The future is never built in isolation. It arises through the interactions of hopes, fears, and systems—technical, political, and ecological. In Benjamin Bratton’s The Stack, we are presented with a new planetary architecture of power and interface, one whose magnitude echoes the ancient myth of the Tower of Babel: a structure so ambitious, so unified in vision, that its collapse scattered humanity into confusion and fragmentation. This myth, like all enduring myths, holds a warning—one especially relevant as we oscillate between Utopian, Dystopian, and Protopian imaginaries of the future.

Utopia: The Flawless Vision

Utopias are compelling because they promise a coherent, perfected world. Whether technological or spiritual, these imagined futures erase conflict through design. But therein lies the danger: the desire for utopia often becomes authoritarian. The more perfect the blueprint, the less room there is for dissent or variation. A utopia enforced can quickly become a dystopia in practice. History reminds us that the pursuit of a singular, idealized future often tramples the present.

Dystopia: The Mirror of Warning

Dystopias are easier to imagine. They are cautionary worlds built from our worst impulses—surveillance, environmental collapse, algorithmic cruelty. They are what happens when we follow our systems to their logical conclusions without pausing to ask, “Should we?” The Stack, when governed only by efficiency and profit, risks becoming a stratified megastructure where sovereignty is privatized and the human is rendered marginal. The dystopia doesn’t arrive all at once; it seeps in through every unchecked optimization.

Protopia: The Path of Incremental Betterment

The protopian view offers a humble, yet optimistic alternative. Coined by futurist Kevin Kelly, Protopia suggests a future that is not perfect, but slightly better every day. As Kelly writes:

“Protopia is a state that is better today than yesterday, although it might be only a little better. It is much harder to visualize because a protopia contains as many new problems as new benefits.”
— Kevin Kelly, kk.org

This vision tolerates contradiction, local solutions, and ongoing repair. Protopia doesn’t dream of Babel’s tower scraping the heavens—it dreams of networks, bridges, and soil. It acknowledges that not everything can or should be planned. Much must be discovered—through iteration, failure, surprise, and adaptation.

Unlike utopia, which is imagined whole, protopia is always under construction. It is inherently experimental. It admits that failure is not only inevitable, but necessary. It demands humility in design, curiosity in action, and the courage to admit when something is no longer working. Protopian systems are regenerative and self-critical. They refuse to ossify.

Avoiding Babel: The Ethics of Balance

To avoid building our own modern Babels, we must resist the seduction of grand totalizing visions and profit-only logics. This is why we choose to build through frameworks like the Public Benefit Corporation—not because they are perfect, but because they aim to bind innovation to public good, and remind us that capital must serve people, not the other way around.

But even this won’t be enough. Even with the right structures, we must return again and again to the deeper principle: Protopia is a struggle. It’s not an endpoint, but a direction. The moment we declare success, we risk decay. The protopian path requires vigilance, doubt, renewal.

It asks us to become like Sisyphus—not cursed, but committed. Pushing the boulder of progress uphill not in futility, but with intention. Every day, again and again, we choose to push. And in that persistent act—humble, imperfect, determined—we find meaning.

Protopia is not a place. It is a practice.

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