Description

By (author) Foster, Nick

Short /annotation:

A stirring exploration of the ways we think about the future from pioneering creative leader Nick Foster

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”Rigorous, rationally optimistic and ultimately empowering” OLIVER BURKEMAN

”A deeply-considered – and funny – treatise on complacency” ALEX McDOWELL

”Essential” DAVID EAGLEMAN

”A rare and wondrous thing” STEPHEN FRY

As the tempo of change accelerates beyond anything our ancestors could have imagined, the ability to think clearly about what lies ahead has never been more important – yet we remain remarkably bad at it.

So how might we think about the future with greater rigour?

Nick Foster is one of very few people to have built a career considering this question, and in this book he”s written an invaluable guide for the rest of us. From the
Could of excitable, science fiction utopianism and the
Should of data-driven, dogmatic certainty, to the
Might of scenario planning and the
Don”t of fear-driven risk avoidance, Foster explores how humanity has grappled with the concept of the future throughout history, tracing the emergence of distinct schools of thought and exploring the virtues, blind spots and inevitable shortcomings of each.

Could Should Might Don”t resists making cocksure prophecies and bombastic predictions, instead encouraging us to create more balanced, detailed and truthful versions of the future, so that we might improve what we leave behind for those who might follow.

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This is the book on the future we”d been waiting for – an impassioned argument for replacing lazy certainties and fearful fantasies with a rigorous, rationally optimistic and ultimately empowering stance towards what might be coming next

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I couldn”t put down this brilliant, eye-opening work – it”s just the kind we need at the moment. Foster has spent a lifetime exploring tomorrows, and his message is clear: serious thinking about the future is essential if we hope to shape it rather than be blindsided by it

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It”s a rare and wondrous thing to read someone who can bring potential futures to life without being stuck in retreads of yet more takes on AI and robotics. Nick Foster”s Could, Should Might, Don”t blows a draught of fresh and thrilling air through a genre that has lately become stale, repetitive and unproductive. It”s the kind of book you keep dropping down to your lap as you look up and wonder

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A deeply-considered – and funny – treatise on complacency. A clear-eyed, attentive and intelligent book about the dangers of complacency as we take on our ever more complicated futures

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Thoughtful . . . Ultimately, the book strikes a hopeful note . . Sage advice and a much-needed perspective on how to build a future that benefits our species” survival

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Where are we going? Who will we be when we get there? These are the big questions, and we need to know that we don”t know enough to answer them. Nick Foster”s book is a lightbulb over your head that never goes off, a song about the future that strikes not just technological but conceptual notes. This book is innervisionary, a travel guide for our mind”s eye

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Rather than more forecasts and projections, Nick brings us the importance of thinking about the future today, in the most accessible and engaging way possible

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It”s rare to find a book about futures work written so thoughtfully, by someone who”s practiced it as such a high level, and is prepared to share insights into what can be an opaque world, and yet can ground it beautifully in stories of everyday life and the possibl