Desirable futures
Desirable futures are futures a group can actually want, beyond what is expected. In Joseph Voros's futures cone they are called preferable futures. Naming them shifts the question from “What is coming?” to “What do we want?”. That takes a conversation about values, because different groups want different things.
Besides Joseph Voros’s futures cone (2003), Erik Olin Wright’s “Envisioning Real Utopias” (2010) is a point of reference.
For Slow Mobility in Culture, an extensive, sketched-out narrative of desirability emerged in 2022, backed by several empirically grounded scenarios.
Making desirable futures more likely is Jonas Drechsel’s mission. To get there, he combines critique of what exists with formats in which people shape things themselves. In the Missionswerkstatt, the vision in the Goldener Kreisel stands for the desirable.
Guiding questions
- What do you want, regardless of what you expect?
- What would have to happen today to make it more likely?
- Who is this future desirable for, and who not?