Cory Doctorow
I like science fiction, but I absolutely love it when it gets into worldview and philosophy! Walkaway is set in a post-scarcity world, where anyone can design and print basic necessities – food, clothing, and even shelter. And in this world, there are broadly three kinds of folks – the elite oligarchs, who as usual want power and the ability to bend the world to their rules, the ‘default’ who continue to abide by rules and work for a living, and the ‘walkaways’, who walk away from this default reality.
They aren’t walking away from society, but understanding that in the zotta (elite) world, they’re problems to be solved, not citizens. As more and more people decide to turn ‘walkaway’, the elite have a problem with the drastic social changes that follow.
The book follows three characters to begin with, who decide to become walkaways. But then it opens out to a bunch of folks with varied perspectives on how individuals should live their lives, and how society should be built and nurtured. The science fiction and the gizmo tech is terrific in itself – filled with ideas, and so is the plot with its twists and turns, but as I said earlier, what takes it beyond are the philosophical discussions between the characters.
Funnily enough, these are usually between people who are on the same side. This includes diverse topics – generational mindsets, the inevitability of technological advancements and its intrusions, quality and the measurement of merit and its relationship with equivalence – individual genius and the role of community, why happiness needs to be fleeting for survival, and so on. And as the book progresses, it’s interesting to see how even the building of utopia is a WIP, and has to undergo changes as generations change, new ideas emerge, and technology continues its advance.
With climate change, always-on surveillance, refugee crises, wealth disparity all having acquired more momentum, this is a fascinating speculation (if not prediction) of how it’s going to play out, with a great representation of radically different worldviews, and a superb perspective on what a post-scarcity utopia could look like.
