Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Futur-ish
| Titre | Date | Durée | |
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| Episode 000: Introducing | 26 Jul 2025 | 00:00:27 | |
Introducing Futur-ish | |||
| 001: Thriving the Apocalypse on the World’s Most Exclusive Perma-Cruise | 07 Aug 2025 | 00:29:54 | |
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? | |||
| 002: The Cutest Little Robot at the End of Computation | 21 Aug 2025 | 00:30:01 | |
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? | |||
| 003: The Space Trash Apocalypse You Haven’t Been Thinking About | 04 Sep 2025 | 00:22:56 | |
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:
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| 004: The Future Right at Your Feet that you Never Think About (with Nick Foster) | 18 Sep 2025 | 00:29:17 | |
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
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| 006: The Rumour That Cost Thirty-Five Billion Dollars and Created A Data Center Radar | 16 Oct 2025 | 00:29:11 | |
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:
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| 005: Love Islands? Come and Get Your Sovereignty On | 02 Oct 2025 | 00:26:57 | |
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:
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| 007: The Discord Server that did a Dungeon Raid on a Government | 30 Oct 2025 | 00:25:12 | |
The next time you’re desperately casting heal on your paladin, spare a moment to think about the young revolutionaries using your dress-up-and-pretend world to overthrow their governments. Reddit threads, discord servers and game worlds are increasingly taking on the shape of unions, guilds and cadres as these relatively flexible, heterogenous structures feature more and more heavily in the political organising of the day. Whether it’s K-Pop stans driving consumer shocks, reddit communities playing the market or discord servers electing leaders it’s increasingly likely that these things become the new political institutions and we’re here to talk about what that means. Links
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| 008: The Most Futuristic Little Town in Middle England | 13 Nov 2025 | 00:27:42 | |
The future comes at you at unexpected ways. If the bullish pronouncements of tech bros are to believed it’s in the gadgets, gizmos and gimmicks dominating our feeds. Meanwhile, the future is coming fast for a tiny town in the middle of England. Flooding comes at a terrible cost but what are we willing to pay? As the water reaches up to swallow Middle England, more and more places with hundreds of years of history are going to face grim choices about what’s worth preserving and what should be taken by the waters. Links
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| 009: The Teens Rejecting AI Gimmicks for See-through Plastic Blocks | 27 Nov 2025 | 00:28:41 | |
It used to be that the plastic blocks most teens might be interested in were multicoloured and used for stacking on top of each other. Now they’re transparent and vaguely-phone shaped, designed as addiction aids and symbols of protest. Add in to this the growing popularity of Luddite movements across university campuses and charities, signals of democratic legislation banning phones and a proliferation of AI-powered gizmos that seem to distance themselves from the economy and interactions of social media and Radha has an idea that she’s on to something new. Maybe this does mark a new phase in our digital economies but, truly, nothing is new, and everything has happened before.. LInks
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| 010: The Problems with Australia’s Bottomless Brunch of free Energy | 11 Dec 2025 | 00:27:35 | |
The sun has been the biggest tech success story of the last quarter century. Solar panels are cheaper than fences, efficiency just keeps going up and people are installing them at rates that consistently exceed projections. A bottomless brunch of free photons might sound like the perfect gift, and for some, it is. However, for 250 years, we’ve built energy systems and grids around the core concept of scarcity and they’re fundamentally unequipped for the crisis of overabundance. Step in, friend of the pod, Australia, who are about to introduce a new plan to shock the system and drive a behaviour change that tells us more about what the future of energy might look like than you might think. Links
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| Update: Tis The Season | 25 Dec 2025 | 00:02:25 | |
Futur-ish are taking a short hiatus from our bi-weekly release schedule for the holiday. We’ll be back in 2026! | |||
| 011: How Banning Architecture Might Mean more Buildings for Your Brain | 08 Jan 2026 | 00:28:24 | |
Somewhere, in a Trump administration office, someone decided that architects aren’t all that and now they’re being de-professionalised and removed from public debate. At the same time, more and more research is telling us that architecture happens inside your head and we need to design that way. But what does this have to do with World War 2 battleships and the state of education? Radha thinks that the banning of architects from public discourse gives us an opportunity to reimagine what ways, for who and how the built environment is imagined and designed. Links
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| 012: Why Leaders are Turning to Gambling to Bet Which Way the World Will Burn | 22 Jan 2026 | 00:29:13 | |
There’s been enough warning from fiction and indeed reality that people should really know better than to reduce the horror of conflict to gaming, petty bets and the chaos of chance. But perhaps ‘leaders’ really do think the gods play dice and now, as global institutions become increasingly unreliable, they want in. Things look pretty ‘yucky’ if you, for instance, respect the dignity of human life and though this isn’t anywhere near the first time finance has been tied up in geopolitics, the incentives are all backwards now, fuelling misinformation, deception and misappropriation in the name of a quick crypto-buck. Links:
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| 013: Hacking the Collapse of Healthcare into Your Own Hands | 05 Feb 2026 | 00:26:53 | |
All over the world, healthcare systems are straining under the weight of ageing populations, crippling costs and overheads and new and novel conditions exacerbated by the biodiversity crisis. A spate of new gadgets promises to give us more control over our health but if the social problems that underpin failing healthcare aren’t solved, how much can they do? Could we instead use seismic sensors in our feet, colour sensors on our heads and piezoelectric patches on our skin to talk to the planet? To hang out with rivers? LInks:
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| 015: Throwing Money and Ideology at the Population Timebomb | 05 Mar 2026 | 00:25:13 | |
While it’s generally agreed that the global population is continuing to expand (at least until flatlining at the end of the century) for some parts of the world it is falling dangerously precipitously with the potential for severe economic and security impacts. For the wealthy elite of Silicon Valley, this is an ideological failing, one that their blogs and op-eds are ready to tackle with shady conferences that have a whiff of something mid-century Europe about them, and not in the nice furniture way. For others, it’s an opportunity to throw (quite a lot) of money at the problem and see what sticks. Links:
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| 014: Robotaxis into Car Shares; The Real Future of Transport | 19 Feb 2026 | 00:29:13 | |
While you were counting down to 2026 on New Years, Tobias was counting down the last seconds of a future he very personally dreamed of; a future with less cars. You see, Zipcar, the UK’s biggest car sharing company were going out of business, ceasing operations for 2026. Almost simultaneously, the UK government accelerated the timeline on autonomous vehicle trials. Before we know it, LA’s Waymos are going to be hitting London streets. But this isn’t the future either, it’s just a different version of the same car-fuelled nightmare. What if, instead, we already had the perfect technology and just didn’t realise it? LInks:
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| 016: The Movement Charging you to Disconnect (with Tracee Worley) | 19 Mar 2026 | 00:29:50 | |
How much would you pay to be bored? Well, for the kids of Amsterdam it’s about 7 bucks to have their phones locked up and sit and read or do crosswords. Sure, you could just do this anyway without the fee but then would you really feel like you’re part of something, part of a movement? This week, we’re joined by Tracee Worley to talk about her work in experiential and analog futures and chew over more insights on the turn against tech from the youth of today. Links
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| 017: The Weird Technology that Might Replace GPS | 02 Apr 2026 | 00:29:34 | |
As we’ve documented before (see; Kessler Syndrome), the infrastructures we rely on and take for granted are increasingly crumbling and under threat. Cue a surge of investment and interest in alternatives to the systems that have shaped the global economy for the last few decades. It’s something we talk about all the time, throwing at the end of decks and workshops as a ‘things might get weird’ moment - but what actually is quantum sensing? And how might it reshape our relationship with physical reality? Links ‘To live a normal life again, it’s a dream come true’: UK’s first climate evacuees can cast off their homes and trauma, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/09/to-live-a-normal-life-again-its-a-dream-come-true-uks-first-climate-evacuees-can-cast-off-their-homes-and-trauma GPS jamming shows ships in "impossible" locations, Kuehne+Nagel: https://mykn.kuehne-nagel.com/news/article/gps-jamming-shows-ships-in-impossible-locatio-09-Apr-2024This Pokémon Go GPS hack is the most impressive yet, The Verge: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/7/28/12311290/pokemon-go-cheat-gps-signal-spoofing Q-CTRL's New Maritime Quantum Navigation Solution Successfully Undergoes First Defense Trials at Sea, Q-Ctrl: https://q-ctrl.com/blog/q-ctrls-new-maritime-quantum-navigation-solution-successfully-undergoes-first-defense-trials-at-sea Armed with quantum sensors, France eyes leaps in electronic warfare, DefenseNews: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/06/25/armed-with-quantum-sensors-france-eyes-leaps-in-electronic-warfare/ Earth’s Gravity Field, NASA: https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/earths-gravity-field-3666/ Magnetic Navigation at Scale: Advancing Resilient Flight Through Quantum Sensing, ACubed: https://acubed.airbus.com/blog/quantum/magnetic-navigation-at-scale-advancing-resilient-flight-through-quantum-sensing/ DIU’s Transition of Quantum Sensing (TQS) Field Testing To Begin Across Five Critical Areas, DIU: https://www.diu.mil/latest/dius-transition-of-quantum-sensing-tqs-field-testing-to-begin-across-five Japan Boosts Semiconductor, Quantum R&D with Trillion-Yen Budget, Quantum Insides: https://thequantuminsider.com/2025/01/16/japan-boosts-semiconductor-quantum-rd-with-trillion-yen-budget/ Google claims 'quantum supremacy' for computer, BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50154993 Quantum Sensing Will Test Legal Frameworks for Privacy, Tech Policy Press: https://www.techpolicy.press/quantum-sensing-will-test-legal-frameworks-for-privacy/ | |||
| 019: Can Futurists be Useful? (with Dr. Bree Trevena and Charlie Warwick) | 30 Apr 2026 | 00:37:58 | |
If you expected four leading foresight professionals to come and deliver a grab-bag of incredible intel, you are sorely mistaken. Instead we’re joined by Dr. Bree Trevena and Charlie Warwick to talk about recent reflections on what it means to be a ‘good’ futurist in the time of systemic complexity, fracturing identities and AI. Links:
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| 018: How Warmer Weather and Collapsing Ecosystems are Driving a Tourism Doom Spiral | 16 Apr 2026 | 00:27:34 | |
There’s been a fair amount of coverage of maritime activities at Futur-ish and we’re pleased to bring you another episode where Radha was triggered by being targeted for luxury cruises. It seems hoteliers are pivoting from the land to the sea as insurance and sea levels rise to meet the warming climate. However, this is all triggering a doom loop where the increase in tourism to endangered places drives them into further endangerment. Perhaps the people of Croydon, South London hold the answer? Links
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| 020: Sublime Hubris and Existential Dread in the Return to the Moon | 14 May 2026 | 00:26:44 | |
Only Radha could find the glorious spectacle of space flight ‘meh.’ Luckily for Tobias, I write these blurbs. Artemis II went round the moon and back and only one year off plan. Is this the kick-off for a new space race? If it is, it’s a very different flavour than the last one. Gone are the cultural politics preceding the ‘end of history.’ This race is all about who gets to set the terms of the coming cislunar economy that the world’s largest economies are setting their clocks to. Links:
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| 021: BREAKTIME | 02 Jun 2026 | 00:01:48 | |
It's all just a little bit too much. With Tobias running headlong into a thesis submission in September it's time to take a summer break and come back even stronger. | |||