Remote Futures
Hello and a reintroduction from Kendra.
I was previously using Substack for a nebulous purpose and it now makes sense to reorganize Remote Futures.
The next notes from me explain a little shift in direction. Evolution is good!
If this extremely niche endeavor holds your interest, please stay subscribed, or follow along for free. To those that unsubscribe, genuine thanks for coming along with me this far.
Kendra
TX
Topics
01 Communication
How we convey ideas about the remarkable transformational possibility of new technologies on daily life, pleasure, work, education, and culture.
02 Security
The shaping of society by the organization and dynamics of future security measures and threats.
03 Threats
The variety and forms of interpretations of societies' interaction with new threats and geography's role in these interpretations.
04 Governance
The real-world effects of new governance models, special economic zones, and virtual states that deserve attention.
05a Boundaries
What will accelerate or delay the invention of new concepts of territorial boundaries, location, and nation.
05b Movement
What will accelerate or delay the physical movement of beings and goods throughout.
06 Land
Novel ways to evaluate the circumstances and future reproducability of large-scale projects, such as megaprojects, agriculture, terraforming, NIMBYs, geoengineering, and extraction.
07 Happiness
The future as a psychological landscape: happiness, fearlessness, emotional health, and decision-making through future disruption.
08 Values
Theories of future values and their consequences for understanding radical ecological, demographic, and technological change.
09 Categories
New concepts of the universal and categorical in an environmental context: futures that transcend rural-urban binaries; either-or zones of ecological preservation or exploitation; spaces of inclusion-exclusion (walled gardens, gated communities).
10 Patterns
Patterns in how geography and culture generate signals of the future. Proposals for recalibrating how we assess remote in both the physical and temporal sense.
Remote Futures
Introducing the online home for Remote Futures Research Society, an organization interested in comprehending the qualities of signals of future change and emergent phenomena from typically understudied or overlooked geographies.
We are interested in spaces distanced from the usual metropolitan hotbeds. We are unaffiliated with academia nor in service to enterprise.
Drawing partly on futures and foresight research techniques, our focus is on the margins rather than the core to better interpret a broad canvas of change. We consider emergent indicators that might anticipate highly uncertain futures, and intentionally sidestep short hype-cycle time-horizon framing. Our attention is on remote futures.
This endeavor prioritizes in-place physical exploration and trusts community-led experience in the world, while sustaining the spirit and objectives of a foresight studio. Connecting virtually is a starting point but not an end goal.
To assist the development of Remote Futures please circulate our Substack.
Consider subscribing for original research. If you’re interested in becoming a founding member I’m happy to get in touch. If you’d just like to follow for essays and analysis that mix adventure with research, welcome and along subscribing is free.