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Imagining Better Futures

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Wednesday, March 9, 2022 • Advancing Research 2022
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Imagining Better Futures
Speakers: Devon Powers
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Summary

Whenever we make changes, we affect the lives of people in the future -- and that responsibility can feel enormous. In this talk, Devon Powers will share some of her research into people who forecast the future for a living, revealing their strategies as well as their pitfalls. She will also discuss how you can engage in research with a sense of responsibility for tomorrow.

Key Insights

  • Technological innovation rarely solves social problems; it often replicates them in new spaces, as seen with harassment incidents in the metaverse.

  • Excessive optimism in futures thinking risks ignoring real challenges, whereas excessive pessimism leads to hopelessness.

  • Trend forecasting is both predictive and culture-producing, shaping how society imagines and pursues futures.

  • Many trend forecasters distance themselves from accountability by focusing on futures they and their clients will not personally inhabit.

  • Futures visions dominated by wealthy, white, cosmopolitan men tend to overlook systemic inequalities and sustain existing power structures.

  • Afrofuturism offers a critical framework that centers Black experiences, addressing history and ongoing struggles rather than erasing them in future imaginaries.

  • Globality in futures work requires deep, meaningful engagement with diverse cultures, not superficial collection of exotic ideas.

  • The obsession with cutting-edge technology in envisioning futures can distract from critical, everyday needs like clean water, food security, and freedom from violence.

  • Sober or tragic optimism allows for hope and progress while acknowledging struggle, unintended consequences, and complexity in the future.

  • Democratic futures require transparency in methods and accountability in outcomes, focusing on equity and inclusion for those the futures are imagined for.

Notable Quotes

"The metaverse has not summoned those angels; instead, it has brought in all the good and the bad from the real world."

"We can’t just think technology or innovation will solve our problems; we have to embrace and work with those problems."

"If I do a project today on 2025, you’re not going to be in that chair in 2025 and neither am I."

"Too often, futures imaginaries want to erase or align difference rather than reckon with it."

"Trend forecasting is a culture industry—it produces culture as much as it predicts it."

"Naming things like the 'vibe shift' is powerful in shaping the narratives around future developments."

"The future will be struggle; we need to face that forward, not deny it."

"Afrofuturism shows us the future must reckon with the past and center difference and diversity."

"Obsession with gadgetry and cool tech ignores the fact that most critical future changes are mundane and essential, like clean water."

"The future is not a toy. Accountability matters deeply in how we construct futures."

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