The future, now and then.

Notes on old digital futures that never materialized, current digital futures that won't turn out how we expect, and the utter mess we find ourselves in these days.

Hi, hmm, okay. I guess we’re doing this!

Welcome to my newsletter, “the future, now, and then.” I figure a substack is basically just a blog that you can subscribe to. I miss blogging, and I’m excited to get back into it.

You’ll read a mix of technology and politics here. I’ve started the next phase of my #WIREDarchive project — I’m (re)reading the entire back catalog of WIRED magazine chronologically, working through some big-picture ideas about the stories influential people tell about the digital future, and the systematic blind spots that leave them always getting the future wrong in the roughly the same ways.

I’ll also write about existential threats to American democracy. We’re living through a period of democratic decline that was basically unfathomable ten years ago (even to cranky pessimists like me!). How did we get into this mess, why are we kinda stuck, and how might we possibly get out?

Thanks for subscribing. You’ll hear more from me soon.

-Dave