Our Dream

April 6th, 2022

The dream is dead. Today’s society is, paradoxically, defined by decay.

We’ve continued to see dramatic improvement over the past century in various metrics, spanning from material abundance to lifespan. In spite of this, the foundational institutions behind society continue to fracture.

Liberalism, the belief in the rights of the individual and liberty, has been carried to its excesses, eroding our biological tendencies towards community. The turf war over freedoms rages within every nation-state on this planet.

Our industrialized lifestyles have led to personal and communal rot. Corporations desecrate the natural world. Food systems poison us, materializing chronic disease. Jobs shackle us, wasting away irretrievable time. Cities are dichotomously burdened with police brutality and crime. Governments siphon vast amounts of imaginary money into grossly ineffective programs. And the infrastructure all around us, the backbone of our cities and towns, feels cobbled together, a motley mix of band-aided, clashing layers.

Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. We were promised so much more by the ascent of technology and modernization! The resources needed to feed, clothe, and entertain every human on this planet exist. To live synergistically alongside non-human animals and the biosphere. To usher into reality our long-forgotten visions for a utopian future.

But whittling away at the edges, bickering in bureaucratic bodies and monolithic institutions has and will continue to fail us. Without a systemic dream, we cannot conceive a cohesive blueprint.

That dream is called plöt.
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