We Must Dream of Limitations

Most every fantasy book brings a different magic system. Lord of Rings, your magic power is a function of your birth - wizards and elves and balrogs all have a certain power-level just from their own being. Harry Potter, the magic a wizard or witch can perform is a function of their natural talent X their practice (Hermione out-performs most everyone, except Harry at Defense Against the Dark Arts). Eragon, the energy in your body limits the amount of magic you can cast.

There are many books about beings more powerful than man. Ender's Game gives us beings that can communicate instantly across space - but of course, these beings are controlled by a single queen - a single point of failure. TODO, smarter beings are limited to different places in the universe; no super-intellegent creatures from the beyond can physically venture lower. The Bible, god is just good.

There are many books about supposed-utopian societies. Some are made of Water Melon Sugar and evilness, some lack color, some of them lack the word I. All of them, of course, are just dystopian.

From the first replicating molecules floating in the ocean, every single replicator has been limited - in its access to resources, in its capabilities, in its understanding of the world around it.

Our entire understanding of the world is mediated through the fundamental fact: you can't do literally anything. This fact is so capital-t True that even if our fantasies and fictions, we can't help but imagine a world with limitions.

Solar-punk is a good start, maybe. But let's get serious here. Let's imagine we solve energy with Fusion, we solve scientific discovery / food with AI (and inequality with the same). We solve illness and aging with a perfect understanding of the human mind and body. We solve war, famine, murder, and even just bad-vibes with unimaginable tools and technologies of empathy and understanding. What does that world look like?

I'm not asking this in a "oh, that's actually a distopian world" sorta-way. I'm geninuely wishing that our best writers and dreamers would think about it, and then help me dream too. I guess it lacks narrative tension.