What Futures are Possible?

I grew up with computers. I met my partner couch surfing. That lived experience of the digital commons has stayed with me even as I watch the rise of techno-feudalism. The dream isn't just a dream. The mechanics need work.

We live in times of global catastrophic risk, most of it man-made. Yet I am a radical optimist. By temperament, and as an ethical position. The world we live in shapes what we can become. Looking after that common world is part of living well.

Orienting ourselves to more abundant futures is a critical capacity. This requires two things at once: imagination – an ability to picture what doesn't exist yet – and a clear-eyed understanding of how power and technology actually work.

Featured

 

World Ethic Forum - radically shared aliveness

I work as in-house writer with the World Ethic Forum, a Swiss regenerative think tank exploring radically shared aliveness. I worked with them to create shared language, clarify the methodology. You can read this on their blog  

 

Solarpunk Futures

I have been hovering around the Solarpunk movement as a direct reaction to my work on Global Catastrophic Risk. Many of the threads on this page are inspired by this aesthetic and philosophy. In 2021, I co-wrote with my friend and FOGA cofounder Corin Ism for Singularity Hub: Solarpunk Is Growing a Gorgeous New World in the Cracks of the Old One.

Governance and technology

 

Global Carbon Reward

Since 2020, I've advised Dr Delton Chen on the Global Carbon Reward: a policy proposal to fund climate mitigation through a new central-bank backed transnational currency. I've edited multiple versions of the website and policy paper. GCR has been presented at COP28, the Bank of England, and Yale, and features prominently (under the name ‘carbon coin) in Kim Stanley Robinson's novel Ministry for the Future.

 

Global Challenges Foundation – Risk Handbook

In close collaboration with then Executive Director Corin Ism, I orchestrated the production of the Global Challenges Foundation Risk Handbook - a world first concise introduction to global catastrophic risk. The handbook, based on scientific contributions by leading experts, offers a complete overview of 10 distinct risks and the governance structures currently in place to address them. What’s actually at stake, mapped as clearly as possible. You can download it here.

 

Slow Internet

Slow Internet merges the slow movement with the promise of the early internet. Written by governance futurist Corin Ism and altruistic hacker Markus Amalthea Magnusson, the book offers three design principles and concrete proposals to exit the Stressed Internet. I wrote the French translation and am the French-language spokesperson for the movement.

 

Writings about Digital Technology and innovation

In the early 2010s, distributed digital spaces were beginning to model new forms of collective organisation. I wrote for the blog Superhero Spaces on Xin Chejian, a makerspace in Shanghai, and Yi-Gather, a coworking space in Guangzhou, two early experiments in what peer-led innovation could look like in China. I also wrote on Gov 2.0 in Australia for Regards Citoyens (in French), exploring open government as a model for participatory futures. I also wrote a series of loose blog posts exploring aspects of positive futures: digital commons and alternative models to fund cultural creation.

 

PhD: Mapping a Digital Ecosystem of Chinese Language Learning

My PhD, completed at Monash University in 2021, mapped Chinese language learning as a distributed digital ecosystem. I explored an uncoordinated global field that, I argued, could be understood and designed as a collective public good. It is primarily a piece about coherence (read it there), but it belongs here too: at its heart, it's a proposal for how digital technology might allow us to build shared learning infrastructure that no single institution owns or controls. Read here.

On the Horizon

 

How to Rule a World

This is the centrepiece of my work with Corin Ism building governance literacy through the Future of Governance Agency (FOGA) The book offers World Builders a complete introduction to existing and emerging tools for power and governance.

 

Juris Materiarum

From the solidity of Earth to the sovereignty of soil to the dissolution of dirt, Bronwyn Lay draws together legal histories and philosophies around the unifying concept of juris materiarum: laws that recognise the connections between humanity and its habitat. I worked with Bronwyn to edit the book into a concise version for a new release in Norway

 

Surplus

An upcoming publication, to share a set of public proposals I have been ideating over the years. The list includes fractional citizenship, a global public goods incubator, or a transnational bookclub. The title was inspired by Corin Ism, my FOGA co-founder, and reflects an open-source philosophy. Those are things I won’t have time for, put in shape and open for grabs.