UTOPIA FOR REALISTS

Every week I’ll be sharing what I read with you & please share with me what you are reading to inspire ✨ each other and break out of our filter bubbles. What I’m reading 📖 this week: UTOPIA FOR REALISTS // ​Want to know more? Read on!

​Do you know what your preferred future is? Maybe you do on a personal level? But what about the future of our world? 🌍

​This book states we are in dire need for utopias to open up our ways of thinking about our global future.

​And the interesting thing is that the Dutch author is a historian and draws heavily on the past 🔙 to inform us about the present and inspire us about possible  -better- futures 🔜.

"To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization."

​In the past people predicted that by now we would have so much leisure time 🙌🏻, because all boring tasks were automated.

​But what happened? Instead of a bore-out, people are burned-out and stressed to the max! 😥 Many even feel they are doing ‘bullshit jobs’. Does that sound like a utopia to you?

​The author brings about his utopian vision for the world: eradicating poverty by opening up borders world wide and provide everyone with a Universal Basic Income and a 15 hour work week. ⚡️

Not a surprise then that the Dutch title of this book literally translates to ’Free Money for Everyone’. 💰 He feels that we rely too much on a narrowed vision of ‘work’ and ‘economy’ and quotes Robert F. Kennedy  to stress that point:

“The GDP Measures Everything Except That Which Makes Life Worthwhile”. 

​When you do trend research you come across various trends, often even opposing ones. 🔛

These trends provide a window on possible futures. Maybe some of these trends might be your utopia and others your nightmare 😱. One decision you can make as a trend researcher is to actively take part ✊🏼in trends that overlap your preferred future.

Graph on the mentioning of GDP in English books between 1930 & 2008. A huge increase.

// What is your utopia? Which elements would it have?

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