Seeding futures: a resilience guide to the age of the algorithm

A new book titled Sembrar futuros has emerged as a critical response to the growing dominance of algorithmic systems and their impact on society. The work, authored by Eurídice Cabañes, explores the fractures within the digital capitalist system, tracing its roots from the extraction of coltan in mines to the energy-hungry data centers that consume vast resources. It critiques how major technology companies manipulate attention, shape bodies, and profit from personal intimacy. Published by Ariel on September 2, the book offers an urgent call for resistance and proposes alternative ways to reclaim memory, decolonize time, and redirect innovation toward life, care, and collective well-being. A preview was released by infoLibre, emphasizing the idea that the future is not something that happens to us, it is something we can still plant. The text presents a stark analysis of how fear-based rhetoric is used to justify exclusion and violence against marginalized groups who have already lost basic rights. As more people face the erosion of fundamental protections, these narratives shift focus away from systemic issues such as housing insecurity. Instead, they frame vulnerable populations, such as homeless individuals, climate refugees, and migrants, as threats to societal stability. This strategy diverts public concern from the real culprits: financial institutions and powerful elites who benefit from the status quo. By doing so, it legitimizes increased spending on security measures while undermining collective action aimed at reforming unjust structures. In recent cold spells, this dynamic has become visible in urban settings. At airports, workers have begun requiring boarding passes to enter premises, with one staff member explaining that the measure aims to prevent “vagrants” from entering. Meanwhile, police and sanitation workers have forced homeless individuals to surrender their cardboard shelters, an act witnessed firsthand by observers. In Barcelona’s Barceloneta market square, a notice left on the ground informed passersby that someone had died of exposure that week. The body was never claimed, and the person perished alone. These incidents illustrate a broader pattern: rather than failing to support the most vulnerable, the system actively contributes to their death through what the author describes as “necropolitics”, a term highlighting how certain lives are systematically erased or discarded. From genocide to the removal of protective materials from the homes of the homeless, preventive cruelty has become institutionalized. Those affected by injustice are consistently portrayed as threats to social order, while those who strip them of their rights are framed as defenders of stability. Yet the true danger lies not in individuals attempting to survive, but in the structural and cultural forces that dehumanize them. Society has internalized the notion that some deaths are irrelevant, allowing the machinery of exploitation to continue unchecked. These fatalities are counted as collateral damage, accepted as routine practice. Necropolitical policies justify their erasure and marginalization, promoting scarcity narratives while enriching the wealthy elite. The book argues that fear should not dictate our priorities. Instead, we must confront the mechanisms that strip humanity from those deemed expendable. Through acts of resistance and solidarity, it suggests, we can begin to rebuild a world where survival is not a privilege but a right. The publication of Sembrar futuros marks a step toward that goal, offering both a diagnosis of current crises and a vision of what might yet be possible.