Exploring Possibilities

Bursts of Possibility

A Very Human Future, Part 1 Futurist Steve Wells continues his conversation with Phil and Stephen about his new book, A Very Human Future. Steve is a global futurist, keynote speaker, and COO of Fast […]

Exploring Possibilities

Go Where the Land Is

The world population is moving into cities. Will we all fit? Phil and Stephen discuss what to do when the land runs out In Hong Kong, Humankind Moves Back Into Caves Hong Kong has the […]

Uncategorized

Solving the Water Problem

The west is getting drier and Stephen Gordon has an intriguing idea about how to get the water where it is needed. Why couldn’t we pipe water from the Missouri River to the Colorado River […]

Business

The Future of Real Estate

Technology is changing every aspect of home purchase and home ownership.What will the suburbs look like when no one owns a car? What will the housing market look like when place no longer matters? Phil […]

Entertainment

When Everybody Is Super

Thoughts on the Incredibles and the Incredibles 2: do these movies value being “naturally” super over technological advancement? The Incredibles movies have a weird relationship with technology But there’s another, subtler thread running through the […]

Exploring Possibilities

Save the Billionaires!

A futurist thinks he’s speaking at a conference only to realize that he’s been asked to advise a secret meeting of billionaires. Survival of the Richest They are looking for ways to pretoct themselves fro […]

Aliens

Aliens Among Us

Is it possible that life here began out there? The Panspermia hypothesis suggests that it did: Panspermia (from Ancient Greek πᾶν (pan), meaning ‘all’, and σπέρμα (sperma), meaning ‘seed’) is the hypothesis that life exists […]

Exploring Possibilities

50 Life-Saving Breakthroughs

Phil and Stephen take a look at The 50 Most Important Life-Saving Breakthroughs in History. Some of these a big medical breakthroughs that you would immediately think of like treatments for malaria, others are less expected […]

Exploring Possibilities

The Adjacent Possible

This is the first of three parts as we explore possibilities that are just around the corner. Or, as we like to say, one room over. This is a follow-up to an earlier show on […]

Accelerating Tech

10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018 Part 2

Phil and Stephen continue discussing the MIT Technology Review list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018. In part 2, we look at: Babel Fish Earbuds Zero-Carbon Natural Gas Perfect Online Privacy Genetic Fortune-Telling Materials’ Quantum […]

Accelerating Tech

10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018 Part 1

Phil and Stephen discuss the MIT Technology Review list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2018. In part 1, we look at: 3-D Metal Printing Artificial Embryos Sensing City AI for Everybody Dueling Neural Networks What […]

Exploring Possibilities

School Daze: Alternative Approaches to Education

Phil and Stephen discuss massive disruptions taking place in education. What students know that experts don’t: School is all about signaling, not skill-building Is it possible that students are on to something? There is a […]

Best of

The Speculist Manifesto, Best of TWT

The Speculist Manifesto (The Short Version): The Human Imperative is improvement of the human condition. Throughout human (and pre-human) history, we have worked to increase human intelligence and capability. The Human Imperative is working. We […]

Accelerating Tech

You Are Now Free to Move About the Solar System

Phil and Stephen ask the question: has the space age truly begun? SpaceX makes aerospace history with successful launch and landing of a used rocket After more than two years of landing its rockets after […]

Exploring Possibilities

The Universe Is Full of Surprises

Phil and Stephen discuss cosmic mysteries. The Perseus Signal — “What We Found Could Not Be Explained by Known Physics” We could be “looking at” dark matter here. A Giant Galaxy Orbiting Our Own Just […]

Exploring Possibilities

The End of Space Tourism?

In light of the recent Spaceship 2 disaster, Phil and Stephen discuss the past and future of space toursim. The discovery of the oldest map of the cosmos is a reminder that we have been pursuing […]

Podcasts

World’s Longest Book

Phil and Stephen expand on their idea to publish a collection of world-transforming ideas written by people all over the world. How many great ideas can one book contain? A hundred? Ten thousand? A million? […]

Exploring Possibilities

The First Step

Sure, we talk a lot about transforming the world, but how does one actually make it happen? This week Phil and Stephen talk about the critical juncture between great idea and world transformation: the first […]

Exploring Possibilities

Living with the Shocking Truth

Last week’s show about the Shocking Truth opened up some interesting discussion. Are things really getting better? This week we review the good news (or not so good news) concerning: Sexual assault statistics Forest growth […]

Exploring Possibilities

The Once and Future Future WT020

Here we are more than a decade into the 21st century, and still no sign of a lot of cool future stuff: Moon colonies Underwater cities Rocket Airliners High-speed pneumatic trains Flying cities Phil  and […]