The fourth industrial revolution could lead to a dark future
Jamie Morgan, Leeds Beckett University Cast your mind back a decade or so and consider how the future looked then. A public horizon of Obama-imbued “yes we can” and a high tide of hope and tolerance expressed in the London Olympics provides one narrative theme; underlying austerity-induced pressure another. Neither speaks directly to our current world of divisive partisan politics, toxic social media use, competing facts and readily believed fictions. This should be instructive. The future is made, not discovered, and yet we are constantly confounded by the future as it becomes the present. What we believe, say, do, organise and vote for matter, but the world they matter to constantly eludes our grasp. We often stumble into futures we would rather avoid. Our ecological and climatological future represents one such horizon and whether and how we will work , another. Organisations are also constantly trying to own the future by mapping out what it will mean for us. The “ f...