Saved by Lien De Ruyck
Polytopias: The Missing Speculative Genre
I set out to write science fiction partly for the liberated literary territory it afforded, and for the laboratory of ideas it provided to try to imagine better futures (usually by putting mirrors up to see the worst aspects of the present).
Christopher Brown • Empty lots
The science-fiction writer William Gibson suggested that in his lifetime, the future ‘has been a cult, if not a religion’, but that this has waned.4 Future fatigue has set in instead.5 The Brazilian polymath Roberto Unger put the problem starkly: we suffer from a dictatorship of no alternatives.
Geoff Mulgan • Another World Is Possible: How to Reignite Social and Political Imagination
Speculative-fiction writers riff on reality like jazz musicians riff on standards, summoning strange new worlds, challenging assumptions, and subverting expectations. By journeying through these invented worlds, readers flex their own speculative muscles. Yoga for the imagination is invaluable in an evolving world where flexibility enables resilien
... See moreEliot Peper • The Possibility Engine
scenarios, which we named Gray, Green, and Gaia. We crafted them as “news feeds from the future,” and included a guiding strategy document. Andrew: OK, let’s take it from the top. Gray? Gopal: Gray is more or less business as usual extrapolated out. It’s the mostly collapsitarian view of how the social and ecological implications of climate will pl
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