From my perspective, all the many trends that I track are linked in one way or a another to four overarching, civilisation-level, end-game "meta trends". Of course, all four of these meta trends are themselves interlinked and interactive, and can be envisaged as four oscillating cyclical waves that pull together, pull apart and underwrite the … Continue reading Meta Trends and Far Future Visions
Category: futurism
SEX as a leading indicator
If you are a futurist, you should be watching the sex industry. The world's oldest industry is full of shiny new ideas and quick to adopt new trends and technologies. It's also very flexible. (Puns all fully intended). I wrote in more detail about this subject here. Enjoy.
Postalgia / Prostalgia – Is this as Good as it Gets?
Postalgia is a term used by science fiction writer William Gibson to explain the future fatigue plaguing contemporary culture. Postalgia is a hankering after the present; as opposed to nostalgia, which is a hankering after the past. Postalgia is the sense that things right now are as good as they will ever get. It is … Continue reading Postalgia / Prostalgia – Is this as Good as it Gets?
Trading personal futures – Discounting or investing in the future?
How much do you value yourself? Or, another question, how much do you value your present self compared to your future self? Most of us are based towards the present. We discount the future and over-value the present. This is not entirely unreasonable. Life is finite. We have no guarantees that we will even have … Continue reading Trading personal futures – Discounting or investing in the future?
Three doors; one room
"And so if we look at Europe and we say, well, how will Europe be different from the way it is today in the future? I think there's sort of three pictures of a very different future, and sort of behind door number one is Islamic Sharia law, and if you're a woman, you'll be … Continue reading Three doors; one room
On cults, climate and culture
Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - based, of course (loosely) on the infamous, real-life story of the Manson Family's murder of Sharon Tait and her friends story gives us a glimpse of the dark side of happy hippie culture - and how counter-culture-culture can turn into a cult. Recently, I was asked to co-author … Continue reading On cults, climate and culture
Nothing is real, everything is possible
One of the big trends and socio-economic trajectories I'm focused on right now is the concept of how life is becoming untethered from reality. I'm not just talking about virtual / augmented reality and literal virtual escapism; and fake news and deep fakes either (although that's indeed an important part of it), rather I'm talking … Continue reading Nothing is real, everything is possible
The Future Starts Now
The choices we make today, as individuals, as businesses, and as societies ripple out all around us, amplifying over time. What will future generations – our children and our grandchildren (indeed, even our future selves, should we live long enough, as well we could)- make of the choices we are making on their behalf? The … Continue reading The Future Starts Now
Package Deal (or No Deal)
For me, one of the biggest issues with democracy today - and one of the biggest threats to our collective (and individual) futures is that of package politics (or party-pack politics as I shall call the system). Party-pack politics forces you to pick your politicians off a set menu, with no additions or substitutions to … Continue reading Package Deal (or No Deal)
Can we build a shared future without a shared past?
As deep fake technologies "improve", they now have the ability to manipulate the past as well as the future. We can no longer be sure that a historical document, photograph or even video footage has not been manipulated to change history (in ways not even Orwell's Big Brother could have imagined). Case in point, here … Continue reading Can we build a shared future without a shared past?