“Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment… Humanity is in a final exam as to whether or not it qualifies for continuance in the Universe.” — R. Buckminster Fuller, Utopia or Oblivion
Fuller wrote this back in 1969, an incredibly productive year for him as both “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth” and “Utopia or Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity” were published.
These two books shape the essential thinking for humanity in the Age of Climate Change and the disruption of the 2020s. These two books, along with Alvin Toffler’s and Marshall McLuhan’s, supplied the foundation of my thinking as a futurist. I have frequently shared from stages around the world that “I stand with honor on the shoulders of the three greatest futurists of the last 75 years: Toffler, Fuller and McLuhan, to better see into this new century.”
“There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play”.
This is how James Carse begins his book “Finite and Infinite Games”, in which he traces beautiful parallels between life and play. These first few lines make it clear that either in life or games – and why not, the game of life -, two paths present themselves clearly.
The first is that of the finite games. Those are built for winners, which automatically imply there must be losers. Here, there is competition, segregation and, eventually, an ending. On the other hand, however, sits the infinite game. Here we see no losers or winners. Everyone gets to play and, if well played, it never stops – it only gets better.
The beauty of this metaphor is that it takes us to a very familiar place – the one of games and play – to understand how the future can be imagined. When we wonder about what a good future could look like, there are endless, countless alternatives and pictures to paint answers to that question. Few things, however, compose the foundation of these many paths.
The power of the collective
It is extremely hard, if not impossible, to imagine a fair and beautiful future for many when we are willing to let just a few voices resonate when it comes to futures thinking. Much has been discussed in the past few years about diversity, inclusion and the power of various backgrounds composing teams, families and communities, and that is not out of the blue. If we are willing to act towards a planet of regeneration, abundance and equality, we must be willing to include as many colours, styles, religions, genders, nationalities into the mix of future thinkers and builders.
Meta-education
No, it has nothing to do with the metaverse. At least, not at first.
No one can disagree that education is the number one key for a bright future. It can change lives, change stories and has been changing the world for ages. But it needs to be much more adaptive than it currently is.
Meta-education is about constantly revisiting the learning system by which we live in, focusing on raising great questioners instead of people who are great at repeating memorised answers. The more we are willing to question our methods, certainties and processes, the more we are going to understand how to apply new techs to old problems and old knowledge to new challenges.
Nature and its principles
We cannot, in any way, talk about a prosper future without starting from one very simple fact – nature is much older, wiser and stronger than humankind. When the first Homo sapiens gave their first steps, nature had already been here for billions of years, and will keep existing long after we are eventually gone. In the current world we act as if it was meant to be subdued to our desires, but, as Francis Bacon said “Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed”. It has the ability to let nothing go to waste, to provide for every being with balance, to adapt and to be patient. These aspects compose a set of principles from which we surely should base ourselves while moving forward.
These are just some of the various concepts that could guide our envisioning of a good future. In fact, taking them into consideration is a great first step to place this wonderful future just around the corner. But in order for it to happen, we must be willing to question the status quo and roll up our sleeves to bring it to life.
As Carse states in the end of his book, “Infinite players are not serious actors in any story, but the joyful poets of a story that continues to originate what they cannot finish.”
What are poets, if not artists who act upon imagination? Let us, too, be poets who play this infinite game. It will give us the pleasure not of seeing the finish line, but of building a wonderful world for the next players to keep on playing a game that only gets better over time.
As a professional futurist who has spoken all over the world and written extensively about the future, it is clear that the Good Future is where we all want to go.
I come to this worthy and important effort from two frameworks that in their own way articulate the choosing to create the Good Future.
First, I believe that the 2020s are the most disruptive decade in history. It is also perhaps the most historically important decade as well. What humanity does this decade will shape the trajectory of civilisation at least through 2060 if not to the end of the decade. It is the time to reorient our efforts toward the Good Future. I have written six books about this decade transition from what was to what will be.
Second, I was part of the #forkintheroadproject along with Gerd and deeply believe this metaphor of the fork in the road perfectly suits the Good Future Project. Think of a fork in the road. One road is the one we are on, the high-speed, high-consumption super highway towards catastrophe. The other road is to the Good Future. Actually I think we have passed the fork in the road and are now mindlessly speeding to a bad future.
We need to urgently build a detour from the road we are on to the one that will take us to the good future. To say it through the rock and roll idiom, we need to get off the highway to hell and start the stairway to heaven.
All of us now alive in this unique historical moment must understand that we have the responsibility for our children, grandchildren and all the unborn to make the right choice, to change our thinking, to open the realm of new consciousness, to urgently move toward the Good Future. It is up to us. We do it for all of us alive and not yet born. https://the2020sdecade.com/
If we want the Good Future, we need to understand that our efforts must be driven by urgency. For the last 50 years visionaries and futurists have been speaking to the reality we now find ourselves: a polluted planet, climate collapse, swirling debt, massive lack of trust in leaders, increasing rapid acceleration of all technology, and rapid breakthroughs in AI and genetic engineering. Collectively humanity has only made incremental changes. This means that we are reacting more slowly than the threats and risks are increasing. 50 years of doing nothing to shape a collective Good Future is karma that can only be faced with an extreme sense of urgency, We must understand that urgency of action is key.
The other thing that is key is responsibility. We must wear the heavy burden of taking actions for all future generations. Who among us wants our children, grand children and great grand children to live somewhere other than a good future?
Those alive now have a disproportionate historical responsibility beyond almost any time in our history. With urgency and responsibility, we must muscle the necessary changes into effect, lead those that want but won’t do and alter the course of human history toward what could be a centuries-long Good Future.
I have sitting on a shelf in my workshop an iOS 7 model smartphone. It no longer holds a charge. No one remembers the original passcode (and we only have one chance remaining before it bricks itself, never to be accessed again). You may be wondering, why on earth is he saving a 6-year old phone. It’s because it was never backed up to the cloud. It was a photo album from which the photos were never printed and in some case contains the only visual records of some key lifetime events.
They were captured in the moment in all their digital glory. But in that same vein, they are now lost because of security requirements that both protect and restrict our access to the data. It is in this light I am returning to a practice of printing my photos, and with that I have come to appreciate the tangible nature of holding a photo in my hands. The same goes for my collectibles and building blocks with my grandchild. This is not to say NFTs will never have a place and Minecraft is totally out, they each have their merit. They do, however, lack a physical nature that even haptic enhanced Metaverse experiences are still a ways from making ubiquitous.
An interesting trend for GenZ is reemergence of the analog world. My daughter is a GenZer and she and her friends are absolutely enrapt with the mini-Polaroid camera. Given the nature of the Polaroid, they have relatively instant results, but there is still a level of patience and chance allowing the photo to be less than perfect and more authentic than those they might capture using their smartphones. This generation that grew up immersed in technology now frequents bookstores, Goodwill stores, coffee shops (for real, live conversations), and live concerts. They even prefer old phonograph albums over digitized music. When I asked why, the common answer they give is it “feels better” and “it’s real.” I have also noticed in our world of instantaneous everything, they enjoy the slower pace and calmness that comes from analog.
They are not luddites. They still value their smart devices, connectivity, Google maps, and Amazon next day delivery. They want a balance, and their population is large enough to validate bringing back aspects of the past to blend with the benefits of tomorrow. While not nearly as dystopian as Blade Runner, at least for this generation the future looks to embrace this blend of old and new. They want a sense of permanence and stability. Previous generations are marked by pyramids, stone engravings, oil and fresco paintings, scrolls, and fossils. In a digital only world, a few targeted EMPs (electromagnetic pulses) and it is gone. In ancient times, there was a saying that was something like, if you want to be remembered carve your name on a stone stele. GenZ’s new found passion is a way to preserve humanity’s history.
(for another perspective on this topic, Blair Currie of Forbes wrote this piece
As the planet lurches towards a climate emergency and its life support systems falter, the need for visionary thinkers with fresh insights and big ideas has never been more pressing. No wonder, then, that the world mourned the death earlier this year of James (‘Jim’) Lovelock, whose Gaia theory provided a new framework to think about nature, one that changed the way we regard our relationship with Earth.
Lovelock contributed to many fields, such as environmental science, cryobiology and exobiology, from thawing hamsters to building exquisitely sensitive detectors to find life on Mars or to sniff out ozone-destroying chemicals. But when he died on 26 July, the day of his 103rd birthday, the world lost what the Earth scientist Timothy Lenton in Science magazine called ‘a genius and iconoclast of immense intellectual courage’. Lovelock was a true original who was detached from the pressure to conform, one who had found a way to do research outside an institution, and who showed a disregard for disciplinary boundaries.
The Good Future Project, initiated by Futurist Gerd Leonhard and supported by the Futures Agency, is a global, non-profit network of like-minded individuals and supporters who focus on making ‘The Good Future’ (TGF) a reality. TGF’s concept is based on Gerd’s 2021 film ‘The Good Future’. TGFP’s blogs, video-channels and live-stream sessions serve as a platform for experienced contributors and as a space for planting the seeds of change, exploring what a ‘Good Future‘ might look like, and gathering momentum for making it a reality.
Together, we explore three core topics (technology, climate change and new capitalism) that we believe encapsulate the key challenges and opportunities, and focus our efforts on starting a movement that changes the narrative of how we see the future, and propels us to create it.
Following a brief introduction by Gerd Leonhard, who will explain the idea of The Good Future Project, each speaker will present for 7-8 minutes, sharing why they believe that a Good Future is possible, why it’s important (and justifiable) to be an optimist, and what gives them hope to envision and create a good future – and of course, what that Good Future could actually look like:).
More about the speakers
Puruesh Chaudhary is a futures researcher and strategic narrative professional. Her work mostly involves futures research, knowledge-collaborations and content intelligence within the framework of human security. Featured amongst the World’s top female futurists and has been recognized as Pride of Pakistan. She is a Distinguished Fellow 2015 at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI). The Center of Internet Media Ethics has honored her to serve as its Ambassador to Pakistan campaigning for quality journalism in the country; she now sits on CIME’s Board of Advisors. She is a Mentor for the UN-Habitat Youth Fund Programme and is on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Future Robot Life. She is a Member Network of Global Future Councils of the World Economic Forum on the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Chaudhary is an ASPEN Alumni, a member and an advisor to the World Futures Society and is on the Planning Committee of the Millennium-Project (Global Futures Studies and Research), she is the Founding Member of the Plurality University Network; has created the Asia Futures Network and is spearheading the Africa Knowledge Council, to bridge the understanding between the peoples of Pakistan and Africa.
Peter Leyden has spent his career figuring out the future and helping others anticipate what’s coming next. He’s a thought leader on new technologies and future trends, giving keynotes through Keppler Speakers. Leyden is a senior advisor on strategic foresight with his firm Reinvent Futures, working with a range of companies, most recently Autodesk. He’s a host and convener of physical and virtual events, most recently with The Long Now Foundation.
Leyden was managing editor of Wired magazine working with the founders in the early digital revolution. He subsequently founded two of his own media startups focused on the future. Leyden worked at the pioneering strategic foresight firm Global Business Network and is the coauthor of two influential books on the future, including The Long Boom. Leyden started his career as a journalist, including working as a foreign correspondent in Asia for Newsweek magazine. Learn more at PeterLeyden.com.
Chhavi Jatwani is the Design and Innovation Lead at the Future Food Network with international experience in food design and systems thinking. She has consistently been the industry first-mover, joining the first cohorts of all her educational experiences – BA in product & Interaction design in Bangalore, Masters in Food Design in Milan, and Food Innovation Global mission in Reggio Emilia. Growing up in a developing country, her strong internal compass is guided by only one question, “What is the impact I am creating?” She entered the food world with the ambition to promote a foundational systemic shift from intensive to regenerative, centralised to decentralised, taste & convenience-driven to also health and wellbeing focused.
“People, Planet, Purpose and Prosperity” – is Gerd Leonhard’s motto. Over the past two decades he has ranked among the top 10 futurist keynote speakers worldwide, and has recently become the leading virtual speaker using his unique ‘keynote television’ style of presenting.
Since 2004, Gerd has given nearly 2,000 talks in over 60 countries, drawing an audience of more than 2.5 million people. Wired lists Gerd as as one of Europe’s 100 most influential people, and The Wall Street Journal called him “one of the world’s leading media futurists.”
Gerd focuses on connecting humanity, science, technology, business, and culture. He promotes sustainable, human-centred values and emphasizes the importance of foresight, future-ready leadership, and resilience in the face of uncertainty. He is also known for speaking out against the pitfalls of unrestrained and extractive capitalism. His acclaimed keynotes speeches (both live and virtual) are renowned for their hard-hitting and provocative style – inspiring, humorous, motivational, and sometimes even life-changing…
By William E. Halal, The TechCast Project, George Washington University
This article focuses on one of the great challenges facing all of us today – how can we resolve the raging conflicts fomented by social media?
Conflict has always been a problem, but the digital revolution has raised it into one of the great challenges of our time. Facebook and other social media platforms inherently provoke the differences that drive today’s wave of “post-factual” nonsense. Statistica reports that 70 percent of Internet users think fake news causes confusion, and 83 percent say disinformation harms politics. One analyst framed the problem this way:
“In the past, wars were conducted with weapons. Now it’s through social media.”
It gets worse. Smartphones, social media, and artificial intelligence are automating the “objective” knowledge that computers excel at – thus pushing attention into the “subjective” realm governed by emotions, values, beliefs, and higher-order thought. The focus today is rarely on rational solutions, but more on resentment, self-interest, power and other motives beyond knowledge altogether.
Norman Lear, the famed TV producer, said: “We just may be the most-informed, yet least self-aware people in history.”
It is common to see wars fought over “us vs them” and “good vs evil.” Many Americans are convinced that battle between opposing parties is the best way to produce sound policy. After decades of political gridlock and rock bottom confidence in government – really? Is this the best we can do?
This is an historic challenge requiring a major shift in consciousness. My study of social evolution shows that the digital revolution is driving the world beyond knowledge into a new frontier dominated by the subjective thought that makes up nothing less that consciousness itself. (www.BeyondKnowledge.org) Whatever one thinks of former President Trump, for instance, he is a master at shaping consciousness. After all, it takes special talent to convince 74 million Americans (~ 90% of GOP members) to believe the 2020 election was stolen. That is the power of consciousness.
Ironically, the Trump saga highlights how the world is entering an Age of Consciousness, though it’s struggling through confusion, disinformation, climate denial and other threats that pose an existential crisis. Henry Kissinger recently wrote in Time: “… we are moving into a new period of human consciousness which we don’t yet fully understand.”
Just as Gutenberg’s printing press unleashed a flood of information that led to decades of war and the Protestant Reformation, today the digital revolution challenges us to tame the power of social media into a form of global consciousness. A good place to begin is by learning to talk across differences. We must make this the basis of social life.
Learning how to talk productively would be revolutionary, and it seems essential. With social media becoming more pervasive and cultural differences sharpening, the only way to find peace is through understanding one another. Former US president Trump may be out of office, but his 74 million followers remain a powerful force. Rather than more shouting, this article suggests it would be better to listen to them carefully.
A large body of creative ideas is growing on how to handle seemingly impossible situations, usually focusing on a few central principles. The following 5 points sum up the best thinking on what can be seen as the basic “cycle of conversation” –
Agree on the context for conversation,
Caution the speaker to avoid provocation,
Calm the listener to understand fully,
Guide the respondent to be constructive, and
Conclude with learning and trust.
A recent study conducted by the TechCast Project shows that this process appears to be 73 % effective by increasing collaboration, reducing conflict, and improving understanding. Results vary markedly in different settings. The most appropriate sectors are Business – 73 %, Education – 71 %, and Families – 69 % — cases that tend to value knowledge, objectivity, and cohesive relationships. Whereas Politics – 48 %, Religion – 40 %, and Social Media – 37 % are less conducive because of subjective differences in emotions, values and beliefs.
Clarify the Context to Form an Agreement
If you are engaged in a business meeting, an academic seminar, a political debate, or even a friendly discussion, you will inevitably be talking within some context. It could be Roberts Rules of Order or simply an informal understanding about how to behave. We may not think about it, but all communication requires understanding the context in which a message is embedded.
Today we need a context that allows us to communicate across the vast divides that cause confusion and conflict. Some ground rules, guidelines, or agreement are essential before engaging in a serious discussion to create trust and speak openly. A safe space that fosters communication. It would help greatly if these rules were commonly understood in simple terms – “speaking from the heart,” “really listening,” or simply “talking across differences.”
Caution the Speaker to Avoid Inflammatory Language.
As much as one would like to ventilate harsh feelings that been harbored too long, we must learn to bridle this temptation if we hope to have a listening audience. Talking across differences requires avoiding anything that is inflammatory — no blaming, accusations, loaded words, or anything that is likely to provoke conflict.
This is a demanding responsibility as most of us are prone to indulge our egos. That does not mean all emotions are curtailed, but that they are not directed negatively. If we wish to start a useful dialogue instead of an argument, it’s essential to speak from a deeply personal place. Almost spiritual. That place where you struggle to understand a complex world. Where you see how others, even enemies, also struggle to cope. That we are all flawed, doing our best, although different. Humility helps. Almost any speech can be accepted if authentic emotionally, coming from our shared humanity. Respectfully.
Calm the Audience with Deep Listening
It helps to acknowledge that “really listening” is hard work. It has been called “emotional labor.” Listening requires that we yield our impulse to argue, fight back and other bad habits acquired to help retain a sense of personal control. To listen deeply we must surrender this need for control and open ourselves to a richer reality. Release expectations, prior judgments, defensiveness, anything one is holding back. In religious terms, this might be thought of as showing obedience, or compassion for others’ suffering. We must allow ourselves to become vulnerable to things that may hurt. We must be prepared to make the ultimate concession by changing ourselves. Otherwise, “we are likely to pass God by without even noticing Him/Her,” according to Father Richard Rohr.
If we can truly cleanse our minds, then we are receptive to the value of differences you may dislike, including enemies. One of the foundations of psychotherapy is that the very act of listening to a troubled person can diminish the problem. In other words, simply being truly heard is healing. People can open up dramatically when feeling understood and accepted. Real listening and fully appreciating others’ views can become a creative force for change.
Guide the Responder to Explore Constructively
Talking across differences is not passive but requires constructive responses. A sure-fire way to stop a conversation is to throw up obstacles. There are innumerable ways we deepen conflict, but we can avoid these traps by catching ourselves from responding with “I disagree,” I object,” “You’re wrong,” “But…”, “What about…” Any type of objection divides, provokes resistance, and sheds trust.
Constructive questions that honor the speaker’s points can form a dialogue with the common goal of understanding. If we can join the speaker in helping to explore his/her concerns, we then create a breakthrough in the relationship. Speaker and listener are united in seeking truth. They form a small, temporary community. Mutual understanding is a path to resolve conflict.
Conclude the Relationship in Learning and Trust
The above principles comprise only a theory of peaceful conversation. As much as we all try to avoid conflict, there is limited experience in actual practice, and it’s not possible when caught up in violent conflicts.
Whenever we meet in the hope of pursuing some goal, however, there always exists an opportunity to improve understanding. Discussing differences honorably is done often today in academic settings, good business meetings, and among friends. A more extreme example is Quaker meetings; sitting in silence, anyone is free to speak as the spirit moves them. Talking across differences could prove a breakthrough in today’s embattled politics by enabling centrist solutions that benefit both sides.
Done well, a productive conversation can replace antagonism with respect. There may remain points of disagreement, but it is possible to see them as assets in disguise. Rather than a source of contention, differences can be like poles of a magnet or electrical current. They can become a source of energy, of creative acts that open new vistas for change and growth.
Beyond the practical gains, talking across differences unites us in community of shared understanding. If we speak from the heart, listen deeply and respond constructively, the collective intelligence can replace conflict with trust and consensus on solutions to what seem intractable issues.
At the risk of appearing grandiose, it may even be possible to think of this as the basis of a “learning society.” By raising the consciousness of a critical mass of individuals, talking across differences could be the best means for the global consciousness needed so badly today.
In 2018, Bill Gates guest-edited an edition of Time Magazine, which focused on optimism. According to Gates, “being an optimist doesn’t mean you ignore tragedy and injustice. It means you’re inspired to look for people making progress on those fronts, and to help spread that progress more widely” (Gates, 2018). In the same year, Steven Pinker published Enlightenment Now and the Roslings published Factfulness; both of which make a clear case that the world is better than we think. These were all attempts to counteract the paranoid pessimism of our time.
They emerged as islands of hope, in a time where most of us subscribed to doom.
But these optimistic islands, as promising as they were, have been flooded by the despair of a global pandemic, polarisation, war and growing inequality gaps on a planet close to collapse. Trying to peddle hope in a time of burnout is mostly met by a Nietzchean response that holds hope to simply prolong the suffering of man.
The 2020s have been a messy decade for our blue planet. We’ve run afoul of massive storms, increased racial violence, war, political turmoil, and continuing climate crises. No matter what country you call home, what industry you make your living in, or what family dynamic you are part of, millions feel powerless and scared.
In a study by Eckersley and Randle (2020) testing public perceptions of the future threat of humanity, most respondents believed our way of life will be ending in the next one hundred years. They list several studies that echo the subjective perception of dread in the current system and our expected, collective future.
I love dinner time. As the kids drag their daily news away from their screens, my partner and I settle in. It’s like a lottery spin, anyone’s guess where the conversation will land.
Tonight’s looped from the morning’s school-drop discussion on how DuoLingo uses TikTok to own themselves better than most brands (it’s really gold) to a sudden abrupt flip to the word on everyone’s lips: Metaverse.
Disclaimer: We don’t have a lot of Zuckerberg fans in the house, to state that from the onset.
“He’s kind of gunning for President of the Metaverse,” I offer.
“Yeah, he’s to the metaverse what Trump is to America,” my partner chimes in.
And off the Gen Zs go! They speak at a thousand words a second, clambering over each other to share their insights. Multiple tirades, trying to juggle a future of mental health concerns, wealth gaps and the complexity of conceptualising the merger of digital and real worlds.
“Wait, Reddit’s been crazy about this video, scroll to the gaming section!” the second youngest Whatsapps the link to the Family Group as he makes inappropriate quips about the robotic nature of people.
The Good Future Project 