Could Should Might Don't
As the tempo of change accelerates beyond anything our ancestors could have imagined, the ability to think clearly about what lies ahead has never been more important – yet we remain remarkably bad at it.
So how might we think about the future with greater rigour?
Nick Foster is one of very few people to have built a career considering this question, and in this book he’s written an invaluable guide for the rest of us. From the Could of excitable, science fiction utopianism and the Should of data-driven, dogmatic certainty, to the Might of scenario planning and the Don’t of fear-driven risk avoidance, Foster explores how humanity has grappled with the concept of the future throughout history, tracing the emergence of distinct schools of thought and exploring the virtues, blind spots, and inevitable shortcomings of each.
COULD SHOULD MIGHT DON'T resists making cocksure prophecies and bombastic predictions, instead encouraging us to create more balanced, detailed and truthful versions of the future, so that we might improve what we leave behind for those who might follow.
Reviews
A rare and wondrous thing.
This is the book on the future we'd been waiting for – an impassioned argument for replacing lazy certainties and fearful fantasies with a rigorous, rationally optimistic and ultimately empowering stance toward what might be coming next.
It’s rare to find a book about futures work written so thoughtfully, by someone who’s practiced it at such a high level, and yet can ground it beautifully in stories of everyday life and the possible futures they hold. This is both Nick Foster’s method and his particular skill, and this warm, insightful and ultimately generative book balances critique, care, love and hope for this kind of work
Nick Foster started out tracing Garfield cartoons at his kitchen table. I started out tracing Garfield cartoons at my kitchen table! Nick Foster is a genius who helps companies like Dyson, Apple, and Google envision the future. I’m still hoping for flying DeLoreans. That’s why I listen to Nick tell me how to imagine and create what’s next for ourselves. Remember, you don't have to outrun somebody if you can outsmart them.
Where are we going? Who will we be when we get there? These are the big questions, and we need to know that we don’t know enough to answer them. Nick Foster’s book is a lightbulb over your head that never goes off, a song about the future that strikes not just technological but conceptual notes. This book is innervisionary, a travel guide for our mind’s eye.
With thoughtful descriptions of four mindsets, hence the book’s title, Foster blends history with current events to probe different ways humans tackle big issues, and the pitfalls and the positives of each... Ultimately, the book strikes a hopeful note, as this GenX author points to us now entering “something of a golden age of dread about the future” and hails the younger generation for thinking about the future “from a position of responsibility and long-termism.
I think I could actually do with the advice.
I couldn't put down this brilliant, eye-opening work -- it's just the kind we need at the moment. Foster has spent a lifetime exploring tomorrows, and his message is clear: serious thinking about the future is essential if we hope to shape it rather than be blindsided by it.
A clear-eyed, attentive and intelligent book about the dangers of complacency as we take on our ever more complicated future. This book is a reminder that it is the things that go wrong and the mistakes we make that drive us into the future.
The future has rarely been more of a contested space than right now, and we are nearly constantly bombarded by competing visions and interpretations. This is a vital handbook for those looking to make sense of the noise and understand the ways that futures are invoked, inevitable, invented, called upon or avoided.
I'm thrilled about Nick's book. Rather than more forecasts and projections, Nick brings us the importance of thinking about the future today, in the most accessible and engaging way possible.
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