Avsnitt
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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 since the ancient Greeks. Without them, he warned, civilizations stagnate and collapse.
Who was Fred Polak, and how well does his sweeping and pessimistic diagnosis of the modern world stand the test of time?
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Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen, August Leo Liljenberg, Tallulah Richards
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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?
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Author: August Leo Liljenberg
Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI)
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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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.
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Author: Caitlin van Bommel
Narration: Manya Lind (with ElevenLabs AI)
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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 Shell had highlighted the risks to Big Oil constituted by the rise of OPEC, public and political backlash to the industry, and other vulnerabilities ahead of the 1973 oil crisis. The story of how Wack and Shell were able to use scenarios to navigate the global shake-up of capitalism has become the mythologised origin point of corporate foresight. Yet Wack’s obsession with the mystical dimensions of scenario writing – his “spiritual documents” – is often glossed over.
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Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen, August Leo Liljenberg, Tallulah Richards
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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.
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Author: Christian Kaarup Baron
Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI)
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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 dispersal and dissipation of power across the geopolitical sphere, a patchwork of overlapping powers, jurisdictions, and alliances, similar to medieval Europe before the Westphalian concept of the nation state.
Khanna is a global strategic advisor and the founder and CEO of AlphaGeo, an AI-powered geospatial analytics platform. In this episode, we explore his theory of the coming entropic world order, the relationship between cartography and epistemology, and which nations are best positioned to deal with the climate disruptions ahead.
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Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen & August Leo Liljenberg
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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 by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute.
Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen & August Leo Liljenberg
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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 Skovgaard Petersen & August Leo Liljenberg
Assistant producer: Tallulah Richards
Sources
Daniel Knegt: Fascism, Liberalism and Europeanism in the Political Thought of Bertrand de Jouvenel and Alfred Fabre-Luce
Jasper Verschoor: "More than Planners, Less than Utopians:" 1960s Futurism and Post-Industrial Theory
Daniel Rosenberg: Taming the Minotaur: Bertrand de Jouvenel on Liberty and Authority
Brian C. Anderson: Bertrand de Jouvenel's Melancholy Liberalism
Bertrand de Jouvenel: On Power
Bertrand de Jouvenel: The Art of Conjecture
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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?
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Author: Casper Skovgaard Petersen
Narration: Manya Lind (with ElevenLabs AI)
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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.
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Author: Mads Vindaal
Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI)
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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 20th 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 the Rise of the American Empire
Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi: The Worlds of Herman Kahn: The Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War
Paul Dragos Aligica: “The challenge of the future and the institutionalization of interdisciplinarity: notes on Herman Kahn’s legacy”
Herman Kahn: On Thermonuclear War
Herman Kahn: The Year 2000
Neil Pickett: A History of Hudson Institute
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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 alternative futures and work their way through tough times.
Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute.
Author: Lisa Di Giulio
Narration: Manya Lind (with ElevenLabs AI)
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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Most futurists prefer the exploration of multiple potential scenarios over determinate paths. Some will say prediction is entirely impossible – but is this necessarily true?
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Author: Christian Kaarup Baron
Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI)
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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.
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Authors: Casper Skovgaard Petersen & Suus Hulsen
Narration: Manya Lind (with ElevenLabs AI)
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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. Thomas Moynihan’s upcoming book is The History of Contingency and Future-Oriented Thought.
Subscribe to FARSIGHT in print by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute.
Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen & August Leo Liljenberg
Guest: Thomas Moynihan
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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With artificial intelligence comes radical change in how information is both created and retained. What place do humans have in future knowledge ecologies?
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Author: Caitlin van Bommel
Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI)
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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 a Research Affiliate & Former research Associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge.
Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a Futures Member at the Institute.
Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen & August Leo Liljenberg
Guest: Luke Kemp
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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.
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Author: Patrick Henry Gallen
Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI)
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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 likely prevent a great power transition from the US to China.
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Guest: Mark L. Haas
Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen, August Leo Liljenberg
Research and production assistant: Suus Hulsen
Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
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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 Studies
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