Robin Sloan: I send a lot of stuff through the mail. Our olive oil company would not run without it. I couldn’t pay so many of my bills if we couldn’t send things so reliably and econom­i­cally through the United States Postal Service. And of course I send out all these zines to people, too. The internet gets a lot of credit as a sort of utopian network … and the internet is cool … but I think actually maybe the USPS is the utopian network, and has been all along. I often think, when I put a stamp on something, or even when I print out my postage and it’s like six bucks — which is not nothing — wow, they’ll take it anywhere. And it will get there. You’re like “how is that possible?”

Antistatic: We all live in cities, but if you live down a country road it’ll still get there.

Robin Sloan: Exactly. That’s why it’s important. That’s why the USPS is utopian. And the other [delivery companies] are not, ‘cause they say “no, no, no, we don’t really mess with Sloan up there on old Skeleton Hill”. But USPS is like “I guess we gotta go there.”

Antistatic: “We’ll deliver to that ghost.”

Robin Sloan: Exactly.