Protopia.
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Society & Ideas

Work, status, culture, remote life, and the social questions underneath modern technology.

A young man, middle-aged man, elderly man, and humanoid cyborg sit in sequence along a long bench
Society & Ideas

The curious case of living to 175

The longevity people think we are going to live a very long time. They might be wrong. But they might be right, and if they are, certain things follow that nobody seems to want to talk about. Female fertility has a biological clock. Male fertility does not. This asymmetry exists now, but stretch the lifespan to 175 and leave the fertility window where it is, and something strange happens.

December 30, 202511 min read
Outdoors, one person shovels paper money while another pours film reels and paintings into the same dark circular void
Society & Ideas

The hole does not care what you try to fill it with

Artists have always enjoyed calling businesspeople greedy. The suit is the villain. The creative is the hero. The suit wants money and the creative wants meaning, and these desires are understood to be fundamentally different in character, one craven and the other noble. This seems worth examining.

December 30, 202521 min read
A home worker and an office worker hold one knotted cable through an open doorway
Society & Ideas

What each side in the remote work debate won't admit

The remote work debate has calcified into tribal identity. Both sides have developed elaborate ideological frameworks to support their positions. Both sides are lying about what they actually believe.

October 19, 202518 min read
A Byzantine blacksmith inspects an unfinished sword on an anvil beside a warm forge
Society & Ideas

What is work?

The old world had clear roles: the mason, the monk. The capitalist, the clerk. The new world does not.

May 12, 202523 min read

Protopia

by Curtis Duggan

Technology, business, society, and modern life.

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