By studying the history of social dreams, we can reject the bad bits and keep the good: challenging ourselves to explore alternatives for how we live,

“While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”16 It was an explicitly optimistic commercial message about the transformative power of utopian thinking…. So why limit such thinking to designing better Apple products?

changes in our intimate worlds would help us forge stronger and more harmonious societies.

Dreamers Have Always Had Haters

This is why utopian visions of how to build a different future often follow moments of great social upheaval. Ordinary people find themselves unmoored from the realities they once believed to be fixed and immutable—the “order of things” is disturbed.

Conjuring up new technologies, products, or marketing slogans to increase profits distinguishes the entrepreneurial mastermind from the mere corporate flunky. We accept that this is a good approach for solving economic issues and scientific problems. Yet at the same time, dreaming of different ways of organizing our lives is dangerous and

sudden change forces us to question our perception of reality and consider new possibilities that may have previously seemed unthinkable.

Those who benefit from the way things are have a strong motive for labeling as “utopian” any ideas that threaten the status quo. But even beyond that, those steeped in the ideology of their current existence cannot imagine an alternative to it. And most of us follow along.

think our way into a different future.