Futurism: Cartoons from Tomorrow

THOUGHTS FROM TOMORROW

Today, more than ever before, we are obsessed with the future. We’re not just referring to our collective anxiety about the fate of the environment or the state of our most cherished institutions. We’re talking about that most essential, often bewildering question: What will everyday life look like in five, ten, or twenty-five years? Cartoons from Tomorrow is an honest and spirited attempt to paint that picture for you—for the most part.

“Futurists” like us tend to fall into one of two camps. First, there are the techno-optimists, who fervently believe that technology will save us from the perils and pitfalls of an analog world. Imagine a Harvard-educated entrepreneur who presumes that social media will invariably be used for good. Then there are the techno-pessimists, who fervently believe that technology will destabilize and destroy civilized society as we know it. Imagine an eccentric automobile tycoon who presumes that artificial intelligence will relegate us to the ranks of lesser primates.

With Cartoons from Tomorrow, we posit a third camp—the techno-realists. We believe that technology will be subject to the awkward and messy inclinations of the human condition. Give us augmented reality, and we’ll use it to spew digital rainbows from our front-facing phone cameras. Give us the immutable blockchain, and we’ll use it to mine a billion dollars’ worth of digital currency modeled after a defunct internet meme.

There’s a lot more where that came from, of course. We haven’t even gotten to tomorrow yet. Imagine adding sentient robots, interstellar spaceships, and lab-grown hamburgers (!!!) to the mix. Thanks to the exponential nature of technological progress, things are going to escalate very, very quickly. Consider this book a not-quite-comprehensive guidebook to that future—your future.

On each page, you’ll find a unique and speculative snapshot of the world of tomorrow. Topics range from mass surveillance and job automation to de-extinction and cloning. Occasionally, there will be aliens. While we can’t promise that all these visions of the future will come to pass, we can promise they’ll help equip you for that fateful day when the industrial robot arms come knocking at your door (we feel pretty confident about that one).

Good luck, and Godspeed.