? The Future Normal: Fast Forward #21

For those of you that have been missing these glimpses of the future, you’ll be happy to hear I’m back with some eye-catching stories from The Future Normal.

Alternatively, if you’ve forgotten when or what you signed up for then no hard feelings – if it’s no longer relevant you know what to do.

The other big news is that The Future Normal was confirmed as one of SXSW’s featured sessions for 2023, so myself and Rohit Bhargava will be curating and sharing these thoughts to the stage next year - hope to see some of you there!

Now let’s dive into this edition’s weak signals…

VR is as good as psychedelics at helping people reach transcendence

???# FutureNormal // Isness-D is a VR experience designed to offer participants a ‘transcendent experience’. By representing participants as a cloud of smoke, people can interact without a clear boundary between themselves and others, enhancing their sense of connectedness. David Glowacki, Isness-D’s creator, recently published a study showing that on four key metrics, the VR experience elicited responses indistinguishable from those associated with medium doses of psychedelics.

???So what??// I’ve written before about how psychedelics will transform our approach to health and wellbeing. But they are powerful substances, and many will embrace this digital alternative if it leads to the same (or even nearly similar) psychological results without requiring any psychoactive inputs. Of course, as in many other similar areas, there will be those who dismiss the virtual alternative as inferior and inauthentic…

Climate Change Remains Top Global Threat, Say People in 19 Countries

???# FutureNormal // There’s no shortage of challenges facing us today. Inflation, looming recession, polarization, new pandemics, war, to name a few. Oh, and the climate crisis has moved from a hypothetical future threat to a clear and present danger for the majority of the world’s population – flooding, droughts, fires, heatwaves. The ‘good’ news? Three quarters of people across 19 countries now view climate change as a major threat to their country; an all-time high in 10 of the countries surveyed (sadly, the US isn’t one of them).

???So what??// Is this the year we finally Looked Up? But while it is great that the pendulum of public opinion is swinging towards awareness, there’s still a huge difference between fearing the climate crisis, and taking the collective action that is needed to change course.

White House requires federally-funded research to be openly accessible

???# FutureNormal // A glimpse of one such change that won’t make mainstream headlines came when the Biden administration announced that by the end of 2025, papers (and the underlying datasets) relating to taxpayer-funded research must be made freely available to the public as soon as the final peer-reviewed manuscript is published.

???So what??// It might seem obvious that public funds should produce publicly accessible research. But what’s truly exciting about the open source movement is that it’s also happening in the private sector too, just witness to Deep Mind’s AlphaFold Protein Structure Database. How much more engagement and impact could you generate if you open sourced your company’s biggest solutions?

A sustainable battery, made from crab shells

???# FutureNormal // Scientists at the University of Maryland’s Center for Materials Innovation have created a battery that uses zinc and a chitosan-based electrolyte. Chitosan is derived from chitin, an abundant natural material that is found in the shells of crabs and lobsters. This means that in their tests, the chitosan part of the battery broke down in soil in months, leaving behind the recyclable zinc element.

???So what??// Advances in battery technology will transform life and society in the coming years – EVs, more resilient power grids, robots and more – but this will be hugely problematic if we end up producing billions of toxic batteries made from non-renewable materials. Everything we use has to be circular – which means either infinitely recyclable, or made from organic materials that are able to return to nature.

Pfizer Ventures applies to invest $500k into VitaDAO.

???# FutureNormal // VitaDAO is a longevity-focused ‘decentralized autonomous organisation’ that empowers its owners to collectively choose promising areas of longevity research to fund; unlike a traditional corporate or VC, anyone can buy into the organization by purchasing its $VITA tokens.

???So what??// Web3 evangelists believe that DAOs will change everything by enabling new players to participate in — and benefit from — the innovation processes that have previously been monopolised by corporate actors like Pfizer. As always, the reality is messier — incumbents won’t sit idly by, and Pfizer’s $500k investment is a small bet on a new frontier. Which Web3 communities could you participate in?

The Future Normal?is an exploration of how we will live, work and thrive in the coming decade. But nothing is pre-determined. We must build a cleaner, fairer, better future .

If you know someone who can run with these weak signals, then please share it with them!

Thanks for reading,

Henry