{"id":1513180,"date":"2026-09-14T12:20:21","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T10:20:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/?post_type=videos&p=1513180"},"modified":"2026-09-15T15:40:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T13:40:57","slug":"why-we-struggle-to-imagine-a-better-future","status":"publish","type":"videos","link":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/videos\/why-we-struggle-to-imagine-a-better-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Why We Struggle to Imagine a Better Future"},"featured_media":1513720,"template":"","meta":{"_has_post_settings":{"highlight_sharing":"default","image_sharing":"default","headline_sharing":"default"}},"schools":[],"areas":[21],"subjects":[422],"class_list":["post-1513180","videos","type-videos","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","areas-innovation","subjects-innovation-and-technology"],"custom-fields":{"wpcf-video-media":["https:\/\/youtu.be\/B18k8g-l6BY"],"wpcf-video-description":["Why is it easier to imagine a dystopian future than a better one? David Alay\u00f3n explores how the stories and images that surround us shape what we believe the future can look like. He explains why dystopian visions have become so dominant\u2014and how protopian thinking can help us imagine futures built around gradual, achievable progress.\r\n\r\nDavid Alay\u00f3n is the author of the book Tiempo de futuros<\/em><\/a>.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u00a9 IE Insights."],"wpcf-video-extract-enable":["1"],"wpcf-video-extract":["Why is it easier to imagine a dystopian future than a better one? David Alay\u00f3n explores how the stories and images that surround us shape what we believe the future can look like."],"wpcf-insights-transcription":["

The story that societies tell about its own future will shape the future. Fred Polak, a Dutch futurist, he studied the rise and fall of civilizations. If a society can think of a better future, they aim to build that future. And if not, they stop trying to build it. Something that is happening right now in society is that is harder and harder for us to imagine a better future.<\/p>\r\n

It's easy for us to imagine dystopian futures because we have a lot of references and vivid images, but we don't have that when we think in a positive future. For example, in the environmental area, so many NGOs and organizations use dystopian images of the future to mobilize people. And this gap between how easy it is to imagine a dystopian future, and how hard it is to imagine a better future, I think it's one of the most dangerous things happening in society right now. If we cannot create a positive image of the future, we cannot build it basically.<\/p>\r\n

We have always been obsessed about predicting the future. Let's take, for example, one of the most renowned fortune tellers in history, the Oracle of Delphi. Croesus of Lydia, this king asked the Oracle of Delphi, I want to go into war with the Persian Empire. Should I do it? And he received this answer of \u201cif you go to war, a huge, a big and important empire will be destroyed\u201d. So he went to war and he lost. And indeed, an empire, a big empire was destroyed: his own.<\/p>\r\n

The 20th century was surrounded by really positive images of the future. We got industrial revolutions, new inventions like the telegraph, electricity, trains, plane. And with each one of them, there was, you know, a promise that the future is going to be brighter and better. But then in the same century, we got two world wars.<\/p>\r\n

We got the Holocaust. We got Hiroshima, big ideologies that promised us salvation, like communism. And then the slow erosion of, for example, religion that gave us a sense of purpose and direction. I like to say that we are inheritors of what I call the century of dystopias.<\/p>\r\n

So there are different factors why this is happening. One of them is a cultural thing. The images that stick with us from the 20th century they're really, really dark. They were like Orwell's 1984. They were Huxley's Brave New World. Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and then Philip K. Dick, and Margaret Atwood and Ursula K Le Guin. And then Hollywood, Blade Runner and Westworld and The Matrix.<\/p>\r\n

Besides the cultural aspect, there are different, other factors. Our brain\u2019s hardwired with cognitive biases. One of them is the negative bias. It was a competitive advantage for so many years for our ancestors because we need to look for the threats. And then social media and social networks are exploiting this negative bias. We consume mainly content that provokes outrage or fear and is polarized.<\/p>\r\n

And then we have exponential change driven by technology. It's really hard for us to adapt and understand that specific change. Certain narratives that we are being exposed to right now, that, for example, the inevitability of AI in the future and you have to adapt or you become obsolete.<\/p>\r\n

And then there is a concept that is called the burnout society that was coined by Byung-Chul Han. And basically everything now is really optimized or is trying to be optimized for productivity. So we don't have a space of reflection and thinking about the future. So all of these forces and factors at the end, are blocking us, to think in the long term and to think in better futures.<\/p>\r\n

So I'm going to share three concepts to deal with the long term thinking and try to imagine better futures. And of course, try to make those very futures a reality. So the first concept is hyperstition. That is basically a story, a narrative, that would get installed in the collective imagination. So a fiction that was translated into reality with projects and investment.<\/p>\r\n

So an example, the metaverse. It was coined by Neal Stephenson in 1992 in his novel Snow Crash. And then it was like really popularized by Steven Spielberg in Ready Player One, inspired entrepreneurs, investors, futurist technologies, projects like Second Life or VR headsets like Oculus Rift. Even the change of Facebook to Meta was inspired in that specific concept.<\/p>\r\n

So many people will link this concept of, positive hyperstition with utopias, basically some really idealized future. Margaret Atwood has an amazing quote that any utopia has a latent dystopia trying to get out.<\/p>\r\n

Kevin Kelly in the 90s coined another concept that is protopia. It's not a perfect future, but is an incrementally better future than today. So you can choose specific areas and try to propose solutions in those things. And then imagine how the future will look like. A utopia is a final destination that you will never achieve.<\/p>\r\n

Basically it\u2019s a direction. I like to say that science fiction without science is fantasy, it\u2019s Harry Potter, it\u2019s Lord of the Rings, but science fiction with science: you got a futures scenario. How can we create this kind of narrative from stories? With something that is called the weak signals; things that are happening in the present that are tangible, like, for example, a new law, a new start-up, a new technology, a new social movement.<\/p>\r\n

And over time we can see the direction of changes. We can see the trends. So with weak signals, with what's happening in the present and the trends, we can create, we can build real inspiring protopias. To create a protopia, it needs to be positive. Specific, weak signals that are happening right now. For example, use the AI act from the European Commission that is trying to regulate what is happening with AI. Or for example, Waymo opening for example, in big cities like London.<\/p>\r\n

Even if you collect weak signals in the present, it's going to be really hard to align a vision of the future. It's easier to find a common enemy than a common dream. There is something that is happening right now that is a new nostalgia of let's say, futures that never happened. This concept of hauntology: \u201cthey promised us flying cars, and we have 140-character platforms\u201d. A resource that so many governments are using right now, and Trump is one of the examples, is going back to the past and creating this narrative of they stole us the future. So make America great again. So they go again with nostalgia, saying, I'm the savior and I'm going to create the future for you.<\/p>\r\n

Uchrony is basically going back to the past and changing something and create an alternative future. So, for example, the Man in the High Castle, that will be an example of that. Or, For All Mankind. Welcome to the world of tomorrow.<\/p>\r\n

So we have an opportunity here to create let\u2019s say protopias, protopias that need to be transformed into hyperstition, right? To create this virtuous cycle of creating positive images of the future a reality. Singapore or Dubai, they create amazing images of the future. So right now, we\u2019re trying to anticipate, and create different scenarios, different probabilities, and then to design it to create an action plan in order for a specific future to happen.<\/p>\r\n

History tells us that if you manage to create an aligned vision of the future, of a positive future, extraordinary things will happen.<\/p>"]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/videos\/1513180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/videos"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/videos"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1513720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1513180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"schools","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/schools?post=1513180"},{"taxonomy":"areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/areas?post=1513180"},{"taxonomy":"subjects","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ie.edu\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/subjects?post=1513180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}