A new tack for Futurepolis

Less news, more ideas.

I’ve decided it’s time for a change in direction for this newsletter.

My goal was to provide a vision for the future of democracy. My rationale was that what passes for democracy today is broken and fresh thinking is needed. My thesis was that the future is already being invented, in the form of experiments in democracy and governance all around the world. My approach was to cover those experiments.

I still have the same goal, rationale, and thesis, but I don’t think the approach is working.

There are two reasons. First, I set out to do this like a journalist covering a beat. The problem is, the beat is huge. It spans a vast array of topics, which I mapped out here. And the experiments I’m interested in are typically obscure and small in scale; finding them takes a lot of effort. I’d need to do the job full-time, and I can’t afford to with the few (but highly appreciated!) donations I’m getting.

Second, I think I’m a little ahead of my time. Right now most people don’t much care what seeds are being planted for the democracy of the future; they want to know what’s happening to hold authoritarianism at bay in the present. There are people writing about this—for example, I recommend starting with Micah Sifry, Democracy Notes, Jay Kuo, and Sherrilyn Ifill, and going from there—but that’s not where I can provide the most value.

So I’m going to return to the “vision” part. Less journalism, covering what’s currently happening, and more thinking-out-loud-in-public, hashing out ideas that have been wobbling around in my mind in inchoate form for a while. I’ll still be ahead of my time, but I think it will be easier, and perhaps more useful, to sketch the vision out in broad strokes than to cobble it together from tiny pieces.

I won’t try so hard to stick to a regular rhythm, though I’ll still aim to get something up at least once a week. I’ll still write about interesting democracy innovations when I find them, but I’ll aim not to respond to the news cycle unless it’s particularly relevant to my broader thesis.

We’ll see how it goes, and maybe I’ll pivot again. At any rate, I hope you find it interesting. Thank you for reading this far, and please send me feedback at futurepolis@substack.com!