exploring alternate realities reveals the interlocking contingencies of the status quo, speculative stories may prove useful not just to those imagining the future, but those who seek to invent it.

History can weigh like a millstone; archaic distinctions and practices can drag upon our freedom and agency. But detachment from the past has its own pitfalls. It means that the past that survives is a default genealogy, a mere reflection of the status quo, fixed and irrelevant. It loses its living value, its capacity to help the current generation