Truly, nothing is new and everything has happened before and so we find ourselves, amidst a collapsing geopolitical order with some very fancy gadgets (an expensive plane and some chips) going wanting and going missing. What connects them? A rumour that, coincidentally, started about the same time that JD Vance turned up in Munich to shake the NATO tree. 

To some it might be conspiracy, but never mistake for malice what is better attributed to complacency. Instead what we have here is a great example of one of the most interesting phenomena in futures and the fact that truly, nothing is new, and everything has happened before. 

Links:

• The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man
• Spain, Switzerland Cancel F35 Jet Order Over Trump’s Europe Policy, Defense Mirror: https://www.defensemirror.com/news/40014
• Three reasons Canada and Portugal may cancel order for US-made fighter jets. The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/europe-canada-portugal-f35-fighter-jets-trump-eurofighter-b2718770.html
• India rules out F-35s as defense ties with US face new turbulence. AeroTime: https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/india-rules-out-f-35s-as-defense-ties-with-us-face-new-turbulence
• The F-35 ‘Kill Switch’: Separating Myth from Reality, The Aviationist: https://theaviationist.com/2025/03/10/f-35-kill-switch-myth/
• DIY Tractor Repair Runs Afoul Of Copyright Law, NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/08/17/432601480/diy-tractor-repair-runs-afoul-of-copyright-law
• US farmers win right to repair John Deere equipment, BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64206913
• Inside the Biden Administration's Gamble to Freeze China’s AI Future, WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/chips-china-artificial-intelligence-controls
• Cotton Introduces Bill to Prevent Diversion of Advanced Chips to America’s Adversaries and Protect U.S. Product Integrity, Tom Cotton: https://www.cotton.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cotton-introduces-bill-to-prevent-diversion-of-advanced-chips-to-americas-adversaries-and-protect-us-product-integrity
• Can “Location Verification” Stop AI Chip Smuggling?, AI Frontiers: https://ai-frontiers.org/articles/location-verification-ai-chips
• Killing machines: how Russia and Ukraine’s race to perfect deadly pilotless drones could harm us all, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/25/ukraine-russia-autonomous-drones-ai
• U.S. Army Tests Robotic Vehicle near Russia, Defense Blog: https://defence-blog.com/u-s-army-tests-robotic-vehicle-near-russia/
• 1966: Children Imagine Life in the Year 2000, BBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS8xX3usi4c 
• Ghosts of My Life, Mark Fisher: https://burleyfisherbooks.com/products/9781780992266

We’ve all wanted our own patch of land to do what we want, right? Little bit of crypto? Pharmaceutical experiments? Human cloning? Well the manifest destiny trolley has come back around again and they’re serving up ‘freedom cities.’ Now your little slice of paradise comes with a big helping of deregulation fantasies and a promise to build, build, build! 

If you can even get it off the ground, that is. This isn’t the first, second or third time that starry-eyed men have grabbed an island, called it home and installed a server farm and a crypto conference to the chagrin of the state that actually claims dominion. Will this time be any different for these plucky micronations? 

Links:

• Prospera: https://www.prospera.co/en
• ‘Startup City’ Groups Say They’re Meeting Trump Officials to Push for Deregulated ‘Freedom Cities,’ WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/startup-cities-donald-trump-legislation/
• California Forever: https://californiaforever.com/
• Trump’s “Freedom Cities” Are a Devious Scam, The New Republic: https://newrepublic.com/article/192741/trump-freedom-cities-company-towns 
• Let’s Buy An Island: https://letsbuyanisland.com/
• The Principality of Sealand: https://sealandgov.org/
• Seeing Like A State, James C. Scott: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State
• Careless People, Sarah Wynne-Williams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Careless_People
• Peckham Outer-Space Initiative: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/peckham-outer-space-initiative
• The Dawn of Everything. David Graeber & David Wengrow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dawn_of_Everything

While you're being relentlessly bombarded with multi-trillion dollar projections, promises and prognostications for the latest gizmo a quiet giant has been gobbling up a market share that in real, right-now life is three times the size of the entirety of AR and VR. And it's right at your feet. This mundane product doesn't usually get a look-in with futurists and our first guest, luminary designer Nick Foster, reckons that's a reflection of the subpar quality of the profession. 

Hey but don't sweat it, because Nick's new book 'Could, Should, Might, Don't; How We Think About the Future' is here to help you pay attention to what's important. Pull focus form the foolishness and chicanery of performing futurists and look at what really matters, the future that's all around us, quietly going about its business shaping the real experience of people's lives.

Links

• Could Should Might Don’t, Nick Foster: https://canongate.co.uk/books/5387-could-should-might-dont-how-we-think-about-the-future/ 
• You’re Probably Thinking About The Future Wrong, Nick Foster: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/23/business/dealbook/future-nick-foster.html
• The Future Mundane, Nick Foster: https://www.core77.com/posts/25678/the-future-mundane-25678
• AR and VR Headsets Market Size, Share, and Trends 2025 to 2034, Precedence Research: https://www.precedenceresearch.com/ar-and-vr-headsets-market
• Socks Market Size, Share, and Trends 2025 to 2034, Precedence Research: https://www.precedenceresearch.com/socks-market
• Value Creation in the Metaverse, McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/value-creation-in-the-metaverse

If the apocalypse was around the corner, would you want to know? Well good news for you, we may already be in it, but because it's hard to pin things down or look beyond the present it's hard to really know for sure. 

In the 1960s, states were sending things into space with reckless abandon and now it might be coming back round to bite them. Almost literally. And it doesn't help that billionaires are now rolling the dice with a bet on global communications infrastructure. So what exactly is going on? And, is it even actually going on? And does it mean anything other than resigned acceptance of inevitable collapse at the hubristic hands of billionaires?

Links:

• Collision frequency of artificial satellites: The creation of a debris belt, Journal of Geophysical Research: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/JA083iA06p02637

You haven't seen everything they could do with mushrooms until you've seen a disaster rescue robot powered by a mycelium brain. Of course, mycelium's been the fêted darling of futurists, designers and technologists for the last few years and maybe you thought you'd had enough but, what if this cute little fellow is the route out of the computational cul-de-sac we might have driven ourselves into?

Sometime in 2028, the world's largest private yacht sets sail. Forever. Getting yourself a berth will set you back 10 million bucks but you'll be guarded by the world's most elite ex-military, have a pretty sweet gym and hey, if you fancy it, the ship can dock so you can experience how real people live. Maritime apocalyptic escapes are hardly new but... there's quite a lot of them around at the moment and they appear to be a last resort for a generation of people staring down the barrel of a pretty bleak future. What does it all mean for now and the future?

Introducing Futur-ish