Kardashev Street
Matt has made a new website for tracking our collective progress levelling up the Kardashev scale:
Maximising energy generation, distribution and usage at street level, for as many people as possible, everyday.
Link tags: futures
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Donuts and Dyson Spheres – Petafloptimism
I really, really like this post from Matt (except for the bit where he breaks Simon’s rule).
Muscular imagination
Robin Sloan on The Culture:
The Culture is a utopia: a future you might actually want to live in. It offers a coherent political vision. This isn’t subtle or allegorical; on the page, citizens of the Culture very frequently articulate and defend their values. (Their enthusiasm for their own politics is considered annoying by most other civilizations.)
Coherent political vision doesn’t require a lot, just some sense of “this is what we ought to do”, yet it is absent from plenty of science fiction that dwells only in the realm of the cautionary tale.
I don’t have much patience left for that genre. I mean … we have been, at this point, amply cautioned.
Vision, on the other hand: I can’t get enough.
Revisiting Metadesign for Murph – Smithery
I’m really excited about John’s talk at this year’s UX London. Feels like a good time to revisit his excellent talk from dConstruct 2015:
I’m going to be opening up the second day of UX London 2024, 18th-20th June. As part of that talk, I’ll be revisiting a talk called Metadesign for Murph which I gave at dConstruct in 2015. It might be one of my favourite talks that I’ve ever given.
Still the Same — Real Life
Everything old is new again:
In our current “information age,” or so the story goes, we suffer in new and unique ways.
But the idea that modern life, and particularly modern technology, harms as well as helps, is deeply embedded in Western culture: In fact, the Victorians diagnosed very similar problems in their own society.
Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors | Fix
Twelve short stories of solarpunk cli-fi “envisioning the next 180 years of equitable climate progress.”
Whether built on abundance or adaptation, reform or a new understanding of survival, these stories provide flickers of hope, even joy, and serve as a springboard for exploring how fiction can help create a better reality.
Solarpunk Is Not About Pretty Aesthetics. It’s About the End of Capitalism
Hannah Steinkopf-Frank:
At its core, and despite its appropriation, Solarpunk imagines a radically different societal and economic structure.
A Century of Science Fiction That Changed How We Think About the Environment | The MIT Press Reader
From Mary Shelley and Edgar Rice Burroughs to John Brunner, Frank Herbert and J.G. Ballard to Kim Stanley Robinson, Paolo Bacigalupi, and Octavia Butler.
Future Scenarios Generator - Third Wave
A slot machine for speculation. Enter a topic and get a near-future scenario on that topic generated automatically.
Calling for a More-Than-Human Politics - Anab Jain - Medium
It may be the end of the world as we know it, but other worlds are possible.
Souvenirs from the futures — GlobalFuturesLab
A collection of weird and wonderful design fiction.
This collection of “Souvenirs from the Future” envisions what the future looks like through the eyes of young and talented art, design and architecture students living in different parts of the world. Some are speculations on ideal tomorrows; others are projections and critiques on the present. Some reveal beautiful aesthetics, alternatives to the high tech; others bravely question critical issues around politics, religion or tradition.