Mmmm. 17776 might be one of the few utopian pieces of fiction I can actually see as beautiful and a world I wouldn’t mind living in. I think it’s because tragedy exists within it. And it’s mundane tragedy and also tragedy that is physically incomprehensible to us, who WILL die one day, but very much emotionally comprehensible because it stretches out tragedy’s scope and bounds and who can be considered tragic (the sunken city of New York, where everyone survived but the city is still gone. The lightbulb which stayed on for hundreds of years. The concept of being in love and having to be away from each other for 100 years, even though you are quite literally immortal.) like taffy . And still joy exists, and joy- mundane, pleasant, playful joy- is the force pushing continued existence, pushing the sentience of space probes, pushing the desire for us to pointlessly, happily, play