Who owns the future?

Techno-dreams and progressive cynicism

Featured in

  • Published 20170428
  • ISBN: 9781925498356
  • Extent: 264pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

THE FUTURE IS always arriving, in one form or another. There is no no future. It’s an absurdly simple point, like saying that one plus one equals two. But despite its apparent simplicity, it bears remembering because its corollary has far-reaching consequences: that the future will come regardless of our capacity to imagine and articulate a vision for it. Which in turn leads to another obvious but easily missed point: that any failure of the imagination vis-à-vis the future does not prevent the future arriving, but only leaves it susceptible to the visions of others. Or, to put it another way: the future belongs to those who dare to imagine it.

I first learnt the truth of that maxim in the spring of 2015, when I was invited to the nation’s capital for the inaugural Junket, an ‘un-conference’ where two hundred of Australia’s ‘best and brightest young minds’, its ‘game-changers’ and future leaders, would gather to ‘share ideas, get advice, be inspired, innovate, teach, learn, network and have fun – all with the (suitably ambitious) aim of helping set the agenda for Australia’s future’.

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

More from author

More from this edition

A gonzo music memoir

EssaySO YOU GET an urge. Something bristling within you that can only get out through something else. Maybe it was because you didn’t fit...

To my future child

MemoirTO MY FUTURE child: Your grandmother’s mother, my wai-po, is a pack rat. I parked in her garage twice a week during the semester I...

Waiting our turn

EssayGENERATIONALISM IS A complex phenomenon. The concept of a generation is obvious: the social and economic contexts for a group of people born around the...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.