The challenges in our future are certain, even if the solutions are not.
Technology moves so fast that it can feel hard to keep up. Climate change threatens the planet itself. Then again, humanity has always been able to solve big problems and adapt to the “new normal.” What might ours look like in the years to come?
FUTURES that Work looks at possible solutions: ways of making a healthier, happier world. Perhaps we should simply slow down—faster isn’t always better. Maybe we’ll be smarter in how we use our resources, so we don’t use them up. Perhaps we’ll harness the power of renewables, focusing our creativity on sustainable cycles, rather than endless growth. Will any of these strategies solve all our problems? Probably not, but each of them has a vital part to play.
#TheFUTURES @SmithsonianAIB
There are quotations graphically printed on the perimeter walls of this hall. They are graphically stylized in green and black font. The quotes state:
“The most important question we must ask ourselves is, are we being good ancestors?”-Jonas Salk
“The Future is already here. It’s just not very evenly distributed.”-William Gibson
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”-Alan Kay
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”-Audrey Hepburn
“Most near-future fictions are boring. It’s always dark and always raining, and people are so unhappy.”-Haruki Murakami
“This present moment used the unimaginable future.”-Stewart Brand
“There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.”-Octavia E. Butler
“Take your time, but don’t waste your time.”-Lupita Nyong’o
“We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.” -R.Buckminster Fuller
“Save everything. From what you have, make what you want.”-George Washington Carver
“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten.”-Bill Gates
“Dear future generations: please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”-Kurt Vonnegut