What Future 2018: The Year's Best Writing on What's Next for People, Technology & the Planet

by Meehan Crist (Editor), Rose Eveleth (Editor)

Overview

What Future: The Year's Best Writing on What's Next for People, Technology, and the Planet, edited by Meehan Crist and Rose Eveleth, is a best of the year anthology featuring new writing by and about the scientists, writers, journalists, and philosophers who are proposing the options that lay not just ahead, but beyond us.


Focused on in-depth long-form journalism and essays, What Future tackles issues critical to our future: climate change and human migration, feminism and gender politics, digital rights and AI. From the food systems of the future and built-in environments to constantly evolving systems of justice and surveillance, what kind of future do we envision for people and the planet?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781944700669
Publisher:	The Unnamed Press
Publication date:	10/23/2018
Series:	What Future
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Meehan Crist is writer-in-residence in Biological Sciences at Columbia University. Previously she was editor-at-large at Nautilus and reviews editor at the Believer. Her work has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, the London Review of Books, Tin House, Nautilus, Scientific American, and Science. Awards include the 2015 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award, the 2016 AOA Award for excellence in Health Journalism, the Olive B. O'Connor Fellowship and fellowships from MacDowell, The Blue Mountain Center, Ucross, and Yaddo. She is the host of Convergence, a live show and podcast about the future.



Rose Eveleth is a producer, designer, writer and animator based in Brooklyn. She's dabbled in everything from research on pelagic invertebrates to animations about beer to podcasts about fake tumbleweed farms. These days, she explores how humans tangle with science and technology. She's been a columnist for BBC Future and Motherboard, the producer of the Story Collider, the special media manager at Nautilus, a new digital magazine about science, culture and philosophy and the managing editor for LadyBits, a place where women are smart about science. She also edited the Smart News blog at Smithsonian Magazine, and founded Science Studio, a home for all the best science multimedia on the web. Even before that she was an editor of all things animated at TED Education, and a contributing editor at Smart Planet. Most recently she helped ESPN's award winning documentary series 30 for 30 launch their podcast and is currently the producer and host of Flash Forward, a podcast about the future.

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

How Predictions Can Change the Future Ed Finn / Slate 24

Welcome to Pleistocene Park Ross Andersen / The Atlantic 32

The Eaten World Nitin K. Ahujo / The New Inquiry 58

A Forest of Furniture is Growing in England Sarah Laskow / Atlas Obscura 66

"London Bridge Is Down": The Secret Plan for the Days after the Queen's Death Sam Knight / The Guardian 78

This is What a 21st-Century Police State Really Looks Like Megha Rajagopalan / Buzzfeed 102

How a Tax Haven is Leading the Race to Privatize Space Atossa Araxio Abrahamian / The Guardian 118

What Will Kill Neoliberalism: A Roundtable on its Fate Joelle Gamble Paul Mason Bryce Covert William Parity Jr. Peter Barnes / The Nation 136

Magic Bullets Patrick Blanchfield / Logic 150

Civic Memory, Feminist Future Lidia Yuknovitch / Electric Literature 162

Science Fiction, Ancient Futures, and the Liberated Archive Walidah Imarisha 176

On Liking Women Andrea Long Chu / N+1 186

The Future In Motion: Why I Judge High School Debate Tournaments Bryan Washington / Catapult 206

Someone to Watch Over Me: What Happens When We Let Tech Care for Our Aging Parents Lauren Smiley / Wired 214

Basic Income in a Just Society Brishen Rogers / Boston Review 230

The Future of Remembering Rachel Riederer / Vice 246

Becoming-Infrastructural Ross Exo Adams / E-Flux 262

Breaking the Waves Olivia Rosane / Real Life 274

Why Hope is Dangerous When it Comes to Climate Change Tommy Lynch / Slate 284

Estonia, the Digital Republic Nathan Heller / The New Yorker 292

The Comparative Method: A Novella Gretchen Bakke / Bloomsbury 314

Editorial Reviews

09/17/2018
In this forward-looking collection of previously published essays, contributors discuss the latest tech innovations, the vanguard of social and political thought, and projections about the consequences of climate change. Ross Andersen’s “Welcome to Pleistocene Park,” originally published in the Atlantic, explores the work of scientists at a Siberian nature reserve who are hoping to reduce the thaw of Arctic permafrost (and possibly one day provide a home for genetically engineered woolly mammoths). In “This is What a 21st-Century Police State Looks Like,” originally published on BuzzFeed, Megha Rajagopalan considers the Chinese government’s disturbing use of digital surveillance in the Muslim-majority city of Kashgar as a “testing ground for big data” and cautions that such tracking methods could be adopted more widely. One of the most memorable selections, Sam Knight’s investigative Guardian piece “London Bridge Is Down,” outlines the highly regimented plans in place for Queen Elizabeth’s death, from official Buckingham Palace announcements to preselected BBC playlists, and astutely defines her symbolic significance to the U.K. as “the last living link with our former greatness.” Showcasing a range of perspectives and tones, from ominous warnings to heralds of liberation, this collection provides an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of tomorrow’s conversations. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for the previous edition of What Future
One of Smithsonian Magazine's 10 Best Science Books of the Year

"A sober, no-holds-barred view of the world that lies ahead... provocative and studded with insights."
—Kirkus Reviews

"A vital collection of forward-looking writing... The overall tone is worried but optimistic. Don’t look for utopian fantasies here—look for topical, intelligent projections of a realistically better future."
—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

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