Futurism

How We Re-Humanized Our Planet (A look back from 2065)

"Towards the end of 2015, our world was in turmoil. Instability, fear, and anxiety dominated the global dialogue," this essay begins. But from there it imagines what that world might look like if all the...

Mad Max with Flowers and Margaritas: How Burning Man Points to the Future

Burning Man is a serious thing. It is obviously a ludicrous stupor-inducing steam-punk fashion gala appealing to the lesser instincts. But it is also a full-blown futures laboratory. Don’t underestimate what we can learn from...

Who Owns the Future?

Why didn’t the rise of network technologies bring great wealth to the world in the last decade? Instead of experiencing excellent financial health because of the efficiencies of digital technologies, those efficiencies are having the...

Innovating Tools for Quantifying the Self, and Future Self

The quantified-self movement is rapidly moving beyond the Fitbit. Forget about wristbands to measure your vitals. DIYers known as Grinders are embedding electronics in their own bodies; transcranial direct-current stimulation experimentalists are putting wet sponges...

Ray Kurzweil on Using Exponential Thinking to Predict the Future

Next week's Techonomy conference in Tucson, Ariz., will feature Ray Kurzweil, a leading thinker, inventor, and futurist known for his track record of accurate predictions. On November 13 Kurzweil is releasing a new book, How...