Bright Swans: Hopeful Scenarios for Bleak Futures
Illustration by Tarasova Mariya
Thank you to students in New York University’s Future of Media classes, Summer and Fall 2021 (the Interactive Telecommunications Program), for elements of these scenarios adapted from their final presentations.
Since 2015 or so, humanity has been spiralling down in several directions at once: The pandemic (with mutating viruses), geopolitics (global conflicts between autocracy and democracy), US culture wars (potentially leading to civil war), inflation (economic shock and depression), technology (AI moving beyond the ability to constrain it), and climate change (overshooting the bounds of civilization-friendly temperature by 2050). Worse still, all these trends seem to exacerbate each other. Nobody knows exactly how dire things are, but rose-colored views of the future seem less and less likely to be realized.
Some hopeful scenarios exist. They are plausible. But they aren’t likely to happen in the way people might expect.
They are “bright swan” scenarios. They’re a form of black swan scenarios, a phrase popularized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Black swans are rare, unexpected events with extreme impact; coming from out of nowhere. We might understand how they happened to occur, but they’re very difficult to predict. Yet once they happen, they seem obvious in retrospect.
These six unexpected scenarios all have positive elements. People respond to difficult events by moving to a better future, as best they can.
• For mutating COVID-19: The 30-year pandemic. The virus continues to mutate, and people respond by turning online — and changing to a more sustainable way of life.
• For geopolitics: The FINs that roared. Small countries ally together to form a global alternative to the major countries that dominate the world today.
• For inflation: The oscillating economy. When industrial activity speeds up, the supply chain becomes more resilient — fast. So do energy, housing, and transportation.
• For the threats of artificial intelligence: The algorithmic Hippocrates. Influential companies and software engineers establish a code of practice that people actually follow.
• For US politics: The catharsis game. Extremists in US politics move their battles to massive multi-player role-playing games that are linked to real-world votes and substitute for real-world violence.
None of these futures are certain. All have dismal and controversial elements. They aren’t prescriptions; they’re ideas about what might happen, based on existing trends.
They’re based on a hypothesis about human nature: Just when you least expect it, people demonstrate a resilience and sensibility that surprises everyone.
Also, as economist Herbert Stein put it famously, “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Today’s crises cannot go on forever. The bright swan scenarios suggest some ways they might stop.
