Futur-ish – Details, episodes & analysis

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Futur-ish

Arts

Frequency: 1 episode/14d. Total Eps: 23

This is futur-ish, a podcast about how nothing is new and everything has happened before. With careers spent meandering (sometimes fortuitously) through design and futures, Radha Mistry and Tobias Revell emerge from the smoking wreckage of existential dread to decode the strange signals, hype and bluster of the everyday future to try, try and try again to make it make sense.

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Apple Podcasts

🇨🇦 Canada - design
13/07/2026
#93
🇨🇦 Canada - design
12/07/2026
#72
🇨🇦 Canada - design
11/07/2026
#45
🇨🇦 Canada - design
10/07/2026
#42
🇨🇦 Canada - design
09/07/2026
#27
🇨🇦 Canada - design
01/07/2026
#88
🇨🇦 Canada - design
30/06/2026
#72
🇨🇦 Canada - design
29/06/2026
#50
🇨🇦 Canada - design
28/06/2026
#42
🇨🇦 Canada - design
27/06/2026
#33

Spotify

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Shared links between episodes and podcasts

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https://www.prospera.co/en
2 shares
https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys
2 shares
https://understandingwar.org/
2 shares

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State
2 shares
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man
2 shares
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzle_camouflage
2 shares

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Score global : 38%

Publication history

Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.

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Episode 000: Introducing

Saturday, July 26, 2025 • Duration 00:27

Introducing Futur-ish

001: Thriving the Apocalypse on the World’s Most Exclusive Perma-Cruise

Season 1 · Episode 1

Thursday, August 7, 2025 • Duration 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?

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002: The Cutest Little Robot at the End of Computation

Season 1 · Episode 2

Thursday, August 21, 2025 • Duration 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?

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003: The Space Trash Apocalypse You Haven’t Been Thinking About

Season 1 · Episode 3

Thursday, September 4, 2025 • Duration 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:

Collision frequency of artificial satellites: The creation of a debris belt, Journal of Geophysical Research: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/JA083iA06p02637

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004: The Future Right at Your Feet that you Never Think About (with Nick Foster)

Season 1 · Episode 4

Thursday, September 18, 2025 • Duration 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

Could Should Might Don’t, Nick Foster: https://canongate.co.uk/books/5387-could-should-might-dont-how-we-think-about-the-future/
You’re Probably Thinking About The Future Wrong, Nick Foster: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/23/business/dealbook/future-nick-foster.html
The Future Mundane, Nick Foster: https://www.core77.com/posts/25678/the-future-mundane-25678
AR and VR Headsets Market Size, Share, and Trends 2025 to 2034, Precedence Research: https://www.precedenceresearch.com/ar-and-vr-headsets-market
Socks Market Size, Share, and Trends 2025 to 2034, Precedence Research: https://www.precedenceresearch.com/socks-market
Value Creation in the Metaverse, McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/value-creation-in-the-metaverse

006: The Rumour That Cost Thirty-Five Billion Dollars and Created A Data Center Radar

Season 1 · Episode 6

Thursday, October 16, 2025 • Duration 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:

The End of History and the Last Man, Francis Fukuyama: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_History_and_the_Last_Man
Spain, Switzerland Cancel F35 Jet Order Over Trump’s Europe Policy, Defense Mirror: https://www.defensemirror.com/news/40014
Three reasons Canada and Portugal may cancel order for US-made fighter jets. The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/europe-canada-portugal-f35-fighter-jets-trump-eurofighter-b2718770.html
India rules out F-35s as defense ties with US face new turbulence. AeroTime: https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/india-rules-out-f-35s-as-defense-ties-with-us-face-new-turbulence
The F-35 ‘Kill Switch’: Separating Myth from Reality, The Aviationist: https://theaviationist.com/2025/03/10/f-35-kill-switch-myth/
DIY Tractor Repair Runs Afoul Of Copyright Law, NPR: https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2015/08/17/432601480/diy-tractor-repair-runs-afoul-of-copyright-law

005: Love Islands? Come and Get Your Sovereignty On

Season 1 · Episode 5

Thursday, October 2, 2025 • Duration 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:

Prospera: https://www.prospera.co/en
‘Startup City’ Groups Say They’re Meeting Trump Officials to Push for Deregulated ‘Freedom Cities,’ WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/startup-cities-donald-trump-legislation/
California Forever: https://californiaforever.com/
Trump’s “Freedom Cities” Are a Devious Scam, The New Republic: https://newrepublic.com/article/192741/trump-freedom-cities-company-towns
Let’s Buy An Island: https://letsbuyanisland.com/
The Principality of Sealand: https://sealandgov.org/
Seeing Like A State, James C. Scott: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeing_Like_a_State
Careless People, Sarah Wynne-Williams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Careless_People
Peckham Outer-Space Initiative: https://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/peckham-outer-space-initiative

007: The Discord Server that did a Dungeon Raid on a Government

Season 1 · Episode 7

Thursday, October 30, 2025 • Duration 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

BTS's Jungkook Runs Into Unexpected Consequence From Mention Of Fabric Softener, Soompi: https://www.soompi.com/article/1296197wpp/btss-jungkook-runs-unexpected-consequence-mention-fabric-softener
BTS’s Endorsement Was So Powerful That Hyundai Is Literally Struggling To Keep Up With Demand, Koreaboo: https://www.koreaboo.com/news/bts-hyundai-palisades-demand-struggle/
Kpop Stans Trump Prank Rachets p the Internet Wars, Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-23/k-pop-stans-trump-prank-ratchets-up-the-internet-wars-kbrsyl17
Black Lives Matter meets Animal Crossing: how protesters take their activism into video games, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/aug/07/black-lives-matter-meets-animal-crossing-how-protesters-take-their-activism-into-video-games
Kids are attending pro-Palestinian protests on Roblox, CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/26/kids-are-attending-pro-palestinian-protests-on-roblox.html

008: The Most Futuristic Little Town in Middle England

Season 1 · Episode 8

Thursday, November 13, 2025 • Duration 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

MP's anger as flood defences cash deadline missed, BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c77zl24rm5eo
The flood-prone Worcestershire town being abandoned by insurers, Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/14/tenbury-wells-flood-prone-worcestershire-town-abandoned-by-insurers
Dramatic Moment North Carolina Homes COLLAPSE into Ocean from Hurricane Winds, YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3qplCLqppA
‘This is a wake-up call’: the villagers who could be Britain’s first climate refugees, The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/this-is-a-wake-up-call-the-villagers-who-could-be-britains-first-climate-refugees

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009: The Teens Rejecting AI Gimmicks for See-through Plastic Blocks

Season 1 · Episode 9

Thursday, November 27, 2025 • Duration 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

PRX, The Teens Are Offline: https://exchange.prx.org/pieces/478234
Exploring the Social Life of Urban Spaces through AI: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2424662122
The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QkJkT3M-Us
AskCatGPT, Social Experiments with Methaphones: https://www.tiktok.com/@askcatgpt/video/7504849538209860906
Rabbit R1: https://www.rabbit.tech/rabbit-r1?srsltid=AfmBOopyARX2j2eXeBcZttRbOb7TyeQr00XRh8hzPQKfMuguf8TRyUfk
Humane Inc.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humane_Inc.
Terra Compass: https://modemworks.com/projects/terra/
The Luddite Club: https://www.theludditeclub.org/about
Lamp Club, a Luddite Group, Has Come to Free the ‘IPad Babies’, New York Times:

Futur-ish – Details, episodes & analysis

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Futur-ish – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other99+

The Guardian12

Wikipedia7

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Other99+

The Guardian12

Wikipedia7

Apple Podcasts

Spotify