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This transmission
is for future generations.
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As it stands, a small sliver of humanity
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is currently imposing their visions
on the rest of us.
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They invest in space travel
and AI superintelligence
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and underground bunkers,
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while casting health care
and housing for all
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as outlandish and unimaginable.
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These futurists let
their own imaginations run wild
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when it comes to bending
material and digital realities,
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but their visions grow limp
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when it comes to transforming
our social reality
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so that everyone has the chance
to live a good and meaningful life.
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We are in many ways trapped
inside the lopsided imagination
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of those who monopolize
power and resources
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to benefit the few
at the expense of the many.
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And as I see it, there are two stories
these monopolists sell us
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about what the future holds.
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The first is the Silicon Valley version,
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in which all our preferences
are tracked and desires catered to.
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Chatbots, virtual assistants,
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driverless cars at our beck and call.
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All our wants and needs met in an instant.
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This is their utopia,
where technology is our savior,
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a future where our automated
offspring know us
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better than we know ourselves.
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Ease and convenience, just a click away.
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And in their wildest dreams,
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we merge with technology,
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optimizing our potential
to be stronger, smarter, superhuman.
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The other story, preferred by Hollywood,
is grittier, more chaotic.
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Conflict and competition run rampant.
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It's "Hunger Games" meets "Blade Runner"
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meets "The Matrix."
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People are ruthless and unpredictable.
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Inequality and precarity
are permanent features in our lives.
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In this dystopian vision,
technology is our slayer,
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displacing and dominating humanity.
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And while these sound
like opposing narratives,
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they have different endings for sure,
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one in which we're saved,
one in which we're slayed,
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they actually share an underlying logic.
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And in both, we give up power.
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Both stories assume technology
is in the driver's seat,
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propelled by a will of its own.
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In the utopic and dystopic stories,
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technology impacts us for better or worse.
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But our impact on technology,
the human inputs, shall we say,
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are missing.
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The values, assumptions,
interests and needs
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that shape our digital and physical worlds
are nowhere to be seen.
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To move forward,
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we have to pull back the screen.
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Rather than agonizing
about a coming dystopia
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or longing for a future utopia,
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we have to reckon with ustopia.
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Ustopia is a word I'm borrowing
from Margaret Atwood
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to describe the fact
that the future is us.
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However loathsome
or loving we are, so will we be.
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Whereas utopias are the stuff of dreams,
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dystopias, the stuff of nightmares,
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ustopias are what we create together
when we're wide awake.
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Ustopias invite us
into a collective imagination
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in which we still have tensions,
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but where everyone has
what they need to thrive.
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When I was a grad student
at UC Berkeley in the early 2000s,
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I witnessed firsthand how innovation
often deepens social inequity.
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As the tech sector grew,
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people who had lived
in the Bay area for generations
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were displaced and discarded.
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At the time, I was researching the social
dimensions of biotechnology.
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As I observed scientists
growing heart cells
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using pluripotent stem cells
beating in a petri dish,
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I thought about how hard it is
to grow empathy for other human beings
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in our everyday lives.
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Here were billions of dollars being poured
into the future of medicine,
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but health care for all
was somehow far-fetched.
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This is what I mean
by a lopsided imagination,
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where we can imagine
regenerating sick bodies
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but not an ailing body politic.
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Utopias require inequality and exclusion.
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Ustopias center collective well-being
over gross concentrations of wealth.
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They're built on an understanding
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that all of our struggles,
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from climate justice to racial justice,
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are interconnected.
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That we are interconnected.
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Take what's happening in Barcelona, Spain,
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where a large-scale participatory
experiment has been underway
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for almost ten years now
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using a digital platform called “Decidim,”
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which means "we decide" in Catalan,
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alongside in-person
neighborhood-level deliberations
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to create policies that respond
to people's actual needs.
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And the thing is, technology companies
are not driving what's happening.
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The collective intelligence of people
from all walks of life are.
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Proponents call it a “New Deal on Data”
that recognizes data sovereignty, privacy,
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collective rights to data.
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Decidim is open-source software,
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so it's already been adapted
and used in over 80 other cities,
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guaranteeing public transparency
in a way commercial platforms don't.
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Once you install Decidim,
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you can create, comment, consult on ideas
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and track what happens in real time.
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Over 40,000 residents
have submitted proposals
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on everything from affordable
housing to air quality,
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and about 70 percent
of the government's action plan
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have been derived
directly from these proposals.
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(Applause)
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Take “Superblocks,”
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an initiative to cut carbon emissions
and improve air quality,
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where 12 city districts
have been closed to through traffic
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so the interior blocks are more
hospitable to pedestrians,
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cyclists, more green space.
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On the Barcelona coastline,
another initiative is underway
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in which residents are working
to make it more accessible to locals,
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rather than simply a playground
for elites and cruise ships.
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Notice how different this is
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than the typical top-down,
"we know best" approach
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to shaping the future.
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Like what happened
with Sidewalk Labs in Toronto,
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Google's urban development smart city play
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that would have collected masses of data
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data in order to create more efficient
and convenient city services.
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But which in the end was tech-driven
rather than people-driven.
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Sidewalk Labs staged public input sessions
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in order to appear responsive
to residents' concerns
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about the newfangled surveillance
that would have been embedded
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into the Quayside neighborhood.
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But people saw through the proposal
and put an end to the development.
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In fact,
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there are ustopias taking shape
right here in Atlanta.
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Known by some as Silicon Peach
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or Techlanta,
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because it’s the fastest-growing
urban tech hub in the country,
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it’s also the city with the highest
income inequality in the nation.
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Which shouldn't surprise us
when we remember
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that the fantasies of some
are so often the nightmares of others.
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In many places, tech booms
actually exacerbate inequality,
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increasing the cost of living,
displacing local residents
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and creating high tech tools
for surveillance and social control.
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But that's only half of the story.
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Because here in Atlanta,
and in many other locales,
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we're also witnessing
a historic mobilization of residents,
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creating ustopias
that prioritize people over profit,
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public goods over policing.
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It started a few years ago,
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when Atlanta officials announced
plans to build Cop City,
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a massive 90-million-dollar facility
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that would have trained police
from all over the country.
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The development would include
cutting down Weelaunee Forest,
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one of the four lungs of Atlanta
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that protects against
heat waves and floods,
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and which is located
next to a predominantly Black
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working-class community.
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But ATLiens were having none of it.
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(Cheers and applause)
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Utilizing direct action, digital tools,
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a broad coalition has formed
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to push back against the militarizing
imagination of the city.
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Atlanta's forest defenders remind us
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that true community safety
relies on connection,
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not cops.
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On public goods,
like housing and health care,
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not punishment.
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They understand that protecting
people and the planet
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go hand in hand.
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From college students to clergy,
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environmental activists
to Indigenous elders,
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they’re inviting us
into a collective imagination
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in which our ecological
and our social well-being
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go hand in hand.
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An ustopia right in our own backyards.
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And even children are pushing back
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against the lopsided
imagination of city officials.
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Like one who asked,
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"What did cops do
to deserve a playground?"
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As they sat in the kids zone
outside of the city council meeting
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where hundreds of people
had showed up to speak out
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against Cop City.
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Together, they're reminding us
that deadly systems may seem durable,
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but they're not inevitable.
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And we don’t simply have to click: submit.
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We can each work to strengthen
the social fabric in our own locale
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and create a shared vision
in which no one is left behind.
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We can follow the example
of data justice organizers in Barcelona,
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forest defenders in Atlanta,
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imagining and crafting the worlds
we cannot live without,
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just as we dismantle the ones
we cannot live within.
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The first step
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is to stop policing the borders
of our own imagination.
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A world without prisons?
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Ridiculous.
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Schools that foster
the genius of every child?
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Naive.
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Work that doesn't drive us into the grave?
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Impossible.
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A society where everyone has food,
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shelter, love?
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In your dreams.
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Exactly.
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(Applause)
