) alongside other prominent examples such as The Golem by author Bashevis Singer (1969) or Player Piano, Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel (1952), and in a broader sense, the film Moon by film-maker Duncan Jones (2009), numerous speculative stories have dealt with the fear that our extensive and hard work is what actually generates the conditions of our own replacement.

The robot is the ideal object to represent the above-mentioned fear because it’s perceived as a mechanical object designed to and capable of performing a wide range of human actions.

Machines that replace human manpower in specific jobs are nothing new, certainly not regarding work that was widely accepted as extremely difficult, dangerous or boring and therefore monotonous jobs, or positions in which maximal efficiency would lead to particularly high incomes or cost savings. Throughout history, windmills were integrated with and even replaced the work of millers; steam engines of various types have replaced factory workers; ATMs replaced bank clerks/tellers and computers replaced people (mostly women) in accounting firms, insurance agencies, not to mention laboratories, and R&D facilities, but a few decades ago.

Human computers in action alongside a computing machine and microscope, 1954, phot from NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, one of the organizations that preceded the space agency NASA).

While each of these profound changes has raised justified concerns, and ultimately political and economic upheaval, in this article the feature explored and that distinguishes these changes from the current conversation about automation and robotics is that all these previous machines have not undermined the relationship between the workers and the means of production. A bank teller may well be fired because an ATM (Automatic Teller Machine) is fulfilling their role now, but the ATM will not raise their children; care for their partner (or make love!); wear the clothes they have in their closet as they go out with friends; eat breakfast, lunch or dinner with their family; or go in his stead to that all-important local baseball game or the opera friendship association meeting.

Essence

The boundary that all machines do not cross but robots flaunt and don’t much care about is thus teleological, anchored in their purpose, their essence. The robot essence as conceived and created, as recognized and accepted in human society, especially as it includes human replacement (in specific jobs or roles, ostensibly), is extremely complex and relies on the definition and essence of humanity itself: the essence of the robot is dependent on the essence of humanity.

We’re worried we’re creating machines that will deprive us of agency and take our place in deciding our fate: Not only would our jobs be done well, our metrics – exceeded, our positions – optimized; these are not merely places or “positions” but our contribution to our communities, our society. What if the robot had some other utilities or benefits, maybe notes for our next season, be it baseball or opera, or god forbid it might have some thoughts on the way we raise our children?

Ex Machina. Director: Alex Garland, 2015.

The fear expressed in Ex Machina (director: Alex Garland, 2015) is that sex robots will decide they wish to be released from their master; The fear expressed in Blade Runner director: Ridley Scott, 1982) as well as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Philip K. Dick’s 1968 novel on which the cinematic masterpiece is based ) is that the robots (androids in this case) decide they wish to live beyond their useful roles, choosing for themselves their lived experiences, their paths, their lives; The fear in Moon (director: Duncan Jones, 2009) is that robots (clones to be precise) would fulfill all of our roles, professional but also social, personal, most intimate, as we’re already dead and gone. Not only will they fulfill our role in operating factory machines, but our role as lovers, partners, parents, friends, and possibly also our function as amateur baseball players or our position in the opera friendship association. Hence the fear that Vonnegut presents in the above-mentioned Player Piano, that after robots replace all workers, there’ll be no one left to decide on the purposes and essences of human society.

Moon, Director: Duncan Jones, 2009, Closing film of the Tel-Aviv International Science Fiction and Fantastic Genre Film Festival, Utopia 2009

Where does this teleological fear, anxiety of meaning, originate? Robots, much like any other artificial object, are manufactured with external meaning, essence, teleology. Philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre used the following distinction to explain the special teleology he attributes to human beings: “Existence precedes essence”. For example, Sartre claims a knife is created based on a mold designed for a specific purpose. Therefore, the knife has an essence, prior to existence. When thinking about the essence, the purpose of certain specific knives, purposes such as cutting cardboard or steak or injuring and killing enemy soldiers, according to the intended purpose, essence emerges, and the object is created. (Hu)man, according to Sartre, it not created with any such purpose, any essence or pattern, and therefore can only determine its own essence. The robot, unlike (hu)man, is designed for specific use, according to an external purpose, why should its essence, its teleology, be any different?

The naive answer is technological. What if technology is (supposedly) so complex, creates such complex consciousness, that it will be able to assert agency and autonomously object, subvert or deny its designed intent. While this possibility exists technically, technological science fiction stories that seriously study this option tend to answer that under such conditions, the difference between humans and robot machines loses all meaning. Robot-creatures may physiologically differ from humans, but they are not separate in their (human) rights, their equality or access. The PKD novel Do androids dream of electric sheep challenges the human obsession of distinguishing between “artificial” and “natural”, and the movie Ex Machina invites us to empathize not with the exploitative humans but with their (exploited sex) robots.

A more complex answer can be found as we delve deep into the primordial fear all parents have from their children. One characteristic of this fear is its tendency to not be realized overtly as actual conflict. Parent-child relationships are of course notoriously extremely complex, yet more often than not parents and children see each other, while separate from another, as belonging to the same unit; they have shared interests through the majority of their lives. This fact is essential to human existence and is entrenched in our political perceptions, so much so that one of the first texts to justify the political rights afforded monarchs to rule, Patriarcha: Or the Natural Power of Kings (1680, Sir Robert Filmer), argued that the right to rule comes down in direct succession from Adam himself (and Eve), inherited from father to son (through the genealogy of the fathers’ lines, not the mothers, according to his claim) reaching all the way to the monarchy of his age.

Patriarcha, or The Natural Power of Kings, by Sit Robert Filmer, 1680

Thus, even though our myths identify a potential parent-child conflict, social mechanisms such as inheritance, education, and family unit, arrange it so that the child’s interest aligns with the parents’. This arrangement is essential to human social existence, one of the factors that spur continued birth and creation of further generations; no one in their right mind would choose to have children if it were commonly understood that they would undermine their parents, as Laius, King of Thebes feared his son Oedipus would. It’s interesting to keep in mind that Oedipus, while indeed he does kill his father Laius, he does so unknowingly and accidentally, precisely because he doesn’t know his own father and thus doesn’t recognize him (accidental patricide) – Laius is thus “punished” in this myth precisely because he does not fulfill his parental duties, his obligations to the family unit.

The Murder of Laius by Oedipus, by French Painter Paul Joseph Blanc, 1867

Our Robo-phobic anxieties are based, among other things, on the fear of potential conflict, that same conflict that is usually un-realized between parents and their children but continues to exist, an ever-present irrational dread that clouds and burdens our relationships, with robots. What are then the social mechanisms that produce that conflict? Lead to the teleological essence of robots being oppositional to ours, to us? What are the forces that separate us, prevent us from being one (“familial”) unit with common interests, instead nurturing contrarian purposes? I offer two explanations, but of course there are many other possibilities:

Solutionism

In his book To Save Everything, Click Here (2013), journalist and internet researcher Evgeny Morozov presents a concept called Solutionism, the idea that every problem can be solved by technology. Part of the problem that the perception of Solutionism resonates is the tendency of the general public, certainly a decade or more ago, to accept with little to no criticism innovative technological solutions to seemingly difficult and substantial problems, or at least, that’s how they’re presented to the public. The problems are generational, the solutions are no less than magic, the opposition, absent. Why would there be any? The public was not much aware of the existence of said problems, their severity, the acute and dire need for solutions, but the public is also quite content and satisfied with the solutions offered and implemented. Even more so, it accepts with not much review and zero opposition the political, social and economic changes that accompany said solutions, which are presented as desirable and welcome. Solutions to problems that not many were actually aware of…

When we examine the marketing narratives and strategies of supposedly futuristic services and products, such as autonomous cars or the current Metaverse trend, we can see that they are presented as huge strides forward in their ability to solve massive social problems. the Metaverse (by Facebook/Meta, for example) will allow us to connect and communicate with each other better than ever. The autonomous vehicle (by Tesla, possibly) will be the end of car accidents, traffic jams and most importantly – the hopeless, agonizing, and endless search for a spot; everybody could use a car exactly when they need to, not a milli-second more. (1).

Because we live in a society where such processes have already taken place, solutions have been implemented, and we’ve gone through several cycles of extraordinary visions and reality checks in recent decades, we’ve adopted some degree of natural suspicion; we know that these solutions, as they become integral to our lives, often reveal themselves as somewhat hostile to us, have a confrontational teleological essence to us. When we began using Facebook, we thought we could better stay in touch and catch up on the lives of our friends and loved ones. No one presented the possibility that a company like Cambridge Analytica would collect data about us and perform marketing and political manipulations with exemplary, frightening, and infuriating precision (2). When we started using YouTube, we thought we’ll just watch a bunch of short videos. Cats. Bloopers. Cat bloopers. No one ever imagined that the algorithm would decipher our exact political stance and send us more and more videos of an increasingly extreme nature (3).

When a robot is marketed to us as a solution, we’re immediately suspicious, and for good reason; we fear that behind the presented form, the obvert essence, one of presumably comfortable, elegant, and well-designed solution, hides an ulterior motive.

Image from Futurama, animated TV series

Ownership

In a robot-Utopia, a society in which robots perform any and all work, who will have the right to reap the fruits of labor? We don’t need to imagine or speculate as this has been happening in cyclical fashion for centuries. Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin wrote in his book The Conquest of Bread (1892) about how all the marvelous technological achievements of any single entrepreneur, CEO, or capitalist are dwarfed by the marvelous technological achievements made over centuries and millennia of human existence and that has been laid at their disposal and were necessary for their success.

Elon Musk. Compared to the history of technological development, the contribution of any single engineer, entrepreneur or investor is miniscule.

The industrial revolution is now hundreds of years old. Almost everyone who participated in it, renovated, enhanced, optimized, and maximized our means of production, had died long ago. But the factories that have filled the world and have multiplied by thousands the percentages of possible production volumes do not equally serve all humans on the face of the Earth. Ownership is divided according to rules that seem completely arbitrary, using a broad enough historical perspective. These are the initial conditions of a society, our society, into which we’re worried to insert robots; for very good reason.

Robots manufactured by corporations in the substantial quantities that will make it possible to replace the human workforce will probably be privately owned. Anyone unable to afford and operate a robot (or, as it seems, a fleet of robots), will be outgunned and outnumbered, left behind and lose all ability to fight for their place in the market, in society. This problem was predicted in 1970 by philosopher Hannah Arendt in her book On Violence in which she postulates that a society cannot be oppressed only and entirely by violence as oppressive violence must hold a certain justification, otherwise the people required to apply oppressive violence (police, military) will refuse to apply it. The caveat she raises and opines on against this argument is precisely the possibility that an army of robots will enable a small minority to hold a monopoly on violence with no need for justification, since it can go to (autonomous) war, if necessary. If robots are to be at the heart of another phase, the next cycle of the industrial revolution, it’s quite reasonable to fear that the distribution of capital and power will be even more centralized than previous cycles.

Is absolute dread of any technological progress the only possible conclusion? We at Utopia believe otherwise. Just as parents can live in peace, love and harmony, have positive and supportive relationships with their children, so can humans bring robots into a world well-prepared and ready for them, a world that enables a life of reciprocity and mutual growth. For that to happen we first must understand that the most important step towards a mechanized heaven, a robotic utopia, is not technological at all, but a more just, fair and equitable organization of human society.

Danger! Robots Ahead!

Are you smiling at me, or are you scowling?

***

Winter, a pharmacy in Copenhagen, 2020. I’ve been studying Danish for a few months, but am still far from understanding the language and speaking it. I ask the pharmacist about a pack of vitamin D, to somewhat relieve my winter depression. She does not understand what I’m saying; I do not understand her reply. Both our faces are covered by CoVid masks. She cannot even notice I’m speaking english, and so I do not notice that she’s answering in Danish. I try to joke about it, and smile. Even if she got the joke, how would she know I’m smiling at her? And how would I know whether the joke made her smile, or whether she’s scowling at me, “stupid tourist, there are people waiting in line”. I pay and walk away, out to the streets.

***

Winter, a pharmacy in Copenhagen, 2020 // Are you smiling at me, or are you scowling?

***

Winter, Hefer Valley, Israel, 1991. They say that Saddam has chemical warheads in the rockets he’s firing on us. Every citizen is issued by the state a personal protective kit that includes two objects: a syringe filled with Atropine, and a gas mask. The syringe penetrates the skin, the heart, an object of dread, and we will never use it. The mask envelopes the face, a tempting armor, an object of desire, and we will use it a lot. We cover not just our faces but also our home, one room chosen to be completely sealed with plastic sheets and sticky tape. At the sound of alarm we don our masks and head towards the safe room, stepping onto the stage of the domestic theater. I am a child, and as children do I have little sense of what’s a game and what’s not a game. I understand that something real is happening, but also am excited by the ritual, the intoxicating smell of rubber filling my nostrils. Years later we will learn that there were no chemicals inside the warheads, and the masks were perhaps part of a political theatre. But they remain part of the homefront culture, the show has changed reality: the safe room was solidified in law, and every new apartment built in Israel has to have access to a fortified safe space. At school, the teacher shows us how to decorate our protective kit’s cardboard box with crayons and stickers – as if it wasn’t already an attractive, enchanting object, even sans colors. And they teach us to keep it at arm’s reach, always.

***

Cinemas, 1994. Jim Carrey plays Stanley Ipkiss, a pitiful dork, who finds a magical mask that is meant to externalize whatever is suppressed in the person who bears it. The result is a horny, vengeful, narcissistic bully. Later in the film, a violent mobster bears the mask and becomes an even more violent mobster. A dog bears the mask and becomes even more of a dog. The logical conclusion is that Stanley Ipkiss was always a latent horny, vengeful, narcissistic bully. At the end of the movie, Stanely gets the girl.

***

Winter, Hefer Valley, Israel, 1991 // An Israeli family in a bomb shelter, all wearing ABC (Atomic/Biological/Chemical Weapons) masks, Image by Jane Fresco, Herzliya, from Wikipedia

The Mask, Jim Carrey, 1994

***

I’m on an airplane, a surgical mask on my face. It’s a long trip, I got to the airport in public transit, the mask has been on me for many hours now. I can smell my own breath. My scent fills the nose, amplified by the paperlike fabric. There is nothing normal about this, an aspect of myself I usually never notice. Like being in a room made of mirrors, like seeing myself from behind. What a mistake, I should have taken my cotton mask.

***

Cinemas, 1999. Keanu Reeves plays Thomas Anderson. He’s being interrogated by a clandestine government agency. They confront him with the fact he bears two identities – one registered in the tax registry under his given name, the other under a chosen name online. Only one identity is deemed acceptable by the agency. Thomas knows his rights, he demands his phone call. “Tell me, Mr. Anderson – what good is a phone call, if you are unable to speak?” riddles the agent, and Thomas discovers that his mouth has disappeared, the lips now connected in a smooth strip of skin from the nose to the chin.

***

Israeli TV Studio, 2000. It’s a popular evening talk show, and tonight’s guest is the hottest musical sensation of the season. Years before his rise to recent fame, this singer suffered two terrible accidents – a fall off a scaffold that has left him paraplegic, and a gas tank explosion that caused severe burns to his face and body. He lives in an abandoned house in a poor suburb, is known only by his alias “The Burned”, does not give any public performances, and has given one interview so far, to the biggest daily newspaper in the country, with his face completely covered by a medical mask. His voice trembles when he speaks, and becomes clear only when he begins singing his top-charts hit “Deception of Grace, Illusion of Beauty” (based on a quote from the Book of Proverbs) (1). The song is about a man in love who cannot reach his beloved, and it asks “how come this lie has lips?”. In the TV studio after singing, the Burned gets up from his wheelchair and unmasks himself to reveal flowing locks of thick hair and a beautiful face – the face of the actor-singer Haim Zinovich. With glistening eyes, on the verge of tears, Zinovich tells the interviewer that after many long years of failed attempts to reach an audience, he realized that journalists like him would never give him stagetime without this cover story.

***

Israeli TV Studio, 2000 // “The Burned”, actually actor-singer Haim Zinovich, interviewed by Yair Lapid

***

CoVid masks are a double whammy for people with eyeglasses. Especially on cold winter days. My breath gets trapped inside the mask, blowing up and out to my cheeks. I step outside, and immediately my glasses are filled with steam, obscuring my field of view. When I was younger I protected myself from the world by opting to wear thick-rimmed glasses. But now that I’m older and more confident, wishing to open myself to the world and to let it reach me, I choose lighter frames. And then comes the mask and covers my eyes in a misty veil. I walk carefully down the street, breathing slower to minimize the effect, and other pedestrians cannot see my eyes.

***

New York University’s School of the Arts, 2010. In the graduation exhibition of the prestigious Interactive Telecommunication Program, a graduate named Adam Harvey presents a series of photographs in which male and female models wear make-up designed with asymmetrical patterns, meant to disrupt and evade digital facial-recognition systems. The project is a hit, and Harvey is invited to produce more designs for a New York Times photo shoot. We’ll get back to that later.

***

The French Senate, 2010. After at least three decades of attempts at legislation and public scandals, mainly around the use of religious symbols in public schools and especially around the headdresses of Muslim women and girls, the Senate passes Act No. 2010-1192 – “Loi interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l ‘espace public” – a law to prevent face-covering in public space, the first of its kind in the European Union. The law is primarily aimed at preventing the use of face covers such as the niqab or burqa. Supporters of the law see it as an expression of French secularism, opponents see it as a drastic violation of personal liberty. Both supporters and opponents see the other side as catastrophic for feminism and as a serious case of religious coercion.

***

Cinemas, 2012. Batman is once again the hottest superhero thanks to a film series by Christopher Nolan, a director who’s known for dealing extensively with the illusory dimension of cinema. Batman wears a mask concealing his other identity – Bruce Wayne, a billionaire heir to a huge industrial corporation. In the third film in the series, Bruce Wayne / Batman faces off against a working-class hero: a masked revolutionary named Bane. The mask on his face is not meant to hide his identity, but rather is a medical device that helps him cope with severe physical pain, caused by a chronic problem that’s a result of the harsh conditions he grew up in.

***

The Internet, 2013. Edward Snowden leaks thousands of confidential US government documents, which reveal, among other things, the existence of PRISM – a system for mining and cross-referencing information from countless users of online services of the Internet’s giant infrastructure corporations, such as Facebook and Google. The exposure further increases interest in Harvey’s camouflage makeup. We’ll get back to that later.

***

New York University’s School of the Arts, 2010 // Graduation exhibit, the Interactive Telecommunication Program // Adam Harvey // Hair by Pia Vivas, Model: Jen Jaffe

Woman Wearing a Burqa // September 14, 2010, the French Senate passed into law Act No. 2010-1192 – “Loi interdisant la dissimulation du visage dans l ‘espace public’ – preventing the use of face-covering in public space, the first of its kind in the European Union. The act became known publicly as “the Burqa Law”.

Cinemas, 2012 // The Dark Knight Rises by Christopher Nolan // Two masks representing two different, diametrically opposing, social and psychological structures, at conflict // The Superhero Batman & the villain, Bane.

In 2013, following the release of thousands of classified documents and his escape from the US, NSA computer intelligence consultant Edward Snowden had received temporary residency status in Russia. Two years following the incident, in April 2015, political comedy commentator John Oliver devoted his show “Last Week Tonight” to surveillance and privacy issues and had presented an extensive interview with Snowden.

***

My living room, 2016. I’m sitting on the couch, leaning forward, an oxygen mask on my face. It is connected to an old pneumatic nebulizer, its plastic casing is yellowing from a lifetime of use, its engine as noisy as a tractor, the rattling sound fills the small apartment. Seasonal flu has exacerbated my asthma, the great weakness overcomes me and clouds the senses, but I am well trained: 50 CC of Ventolin, 150 CC of water. How long has this device been with me? 25 years? 30 years? Throughout my adult life, I have hardly allowed anyone to see me using it. That is the real nudity. But tonight my partner is there. Tonight I let her see.

***

Normandy Beach, 2017. It is right before dawn on June 6, 1941. I crawl with my platoon towards the German bunkers, bullets whizzing above our heads. It is the 14th edition of a popular action videogame series named Call of Duty. Visual technology really improved in the two decades since this genre became popular, and can now present violence in all its gory details. When my comrade is hit by a mortar shell only a few steps from the water, I see the painful expression on his face from up close. The officer looks me straight in the eye and tells me to get myself together, this is what I’ve been training for, we have to breach the bunker. When I get to the trenches the real fun begins, no longer just evading, I am sniping the enemy left and right. But I cannot see my enemy’s faces: the game spares me the full results of my actions. Every time they die by my rifle, the game twists their body so that they fall facing down, relieving me from the full impressions of my duty. I press on through their defenses, stepping on their bodies, inland through the trenches and the bunkers, my opponents always face-down in the mud.

***

Normandy Beach, 2017 // The 14th edition of the action videogame series Call of Duty

***

When exactly did soldiers begin hiding their faces? I can’t recall the moment. I’m not talking about blurring face photos of military pilots and elite soldiers in news articles – that’s an old practice. I mean the newer phenomenon of soldiers wearing a “tactical mask” that only reveals the eyes under their helmet, like a ninja in a soldier’s costume. I suppose the reason for the new concealment is the same as the old reason: to prevent personal harassment, and especially to prevent personal prosecution for war crimes. A sort of acceptance that modern soldiers deal mostly with a civilian population, and function mainly as policemen, only without the theater of protecting it. All that’s left is to hide them from a different police.

***

In Vipassana meditation they teach you that the road to insight passes in attention, and attention grows from observing the things you would usually do in a state of distraction. You start from the body itself: the thing most available to us, 100% of the time and always wired to our brain. Your most basic bodily function – breathing – must be done without attention. How could you even live with intentional breathing? So you start there. Vipassana begins by defamiliarizing breathing itself. Perhaps it is no way to live, with uncanny breathing, but uncanny breathing is an effective gateway to meditation. It’s all coming back to me with the mask on. I feel each breath in all my senses – the heat and the steam, the taste and smell, the sound of myself echoing between fabric and skin.

***

Eye of the storm, 2018. Every kid in the world is playing ‘Fortnite’ (Inspired by the 2000 Japanese film “Battle Royale”) (2) : a hundred players are parachuted on an island; their goal is to murder each other, the winner is the last one standing. The creators of this videogame earn their fortune by selling costumes and masks that the players’ virtual avatars can wear. These costumes are called ‘skins’. Fan-favorite skins include a banana costume and a costume in the form of the fictional contract killer John Wick. Rich kids, whose parents allow them the purchase of new skins every Fortnite season, use the derogatory term ‘default’, coined after the free-of-charge default character skins, to bully poor kids .

***

The Black Death mask is back in vogue. Not yet as an actual clothing accessory, but as an image: “plague doctors”, clad in black robes, their faces hidden behind a mask with a long pelican-like beak full of perfumes and herbs, are recently making more and more appearances in movies, games, comics. The image is almost always divorced from the historical role – they do not treat the sick – the mask mainly serving to herald death, often mixed with other Gothic, Victorian, and Medieval-Christian imagery.

***

Back in vogue // The Black Death mask

***

I am traveling from a place where it is expected to wear a mask in public to a place where it isn’t; The mask is still on me, out of habit, and suddenly I feel all eyes on me, I am discovered as a stranger. I return from a place where it is not expected to wear a mask in public to a place where it is, and forget to put on the mask in transit; then I notice the eyes staring at me, feel exposed, I am discovered as a stranger. For most of the world, CoVid masks have emerged as a policy with no custom or tradition behind it, and yet their use patterns have quickly become group signifiers. I walk into a new place and try to guess what its norm will be like – is it a place of masks? A place without masks? Do I prefer to integrate, or to maintain my principles – even though my principles themselves are new and foreign to me?

***

Recently a popular use of “Machine Learning”, a method that allows computers to understand things on their own, is to identify and alter human faces. Social media users take images of their political leaders and puppeteer them into giving the hopeful speeches they will never actually dare to give; the technique is known as “Deep Fake”. Video-calling software allows callers to distort their own faces into a cartoon, or to put digital masks on their reflections. The technique is known as a “filter”. Usually when a filter appears the conversation stops, while all attention is given to the mask, and does not continue until the mask is removed.

***

***

The Internet, 2020. Global superpowers such as China, the UK and the United States are expanding their use of facial recognition systems, and employ them to monitor civilians. Public awareness of this is growing between the Hong Kong demonstrations against the extradition bill and demonstrations following the assassination of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in the United States. Fashion bloggers and online influencers photograph themselves experimenting with Harvey’s anti-surveillance makeup method. Other designers have followed suit to create plastic masks with lenses that distort the face, hats that project a different face on top of the wearer’s, glasses with an array of infrared bulbs to blind scanners. None of these camouflage techniques could actually compete with the rapid development of surveillance systems in the age of machine learning, none of them could even be accessible to those who do not have a lot of money or free time, and all of them would make their users stand out as particularly strange and conspicuous in the eyes of any human law enforcer, even if the machine will not recognize them for a moment. But the fantasy of individual opposition to tyrannical rule, combined with an aesthetic reminiscent of cyberpunk cinema, is too tempting to let go. Like the hipsters of the early 2000s, who imagined they could resist capitalism through alternative consumerism, so do some hipsters now believe they can resist tyranny through alternative clothing and makeup.

***

They say that in the age of Covid it is more crucial than ever to master the smize. Smize is a shorthand for “smiling with your eyes”, as coined by Tyra Banks in 2009. I am far from mastering the smize. I have no technique. I try, but instead of alluring merriment, I just look slightly angrier. When I actually smile, my eyes become slender slits; a balance between the widening mouth and the narrowing eyes. But now with my mouth and nose covered, every smile is an almost complete closure of my face. You couldn’t tell whether I’m smiling at you, or scowling.

It seems that it is precisely science fiction stories- which often take place in immense, huge, sometimes even infinite spaces, in terms of space and time- that deal with the most basic concepts of human life: home, identity, humanity.

In fictional journeys to space, earth, which in everyday life is a vast external framework in which man must find his unique place, becomes one giant home for the entire humanity. In these works, human society becomes a family. As such, space travel has a unifying and connecting message from its beginning: we all live in the same home, “we are all in the same boat,” or the same spaceship.

Unlike terrestrial travels, space travel emphasizes our inability to grasp infinity – and the existential absurdity it expresses (we have expanded about our inability to grasp infinity in Issue # 1 on “Inhuman Scales”). See the articles of Eden Kupermintz, Gili Ron and Shalev Moran, which provide different views on the subject- U.A). In light of this lack, this rift, this deep abyss, these journeys express not once the man’s need, in acknowledgment of infinity, to place himself within it, or in front of it. The existentialist discussion in science fiction stories re-centers around the continuity of generations and the grip of man on life as meaningful, as a response to the basic human need to understand the universe and existence – and its place in them.

To infinity, from the movie “Interstellar” by Christopher Nolan

In this article, I will address three mythological cinematic journeys to space and examine the instances of homecoming in them.

In each of these films, the concept of “home” is of special, slightly different importance for the character who embarks on a journey – from which she returns, even if (slightly) different. The three films reflect a homecoming to a place that is both familiar and foreign, as the original home was lost and disappeared in time. In each of the examples the experience of homecoming- returning from space- is mixed with the feeling of the uncanny, the Unheimlich, where not only the space to which the characters return has changed but also the characters themselves, as a result of their journey, the time that has passed and the insights they have gathered along the way.

The Unheimlich

The Unheimlich is a Freudian expression that describes something that is grasped as both familiar and foreign at the same time. It is a dissonance that generates a threatening feeling of alienation. It is a cognitive gap that is created for the subject who experiences reluctance, fear and rejection from an object (in the cases in question here – the object is home), and at the same time – attraction to it.

A contradiction underlies the unheimlich, an unintuitive link between the domestic, the familiar and the experience of horror and alienation. In the specific context of home, a place that is supposed to be calming, comforting and reassuring – suddenly becomes a threatening and alienated space (about this in Dana Tor’s article, ‘The Anxiety of the Unheimlich’ and in Uri Aviv’s article, ‘The Internal Threat’ in this issue – U.A).

The heroes who return home from the journeys, who we will mention in this article, return to a similar but also different home from the one they have left. They start a process of re-acquaintance with themselves and their environment, and do not necessarily need their old home, from which, upon their return, they find themselves alienated.

The Late Return

Another significant concept is “The Late Return”, a familiar literary motif – some would say one of the most familiar motifs in Western culture- whose roots are entrenched in the story of the Odyssey: Odysseus returns home after years of travels and reunites with his wife Penelope – in their home.

Although in the Odyssey the protagonist returns to a home that still stands, to a living, familiar and even faithful woman who has been waiting for him – for the most part, “The Late Return” describes a return to a landscape and homeland that have changed beyond recognition, to a different world from the one the hero had left. The “Unheimlich” is obvious in these legends, the protagonist returns to the same home space he left but the world he returns to has changed, and he discovers that something of his own inner self changed as well. The home is not the same home, and the hero is not the same hero.

Solaris: Overcoming Time and Longing

The movie Solaris (1972, USSR) by director Andrei Tarkovsky is considered a cinematic masterpiece in general, and in the genre of science fiction in particular. Obviously, the literary masterpiece by Stanislaw Lem that was published a decade earlier (Poland, 1961) is also considered a significant milestone in the history of this literary genre.

Lem’s book was readapted to film in an American, acclaimed and interesting version from 2002, directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring George Clooney. However, in this article I will focus on the version of Tarkovsky, which is better in my opinion, and was announced at the time as the Soviet answer for Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, USA / UK). It has been known ever since, and to this day, as one of the greatest science fiction films of all time.

Solaris (1972, USSR) by the director Andrei Tarkovsky

Solaris is a work that penetrates the depths of the soul of its protagonist as well as its readers and is constantly directed between the inside and the outside, between the present and memory, between reality and imagination – and consistently unites them. It deals with the study of human boundaries and human abilities to communicate and connect with one another and with the different, the unfamiliar, and in the deceptive and surprising way in which faith and knowledge can be weaved together.

The plot of Solaris follows a psychologist named Chris Calvin who is sent to a research station on the imaginary planet – Solaris. Calvin’s mission – to give an opinion on strange phenomena that supposedly occur in the place, according to the station’s team. Upon his arrival, he joins the station’s scientific team, whose members’ mental state is unstable. The reason for it is that they have been forced to get acquainted with “guests”: human-looking figures, which are connected to their past and come to visit them.

At first, Calvin, being a psychologist, thinks that the “guests” are the fruit of the scientists’ wild imagination, the result of working in complete solitude for years. It soon becomes clear that the “guests” are not hallucinations (at least not in the conventional sense of the word), as they do appear with a material body. In addition, it becomes clear that the “guests” feel and act like the humans they “copy” (and to be precise – like the memory that remained in the scientists’ mind of the original person on which they are based).

While trying to interpret these phenomena, whether supernatural or psychological, and how they relate to the properties of the unique planet that the scientists are studying, Calvin suddenly envisions his late lover, Hari. The reunion with her allows Calvin to relive (but only in Solaris – U.A) their lost love, but also the painful tragedy in which it ended – Hari’s suicide following the decrease of Calvin’s love for her. Hari’s appearance symbolizes in the story both the overcoming of time but also the inability to evade and overcome the past.

Chris together with his partner Hari (The deceased one? A copy of her? What is going on here?), looking at their reflection in the mirror, Solaris (1972, USSR), by director Andrei Tarkovsky.

It will be easy to see how concepts from the world of the mind and psychology (including “the unheimlich“) occupied Lem in his writing, and Tarkovsky when he came to adapt the film, and how they tried to provoke a discussion about the human psyche in situations it is not used to be found – through science fiction.

Tarkovsky’s contribution to the sci-fi genre here is at the beginning of his career, but he returns to it later with his film Stalker (1979, USSR). Through science fiction’s ability to produce hypotheses and scenarios that are not possible in real life, Tarkovsky has repeatedly dealt with philosophical, moral, theological, and metaphysical issues.

The concept of “home” is very significant in the cinematic adaptation of Solaris; Tarkovsky’s work begins and ends with “home”. In the opening scenes, Calvin is seen walking in the landscape of his childhood, between forests and lakes, with the beautiful family home in the background. The house, built entirely of wood, creates a natural, pastoral and simple feeling, and is presented in contrast to the spaces that will appear later in the film- cold, metallic and artificial spaces. The wooden country house is first shown in the reflection of the water of the lake at its feet, which illuminates another aesthetic motif, which is central in the film: reflections. These reappear again and again as the film presents mirrors and glass, in which the “real” reality is reflected. It is a simple but beautiful image of the main ideas in the film – the connection between original and copy, reality and image, and of course, memory. The “guests” are the reflections of the scientists’ memory, a mirror image of figures from their past, identical in every external characteristic but lacking the slippery realness of the real, original, experience in the past.

Calvin begins the movie at his father’s house and ends it with what appears to be a copied version of it, built from his memories. A copy inside Solaris. Gradually, the viewer realizes that the house to which Calvin returns at the end of the movie is not the same house he left, the one from the first scenes. Even if the last shot of the film clearly reveals what can be suspected even earlier (we are not where we think we are), the clues are woven throughout the entire scene. The lake, whose ripples in the water we had seen and heard at first, is now frozen and still; the house is no longer reflected in it – perhaps because it is itself a reflection, a replica of the original house.

The house, Solaris (1972, USSR), by the director Andrei Tarkovsky

These subtle hints are joined by one of the greatest shots in the film, in which opposing elements of water and fire meet and unite: Calvin approaches and peeps through the window into the house. Inside – it is raining, and outside, behind it, a fire is lit. We are in a dream, or a hallucination, but since dreams in this work are not exactly “dreams”, we can only conclude that we are in one of the mental tricks of the seemingly intelligent planet, Solaris, or if we wish, in one of the tricks of the film’s director, Andrei Tarkovsky.

Although many see Solaris’ enigmatic ending as an expression of pessimism, to me there is something consoling in this homecoming: Calvin realizes that he cannot beat time and longing, cannot bring back his old life – but he can build in his memory a world that reminds him of the purity and simplicity of his youth in the wooden country house on earth.

The home he returns to is not the same home, but Calvin is also definitely not the same Calvin from the beginning of the film, and this fact gives the ending a sense of comfort and closure, to my opinion.

Contact: The search for life, following death

Robert Zemeckis’ science fiction film Contact (1997, USA) is completely different from Tarkovsky’s film but its discussion of the connection between science and faith makes it a clear thematic sequel to Solaris.

The plot, based on a book of the same name by the well-known scientist Carl Sagan, focuses on an astronomer named Eleanor, “Ellie” Arroway, who studies radio signals coming from outer space, in order to locate scientific signs for the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. Ellie and her project are part of an activity on the fringes of science, which is considered crazy, the SETI – Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. As a child, Ellie lived with her father (her mother died in childbirth), and it was he who introduced her to the wonders of scientific research, beauty and mystery of space, and bequeathed her great love for astronomy, as well as for “radio groupies” (Ellie is full of excitement and her father radiates with pride when she manages to converse with another groupie in the city of Pensacola in remote Florida).

Ellie and her father talk to a new friend in Pensacola, Florida on the home radio, Contact (1997, USA), by director Robert Zemeckis.

She experiences considerable political difficulties and shortage of resources for her activities, in light of her eccentric field of work, but her determination and boldness cause a philanthropist to support her efforts. One day she discovers a radio signal from an unknown source, a message that is clearly unnatural. Ellie is determined to convince those around her – the scientific establishment, the White House, the entire world – that this is a potential discovery of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

The deciphering of the broadcast, after an exhausting journey of persuasions and terrible and painful accidents along the way, provides her with a one-time opportunity to fly and meet the aliens using a space vehicle built specifically according to the instructions in the broadcast she received. She embarks on the exciting journey and returns. She understands that the difficulty of reaching the distant planet to which she was sent is nothing compared to the difficulty of convincing humanity that she did indeed contacted intelligent life outside of Earth. The devices she had with her did not record a thing, it is her word against the devices, political interests, cultural forces, and the masses, who wonder whether to believe her or not.

Ellie Arroway in a journey to meet aliens. Are the devices recording? Contact (1997, USA), by director Robert Zemeckis.

Gradually, “Contact” is developed as a film about the possible, but not necessary, conflict between science and belief: in the beginning we perceive the scientist’s position, and as it progresses – we perceive the occurrences as real intellectuals, a bit like Ellie herself.

Precisely as a film that operates within the commercial, Hollywood framework – it is surprisingly and astonishingly spiritual, poetic and experimental. Contact is science fiction cinema at its best, and it does so with great emotion and incredible skill: starting from breathtaking suspense, continuing with unique effects (on the front of technology and media as of 1997) and ending with great human drama intertwined with theological, philosophical and ethical debates, which guided the path of many of the greatest science fiction films of recent decades.

Other than that – and unfortunately, in a way that is not very common in the genre of science fiction – it is also a feminist work, from A to Z (Arrival by Denis Villeneuve, which resembles Contact in many ways, is another example. (Arrival, USA / Canada, 2016).

Like Solaris, and also Interstellar, to which I will refer later, Contact is thematically built around inter-generational family relationships – father and daughter in this case. However, surprisingly and unusually for the female character in a movie, and even though her life revolves around her love, longing and gratitude for her dead father – Ellie does not show any desire to have children, and the movie does not provoke a direct discussion on this personal issue, or in the broader sense, on the question of generational continuity. An implicit way in which the film nevertheless deals with this question is reflected in its final scene: Ellie guides a group of girls and boys and tries to encourage them to take interest in astronomy, science and the study of space. She does so with great talent and grace. The complete disregard for the cultural pattern of a woman as a mother-to-be is necessarily one of Contact‘s virtues in my opinion, and another example of its complexity.

Zemeckis was and remains, despite the image of the “technician” that stuck with him, a filmmaker whose thought is entirely visual and aesthetic, in ways that are reminiscent of his great partner, Steven Spielberg (Contact was directed after the masterful “Forest Gump”). The most prominent visual feature of Contact is the use of digital camera movements from the inside to the outside and vice versa. The movie opens with the “Zoom Out” movement, from the earth out and out to the vast spaces of the universe, at the end of which the camera arrives/ “comes out” from the eye of Ellie, the girl. The whole infinite universe is conceptually connected, in a simple digital camera movement, to the psyche and inner self of the individual – and this is the action that is repeated over and over in the genre films, according to my claim. We are not separated from the world and the universe – we are part of it, we are in it, and it is within us.

Zemeckis’ aesthetic choice to connect the inside and the outside is given a thematic expression in the last part of the movie, in Ellie’s journey. Like the other two films in question, consciousness and reality merge, interior and exterior intertwine, Ellie’s inner world takes on a material, external expression – in the form of her encounter with a copied version of her father, somewhere in outer space, supposedly near the planet Vega. Ellie’s passage through a wormhole is visually reminiscent of 2001: A Space Odyssey that preceded it, and Interstellar that followed it. At this climactic moment Ellie utters the most beautiful quote in the film, certainly the most poetic one in it, when Ellie stares astounded through the window of the spaceship, at an astronomical view whose description is pale in comparison to the depth of its beauty and utters: “They should have sent a poet.”

Unlike the other films I will mention, Ellie’s journey to space comes only at the end of the movie, and this is also its singularity: Ellie is in fact on an ongoing inner journey from the beginning of the movie, from the moment her father dies unexpectedly and she, in an attempt to bring him back, searches for life on distant planets, against all odds. Ellie’s life is a life of loneliness and exile of a woman in a world (and profession) that is culturally attributed to men. As a result, the catharsis that takes place in the marvelous scene on the planet Vega – her renewed and brief encounter with her father – symbolizes her homecoming, precisely when she is in the farthest place from any home that any human foot has ever stepped in. The encounter itself (the contact in the title of the film) is a clear “unheimlich” experience, both visually and in the way her replicated, imagined father looks. It has the warmth and love of the original father, but it is also clear that it is shaped from memory only (which echoes Solaris for us).

When Eli returns to Earth from her journey in the alien space vehicle, she discovers that no one on Earth believes she has visited there – as throughout her entire life, no believed her about her professional field of work. The data is against her. The cameras and devices she had with her did not record a thing. Ellie, who symbolizes science, skepticism, thought and rationale, has to take the believer’s place now: when the commission of inquiry asks for real evidence of her contact with the aliens – and she has none – she simply replies that she “believes” in all her might that it happened.  She admits that she has no other way of proving it.

Arroway’s hearing, Contact (1997, USA), by director Robert Zemeckis.

The issue of belief in general, and in god in particular, is central to the film, and is also expressed through the character of Palmer Joss, the religious scholar (starring Matthew McConaughey) whose relationship with Ellie represents a conflict, but also a connection, between science and religion, knowledge and belief. The process she goes through in getting closer to Palmer is parallels to the process she goes through from a scientist who leaves no place for belief in her life – to a spiritual person, even if explicitly not religious.

On the question of whether Ellie has left Earth at all, or perhaps the encounter she reported on is the fruit of her wild imagination and her blind passion to retrieve the past, meet her late father again, and fulfill the dream – you can answer yourself, by watching the film. The film explicitly hints that the encounter did happen (I, myself am less fond of this explicit allusion), but leaves room for doubt. Either way, her journey is a journey to the spiritual, the abstract and the sublime, whether she has met with aliens or not. Contact is her contact with the inexplicable, the unexplainable, no less than it is contact with intelligent extraterrestrial life. She returns from this journey as a different person and discovers a new world for herself and for others, one in which science and belief can live side by side in the same society, community, and even in the same person.

Interstellar: Going on a Journey, Once Again

The last film I will refer to is Interstellar (Interstellar, USA / UK / Canada, 2014), Christopher Nolan’s monumental film that divided critics and audiences even more than his previous films. The plot takes place about seventy years into our future. Earth is experiencing an ecological catastrophe, one of the main symptoms of which are pests that completely eradicate grain crops, all over the world. Hunger grows, spreads. The collapse of human society is manifested, among other things, in the bankruptcy of governments and the gradual cessation of all technological development – including the American space program. In the midst of these terrible days, a human group, the last NASA astronauts, embark on a secret journey to discover new worlds, where there may be a future, hope, for humankind. The film’s protagonist is Joe “Cope” Cooper (played by Matthew McConaughey, who also played the character of Palmer in Contact), a former pilot who leads the team on a journey filled with surprises and turmoils all the way to the edge of the universe, and back.

Nolan is unmistakable a commercial director, whose films are hugely popular, but he is also one of the great film artists of our time, a creator with a unique footprint who repeatedly deals with the themes of time, dream and memory – making a spectacular and exciting use of the artistic means of big budget cinema. Interstellar is perhaps the pinnacle of Nolan’s career, especially when it comes to exploiting the capabilities of using editing as a tool that breaks down the film into layers and loads scenes with meanings, by comparing them.

Interstellar resembles the previous films mentioned in this article, which were produced and shown in a gap of 20 years from one another, both in the thematic engagement with the father/daughter relationship (and, as mentioned above, with the generational continuity as a motive of sci-fi movies) and of course in the familiar collision between religion and science, spirit and matter, faith and knowledge. All these are embodied in Cooper’s character, the cynical realist, who receives a lesson about faith and love.

Like Solaris, the film exhibits a difference between Cooper’s family home, an old wooden house surrounded by a spacious green field, and the living and habitation environments later in the film – the NASA base, the space station, the spaceship and the various planets in which he and we visit – all designed in a monochromatic and cold fashion. This difference emphasizes home as a source of calm, naturalness and serenity (while the house gradually withers), as humanity is forced to leave its home and go search for a new one in space (calm, naturalness and serenity?).

The house. Interstellar (2014, USA/ UK/ CANADA) by director Christopher Nolan

Unlike previous films in which the father is left behind, in this film the absent father is himself the protagonist. Cooper leaves the country house and his family to join NASA, leaving behind his daughter and son. His daughter, Murphy “Murph, will have an essential role later in the plot: he gives her a watch upon embarking on the journey, a reoccurring motive in the film, in which time is a central, significant element, as any action taken by Cooper and his associates throughout space will affect the whole course of humanity (and this without entering into issues of private and general relativity – U.A).

Interstellar also resonates Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, whose shadow is cast on every cinematic journey into space that follows it (and of course based on the book of one of the greatest sci-fi writers of the 20th century, Arthur C. Clark). The name of the work (of Clark and Kubrick) is of course an echo of the Homeric Odyssey, the original story of homecoming. The enigmatic ending of Kubrick’s film, on which complete texts can be written in an attempt (without complete success, of course) to interpret it, is a clear example of the integration of the concept of “home” and the infinite spaces of space – and of course the phenomenon of the unheimlich in cinema. Like Dave Bowman, the protagonist of Kubrick’s film, who finds himself crashing into infinity – aging in a peculiar home created for him, and eventually dying and being reborn as a space baby, a new swallow for a new humanity, space humanity, somewhere in the universe. Cooper in Interstellar also goes out to infinity, but only to get back to his home and daughter. The home in the moments of his return is embodied by an old wooden library; with the help of Murph he saves humankind from extinction and ensures the continuity of generations.

In between. Dave in the waiting room with the monolith. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, USA / UK), directed by Stanley Kubrick

Like in Solaris and Contact, in Interstellar, homecoming is only possible when receiving help (in this case from a completely unexpected source), one that raises questions about faith and science. The enigmatic end of the film can be viewed as an attempt to present a connection between the eternal and infinite universe and the soul of the individual, and his existential need of home and family as a source of meaning. And back to the beginning of the article: the journey expresses the man’s need, in recognition of infinity, to place himself within it, or in front of it; as a response to the basic human need to understand the universe and existence – and its place in them.

The homecoming in Nolan’s film takes place in stages. In the last one, when Cooper wakes up and discovers that he is in a huge space station that simulates the old world, the world in which he grew up, the world he remembers from his youth (sort of, gravity for example does not work the same way, ‘minutiae’ – U.A). As an act of respect for him, an exact replica of his family home was built (reality and world and a house, which are both familiar and strange for Cooper, in an unheimlich manner – U.A). Cooper returns to the replica, which resonates ideologically with the copied father Allie meets me at the end of Contact, and of course also with the copied house at the end of Solaris – only to realize that home it is not the same home, and he himself is not the same person.

The late homecoming is most strongly expressed in the moving scene of Cooper’s encounter with his daughter, whom he meets, due to the effects of space travelling in enormous speeds (relative speeds, close to the speed of light- U.A), when she is now an old lady, significantly older than him (she us still wearing the watch he gave her when he set out on the journey.) Cooper returns home too late with the ultimate sacrifice for his daughter and for the continued existence of humanity – but he still enjoys moments of comfort, an indulgence on the memory of the almost forgotten, old world, which does not exist anymore.

At the end of the film, Nolan gives “Coop” and us, hope – for all of humanity and for the realization of a private love, both of which seemed lost. After the painful, difficult, exhausting journey he experienced; after the impossible homecoming, Cooper realized that the home he returned to was not his home anymore. With full knowledge of what awaits him, he decides to leave Earth again, embarking on the journey anew.

Going on a journey, again. (2014, USA/ United Kingdom/ Canada). Directed by Christopher Nolan.

Except Cooper’s inner and spiritual search, in Interstellar, the entire humanity seeks (and even finds) a new home instead of the previous home which was completely demolished; a place to which you can cling, feel safe in it in the future. As in other science fiction films the personal journey is also a collective journey. The journeys of one, or of one team, is the journey of the entire humanity.

The three films mentioned here, as well as other science fiction works, literary and cinematic and in every media, re-engage with the concept of “home” and homecoming to explore the human psyche and the connections between it and its environment on earth. Science fiction works in general, and literary and cinematic journeys into space in particular, open for us a window into infinite worlds and spaces that can be explored, from which one can be impressed, inspired, excited, be careful of, but in the end, from which one can return home (“The real journey is coming home”, Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed).

Where? – to the small planet, third from the sun, and as Karl Sagan writes – “The pale blue dot”, to which we still, and for the foreseeable future, call home.

Save the Children!

“Save the Children”! cried out thousands of women at intersections and street corners across the U.S. during the Spring and Summer months of 2020. In August of 2020, what became a movement – the women, the call, the signs and t-shirts – started appearing at President Trump’s election rallies.

In March and April of 2020 we all had much more free time on our hands and most of us found ourselves spending most of it online, in front of a myriad of screens our home is equipped with. This dramatic increase brought with it greater attention to social media. One of the most common topics of discussion on social media in the US at the time became worry and care for children. Facebook Groups and (mostly female) communities on other social media platforms, usually dealing with nutrition and dieting, health supplements, fitness, yoga, and the like, became increasingly concerned with the fate of American children. #savethechildren started trending on Twitter.

Naturally, we take care of children, but… How did this happen? Why now, more than ever? What is so threatening the well-being of children? From what do we need to save the children of America (and the whole world)? And what made Facebook block the use of the hashtag #savethechildren?

Save The Children protester, 22 August 2020, Chattanooga Tennessee, USA, Image: Troy Stolt, Chattanooga Times Free Press

To get to the bottom of this bizarre story we’ll have to go back in time to 1919. Following WWI, Europe was in ruin. The war followed by the Spanish influenza (now made famous again) was a one-two punch to European society and economy. One of the most severe problems was hunger, and the immediate victims, as always, were children. The collapsing economy brought with it reports of famine among the children of Hungary, Austria and Germany, reports that were too unbearable for two British humanitarian activists – Eglantyne Jebb and her sister, Dorothy Buxton.

Dorothy and Eglantyne, daughters to a wealthy British family, took upon themselves the task of alleviating the effects of the economic and health catastrophe from the children of Europe, saving the unfortunate little ones from starvation. Thus, “Save the Children.” In May 1919 the “Save the Children” Fund was set up at a packed public meeting in London’s Royal Albert Hall, with the aim of raising emergency aid funds to help children suffering from malnutrition in post-war Europe.

Children fed by “Save the Children” in the 1921 famine in Russia

The sisters continued their sacred work for the children of the world up to the day they died, including drafting the “Declaration of the Rights of the Child” (Geneva, 1923), formulated by Eglantyne herself and adopted by the League of Nations and later, the United Nations. The fund continues its work for children in areas stricken by disaster and war all over the world to this day; it fights exploitation and abuse and works for the rights of children everywhere (1).

With intentions so pure and proper, why would Facebook temporarily block the use of the hashtag #savethechildren, identified with the fund and its activity?

To understand what Facebook has against the well-established fund, or against children in general (spoiler alert: nothing), one has to swim in the deep waters of conspiracy theories, deep dive into the mega-theory, now well-known under the moniker of QAnon.

According to the believers of this malicious conspiracy theory, there’s a secret cabal of demonic creatures that walk among us, creatures who impersonate ordinary humans, while running world governments, society and culture, both from the top, and behind the scenes, directing processes and events for their own personal and evil benefit. Some say they are aliens (lizard people – from the Alpha-Draconis star system, obviously) or possibly creatures from the depths of the Earth (which is hollow/flat). Some will outright say these are demons, following Satan. The saner people among the believers will argue that these are all sophisticated and inspiring metaphors used among their surrounding circle of believers, but in practice these are simply particularly abominable human beings.

The Draco Constellation, from the Uranometria Star Atlas (Ulm, 1661) by Johann Bayer

What is clear to all believers is that this small group – whether there are humans, reptilians or energy vampires – is unimaginably rich, controls all positions of power in the world – politics, finance, religion, media, science, culture – and perpetuates with its immense power a false perception that the masses (all of us) cannot help but believe. If the story resonates with conspiracy theories you may well know about the Freemasons, the Illuminati or just plain old Protocols-of-Zion Jews, then don’t be surprised, these are of course incorporated in the twists and turns of many conspiratorial belief, including being at the heart of this one.

Some “truths” of the QAnon cannon that are important you should know (these are independent beliefs, believing in one concept does not necessitate believing in all of them): the Earth is flat; humans have never landed on the Moon and all space projects are astronomical lies; Obama is Hitler’s grandson; No plane crashed on 9/11; most recently, the 1/6 US Capitol insurrection was an “inside job”, done by Antifa activists posing as Trump activists and/or, it actually never really took place, it’s all “fake”, what we see on the news are paid actors performing on a Hollywood set.

What else is clear as daylight to all QAnon believers? What’s the most heinous act? That alleged Satanic elite group, they kidnaps children and exploits them, sexually (2). From this misguided and preposterous belief the road to “Save the Children” signs at Trump rallies is extremely short.

The conspirators believe in various fictitious tales about CoVid19. In April 2020 a field hospital was opened in Central Park, NYC, for the treatment of CoVid19 patients. The reasoning, funding and organization were contested, but there was no question – it helped people, treated patients. For QAnon acolytes it was obvious the entire operation was a cover story for the smuggling of innocent children into the evil mechanisms of the pedophile lizard people.

From whom should we save the children then? Not from the horrors of war, not from hunger, disease or extreme poverty (3), nor from sexual assault, that studies suggest occurs in places we identify as most safe (4). We must and will save children from pedophile aliens who wish to drink their blood for eternal youth.

How do you contend with pure evil? Few went out to the street corners, town squares, interstate intersections, doing the bare minimum and protest (by the way, the movement being predominantly female (5)). But as we all know, the main and best way to fight pure evil is rage, holy rage, preferably online – on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. They liked, commented and they shared, shared and shared (the QAnon feminine faith movement has been dubbed “Pastel QAnon“).

And so it happened that the well-intentioned, century-old fund, working for children’s rights and fights abuse, maltreatment, exploitation and trafficking of children all over the world, was forced to distance itself from a social campaign that bears its name in vain. The hashtag “Save the Children” had become, at least for a while, digital taboo.

Jake Angeli (born Jacob Anthony Angeli Chansley, better known as Q Shaman, at the 1/6 Insurrection, Capitol Hill, DC

The Monster

The past few decades mark a gradual but crucial awakening regarding sexual assault in general, of children in particular. We realize, more and more, the extent and manner in which these horrors are present in society, recognize the social institutions and organizations in which it exists and where it was, possibly still is, being all too often plastered, concealed, not to say sadly, preserved.

We’ve learnt that rape doesn’t occur in dark allyways, perpetrated by shadowy attackers. Rape usually occurs in intimate, close situations, surroundings understood to be most safe, benign, homely. At home, with family.

Worst of all is sexual abuse of children, of the helpless. Over the past few decades we’ve learnt, it’s been exposed, that child sexual assault is much more common than assumed and occurs in the places supposed to be the safest for children: churches, little league sports teams, schools and kindergartens (and in Israel, the children’s home of the Kibbutz). Safest of all and therefore worst of all is also most prominent – most sexual child assaults take place at home and within the family.

The disillusionment is inevitable but also necessary, as the crisis breaks people apart. The recognition that school, church, soccer practice or little league and of course, home itself, are not the safe place we believed them to be but a potential crime scene, is a horrific understanding that’s not easily digestible, for some. The difficulty is clear, understandable, undeniable, but the intensity of the pain involved correlates to the magnitude of denial and the social-cultural-psychological monster created.

The parish priest, the baseball coach and of course – neighbors, uncles, relatives and our most cherished and intimate loved ones – they are not the ones to hurt our children. Not possible. Inconceivable. Impossible. We won’t allow it. Not Way. The solution – a world-wide conspiracy of powerful monsters.

We alienate, as individuals and as a society, threats and fears. As we alienate, we also sometimes demonize. The Science fiction and horror genres often engage with imagery of the terrifying other, the peculiar stranger, but a deeper terror, a more disturbing otherness, lies in the alienation from the familiar, the ordinary, the well-trod – the unheimlich.

The Uncanny Familiar – Das Unheimlich

In 1919, as the Jebb sisters were working relentlessly in Great Britain to “Save the Children” of Europe from starvation, Freud published his article Das Unheimliche (translated as “The Uncanny” to English).

Dana Tor elaborates on the article, whose connections to literature, science fiction and horror works are plentiful (Freud analyzes the works of E.T.A Hoffman, and in particular  his story “The Sandman”. Hoffman was one of the most significant proto-science fiction creators of the late 18th century).

Das Unheimliche, Sigmund Freud 1919

Freud made the Uncanny famous in his 1919 essay by that name, Das Unheimliche, exploring the eeriness of dolls and waxworks, but for a century it remained a professional term used in a few very specific disciplines: psychology, sociology, literature and cinema, robotics and animation. It seldom made it into idle conversation, you didn’t hear it in small-talk or around the family dinner table.

Nowadays – everyone, everywhere, whether knowingly or not, is talking about it. We’ve all experienced in the flesh the unsettling feeling of the strangely familiar, the unheimlich. The Uncanny is all around us – in our haunted homes, beaming from our screens, in the streets – emptied out, now strangely revitalized, our cities, muted and mutated. It’s in the fabric of everyday life, in the sudden strangeness of daily routines. A fear not triggered by alienation, not external…  A fear coming from inside the house!

The now well-known meme, “It’s Coming From Inside the House!” originates in the 1979 horror film “When a Stranger Calls”

None of us are strangers to the disruption of daily life: urban space, family or home. Israelis are well acquainted with sudden recruitment for military reserve duty or with the immediate need to seek shelter from missiles and terror attacks, and we’re not alone with any of this; Wars, terror attacks, nuclear accidents, oil spills and natural disasters afflict every region, strain economies, scar cities, injure homes and families.

Nonetheless, we’re still far from a complete understanding of the exceptionality of the CoVid19 event in history, being both on a global scale, but also extremely intimate.

At a particular moment in 2020, billions of people all over the world experienced a complete upheaval of their lives and routines as they were asked, sometimes required, to quarantine in their homes, to shelter in place. This, surprisingly, did not coincide with reports from the frontlines, at least not as we were used to them – Hospital Wing C isn’t exactly The Somme, Iwo Jima or NYC on 9/11. There were no reports from the engineering teams at the nuclear accident or from the rescue efforts at the Tsunami-hit coastal region.

The shock itself includes a disruption of perspectives. We receive periodic reports from the Ministry of Education about the opening and closing of kindergartens and schools; heated debates on the news about visits to mom and dad, grandma and grandpa and how to celebrate Passover Seder, Thanksgiving or Christmas; And there’s also the many smaller personal dilemmas: do I hug the friend who went through a painful breakup, or the one who just found out has cancer  An alienation from the familiar, an intimate, uncanny strangeness that can only be defined as unheimlich, took over.

Tel Aviv during the first CoVid19 quarantine, April 2020, photo credit: Gideon Markovitz

We all went through, are still going through, a difficult and strange process of alienation, from what we know, perceive, identify, as normal, common, regular, as ourselves.

We were not drafted for military reserve duty, did not need to flee our own homes (on the contrary), we were not refugees nor were we in the trenches. Our trenches were the city streets and boulevards, our battlefield was on Zoom. A lull in the fight was a step from the bedroom to the kitchen, a return from the frontline – a drive from home to work.

We also had no idea if and which of these disruptions are temporary or permanent and if and which of these life changes are good or bad, which makes them even harder to address, to process, to understand how we feel about them.

Changes we did not know if they would be temporary or permanent (not to mention the complete confusion in scales of time and space – discussed in the previous Utopia issue about Inhuman Scales and the Hyperobject), are these good or bad changes (and to whom?) And therefore – how do we even refer to them?

All of this, along with the political shocks, social, economic and health distress, have generated in many increased anxieties, anxieties that have brought the uncanny to our mental doorstep and to the front and center of the psychological, social, and cultural stage. Das Unheimlich is among us, it has always been, and will always be. But, might the Uncanny be the new dominant fear in the soon to be “new normal” time? not fear of an unknown other, but fear of an unknowable self?

All roads lead to Das Unheimlich

“True Voyage is Return” – Ursula K Le Guin, The Dispossessed

Two processes led me in my thoughts to Das Unheimlich – the terrible realities that pushed so many people, desperate for meaning, to the Cartoon-ish conspiracy theory – QAnon; alongside my own daily CoVid19 anxieties and those of my immediate loved ones. The two processes met in one place – home.

The past year has given us a special one-time only focus, whether we wanted to or not, on our homes, and the very concept of home: figurative and physical; the private, family and social home; The technology, architecture and design of home; the psychological, economic, political home. Home provides shelter and comfort, all the while concealing secrets and pain. In the US this focus has led quite a few frightened individuals into the arms of a cult-like conspiracy theory, but this extreme scenario represents normal anxieties and fears that inhabit all of us.

The feeling of strangeness, the uncanny alienation from the familiar, understanding that true evil isn’t necessarily external but might be within us, inhabit us – part of our childhood memories, our own personality, the building blocks of the home we live in – I see all of these as important insights of our times. Threat, discomfort and even evil are all part of us, of who we are.

Hope is our mission at Utopia! We can only hope that CoVid19 will reduce our acts of alienation and demonization (6), precisely in light of the ongoing and powerful experience of the Unheimlich we are all experiencing together and especially with the understanding that the virus and pandemic can not be outed, alienated, from the human body or from human society. On the  contrary, fighting CoVid19 requires communal and geopolitical collaboration, alongside social solidarity, more than ever (while on the contrary the populists might use the moniker “China Virus”).

I truly hope and aspire for a future where we no longer imagine complete and utter evils that must be eradicated, we stop producing monsters – be they pedophile lizards, energy vampires, orcs in service of the dark lord, radical Islamic terrorists or Chinese virologists – and deal with discomfort, anxiety, fear and possibly even evil, which is not on another planet, but exists with us everywhere, even in the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom. At home. We might be better off not calling it evil, at all.

Acknowledging these homely, domestic, fears, anxieties and horrors, is a worthy task. We’ll never proclaim victory, never speak under a banner claiming “Mission Accomplished”.

US President George W. Bush announces end of military action in Iraq in an address to the nation aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, with the now infamous headline “Mission Accomplished”, 2 May 2003. Photo: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

but like the journey towards Utopia itself, the one that’s always on the horizon, it’s a commendable mission. The journey to Utopia teaches us how to be better people.

Author Ursula K. Le Guin wrote that “True voyage is return” (The Dispossessed, 1974). The journey to the Unheimlich, makes us better people, or at the very least, less anxious, which isn’t so bad as well.

A short history of predictive mathematics

In 1654 a series of letters written between Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat changed the world we live in. Although humans have speculated about their future, betted on it and attempted to predict it through the ages, they were previously unable to calculate it. Pascal and Fermat opened up the idea and the possibility of predicting the future by calculating probabilities.

Today, we have become used to shaping our lives by calculating risks. How likely am I to find a good job if I study a certain subject at university? How much should I be investing in a pension fund, in order to live a comfortable life when I am old? Before Blaise and Pascal, this was an alien way of thinking. More so, we shape our world by letting algorithms calculate these risks for us.

In their exchange of letters, Blaise and Pascal created the mathematical foundations needed to work with big data for predictive analytics. Predictive analytics describes the practice of “extracting information from existing data sets in order to determine patterns and predict future outcomes and trends”. A number of statistical techniques are used to conduct predictive analytics, from data mining, modeling, and machine learning, all intended to analyse historical information, or rather information gathered in the past in order to make predictions about the unknown and upcoming. Predictive analytics cannot tell what will happen in the future, but what is likely to happen in the future based on the inputted data. However, often, we pretend it does exactly that (1).

Today, we live in a world driven by prediction through big data and algorithms. Every day, we let algorithms decide what movie we might want to watch next, which stocks to invest in, which advertisement we’re most likely to react to and what choices our self driving cars should make. Our data is gathered with or without consent and harvested by data scientists who use it to “guess the future” (2). This is not all at all a negative development per se. Many social use cases are being developed, such as the predictive models developed for the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City to help them identify which students were at risk of dropping out of college even though they were close to graduating (3).

In our increasingly complex and information laden world, algorithms can be an important tool to help understand the world. Big data and AI based decision making can also be a perpetuator of existing biases and contribute to further establishing the already existing surveillance economy. Numerous documented cases of predictive policing gone wrong, or racist jail sentences being given out due to biased data, have demonstrated the dangers of relying on simplistic data models in sensitive social environments. Data determinism is not just impacting on our lives in such extreme or law enforcement situations, but on a daily basis. Social scoring is allowing data to rule over our lives and futures. Whilst we are eager to point the finger at the state surveillance and social scoring system employed in China, we often play down existing policies of Sillicon Valley companies imposing their rules on society by using similar technologies. An example; the AirBnB website states: “Every Airbnb reservation is scored for risk before it’s confirmed. We use predictive analytics and machine learning to instantly evaluate hundreds of signals that help us flag and investigate suspicious activity before it happens.” Recently, a number of reports covered the fact that this artificial intelligence is used to mark down users who were found to be “associated” with fake social network profiles, or if keywords, images or video associated with them are involved with drugs or alcohol, hate websites or organisations, or sex work. Because of this policy and the ability to crawl the web for information on peoples social media accounts, several sex workers accounts were erased, despite them having used AirBnB solely for private, touristic purposes, just like any other user (4).

Why is living in a world relying on big data prediction is a bad idea?

However, it is not just the negative examples such as amplifying racist biases through algorithmic jail sentencing and predictive policing or Orwellian social credit scoring systems that should make us weary to rely on these tools exclusively. The data driven realities and futures we are creating are based on data of the past, and will therefore always be a perpetuation of it. We need to compliment our big data in order to break free of the data deterministic structures we are programming today.

In her 2018 Tedx Cambridge talk, ethnographer and data scientist Tricia Wang explains why 73% of projects in the big data industry which is worth 122 billion dollars are not profitable. “Having more data is “not helping us make better decisions” because we are leaving out important perspectives to contextualize the data. Tricia Wang argues for the humanization of data – she calls “thick data” big data that has been enriched with non-quantifiable, qualitative data gathered from an ethnographic perspective that “delivers depth of meaning”. She draws this conclusion based on her own experience and research, for instance in 2009 in China, where she predicted the triumph of the smartphone over the feature phone but Nokia, the client she was doing research for, was unwilling to listen to the stories behind the data at the time and held on to the belief that people would not be willing to invest so much of their income in such a fragile device.

Failed data predictions shocked the world when President Trump came to power and when the UK voted for Brexit. Polls and other forms of prediction failed because the data was read without paying attention to the more nuanced shifts in political alliance and voter mobilization. Further, big data was used to target and directly influence millions of voters via social media channels, in particular Facebook through its involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal and other home-made platform mechanisms to micro-target voters in order to influence their political opinion. Big data failed society. It failed in predicting the actual outcomes of the votes as well as failing humanity in allowing a fair democratic process. In order to utilize data effectively, we have to enable ourselves to see what the data does not show us. Tricia Wang, warns “There is no greater risk than being blind to the unknown” (5).

 Political imagination and the eye for the unknown

How do we keep an open eye for the unknown? By speculating, by moving away from the data and opening our ideas to the possibilities of what lies outside the measurable.

In his 2018 talk, “The Political Tragedy of Data-Driven-Determinism” Mushon Zer-Aviv describes the process of deskilling through the integration of digital services into our everyday lives. Does it matter if we forget how to do simple arithmetic in our heads or learn to use a pen? Whilst it might be acceptable, that we are deskilling in the sense of no longer being able to read maps or remember phone numbers, it is not acceptable to lose our ability to imagine different futures. Zer-Aviv reminds us of the importance to maintain and train “our ability for political imagination” (6). Zer-Aviv goes on to explain that the 20th century has shown how one man’s utopia might be another man’s worst nightmare. That is why we need to think of the future not as a linear, deterministic future. Instead we need to think of the future as plurals. Because we tend to find it easier to formulate non-desirable futures in forms of dystopias, we require tools for the development of desirable futures.

 Power of speculations in today’s society

Speculation describes the process of “forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence” (7) or “the activity of guessing possible answers to a question without having enough information to be certain” (8). In today’s data driven society, speculation can be a liberating exercise. As Dunne and Rave argue in their book “Speculative Everything”:

“We believe that by speculating more, at all levels of society, and exploring alternative scenarios, reality will become more malleable and although the future cannot be predicted, we can help set in place… factors that will increase the probability of more desirable futures happening…equally, factors that may lead to undesirables futures can be spotted early on and addressed at least limited” (9).

 Authors from different disciplines, from the world of design, business development, games, and political philosophy, provide such tools. In the recent past, a number of methodologies and tools have been developed that invite us to speculate, imagine and create, rather than just calculate, analyze and assess. Such methodologies include:

Reflections on our digital Future(s)

Around three hundred years after Blaise and Pascal exchanged their letters and enabled humans to calculate probability of future events, Christopher Strachey created one of the first letter writing algorithms. In 1952, Christopher Strachey created what has been called the first piece of digital literary art. He wrote a “combinatory love letter algorithm for the Manchester Mark 1 computer” (10). 

In 2019 artists like Refik Anadol are experimenting with algorithms and imagination. His installation “Latent Being” is an attempt to create an algorithm that “dreams” about Berlin by creating “imagined” reflections of the city and the visitors. Anadol wants to create machines that allow us “to think beyond our linear life and have a new type of imagination”. Thereby stretching the boundaries of speculation what we so far defined as imagination and speculation (11). Whilst we are teaching our machines to be creative, let us retain that creativity ourselves and explore what we can achieve in combining the two.

The world of cinema has been introduced to Mattie Do in the past few years as the first female film director out of Laos. However, there is a great disservice made with this honor.

Few in Israel, and abroad, have heard of Laotian cinema, since the Laotian film industry had only begun forming in 2008, beforehand there was not much Laotian cinema. During this period, the socialist-totalitarian regime of Laos decided to direct funds to the field. Do found herself in a unique cinematic opportunity, in the heart of the industry, at the right place and time when the state was looking for professional stakeholders to establish the industry. Mattie Do made her first film in 2011, so she is not only the first Laotian director but also one of the pioneers of Laotian cinema in general, and the one who has brought Laos the most recognition and prestige in the international arena so far (her third film, The Long Walk, was the first submitted by Laos for the Foreign Film Award of the American Film and Television Academy.) Do became a producer, producing for herself and others.

We highly recommend watching the conversation we had with Mattie Do (and her co-producer, Annick Mahnert) and discover the unique story of her evolution into filmmaking.

First row, right to left: Pablo Otin, Uri Aviv, Anick Mehanerert. Second row, right to left: Eitan Gafni, Matti Do, Yuval Adar

The most striking thing about Do’s cinema is perhaps the fact that all three of her films so far fall under the category of horror films, but to place them in one genre category or another is a disservice to their distinct uniqueness, which led them to be accepted into major film institutions such as the Venice and Toronto Film Festivals. Her films are indeed all ghost stories, and all include elements of horror (and a medley of other genre elements – from time travel to dystopian technological retro-futurism), but they break genre definitions and frameworks, while providing a sensations of intimate, slow and spiritual arthouse dramas.

Mattie Do

Dance of the Spirits

The inspiration for the unique way in which Do deals with ghosts originated from two prominent sources. Ballet and Laotian culture. Do’s journey in artistic craft began in dance and with her training and experience as a ballet dancer. She grew up in the USA, studied and performed in many places as a ballet dancer. Her connection to dance and the way ghost stories are told in ballet performances is prominently present in her films. In quite a few ballet works, the dead and the living dance side by side in harmony but also violently, and in constant tension with each other. Thus also the characters in Mattie Do’s cinema. The appearance of the ghosts is on the one hand “natural”, self-evident. It is clear that there are ghosts and that they communicate with us. Sometimes there is even something friendly about them. On the other hand there is the constant threat of the stranger, the dead, the avenger, the outcast, the spirit that does not rest in peace and needs the living to realize some kind of action in order to be liberated or arrive at a place of tranquility.

In the conversation we had with her, Mattie Do says that in Laotian culture there is a natural relationship with ghosts. The spirits can be of family or close people who simply remain in the world even after their death, and people can feel them, see them. They live (-die) among us. A perception that creates comfort in many ways. Mattie Do adds that talking about a ghost is seen as something not unorthodox in Laos, as a cultural issue. Of course, such a concept also exists in the West, but it is much more repressed and shows up mainly in fantasy stories and the like.

A photo from Chanthaly, Do’s debut film, 2012

The Horror in Family

Do’s cinema is also a low-budget, small, intimate, chamber cinema. It usually deals with a few characters in a relatively limited space, and explores the way in which each of the characters changes, develops, and the relationships between them. In fact, Do’s films are all family films: relationships between father and daughter, son and mother, cousins ​​who call each other “sister” and the like.

In many ways, Do’s films deal with the horror of family ties. In Do’s films, the horror comes from the family relationships themselves. The family relationship is the source of anxiety, fear, violence, tension, and suspicion. But at the same time, the family is also the one that saves us from all these feelings and gives us feelings of love, belonging and support.

On a deep psychological level, Do’s films are a psychological analysis of the complexity of family relationships and how paradoxically, in limited and suffocating familial spaces of the home, safe spaces are also created, which protect us from all harm and which we also always long, or yearn for. Therefore, in her films, as in almost every good horror film, it is actually difficult to identify who the real “monster” is, who we are supposed to be afraid of and who is actually protecting us. Things get mixed up and turned upside down. Does the threat come from the ghost? From a family member? From someone else entirely? Do we identify with the savior or the murderer?

Eventually, at the center of Do’s films is an honest emotional-psychological world. At the heart of her films is often the simple and deep desire to talk to family members, to be close to them, and feel their presence, whether they are alive or dead. But this desire is also spiked with anxiety and horror. Mattie Do’s life story contributes a lot to understanding the emotional depth of this dimension in her films. Because Do lost her mother when she was in her 20s and actually returned to Laos out of concern for her father, and has lived there ever since.

A photo from Dearest Sister, Do’s second film, 2016

Slow Pace is the Pace of Horror

Perhaps the most challenging element about Mattie Do’s work is the slow pace. Do does indeed make horror films, but as mentioned, she makes them in the context of art cinema that breaks familiar and conventional structures. Towards the end of each of her films we will discover some new piece of information, a plot twist will be discovered, or a new narrative element will be formed in relation to the character that will add another emotional and philosophical layer to the film, a layer of understanding and wisdom will be added to the story. But to get there, Do takes her time. She observes her heroes, investigates their gazes, the way they sit, move in space, walk, stand, and fear (and in this context, too, the connection to ballet is of course essential. Do does not treat lightly the postures and delicate movements of the hands, head, or body). The connection between the production’s lack of resources and the fact that the film “takes its time”, may make it difficult to watch, but two interesting things happen in this context.

First is that in fact, despite the slow pace, a lot of information is being revealed all the time. Things consistently happen and unfold. There is a kind of gap in the film between information that is constantly flowing and the presentation of this information in a routine, sometimes anti-dramatic way. As if there was a gap between the intensity of the events that happen in the film and their everydayness. Ghosts appear, family secrets are revealed, people around are suspected of malicious plots, paranoia can envelop any scene with the feeling that characters are lying or hiding things – and yet, everything is presented in a calm, meditative, slow manner.

Sometimes Do does the opposite and makes complete dramatic moves very quickly. An example of this can be found in her second film Dearest Sister. The film is about a heroine who comes from a small village to take care of her cousin in the city. At the beginning of the film, against the background of a conversation between the two heroines, Do makes a kind of montage of how the heroine from the village fits into the life of the new urban house, where she has just arrived, and its strangeness. Another director would have given the scene 15 minutes, Mattie Do presents in a minute and with brilliant conciseness and precision. From here we learn that the pacing itself is a conscious choice, Do knows how to tell stories in a rhythmic and effective way when she means to, and sometimes does, and yet, she prefers the slow warm-up, bringing her films to a simmer over low heat.

Also derived from the slow pace is the idea that, in fact, this is the pace of horror. When we talk to someone and tell them something that happened to us, as soon as we slow down the rate of speech, immediately automatically, we will create an aesthetic response to this slowing down associated with tension, like writing an ellipsis…. Therefore, the same story can be told at a fast pace, but as soon as you slow down, horror starts seeping in. Therefore, in many ways, a slow pace is the pace of horror – and thanks to this slowness, Mattie Do succeeds in creating a gentle scary atmosphere (as mentioned, over low heat), throughout the entire film. And so, something that can be experienced as oppressive in the bad sense of the word – oppressive as in “stuck”, “not progressing”, etc., can be experienced as “oppressive” in the aesthetic, experiential, positive sense. In other words, Mattie Do’s films can produce a refined and directed existential anguish precisely thanks to their slowness.

A photo from The Long Walk, Do’s third film, 2019, nominated for Laos (the first ever) for the Foreign Oscar, premiered at the Venice Festival

Poverty Porn

Another and last point I will raise here regarding the cinema of Mattie Do, and it is perhaps the most basic and related to genre films and our expectations (viewers and moviegoers from all over the world) of non-Western films and countries of the Global South. Mattie Do criticizes these expectations both in the interviews she gives and in the conversation we conducted. According to her (and I agree with her), in the institution of major international festivals and of art cinema, there is often a system that fetishizes poverty or those perceived as “exotic” by “the West”. This expectation is for the cinema to provide some kind of “authentic” image of the place it comes from, when this image is based on the description of the village life and the poverty and simplicity of the locals. Mattie Do rebels against these expectations.

Do says that although there are people who live like this, in the Global South in general, and in Laos in particular, but when she suffered criticism that the description of city life in Laos is in fact an “inauthentic” description of her country – it lit a red light of rage in her and immediately raised the question of what is authentic and who defines authenticity. What are Western creators allowed to do that people from poor and underprivileged countries are not allowed to do. This can be paralleled to expecting Israeli films to deal with the conflict, the army, the Holocaust, or the religious world and to reduce Israeliness to a caricature of the exoticism these subjects bring. In fact – this exoticism is perceived as Israeli authenticity by the world.

In the context of Mattie Do, she fit in well at the genre film festivals where this expectation is less dominant, but she very quickly moved to art film festivals as well. The zigzag between the two worlds allows her to make her films very freely. She makes artistic genre films, and is not willing to give in to the exotic expectations of her. She manages to make “authentic” films that are rooted in Laotian culture, language and society, while at the same time avoiding playing the game of turning its culture into an exotic caricature for Western eyes.

In her third film The Long Walk, Mattie Do began the project as a form of defiance against these expectations of her – what she calls in her words “third world poverty porn” – and the reference is to the erotic-ideological pleasure that these types of films bring to the Western bourgeoisie. The film itself begins with a villager in Laos living in his hut in the wild. But very quickly it turns out to be a movie set in the future (science fiction) where the man travels through time and communicates with spirits. And so Mattie Do supposedly lives up to the expectations, but at the same time mocks them and dismantles them.

All of Mattie Do’s films are unique, and although there are throughlines and motifs, each of them is unique in its own way. The spotlight program about Mattie Do at the Utopia 2020 festival is a rare opportunity to get to know surprising, fundamentally different and mesmerizing cinema and to discover a valued and exciting filmmaker.

Life with CoVid-19 changed the way we perceive measurement units (Eden Kupermintz describes this well in our opening article) and redefined our familiar spaces. On the one hand, our spaces shrunk. Whether it is to a 500 meter radius, an apartment or a small room in a retirement home, the physical space became a confined one. On the other hand, the space we are conscious of has substantially grown: the occurrences in other countries and continents became more relevant than ever. We found ourselves imbibing reports, personal testimonials and speculations from every media source, with thirst. As a global phenomenon, the pandemic is found in many places at once, spreads out in time to the past, the present and potential futures, with forecasts of waves and lockdowns looming. It ties together previously unrelated issues, such as flu season, remote learning and the decrease in oil prices. It is abstract, it is everywhere and it is always on our mind.

Hyperobjects: Outline and Characteristics

The engagement with concepts of inhuman scales has been gaining traction and popularity since 2010 in the philosophy of ecology (1). Humanity’s impact  on the environment (and vice versa, that of the environment on humanity) has been studied under the term “hyperobject”. Hyperobjects (2), according to British philosopher Timothy Morton (3), are tremendously large-scale phenomena. They are so large that we cannot attribute a specific time or place to them. Unlike regular objects, these hyperobjects have no clear beginning or end, neither in time, nor in space. Norton borrows the catchy term from computer science: a multidimensional, non-local object (denoting n-dimensional non-local entities). He connects the scientific term to pop culture, specifically to the lyrics of ‘Hyperballad’ (4) (1996) song by acclaimed Icelandic singer and artist, Bjork. Hyperballad is a love song depicting a relationship in which two lovers hide their flaws from one another, but the song also describes an abusive relationship between humans, the tools they make and their surroundings.

Hyperobjects, Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World, 2013, Author: Timothy Morton

This intersection is the starting point for Morton’s philosophy, uniting ecology (the interaction between organisms) and ontology [the nature of (human) being]. Morton argues (5) (similarly to the OOO: the Object-Oriented Ontology school of thought), that human beings are of similar significance as animals or rocks. He also challenges the  distinction between “man” and “nature”, “natural” and “synthetic”. People and environment are equal players in a closed system. Every action that humans perform in the environment, will reverberate back to them.

Originally, the term “Hyperobject” illustrates the connection between ecological catastrophes to our personal experience of them. At its core, a hyperobject quite simply blows your mind: it is vague, it is larger than life. By engaging with Hyperobjects, we better understand our relationship with ourselves and our surroundings. Newscasts, editorial articles, tweets – are all a reminder that every act has an affect on the environment and that eventually, it comes back to us. We dispose of tons of plastic into the ocean? We will end up eating that plastic with the fish that we’ll be having for dinner (Morton himself compares these relations to Blade Runner: The hunter that hunts it/himself).

Enormous, Molten and Viscous

How do we identify enormous and obscure concepts? Take the example of a climate disaster: on the one hand, we all know what it is about. We now identify hurricanes, droughts, icebergs melting or flash floods, and we’re able to see them as part of a bigger phenomenon, much bigger than each of them, individually. On the other hand, we cannot tell when it all began. Is humanity’s destructive impact on the environment dated to the 20^th century? Perhaps it began with the industrial revolution, or possibly the Neolithic revolution? When and Where did it start? When and will it end? As far as hyperobjects are involved, time and space intermix, we witness them at all times, everywhere.

One cannot see or touch a hyperobject, but we know it’s out there, through data.  While global warming is not visible to the naked eye, its effects are seen, measured and well documented in extreme temperatures, the rise of sea level and the quantity of CO2 emissions. Data and scientific analysis point to global warming.

Finally, once we become aware of the hyperobject we cannot forget it, dismiss it or deny it. It will stick to every aspect of our lives and it will change the way we see the world.

Inhuman Scale, in Architecture

Architecture, much like philosophy, mediates the personal and the environment. Its purpose is to protect and adjust environments for humans to inhabit, through the creation of space. Therefore  it deals with practical knowledge: the powers acting on a structure, the systems operating a structure, its temperatures, acoustics, etc. Architecture is a craft: it engages with form, matter and fabrication processes. It is also an art, it has the expressive capability for abstract ideas.

Architecture uses in-human scales to contemplate the relationship between humans and their environment. Following are four leading examples:

Enormity and the New God: Boullée’s Infinity

Long before the erection of the first modern planetarium, French architect Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799) designed a structure aimed to send its visitors to space. Boullée devised his most important works while teaching at the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in the latter half of the 18^th century; most of which were not built. Theoretical architecture holds an inherent advantage: it can be wilder than anything existing in  real life. The Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton (6) is an enormous, round structure, accessed by an external stairway. The internal space is round and almost completely dark. Minute spherical openings in the structure’s shell allow shallow light in, mimicking the night sky, filled with stars. The Cenotaph, referencing the Pyramids in Giza, associates the deceased (Newton) with eternity, with the sky and his ascendance as god. Boullée builds a religious sepulcher for a secular god, the scientist.

“Sublime spirit! Vast and profound genius! Divine being! Accept the homage of my weak talents… Oh, Newton!” – Étienne-Louis Boullée’s dedication to the Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton

Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton, 1784, Exterior View, Etienne Louie Boullee, Image Source © Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Cenotaph for Sir Isaac Newton, 1784, Cross-sectional view, Etienne Louie Boullee, Image Source © Bibliothèque Nationale de France

Science’s prominence over religion is part of Boullée’s message, echoing  the Enlightenment movement. Entering  the vast, dark and empty space, the visitor is confronted with the new scientific truth about the world: it is infinite. The space embalms the sheer size of the cosmos and man’s scantiness in comparison. In this example, architectural design declares a new world order and a new god: science.

Size and Power: Shpeer’s Horror

The National-Socialist party in Germany used every trick in the book to convey the supremacy of the Aryan race and the party’s natural right to power.

In August 1933, already Chancellor of Germany, Hitler declares the city of Nuremberg as congress center of the Nazi party. The focus on the somewhat-boring Bavarian city stems from its historical role: during the middle-age it served as the administrative center and unofficial capital of the Holy Roman Empire. Hitler writes a new historical narrative for the German people, doing so in part through architecture. He holds that the Third Reich is a direct descendant of the Second Reich, reprising Germany’s grand role in Europe up to the Great War (WWI), it in itself being the direct successor of the First Reich, (The Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, with its center in Germany). The latter being the immediate and supposed successor to The Roman Empire of antiquity. Hitler wants to be Caesar.

Lichtdom, Nazi Rally in the Cathedral of Light, 1937, Image Source

To convince the Germans that they are a noble breed worthy of Empire, a colossal  compound is built. Between the years 1933-1938, Albert Speer, the National-Socialist party’s architect and Hitler’s accomplice in the design of their abhorrent utopia, designs and (partly) executes a series of buildings, aimed at the glorifcation of the German people and the Nazi party. The compound serves mostly as headquarters and stage for Nazi propaganda, the Nuremberg Rallies.  Enveloping the parade ground, Der Lichtdom, the “Cathedral of Lights” was erected: a giant light-installation  made of spotlights illuminating 12 km up to the sky. Speer used the Luftwaffe search lights, originally intended to search and illuminate enemy aircraft as they were shot out of the sky by anti-aircraft guns. The huge rally arena, marching armies and light-installation splicing the night sky, all demonstrate power. The aesthetic and historic gesture, conjoining military and national power, tells the story of an empire with sacred foundations.

Hitler and Speer harness the hyperobject for the purposes of their powerful propaganda.

Infinity and Death: Kusama’s Contagious Insanity

Coping with incomprehensible concepts that contain and consume us is constantly present at the heart of the creative work of  Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama.

Infinity Mirrored Room – The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, 2013, Yayoi Kusama, Courtesy of David Zwirner, N.Y. © Yayoi Kusama, Image Source: https://ago.ca/exhibitions/kusama

Kusama, 91, is known for her iconic works, creative art that’s sprinkled with intense colors, and for her kaleidoscopic, reflective installations. Her aesthetic is a result of both choice and coercion: a way to deal with the visual hallucinations she suffers from a young age. Kusama copes with a history of abuse, her phobias and an obsessive-compulsive mental disorder, by depicting the world as she experiences it.

In a series of installations called “Infinity Rooms” (7), Kusama has created over 20 kaleidoscopic playful  environments that invite participants to take part and perceive a version of her hallucinations. The 2013 installation Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away, is a room of mirrors designed for a single visitor. As the door closes, movement detectors illuminate the performative space, the Infinity Mirrored Room, with obscure, flickering lights, reflecting in the mirror-covered walls. The viewer watches infinite space as it duplicates their one viewing angle and completely eliminates it, in another.

The Superhuman: Hansmeyer’s Machine

The showdown between man and machine is ever-present in the works of German architect and software programmer, Michael Hansmeyer. Hansmeyer studies digital design and fabrication in architecture and art-installations. He is one of the prominent architects to belong to the Neo-Baroque art-movement. A style characterized by exuberant, lavish  detail, meshed into a single sequence. The aesthetic of Neo-Baroque and hyperobjects is similar: they both describe objects whose beginning and end are obscure (according to art scholar Ernst Hans Gombrich in his book Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (1977) (8). Hansmeyer’s designs are the product of repetitive mathematical calculations and generative algorithms. The hyper-aesthetic result can only exist as a result of a machine’s calculative operation. Similarly, using 3D printing, laser cutting and robotic arms (9). A design aesthetic so congested and accurately manufactured, it evokes simultaneous feelings of astonishment and estrangement. Its’ perfection raises a troubling thought: the supremacy of machine over human competence.

Muqarnas, 2019, Michael Hansmeyer, Image Source: http://www.michael-hansmeyer.com/

For thousands of years architecture has put humans at the center of all things: the architectural space was made by humans, for humans. Tools and habitats were made to protect them from the natural environment and adapt it to their needs. Paradoxically, man-made technological advancements destabilize human-control. When technology develops, it inevitably changes the environment and its inhabitants/users.

Technological advancements of the 19th century industrial revolution (the production line, steel, cement and glass) in architecture gave way to massive bridges, skyscrapers and train stations. While technological progress benefited the economy and changed the face of the city, it also brought resistance.

The Flatiron Building, NYC, 1903 Image, one of the skyscrapers of the new age of New York City. Image Source: Wikipedia, The Detroit Photographic Company

The Arts and Crafts Movement reinstated traditional craftsmanship and manual labour. Leaders of the movement opposed the repetitive aesthetics of the production line and encouraged a return to traditional methods of production, in Central Europe, the United States and Japan. Writer John Ruskin (1819-1900), a key figure of the movement, argued that the question of mechanical production is a moral question: It is immoral to produce something utilizing a mediator and not yourself. 130 years later the city of Detroit, the diamond jewel in the crown of the industrial revolution in the United States, declared bankruptcy. The technology that the United States cherished so dearly, became irrelevant due to international competition and continual innovation.

Technological innovations advanced quickly and without any correlation with market or employment. The replacement of employees with advanced instruments, or automation, eradicates old professions and changes the social-economical fabric. Societies that do not offer workers assistance in transitioning into new professional fields and markets, fail, Detroit being a prime example, one of many. No wonder we dread superhuman performances: years of life under unconstrained Capitalism makes innovation look like a bad omen. Under the theme of ‘Digital Grotesque’, Hansmeyer’s designs embody the fear of the reversal of powers in the relationships between man and machine – from master to slave.

Arabesque Wall, 2015, Michael Hansmeyer and Benjamin Dillinburger, ETH Zurich, Image Source: http://www.michael-hansmeyer.com

From Aesthetics to Revolution

The way in which we imagine the future is influenced by the technologies we possess. The four architectural examples described herein form fantastical environments, spanning the 18th to 21st  centuries. The more recent the example, the more sophisticated are the creative instruments used in its design: from sketches to lighting displays, sensors and code. In reverse relation, the more advanced the technology, the smaller the design;. from an enormous cenotaph and a parade ground to a single room installation and computer simulation. To envision infinity, one no longer needs infinite space.

Infinity evokes emotions of both amazement and horror. Philosopher Emanuel Kant explains the  contradiction through “The Sublime”. A paradoxical feeling towards an object, enormous, awesome, and horrible all at once, summoning both extreme anxiety and immense pleasure. Kant uses this term to describe people’s encounter with natural phenomena, facing a massive mountain range or an eclipse of the Sun. These are the moments when we experience infinity and our own imperfections, compared to it.

Speer uses inhuman-scale differently. While the other designs are open to interpretation, Speer’s has an unequivocal message. As an agent of a bigger force (the Nazi party), he enlists the hyperobejct to glorify the German National Socialist movement. In the example of the Cathedral of Lights, Speer uses grandiosity to enchant the viewer and present the Aryans as an infinite, enormous genus. This type of artistic messagary is mostly referred to as “Kitsch”: a manipulation on the viewers to perceive only specific pre-concieved messages (10) (A Theory of Mass Culture, 1954, MacDonald). Like previous examples, kitsch utilizes detail-abundance and exceptional size. But unlike high-art, kitsch has no criticism or hidden layers. Author Milan Kundera wrote that kitsch is an emotion that we experience together as an audience, instead of as critical individuals, commonly used by totalitarian regimes. Totalitarian regimes do it all the time: the Nazis, the Fascists and the USSR under Stalin used simplified representations of reality to sweep the masses and suppress opposition. Pictures of blond moms with perfect blond children? Nazi Kitsch cultivating xenophobia. Hard-working men and women satisfied with their lot? Stalinist Kitsch masking exploitation and social inequality. The Kitsch is so captivating, that it is blinding. The Kitsch creator designs an aesthetic and narrative that maintains themselves in the upper hand, vis-à-vis the audience, the public.

The Hyperobject: a Necessary Irritant

The recruited hyperobject is starring all over global media these days. Country leaders use the CoVid-19 pandemic to promote a variety of messages: technocratic leadership (Angela Merkel, Germany), national strength (Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan), economic-political agendas against China (Donald Trump, USA), and change of political stance (Gantz and Netanyahu’s National Unity government, Israel). Just like wars and other disasters, pandemics are perfect for “stealing” the public discourse. At the end of the 20^th century, Jean Francois Lyotard  speaks of the “sublime” as an attempt to control and represent what is beyond our control. In this context, it is interesting to look at the narratives in the media: Who perpetuates a feeling of safety? Who gives promises that cannot be fulfilled? Who takes a ride on confusion and anxiety for their own personal gain?

One of the many philosophical sci-fi whimzies In Douglas Adams’ the Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the machine called “the Total Perspective Vortex”. The imaginary machine is based on a real scientific concept: if each object in the world affects its environment, through forces such as magnetic fields, radiation, gravity etc… then each object has always been affected by the entire universe. We can all still feel the currents of the Big Bang, and if that is so, we do not even have to look at the night sky to get a clear picture of the universe. Theoretically, it is enough for us to direct a sensitive enough sensor to any object, and by the powers operating on it, infer everything – the locations of all planets, the entire histories of all galaxies. “The Total Perspective Vortex” is an attempt to imagine such a machine: on its one side, a super sensitive sensor stares at a tiny cookie and infers from it the entire universe. On the other side of the machine, a booth designed for one occupant, presenting to them the picture of the entire universe and the occupants’ relation to it.

In Adams’ book, a scientist invents a “Perspective Vortex” as an answer to his wife, who used to rebuke him for spending a disproportionate amount of time working. When she enters the machine, the scientist discovers one more important fact: anyone who enters the vortex and sees for an instant the entire universe and history in relation to themselves, instantly loses their mind.

To [the scientists’] horror, the shock completely annihilated her brain; but to his satisfaction he realized that he had proved conclusively that if life is going to exist in a universe of this size, then the one thing it cannot afford to have is a sense of proportion. – The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Chapter 11, Douglas Adams

This funny-scary metaphor was written by Adams three decades prior to Morton’s Hyperobject concept, which guides this issue of Utopia Magazine [presented by Eden Kupermintz in our opening article on Inhuman Scales followed up a deep dive by our colleague Gili Ron. Nevertheless, it gives a remarkably accurate description of it; the universe is the ultimate Hyperobject, the cathedral in which all objects conjoin, and above all, it nullifies definitions and proportions that humans try to hold on to. “The universe is getting colder” is one of the scariest sentences ever: it depicts the horror of something that is unthinkable just as it is undeniable.

But what if we had a machine that is similar to the “Total Perspective Vortex?” And what if, when entering it, we discover that the perspective does not make us feel completely horrified, but awakes completely different emotions? What if instead of fleeing the dread of hyperobjects, we can use this machine to try and adapt to life by their side? In fact, there are several versions of this machine, and they are found in a slightly unexpected place.

“Clicker Games” are a genre of computer games that is named after its main activity: clicking the mouse button again and again. This genre has two additional nicknames: Incremental Games and Idle Games. Those nicknames represent the common processes in these types of games. We begin with a simple task, like producing a product. On screen is a ticker that follows the number of units we produced, with a big button next to it. Each time you click the button, you produce one unit of the product. After we’ve produced a certain number of units, we can start acquiring other products that will allow for automatic production of the product, and we can stop clicking the button ourselves. This is the stage where the game turns from a “clicker” game to an “idle” game. From this point on, we basically do not have to do anything else, as the game starts to play by itself. However, we can still invest our production profits in buying more and more automated production systems and derive pleasure from increasing the production rate and the rising number of units produced – hence the name Incremental Games.

Most of these games start with the production of something mundane: wood logs, cookies, eggs. However, to maintain the pleasure of the numeric increment, numbers must grow in an exponential rate, together with the metaphor: Wood choppers expand their village and build a town with the wood logs they collected, and the chicken coop extends to an empire that produces billions of eggs via robots, distributing them all over the galaxy, in spaceships. 

Slowly, an absurd perspective is uncovered: who needs all these eggs? How many trees can you chop before consuming the entire forest? The absurd of chasing big numbers, together with the simplicity of clicker games, made them popular amongst researchers, mainly as a tool for satire. The philosopher and game designer, Ian Bogost, created the game Cow Clicker as satire of the games company Zinga, which is infamous for the abusive practices of its Facebook games. In the satirical game Cow Clicker, one of the first major clicker games, the players are required to click on their cow every six hours, and if they want to shorten the process, they must pay money or ask friends for “help”. Unfortunately for Bogost, his satire gained popularity just as that of the games he wished to ridicule, and the abusive practice he asked to criticize, only gained greater popularity with the arrival of games like Candy Crush.

Image from Cow Clicker, game by Ian Bogost

The game Universal Paperclips was created by games scholar and creator Frank Lantz as a demonstration of the thought experiment suggested by philosopher Nick Bostrom, known as the “Paperclip Experiment” (1). In the game, we embody an artificial intelligence trusted with the management of a paperclips factory. However, just like the scientist’s wife claimed about his relation to his work, the AI lacks proportions, and so we find ourselves consuming all of Earth’s natural resources towards our goal – manufacturing more paperclips. When we finish with the Earth, after it has been completely consumed, we expand our paperclips business to the entire universe.  

On the surface, both Universal Paperclips and Cow Clicker ask to be interpreted as parodies of the neo-liberal economic worldview. The former ridicules the idea of “infinite growth”, including the ecological damage and social alienation it brings with it. The latter tries to peel off the layers of fat over the so-called casual, popular games, to expose their true face as another type of abuse in disguise. 

However, underneath the social critique and intellectual amusement, the emotional experience of playing these games, as well as other less critical clicker games, offers something completely different. Something in these games has the potential to give some solace to the shock caused by encountering unthinkable objects such as the coronavirus or natural disasters.

First, perspective. In our everyday lives we are chained to our personal human perspective. From our infinitesimal place in the universe, the latter might seem too big to take in. Art can offer us other perspectives, and clicker games almost always present a completely flat view: the one of computers. We see the world via a data table that hosts a set of growing numbers. All numbers are different from one another quantifiably, but not essentially: like the computer that produces paperclips, we have no relatable scale. All numbers are different from one another in exactly the same way, i.e., identical to one another in every human aspect. If there is a graphic representation on screen, it stays similar as well: the visual difference between a factory that produces a thousand eggs to a factory that produces a billion of them is trivial to us, because we would not be able to present this change in proportions, without ruining the game. Vis-à-vis the lack of difference, that existential Absurd that Camus wrote about, awakens: the tension between action and its lack of purpose. Even though in mathematical terms the game describes infinite growth, properly speaking it describes an ongoing, progressive present-state: if we narrow our eyes in front of the computer, we would not be able to determine whether we produced one hundred or one billion cookies. The game is still fun though – a happy Sisyphus comes to mind.

Second, the fact that these games are addictive. Highly addictive. There is something distilled in the experience of seeing a number growing, knowing that every click on the button will make it bigger. This is an almost-sensual pleasure, simpler and more pure in comparison to that of complicated games: like a drug that is extracted from plants that contain the active ingredient of it in lower dosage. This specific pleasure, the seduction of growing into titanic, universal dimensions, might soften a bit the experience of titanic, universal phenomena in life itself.

To understand this temptation, let’s turn to the originator of the sci-fi & horror genres mix that became “weird fiction”, early 20th century author, H.P. Lovecraft (2). The Lovecraftian literary aesthetic received the nickname “Cosmic Horror”, for dealing with massive natural phenomena alongside scientific research that uncovers the secrets of the universe, and representing them in fiction as the discovery of gigantic monsters and ancient gods that hide beyond the horizon, awakened from their sleep. In his recent book, The Weird and the Eerie, philosopher Mark Fisher noticed that the main emotion provoked by Lovecraft’s stories, both in the characters and the readers, is not exactly horror, as the writer himself figured, but rather fascination. The phenomena that dwarf us, whose sheer size and meaning nullifies our miniscule significance, are so incredibly huge that they stop being scary: they charm and captivate us. The heroes of the stories, and us with them, are drawn uncontrollably to the mighty gods Lovecraft writes about, especially when the mind cannot contain them. The cosmic horror is not as threatening as it is tempting. Perhaps “Cosmic Temptation” would be a better fitting name for the genre.

Surprisingly, clicker games offer a similar temptation. Each of them has a moment in which quantity becomes quality: the ungraspable size of the factory you built, even if it is a chicken coop, even if it is on the tiny screen of your mobile phone, is astronomical. There is something fascinating about this size. The action itself, of following big numbers going up and down the screen, is very reminiscent of the obsessive refresh of online feeds or news about the number of people with coronavirus or reports about gas emissions. Through your virtual farm, you can learn to live with big numbers, and maybe even understand our attraction to them a bit better. 

We can use clicker games as a cheap and safer version of the “Total Perspective Vortex”. Just like the ancient gods and monsters, this imagery can teach us how to live with big numbers. But we must not become indifferent to them. The rate of melting icebergs, the national budget, the number of deaths from coronavirus, Bill and Melinda Gates’ investment portfolio: big, unthinkable numbers that we cannot comprehend, exist in real life just like small numbers (which are more  measurable for us), and they dictate our lives just the same. We must learn to live with big numbers, but it does not follow that we must live with them in peace.

Recommendations

Spaceplan

A clicker game designed by a solo developer, which may be the best example for “cosmic temptation”, not only because it is not as addictive as many other clicker games (see warning at the end of the recommendations), but also because it directly engages with cosmic scale. In the game, you are the commanders of a small spaceship that orbits around an unrecognized planet. With the help of the spaceship’s computer, you will investigate the planet, collapse the solar system, and even make it to the end of the universe. All of this accompanied by a calming electronic soundtrack that stimulates in us the feeling of floating in outer space.

Available on Android or iPhone.

Image from the game Space Plan

You are Jeff Bezos     

The short and brilliant work by Kris Ligman from 2018 interweaves Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” and journalism, and it is sort of an upside-down clicker game: instead of accumulating imaginary fortune, you have to spend the ‘real’ fortune of billionaire Jeff Bezos in a way that will benefit the world, according to (rough), research-based cost estimations.  

Free on your computer.

Image from the game You Are Jeff Bezos by Kris Ligman

Universal Paperclips

Frantz Lantz’ game begins with Bostrom’s thought experiment and sails further on, to the edge of its reason. In an interview from 2018, Lantz said that he would like to bring the player to the same obsessive place of an AI – to understand how computers “think”. This game is slightly more complicated than its generic peers, and it includes a bunch of surprises that will constitute a non-trivial challenge, which even looks like an antithesis of idle games. However, underneath these surprises, all the  challenges of this game demand basically the same thing, which sometimes seems to be the top priority of computers in contemporary culture: optimize processes. 

Available for free on your computer, paid on Android or iPhone.

The Horror of Universal Paperclips and Space Engine

The video of YouTuber Jackob Geller presents a similar thesis to that presented in this article, yet Geller chooses to remain with the feeling of existential horror. Geller recommends among others, another YouTube video that depicts the distancing of galaxies and the existential simulation, Space Engine.

Available to watch on YouTube   

An image from The Horror of Universal Paperclips and Space Engine by Youtuber Jackob Geller

Everything

Not a clicker game at all, but a different way to describe equality on a universal scale, “Everything” by David O’reilly lets us experience the “viewpoint of every object in the world” – from a bus to a polar bear, a cloud, a whole galaxy, a lice and a single electron – and then dance with them. All this while listening to recorded lectures by Beat philosopher Allan Watts. This is an outstanding aesthetic experience, and it also conceals a sort of idle game: if you turn on the game without touching the remote or the keyboard, after a minute or two it will start to play itself. 

Available on your computer or on PlayStation. 

An Image from Everything, by David O’reilly

A warning

The article specifically makes mention that clicker games can be very addictive. This is a serious matter, as some of these games can provoke uneasy emotions, and a compulsive-obsessive experience: these games demand players to give them more and more attention, constantly spinning the wheel. One simple way to keep caution is to avoid clicker games that are also free-to-play, meaning that their profits arrive from recurring micro-transactions, or from advertisements. These games have a huge incentive to be addictive, and often their creators do in fact design them to be that way. Bottom line: games that are prepaid are usually safer to play.

At this point, realism is perhaps the least adequate means of understanding or portraying the incredible realities of our existence. ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction

Introduction – the future is weird

The future is weird. This is because, on one hand, the future doesn’t exist yet; those that talk of the future as a thing we hurtle towards misunderstand it. However, on the other hand, the future is something that will exist one day and, not only that, it has its roots in the present. We can picture it, we can think about it, it is here in many ways and yet, it is inherently not here, always around the next corner. The future, by definition, is present and absent at the same time. This conflation between the two states of non/being is the essence of something weird, something we can think about even as it defies our thought (1).

Therefore, conceptualizing the future, whether near or far, like most weird things, inherently involves imagination (2). Where reason cannot go, wilder and more out of step parts of our thought can more readily explore. Like the future, our imagination is weird. It has for its objects things which inherently don’t exist and we do with them things which we don’t necessarily think will ever come true. For example, a fancy where I can fly. Flying sounds terrifying but in my imagination, it’s great. I don’t necessarily want the ability to fly but being able to imagine it feels nice and makes me happy. If I were to “get what I wished for”, I would probably hate it and yet, my imagination allows me to side-step that and keep thinking about my wish positively. Thus, our imagination invariably leads us to hope, to strive and long for things as we want them to be rather than just things as they might, possibly, be. Imagination is weird because it doesn’t completely erase the existence of the practical and the complicated; we know they exist and will trip us when we try to move forward. But our imagination allows us to step around them, to keep hoping and wishing even if we know that the way forward is hard and messy. If it wasn’t for our imagination, we’d be frozen, unable to act in an infinitely complex and confusing world. Imagination allows us to use ideas which don’t exist to think and conceptualize the things we’d like to see come into existence and then to work towards making them, even if the way forward seems impossible.

If this all seems convoluted and complicated that’s because it is. After all, the weird inherently defies easy explanation and so does our imagination; it is the ultimate unheimlich, the uncanny which lies at the very center of who we are. We feel uneasy if we linger too long on the concept of imagination and its inherent contradictions. That unease, that inability to put the act of imagination into words, is why the imagination is best understood, and explored, through art. That’s what art is good for after all, conveying the inexplicable, the just-out-of-sight, that which we all glimpse but never truly know. And art about imagination is also weird because it describes the very tool which it uses. Imagination, after all, is at the core of art as well. The artist (whether musician, painter, dancer, poet, writer) starts with a blank canvas and then must use imagination to populate it. Even when the artist is a realist (more on that soon), they have no chance of creating a “perfect” simulation (if such a thing truly exists). Their own thought, their own imagination, will always play a part in the path between object and representation. When that object is imagination itself, or when that object is the future itself, the loop is closed and weird arrives, giving birth to a host of distorted images, half-wishes, and uncomfortable truths.

Grasping the loop – science fiction is weird

Which, finally, brings us to science fiction. All of science fiction is weird and “loopy” because it is art looking at itself, because it is imagination looking itself, because it is the present trying to conceptualize the future and, in doing so, takes part in creating that future, in influencing the present. Science fiction, at its core, is a “weird loop” (3), a process where parts influence the whole and the whole influences the parts but weirdly, in unpredictable ways. Up and down are not only conflated, they become the same direction. In our case, past, present, and future meld together into an asynchronous mess, a temporal weirdness where future vision relies on past fact and intervenes with present momentum. In those spaces, in the weirdness which arises from these conflations, lies great radical potential.

To put a more human, less jargon-heavy, spin on this, try to put yourself in the shoes of Jules Verne for example, weirdly transported into the 21st century and face to face with a submarine. Forget for now the question of prediction and whether Vernes “got it right” (more on that in the next chapter). Try, for now, to focus on how you might feel (past the horror of time travel and this new world you now find yourself in, of course). Someone has seemingly reached into your mind and extricated an object of your imagination, something fantastic which you conjured up. You didn’t really think that you’d ever see it and yet, you sort of hoped that you did. But not really; you drew up schemes and you wanted it built but you knew it would never be built but maybe you hoped that it would be? In short, you imagined it! It wasn’t real but you really wished that it would have been and now, here you are and here it is. You’d feel elated, uncomfortable, mad, ecstatic, anxious. Probably. We don’t know; we’re not Jules Verne. Jules Verne wrote science fiction (don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) and in doing so, he imagined things that never existed and he probably wasn’t very confident they would exist. But guess what? They exist now. Sure, it’s not because of him that submarines exist but it’s not not because of him that submarines exist. His thought, his ideas, his imagination sowed the grounds for the idea of the submarine. He wrote about the future and he didn’t really think that that future would come about. But in so writing, he helped it come about.

That’s one hell of a power, isn’t it? The beauty of it is that we all have it; we all write science fiction or, as it is now increasingly popular to call it, speculative fiction. Whether we do it as kids and then stop, whether we continue on as adults, weaving fanciful tales of the future as it might be, whether we pen down those tales as a hobby or as professional writers, we all have the basic capacity to write science fiction. That capacity is imagination itself, turned towards the future, and we use it on a frequent basis, imagining ourselves in the years to come, our friends, our jobs, and our lives in general. From this sort of imagination arises the same weirdness we described before; if we spend too much in these spaces, day-dreaming about our future, we become uneasy. And we should become uneasy – the weird should never be comfortable. That weirdness is to be lived in, grappled with, thought about, discoursed on, conceptualized. This is, essentially, what science fiction strives to do, to grab a hold of that contorted space within us and try to explore it, to get used to it. To make art out of it.

But the problem is that, as the cliche goes, with great power comes great responsibility.  We mentioned above that these weird spaces which future-thought creates are places of potential radical thought. That’s because weirdness is inherently counter hegemonic. The hegemony, here to be understood as cultural hegemony (4), doesn’t like the weird. It is hard to categorize and understand; it buckles, it shifts, it never stays quite the same. Therefore, it is hard to control, to neatly package, to sell. Of course, the hegemony is very shrewd and will find ways to “hedge off” the weird and tame it, re-package it in accepted gestures, aesthetics, and approaches. It will then condone the approaches it has created and condemn the rest, creating a type of “weird chic” used to sell supposedly divergent narratives. That’s how we get that one “weird” movie every year that seems to do well in box-offices, the “weird” musical act that does the same, and so on. In creating these safe ways to be “weird”, the hegemony has an important ally: each and every one of us and our aversion to the weird. After all, the weird, that weird which is felt in the stomach, is uncomfortable. Our instinct is to shy away from it; like a kid with a flame, we instinctively feel the places in our imagination that make us queasy. Sure, we might poke them once in a while for that thrill of the “safe unsafe”, the rush of breaking the rules without meaningfully rewriting them. We’ll then retreat within the confines of the established, of the understandable, of the normal. The normal is an especially powerful tool for cultural hegemony because the normal is timeless; the normal is how things have always been, don’t you know? Our ways are our parents’ ways! It’s how things have always been done and suggesting that we might do something else, that we might organize society in some other form, is deemed as impossible. For the hegemony, appearing as obvious, as the default, as timeless, is the key to efficient control (5).

And therein lies the wub (6), as Philip K. Dick (that master of the weird) might say: our instinct to flinch away from the weird is the hegemony’s best weapon, best approach to sterilizing the weird, because we don’t even notice we’re doing it. After all, it’s the path of least resistance. Giving in, going back to normal, is what feels right and natural. Thus, even those of us who specifically set out to re-imagine things, to “boldly go where no man has gone before”, can be caught in the trap of the normal, in the unbelievable ease of simply sliding back into what you know. That “sliding back” can take many forms but one of the more insidious ones can be found in the replicating of your present situations, assumptions, and social codes (in short, your “cultural hegemony”) into your imagined futures (7). Take Star Trek for example, one of the most popular science fiction franchises of all time. It imagines a wild future where a supposed utopia rules “Terra” (Planet Earth, our planet) (8), humans (and other races) sail with relative ease among the stars, and technology rewrites vast swathes of reality itself. And yet, a majority (a crushing majority) of all intimate relationships depicted over the show’s many seasons are heterosexual. Bar DS9 (the most radical of Star Trek’s iterations), the military aristocracy of the Federation is seldom questioned. The colonial nature of Starfleet’s “science mission” is rarely examined thoroughly. In short, when sailing into their future-thought, the creators of Star Trek (both the original creator and the subsequent stewards of his vision) “imported” a host of assumptions, orders, and ideas along with them. Whenever they get too close to the weird, they flinch away and return with a satiated sigh to the normalcy which they know and love. Subconsciously, of course; we’re not claiming that they’re some evil “future cops”, purposefully stifling creativity and the weird. Instead, we’re making a point about how the best intentioned science fiction reinforces instead of breaks down present assumptions, moves away from the realms of the weird and into the realms of the normal. Of course, more examples abound like fellow silver screen hit Star Wars but also authors like Robert A. Heinlein or Isaac Asimov and many more of the illustrious writers of science fiction who, in purporting to re-imagine the future but leaving most of our present in effect, created literature which reinforces existing power structures and veers well away from the different, the radical, the weird.

Suburban science fiction

This is what we can call “suburban science fiction”. Even though it’s a relatively new term, suburban science fiction already has several meanings, including a certain sub-genre of science fiction stories which involves scrappy teens and the American suburb, mixed alongside magic or advanced technology (think Back to the Future or Stranger Things). However, this is not what we mean by the term here. Instead, the term suburban science fiction aims to invoke the kind of lethargic, conservative, and timeless doldrum of the American suburb as a predominantly white, well-to-do, subtly violent, and privileged space (9). It’s where liberals live, cocooned in the smug self-assurance that they aren’t the bad guys. Why, they might even allow their children to study the liberal arts, they might even discuss the truly horrible things happening far away. They might even vote for the “right” person. Clothed in these ideas and convinced that they are on the “right side of history”, the American suburb (by now a global phenomenon) and its denizens will go to great lengths to market themselves as not only wholesome but even progressive, daring, and forward-thinking. Of course, the reality is that these supposed paragons of virtue and progress are incredibly conservative; they maintain “party lines” around ideas like heteronormativity, race, class, and diverse other social topics. In order to “whitewash” that conservatism, they’ll pick some topics which are deemed to be socially relevant for the current moment and adopt a somewhat left of center approach to them. These still-safe social perspectives will then be used to hide their conservatism in other areas. “Excuse me,” they might say, “I am not a conservative! I think gay people should be allowed to marry! But trans rights? That’s going too far”.

See the parallel yet? Suburban science fiction thinks of itself in the same terms and utilizes the same mechanics to reap the benefits of its virtue signaling whenever possible. By marketing itself as cutting edge and daring, suburban science fiction can appeal to a crowd that’s looking for a weirder future, looking for brave new thoughts on the human condition and the societies we create. But by making its vision surface level, by maintaining a lot of the power structures as they exist in our society today, while tweaking some limited, surface level modifiers, suburban science fiction accomplishes three things: first, as we said above, it doesn’t alienate itself from conservative readers and thinkers, playing it safe to make sure it is as palatable as possible to as many readers as possible. You might read a story about a brave new society making its way into space on a doomed mission. The outward appearance of things is daring and controversial: these people are going to a place where all the old forms of authority are void and null. No one is there to enforce their will and freedom has a chance to run amok. But, in the suburban version, freedom runs amok in a limited sense; people glutton themselves. A scientist pursues a career as an artist. A marriage breaks up in favor of casual sex. People let their innermost secrets out, set free by the ring of Gyges (10) that is distance from authority. But no real challenges are formulated to the basic tenets of society. No one posits that not only should the captain be deposed (mutiny is a common trope in suburban/pulp science fiction) but that the very idea of hierarchy is meaningless out here in space. People seek new careers but no one questions the very idea of labor and who it serves. Things are kept just radical enough to be interesting but just safe enough to avoid engaging with any substantially revolutionary ideas.  

Secondly, and somewhat more importantly, it also avoids engaging with the weird in any real, meaningful, scary or dangerous way. It’s easier, both technically and psychologically, to make “safe” science fiction. Who wants to grapple with the truly weird when you could just sample it and achieve the same effect, the sheen of the progressive and the cutting edge? But thirdly, and most importantly, suburban science fiction remains a vessel for the promulgation, reinforcement, and bolstering of the cultural hegemony as the “timeless normal”. It becomes another sphere where the current intellectual and cultural order of our lives is taken for granted, taken for the norm, as something that “always has been and always was and always will be”. As we mentioned above, that is the hegemony’s ultimate goal: to decrease the amount of power needed for control by presenting itself as a “fait accompli”, as a fact that will always be true. If it can achieve that, it has de facto won and no longer needs to enforce itself; its subjects will enforce hegemony for it. What better literary tool for that than suburban science fiction? If we stare into the future and all we can see there is all that already is, then what already is seems like an inescapable truth. There’s no point in fighting against the way things always are and always will be.

To expand on the examples given above, we can zoom in on one science fiction scenario that has been grabbing the public imagination for the last decade or so: the conquest and exploitation of space. Of course, the idea of venturing out into space is nothing new; we’ve mentioned several examples above which span the last few decades. But in the recent decade or so, as questions about climate change, capitalism, and the sustainability of our way of life in the West have increased, the stars seem a bit closer. This new-found proximity is also encouraged by ever increasing technological achievements which have seemed to breathe some new life into the idea of a space program, an idea which died in the aftermath of Reagan-ism and Thatcher-ism. The questions now posited, both by a proliferation of “grounded” science fiction which asks economical and “practical” questions about space exploration (Interstellar, Ad Astra, The Martian, Aniara, to name just a few) and by an avid private market, seem to be of a new nature. They focus not on “pie in the sky” ideas about the grandness of space (although that rhetoric is certainly still present, more on this soon) but rather on practical questions of extraction, production, and assembly in and of space. That is, the questions become capitalist questions: how can we analyze, exploit, extract, and maximize the resources which “outer” space represents and contains? Or, put in a crasser way, “how can we mine asteroids, damn it?”

In the course of asking these questions, the appearance of a brave new frontier is manufactured and maintained (which is why the rhetoric about the “grand adventure” of space is kept alive), mostly by science fiction. People speak of these upcoming efforts, by companies as diverse as Amazon, SpaceX, and others, in hushed tones of awe, already educated by science fiction to consider “humanity’s next step” as an undeniable truth about our shared future. Going to space, way before the first man on the moon or the first satellite in space, is painted as an inevitable next step (11). This is how science fiction prepares the ground for these adventures. Beyond the hard to trace, quaint, and way too individualist tales about science fiction’s influence on specific people (“I had the idea for my invention as a boy, upon reading science fiction” or “I knew I wanted to go into STEM after seeing Star Trek”) this influence works on a systemic level. It does both more and less than make futures possible and others impossible. Rather, it works together with science and industry, the forces of “progress”, to deem one future probable and the other improbable. Sense a pattern? You should, because making one future probable is making it obvious, natural, normal, inevitable. It is doing the work of cultural hegemony. This also leads to the “market logic” of most science fiction and ties back to our point about the aversion from the weird which guides many writers of the genre. If the consumers of their stories have already been “conditioned” to expect a certain kind of future, it becomes harder to diverge from that kind of future. Of course such diversions exist but as the tropes and cliches of the genre become more solidified, escape from them becomes more problematic financially. Then, of course, the beautiful, horrible cycle closes as works that bolster and amplify the expected future become more financially viable, thus more of them are made and read, and that expected future gets bolstered again in turn by their sheer market presence.

The coming space race

Heading (somewhat) back on track: when you break it down to its basic components, to its material components, what really is new and exciting about the way in which we’re envisioning the coming exploitation of space? Let us, briefly, recount its characteristics as they are emerging out of the previous decade and into the next: first, this exploitation is being birthed out of an alliance between the private sector and the state. Elon Musk, for example, has now become NASA’s sole “path to space”, essentially sub-contracting the United States’ route into orbit and beyond. This is nothing new; the exploration and subsequent exploitation of the “new” world was born out of a very similar alliance between the state and the nascent private sector (hint: Columbus wasn’t an agent of state, he was an entrepreneur contracted by the Castilian state). Secondly, this exploitation, down its more advanced paths, is certainly aimed at the extraction of resources. But, more immediately, it is also about the control of movement, of ideas, of people, and of resources already present in the “home state”. The exploration/exploitation of space is about controlling the priorities here on Earth before it is about controlling the products of actual space. That’s why Musk insists on blinding astronomers with his satellites (12). That’s why a joint coalition of state, academic, and “philanthropic” elements don’t care that Mauna Kea is sacred (13). That is why the U.S government won’t declare the lunar landing sites a national park, so that they aren’t suspected of building a base on the Moon (14). That’s why a base on the moon is even an idea, and one which has preoccupied science fiction since the Cold War: control the movements in and out of the planet and you control the planet itself.

This is also, of course, nothing new. When the Portuguese first colonized the African coast, they made sure to build their colonial forts, equal parts military bases, trading posts, and factories, in strategic points overseeing the water. Control transport, control the flow of goods in and out of a continent, and you control the continent itself. But going one step further, the colonial efforts of all of the European empires were also about control at home, about reorganizing their states, their societies, and their economies along more rigid, controlling, and “rational” lines. They were about a new world order, breaking away from the more chaotic feudal order, exercising this newly desired form of control both abroad and “at home”, distinctions which quickly fell apart as the state expanded its control via and for the colonial project. OK, but who cares? The whole point of this digression was not only to show how science fiction paints an effort that has clear ties to the past and, in fact, mirrors previous projects by pretty much the same nations and people as something new and bold. It was mainly to talk about how this “mirroring” affects the future. Who cares about whether space exploration is actually old and boring while it is perceived as new and shiny? Naturally, this starts to matter when we talk about the future. Surprise! Bet you didn’t see that coming.

In order to understand why the depiction of space exploration in science fiction matters, we must make the point that the methods, tools, and institutions created to “explore the new world” were a part of the power consolidation of the nascent modern state. From this consolidation and the way it drove the exploration of the new world we can draw stark parallels with the moment we find ourselves in, mainly in the West. This is because this relationship, between the state and the tools of exploration, is the same relationship, more or less, as between the current capitalist hegemony and the nascent private space programs we are currently witnessing take form. There is a fair degree of innocence in imagining that what will happen “out there” that is, in outer space, will only manifest “down here” in the form of more goods or increased productivity or new kinds of jobs. Whatever form our exploration and exploitation of outer space takes, history shows us that it will invariably “bleed back” to Earth. The type of politics we choose to send to space will come home to roost as the distinction between home and space inevitably breaks down, both in our imaginations and in “reality”. Therefore, there is grave danger in whitewashing people like Elon Musk (a union buster who has shown callous cruelty in dealing with his employees) under the guise of a “captain of space” straight out of Golden Age science fiction. There is danger in painting Jeff Bezos (the richest man alive who continues to horde a fortune while his employees work themselves death) as the instigator of a Star Trek utopia. If, under this guise of daring, curiosity, and shiny spaceships, the capitalist order is exported to space (and is thus bolstered both there and here on Earth), science fiction will be complicit in the pain and suffering which ensues since it will be used (and is already being used) as the cultural language with which such an order is imagined. SpaceX is not that much different than the East India Trading Company (15) but with a little help from science fiction and a splash of the scent of bold innovation it comes across as a bright hope for our future in space.

What is to be done?

As we said, the complicity of science fiction is already all around us; suburban science fiction rules the day. Mostly. This science fiction, instead of imagining a new kind of future, a weirder future where space is an opportunity for the renegotiation of so much that we take for granted about ourselves and our societies, simply rehashes the past as a poor excuse for a future. By imagining the future as nothing more than a fertile ground for the values of the past, by exchanging the Portuguese fortress for a moon base, this type of science fiction makes sure that what we have today seems inevitable, that the only color palette with which we can paint our future, whether in space or on Earth, is the same grayscale of the past one hundred or so years.

But, of course, not all hope is lost. There is plenty of fantastic, weird science fiction still being made about space. This science fiction challenges basic assumptions about our bodies in outer space, about knowledge of outer space, about the economics of outer space. It imagines a future in fundamentally new colors, breaking away from the paradigms of the present and the past. However, we’re not all science fiction authors. At least, we’re not all published ones, with a grand stage, although we’d argue that we all have the potential to make science fiction. So, what is to be done? How can we contribute to the creation of a better sort of science fiction? To put it more abstractly, and more importantly, how can we use science fiction as a tool to imagine a better, new, fresh future for ourselves?

This will be the aim of the rest of this handbook. We’ll first dive deep into one example where free, wilder, weirder speculation can help us fight against the tyranny of the present, the tyranny of prediction. We will then look at more practical examples, taking a look at several methodologies and case studies which use science fiction and imagination at their core to imagine different futures. The aim of these case studies is to give you concrete tools to better exercise your imagination and use science fiction as a perspective on the future. Hopefully, this will help you break free from our current day assumptions of the type of future that is coming and enable us to, together, perhaps, imagine a better one.