In the Philippines, for instance. There sat young, urbane digital natives in front of rental houses, always in flip-flops, always with tattoos and beards, well, like, building websites for consultants and motivational coaches. That is, for the unemployed. And they would say: “I work hard, I’m available for my clients 24–7, but just look at this setting.” The camera pans to simple, good-hearted natives, who’ve just robbed a bank. Are there even banks in the Philippines? Perhaps they were just members of a terrorist organization. But these days the digital nomads aren’t even sitting around with terrorists in Guatemala or Malaysia but in warehouses in Leeds, gathered around a campfire, and the only things in working order are the charging stations and the server and internet. Anyone who can use a computer is doing some shit or other online. Mostly content managing or building bots that are supposed to get people to do something, when in doubt getting them to shove a poker up their own asses. It works.

“Come on,” says

DON

She pulls Karen along behind her, whose face is paler than usual, and usually she is very, very pale. Karen looks as if she’s asleep. And dreaming. Dreams are a neglected arena for the children. Other than imagining themselves as grime stars (Jet, Rolly, Brilli, Bling), hardly any pleasurable experiences occur to them that they might lose themselves thinking about. What are they supposed to dream about? World peace, ecologically sustainable housing, functional sewers, or saving the earth’s climate? Nobody knows what the matter is with the climate, which had earlier been constantly used as a threat in various scenarios. Nobody had been interested. Warmer is better. Now it’s even warmer, and it rains more often, and the water can’t soak into the ground because it’s too parched, soon millions of people in distant parts of the world will disappear. Or want to. To go to nicer areas. So far, so good.