I’ve had this idea for an animated series exploring alternative forms of societal organization, governance, and economics. What if in the future we decide to move towards ideas that limit the power of authority while democratizing power in more equitable and bottom-up approaches?
This topic has long been a special interest of mine springing initially from a deep interest and concern of the impacts of climate change. I think anyone who studies the topic soon realizes that we can only mitigate its effects and slow down the rate of growing heat and carbon in the atmosphere through systemic changes. A couple good reads on this are This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein and Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto (Capital in the Athropocene) by Kohei Saito.
Anyway we can only produce a better future if we can imagine it and I feel like sci-fi too often gets stuck in dystopias. Too many Walking Dead’s not enough Star Treks (pre nu-Trek). The solarpunk genre (like cyberpunk or steampunk) is about trying to envision that hopeful future where maybe things go right despite all of today’s problems.
That brings up the question of what should we do “right”? What alternatives are there to today’s status quo, which has resulted in massive wealth inequality and climatic collapse?
A big inspiration was the book, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. This book deconstructs the idea that the rise of nation states with authoritative and economic stratification was somehow inevitable with the advent of agriculture. Reviewing the latest archeological findings of the past few decades we actually see that throughout history people’s around the world have been experimenting with many kinds of organizing, and often in much more equitable ways than we do today.
Another good book on this topic of how can we do things differently is Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman.
With all of that context here’s my first attempt at that kind of utopian fiction. A traveler (on bike!) arrives at the town of Loomville just in time for their 37th Rug King Festival. Loomville is a textile community which is woven (😉) into their traditions. I’ll let the animation speak for itself but the key ideas here for anyone who wants to dive deeper are democracy by sortition and ensuring power is limited in scope and temporally.