Overview

'Rigorous, rationally optimistic and ultimately empowering' OLIVER BURKEMAN 'A deeply-considered - and funny - treatise on complacency' ALEX McDOWELL 'Essential' DAVID EAGLEMAN 'A rare and wondrous thing' STEPHEN FRY As the tempo of change accelerates beyond anything our ancestors could have imagined, the ability to think clearly about what lies ahead has never been more important - yet we remain remarkably bad at it. So how might we think about the future with greater rigour? Nick Foster is one of very few people to have built a career considering this question, and in this book he's written an invaluable guide for the rest of us. From the Could of excitable, science fiction utopianism and the Should of data-driven, dogmatic certainty, to the Might of scenario planning and the Don't of fear-driven risk avoidance, Foster explores how humanity has grappled with the concept of the future throughout history, tracing the emergence of distinct schools of thought and exploring the virtues, blind spots and inevitable shortcomings of each. Could Should Might Don't resists making cocksure prophecies and bombastic predictions, instead encouraging us to create more balanced, detailed and truthful versions of the future, so that we might improve what we leave behind for those who might follow.

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9781837263837

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Reviews

This is the book on the future we'd been waiting for - an impassioned argument for replacing lazy certainties and fearful fantasies with a rigorous, rationally optimistic and ultimately empowering stance toward what might be coming next -- OLIVER BURKEMAN It's a rare and wondrous thing to read someone who can bring potential futures to life without being stuck in retreads of yet more takes on AI and robotics. Nick Foster's Could, Should Might, Don't blows a draught of fresh and thrilling air through a genre that has lately become stale, repetitive and unproductive. It's the kind of book you keep dropping down to your lap as you look up and wonder -- STEPHEN FRY Where are we going? Who will we be when we get there? These are the big questions, and we need to know that we don't know enough to answer them. Nick Foster's book is a lightbulb over your head that never goes off, a song about the future that strikes not just technological but conceptual notes. This book is innervisionary, a travel guide for our mind's eye -- QUESTLOVE It's rare to find a book about futures work written so thoughtfully, by someone who's practiced it as such a high level, and is prepared to share insights into what can be an opaque world, and yet can ground it beautifully in stories of everyday life and the possible futures they hold. This is both Nick Foster's method, and his particular skill, and this warm and insightful book balances critique, care, love and hope for this kind of work. The lenses through which Nick portrays futures work describe mechanisms and machinations, pitfalls and possibilities, but ultimately they are also generous and generative, allowing us to see aspects of ourselves, and our collective work, in all of them -- DAN HILL Nick Foster is a genius who helps companies like Dyson, Apple, and Google envision the future. I listen to Nick tell me how to imagine and create what's next for ourselves. Remember, you don't have to outrun somebody if you can outsmart them -- BOBBY HUNDREDS Praise for Nick Foster: Nick Foster is one of the world's foremost leaders in speculative design * * Fortune Magazine * * Nick is the uninhibited master of design as a means for translation and clarity. He finds the soft underbelly of ideas, listens at the door of culture, clears away the tangle of hyperbole - and reveals those few notes that matter -- CHARLIE SUTTON, Head of Design at Facebook/Meta (2017-2022)

It's a rare and wondrous thing to read someone who can bring potential futures to life without being stuck in retreads of yet more takes on AI and robotics. Nick Foster's Could, Should Might, Don't blows a draught of fresh and thrilling air through a genre that has lately become stale, repetitive and unproductive. It's the kind of book you keep dropping down to your lap as you look up and wonder -- STEPHEN FRY Praise for Nick Foster: Nick Foster is one of the world's foremost leaders in speculative design * * Fortune Magazine * * Nick is the uninhibited master of design as a means for translation and clarity. He finds the soft underbelly of ideas, listens at the door of culture, clears away the tangle of hyperbole - and reveals those few notes that matter -- CHARLIE SUTTON, Head of Design at Facebook/Meta (2017-2022)

Author Information

Nick Foster is a designer and writer based in Oakland, California. He has spent his career exploring the future for globally renowned technology companies including Apple, Google, Nokia, Sony and Dyson. Despite the ambitious nature of much of Nick's work, he's known for his down-to-earth, everyday and occasionally irreverent approach to the future, and in 2021 he was awarded the title 'Royal Designer for Industry' in recognition of his significant contributions to the discipline, the highest professional accolade for a British designer. Nick was born in Derby - the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, and a city once synonymous with innovation, manufacturing and technology. He earned his Masters degree from the Royal College of Art, and in 2018 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. NickFosterRDI.com | @nickfoster_rdi

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