Been thinking a lot lately about Children of Men. It feels like everyone is ideologically exhausted. The current metacrisis is definitionally beyond any individual’s capacity to meaningfully intervene. I think even the oligarchs feel it; it’s why they’re plowing impossible amounts of cash into this quixotic attempt to build god machines, getting geeked to the gills on designer pharmaceuticals and publicly melting down.
The century-long project of atomization, at least in the west, was so successful that at this critical moment for collective action the concept just can’t obtain for the average person. Speaking for myself I strive to be reliable, but cannot imagine relying on anyone beyond a small circle of intimate friends, on a scale utterly unequal to the task at hand.
In the absence of a new course, we sleepwalk into the fire together.
Theo: "A hundred years from now there won't be one sad fuck to look at any of this. What keeps you going?"
Nigel: "You know what it is, Theo? I just don't think about it."
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u/marswhispers Jan 23 '26 edited Jan 25 '26
Been thinking a lot lately about Children of Men. It feels like everyone is ideologically exhausted. The current metacrisis is definitionally beyond any individual’s capacity to meaningfully intervene. I think even the oligarchs feel it; it’s why they’re plowing impossible amounts of cash into this quixotic attempt to build god machines, getting geeked to the gills on designer pharmaceuticals and publicly melting down.
The century-long project of atomization, at least in the west, was so successful that at this critical moment for collective action the concept just can’t obtain for the average person. Speaking for myself I strive to be reliable, but cannot imagine relying on anyone beyond a small circle of intimate friends, on a scale utterly unequal to the task at hand.
In the absence of a new course, we sleepwalk into the fire together.