on better futures

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

challenges to long-held assumptions take place when individuals dive deeper and deeper into anticipatory imagination and provocation, and this opens the door to transformative realities that profoundly change the perspective of the foresight practitioner. Consequently, the possibility of these new worlds become an internal experience that can no

At the Institute for the Future we believe that the value of futures thinking is not in predicting the future (something no one can do), but in imagining possibilities of what the future could be. And if there was ever a time we needed such imagination, it is today.

The most fundamental task is to help each other to reorient our life and work through a sensibility that is prefigurative of the better aspects of our emerging future.

I’m reminded of the words of sci-fi author Ursula K. Le Guin: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.” Of course, it was also noted by philosophers Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek that “It’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.” Such a statement displays the narrative

𝘞𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘢 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮 𝘣𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥, 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘱𝘴𝘺𝘤𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘶𝘴, 𝘧𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘢𝘭𝘭. 𝘈𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘶𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘪𝘳 𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘯𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘢 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺, 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘸𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘨. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘺𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘮 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘵𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯

I have learned to take the construction work of organizing as it comes, creating things that I believe have to exist, and working with others to build containers, organizations, and projects that I believe the world needs. I am always dreaming up new ideas and making things, because the world is not transformed primarily by what we think of it.

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.