Same technology.
Different architecture.
Centralised platforms, invisible infrastructure, and people reduced to consumers of systems they cannot inspect.
Solystopia
Field guide 01 — a rallying cry
Use the machines to rebuild the village.
“Technology should make us harder to control, not easier to replace.”
A living argument for high technology, low dependency, and the return of practical freedom.
01b / The build in public
Live experiment
Solystopia is being built.
Project Hearthmind is the household proof: one local AI node, sovereign storage, measured electricity, and a documented path from design to operation. Every number on the right is the honest current state, not a rounded-up estimate.
Current phasePhase 0 — design and procurement. No hardware has been purchased.
Main questFund + commission Hearthmind Node 01
Contributions£0 of £6,000
Local Capability RatioNot yet measured
Physical nodes deployed0
01 / The problem
We traded competence for convenience.
Our systems have become powerful while our lives have become fragile. We can summon anything, but cannot always make, mend, grow, or govern what we need.
Solystopia asks a different question: what if the most advanced society was the one that gave people more practical freedom, not less?
Continue the argument
“Possessions are not resilience. Competence is.”
— Working note, Solystopia 01
02 / The inflection point
Artificial intelligence / robotics / automation — the two Britains
The machine is becoming more capable.
Are we?
Same technology.
High technology.
Low dependency.
Tools that return time and capability to households, neighbourhoods, villages, and towns — the actual point of this whole argument.
Capability 01 / live tool
Start with one system you can actually own.
Build a local intelligence setup on a computer you control. Learn what it does, what it cannot do, and how to leave it behind.
Build Local Intelligence02c / Project Hearthmind — the live research project
One NVIDIA Spark. One household. Measured, not assumed.
Can a household actually own meaningful AI capability?
Project Hearthmind is the practical test of the whole Solystopia argument: one DGX Spark, installed on private British land, measured for power draw, tokens per kilowatt-hour, and cloud spend avoided — with every claim classed by evidence and every source cited.
The constraint that decides which model sizes are usable locally, on one desktop unit.
Measured by an independent reviewer, well under the 240W ceiling — a household electricity bill, not a datacentre one.
List price range for the hardware — a capital cost a household can weigh against a cloud bill, transparently.
02b / How the movement works
The Solystopia loop
One path, from reading to rebuilding.
Every step is a real, working page — not a roadmap slide. Start anywhere; the loop carries you round.
The return of time
What if technology gave us time back?
Every hour automation returns is a choice about what to do with it. Solystopia argues it should go back to the people it was taken from — not to a feed.
Time for family.
Time for craft.
Time for neighbours.
Time for study.
Time for worship.
Time for nature.
03 / A way of seeing
Every technology story needs better questions.
Solystopia is a publication and a method for reading the future without surrendering our judgement to it. Ask these five questions of any new system before you welcome it in.
01
What happened?
Name the system before trying to improve it.
02
What does it automate?
Separate useful relief from surrendered agency.
03
Who controls it?
Follow ownership, maintenance, and the right to refuse.
04
What is the trajectory?
Read the direction of travel, not only the feature list.
05
What is the alternative?
Imagine the same capacity arranged around human independence.
04 / The means of sustainability
Not autarky.
Subsidiarity.
The smallest scale at which a system remains effective. As the camera pulls back, resilience becomes spatial: house, neighbourhood, village, nation.
Household
Food, energy, water, tools, skills
Neighbourhood
Care, workshops, libraries, shared stores
Village / Town
Schools, clinics, markets, microgrids
Nation
Fibre, rail, energy, public research
05 / Field notes
Author observes
AI learned to see weeds.
That might matter.
Technology should adapt to nature, not nature to the machine. A sensor can be a form of attention. A small robot in an orchard can be a form of care.
Read field note 01406 / The paper
Solystopia working paper 01
Technology for human independence.
The first academic paper sets out the argument behind Solystopia: how advanced tools can strengthen practical freedom when they are governed at the smallest useful scale.
Join the private release list for the paper, citation details, and a short note from the author when it is published.
- 01You join the private list above
- 02We send the paper on first release, before public notice
- 03You reply with questions — the author answers directly
07 / Contact
The long future is a shared project
Less drudgery.
More life.
Technological abundance in service of human independence.
Start a conversation