Could Should Might Don't: How We Think About the Future

'Rigorous, rationally optimistic and ultimately empowering' OLIVER BURKEMAN 'A deeply-considered - and funny - treatise on complacency' ALEX McDOWELL 'Essential' DAVID EAGLEMAN 'A rare and wondrous thing' STEPHEN FRY 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.