The idea: A present future
As the need for fast and meaningful change becomes more urgent, futures thinkers are starting to bring forward the timeframe of change, and the time horizon of forecasting, to forecast different nows. The idea is that by working in the present tense, we can envision an alternative present reality - and explore the possibilities of that.
If futures thinking is the study of change, it’s logical to think that its tools can be applied to immediate change too. Indeed, one of the under-acknowledged realities of futures thinking is that it is immediate in its implications: to bring about a possible, preferable or in any way different future, the change - in action, in mindset, in thinking - always has to start in the present. If it stays in the future, it will never happen.
As writer Bette Adriaanse said in an issue of the newsletter Dense Discovery this month, “If you imagine the world you would like to be in and start making objects, systems and collaborations that belong to that world, that world comes into being.”
Using digital twins, we can model alternate possibilities extending into the near-future and view several scenarios of change at once. Usually used in industry - for example, in construction - digital twins are becoming increasingly relevant in a personal context too. Case in point: the recent move towards creating AI personas to live out parallel lives to you. On the new app Butterflies, two friends each created a ‘Butterfly’ (AI persona) based on themselves and then left them to see what they did, creating in essence an alternative timeline for themselves and their friendship.
Opening the possibility space in the now as well as in the future can be personally transformative. Speaking at the mind-expanding day event Imagination Infrastructures 03 last month, therapist and musician Claudia Cuentas explained that “the ability to inhabit the present fully allows you to feel all possibilities”.
Interest in experiencing more than one present is growing across storytelling formats. In TV and film, multiverse stories depicting parallel realities have proliferated (for example, Dark Matter on Apple) to the extent that this trope has been described as an “increasingly overcrowded space”.
Within a wider context of lore and fandom, alternative todays tie into the ongoing importance of worlding, or worldbuilding, as creatives develop alternative landscapes or systems in which to be immersed. And at the most solipsistic, the Tiktok-popular trend towards reality shifting, using different techniques to shift into parallel worlds or dream realities, is further evidence of creative and cultural interest in making different todays and instant tomorrows.
💻 My work
New writing for Dezeen: Design as we know it is doomed, but that’s a good thing for designers
📄 Research notes
“It’s not up to people to be sustainable—it’s up to businesses and government to create the right infrastructure.” The paradigm shift away from plastics will include a diversity of approaches and solutions, including seaweed packaging, reverse vending machines and stainless steel takeaway boxes. As this Wired longread says, people want this, and businesses are ready: “it’s time”
ThredUp’s new natural language AI browsing functions make shopping secondhand online a bit closer to browsing with a personal assistant (or a very helpful friend). The UX of online resale has always had a huge amount of potential, and this seems like a step in the right direction
You can tell a lot about a company from what it considers important enough to measure. According to a new Nature Benchmark by the World Benchmarking Alliance, only 1 in 20 of the 800 large businesses surveyed have assessed their impact on nature, and fewer than one in ten have quantitative, deadline-bound targets to reduce plastic use or waste. Regulation will come, in time, but for now voluntary measures are attempting to fill the gap
Demand for indie creativity, as opposed to mainstream homogeneity, is still rising. While mainstream cinema attendance remains below pre-pandemic levels, there are more people in the US going to art house cinemas now than in 2019 (20%, up from 16%)
🔮 Interesting products
Polymarket is a blockchain-based predictions market on which people can bet on anything they consider themselves to have expertise in. Notably, right now, that means accurately predicting election results
IDEO’s speculative provocations for future AI assistants include Barometer, an ambient home device that acts as the command centre for family life
A specific product for a specific use. Studio Stool by Manual is a simple wooden stool that can also hold a board up to be worked on during product development sessions
📖 Reading
Design ethnographer Jan Chipchase, one of the most compelling thinkers I follow, interviewed on practice, life stages, field ethnography and risk