future studies

The Open Question Feb 25: What's the future of America? Are we (USA) in a decline? Are we thriving? Does it matter? Think The Fourth Turning, Ray Dalio's changing world order, The Decline of the Roman Empire, rise of China, and whatever else you bring.

#openquestion 

AMA with Jordan Myska Allen. Wednesday 2/4 at 12:30pm CST

Founder and CEO of UpTrust, founder of Relatefulness... solving seemingly impossible social problems and having fun doing it

#heywait 

🔮 Join for A Future You Love, Aug 28-29. We're hosting another online forum! This time two days of imagining a better future. Be a featured writer by signing up here. Or just show up- add the event to your calendar so you remember to hop on. More about the event- Imagine being 10, 20, 50 years into the future. It's awesome- better than you expected. What went right?

Check out more details on the site- www.uptrusthq.com/future. 

It would be awesome have everyone that regularly posts claim a writing spot- 

What would you want to see preserved or enhanced in the future?

For this event, a Future Claim comes from your personal imagination of a future world you love being a part of. What’s it like? Whether or not you feel the world is headed that way or if it could given our current course.

This can be far future or in a couple of years. It can be a bold idea, a quiet hope, a fear, or something you think more people should talk about.

You don’t need to be an expert. You don’t need to be a sci-fi writer. You can come with an unfinished idea or something you’re pondering.

Some examples:

• “I love how everyone speaks openly about their mystical experiences of oneness with God, and we help each other integrate these awakenings with our unresolved psychological problems.”

• “Jobs, family, and status don’t define us in the future I love. Instead, we’re defined by our character transformations.”

• “We will treat grief as a kind of activism. Crying in public is revered again, like when you read about women beating their breasts in ancient societies.”

• “I’ll see dozens of micro-homeschool pods as I walk around my neighborhood. Each running different experiments with different models of education.”

Not sure where to start? Try imagining yourself 5, 10, 20 or 50+ years from now, and finish one of these sentences:

• “I’m so happy because ___.”

• “Wow, I can’t believe [this incredible thing actually happened]”

• “It’s so amazing that [x problem was solved by y]

• “It’s so amazing that everyone now has [z thing that belonged to only the super lucky (rich, or dedicated)]”

   

Future thing not working for you? Try these:

• “I hope someday we stop pretending that ___.”

• “If we keep going this way, ___ will happen.”

• “I believe we could build a future where ___.”

Then ask yourself: Why do I believe that? What’s at the heart of it?

That’s your Future Take.

A future I love is more village than city. Perhaps there's a sci-fi version here where humans become much much better at cities, but the version I like at the moment is Village 2.0.

I want to keep networked, light-speed global communication, so knowledge can continue to evolve, enrich, and compound. But I want to situate our actual living in smaller communities – at least while Dunbar's number still operates within us.

Walking

In these villages, we walk around. Maybe there's high-speed travel between villages, but within a village, people-powered locomotion is the norm. We walk and we run and we play. More outside than not.

Nature

An idea-worm that I got from somewhere on the internet is that until pretty recently in human history, all of human life was just one long camping trip.

There's something stark and terrifying about the comparison between what it's like for us now compared to that. There is easy wonder and enchantment in the "outside". Let's bring it back in.

So, these villages would, without regressing human progress, be in greater dialogue with the immediate environment. Would flow into and out of the earth rather than meeting it with 90-degree angles (this is mostly a metaphor). Would be in trade with the earth instead of at war with it.

Village isn't just a place

There are virtual villages overlaid across, between, and through the physical villages.

Human expression can find multiple "tribes" in this way.

Themes

The metaphor here is theme park – villages would/could have a theme, or focus. 

Maybe there's something like a university at the heart of the theme, carrying its flag, training its practitioners, spreading its word.

Constellations

Villages are constellated within with the various needs of its denizens, and without to form groups of mutually beneficial, communicating clusters.

Governance

I have no real ideas here, but I want a variety of experiments and attempts.

Okay, that's about it for now. I could keep going, but I'm hungry and it's time for lunch. I'm also a bit self-conscious about how silly some of this seems. Maybe a little loathe to admit to some of my childish dreams and how much I believe I'd love them. 

Meta: I'm really enjoying the focusing and forcing function of attempting to write things like this down. It's an interesting challenge, and feels like self-discovery in a surprising and delightful way.

#FutureYouLove

benefits of not valuing paying more for quality services? . Was thinking about AI contributing to lower service rates by humans. I feel tension around this inevitable happening and had an insight that since we are moving toward lower costs, this could help usher in Universal Basic Income, a world where we don’t need to worry about how much we are making anyways. Does this make sense? It’s longterm though and there’s still a current today ouch to it all.