Existential Hope: Imagining and Enacting a More Positive Future

In this Salon, veteran Host Scott Davies returns to take an interdisciplinary and wide-ranging approach to exploring the topic of existential hope. No matter your background or discipline, all perspectives are welcomed and encouraged to attend this Salon. 

We are inundated with negative and dystopian visions of the future. From the 24-hour news cycle to popular media, positive visions for the future are few and far between. At times, it can be easy to fall into a state of existential despair at the state of the world and to believe that there is no possibility for a brighter future. As Allison Duettmann, founder of existentialhope.com and director of the Foresight Institute states,

“We need a change of perspective: away from fatalism in the face of doomsday, and toward the “intelligent optimism” that sublime futures are within our reach — if we reach for them. This shift has to be wider than just first-principle philosophizing: It needs to be accompanied by action items and tools that spark action.”

Existential Hope is all about imagining and building more positive futures. In contrast to existential despair, existential hope emphasizes abundance, agency, and the ability to positively impact upon the world. Imagining and mapping out more positive futures is the first step to catalyzing them. Through a combination of rational optimism, horizon expansion, and a shift from zero-sum to positive-sum thinking and ethics, existential hope provides a framework for

Links (It is encouraged to at least skim over these articles and video in order to gain some context about Existential Hope).

• Existential Risk and Existential Hope: Definitions
• Existential hope more is possible and now is the time
• Letter from Utopia
• Pragmatic Optimism
  
• Feeling grim about the future?
  

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