The irony is that I came to Lisbon as part of the very class of people stoking change.

I was raised in London, though I never felt like I belonged, and I moved here with the kind of mobility many Portuguese people don’t have. I know that makes my concern complicated. I’m inside the problem, trying to live with some awareness of it. But I guess that’s also why I feel it quite sharply.

I’ve seen what happens when a city becomes increasingly organised around capital rather than belonging. I’ve seen parallel worlds emerge: one for those with money, mobility, and international networks, and another for the people who carry the place through ordinary life.

In Lisbon, I feel the parallel worlds too: the expat world of specialty coffee, brunch, English-speaking spaces, and aesthetic consumption; and the Portuguese world of families, workers, elderly neighbours, dry humour, and the slight twitch of memories from difficult political histories. These worlds occupy the same streets, but they don’t always meet.

I’m learning Portuguese. I read Camões and the country’s history. I feel at home amongst the soulfulness and sarcasm of the Portuguese. In many ways, I feel more kinship here than in the city that raised me. I try, imperfectly, not to treat Portugal as a lifestyle accessory. But I still feel the weight of sometimes being grouped with those who arrive without curiosity, humility, or any real desire to belong beyond consumption.

There is a strange loneliness in loving a place while knowing my presence may symbolise something painful to the people from here.

I don’t think growth is inherently wrong. But if Lisbon’s transformation turns the city’s own people into background characters in a prosperity story written for investors, tourists, remote workers, and elites…then that growth has cost too much. A humane society should not ask ordinary Portuguese people to sacrifice their homes, neighbourhoods, and sense of belonging so the country can appear successful from the outside.

Maybe I feel for the Portuguese, not because I imagine myself morally separate from the problem, but rather because I’ve already lost a version of home to the same problem.

London taught me what happens when ordinary people are priced out of the places that formed them. So when I see Lisbon beginning to split into parallel worlds, it’s difficult to pretend it’s harmless.

Though I moved to Lisbon with the mobility of a London expat, it wasn’t with a face people usually associate with that world.

Sometimes I feel suspended between the Lisbon of remote workers and the Lisbon of Uber drivers and service staff…the latter of which is deeply relied upon, but they’re rarely welcomed with the same ease as the former.

I’m close enough to see both, and oftentimes misread by both, but I don’t quite belong to either.

So…even within the outsider class, there are hierarchies.

AI won’t determine the future nearly as much as how the gains end up being distributed. I think what the AI faff has exposed is the gap between economic systems and human needs.

It’s a fair aspiration to remove work from human hands (ongoing for millennia), but it’s not fair to gate-keep the value that comes with it.

Bigger Q:
What happens when intelligence is a commodity in a system built on scarcity?
How will our identities, structures, and search for meaning change?

Entering a small elevator, especially if someone’s already inside:
First “Bom dia/tarde/noite”, then “Posso?” before entering

As you reach to press your button:
“Com licença”

When exiting:
another “Bom dia/tarde/noite”

It may sound too formal, but I’m firmly on the side of these small pleasantries. They’re the soft edges of a community… a small “price” to pay to stop a place from feeling like everyone’s just passing through each other. We are wired for connection, after all.

Tbh I’ve said “bom dia” to more people in a month, in Portugal…. than I’ve done in 30 years in London.

I read Moxie Marlinspike’s (Founder of Signal) critique of democracy recently, that there are problems inherent to the system itself:

• Democracy turns people into passive selectors of pre-made options, implying that those who control the agenda hold real power.
• The majority imposes decisions on minorities, even though technically the “majority” is often just the largest minority group.
• Built-in (unfixable) vulnerabilities include: demagoguery, lobbying, and corruption.
• It presents itself as the only legitimate system, and synonymous with freedom. But voting gives an illusion of control, real power remains elsewhere.
• Participating in elections legitimises the system. It channels dissent into safe, limited actions instead of direct change.

Their alternative is anarchy (self-organisation and direct action), which is great for smaller scale matters, but how would that work for the public service elements? Transport, power grids, healthcare. These things necessitate long-term infrastructure planning, oversight, maintenance, standards, among other considerations. Fragmented decision-making from loose voluntary groups most likely cannot deliver outcomes efficiently enough. There would still be a need of some form of large-scale coordination system.

I always think about, “How do we keep large-scale coordination, but give people more direct influence and control?”. Some rabbit holes:

• Preferendums during elections (rank issues on priority, giving leaders a mandate to follow)
• Energy co-operatives in Schönau and Feldheim. Owned and run by the people.
• Use tech for faster feedback loops. Continuous engagement by proposing policies and voting more frequently
• Citizens assemblies to deliberate on specific issues
• Participatory budgeting: Schools vs roads vs parks etc

In the 1860s, a man named James Croll began writing about how the Earth’s movements shape our climate, particularly ice ages.

Fascinatingly, he wasn’t even an academic, but a janitor at Strathclyde University (formerly Anderson’s University). He spent evenings in the uni library, teaching himself physics, hydrostatics, mechanics…whatever he could get his hands on.

What fascinates me just as much though, is who gets remembered (and who decides that). We all know of Einstein or Newton, even if we can’t quite explain their work. But there are countless others who’ve helped make sense of the world, including teachers, priests, and gardeners.

Some people wait for Glastonbury, Coachella, the new season of X Factor, or Stranger Things. Meanwhile I’m just here, patiently waiting for pomegranate season.