About

Hello, I’m Ben

I write Utopia Is Loading from Brighton. It’s one article a week about the progress you never hear about, with the evidence on show.

Why I do this

I’m here to serve. That’s the whole point of this site, and it shapes everything on it.

Every week I ask one question: how can I help people see the good that’s quietly happening? And how can I get this message to my friends, and to their friends?

Because the good is happening, often faster than we notice, and most of it never makes the news. Knowing that, with the evidence on show and the hard parts named honestly, can leave people calmer and more hopeful. That seems worth a few hours a week.

Almost everyone I’ve shared these ideas with has thanked me, and several told me to write them down. I suspect a few of them also wanted me to stop bringing it up at dinner. Either way, here we are.

Service leads. Income follows. Everything here is free to read, and if it ever earns a living, it will be because it was useful first.

What I believe

That progress is real across three layers: what we have, how we treat each other, and how we live inside our own heads. That the gains are held in place by ratchets that make them hard to undo. And that it’s less like a slow drip and more like a fast river running just beneath the surface, one we rarely hear about.

I’m not here to tell you everything’s fine. Wars, climate damage, loneliness and young people’s mental health are real, and you’ll find them taken seriously here, in the same detail as the good news. The house position is simple: bad, and better.

How I check things

Every article ends with a short Evidence panel. It shows the main claims, how sure I am about each one (from well established to contested, and clearly marked when something is my own idea rather than a finding), the sources, and the date I last checked them. I open every source myself. If I get something wrong, I correct it openly and date the change. You can read the details in our editorial standards.

Who I am

Ben Rama is the name I write under. I’ve worked in digital marketing for various charities in London for the last 20 years or so. I’ve spent years reading the people who measure how the world is changing, from Hans Rosling to Hannah Ritchie, and I live in Brighton, which turns out to be a very good place to notice things improving.

I also write a separate, more personal Substack called Only Awareness. It isn’t part of this site.

Free, and independent

Everything here is free to read. I take no money from political parties, campaign groups or advocacy think tanks, and any book links are clearly labelled.