FARSIGHT

Expectations are that AI will automate a significant percentage of the knowledge economy’s workforce and make their jobs redundant. We dig into the futurist toolbox to interrogate this assumption – punctuated by a provocative scenario snippet from 2030. Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute Author: Toke Hanghøj Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI) Pub...

Writing in the ruins of post-war Europe, Dutch futurist Fred Polak argued that societies rise and fall based on the vitality of their images of the future. By that measure, he believed, Western civilization was headed for terminal decline. In his 1953 masterwork The Image of the Future , Polak traced how magnetic visions of tomorrow, whether religious or revolutionary, had pulled history forward s...

From the utopian ideals of LSD in the sixties to the grunge-infused nihilism of heroin in the nineties, culture and intoxication seem to have always mirrored each other. Might uncovering the nebulous relationship between drug and zeitgeist help us predict our future high? Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute. Author: August Leo Liljenberg Narration: August Leo Liljen...

Time and technology are inextricably linked. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, doing things slowly, inefficiently, and without precision looks existentially preferable. The Information Age is replacing sloth with speed as its new Deadly Sin. Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute Author: Caitlin van Bommel Narration: Manya Lind (with ElevenLabs AI) Pu...

Mysticism meets Big Oil in the tale of Pierre Wack, the eccentric French economist who brought scenario planning to the corporate world during the geopolitically turbulent 1970s. Then, as today, a war in the Middle East upset global energy markets, showing the limitations of traditional forecasting. Yet not everyone was equally unprepared. Wack and his team of scenario planners at Royal Dutch Shel...

Mythical stories of future doom have been supplanted by scientifically grounded ones, with the interconnectedness and complexity of our world-system pushing us closer towards a scenario of inescapable global collapse. Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute. Author: Christian Kaarup Baron Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI) Published by the Copenhagen...

Theories that inaccurately observe the present will inevitably fall short in predicting the future. Yet, our dominant frameworks for understanding international relations remain anchored in assumptions about power and sovereignty that no longer hold. If we want to grasp where geopolitics is actually heading, we need a new lens. Dr Parag Khanna argues that lens is entropy: the accelerating dispersa...

We are joined by Andrew Maynard, scientist, author, and Professor of Advanced Technology Transitions at Arizona State University, to discuss phase shifts, technological risk, and the accelerating LinkedInification of human expression. Andrew Maynard writes the "future of being human" substack https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/ and co-hosts the Modem Futura podcast. Subscribe to FARSIGHT in print...

Political philosopher turned futurist, Bertrand de Jouvenel is one of the foundational figures in futures studies. His life and thought were deeply shaped by the defining upheavals of the 20th century — the rise of fascism, the catastrophe of World War II, and the titanic ideological struggle of the Cold War. Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a ⁠ Futures Member⁠ at the Institute. Hosts: Casper Sko...

Trains and rail once symbolised progress and modernity in Europe. Today, they have more-so come to represent ideas of social equity and public good – an unassuming but universally accessible means of transport. Could rail reclaim its lost significance and prestige – and if so, what would it take? Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute. Author: Casper Skovgaard Petersen...

Since its invention in the sixteenth century, the idea of 'Utopia' has carried an inherent ambiguity. Suspended between reality and fiction, the emancipatory and the fatal, two conflicting meanings have clung to the word for centuries and continue to do so today, as visions of utopia are making a comeback among tech billionaires and Saudi Arabian royalty alike. Subscribe to FARSIGHT by bec...

Kahn the genius, Kahn the futurist, Kahn the psychopath.   The FARSIGHT hosts take a closer look at the life and legacy of one of the 20 th century’s most influential futurists and public intellectuals. Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute. Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen & August Leo Liljenberg Sources Alex Abella: Soldiers of Reason: The RAND Corporation and t...

When confronted with the great crises of our time, a sense of hope about the future can seem naïve at best, or even counterproductive if it leads to complacency. Yet thinkers across psychology, behavioural science, and philosophy recognise hope as an essential driver of social and societal change. Far from being a passive sentiment, hope paired with purposeful action enables humans to imagine alte...

Most futurists prefer the exploration of multiple potential scenarios over determinate paths. Some will say prediction is entirely impossible – but is this necessarily true? Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute. Author: Christian Kaarup Baron Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI) Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

Across wealthy societies, citizens no longer believe the future will be better than the past. The idea of progress as an inevitable historical force was born in the Western world – now it may be drawing its last breath there, too. Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute. Authors: Casper Skovgaard Petersen & Suus Hulsen Narration: Manya Lind (with ElevenLabs AI) Publ...

We now understand that the future is not fixed but contingent – it can unfold in an endless number of ways, its outcome hinging on both choice and chance. When did humans discover that the future is undecided, and what did it mean?   We’re joined by Thomas Moynihan, a thinker and author interested in X-risk, deep possibility, planetary-scale thinking, and the history of human self-understanding. T...

With artificial intelligence comes radical change in how information is both created and retained. What place do humans have in future knowledge ecologies? Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute. Author: Caitlin van Bommel Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI) Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

How have societies collapsed in the past? Are we heading towards a global societal collapse? And, if looking towards history, is collapse always necessarily a bad thing when viewed from the perspective of the 99%? In this podcast, Luke Kemp (re)-joins us for yet another episode of FARSIGHT to talk about his latest book Goliath's Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse . Luke Kemp is...

Once a minor concern, migration now ranks as one of Europe’s top political issues among voters. As fertility rates decline and strategic independence becomes a priority, calls for both low- and high-skilled immigration are growing among Europe’s leaders. We sketch out four scenarios for the future of European migration. Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute Author: Pa...

As the world grows older, will it also become more peaceful by consequence? We speak to Mark Haas, Professor of Political Science at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh and author of The Geriatric Peace: Population Aging and the Decline of War (Oxford University Press). Ageing, Haas says, will not only increase the cost and lessen the preferences and capacity for war in aged countries - it will also...

Worldwide digital connectedness increasingly resembles an external brain, and the ability to perceive the digital world has become indispensible to us. Is the tree of evolution sprouting a new branch? Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute. Author: Peter Hesseldahl Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI) Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures S...

Sohail Inayatullah is a pioneer in futures studies, most famous for developing the Causal Layered Analysis - a technique for investigate the role of myths, metaphors, and narratives in constructing and imagining possible futures. He us joins us to discuss the centrality of language in futures thinking, the connection between macrohistory and futures studies, and the role of the futurist in today&#...

As the summer break winds down, journalist and trend forecaster Jenny Southan joins us to explore the futures of travel and tourism. We discuss the differences between the two, what measures dense urban centres might adopt to mitigate overtourism, how climate change and ageing populations could reshape travel patterns, and whether the Katy Perry really deserved being vilified in the press for goin...

In the second half of the twentieth century, microchips quietly became as vital to global stability and human progress as oil. To better understand Europe’s future role in the semiconductor industry, we speak to Chris Miller, author of Chip War, for his insights. Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute Author: Caitlin van Bommel Narration: Manya Lind (with ElevenLabs AI...

Studying the future was never a value-neutral project. The origins of modern futures research (known in the 1950s and 60s as ‘futurology’), lies in the ideological struggle between capitalism and communism during the Cold War. On both sides of the Iron Curtain, the future was something to be managed and controlled in the service of a dominant ideology. That briefly changed in the 1970s with the em...