reprage

What I love most about America is that the whole place is built around a utopian vision for the future. It’s a dream that goes a little like this: It doesn’t matter what sort of family you are born into, anyone can be ‘successful’. As long as you work hard enough and take just the right risks, you can build a better life for yourself. The best bit about the whole setup is that you get to choose what that better life looks like. Maybe you’re aspiring towards a brightly coloured Lamborghini or a vending machine packed with chocolate bars. Or maybe your idea of success isn’t even stuff, and you’d like humanity to start a mars colony or perhaps you want to remove all the plastic from the ocean. It doesn’t really matter how you measure success, as long as you can imagine it, then you can work towards it.

This is the part where I usually get frustrated by glaring inequality and start yelling ‘the cake is a lie.’ So I always take a moment to pause and remind myself; it’s a dream for the “perfect” future. The best utopian goals are always on the horizon, they’re the sort of ideas that we should always be striving towards.

Cryptocurrencies and NFTs offer a similar utopian promise to artists and creators - that we’ll all get paid and be able to live out our wildest fantasies. We just need to work hard enough and take the right risks.

A closeup photo of Tom Sachs chocolate bars in a vending machine.

Photos: Arthur Carpentier

Originally written for the Sachsian Syndicate.

Previously: TGIM 39 - … we’ll reach for the choice that uses the least amount of energy. It’s like this: If you’re hungry and sitting in front of a perfectly cooked steak, you aren’t going to chase down, kill and pluck a nearby chicken. You’re going to eat the steak.

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