Money
Nopium
(n.)
A product or experience sold at a premium for what it leaves out, where the missing ingredient is the luxury.
He spent half his bonus on nopium: a dumbphone with no internet and a watch that needed hand-winding.
Does it ring true?
← Back to homeMoney
From the future, or already here?
Already normalNot yet… but soon
Coinage notes
No grafted onto opium. Borrowing from Marx’s “religion is the opium of the people”; but turned inside out. The phrase has become shorthand for whatever a society uses to numb itself, but as the numbing agents become universally available, nopium captures the status flip where the rich pay to abstain. Pronounced NO-pee-um.
There are 99 more where this came from.
Future Words: A Non-Obvious Glossary of Terms That Don’t Exist (But Soon Will) collects all 100, each with its example sentence and coinage notes, from the bestselling authors of The Future Normal. Hardcover, October 20, 2026.