Why We've Stopped Dreaming —And How to Start Again!

From flying cars to perfect islands to Ecotopia, the last two centuries were full of utopias about the 21st century.

A rare sight in today's world, a utopia can be described as an imagined perfect society thriving as a harmonious and peaceful community.

In fact, just by hearing the news, we can easily feel that we are living in a dystopia. On top of today's world's painful realities, fictitious stories of distant and not-so-distant futures are increasingly dark and hopeless. Worlds such as Mad Max, Blade Runner, Black Mirror, Years and Years, and Fallout paint a bitter truth of our vision of tomorrow—we do not dream anymore.

Why do we not build utopias anymore?

The world has never been more interconnected than today. Every second, a bit more than 130GB of information is shared. This digital era, paired with our capitalist system, has pushed us to be ever more efficient and profitable. In the last decades, with no end in sight, we’ve focused on growth and turned a blind eye to the (too often) bad news of the world.

Dreaming is difficult when you’re too busy chasing them.

Utopias, Dystopias, and Protopias.

In contrast to utopias, which assume perfect human behavior, and dystopias that assume the worst of humanity, futurologists and creators have come to a middle ground: protopias. The term, coined by futurologist Kevin Kelly, represents a more pragmatic approach to imagined worlds. They are functional societies focused on harmony but also vulnerable to common societal challenges. Here are a few to make you dream:

• Wakanda, the Afrofuturistic society organized through a council of respectable leaders with a pacifist stance despite its technological superiority. Monika Bielskyte, founder of Protopia Futures, directly collaborated with Ryan Coogler, Black Panther director, to infuse the world of Wakanda with protopian values.
• Solarpunk, a society that leverages current technologies to build and coexist with nature. Integrating humans as another piece of nature's circular ecosystem, Solarpunk reflects Olivia Louise’s, a young American artist, vision of “a close and plausible future.”

Why should we still dream of a better future?

Ideals. While ideals are unattainable because of their perfect nature, they give us a goal to strive for. As Carl Sagan, the American astronomer and scientist, said: “The visions we offer our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are. Often, they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.”

Dreams stimulate hope and hope drives action. While some of us focus on terraforming Mars, let us remind ourselves that it is not too late to own our future on Earth and certainly not too late to dream of a better one.

- "Why we've stopped dreaming - And how to start again!" Article 2, Understanding Tomorrow, Kim Siew.

Disclaimer: I do not consider myself as an expert. I am just a curious guy with a curious hobby - writing.