Picture this: it’s the near future, and you’re on a first date. You’re at an average restaurant in the suburbs, somewhere in the US. Your date, like half the people in the restaurant, is wearing a flat pin the size of a postage stamp on one lapel. As if you didn’t have enough reasons to … Continue reading »
Category Archives: Society
Smart City: All Brains, No Soul?
Imagine you could build the city of the future, from scratch, right now. What would it look like? What would it do? It’s not a hypothetical question. According to this Salon article, software developer Plan IT intends to do exactly that: “Plan IT Valley” will be a new city located in northern Portugal, and is … Continue reading »
Conversation with futurist Douglas Rushkoff
Last week, I skeptically dissected a book preview from futurist Douglas Rushkoff, whose forthcoming book Present Shock will tackle issues like sustainability, sufficiency and corporate dominance of the economy. The preview he wrote was quite short, and while intriguing, it brought up many more questions than it answered. Now, Co.exist (who featured the article originally) … Continue reading »
Cheap, Clean Power for the Rural Poor
Which location do you think is better prepared for the transition to clean energy: the wealthy, green-minded city of San Francisco, or the poor, rural villages of East Africa? If you picked the African villages, believe it or not, you’re on to something. An incredibly innovative startup called Off.grid:Electric has spent two years working to … Continue reading »
Book Preview: Why Futurists Suck
It’s no surprise that this preview for the book Present Shock, called “Why Futurists Suck,” would catch my eye when someone passed along the link: It’s hard not to take it personally when someone goes so far out of their way to denigrate futurists! But a quick read through the article on Good.is suggests the … Continue reading »
The Food of the Future Is… A Beige Liquid?
Just came across this bizarre story on Nextnature.net: Tired of spending time, money and energy on preparing meals, [Rob Rhinehart] decided to find a new way to survive without actual food. He created a unique mixture called “Soylent”, which contains nothing but the elements the body needs: iron, vitamins, fat, calcium and dozens of other … Continue reading »
Survey Says: People Trust Social Media
Okay, so you’re a smart, responsible citizen of the world and you want to know what’s going on around you. Are you more likely to flip open a newspaper – or flip open the laptop? Well, a new survey suggests people are now putting as much trust in social media, like Facebook, for news, as … Continue reading »
Inventing a Language to Map Complexity
The world is a complicated place, as you can tell if you’ve ever tried to predict the weather or the stock market, or if you’ve taken a single glance at the Schroedinger equation governing all physical particles. Wouldn’t it be cool if there was a way to visualize such systems and processes? And wouldn’t it … Continue reading »
I’m Live on Urban Times!
The Urban Times calls itself an “optimistic, forward-thinking online magazine” and they’ve just published my first article! I put in the same extensive research, careful crafting and loving care that I put into articles here at Cosmic Revolutions, so I hope you’ll click below and check it out: Sharing Is the Economy of the Future … Continue reading »
The Future of Race in America
America’s colors are changing – and I don’t mean the flag. As I mentioned on Monday, the Census Bureau found that over half of the babies born in 2011 were members of ethnic or racial minorities. Those babies are the future population of the United States, and it’s going to be an increasingly black, brown … Continue reading »