Dreaming Up Inventions for an Afrofuturist World Three magical tools necessary for both liberation and laughter.

    It’s Time For a New Kind of Power Fantasy Games can–and must–offer different definitions of fantasy, including fantasies of safety and peace.

    Red Planet: How We’ll Govern Mars Technical and engineering obstacles are solvable when it comes to interplanetary colonization–the real challenge is governance.

    Where We Live and How We Die What a year of death looks like around the world.

    Chasing Virality Brought Us Fake News, Now Everything’s on Fire By uncritically embedding itself into social networks, did the media actually usher in the era of fake news?

    Beats: Space Space is where we project our dreams–and our nightmares–of the future.

    A vast stack of containers on a ship

    Postcards From a Supply Chain

    A series that traces consumer goods back through the global shipping system to their source.
    Dan Williams
    Jan 21, 2015

    The Human Machine

    A series about the increasingly blurred lines between us and our machines.
    Ian Steadman
    Aug 23, 2017

    A Visual History of the Future

    Decades ago, artists’ imaginings formed high expectations about the world to come. Were these just fantasies–or was it the work of pioneers whose visions of the future actually helped to shape it?
    Darren Garrett
    May 30, 2018

    Beats: Space

    Space is where we project our dreams–and our nightmares–of the future.

    Beats: Food

    Food structures our day, and food systems shape our world

    Beats: Disability

    “Disable” is an active verb, and disability describes the social and environmental barriers that prevent access just as much as an individual body’s physical reality.

    Beats: Health

    Access to health care is as much a matter of public policy as it is the size of a person’s pocketbook; within a doctor’s office, many factors affect the quality of treatment.

    How To: Learn A New Skill Fast

    Talents you can master in just an hour.
    Duncan Geere
    Sep 18, 2015 1 min read

    If You Talk to Bots, You’re Talking to Their Bosses

    The customer service chatbots offered by companies are simply a new way to gather user data.
    Brett Scott
    May 26, 2016 5 min read

    Disappearing Languages and Tooltips

    Obfuscating a feature is obviously not a great solution, and it’s arguably a total betrayal of the principles I laid out above. But it was the best compromise we found between giving people information we knew they’d want, while not promising something we couldn’t deliver in a fair and equal manner.
    Duncan Geere
    Apr 12, 2018 2 min read