Futures thinking

I believe that in nearly every instance where science fiction has successfully ‘predicted’ a turn of events, it’s more true to say that it has inspired that turn of events.

We do things to change the future, not the past

I want to defend and buoy hope – it’s a fragile, quirky thing, but it has the power to help us act in the face of finitude

Hope is vitalising. When it pulses, we aspire toward better futures and conspire with what we have and have been. In its absence, we often grow listless, even court despair. I thus want to defend hope, underscore what we gain... See more

the default network consists of regions that, in the absence of exteroceptive [externally oriented] attention or narrowly focused mental effort, support self-directed concerns, immersion in one’s inner life (e.g., daydreaming) or imagining the inner life of others (Theory of Mind)

But the future is not a self-fulfilling prophecy - 8 billion people on this planet have a voice and that carries far more weight than one person with 8 billion dollars. We just forgot how to exercise it.

According to the constructive episodic simulation hypothesis, extracted episodic details must also be recombined into a coherent event simulation. This recombinatory ability is thought to be central to flexibly imagining the future – to construct as well as disassemble and rework the components of scenarios to create different outcomes to enhance... See more

Today, there is perhaps no animal we are more unmoored from than ourselves. ‘The world is now dominated by an animal that doesn’t think it’s an animal,’ writes the natural philosopher Melanie Challenger in How to Be Animal (2021) . ‘ And the future is being imagined by an animal that doesn’t want to be an animal.’

Those of us who recognize that we’ve been here before are the ones who have to call attention to where we are heading.

Digital feedback loops are helping us see that our media, technology, culture, economy, and natural world all have at least as much of a cyclical character as a linear one.

It’s not a matter of banishing linearity and progress

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