You know what I actually sort of hope for? I hope for our civilization actually stepping off the one-upmanship treadmill, forgetting about having more of the latest and greatest everything, going everywhere, using every drug, knowing everyone, and generally subjecting the feed of their consciousness to maximum input all the time.

Time for people to, you know. Reflect on their values. Have quiet, slow conversations with a very high meaning to word ratio, with people who're worthwhile.

Time for people to dream and make believe. Live in your head a little. *

Time for people to just observe. Live in your moment a little.

Share things. Have some fantasy other than "Soon I will be a wealthy rockstar! Or have epically failed to earn it!"

You know it's just like the old freeform chatroom RP, where everybody on entering has exotic-hued dancing orbs (their eyes, that is), prancs across the virtual space, suddenly becomes demonically posessed such that they end up massively injured, and then somebody nearby magically heals them, and everybody assumes lots of stilted language.

That *is* our culture. You know, aside from venal politicians scheming to give your parents' retirement money to investment bankers and insurance giant CEOs.


*Have you ever considered that the fandom, for all its silliness, is one of the few places left in the entire world where unfettered imagination is respected, and nothing is marketed any more relentlessly than somebody saying "OMG, I'm moving and broke, PLZ!commission me!" As the last bastion of daydream for daydream's sake and pure interpersonal collaboration without guidance or interference from corporte comittees, we actually do awfully well, people.