Oblivion Is a Utopian Novel & Collection of Essays

Oblivion is a utopian novel & collection of essays #

Excerpt #

Here’s the index of everything I’ve written so far.

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At The Elysian, it is my goal, not to point out all the problems with the world, but to think through the solutions—to dream up a better future through essays and fiction, while studying humanist and utopian thought alongside paid subscribers.

Here’s a complete collection of my work so far.

I publish essays thinking through a better future. Here’s the collection so far:

• Philosophy

  • Who’s qualified to save the world?

  • Humanism is my religion now

  • Humanism as the future of religion

  • All the humanist texts I’m studying

  • I’m so over dead French writers

  • I’m studying all of the utopian novels this year

  • We don’t need our political ideologies anymore

  • Why I don’t read modern journalism

  • I wrestle with my goodness just like Jean Valjean

  • Bring back the “Renaissance Man”

  • How do we stop fighting on the internet?

  • Where do we find paradise?

  • Neverland and the utopia of childhood

  • Please come up with wildly speculative futures

• Government

  • Opening our borders will solve just about everything

  • What if countries had to compete for citizens?

  • What if countries acted more like companies?

  • There are already utopian countries

  • Could a US state become a “utopian country?”

  • US states could have universal healthcare

  • Should US states self-govern?

  • What if we split the US into city-states?

  • Cities should manage immigration (not nations)

  • Decouple federal government from nation-states

  • Digital nomads are opening borders

  • We need to get rid of politicians

  • Humans are good (except for that one guy)

  • What if government worked like Wikipedia?

  • I’d like to open a Singapore franchise please?

• War & Peace

  • What if NATO became a world government?

• Capitalism

  • A brief history of capitalism (& socialism & communism)

  • What is the point of profit?

  • What if it’s not cool to be a “bad capitalist” anymore?

  • An alternative to “tax the rich”

  • We don’t need to “degrow” the economy

  • We need to grow our economy to advance humanity

  • This could be our economy in the year 2100

  • The rich are not the problem (we are)

  • Yes, I am a techno-optimist

  • The rich are not causing the poor

  • Why I’m not a free-market capitalist

  • I’m not going to have kids to save the economy

• Work and leisure

  • A day in the life of my post-AI world

  • Automation has already taken our jobs

  • Are 20-hour workweeks on their way?

  • Is your company wasting your time?

  • Is it for work or for pleasure?

  • Economic possibilities for our grandchildren (re-visited)

  • Yes, the future should be analog

  • Will we return to craftwork?

  • Blue-collar jobs might be the best jobs

  • Remote work could solve global poverty

  • It’s time to rethink retirement

• Technology

  • Could AI make us wise?

  • Flying Cars (Post Modern, a podcast)

  • Humanoid Robots (Post Modern, a podcast)

  • The Metaverse (Post Modern, a podcast)

  • The Replicator (Post Modern, a podcast)

• Human Flourishing

  • “Friends” as the ideal community

  • One alternative to prison

• Art & Culture

  • Will we still have culture in the future?

  • We don’t need to colonize the world anymore

  • What if women were in charge?

  • Maybe women should design our sci-fi future

  • I watched the Super Bowl because of Taylor Swift

  • The unbearable necessity of being online

  • No one buys books

  • Substack could create the future of books

  • I’d rather have an investor than a publishing contract

  • In pursuit of a masterpiece

• Education

  • We should remove electives from higher education

• Cities

  • Inside the utopian cities of Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power

  • Electric vehicles are not the future (walking is)

• Health

  • We’ll have to eat less meat in the future

  • We won’t need doctors in the future

  • Yes, we will increase our lifespan with David Gobel

Fiction #

I serialized my first novel, a gothic novel called Obscurity, in 2021-2022. Now I’m working on a utopian novel that I will serialize when it’s complete. I also write short fiction.

• Novels

  • Oblivion (a utopian novel, in process)

  • Obscurity (a gothic novel, complete)

• Short Fiction

  • I trained an AI on the Catholic God

  • A day in the life of my post-AI world

  • What if Hawaii had remained Hawaiian?

  • AI could cure all disease

  • I built a castle to save the economy

  • I think I’m in the wrong heaven

  • Taylor Swift doesn’t want her photo taken

My Process #

I also share my process and my life as I go. Here are some of the things I’ve learned about writing and publishing on the internet since I began this newsletter.

• My research on the publishing industry

  • I gave a TEDx talk about the future of fiction

  • No one will read your book (and other truths about publishing)

  • No one buys books

  • Writing books isn’t a good idea (here’s a better one)

  • Substack should create the future of books

  • How authors are earning $50k+ on Kickstarter

  • How to sell books for $1 million each

• How I write

  • How I became a writer

  • Everything you need to know about my daily writing ritual

• My newsletter strategy

  • How I can afford to be a full-time writer

  • How I earned 1,200 newsletter subscribers in one summer

  • What I learned from one year on Substack

  • Here’s the business plan for my newsletter

  • Sanity check: Do you actually read serial fiction online?

  • My thoughts after my first quarter in business

• Case studies

  • How authors are earning $50k+ on Kickstarter

  • Emilia Rose earns six figures writing erotica on Patreon

  • Zogarth earns $20,000/month writing fantasy on Patreon

  • Shirtaloon makes $20,000/month writing LitRPG on Patreon

  • DC Kalbach earns six figures writing romance novels for Kindle Unlimited

  • A.N. Boyden makes $11k/month serializing romance novels

  • Wildbow makes $7,600/month writing fiction on Patreon

• Resources

  • My spreadsheet of all the literary agents worth querying

My newsletter has been featured by BBC, Business Insider, Fast Company, Publisher’s Weekly, Means of Creation, and Morning Brew. In 2022, I was awarded one of 10 places in Substack’s coveted fellowship program, and in 2023 I was named a Roots of Progress fellow.

I hope this provides a good introduction to my work so far, and I’m so excited to continue the work next week!

Thank you so much for being here, and if we haven’t met yet come say hi in the comments!

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