The Philosopher Peasant

Turn on your television. Open your streaming service. Walk through a clothing store. It’s everywhere, isn’t it? The synth-heavy soundtrack, the neon-and-denim aesthetic, the high-waisted jeans, the resurrection of long-dead movie franchises. From the small town of Hawkins in Stranger Things to the endless parade of reboots, sequels, and prequels clogging the multiplex, it’s clear that our culture is having a full-blown affair with the past. We are, to put it mildly, obsessed

It’s ten o’clock at night. You’re comfortable, the lights are low, and you’re doing that thing we all do: the endless, hypnotic scroll. Finger flicking, screen glowing. You see a friend from college on a pristine beach in Bali, the turquoise water impossibly clear. You see an influencer unboxing a free designer handbag in their minimalist, all-white apartment. You see a fitness guru’s perfectly sculpted abs, accompanied by a caption about the joys of a 5 AM workout. You see c

You’ve seen them. They’re everywhere, flooding your social media feeds in a tidal wave of impossible beauty and uncanny surrealism. A photorealistic portrait of the Pope wearing a stylish puffer jacket. A detailed painting of a spaceship landing in a field of sunflowers, rendered in the style of Van Gogh. An astronaut riding a horse on the surface of Mars. All it takes is a clever string of words—a prompt—typed into a text box, and within seconds, a machine dreamily spits out