Envisioning Our Future

—Describing your vision of our future

Introduction

What is your vision of the future?

How would you like the world to be 50, 100, or even 1,000 years from now? Where would you like to see humanity headed? What could be possible if we harness our best aspirations, intentions, and capabilities? In what direction are you heading? What is your vision of the future? How can you help make that future a reality?

Lewis Carroll told us that "If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there" Don't wander aimlessly, know where you are headed.

This course can help you write a description of our world as you would like to see it become at some specific future date.

Objectives

The objectives of this course are to:

• Stimulate your thinking about what really matters to you.
• Engage your creativity and imagination.
• Help you dream of the possibilities of what can be.
• Encourage you to consider what ought to be.
• Help you describe your vision of the future.
• Use your vision of the future to begin making decisions that can help all of us move in that direction.

Completion status: this resource is considered to be complete.

Attribution: User lbeaumont created this resource and is actively using it. Please coordinate future development with this user if possible.

There are no prerequisites to this course. Students may wish to work on this course as they work through the Living Wisely course in parallel.

The course contains many hyperlinks to further information. Use your judgment and these link following guidelines to decide when to follow a link, and when to skip over it.

This course is part of the Applied Wisdom curriculum.

If you wish to contact the instructor, please click here to send me an email or leave a comment or question on the discussion page.

Preparation

You can prepare to describe your vision of the future in any ways that work for you. Here are some activities to consider.

• Think about what you like about the world as it is now. What brings you joy? Where do you find fun? Consider all that you are grateful for. Write lists of what you like, what makes you happy, and what you are grateful for.
• Think about what you do not like about the world as it is now. What makes you sad? What makes you angry? What causes you pain? What are your grievances? Write this down. If you can foresee changes that would reduce or eliminate these grievances, describe these.
• Identify trends. Notice and explore cultural, social, political, economic, and technology trends. Seek out the driving force propelling each trend. Predict if each is merely a fad, or is capable of becoming a transformational force. Extrapolate the transformative trends into the future to imagine their impacts.
• Consider this list of grand challenges we face today. What problems are you most concerned about? How might these problems be solved?
• Read books and articles that describe future possibilities.
• Consider ongoing wisdom research exploring the question "How can we wisely create our future?"
• Talk to friends about this. Ask them “What is your vision of the future?” Listen to fully understand their views. Ask them why they foresee this and not that? Engage them in a Socratic dialogue to explore the question “What ought our future be?”
• Talk to your dog. Explain to your dog in great detail and at great length how wonderful the world could be if only … Then take notes to record the highlights of your fascinating conversation. (If you don't have a dog, use a stuffed animal, pillow, imaginary friend, or anything else that listens quietly and encourages you.)
• Browse galleries of various fantasy art forms to stimulate your imagination.
• Consider many possibilities of what can be.
• Give careful thought to what ought to be.
• Dream on!

Scope

Long-term planning allowed major portions of Notre Dame de Paris to be completed in 87 years. Complete construction required 182 years.

Consider the following list of questions and topics to consider in your description. This list is inclusive and longer than you are likely to be able to consider and address in your description. Choose those that are most meaningful to you.

Use your boldest aspirations tempered by your practical knowledge of today’s world to describe the world you want—the best world achievable—in the particular future date you choose to describe.

1. Global Order and Governance

• What would be the world order?
• Will the world be more violent or less violent?
• Will we move toward nationalism or globalization?
• Will international law become more prominent, or will governments decentralize further?
• Will democracy become more prevalent or less prevalent?
• Will democracy be superseded?
• What is the status of national and international governments, legal systems, law enforcement, and politics?

2. Rights, Ethics, and Social Structures

• What will be the status of human rights?
• What will become our basis for moral reasoning?
• What will become the status of cultural mores, ethics, and religious institutions?
• Will religions proliferate, consolidate, or evaporate?

3. Conflict, Cooperation, and Community

• Will people come together, find common ground, and flourish, or continue to fragment into antagonistic factions?
• Will military spending increase or decrease?
• Will incarceration rates increase or decrease?
• What is the state of justice and international relations?

4. Economics and Inequality

• Will income inequality increase or decrease?
• How will the poorest among us live?
• How will the richest among us live?
• Will capitalism be superseded?
• What will be the status of financial systems?
• Will the national debt increase or decrease?
• Will well-being improve or degrade for various population groups?

5. Technology, Innovation, and Infrastructure

• What advances in technology, transportation, energy, food production, weaponry, financial structures, and communication will be prominent?
• What will be our energy sources?
• What will be our transportation modes?
• What will we eat?

6. Education, Work, and Daily Life

• What will be the status of education systems?
• How will people spend their time?
• Characterize employment.
• Characterize unemployment.
• How long will people work?
• What will be the status of entertainment and cultural expression?

7. Health and Human Development

• What will be the status of healthcare systems and end-of-life care?
• What levels of health and fitness will be typical?
• What will be the human lifespan?
• What will be the most destructive diseases?
• Which of today’s diseases will be prevented or cured?

8. Population and Demographics

• What will the population be?
• What will be the population trends?

9. Environment and Sustainability

• Will the environment become more or less verdant, lush, vibrant, diversified, beautiful, polluted, toxic, and accessible?
• How will land be used?

10. Subjective Experience and Emotional Life

• What would be typical subjective experiences?
• Would there be an increase or decrease in anger, anxiety, bliss, contentment, dread, ecstasy, envy, equanimity, frustration, gratitude, guilt, hope, jealousy, joy, awe, loneliness, optimism, pain, pride, sadness, satisfaction, shame, stress, torment, uncertainty, uneasiness, or other emotional states in daily life?
• What will we worry about?
• What will we enjoy?

11. Grand Challenges – Past, Present, and Future

• We face these grand challenges today. Which, if any, will be resolved?
• What will be the grand challenges in the future?
• Which of today’s problems will be solved?
• Which ones will become more acute?

12. Ethics and Philosophy

• How will moral reasoning evolve?
• What values will become dominant? What ones will become outdated?
• Will new ethical frameworks emerge in response to AI, bioengineering, or environmental shifts?
• What new dilemmas will we face around privacy, autonomy, and truth?
• Will the concept of identity or consciousness change?
• Will philosophical or spiritual traditions adapt or fracture under scientific advances?

13. Education and Learning

• How will education be structured—physically, socially, and digitally?
• Will lifelong learning be standard?
• What knowledge or skills will be most valued?
• Will traditional schools and universities still exist?
• Will wisdom increase or decrease?

14. Identity and Individuality

• How will concepts of gender, race, and nationality evolve?
• Will virtual identity or digital avatars become more dominant than physical ones?
• Will human augmentation blur the line between human and machine?

15. Community and Connection

• How will communities be formed—geographically, virtually, or by values/interests?
• Will people feel more or less connected to others?
• How will friendship, love, and family be defined?

16. Rights and Freedoms

• What new rights will emerge (e.g., data rights, genetic rights, AI rights)?
• Will freedom of speech, movement, and belief expand or contract?
• How will societies balance freedom with safety and surveillance?

17. Spirituality and Meaning

• Will organized religion grow, fade, or transform?
• Will new belief systems arise in response to scientific or technological change?
• How will people seek and experience meaning, transcendence, or connection with the unknown?

18. Memory and History

• How will history be preserved or rewritten in the digital age?
• Will the past be more accessible or more manipulated?
• What stories will we tell about who we are and where we came from?

Consider the questions on this list of additional questions to consider.

Address other topics you believe are important. Embrace as large a scope as you can, ideally you will adopt a global perspective and include all of this earth and its inhabitants. You may wish to consider: possible, probable, plausible, worst case, wild card, and preferable futures before choosing to describe a specific future alternative.

Choose a specific date in the future so your description can be specific. I chose a date when our granddaughters will be close to my present age. You will have your own important reasons for choosing a particular date.

Examples

Browse the descriptions in this gallery for inspiration and guidance:

• The World We Want in 2035
• The World We Want in 2075.
• Toward Compassion
• Future Balance
• Earth at One Billion—Envisioning a world population of one billion people
• Words for the Good World we want.

Write Down Your Vision of Our Future

Start writing! If you get stuck, take a break for a few minutes, a few hours, a few days or longer. Go for a walk. Contemplate what you have written, reflect on the questions your work has uncovered, explore what you need to explore and think more about, and make the decisions you need to make to continue writing the description.

Consider sharing drafts with close friends who can give you support, ideas, suggestions, and helpful feedback.

Reread, revise, rethink, and rewrite.

It may be best to write a first person narrative set in the future date you have chosen to describe.

Share if you Dare

If you would like to, please link your description to the examples listed above. This will help other students. Alternatively, you may wish to share drafts of your essay on social media, get feedback from friends, and revise the essay before linking it here.

Take Action

What can you do now to help us move toward the future you have described? Take those actions.

Use your vision of the future to guide your day-to-day decision making, choose your goals, suggest meaningful New Year’s resolutions, and longer term planning.

Consider undertaking the actions described in the Reformation Workshop to make your vision become real.

Further Reading

Many books describe future possibilities. Science fiction, fantasy, and other genres are dedicated to helping us imagine a future. Here are some specific books that may be particularly helpful.

• Zander, Benjamin; Stone Zander, Rosamund (September 24, 2002). The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life. Penguin Books. pp. 201. ISBN 978-0142001103. 
• Leonard, Sarah; Sunkara, Bhaskar (February 2, 2016). The Future We Want: Radical Ideas for the New Century. Metropolitan Books. pp. 208. ISBN 978-0805098297. 
• Quinn, Daniel (May 1, 1995). Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit. Bantam. p. s263. ISBN 978-0553375404. 
• Pinker, Steven (February 13, 2018). Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Penguin Books Limited/. pp. 576. ISBN 978-0-525-42757-5. 
• Bregman, Rutger (March 27, 2018). Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World. Back Bay Books. pp. 336. ISBN 978-0316471916. 
• MacAskill, William (September 12, 2023). What We Owe the Future. Basic Books. pp. 368. ISBN 978-1541604032. 

I have not yet read the following books, but they seem interesting and relevant. They are listed here to invite further research.

• Designing Regenerative Cultures, by Daniel Christian Wahl
• It's YOUR Future...: Make it a Good One!, by Verne Wheelwright