{"id":1752908,"date":"2026-02-05T11:41:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T08:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1752908"},"modified":"2026-02-05T11:41:00","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T08:41:00","slug":"bright-futurism-whos-in-charge-of-imagining-a-better-future-for-humanity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1752908","title":{"rendered":"Bright futurism: Who\u2019s in charge of imagining a better future for humanity?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/889\/406-500-889-592\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436286.jpeg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"main-article longread\">\n<div class=\"article-main-content article-wrapper has-media-but-its-an-image\" data-status=\"loaded\" data-primary-article=\"true\" data-url=\"\/life-culture\/article\/69553\/1\/bright-futurism-better-future-syd-mead-utopia-rob-hopkins-zack-polanksi\" data-article-id=\"69553\">\n<header class=\"article-header has-portrait-image no-media\">\n<div class=\"wrapper dg-max-width\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<figure class=\"main-img has-figcaption\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.65\" data-template=\"Longread Article\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Japan Rail Station (1990)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1980\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1050\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436286.jpeg\" width=\"1295\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"inner\"><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 SYD MEAD <span class=\"nowrap\">INC. www.sydmead.com\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"inner\"><time datetime=\"2026-02-05T11:41:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"05 February 2026\"><span class=\"month\">DateInMeta<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"5\">5,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"titles\">\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical vertical - life-culture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><br \/>\n\/<br \/>\n<a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/longread\">Longread<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span>Bright futurism: Who\u2019s in charge of imagining a better future <span class=\"nowrap\">for humanity?<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<h2>Dystopias are everywhere we look and Silicon Valley\u2019s uninspiring visions for the future offer little hope \u2013 here, Thom Waite explores the cultural history of optimism, and how it could shape our sense of what\u2019s <span class=\"nowrap\">possible today<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-02-05T11:41:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"05 February 2026\"><span class=\"month\">February<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"5\">5,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical - life-culture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/longread\">Longread<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-02-05T11:41:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"05 February 2026\"><span class=\"month\">February<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"5\">5,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"providers\">\n<div class=\"contributors\"><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/ThomWaite\">Thom Waite<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article-body-container\">\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"dazed-gallery has-7-images \">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<header>\n<div class=\"info\"><span class=\"heading\">Syd Mead<\/span><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n<div class=\"gallery-thumbs\">\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/0\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Canyon Race (1969)\" class=\"img\" height=\"953\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/551-0-1429-953\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436283.jpeg\" width=\"1429\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/1\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Chrome Dude (1990)\" class=\"img\" height=\"983\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-743-1475-983\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436284.jpeg\" width=\"1475\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/2\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Japan Rail Interior (1990)\" class=\"img\" height=\"861\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-436-1292-861\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436285.jpeg\" width=\"1292\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/3\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Japan Rail Station (1990)\" class=\"img\" height=\"592\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/406-500-889-592\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436286.jpeg\" width=\"889\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/4\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Modern Home Unit (1975)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1311\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-1966-1311\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436287.jpeg\" width=\"1966\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/5\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Party 2000 (1977)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-69-1980-1320\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436288.jpeg\" width=\"1980\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-footer\">Gallery \/ 7 images<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>We were promised hoverboards, flying cars, and unparalleled abundance. Just a few decades ago, popular films, artworks, books and TV shows offered bright, enticing visions of the future, channelling the \u2018<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jfklibrary.org\/learn\/about-jfk\/historic-speeches\/acceptance-of-democratic-nomination-for-president\"><span>New Frontier<\/span><\/a><span>\u2019 optimism that swept the US in the early 60s. Lots of it was science fiction. <\/span><em><span>The Jetsons<\/span><\/em><span>. <\/span><em><span>Star Trek<\/span><\/em><span>. Even <\/span><em><span>2001: A Space Odyssey<\/span><\/em><span> gave us an alluring glimpse of advancements in science and technology, including moon bases and plush space planes, although humans continued to wield them like violent apes. And in the years that followed, some of these wild sci-fi predictions would actually come true \u2013 like flip phones, FaceTime, and flatscreen TVs \u2013 while others remained beyond our wildest dreams, just a utopian fantasy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When you try to picture the future today, though, what comes to mind? A better, brighter world? Gleaming spires, a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/65480\/1\/future-beyond-work-ai-robot-take-our-jobs-whats-next-for-humanity-ubi-laziness\"><span>two-day work week<\/span><\/a><span>, the rewilding of Earth\u2019s landscapes \u2013\u00a0a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/yanemic\/status\/1017906186723774466\"><em><span>society if<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>meme, where the \u2018if\u2019 part has actually come true? More humans living in harmony with nature, eradicating diseases, and enjoying healthy lives <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/article\/60862\/1\/forever-young-secretive-immortality-science-bryan-johnson-david-sinclair-nad\"><span>long past 100<\/span><\/a><span>? Luxury <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/59547\/1\/moon-race-colonise-lunar-surface-moonbase-nasa-esa-space\"><span>space travel<\/span><\/a><span>? Or do those two little words \u2013\u00a0\u201cThe Future\u201d \u2013\u00a0conjure up a collection of darker, doom-filled images: a vast, violent, <\/span><em><span>Terminator<\/span><\/em><span>-style warzone where we battle it out against killer robots? Rising water levels, forest fires, droughts? Billionaires retreating to their bunkers in Hawaii \u2013 or maybe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/mars\">Mars<\/a> \u2013 while the rest of the world falls apart?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>There\u2019s a good chance that you imagine one of the bleaker scenarios if you\u2019re reading this in the mid-2020s. Bright futures have all but disappeared from contemporary (Western) culture. The rare exceptions tend to fly under the radar \u2013 remember Francis Ford Coppola spending his family fortune to make <\/span><em><span>Megalopolis<\/span><\/em><span>, only for the film to bomb upon arrival after 40 years in development hell? Meanwhile, we\u2019ve seen an explosion in dystopian fiction and films: fungal zombie outbreaks, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/article\/62352\/1\/alex-garland-a24-interview-civil-war-jonathan-glazer-right-left-wing-politics\"><span>civil war<\/span><\/a><span>, AI apocalypse and heartbreak, climate breakdown, an abandoned Earth piled with rubbish, teenagers fighting gladiator matches for the rich&#8230; the list goes on. TV shows and video games like <\/span><em><span>Fallout <\/span><\/em><span>explicitly contrast the optimism of decades gone by with humanity\u2019s dramatic fall from grace, and IRL the public has also started to lose faith in the straightforward progress of humanity. New technologies like AI stoke <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/68614\/1\/meet-protesters-hunger-strike-prevent-ai-catastrophe-google-deepmind-london\"><span>existential fears<\/span><\/a><span> as much as they lure us in with promises of comfort and convenience. Authoritarian chaos looms large on the horizon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But does it even matter what we picture when we close our eyes and dream about the future? Won\u2019t technocrats and their billionaire backers forge ahead with their own plans regardless? Well, it might feel like a pointless exercise, but we\u2019d be wrong to dismiss it too quickly. Numerous studies have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.semanticscholar.org\/paper\/Positive-Thinking-in-Coping-with-Stress-and-Health-Naseem-Khalid\/db77200dc777353a922594e868554b12e0c8448b\">linked<\/a> intentional positive thinking to individual wellbeing, better mental health, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.durham.ac.uk\/research\/current\/thought-leadership\/optimism-is-good-for-us\/\">longer lifespans<\/a>, and healthier relationships. And the benefits aren\u2019t strictly personal: optimism also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/stories\/2025\/03\/why-is-imagining-a-positive-future-crucial-to-humanitys-progress\/\">stimulates<\/a> parts of the brain associated with problem-solving, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/optimists-really-are-on-the-same-wavelength-when-they-think-about-the-future-new-study-of-brain-activity-suggests-180987033\/\">linked<\/a> with more \u201ctogetherness\u201d among individuals, and correlates with behaviour that benefits other people and society as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kevin2kelly\/status\/459723553642778624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 25, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>In other words, it might be in our best interests to cultivate a more positive outlook on the future, while still acknowledging all the bad stuff that\u2019s going on in the present. It might not only make us happier and healthier, but help us to organise around new visions for the future \u2013\u00a0to help break us out of the doom spiral, imagine a better world, and collaborate with others to make it a reality. Kevin Kelly, the influential futurist who helped shape the culture of early Silicon Valley, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/kevin2kelly\/status\/459723553642778624?lang=en\"><span>put it<\/span><\/a><span> this way: \u201cOver the long term, the future is decided by optimists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Of course, actually <\/span><em><span>being <\/span><\/em><span>optimistic is easier said than done.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"peak pessimism\"><span>PEAK PESSIMISM<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>In 2025, Ipsos <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ipsos.com\/en-nl\/global-optimism-declines-according-ipsos-global-trends-9th-edition\"><span>reported<\/span><\/a><span> a \u201cstriking\u201d drop in worldwide optimism about people\u2019s personal lives, families, and broader communities, while in the same year its <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ipsos.com\/en-uk\/ipsos-economic-optimism-index-falls-historic-low\"><span>Economic Optimism Index<\/span><\/a><span> fell to a historic low. Similar polls conducted over the last few years show a pessimistic outlook toward many aspects of the future across <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/eupinions.eu\/de\/text\/the-optimism-gap\"><span>Europe<\/span><\/a><span>, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2023\/jul\/05\/britons-personally-optimistic-nationally-pessimistic-research-finds\"><span>UK<\/span><\/a><span>, and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2023\/09\/18\/americans-are-more-pessimistic-than-optimistic-about-many-aspects-of-the-countrys-future\/\"><span>USA<\/span><\/a><span>. This is especially prevalent when it comes to national and global concerns \u2013 AKA the \u2018big picture\u2019 \u2013\u00a0and among <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/stories\/2024\/04\/youth-young-people-happiness\/\"><span>young people<\/span><\/a><span>. \u201cWhen you ask many young people to close their eyes and imagine 10 years into the future, it\u2019s similar to that line from <\/span><em><span>1984<\/span><\/em><span>: \u2018<\/span><span>If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face \u2013 forever,\u2019\u201d says<\/span><span> Rob Hopkins, an environmental activist and author of 2025\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.robhopkins.net\/the-book\/\"><em><span>How to Fall in Love with the Future<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>. \u201c<\/span><span>But all <\/span><em><span>they <\/span><\/em><span>can imagine is Elon Musk doing a Nazi salute.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This is understandable: the last few years alone have brought us a global pandemic, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2025\/oct\/28\/change-course-now-humanity-has-missed-15c-climate-target-says-un-head\"><span>missed<\/span><\/a><span> climate deadlines, genocide, rising authoritarianism, and a perceived drop in living standards for hundreds of millions of people. According to the news headlines, we\u2019re perpetually on the brink of World War 3. Plus, all of this is more visible than ever as it\u2019s beamed directly into our phones, 24 hours a day. In fact, many young people have been living with this overwhelming sense of hopelessness \u2013 AKA what Mark Fisher called the \u201cslow cancellation of the future\u201d \u2013 their <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69218\/1\/the-21st-century-q1-review-dazed-winter-issue-2025-essay-new-models-antimemetics\"><span>entire lives<\/span><\/a><span>. This makes it difficult to imagine that the next few decades will see life get significantly better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>When you ask many young people to close their eyes and imagine 10 years into the future&#8230; all they can imagine is Elon Musk doing a Nazi salute<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>When it comes to fixing many of the problems we\u2019re facing today, though, this is a big part of the problem. Chaos and doomsaying make good headlines, and harnessing their emotional impact has been shown to influence public opinion over time (see the \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/jul\/07\/disruptive-protest-helps-not-hinders-activists-cause-experts-say\"><span>guerilla protests<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d staged by groups like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/just-stop-oil\"><span>Just Stop Oil<\/span><\/a><span>), but these narratives overwhelmingly focus on tearing down the current status quo. At a time of injustice, cruelty, and rampant disregard for the future of Earth, this isn\u2019t a pointless aim \u2013 in fact, there\u2019s a very clear argument for it. But then&#8230; what comes next? For change to stick, we also need a positive vision for the future, which galvanises people to bring that future into being.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In Hopkins\u2019 words: the aim of activism can\u2019t <\/span><em><span>just <\/span><\/em><span>be to make us \u201cprofoundly miserable\u201d (which can actually <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/23251042.2025.2552388\"><span>discourage people<\/span><\/a><span> from taking action). Instead, we need to see the dialogue opened up by activists as a \u201cfantastic opportunity for storytelling about what the future could look like\u201d \u2013\u00a0a kind of storytelling that we just aren\u2019t seeing in mainstream discourse today.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 data-innertext=\"optimism inequality\"><span>OPTIMISM INEQUALITY<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>There\u2019s a subset of people who are <em>very <\/em>willing to share their visions for the future in the mid-2020s. You might not agree with their ideas \u2013\u00a0in fact, if you\u2019re reading this, you almost definitely don\u2019t \u2013\u00a0but you\u2019ve definitely heard about them. Elon Musk rolling out an army of humanoid robots to usher in a future of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/elon-musk-retirement-saving-abundance-ai-tech-tesla-spacex-billionaires-2026-1\">abundance<\/a>\u201d and \u201cuniversal high income\u201d. Mark Zuckerberg remodelling reality behind a veil of screens \u2013\u00a0or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/science-tech\/article\/52240\/1\/could-vr-really-help-save-the-planet-mark-zuckerberg-facebook-climate-change\">VR glasses<\/a> \u2013 so that we never have to touch grass again in our lives. Donald Trump sharing AI-generated promos for the \u2018Gaza Riviera\u2019 based on plans leaked from the White House in 2025. Jeff Bezos building rockets for \u201cmillions of people\u201d to live in space in the next couple of decades, just <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2025\/10\/15\/amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-says-millions-of-people-will-be-living-in-space-by-2045-we-will-have-robots-commuting-to-the-moon\/\">because they want to<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated demo for \u2018Trump Gaza\u2019 on Truth Social. The video depicts his \u201cRiviera Plan\u201d come to life. It involves the forced removal of the indigenous Palestinian population, U.S. ownership, and development of the land for \u201cworld people.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/j9mWl8muHD\">pic.twitter.com\/j9mWl8muHD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DropSiteNews\/status\/1894641996909732207?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 26, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Many of these larger-than-life figures subscribe to the kinds of ideas expressed in the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/a16z.com\/the-techno-optimist-manifesto\/\"><em><span>Techno-Optimist Manifesto<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>, a viral 2023 blog post by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. To sum it up, the core theory goes something like this: make more money, build more powerful technologies, and a better life will naturally follow. Conveniently, this means that their own business interests should be pursued at almost any cost, because these are what drive the evolution of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2017\/2\/16\/14640460\/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-manifesto-letter\"><span>human civilisation<\/span><\/a><span>, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bezosearthfund.org\/who-we-are\"><span>Earth<\/span><\/a><span>, and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1865956669802295369\"><span>wider universe<\/span><\/a><span>. Others are <\/span><em><span>slightly <\/span><\/em><span>more cautious, like Bill Gates, who <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatesnotes.com\/the-year-ahead-2026\"><span>describes<\/span><\/a><span> his outlook for 2026 as \u201coptimism with footnotes\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As the future feels like it\u2019s being \u201ccancelled\u201d for many young people, Hopkins says, it\u2019s simultaneously being \u201ccolonised\u201d by the rich and powerful. But again, this isn\u2019t <\/span><em><span>just<\/span><\/em><span> because billionaires and (largely) right-wing politicians are \u201cflooding the zone\u201d with their radical manifestos and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69360\/1\/slop-enshittification-2025-internet-implode-shumon-basar-gunseli-yalcinkaya\"><span>sloptimist<\/span><\/a><span> propaganda. It\u2019s also because there\u2019s a severe lack of competing visions to get excited about.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 data-innertext=\"bright futurism\"><span>BRIGHT FUTURISM<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>The American artist and industrial designer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sydmead.com\/\">Syd Mead<\/a> is best known as the brains behind the sci-fi worlds of <\/span><em><span>Blade Runner<\/span><\/em><span>, <\/span><em><span>Aliens<\/span><\/em><span>, and <\/span><em><span>Tron<\/span><\/em><span>. Admittedly, these films don\u2019t tell the <\/span>most <span>optimistic stories about humanity\u2019s future (see: aliens bursting out of people\u2019s ribcages) but they\u2019re all shot through with a vivid sense of what <\/span><em><span>could have been<\/span><\/em><span>. As revealed in the landmark NYC exhibition <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/futurepastime.net\/\"><em><span>Syd Mead: Future Pastime<\/span><\/em><\/a><span> in 2025, this is mainly what Mead brought to the table. Building on the \u201cbright futurism\u201d that characterised his work from the late 1950s and early 60s \u2013 when as a fresh graduate he landed design commissions from car manufacturers like Ford, as well as a project with U.S. Steel that would inspire some iconic vehicles in <\/span><em><span>Star Wars <\/span><\/em><span>\u2013 his brain was bursting with images of a better world. These set the tone for a visual language we still see in sci-fi today: chrome cyborgs, neon-lit interiors and clean, towering infrastructure.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"8bfba6ce-9109-41df-826d-b3e700e82bc0\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1249\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436290.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.73\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Blade Runner (1982)\" class=\"img\" height=\"722\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1249\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436290.jpg\" width=\"1249\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Blade Runner (1982)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Via IMDb<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>In many of Mead\u2019s most famous artworks, you\u2019ll also find diverse crowds of human beings enjoying themselves in the latest space age fashions. This human-centric approach to the future could have a lot to do with his background: trained as an industrial designer, his dad was a Baptist preacher and art teacher, and his mother was a lover of music. \u201cSyd fully understood science and technology, but the humanities as well,\u201d says Elon Solo, co-curator of <\/span><em><span>Future Pastime<\/span><\/em><span>. Today, he adds, \u201cWe don\u2019t have many people that bridge the divide between those disciplines, and we have an education system that really <\/span><em><span>discourages<\/span><\/em><span> that.\u201d As a result, when Mead died in 2019 \u2013\u00a0<em>just<\/em> too soon to see breakthroughs like modern AI and the renewed <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/64951\/1\/live-on-mars-moon-cities-mushroom-architecure-mycotecture-nasa-space-travel\"><span>exploration of space<\/span><\/a><span> \u2013 he didn\u2019t leave behind many successors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This is a loss that we feel all too keenly, at a time when we\u2019re severely lacking in tangible, tantalising articulations of what the future could look like, at least in the cultural mainstream. Yes, Elon Musk\u2019s companies draw inspiration for their products from various creative sources \u2013 like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/article\/62457\/1\/hajime-sorayama-museum-sex-miami-erotic-sex-robots-exhibition-xxx-hardcore\"><span>Hajime Sorayama<\/span><\/a><span> and, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/64875\/1\/did-elon-musk-rip-off-his-robot-designs-from-a-2004-sci-fi-movie-i-robot-tesla\"><span>controversially<\/span><\/a><span>, <em>I, <\/em><\/span><em><span>Robot <\/span><\/em><span>\u2013 but the overall aesthetic is ugly, wildly inconsistent, and rarely integrated into a world we\u2019d actually want to live in. The rest of Silicon Valley is no more appetising, churning out bland corporate aesthetics or nostalgic odes to an idealised version of the past (often the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/article\/46559\/1\/is-mark-zuckerberg-terrible-haircut-an-ode-to-julius-caesar\"><span>Roman empire<\/span><\/a><span>, sometimes the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/91327237\/a16zs-new-ayn-rand-style-logo-is-the-perfect-embodiment-of-its-trumpian-ethos\"><span>American Art Deco<\/span><\/a><span> associated with Ayn Rand).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWe don\u2019t really have anybody with any sense of clarity painting a picture of what life is supposed to look like in 2060 or 2100,\u201d says Solo, \u201cor even 2032.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"88e3a43f-9a0e-44f3-8bd7-b3e700e373cc\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1292\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436285.jpeg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.65\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Japan Rail Interior (1990)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1980\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1292\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436285.jpeg\" width=\"1292\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Syd Mead, Japan Rail <span class=\"nowrap\">Interior (1990)<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 SYD MEAD <span class=\"nowrap\">INC. www.sydmead.com\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"optimism is a kind of time travel\"><span>OPTIMISM IS A KIND OF TIME TRAVEL<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>Utopian as they might seem today, Mead\u2019s visions of the future were actually grounded in reality. In fact, many of his concepts, like AI-driven cars and the ubiquity of the (then emergent) internet, have already come to pass. \u201cThese aren\u2019t totally far-fetched futures,\u201d says Solo\u2019s co-curator, William Corman. \u201cThey\u2019re logical extensions of the now. Syd\u2019s work shows us the present stretched gracefully forward. Every design, however speculative, operates as if it could truly function.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Because they were built on logic and a keen sense of what was actually possible, Mead\u2019s artworks weren\u2019t just pie-in-the-sky fantasies, but laid the \u201cblueprint\u201d for a real future where technology was used for the betterment of humankind. \u201cIt\u2019s not him saying that this is what the world <\/span><em><span>will <\/span><\/em><span>be, but he\u2019s like: \u2018This is what I think would be a great version of the future,\u2019\u201d Solo adds. As such, this future isn\u2019t far removed from the kind of life we\u2019d enjoy living today (as opposed to, say, contemporary techno-accelerationist ideas like having our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/60341\/1\/mind-uploading-key-to-eternal-life-or-terrifying-dystopia-neuralink-elon-musk\">brains uploaded<\/a> to the metaverse, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69433\/1\/braaains-how-openai-ceo-sam-altman-wants-to-put-ai-inside-our-minds-elon-musk\">merging with AI<\/a> to enter a kind of heavenly digital afterlife). \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of human sensations, bodies, interaction, parties, drinks. There\u2019s also a great sense of commonality. Everyone\u2019s been elevated together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Syd Mead\u2019s work shows us the present stretched gracefully forward&#8230; These aren\u2019t totally far-fetched futures<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Mead\u2019s future was tangible, tactile and actually feasible, so it offered people something exciting to work toward. Hopkins\u2019s <\/span><em><span>How to Fall in Love with the Future<\/span><\/em><span> achieves something similar, casting the author as a time traveller who reports back from the 2030s. In this near future, <\/span><span>humans have taken radical steps to mitigate climate change and built a new way of living and working, with a greater focus on sustainability and local communities. <\/span><span>Urban rooftops are covered in vegetable gardens. Travel by car has reduced dramatically, and without the endless drone of traffic, city centres are filled with all kinds of different sounds: wind in the trees, birdsong, the buzzing of a thriving insect population, and the clanking of cutlery as people finish up a long lunch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As a rule, Hopkins never \u2018time travels\u2019 beyond the year 2035, partly because he believes we <\/span><em><span>need <\/span><\/em><span>radical action before that date to avoid irreversible climate catastrophe, but also because it helps keep his imaginary future grounded in reality. In fact, many of the supposedly-futuristic snapshots in his book \u2013 and the accompanying newsletter, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.robhopkins.net\/\"><em><span>Time Traveller\u2019s Gazette<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>\u2013 are lifted from real-life projects and success stories, which he\u2019s witnessed everywhere from S\u00e3o Paulo, to Freiburg, Germany, and Utrecht, as a co-founder of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/transitionnetwork.org\/\"><span>Transition Network<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI\u2019m always looking for things that look like the future that already [exist] in the present,\u201d Hopkins explains. \u201cThe future\u2019s already here if we know where to look. And the more that we can make it familiar, the more people are likely to put in the effort to actually make it happen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>The future\u2019s already here if we know where to look. And the more that we can make it familiar, the more people are likely to put in the effort to actually make it happen<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"is utopia boring and cringe?\"><span>IS UTOPIA BORING AND CRINGE?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>It\u2019s difficult to imagine that anyone would actually want to live in a worse world \u2013\u00a0especially if they know what it feels like to live in precarious times like today. However, it\u2019s also hard to deny that bright futures like the one in Hopkins\u2019s book can sometimes feel na\u00efve, idealistic, or even a little bit embarrassing to express. Why do we feel this way?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In the 1970s, the rising filmmakers of New Hollywood channelled a spirit of cynicism and disillusionment. Against the bleak backdrop of the Vietnam war and Watergate, films got dark and gritty, narratives failed to resolve in happy endings, and fresh-faced heroes gave way to gnarly antiheroes. Film critics will often tell you that this era ended with blockbusters like <\/span><em><span>Star Wars<\/span><\/em> and\u00a0<em>Jaws<\/em><span>toward the end of the decade, but we never really got over the idea that cynicism equals cool (and, by extension, optimism equals cringe). \u201cWe still have not recovered, culturally, from the cynicism of the 1970s that hardened into cool,\u201d agrees Solo. Of course, this is partly because the late 60s and 70s brought us some of the best and most influential films of all time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But it can\u2019t <em>all <\/em>be Martin Scorsese\u2019s fault, can it? The fact is, optimism involves putting more on the line than a cynical worldview does \u2013 it\u2019s easy to prove someone wrong when they\u2019re trying to come up with new ideas about the future, much harder when they\u2019re simply complaining about what The Other Side is up to. See: the descent of UK politics into uninspired one-upmanship. This is a hurdle that any aspiring optimist is bound to face (but remember: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/56156\/1\/in-defence-of-being-cringe-memes-free-surveillance\">to be cringe is to be free<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">how it feels to stop thinking \u201cthis is cringe\u2026\u201d and start doing whatever the hell you want <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FxeNxad5Oj\">pic.twitter.com\/FxeNxad5Oj<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; sera (@berrylooms) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/berrylooms\/status\/1875042400789549282?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 3, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>There\u2019s another argument levelled at better, brighter futures: they\u2019re just a bit boring. As humans, we crave compelling stories and conflict (<\/span><em><span>Love Island <\/span><\/em><span>still draws in millions of viewers per season). In a future where many of our problems have been solved, we might be left twiddling our thumbs, yearning for the killer robots that were supposed to tear us limb from limb. But this criticism is down to a bad framing of what it means to be optimistic, Hopkins says. For example, we shouldn\u2019t think of the world he\u2019s built in <\/span><em><span>How to Fall in Love with the Future<\/span><\/em><span> as a \u201cutopia\u201d as such. It\u2019s just a world where we\u2019ve done everything possible in the time available to us. \u201cLondon still looks like London. People still fall out with each other. People still get sick. But the context in which we\u2019re telling those stories is different.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Unsurprisingly, Syd Mead also gave this issue a fair amount of consideration. He understood that even in an idyllic future of abundance and universal luxury we\u2019d \u201cstill love the thrill of the battle, the thrill of the chase\u201d, says Solo, and wouldn\u2019t just want to sit around in a slop-addled stupor. As a result, races and competitions feature heavily in his artworks, as a way to address our evolutionary drives in a world where abundant resources have \u2013 in theory \u2013 made IRL conflict obsolete.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"d1331db3-7626-4a40-bd81-b3e700e36d8d\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1980\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436283.jpeg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"2.07\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Canyon Race (1969)\" class=\"img\" height=\"955\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436283.jpeg\" width=\"1980\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Syd Mead, Canyon <span class=\"nowrap\">Race (1969)<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 SYD MEAD <span class=\"nowrap\">INC. www.sydmead.com\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"optimism doesn\u2019t mean turning a blind eye\"><span>OPTIMISM DOESN\u2019T MEAN TURNING A BLIND EYE<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>It\u2019s easy to equate optimism with a blind disregard for the real problems that exist today, and the people most affected by them. Or maybe optimists are just selling \u201chopium\u201d \u2013 the future-facing equivalent to \u201ccopium\u201d \u2013 to profit off those problems while doing nothing to actually address them. Hopkins rejects this idea. Historically, optimistic visions of the future have flourished in some of the most difficult circumstances, he points out, from the French Resistance during WWII, to the American civil rights movement that gave rise to Afrofuturism. Far from turning a blind eye, he suggests, the \u201ccolourful, fantastical\u201d work of artists like Sun Ra and George Clinton went hand-in-hand with the campaigning of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWhen the shit hits the fan, you really need optimists,\u201d he concludes. \u201cAnd the shit is absolutely hitting the fan right now. If all we have to deal with that is pessimism and resignation, we\u2019re not going to get anywhere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;AUGHHH STOP I WANT TO HATE MYSELF AND NEVER BE HAPPY NOOOO&quot;<br \/>&quot;300x the dose, quadruple the hopium, add in NEVER DOOM as well.&quot; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oa399orOzp\">pic.twitter.com\/oa399orOzp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; \u26a1\ufe0fNEVERDOOMPRO\u26a1\ufe0f (@NEVERDOOMPRO) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NEVERDOOMPRO\/status\/1970537557759783185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 23, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Another writer whose work takes us on a time-travelling trip to the future is the historian Ilan Papp\u00e9, whose recently-published book <\/span><em><span>Israel on the Brink <\/span><\/em><span>contains a \u201cfictional diary\u201d from \u201cpost-Israel Palestine\u201d in 2048 (100 years after the Nakba that violently displaced Palestinians). This imagined future aims to lay the blueprint for IRL change, but again, Papp\u00e9 doesn\u2019t present us with a utopian vision; residents\u2019 smiles conceal the \u201ctough life\u201d they survived in refugee camps pre-liberation, and deep-rooted religious divides remain. \u201cOur new reality remains precarious,\u201d he <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/imagining-a-liberated-future-for-palestine\/\"><span>writes<\/span><\/a><span>, \u201cbut so far it survives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In September 2025, Papp\u00e9 spoke at the annual conference for the Peace and Justice Project (PJP), an organisation founded and directed by Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn himself was a rare <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/politics\/article\/46649\/1\/this-general-election-we-must-be-excited-and-hopeful-for-our-future\"><span>source of hope<\/span><\/a><span> for many young people in the UK during his five-year Labour leadership, from 2015 to 2020, and the new left-wing party he founded with Zarah Sultana in 2025 offered another <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/68236\/1\/how-young-people-feel-about-jeremy-corbyns-new-left-wing-party-zara-sultanah\"><span>glimmer of optimism<\/span><\/a><span>\u00a0before it collapsed under the weight of political infighting. Speaking to Dazed about Papp\u00e9\u2019s vision of 2048, following his PJP conference talk, Corbyn noted that the tradition of time travel goes way back, to texts like William Morris\u2019s utopian socialist novel <\/span><em><span>News From Nowhere. <\/span><\/em><span>B<\/span><span>ut it\u2019s young people who are the most valuable bright futurists, he adds. \u201cYoung people always have a more vibrant imagination than anyone else, because they\u2019re uninhibited and not bound by any norms in our society,\u201d he explains. \u201cThey say lovely things like: \u2018I want flowers, I want sunshine, I want Granny to be happy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Unfortunately, if progressive, left-wing movements really want to entice the general public with their version of the future \u2013 and counter the vivid, glittering images coming from Silicon Valley and its largely right-wing backers \u2013 they\u2019re going to need to get a bit more specific than that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"14c05b67-29f3-4f34-b0fa-b3e700e37a89\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1980\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436288.jpeg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.43\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Party 2000 (1977)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1389\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436288.jpeg\" width=\"1980\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Syd Mead, Party <span class=\"nowrap\">2000 (1977)<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 SYD MEAD <span class=\"nowrap\">INC. www.sydmead.com\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"now is the time for hope\"><span>NOW IS THE TIME FOR HOPE<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>Hopkins isn\u2019t joking when he says that \u201cshit is hitting the fan\u201d right now. The climate crisis continues, even if it no longer makes as many headlines, AI is poised to cause even more economic disruption, and the geopolitical landscape is more of a cliff edge. At Davos in January 2026, amid Trump\u2019s threats to take over Greenland, Canadian prime minister and former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney (not exactly a political radical) told the world that we are witnessing the end of the current political order \u2013 \u201ca rupture, not a transition\u201d. In other words, he said: \u201cThe old order is not coming back.\u201d This could be interpreted as a dire warning that we\u2019re entering a new era of conflict between political strongmen. But then, there\u2019s the optimistic take: if the old world order is crumbling, we get to build something different to replace it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Already, some political leaders are harnessing this sense of possibility for the better. In the UK, Green Party leader Zack Polanski has propelled his party into the lead among under-30s, according to recent polling from <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/yougov.co.uk\/politics\/articles\/53923-how-would-britain-vote-at-the-start-of-2026\"><span>YouGov<\/span><\/a><span>. In the US, many are looking to NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani for inspiration, following his wildly successful campaign as a democratic socialist. <\/span><span>Quoting the activist and trade unionist Eugene Debs in his<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/politics\/zohran-mamdani-victory-speech\/\"><span> victory speech<\/span><\/a><span> late last year, Mamdani said: <\/span><span>\u201c<\/span><span>I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity. The future is in our hands.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Green Party is leading by 6 points with the entire under 50s cohort, up 15 points since the general election, with Labour down 23. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cPpQ1WiTUg\">pic.twitter.com\/cPpQ1WiTUg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; cez (@cezthesocialist) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cezthesocialist\/status\/2013908442201702462?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 21, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>But again, these politicians can\u2019t just <\/span><em><span>talk <\/span><\/em><span>about the better future we could be living in \u2013 they need to <\/span>show <span>us what it might look like. In a January interview with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/zack-polanski-interview-music-culture-kneecap-policies-convincing-voters-3921800\"><em><span>NME<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>, Polanski noted that this is a strong case for supporting art, music and culture, as \u201cthe most powerful ways\u201d to show us the best (and worst) parts of our divided times. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have art occupying that space,\u201d he added, \u201cthen it does create this vacuum for demagogues and narcissists to be able to project an image of who we are that isn\u2019t true; but then there\u2019s no counterculture to be able to challenge that idea.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In 2024, the UK-based Common Sense Policy Group (which counts Polanski as a member, alongside interdisciplinary experts and community representatives) released a book titled <\/span><em><span>Act Now<\/span><\/em><span>, which sheds light on the revolutionary potential of our current moment. \u201cCrises&#8230; can also be opportunities,\u201d reads its introduction. \u201cThey expose the inadequacy of the status quo, making people more receptive to bold, new solutions.\u201d Just as the uncertain backdrop of the Cold War framed JFK\u2019s \u201cNew Frontier\u201d optimism, today\u2019s crises <\/span><em><span>could <\/span><\/em><span>pave the way for bold and creative visions of the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"bc7fc5f8-c6c3-4f59-baf6-b3e700e37799\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1980\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436287.jpeg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.51\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Modern Home Unit (1975)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1311\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436287.jpeg\" width=\"1980\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Syd Mead, Modern Home <span class=\"nowrap\">Unit (1975)<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 SYD MEAD <span class=\"nowrap\">INC. www.sydmead.com\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"building the future out of the past\"><span>BUILDING THE FUTURE OUT OF THE PAST<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>If there are still any doubts about our ability to convert imaginary futures into reality, we only have to look to the past to realise that things <\/span><em><span>can actually get better <\/span><\/em><span>when people come together around the right idea. \u201cHistory, if it\u2019s taught right, is extremely empowering and exciting, and it gives you inspiration for current times,\u201d says Corbyn, pointing to slave revolts in Jamaica and the US, women\u2019s suffrage, and the working class Chartist movement as historical examples of hard-won success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Similarly, we have the widely popular Beveridge Report to thank for decades of improved living standards in the UK, including the founding of the NHS. Published at the height of World War II, this plan for radical reform was based on the idea that \u201ca <\/span><span>revolutionary moment in the world\u2019s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching\u201d. We\u2019re living through a similarly revolutionary moment today, and so we find ourselves in a similar situation. Just patching up the problems we face isn\u2019t going to be sufficient in the long run, but history proves it\u2019s possible to turn this into a positive, channelling the revolutionary energy of our times into a better future.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>A revolutionary moment in the world\u2019s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>In the late 80s, Syd Mead delivered a lecture in Lugano, Switzerland that was subsequently buried in an archive and discovered decades later by Solo and Corman, in a continued effort to unearth \u201cgold\u201d from forgotten boxes of his drawings, writings, and other ephemera. Here\u2019s an excerpt from the artist\u2019s decades-old speech: \u201cThe exhilaration and challenge of creating the human future rises above national and cultural boundaries. <\/span><span>Technology is not a panacea but an ever more elaborate tool to assist us in our mutual journey to the future. <\/span><span>We are passengers on an ever more finite sphere, and in the technologically-advanced nations we are proportionately more responsible for solutions. We need not stumble into the future. We are collectively aware of the challenges and we have the combined expertise to design our way forward [&#8230;] Concept precedes technique, and the new generations of designers who help to orchestrate the future will be as successful as their ability to turn imagination into realised fact.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>If we\u2019re in need of a new Bright Futurist movement today, to rekindle our optimism and wrestle the future from the hands of tech billionaires, this seems like a pretty good manifesto. A different version of the world is possible, but it requires us to believe in it first.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-series header article-series tags\"><span class=\"heading\">More on these topics:<\/span><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/longread\">Longread<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/future\">Future<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/technology\">Technology<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"image-navigation\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/news\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img one\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">News<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/fashion\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img two\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Fashion<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/music\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img three\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Music<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img four\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Film &amp; TV<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69553\/1\/bright-futurism-better-future-syd-mead-utopia-rob-hopkins-zack-polanksi#features\" class=\"image-navigation__img five\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Features<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img six\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Beauty<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img seven\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Life &amp; Culture<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/\" class=\"image-navigation__img eight\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"image-navigation__wrapper\">\n<h3 class=\"image-navigation__title\">Art &amp; Photography<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"dazed-gallery has-7-images \">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<header>\n<div class=\"info\"><span class=\"heading\">Syd Mead<\/span><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"gallery\">\n<div class=\"gallery-thumbs\">\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/0\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Canyon Race (1969)\" class=\"img\" height=\"953\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/551-0-1429-953\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436283.jpeg\" width=\"1429\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/1\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Chrome Dude (1990)\" class=\"img\" height=\"983\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-743-1475-983\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436284.jpeg\" width=\"1475\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/2\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Japan Rail Interior (1990)\" class=\"img\" height=\"861\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-436-1292-861\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436285.jpeg\" width=\"1292\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/3\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Japan Rail Station (1990)\" class=\"img\" height=\"592\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/406-500-889-592\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436286.jpeg\" width=\"889\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/4\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Modern Home Unit (1975)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1311\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-0-1966-1311\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436287.jpeg\" width=\"1966\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-thumb\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/gallery\/36627\/5\/syd-mead\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Party 2000 (1977)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1320\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/320\/0-69-1980-1320\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436288.jpeg\" width=\"1980\"><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"gallery-footer\">Gallery \/ 7 images<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>We were promised hoverboards, flying cars, and unparalleled abundance. Just a few decades ago, popular films, artworks, books and TV shows offered bright, enticing visions of the future, channelling the \u2018<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jfklibrary.org\/learn\/about-jfk\/historic-speeches\/acceptance-of-democratic-nomination-for-president\"><span>New Frontier<\/span><\/a><span>\u2019 optimism that swept the US in the early 60s. Lots of it was science fiction. <\/span><em><span>The Jetsons<\/span><\/em><span>. <\/span><em><span>Star Trek<\/span><\/em><span>. Even <\/span><em><span>2001: A Space Odyssey<\/span><\/em><span> gave us an alluring glimpse of advancements in science and technology, including moon bases and plush space planes, although humans continued to wield them like violent apes. And in the years that followed, some of these wild sci-fi predictions would actually come true \u2013 like flip phones, FaceTime, and flatscreen TVs \u2013 while others remained beyond our wildest dreams, just a utopian fantasy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>When you try to picture the future today, though, what comes to mind? A better, brighter world? Gleaming spires, a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/65480\/1\/future-beyond-work-ai-robot-take-our-jobs-whats-next-for-humanity-ubi-laziness\"><span>two-day work week<\/span><\/a><span>, the rewilding of Earth\u2019s landscapes \u2013\u00a0a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/yanemic\/status\/1017906186723774466\"><em><span>society if<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>meme, where the \u2018if\u2019 part has actually come true? More humans living in harmony with nature, eradicating diseases, and enjoying healthy lives <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/article\/60862\/1\/forever-young-secretive-immortality-science-bryan-johnson-david-sinclair-nad\"><span>long past 100<\/span><\/a><span>? Luxury <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/59547\/1\/moon-race-colonise-lunar-surface-moonbase-nasa-esa-space\"><span>space travel<\/span><\/a><span>? Or do those two little words \u2013\u00a0\u201cThe Future\u201d \u2013\u00a0conjure up a collection of darker, doom-filled images: a vast, violent, <\/span><em><span>Terminator<\/span><\/em><span>-style warzone where we battle it out against killer robots? Rising water levels, forest fires, droughts? Billionaires retreating to their bunkers in Hawaii \u2013 or maybe <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/mars\">Mars<\/a> \u2013 while the rest of the world falls apart?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>There\u2019s a good chance that you imagine one of the bleaker scenarios if you\u2019re reading this in the mid-2020s. Bright futures have all but disappeared from contemporary (Western) culture. The rare exceptions tend to fly under the radar \u2013 remember Francis Ford Coppola spending his family fortune to make <\/span><em><span>Megalopolis<\/span><\/em><span>, only for the film to bomb upon arrival after 40 years in development hell? Meanwhile, we\u2019ve seen an explosion in dystopian fiction and films: fungal zombie outbreaks, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/film-tv\/article\/62352\/1\/alex-garland-a24-interview-civil-war-jonathan-glazer-right-left-wing-politics\"><span>civil war<\/span><\/a><span>, AI apocalypse and heartbreak, climate breakdown, an abandoned Earth piled with rubbish, teenagers fighting gladiator matches for the rich&#8230; the list goes on. TV shows and video games like <\/span><em><span>Fallout <\/span><\/em><span>explicitly contrast the optimism of decades gone by with humanity\u2019s dramatic fall from grace, and IRL the public has also started to lose faith in the straightforward progress of humanity. New technologies like AI stoke <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/68614\/1\/meet-protesters-hunger-strike-prevent-ai-catastrophe-google-deepmind-london\"><span>existential fears<\/span><\/a><span> as much as they lure us in with promises of comfort and convenience. Authoritarian chaos looms large on the horizon.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But does it even matter what we picture when we close our eyes and dream about the future? Won\u2019t technocrats and their billionaire backers forge ahead with their own plans regardless? Well, it might feel like a pointless exercise, but we\u2019d be wrong to dismiss it too quickly. Numerous studies have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.semanticscholar.org\/paper\/Positive-Thinking-in-Coping-with-Stress-and-Health-Naseem-Khalid\/db77200dc777353a922594e868554b12e0c8448b\">linked<\/a> intentional positive thinking to individual wellbeing, better mental health, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.durham.ac.uk\/research\/current\/thought-leadership\/optimism-is-good-for-us\/\">longer lifespans<\/a>, and healthier relationships. And the benefits aren\u2019t strictly personal: optimism also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/stories\/2025\/03\/why-is-imagining-a-positive-future-crucial-to-humanitys-progress\/\">stimulates<\/a> parts of the brain associated with problem-solving, is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/optimists-really-are-on-the-same-wavelength-when-they-think-about-the-future-new-study-of-brain-activity-suggests-180987033\/\">linked<\/a> with more \u201ctogetherness\u201d among individuals, and correlates with behaviour that benefits other people and society as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Over the long term, the future is decided by optimists.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/kevin2kelly\/status\/459723553642778624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 25, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>In other words, it might be in our best interests to cultivate a more positive outlook on the future, while still acknowledging all the bad stuff that\u2019s going on in the present. It might not only make us happier and healthier, but help us to organise around new visions for the future \u2013\u00a0to help break us out of the doom spiral, imagine a better world, and collaborate with others to make it a reality. Kevin Kelly, the influential futurist who helped shape the culture of early Silicon Valley, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/kevin2kelly\/status\/459723553642778624?lang=en\"><span>put it<\/span><\/a><span> this way: \u201cOver the long term, the future is decided by optimists.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Of course, actually <\/span><em><span>being <\/span><\/em><span>optimistic is easier said than done.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"peak pessimism\"><span>PEAK PESSIMISM<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>In 2025, Ipsos <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ipsos.com\/en-nl\/global-optimism-declines-according-ipsos-global-trends-9th-edition\"><span>reported<\/span><\/a><span> a \u201cstriking\u201d drop in worldwide optimism about people\u2019s personal lives, families, and broader communities, while in the same year its <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ipsos.com\/en-uk\/ipsos-economic-optimism-index-falls-historic-low\"><span>Economic Optimism Index<\/span><\/a><span> fell to a historic low. Similar polls conducted over the last few years show a pessimistic outlook toward many aspects of the future across <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/eupinions.eu\/de\/text\/the-optimism-gap\"><span>Europe<\/span><\/a><span>, the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/politics\/2023\/jul\/05\/britons-personally-optimistic-nationally-pessimistic-research-finds\"><span>UK<\/span><\/a><span>, and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pewresearch.org\/short-reads\/2023\/09\/18\/americans-are-more-pessimistic-than-optimistic-about-many-aspects-of-the-countrys-future\/\"><span>USA<\/span><\/a><span>. This is especially prevalent when it comes to national and global concerns \u2013 AKA the \u2018big picture\u2019 \u2013\u00a0and among <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/stories\/2024\/04\/youth-young-people-happiness\/\"><span>young people<\/span><\/a><span>. \u201cWhen you ask many young people to close their eyes and imagine 10 years into the future, it\u2019s similar to that line from <\/span><em><span>1984<\/span><\/em><span>: \u2018<\/span><span>If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face \u2013 forever,\u2019\u201d says<\/span><span> Rob Hopkins, an environmental activist and author of 2025\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.robhopkins.net\/the-book\/\"><em><span>How to Fall in Love with the Future<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>. \u201c<\/span><span>But all <\/span><em><span>they <\/span><\/em><span>can imagine is Elon Musk doing a Nazi salute.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This is understandable: the last few years alone have brought us a global pandemic, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2025\/oct\/28\/change-course-now-humanity-has-missed-15c-climate-target-says-un-head\"><span>missed<\/span><\/a><span> climate deadlines, genocide, rising authoritarianism, and a perceived drop in living standards for hundreds of millions of people. According to the news headlines, we\u2019re perpetually on the brink of World War 3. Plus, all of this is more visible than ever as it\u2019s beamed directly into our phones, 24 hours a day. In fact, many young people have been living with this overwhelming sense of hopelessness \u2013 AKA what Mark Fisher called the \u201cslow cancellation of the future\u201d \u2013 their <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69218\/1\/the-21st-century-q1-review-dazed-winter-issue-2025-essay-new-models-antimemetics\"><span>entire lives<\/span><\/a><span>. This makes it difficult to imagine that the next few decades will see life get significantly better.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>When you ask many young people to close their eyes and imagine 10 years into the future&#8230; all they can imagine is Elon Musk doing a Nazi salute<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>When it comes to fixing many of the problems we\u2019re facing today, though, this is a big part of the problem. Chaos and doomsaying make good headlines, and harnessing their emotional impact has been shown to influence public opinion over time (see the \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2023\/jul\/07\/disruptive-protest-helps-not-hinders-activists-cause-experts-say\"><span>guerilla protests<\/span><\/a><span>\u201d staged by groups like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/just-stop-oil\"><span>Just Stop Oil<\/span><\/a><span>), but these narratives overwhelmingly focus on tearing down the current status quo. At a time of injustice, cruelty, and rampant disregard for the future of Earth, this isn\u2019t a pointless aim \u2013 in fact, there\u2019s a very clear argument for it. But then&#8230; what comes next? For change to stick, we also need a positive vision for the future, which galvanises people to bring that future into being.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In Hopkins\u2019 words: the aim of activism can\u2019t <\/span><em><span>just <\/span><\/em><span>be to make us \u201cprofoundly miserable\u201d (which can actually <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/23251042.2025.2552388\"><span>discourage people<\/span><\/a><span> from taking action). Instead, we need to see the dialogue opened up by activists as a \u201cfantastic opportunity for storytelling about what the future could look like\u201d \u2013\u00a0a kind of storytelling that we just aren\u2019t seeing in mainstream discourse today.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 data-innertext=\"optimism inequality\"><span>OPTIMISM INEQUALITY<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>There\u2019s a subset of people who are <em>very <\/em>willing to share their visions for the future in the mid-2020s. You might not agree with their ideas \u2013\u00a0in fact, if you\u2019re reading this, you almost definitely don\u2019t \u2013\u00a0but you\u2019ve definitely heard about them. Elon Musk rolling out an army of humanoid robots to usher in a future of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/elon-musk-retirement-saving-abundance-ai-tech-tesla-spacex-billionaires-2026-1\">abundance<\/a>\u201d and \u201cuniversal high income\u201d. Mark Zuckerberg remodelling reality behind a veil of screens \u2013\u00a0or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/science-tech\/article\/52240\/1\/could-vr-really-help-save-the-planet-mark-zuckerberg-facebook-climate-change\">VR glasses<\/a> \u2013 so that we never have to touch grass again in our lives. Donald Trump sharing AI-generated promos for the \u2018Gaza Riviera\u2019 based on plans leaked from the White House in 2025. Jeff Bezos building rockets for \u201cmillions of people\u201d to live in space in the next couple of decades, just <a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2025\/10\/15\/amazon-founder-jeff-bezos-says-millions-of-people-will-be-living-in-space-by-2045-we-will-have-robots-commuting-to-the-moon\/\">because they want to<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated demo for \u2018Trump Gaza\u2019 on Truth Social. The video depicts his \u201cRiviera Plan\u201d come to life. It involves the forced removal of the indigenous Palestinian population, U.S. ownership, and development of the land for \u201cworld people.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/j9mWl8muHD\">pic.twitter.com\/j9mWl8muHD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DropSiteNews\/status\/1894641996909732207?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 26, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Many of these larger-than-life figures subscribe to the kinds of ideas expressed in the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/a16z.com\/the-techno-optimist-manifesto\/\"><em><span>Techno-Optimist Manifesto<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>, a viral 2023 blog post by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen. To sum it up, the core theory goes something like this: make more money, build more powerful technologies, and a better life will naturally follow. Conveniently, this means that their own business interests should be pursued at almost any cost, because these are what drive the evolution of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2017\/2\/16\/14640460\/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-manifesto-letter\"><span>human civilisation<\/span><\/a><span>, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bezosearthfund.org\/who-we-are\"><span>Earth<\/span><\/a><span>, and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1865956669802295369\"><span>wider universe<\/span><\/a><span>. Others are <\/span><em><span>slightly <\/span><\/em><span>more cautious, like Bill Gates, who <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatesnotes.com\/the-year-ahead-2026\"><span>describes<\/span><\/a><span> his outlook for 2026 as \u201coptimism with footnotes\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As the future feels like it\u2019s being \u201ccancelled\u201d for many young people, Hopkins says, it\u2019s simultaneously being \u201ccolonised\u201d by the rich and powerful. But again, this isn\u2019t <\/span><em><span>just<\/span><\/em><span> because billionaires and (largely) right-wing politicians are \u201cflooding the zone\u201d with their radical manifestos and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69360\/1\/slop-enshittification-2025-internet-implode-shumon-basar-gunseli-yalcinkaya\"><span>sloptimist<\/span><\/a><span> propaganda. It\u2019s also because there\u2019s a severe lack of competing visions to get excited about.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 data-innertext=\"bright futurism\"><span>BRIGHT FUTURISM<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>The American artist and industrial designer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sydmead.com\/\">Syd Mead<\/a> is best known as the brains behind the sci-fi worlds of <\/span><em><span>Blade Runner<\/span><\/em><span>, <\/span><em><span>Aliens<\/span><\/em><span>, and <\/span><em><span>Tron<\/span><\/em><span>. Admittedly, these films don\u2019t tell the <\/span>most <span>optimistic stories about humanity\u2019s future (see: aliens bursting out of people\u2019s ribcages) but they\u2019re all shot through with a vivid sense of what <\/span><em><span>could have been<\/span><\/em><span>. As revealed in the landmark NYC exhibition <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/futurepastime.net\/\"><em><span>Syd Mead: Future Pastime<\/span><\/em><\/a><span> in 2025, this is mainly what Mead brought to the table. Building on the \u201cbright futurism\u201d that characterised his work from the late 1950s and early 60s \u2013 when as a fresh graduate he landed design commissions from car manufacturers like Ford, as well as a project with U.S. Steel that would inspire some iconic vehicles in <\/span><em><span>Star Wars <\/span><\/em><span>\u2013 his brain was bursting with images of a better world. These set the tone for a visual language we still see in sci-fi today: chrome cyborgs, neon-lit interiors and clean, towering infrastructure.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"8bfba6ce-9109-41df-826d-b3e700e82bc0\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1249\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436290.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.73\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Blade Runner (1982)\" class=\"img\" height=\"722\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1249\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436290.jpg\" width=\"1249\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Blade Runner (1982)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Via IMDb<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>In many of Mead\u2019s most famous artworks, you\u2019ll also find diverse crowds of human beings enjoying themselves in the latest space age fashions. This human-centric approach to the future could have a lot to do with his background: trained as an industrial designer, his dad was a Baptist preacher and art teacher, and his mother was a lover of music. \u201cSyd fully understood science and technology, but the humanities as well,\u201d says Elon Solo, co-curator of <\/span><em><span>Future Pastime<\/span><\/em><span>. Today, he adds, \u201cWe don\u2019t have many people that bridge the divide between those disciplines, and we have an education system that really <\/span><em><span>discourages<\/span><\/em><span> that.\u201d As a result, when Mead died in 2019 \u2013\u00a0<em>just<\/em> too soon to see breakthroughs like modern AI and the renewed <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/64951\/1\/live-on-mars-moon-cities-mushroom-architecure-mycotecture-nasa-space-travel\"><span>exploration of space<\/span><\/a><span> \u2013 he didn\u2019t leave behind many successors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>This is a loss that we feel all too keenly, at a time when we\u2019re severely lacking in tangible, tantalising articulations of what the future could look like, at least in the cultural mainstream. Yes, Elon Musk\u2019s companies draw inspiration for their products from various creative sources \u2013 like <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/art-photography\/article\/62457\/1\/hajime-sorayama-museum-sex-miami-erotic-sex-robots-exhibition-xxx-hardcore\"><span>Hajime Sorayama<\/span><\/a><span> and, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/64875\/1\/did-elon-musk-rip-off-his-robot-designs-from-a-2004-sci-fi-movie-i-robot-tesla\"><span>controversially<\/span><\/a><span>, <em>I, <\/em><\/span><em><span>Robot <\/span><\/em><span>\u2013 but the overall aesthetic is ugly, wildly inconsistent, and rarely integrated into a world we\u2019d actually want to live in. The rest of Silicon Valley is no more appetising, churning out bland corporate aesthetics or nostalgic odes to an idealised version of the past (often the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/beauty\/article\/46559\/1\/is-mark-zuckerberg-terrible-haircut-an-ode-to-julius-caesar\"><span>Roman empire<\/span><\/a><span>, sometimes the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/91327237\/a16zs-new-ayn-rand-style-logo-is-the-perfect-embodiment-of-its-trumpian-ethos\"><span>American Art Deco<\/span><\/a><span> associated with Ayn Rand).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWe don\u2019t really have anybody with any sense of clarity painting a picture of what life is supposed to look like in 2060 or 2100,\u201d says Solo, \u201cor even 2032.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"88e3a43f-9a0e-44f3-8bd7-b3e700e373cc\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1292\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436285.jpeg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.65\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Japan Rail Interior (1990)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1980\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1292\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436285.jpeg\" width=\"1292\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Syd Mead, Japan Rail <span class=\"nowrap\">Interior (1990)<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 SYD MEAD <span class=\"nowrap\">INC. www.sydmead.com\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"optimism is a kind of time travel\"><span>OPTIMISM IS A KIND OF TIME TRAVEL<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>Utopian as they might seem today, Mead\u2019s visions of the future were actually grounded in reality. In fact, many of his concepts, like AI-driven cars and the ubiquity of the (then emergent) internet, have already come to pass. \u201cThese aren\u2019t totally far-fetched futures,\u201d says Solo\u2019s co-curator, William Corman. \u201cThey\u2019re logical extensions of the now. Syd\u2019s work shows us the present stretched gracefully forward. Every design, however speculative, operates as if it could truly function.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Because they were built on logic and a keen sense of what was actually possible, Mead\u2019s artworks weren\u2019t just pie-in-the-sky fantasies, but laid the \u201cblueprint\u201d for a real future where technology was used for the betterment of humankind. \u201cIt\u2019s not him saying that this is what the world <\/span><em><span>will <\/span><\/em><span>be, but he\u2019s like: \u2018This is what I think would be a great version of the future,\u2019\u201d Solo adds. As such, this future isn\u2019t far removed from the kind of life we\u2019d enjoy living today (as opposed to, say, contemporary techno-accelerationist ideas like having our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/60341\/1\/mind-uploading-key-to-eternal-life-or-terrifying-dystopia-neuralink-elon-musk\">brains uploaded<\/a> to the metaverse, or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69433\/1\/braaains-how-openai-ceo-sam-altman-wants-to-put-ai-inside-our-minds-elon-musk\">merging with AI<\/a> to enter a kind of heavenly digital afterlife). \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of human sensations, bodies, interaction, parties, drinks. There\u2019s also a great sense of commonality. Everyone\u2019s been elevated together.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>Syd Mead\u2019s work shows us the present stretched gracefully forward&#8230; These aren\u2019t totally far-fetched futures<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Mead\u2019s future was tangible, tactile and actually feasible, so it offered people something exciting to work toward. Hopkins\u2019s <\/span><em><span>How to Fall in Love with the Future<\/span><\/em><span> achieves something similar, casting the author as a time traveller who reports back from the 2030s. In this near future, <\/span><span>humans have taken radical steps to mitigate climate change and built a new way of living and working, with a greater focus on sustainability and local communities. <\/span><span>Urban rooftops are covered in vegetable gardens. Travel by car has reduced dramatically, and without the endless drone of traffic, city centres are filled with all kinds of different sounds: wind in the trees, birdsong, the buzzing of a thriving insect population, and the clanking of cutlery as people finish up a long lunch.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As a rule, Hopkins never \u2018time travels\u2019 beyond the year 2035, partly because he believes we <\/span><em><span>need <\/span><\/em><span>radical action before that date to avoid irreversible climate catastrophe, but also because it helps keep his imaginary future grounded in reality. In fact, many of the supposedly-futuristic snapshots in his book \u2013 and the accompanying newsletter, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.robhopkins.net\/\"><em><span>Time Traveller\u2019s Gazette<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>\u2013 are lifted from real-life projects and success stories, which he\u2019s witnessed everywhere from S\u00e3o Paulo, to Freiburg, Germany, and Utrecht, as a co-founder of the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/transitionnetwork.org\/\"><span>Transition Network<\/span><\/a><span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cI\u2019m always looking for things that look like the future that already [exist] in the present,\u201d Hopkins explains. \u201cThe future\u2019s already here if we know where to look. And the more that we can make it familiar, the more people are likely to put in the effort to actually make it happen.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p>The future\u2019s already here if we know where to look. And the more that we can make it familiar, the more people are likely to put in the effort to actually make it happen<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"is utopia boring and cringe?\"><span>IS UTOPIA BORING AND CRINGE?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>It\u2019s difficult to imagine that anyone would actually want to live in a worse world \u2013\u00a0especially if they know what it feels like to live in precarious times like today. However, it\u2019s also hard to deny that bright futures like the one in Hopkins\u2019s book can sometimes feel na\u00efve, idealistic, or even a little bit embarrassing to express. Why do we feel this way?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In the 1970s, the rising filmmakers of New Hollywood channelled a spirit of cynicism and disillusionment. Against the bleak backdrop of the Vietnam war and Watergate, films got dark and gritty, narratives failed to resolve in happy endings, and fresh-faced heroes gave way to gnarly antiheroes. Film critics will often tell you that this era ended with blockbusters like <\/span><em><span>Star Wars<\/span><\/em> and\u00a0<em>Jaws<\/em><span>toward the end of the decade, but we never really got over the idea that cynicism equals cool (and, by extension, optimism equals cringe). \u201cWe still have not recovered, culturally, from the cynicism of the 1970s that hardened into cool,\u201d agrees Solo. Of course, this is partly because the late 60s and 70s brought us some of the best and most influential films of all time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But it can\u2019t <em>all <\/em>be Martin Scorsese\u2019s fault, can it? The fact is, optimism involves putting more on the line than a cynical worldview does \u2013 it\u2019s easy to prove someone wrong when they\u2019re trying to come up with new ideas about the future, much harder when they\u2019re simply complaining about what The Other Side is up to. See: the descent of UK politics into uninspired one-upmanship. This is a hurdle that any aspiring optimist is bound to face (but remember: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/56156\/1\/in-defence-of-being-cringe-memes-free-surveillance\">to be cringe is to be free<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">how it feels to stop thinking \u201cthis is cringe\u2026\u201d and start doing whatever the hell you want <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FxeNxad5Oj\">pic.twitter.com\/FxeNxad5Oj<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; sera (@berrylooms) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/berrylooms\/status\/1875042400789549282?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 3, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>There\u2019s another argument levelled at better, brighter futures: they\u2019re just a bit boring. As humans, we crave compelling stories and conflict (<\/span><em><span>Love Island <\/span><\/em><span>still draws in millions of viewers per season). In a future where many of our problems have been solved, we might be left twiddling our thumbs, yearning for the killer robots that were supposed to tear us limb from limb. But this criticism is down to a bad framing of what it means to be optimistic, Hopkins says. For example, we shouldn\u2019t think of the world he\u2019s built in <\/span><em><span>How to Fall in Love with the Future<\/span><\/em><span> as a \u201cutopia\u201d as such. It\u2019s just a world where we\u2019ve done everything possible in the time available to us. \u201cLondon still looks like London. People still fall out with each other. People still get sick. But the context in which we\u2019re telling those stories is different.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Unsurprisingly, Syd Mead also gave this issue a fair amount of consideration. He understood that even in an idyllic future of abundance and universal luxury we\u2019d \u201cstill love the thrill of the battle, the thrill of the chase\u201d, says Solo, and wouldn\u2019t just want to sit around in a slop-addled stupor. As a result, races and competitions feature heavily in his artworks, as a way to address our evolutionary drives in a world where abundant resources have \u2013 in theory \u2013 made IRL conflict obsolete.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"d1331db3-7626-4a40-bd81-b3e700e36d8d\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1980\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436283.jpeg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"2.07\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Canyon Race (1969)\" class=\"img\" height=\"955\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436283.jpeg\" width=\"1980\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Syd Mead, Canyon <span class=\"nowrap\">Race (1969)<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 SYD MEAD <span class=\"nowrap\">INC. www.sydmead.com\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"optimism doesn\u2019t mean turning a blind eye\"><span>OPTIMISM DOESN\u2019T MEAN TURNING A BLIND EYE<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>It\u2019s easy to equate optimism with a blind disregard for the real problems that exist today, and the people most affected by them. Or maybe optimists are just selling \u201chopium\u201d \u2013 the future-facing equivalent to \u201ccopium\u201d \u2013 to profit off those problems while doing nothing to actually address them. Hopkins rejects this idea. Historically, optimistic visions of the future have flourished in some of the most difficult circumstances, he points out, from the French Resistance during WWII, to the American civil rights movement that gave rise to Afrofuturism. Far from turning a blind eye, he suggests, the \u201ccolourful, fantastical\u201d work of artists like Sun Ra and George Clinton went hand-in-hand with the campaigning of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>\u201cWhen the shit hits the fan, you really need optimists,\u201d he concludes. \u201cAnd the shit is absolutely hitting the fan right now. If all we have to deal with that is pessimism and resignation, we\u2019re not going to get anywhere.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;AUGHHH STOP I WANT TO HATE MYSELF AND NEVER BE HAPPY NOOOO&quot;<br \/>&quot;300x the dose, quadruple the hopium, add in NEVER DOOM as well.&quot; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/oa399orOzp\">pic.twitter.com\/oa399orOzp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; \u26a1\ufe0fNEVERDOOMPRO\u26a1\ufe0f (@NEVERDOOMPRO) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NEVERDOOMPRO\/status\/1970537557759783185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 23, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>Another writer whose work takes us on a time-travelling trip to the future is the historian Ilan Papp\u00e9, whose recently-published book <\/span><em><span>Israel on the Brink <\/span><\/em><span>contains a \u201cfictional diary\u201d from \u201cpost-Israel Palestine\u201d in 2048 (100 years after the Nakba that violently displaced Palestinians). This imagined future aims to lay the blueprint for IRL change, but again, Papp\u00e9 doesn\u2019t present us with a utopian vision; residents\u2019 smiles conceal the \u201ctough life\u201d they survived in refugee camps pre-liberation, and deep-rooted religious divides remain. \u201cOur new reality remains precarious,\u201d he <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/lithub.com\/imagining-a-liberated-future-for-palestine\/\"><span>writes<\/span><\/a><span>, \u201cbut so far it survives.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In September 2025, Papp\u00e9 spoke at the annual conference for the Peace and Justice Project (PJP), an organisation founded and directed by Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn himself was a rare <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/politics\/article\/46649\/1\/this-general-election-we-must-be-excited-and-hopeful-for-our-future\"><span>source of hope<\/span><\/a><span> for many young people in the UK during his five-year Labour leadership, from 2015 to 2020, and the new left-wing party he founded with Zarah Sultana in 2025 offered another <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/68236\/1\/how-young-people-feel-about-jeremy-corbyns-new-left-wing-party-zara-sultanah\"><span>glimmer of optimism<\/span><\/a><span>\u00a0before it collapsed under the weight of political infighting. Speaking to Dazed about Papp\u00e9\u2019s vision of 2048, following his PJP conference talk, Corbyn noted that the tradition of time travel goes way back, to texts like William Morris\u2019s utopian socialist novel <\/span><em><span>News From Nowhere. <\/span><\/em><span>B<\/span><span>ut it\u2019s young people who are the most valuable bright futurists, he adds. \u201cYoung people always have a more vibrant imagination than anyone else, because they\u2019re uninhibited and not bound by any norms in our society,\u201d he explains. \u201cThey say lovely things like: \u2018I want flowers, I want sunshine, I want Granny to be happy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Unfortunately, if progressive, left-wing movements really want to entice the general public with their version of the future \u2013 and counter the vivid, glittering images coming from Silicon Valley and its largely right-wing backers \u2013 they\u2019re going to need to get a bit more specific than that.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"14c05b67-29f3-4f34-b0fa-b3e700e37a89\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1980\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436288.jpeg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.43\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Party 2000 (1977)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1389\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436288.jpeg\" width=\"1980\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Syd Mead, Party <span class=\"nowrap\">2000 (1977)<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 SYD MEAD <span class=\"nowrap\">INC. www.sydmead.com\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"now is the time for hope\"><span>NOW IS THE TIME FOR HOPE<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>Hopkins isn\u2019t joking when he says that \u201cshit is hitting the fan\u201d right now. The climate crisis continues, even if it no longer makes as many headlines, AI is poised to cause even more economic disruption, and the geopolitical landscape is more of a cliff edge. At Davos in January 2026, amid Trump\u2019s threats to take over Greenland, Canadian prime minister and former governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney (not exactly a political radical) told the world that we are witnessing the end of the current political order \u2013 \u201ca rupture, not a transition\u201d. In other words, he said: \u201cThe old order is not coming back.\u201d This could be interpreted as a dire warning that we\u2019re entering a new era of conflict between political strongmen. But then, there\u2019s the optimistic take: if the old world order is crumbling, we get to build something different to replace it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Already, some political leaders are harnessing this sense of possibility for the better. In the UK, Green Party leader Zack Polanski has propelled his party into the lead among under-30s, according to recent polling from <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/yougov.co.uk\/politics\/articles\/53923-how-would-britain-vote-at-the-start-of-2026\"><span>YouGov<\/span><\/a><span>. In the US, many are looking to NYC mayor Zohran Mamdani for inspiration, following his wildly successful campaign as a democratic socialist. <\/span><span>Quoting the activist and trade unionist Eugene Debs in his<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenation.com\/article\/politics\/zohran-mamdani-victory-speech\/\"><span> victory speech<\/span><\/a><span> late last year, Mamdani said: <\/span><span>\u201c<\/span><span>I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity. The future is in our hands.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content has-tweet\" data-embed-type=\"media-twitter\" data-script-depends=\"twitter-widgets\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The Green Party is leading by 6 points with the entire under 50s cohort, up 15 points since the general election, with Labour down 23. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cPpQ1WiTUg\">pic.twitter.com\/cPpQ1WiTUg<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; cez (@cezthesocialist) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cezthesocialist\/status\/2013908442201702462?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 21, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>But again, these politicians can\u2019t just <\/span><em><span>talk <\/span><\/em><span>about the better future we could be living in \u2013 they need to <\/span>show <span>us what it might look like. In a January interview with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nme.com\/news\/zack-polanski-interview-music-culture-kneecap-policies-convincing-voters-3921800\"><em><span>NME<\/span><\/em><\/a><span>, Polanski noted that this is a strong case for supporting art, music and culture, as \u201cthe most powerful ways\u201d to show us the best (and worst) parts of our divided times. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have art occupying that space,\u201d he added, \u201cthen it does create this vacuum for demagogues and narcissists to be able to project an image of who we are that isn\u2019t true; but then there\u2019s no counterculture to be able to challenge that idea.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>In 2024, the UK-based Common Sense Policy Group (which counts Polanski as a member, alongside interdisciplinary experts and community representatives) released a book titled <\/span><em><span>Act Now<\/span><\/em><span>, which sheds light on the revolutionary potential of our current moment. \u201cCrises&#8230; can also be opportunities,\u201d reads its introduction. \u201cThey expose the inadequacy of the status quo, making people more receptive to bold, new solutions.\u201d Just as the uncertain backdrop of the Cold War framed JFK\u2019s \u201cNew Frontier\u201d optimism, today\u2019s crises <\/span><em><span>could <\/span><\/em><span>pave the way for bold and creative visions of the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"bc7fc5f8-c6c3-4f59-baf6-b3e700e37799\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1980\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436287.jpeg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"1.51\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"landscape\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Syd Mead, Modern Home Unit (1975)\" class=\"img\" height=\"1311\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1600\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436287.jpeg\" width=\"1980\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"caption\">Syd Mead, Modern Home <span class=\"nowrap\">Unit (1975)<\/span><\/span><span class=\"credit\">\u00a9 SYD MEAD <span class=\"nowrap\">INC. www.sydmead.com\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<h2 data-innertext=\"building the future out of the past\"><span>BUILDING THE FUTURE OUT OF THE PAST<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span>If there are still any doubts about our ability to convert imaginary futures into reality, we only have to look to the past to realise that things <\/span><em><span>can actually get better <\/span><\/em><span>when people come together around the right idea. \u201cHistory, if it\u2019s taught right, is extremely empowering and exciting, and it gives you inspiration for current times,\u201d says Corbyn, pointing to slave revolts in Jamaica and the US, women\u2019s suffrage, and the working class Chartist movement as historical examples of hard-won success.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Similarly, we have the widely popular Beveridge Report to thank for decades of improved living standards in the UK, including the founding of the NHS. Published at the height of World War II, this plan for radical reform was based on the idea that \u201ca <\/span><span>revolutionary moment in the world\u2019s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching\u201d. We\u2019re living through a similarly revolutionary moment today, and so we find ourselves in a similar situation. Just patching up the problems we face isn\u2019t going to be sufficient in the long run, but history proves it\u2019s possible to turn this into a positive, channelling the revolutionary energy of our times into a better future.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>A revolutionary moment in the world\u2019s history is a time for revolutions, not for patching<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>In the late 80s, Syd Mead delivered a lecture in Lugano, Switzerland that was subsequently buried in an archive and discovered decades later by Solo and Corman, in a continued effort to unearth \u201cgold\u201d from forgotten boxes of his drawings, writings, and other ephemera. Here\u2019s an excerpt from the artist\u2019s decades-old speech: \u201cThe exhilaration and challenge of creating the human future rises above national and cultural boundaries. <\/span><span>Technology is not a panacea but an ever more elaborate tool to assist us in our mutual journey to the future. <\/span><span>We are passengers on an ever more finite sphere, and in the technologically-advanced nations we are proportionately more responsible for solutions. We need not stumble into the future. We are collectively aware of the challenges and we have the combined expertise to design our way forward [&#8230;] Concept precedes technique, and the new generations of designers who help to orchestrate the future will be as successful as their ability to turn imagination into realised fact.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>If we\u2019re in need of a new Bright Futurist movement today, to rekindle our optimism and wrestle the future from the hands of tech billionaires, this seems like a pretty good manifesto. A different version of the world is possible, but it requires us to believe in it first.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-series header article-series tags\"><span class=\"heading\">More on these topics:<\/span><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/longread\">Longread<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/future\">Future<\/a><a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/tag\/technology\">Technology<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/69553\/1\/bright-futurism-better-future-syd-mead-utopia-rob-hopkins-zack-polanksi&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/889\/406-500-889-592\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1430\/6\/1436286.jpeg&#8221;] \u00a9 SYD MEAD INC. www.sydmead.com\u201d DateInMeta\u00a0 5,\u00a0 2026 Life &amp; Culture \/ Longread Bright futurism: Who\u2019s in charge of imagining a better future for humanity? Dystopias are everywhere we look and Silicon Valley\u2019s uninspiring visions for the future offer little hope \u2013 here, Thom Waite explores the cultural history of optimism, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,76],"class_list":["post-1752908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1752908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1752908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1752908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1752908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1752908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}