Future Here Now: Owning = Risk

Try It on

This week, we’re looking at one of those new realities: in the Fusion Era (particularly the transition to that Fusion Era) that seems simple, but on closer look can get pretty uncomfortable:

Owning things may expose us to more risk that it’s worth.

If you want to maintain the ability to move where the jobs or quality of life are, or avoid getting burned by volatile markets, or simply deal with the fact that families are smaller and don’t live in one place, then the traditional encumbrances of houses and cars and stuff might act more like fetters than like assets.

That changes not only what kind of residence we seek, but our whole relationship to materials goods, including such age-old markers of adulthood as owning a home. And what does that mean for the enormous amount of houses, and furniture, and stuff, that we’ve accumulated over the Industrial Era?

What does capitalism look like in a post-stuff era?

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Try It On

Pick a room in your apartment or house, and walk around, examining each individual thing (table, photograph, plant, coaster, etc. Ask yourself:

If I were moving to a studio apartment (call it 500 square feet), what from this room would I take with me?

What would happen to the rest?