Future Today #077 - Climate Change. IKEA. Memories. Systems thinking

Welcome to Future Today!?A newsletter for those curious about social innovation, disruptive technologies and futures studies. In it I share weekly articles, reports and interesting links, and recommendations of books, movies, series, events and courses.

?? Do you know that I have published a book? In?“Upgrade: desarrolla tu perfil a prueba de futuro”?(only in spanish for now), together with?Mónica Quintana, we talk about the skills that any professional should develop thinking about the future. You can buy it in any online or physical bookstore or?on the publisher's website.

?? Envisioning Life After Climate Change. Not very long ago, scientists warned that this could cause four or five degrees Celsius of warming, giving rise to existential fears about apocalyptic futures. But in just the past few years, the future has begun to look somewhat different, thanks to a global political awakening, an astonishing decline in the price of clean energy, a rise in global policy ambition and revisions to some basic modeling assumptions.

?? Scientists say they can damage memories of being cheated on. New research published in the Journal of Affective Disorders describes how the researchers instructed test subjects to recall traumatic memories of "romantic betrayal" under the influence of the beta-blocker propranolol, which is typically prescribed for high blood pressure, migraines, and anxiety disorders. This time, though, the goal of the drug was to help reduce the impact of the trauma associated with painful relationship memories.

??Tech futurism's blind spot. What metaverse, web3, and artificial intelligence evangelists collectively ignore. I started talking about it in summer 2021, when the Metaverse hype bubble was just getting started, the Web3 hype bubble was near its peak, and the AI hype bubble was begging for news cycles. I turned it into a TedX talk at GW last April. It has been lurking in the background of roughly half of the essays I write on Substack. It has been time-to-write-the-damn-thing for awhile.

?? White dragon, black dragon: technology and innovation to achieve the SDGs (ES) The 2030 Agenda synthesizes the potential of innovation in Sustainable Development Goal 9 with technology as a cross-cutting tool capable of accelerating the fulfillment of the rest of the goals. But it will be necessary to understand and prioritize the tools that have an impact on common prosperity and avoid those that widen the already large social and economic gap we are facing.

?? Systems thinking is old hat. There is an official history of systems thinking that dates the birth of this intellectual movement to the years immediately following World War II. The so-called Macy Conferences — held once or twice a year between 1946 and 1953 by the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation — are conveniently highlighted as a landmark event. They provided an opportunity for prominent figures from a wide range of scientific disciplines to reflect on fundamental questions about the workings of the human mind.

Recommended book:?How To Future (2022) - Scott Smith?// Recommended film:?Mr Nobody (2009) - Jaco Van Dormael

?? It’s complex, not complicated. I’ve been working in government for four years now. I’ve been lucky enough to work across several roles, getting to experience digital service design, policy design, and data strategy, working in both delivery and leadership teams, and engaging with brand new initiatives (‘greenfield’) as well as ageing and entrenched (‘legacy’) systems and technology.

?? Reshaping denim’s future from the factory floor. Isko Denim is one of the world’s largest producers of denim, but these days — when overconsumption is at the heart of the debate about the future of fashion — the company would prefer to be known for innovation rather than its scale. Isko is working hard to position itself as a leader in sustainability. That’s a tough challenge in a sector known for being both opaque and environmentally destructive.

?? Can we fix business education to build equitable enterprises? Are business schools training young people to build and lead more equitable enterprises, or churning out apparatchiks whose main function is to serve shareholders? An alarming recent study from the National Bureau of Economic Research reports that business school-educated executives do not improve corporate performance — but they do lower wages. Is business education inherently anti-labor and pro-investor?

?? IKEA Is Using Driverless Trucks to Move Its Furniture in Texas. Thanks to its mild climate, expansive highway network, and lax regulations, Texas has become the country’s proving ground for driverless trucks. From cargo to produce, goods have been traveling the state’s highways partially driver-free (the trucks aim to use autonomous mode on highways, but safety drivers take over to navigate city streets) for a couple of years already.

?? SAFE: A Collection of Works Exploring Safer Futures. Ten newly commissioned speculative works by Superflux and collaborators offer an imaginative perspective on large-scale engineering projects underway around the world. This October we invite you to come and spend time with SAFE; a collection of ten new speculative works by our team and our collaborators, that come together in an immersive showcase of collaborative ambition in the face of uncertainty.

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???Read the newsletter in Spanish