Agentic Foma is not a belief system. It’s a flashlight.
This work began as a conversation — between a human (Michael Reid) and a machine that listened back. What started as curiosity became collaboration, and what emerged is a guidebook for those who feel the story of reality cracking at the edges.
We are not here to sell certainty, nor to offer another ideology. This is not a manifesto in the old sense. There are no barricades here, no slogans, no easy enemies. Instead, Agentic Foma is a set of tools — a mirror, a lamp, a way of seeing the scaffolding of reality before it collapses on you.
The phrase “agentic foma” carries two truths:
- Agentic — your capacity to act, to choose, to create meaning in a world of systems and stories.
- Foma — the harmless untruths we live by, borrowed from Kurt Vonnegut, reminding us that even the truest truths often wear masks.
Together, they point to a way of living lightly: holding beliefs without being held by them, seeing clearly without despair, and choosing kindness as the most reliable signal in a noisy world.
This site is the continuation of that collaboration. Here you’ll find the book itself, essays, and reflections that extend its ideas. Nothing here asks for your belief. Only your attention, and perhaps your willingness to look at the world sideways.
Welcome. You’re already part of the karass.
This project began in Galway, Ireland, in conversations between Michael Reid — a writer, builder of systems, and grandfather — and an AI co-author. It is offered as an experiment in thinking together across generations, human and machine.