Cancelled Future

When the Future Was Cancelled: Part 3, Politics

Zombie Institutions and the Facade Society

What does a society look like where the structures are standing, but the content is dead? Welcome to the era of zombie institutions and the hollow state.

Political hauntology describes a situation where institutions continue to operate on inertia, even though they have lost their ability to solve problems.

Finland and the SOTE Ghost

In Finland, this phenomenon has taken concrete form in the aftermath of the social and health services (SOTE) reform. Welfare areas have been born, organizational charts drawn, and leaders selected, yet services seem to be disappearing. For example, the Western Uusimaa Welfare Area has warned of a situation where “loosening the care guarantee” and funding deficits lead to the dismantling of services, even though the system nominally exists.

This is a classic example of the “hollowed out state” phenomenon. On the surface, everything looks normal: there are agencies, meetings, and strategies. Beneath the surface, resources and operational capacity have eroded. The citizen encounters the ghost of the system—a promise of care that is not available.

Potemkin Politics

Globally, the phenomenon is visible in “zombie companies” that remain standing only on cheap debt and subsidies, as well as in political nostalgia. Right-wing populist movements and Brexit campaigns have promised a return to an imagined past because visions of the future are missing. Politics has become the summoning of ghosts: we fight past wars with modern weapons.

Isaac Asimov: The Man Who Saw Tomorrow – Hits and Misses of a Sci-Fi Legend

He predicted the internet, AI ethics, and Zoom calls. But even Isaac Asimov didn't guess that we still wouldn't have nuclear-powered toasters. Here is a look at the hits and misses of the Grandmaster of Science Fiction.

Science Papers

The Asimovian Horizon: A Centennial Retrospective on the Predictive Legacy of Isaac Asimov

Comprehensive Analysis of Isaac Asimov’s Technological and Societal Predictions (1964–2024).

Cancelled Future

When the Future Was Cancelled: Part 1, Culture

This four-part article series dives into the world of hauntology. It is a phenomenon where the present feels possessed: old fashion trends return, politics treads water, and the internet fills with ghostly bot traffic.

Cancelled Future

When the Future Was Cancelled: Part 2, Technology

Cancelled Future

When the Future Was Cancelled: Part 4, Space

Winter in Helsinki

A Helsinki Startup Takes on Populism with Open Data

FactYou provides impartial, fact-based information about society and its financing.

Winter in Helsinki

Think Finland Is the Happiest Country in the World? Think Again!

Finland has once again been named the happiest country on Earth. Wonderful news, of course — but it does raise one essential question: has anyone actually been here in November?

MonDeGos

MonDeGos – Nordic Alternative Rock Across Landscapes of Oppression and Freedom

Helsinki-based MonDeGos has quickly emerged on the Finnish alternative rock scene as a band that refuses to settle for aesthetic melancholy alone. Their gaze is fixed on larger questions: What is the individual’s role in a society built on order and control? How do freedom and humanity survive in a system that gravitates toward uniformity?

Southern Fruits

Southern Fruits – A Giant of Traditional Rock with a Soul in the South

Helsinki-based Southern Fruits walks the paths of classic rock, blues and southern rock in a way that refuses to be trapped in the past. With more than ten musicians on stage, the band plays with a big heart and an even bigger sound.

Winter in Helsinki

The Gentle Darkness — How the Polar Night Can Support Well-Being

The polar night is a double-edged phenomenon. It increases vulnerability to low mood and fatigue, yet at its best it offers a chance to slow down, focus, and rest. Research supports the idea that beyond environmental factors, our own mindset influences whether the dark season feels more like a threat or an opportunity.

What would Helsinki look like through the eyes of a South American Nobel laureate? We asked AI to bring the city to life through the lens of magical realism.

Do polar bears hibernate?

No. They dance on ice!

Kluuvinlahti in Helsinki’s Kulosaari had gained a paper-thin layer of ice today, 27 November 2025. At our request, Google Gemini captured this lovestruck pair of bears. The background — lighting and all — is real.

A Huge Whale Jumps from the Sea in Helsinki

Helsinki is planning to demolish the Kulosaari Bridge because its concrete structures are in poor condition. The suspected cause has been sloppy construction. In reality, however, the bridge’s pillars are being weakened by whales bumping into them. You see, the whales have taken an interest in tourism and swim into Vanhankaupunginlahti to admire the original site of Helsinki, the landscapes around the old royal manor. Or at least they would—if AI had its way.

This video was created for us by Google Gemini, based on a photo snapped from the rooftop park of Redi, looking northeast.

A Brown Bear Plays Grand Piano in a Park in Helsinki

Early this autumn we went to see what the former parking lot of Finlandia Hall looks like these days. It was green. And there was a grand piano. There wasn’t a bear, though — even if in Helsinki of the 2020s you can spot all sorts of semi-tame wild animals. So we asked Google Gemini to add a piano-playing bear to the scene. This is what it came up with. Pretty cute, right?

Our proposal for the working groups pondering how to enliven a city swallowed by the winter darkness: more musically gifted bears in Helsinki!

A Steam Punk Dragon flies in Helsinki

Unauthorized drones over Helsinki? Not anymore — Helsinki.moi came up with a way to protect the city’s airspace from intruders: by releasing a few mechanical dragons into the sky. Natural, beautiful, and effective. At least if you ask AI.

Drone problem: solved. But who will chase away the seagulls stealing meat pies at the Market Square?