Future Tense

Construction has begun on a giant $US 20 billion nuclear reactor in southern France. When it’s completed in 2020 it will represent the latest experimental stage in a decades-long quest to mimic the energy generation of the Sun.

Can heroism be taught? What about combat medals for drone operators, or socially engineered moral crusaders? In this episode we explore how our notions of heroism are changing and who, or what, could be the “hero” of the future.

Can heroism be taught? What about combat medals for drone operators, or socially engineered moral crusaders? In this episode we explore how our notions of heroism are changing and who, or what, could be the “hero” of the future.

It’s hardly a golden age for politics, but business is certainly booming for the satirist.

The nation-state is a relatively recent invention – historically speaking. But there are those who believe it’s better days are already far behind it.

Does a sense of playfulness underpin the modern world? From information sharing to social activism to business training, the dynamics of play are increasingly important in our rapidly evolving world.

Our relationship with photography has changed in the social media age. We take, alter, crop and share photos like never before. And we use them as badges – symbols of who we are and how we feel. Of course, the photograph has always been more than just a captured image, a simple record of times instantly passed. But in the modern era is the photo more message than memory?

The idea of having an ideas festival is a popular idea indeed. But the idea that they’re universally ideal as a way of fostering creative new ideas is an idea that’s hotly contested. Andrew Zolli, the curator of PopTech, has an idea that the popularity of the ideas event is linked to the idea that we still need to physically congregate together in order to create and share new ideas, even though we’re increasingly living in a digital age. But critic Eygeny Morovoz thinks Zolli and his ilk simply have no idea. Morozov argues the whole idea of idealising the idea of the idea is, to be quite frank about it, a really bad idea. And, more than that, he argues, it’s an idea whose time has past.

Being provocative in the modern world.

Arthur C. Clarke once declared: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’. But does the analogy work the other way around? Techno-illusionists like Marco Tempest argue magicians need to embrace new technologies in order to stay relevant to a 21st Century audience. But can the modern illusionist become too technologically focussed?