What Will The Future Look Like? - Theo Priestley & Bronwyn Williams - #330

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
Hello, you beautiful humans. Welcome back to the show. My guests today are Theo Priestley and Bronwyn Jones. They're futurists, trend analysts and authors. We're talking about what the future will look like. The future is supposed to be ours to choose, but who is educated enough to tell us if we're going in the wrong direction? Theo and Bronwyn brought together the world's leading futurists to articulate, clarify and predict the current trajectories in all areas of life that you care about, and some that you probably don't. The future of warfare, education, transport, politics, economics, space travel, relationships and much more. It's weird because everyone has an opinion on the future. Everyone thinks that they know what's going to go on, but it really does feel like we're only served one, usually semi-utopian view of how we're going to upload ourselves into the main frame and be in virtual relationships with androids and never have to work or be in fear again. But there are other perspectives and we definitely get to hear them today from Theo and Bronwyn. In other news, this episode is brought to you by brand new sponsor, Slater Menswear. They are one of the biggest and best men's tailoring and fashion companies in the UK. 26 stores across the UK and they've got 47 years of experience. I've never bought a suit from anywhere that wasn't Slater. Every single suit that I own is from them. So if you're leaving lockdown and going into the real world, you're looking at your wardrobe and it probably sucks. So you need to make some updates and from the moment that you walk in the door, you'll get amazing customer service if you are in person. And if you're online, they have one of the best and broader selections of menswear that you can find. The team in store will take care of you. I was in and out within 10 minutes a couple of weeks ago with a brand new barber jacket and some other bits. Check out their full range online at slaters.co.uk and use the code MW10 for 10% off everything site wide. If you are buying yourself a new outfit or getting someone a gift, this is a perfect place to go. Their summer stock has just dropped and there's tons of new pieces that you can use to make yourself a little bit less embarrassed about having a wardrobe that's a year and a half old. slaters.co.uk and MW10 for 10% off. In other other news, this episode is brought to you by Pure Sport CBD. My favorite Pure Sport product is the Unwind and they've just released it in capsules. So if you don't want to use the tincture, which is the drops under your tongue at night, you can get the benefits of the world's first CBD and Neutropics blend in a very easy to take capsule. On top of that, they have the highest caliber CBD products on the market. Every batch that they make is split tested by two third party companies to ensure that it is only of the highest quality. And they have over 1000 five star reviews on Trustpilot. It's free UK shipping, £6.99 international shipping. And you can get 20% off all full priced items by going to puresportcbd.com/modernwisdom.
And the code MW20 gets you that 20% discount. If you're struggling with your sleep, if you're finding yourself waking up throughout the night and you're not rested and relaxed enough in the morning, I highly recommend that unwind or just their pure CBD products, puresportcbd.com/modernwisdom and MW20 for that 20% discount available with international shipping or shipping to the UK. And now, please give it up for the wise and wonderful Theo Priestley and Bronwyn Jones.
What's an anti-futurist?

**Theo Priestley** (4:06)
I get asked this all the time. It's a little bit of a marketing spin. I think it goes to, perhaps Bronwyn and I's, our particular viewpoint of the future, which is, if you look at the pop culture futurists like Peter Diamantis and Ray Kurzweil, they paint a very specific version of Utopia, which is everyone will merge with machines and become one with the singularity.
My particular take is more akin to, I cast a large dollop of cynicism on top of all of it, and just take a step back and say, well, is this really the preferred version that we want to actually prescribe to? Why should we believe that these two men or these particular futurists who have the loudest voice are the right ones that we should be following? So my take on futurism or anti-futurism is really a more pragmatic and realistic approach born out of the fact I used to be a chief evangelist of a technology company. So I used to put on a lot of the spin and the happy version, you know, happy, clappy version and stuff like that and hug trees. And now I hug trees because, you know, the trees are disappearing and I realize that, you know, technology isn't as rosy as what other people paint it to be. So I kind of take a very sort of negative stance, in a sense, towards these particular futures that other people want us to prescribe and walk towards with blinkers on, in a sense.