Fiction is a backdoor into a communal vision. A novel – maybe every novel – is a prototype of the future. And if the ideas that tech companies are pursuing feel stagnant, feel from the same old paratactic lists, maybe it points to a shortage of compelling fictions for what the world could be.

(Cue Ursula K. Le Guin speech.)

— Jack Cheng, Die Hard, Calmwashing, and Cosplaying the Future, Sunday, 2024