FARSIGHT

Writing in the ruins of post-war Europe, Dutch futurist Fred Polak argued that societies rise and fall based on the vitality of their images of the future. By that measure, he believed, Western civilization was headed for terminal decline.

In his 1953 masterwork The Image of the Future, Polak traced how magnetic visions of tomorrow, whether religious or revolutionary, had pulled history forward since the ancient Greeks. Without them, he warned, civilizations stagnate and collapse.

Who was Fred Polak, and how well does his sweeping and pessimistic diagnosis of the modern world stand the test of time?

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Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen, August Leo Liljenberg, Tallulah Richards

Published by the ⁠⁠⁠Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

From the utopian ideals of LSD in the sixties to the grunge-infused nihilism of heroin in the nineties, culture and intoxication seem to have always mirrored each other. Might uncovering the nebulous relationship between drug and zeitgeist help us predict our future high?

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Author: August Leo Liljenberg

Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI)

Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

Time and technology are inextricably linked. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, doing things slowly, inefficiently, and without precision looks existentially preferable. The Information Age is replacing sloth with speed as its new Deadly Sin.

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Author: Caitlin van Bommel

Narration: Manya Lind (with ElevenLabs AI)

Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

Mysticism meets Big Oil in the tale of Pierre Wack, the eccentric French economist who brought scenario planning to the corporate world during the geopolitically turbulent 1970s.

Then, as today, a war in the Middle East upset global energy markets, showing the limitations of traditional forecasting. Yet not everyone was equally unprepared. Wack and his team of scenario planners at Royal Dutch Shell had highlighted the risks to Big Oil constituted by the rise of OPEC, public and political backlash to the industry, and other vulnerabilities ahead of the 1973 oil crisis. The story of how Wack and Shell were able to use scenarios to navigate the global shake-up of capitalism has become the mythologised origin point of corporate foresight. Yet Wack’s obsession with the mystical dimensions of scenario writing – his “spiritual documents” – is often glossed over.

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Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen, August Leo Liljenberg, Tallulah Richards

Published by the ⁠⁠Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

Mythical stories of future doom have been supplanted by scientifically grounded ones, with the interconnectedness and complexity of our world-system pushing us closer towards a scenario of inescapable global collapse.

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Author: Christian Kaarup Baron

Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI)

Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

Theories that inaccurately observe the present will inevitably fall short in predicting the future. Yet, our dominant frameworks for understanding international relations remain anchored in assumptions about power and sovereignty that no longer hold. If we want to grasp where geopolitics is actually heading, we need a new lens. Dr Parag Khanna argues that lens is entropy: the accelerating dispersal and dissipation of power across the geopolitical sphere, a patchwork of overlapping powers, jurisdictions, and alliances, similar to medieval Europe before the Westphalian concept of the nation state.

Khanna is a global strategic advisor and the founder and CEO of AlphaGeo, an AI-powered geospatial analytics platform. In this episode, we explore his theory of the coming entropic world order, the relationship between cartography and epistemology, and which nations are best positioned to deal with the climate disruptions ahead.

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Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen & August Leo Liljenberg

Published by the ⁠⁠⁠Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

We are joined by Andrew Maynard, scientist, author, and Professor of Advanced Technology Transitions at Arizona State University, to discuss phase shifts, technological risk, and the accelerating LinkedInification of human expression.

Andrew Maynard writes the "future of being human" substack https://www.futureofbeinghuman.com/ and co-hosts the Modem Futura podcast.

Subscribe to FARSIGHT in print by becoming a ⁠⁠Futures Member⁠⁠ at the Institute.

Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen & August Leo Liljenberg

Published by the ⁠⁠Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

Political philosopher turned futurist, Bertrand de Jouvenel is one of the foundational figures in futures studies. His life and thought were deeply shaped by the defining upheavals of the 20th century — the rise of fascism, the catastrophe of World War II, and the titanic ideological struggle of the Cold War.

Subscribe to FARSIGHT by becoming a⁠ Futures Member⁠ at the Institute.

Hosts: Casper Skovgaard Petersen & August Leo Liljenberg

Assistant producer: Tallulah Richards

Sources

Daniel Knegt: Fascism, Liberalism and Europeanism in the Political Thought of Bertrand de Jouvenel and Alfred Fabre-Luce

Jasper Verschoor: "More than Planners, Less than Utopians:" 1960s Futurism and Post-Industrial Theory

Daniel Rosenberg: Taming the Minotaur: Bertrand de Jouvenel on Liberty and Authority

Brian C. Anderson: Bertrand de Jouvenel's Melancholy Liberalism

Bertrand de Jouvenel: On Power

Bertrand de Jouvenel: The Art of Conjecture

Published by the ⁠Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

Trains and rail once symbolised progress and modernity in Europe. Today, they have more-so come to represent ideas of social equity and public good – an unassuming but universally accessible means of transport. Could rail reclaim its lost significance and prestige – and if so, what would it take?

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Author: Casper Skovgaard Petersen

Narration: Manya Lind (with ElevenLabs AI)

Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

Since its invention in the sixteenth century, the idea of 'Utopia' has carried an inherent ambiguity. Suspended between reality and fiction, the emancipatory and the fatal, two conflicting meanings have clung to the word for centuries and continue to do so today, as visions of utopia are making a comeback among tech billionaires and Saudi Arabian royalty alike.

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Author: Mads Vindaal

Narration: August Leo Liljenberg (with ElevenLabs AI)

Published by the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies