Future Day

The future is a mystery. Looking back, we often wish we had seen what was coming—an opportunity missed, a path not taken. Have you ever wanted to rewind time and fix something? If so, why not look ahead instead? That’s why we need Future Day.

Future Day offers a moment to pause and ask: What future do we want to build? Future Day is a celebration of imagination, critical thinking, practical optimism, and extraordinary vision that knows no bounds and invites us to be bold and forward-thinking— to make the unachievable become achievable.

Future Day is the creative idea of Ben Goertzel. It came into being at the Humanity+ Leadership Event “Minds Matter” chaired by Natasha Vita-More in Second Life at the Terasem Island on September 15, 2011.

On March 1, 2012, Humanity+ members returned to the kickoff event in Second Life to bring Future Day to fruition. Natasha Vita-More hosted the Future Day event, and Adam Ford who developed it further and helped to make it a success!

First Future Day Recap:

“What kind of future do we want to design? While science and technology are essential building blocks, humans are the architects of our existence and the authors of tomorrow. We can explore multiple futures, test our assumptions, and consciously work toward the most beneficial outcomes. The future is a story in the making and while there are many surprising, unexpected, and uncertain events that can turn our plans inside out, we are an agile and adaptable species. Our intellect and creativity matter, and the mind’s wit is our weapon against harm—so, let’s be smart strategists and soar ahead!” (Vita-More, 2012).

The auditorium at Terasem Island was full and we were eagerly awaiting all speakers to arrive.

Martine Rothblatt’s talk began by saying she is happy to be part of building the future. She suggested each person could bring Future Day into her/his life making commitments to working toward better cooperation, a broader outreach across the world, more compassion and giving. Many of the avatars present said they would make the commitment. Martine also suggested projects that we could work on, and the concept of a film came up. What a wonderful idea! We talked about Martine’s projects, including “Bina48” AI-robot head. We also talked briefly about Alcor Life Extension Foundation with Max More at the helm as its CEO and President and his leadership in making cryonics as the optimal life preserving backup for every person. Martine continued by shedding light on the need for greater human compassion in our world.

Natasha Vita-More spoke reflected on the need for a more humane humanity and about being bold in a world of caution. She said that there are plenty of naysayers who discount innovators for not being practical enough or being futurists. Instead, she said we need more innovators, not less. She suggested we apply critical thinking and question historical facts, look for alternatives, and concluded that emerging and speculative design media could help to build narratives for the future.

Giulio Prisco, in his space suite, said that the future is not fixed in stone, and that the positive Singularity that we want to see will only happen if we work to make it happen, which requires enthusiasm and positive thinking. He proposed a film project full of solar and positive visions of the future to stimulate enthusiasm and drive.

Howard Bloom appeared onto the scene asking where everybody’s clothes were! Apparently, his computer refresh was slow and in Second Life, it takes a few moments for the architecture to appear, which generates byte by byte.  The audience had a delightful laugh over Howard’s fun-filled comment! But in getting down to the issue of Future Day, Howard spoke jubilantly about pushing forward, not accepting the naysayers, and in fact being every more selfish about our own futures. He said that it is our life and create it in the visionary way we desire – no holds bar. We can be the future!

Adam Ford’s talk was a recipe for preparing for the future and reflected back on to the skills of future thinking, to know the skill-set and use it.  Adam had said "Let’s go negative with caution. It is especially important to enable people with the power to help, instead of portraying the impression that we are helpless or that making a better future is intractable. If we scare with scale, we’ll lose a lot of the people we are trying to connect with. If we empower with feasible steps, we’ll make social change.  And what we are really after is social change around thinking about the Future." Adam was connecting from Australia, where he had just organized the Australian Future Day in real time earlier. Adam (aka Zork Floresby) is below in front of the podium:

Ben Goertzel had been communicating with Natasha, Giulio, and Adam outside SL to say he would create an audio file for everyone. Since this was a virtual event, audio was the next best thing to Ben’s avatar not being uploaded. Giulio played Ben’s comments, and everyone was delighted to have Ben there at list audio.

"Welcome to Future Day 2012 -- I'd hoped to join you in Second Life but, technology still being at the pre-singularity level, I couldn't seem to log in this morning. But I'm with you in spirit!   I conceived the idea of a Future Day holiday because I think it's important for us all to focus our attention on the future.  We shouldn't forget or ignore the past, but this is a critical juncture
in human history -- the next few decades hold the possibility of amazing transcendence or terrible destruction for humanity, and we need to be focusing our attention on how to guide things in a positive direction... and reveling in the amazing positive possibilities.  A Future Day holiday is one fantastic way to do this. So thanks for joining the celebration!!"

Natasha’s closing remarks ended in the quote: “Future Day is a day for action! Future Day invites us to transform fragmented ideas into constellations of possibilities. We are the architects of our existence and the authors of tomorrow. Our keen wit is our weapon against harm—so, let’s soar ahead!”

And a quote from Sonia Arrison: “Future Day is important since it reminds us that a great future does not create itself. In order to realize our hopes and dreams, we have to actively work to make them happen. One of my dreams is to see a day when disease, and the suffering associated with it, is obliterated.”

We look forward to next year’s March 1st Future Day!