on better futures
Different as it sounds, this kind of triumphalism had something in common with paralysed heartbreak. One rested in arrogant assurance, while the other rested in despair. Both saw the future as something offstage, rather than as the thing we were always creating in every moment, whether we acknowledged it or not. And both forgot that essential truth
... See moreJenny Odell • Dear Future, Here’s the One Lesson I Want to Pass on to You
It might seem that the close coupling of digital innovation with the market was inevitable, but our present reality is only one possible digital world — creating others is still possible, and there is little time to waste.
Rachel Coldicutt • Sunshine Machines: Towards a Feminist Future of Digital Care
Our job as activists is to have good ideas lying around, so that when the crisis occurs, the impossible can become the inevitable. The good news and the bad news is that here in the digital 21st century, we are really living through a great surplus of crisis. And in that world of crisis, there are so many opportunities for us to demand something
... See moreWilfred Chan • ‘We Do Not Have Fast Companies Anymore’: Cory Doctorow on Where Tech Went Wrong, and How to Fix It
A world that’s upside down cannot and should not be treated and measured as if it holds the key to creating a world that’s right side up. A new vision and world requires a new way of thinking, measuring, acting, and being
TFSX • The Future Thinker’s Dilemma
poetics and politics can be reshaped. Organizers are aspiring authors and artists, creating elements of stories, in constellations we are often unaware of, with pockets of unseen work happening far and wide. Creating connection, potential, and possibility is creative work. We are in a moment when we must hold prediction and possibility all at once.
... See moreKelly Hayes • Let This Radicalize You
We could bemoan the fact that things have come to this, or we could steal the tricks and channel all of that weird energy into something productive, something that makes peoples’ everyday lives better.
Packy McCormick • How to Fix a Country in 12 Days
No matter how we choose to take action, we are usually working toward a future that we will be unlikely to see. It’s a future built on the hopes and the sacrifices of our ancestors upon whose labor and love we stand.
Kelly Hayes • Let This Radicalize You
We live in societies around the world where “experts” run the show. Given the profound changes that are unfolding in our global economies and societies, we need to shift to explorers who can help us craft new pathways that can create far more value for all of us.
johnhagel.com • From Expert to Explorer
Neither of these individuals are saying that we should not be working with organizations, businesses, governments, for-profits, non-profits, or any other entities where people work and live — and neither am I. What we are saying is that our thinking and acting toward the future must challenge the systems that would seek to short-circuit the very
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