Futurist Gerd Leonhard: The Good Future Project - A Conversation SF Writer Brenda Cooper

So, greetings everybody. I'm Gert Leonhardt, a futurist in Zurich, Switzerland. I'm also the founder of the Good Future Project. And the Good Future Project got started a few months ago. And the purpose of it is to bring about a good future, to create optimism, to create narratives about the good future, to define what a good future is. There's about a hundred people involved. If you want to know more, just go to the Good Future project dot com. And this brings me to my special guest, Brenda Cooper, who is also a member supporter of the Good Future Project. And Brenda is an amazing science fiction writer. I read her book last year. I think what I read was the Silver Ship and the Sea. And I will definitely get her latest one. It's called the Age of Dark, or maybe the other way around. But anyway, Brenda is from the west coast in the US From Seattle, and she will talk to us today about what she does as a science fiction writer and also technologists. As far as I understand it, we're going to have a conversation about what the good future could entail and how we would bring it about. Welcome, Brenda.

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

Maybe tell us briefly what you do and what is your connection to the Good Future Project?

All right. As GERD mentioned, I am a professional technologist. I actually help manage technology for a company that helps to build Seattle. It's a premier local construction company. And then I have been writing science fiction for about 30 to 40 years. I've got about 10 books out now. I have over 50 stories. And science fiction, of course, is the literature of the future. And I've been spending a lot of time trying to write about how we can have a future that's a future, a place that we want to live in. And lately that's been focusing on climate fiction. But I've also focused quite a bit on robotics and AI as areas of interest. And I'm part of this because I've also been probably, I call myself an amateur futurist. I do talk to audiences, often smaller audiences, about the future, help people understand trends, help people understand how to think about the future. I really admire the work that GERD is doing here with this. I love the people that are all working together on this. And I think there's maybe nothing more important for us as a society then to figure out. How do we navigate our way towards a future that our children or our grandchildren can live in?

Yeah, I mean, this is a huge topic. Obviously, I think we first connected through our mutual friend glenn heemstra@futurist.com, maybe a decade ago or so, when I was in Seattle, actually probably longer ago than that. Glenn has retired in the meantime, but he still remains a strong force in futurism. So maybe one thing that we should talk about first. I read a lot of fiction. I Science fiction. I am quite a fan of Kim Stanley Robinson and Cory Doctorov and William Gibson and of course, your work and many others, David Brin and others. Right. So maybe we should talk about first, what is science fiction and the future? What is the relationship of this? Because a lot of science fiction is dystopian or very dark or, you know, it's kind of. A lot of it is very heavily loaded on the dark side of things, just like most films, you know. And how do we get this idea together of saying that the good future could also be a positive version of science fiction? Much like people are saying Kim Stanley Robinson's, you know, the Ministry for the Future is probably a more positive work as far as science fiction is concerned. How do we get that all squared away? You know, how do we create a good future based on what we do in science fiction?

What science fiction can do is wrestle with new technologies, social trends issues, scientific issues, things that come up and give us ways to envision how they might actually affect us as individuals and to give us a way to attach sort of an emotional piece to it. So if I tell you a fact, say something about sea level rise, that fact may not really impact you as much as if I tell you a story about the way that a small boy is impacted by the fact that he's going to lose his childhood home to sea level rise and is going to have to move. That's going to give you a little more of an emotional feel. I do want to support the idea that the Ministry of the Future is a fabulous book. Kim Stanley Robinson has been writing really good work in this area for a long time, and I think that's his masterwork so far. It's being read by lots of people and he does his research and he's come up with a number of not Pollyanna, but actually hard, but possible choices that can help or ideas that can help us see ways we might be able to create the future that I think you and I and many other people are hoping for.

Yeah, I mean, the thing I really liked about Stanley's stance book was that it had a really powerful science fiction story in the terms that it wasn't already here. But it also showed some really practical solutions. Potential solutions like the carbon coin, the global carbon coin, which has now been discussed on a global level. And that was really exciting. But in your work, how do you create optimism and hope when it's really so much easier? I mean, I'm not a professional writer like you, I just write my occasional book. But, you know, how do you create a story that has a positive outlook without being Pollyanna or naive or any of those things? Because it's just so much easier to create a story that's like really utopian or dystopian. Right. So how do you go about that?

Well, I'll tell you a story about a story as a way. I did a piece for Slate that came out earlier this year. It's called out of Ash. You can find it online. And I was working with the Arizona, with asu, with the center for Science and the Imagination, on a project called Future Tense, where they have science fiction writers come in and write and they give us ideas. So they asked me to write about how are we going to mitigate climate issues or how are we going to adapt to them in some way. And so I chose to write a story about moving a city, in this case the capital city of Washington State, Olympia, away from the coast because it's seriously threatened. It probably won't be able to thrive where it is with very significant sea level rise at all. So there's plenty of opportunities for conflict in a story like that. There's plenty of opportunities for challenge. And yet you can still succeed in the end, which I think really is the human story. The human story is seeing problems and figuring out ways to help resolve those problems and moving on. And so it's really not, I think, that hard. There's plenty of real world problems we need to solve and plenty of positive ways to solve them. I never run out of problems.

I have to tell you, personally, I've been struggling, not just because of COVID I've been struggling in the last two years with maintaining a positive message as we're being bombarded with all the non positive stuff like the Ukraine, Russia, war. And it's funny, every client asks me about how can I be an optimist about the future when I'm looking at 50 things that currently are on the downward direction, like democracy, like the sort of really bizarre situation in the US in terms of politics, the polarization of things and social media and all that. So how do we maintain optimism? I mean, just to answer the question myself first and foremost, then over to you is I think what's really important is the Antonio Gramsci quote, which I use a lot in my work, is to say that we have pessimism of the intellect, but optimism of the mind. This is what Gramsci said about his work, and that means we ask questions and we understand the worries, but we stay optimistic. As Cristiano Figueroa said from the climate change panel, the Paris Accord. She says, basically, stubborn optimism. And that's what I try to do in my work and to maintain that without closing my eyes to all the things that may get in the way. But how do you do that?

I think there's a couple of ways. One, while it's sometimes difficult to feel positive about humanity as a whole, when you see some of the large scale things we do, like destroy ecosystems, murder species, have deep levels of racism, but when you look at the individual level, almost all of the people I know will help each other out, will really give you the shirt off your back if you need it. I know very, very few people I would consider mean, awful, unfair or purposely causing any parts of the problem. Even though I think probably all of us unconsciously contribute to many of the problems that we have. But most people, I think, are intrinsically good. So that's a piece of it. And the second is there's a lot of news out there, if you look at it, that's positive news. There is a lot of news about places, about rewilding. I posted a story not long ago, I think, on LinkedIn about the Dutch rewilding a river. There are stories about how clean energy is much easier. There's that fabulous water battery built in Switzerland, Nant de Drance. So there's lots of really interesting things that are positive if you look for them.

Well, one thing we're trying to do with the Good Future project is to say that we already know that. We have lots of great indications how things are improving, how they can improve even more. But for some reason, people have stopped believing that the future is good. And this is really kind of a believe question, because the facts are there. We're reducing poverty, we're reducing childbirth, death, we're changing our energy system. We're not exploding. With 15 billion people on the planet, all that stuff is happening. But how do we create a story that's a good narrative so that people can start believing that the future is actually worth being there? It's funny, when you talk to millennials, I don't know what you feel about this, but when I speak to people around 30 years old or so, they're saying that many of them are saying that future is lousy, which is why they're not going to have kids. I mean, I hear that all the time. I'm like, wow, really? You think it's going to be so bad? So how do we change that story?

I think we tell good stories. I think there may be some things that we need to dismantle. I think social media is doing us a lot of damage in its current form. I think we need social media and there's been many good movements and good things that have happened as a result of, say, Twitter. Even though at the moment there's obviously a lot of controversy as well over some of the negative aspects. But I think we need to figure out how to create a more positive experience with each other online. It's so lovely that you and I can talk together and discuss a positive future from all the way across the planet, which we wouldn't have been able to do when I was born. I mean, we're really living in a magical time with lovely technologies, and yet we're letting these fabulous technologies do as much harm as good. And I think we need to work on trying to figure that out as part of how we help with that.

Yeah, I think that will be part of the Good Future project as well. Because I always say that we will have all the tools and the science and we're inventing stuff every week now. It's truly mind boggling. My favorite word for the future. But then we end up doing the wrong thing with it. Like Buckminster Fuller said, right? Humanity invents all the right technology, ends up using it for the wrong reason. And this is really the problem. It's not that we're powerless or that we're stupid or that we're not doing the right thing. And the other thing you mentioned, I think it's really important to believe that humans are inherently positive, inherently capable of collaboration. And this is another thing I hear all the time when I'm speaking. People are saying, you know what? Humans are not good. And this is why we're having all the problems. And I'm always saying I don't believe it. I really don't believe that humans are all bad. So that's why we have all these issues. And this is really one of the stories of reading a book like Humankind, Rutger Brittman's book on this. And I think it's also really important to bring that story out that no, if we're stuck on an island, we're not going to all end up killing each other in eating each Other, just because we're evil. Right. And this is the kind of story. So I wanted to ask you, in our exchange of emails, we also got to talk a little bit about the generational difference and the fact that, for example, a lot of futurists are older men like me. And what makes it even worse, older white men. It seems like a very difficult challenge also for the Good Future Project to bring in more women, bring in more minorities. And this is, of course, a goal of the project. Are you seeing that this is changing, that younger people are coming in and people from developed countries, and the picture of futurists is not just going to be older white people?

I think the futurist community is working on it, and I'm seeing progress. I think you're actively working on it, because I know in our Good Future meetings, I'm seeing more diversity. I think the halls of power haven't quite adapted yet, though. I think if you look at governments, particularly in America, I think we have, if you look right now, there's most people in government and in power over 60 and some people over 70, over 80. And I think to some extent that's not making enough room for younger people to be heard. And we certainly have not done all the work that we need to do in order to make or give room for people of color to be heard. This is something we're struggling with. Just in the company that I work for, as I mentioned, I work for a construction company. And as you can imagine, construction is historically white men's work. And our leadership has been doing a lot of work to try to change that, and yet it's very hard. So we've made a lot of really good progress, and we're really, truly working on it, both trying to attract new voices, new people into the industry and then to help make them, help let them thrive. But there's a lot of little dismantling that we're having to do of some of our own systems in order to help that happen. And I think that's true in government. I think that's true in other industries. And I think we're on the right path. I think it's the same Good Future story, but it's a hard path and it's going to take some time and attention.

It's the other thing I'm concerned about in that context is the millennials people, roughly between 23 to even 35, even 40, that generation has been kind of dismantled by Covid because they were just getting out to get a job, and then it all collapsed. I really believe when I look around here, the 30 year old people, they are now taken over. And of course the money is shifting from people my age shifting to their kids. So basically in five years a lot of the power will be with them. And this is something I think that the Good Future project also has to work on, is bringing a lot more of those people to engage with the future. Because ultimately the future is going to be made by them. They're going to have 50, 60% of mind share, right?

Yeah. You know, I know a number of young people, I try really hard not to just hang around people like me. And the young people I know, a lot of them give me a lot of hope. They're passionate about say, dismantling racism, they're passionate about the climate, they're hopeful. I mean, not all of them. There's a cohort, I think that is the, hey, the future is terrible. We were just talking about that cohort. But there's a strong cohort of young people that seem very entrepreneurial, very interested, very global and I really am excited about them.

Yeah, you know, I have particular hope about women because another thing that's happened because I draw a lot from the speaking gigs, you know, in examples here. But basically when I get to speaking gigs I usually have, and I don't know why that is, but it's basically I get a lot of women between 25 and 45 coming forward and wanting to do similar work and being more interested a lot more than the older men. So this is a trend I see everywhere in pretty much every country and makes me very hopeful. And then I see politicians like Jacinda Ardern or, you know, or the Finnish woman, what's her name? Anna. Sami. Sami. Sami Anna. Or one of the two, the one with the video. Right. And I've got to say this is really great. And I, you know, seeing Alexandra Aoc, Alexandra, what's her name, Cortes, the Congressional Speaker. Congressional. Well, she's in Congress, let's put it that way. You know, see people like that. Right. And I'm thinking like, okay, you know, this is really interesting and it's forming. So let's hope we can, we can catalyze that with the Good Future project. I want to talk about one more thing that's really important for us to clarify with the good future. Many people say, when I speak about the good future, is that good? Being good or not good is a very individual thing. So how can we think of a good future that is good for everybody when we can't define good So I want to ask you what you would define as good or a good future.

I'm going to ramble a little bit. I think that the good future requires that we value the right things. That means we value each other. We value the things we hold in common that we value and perhaps give rights to ecosystems, to wild things, because we're going to need to do that in order to survive. We need to grow up, if you will, I think, and change our orientation about what we value. I think in a good future we're going to value each other. We're going to value deer and butterflies and maybe even cockroaches in ways that we don't today. And we're going to help protect, protect the planet and each other. I think a good future includes all voices. I think it's really important that we can listen to younger voices, to people of color. I think it's really important that we can shift and change the economic condition that we're in right now. I think that some amount of disparity is fine. It's acceptable if not everyone has the same amount of money. I'm not a socialist by any level, but the amount of disparity that we have now, and particularly the amount of poverty, even though we are making some progress on it, is just not close enough. There should not be in a world where we have as much as we do and we have a lot, there should not be a world that is this rich where we have so many people who are either hungry or in despair or have mental health issues or any one of a number of things. So we really. A good future would have better safety nets. And I mean, I'm a science fiction writer. I think a good future is going to be full of interesting technology and well designed cities and places we want to live.

It's funny that, because I get this question all the time about the good future. I kind of tend to feel like what we've done so far is we have equaled good with well off, like economic terms. And I think that's just so completely wrong because even Bobby Kennedy already said 1968, GDP measures everything except that which makes our lives worthwhile. And so far we've said, okay, good means being well off and everybody should be well off. But I think we're so misguided there because good has a much larger meaning for me. For example, having civil rights, having the right to have a family, the right to self realization, not dying, health care, food, you know, simple things, right? So to me it's like the maslow pyramid, the lowest part of the Maslow pyramid, covering those would already be a very good start. For example, in Africa or in Asia, where that's often not taken care of. Right. But for me, good has to be removed from the economic factor because if we're moving beyond gdp, we're moving towards people, planet, purpose, you know, as I call it, and prosperity, the four Ps, then good has a larger meaning. And it's not the question of, you know, it may be good for you to have two cars or three, or a big house, or be able to fly with the airplane anytime on vacation you want to. That may be good for us, but general definition of good means being human, expressing yourself, having enough to eat, you know, all those kind of things. And I think if we bring it down to that, what you said and this definition, we can say that if we can achieve that, that's a huge step forward to define what is the bottom line of that good definition without defining the little pieces on top, the intricacies and the small part.

Yeah. One of the things I've heard you talk about, one of the things I've heard you talk about and that we've had conversations about in other parts of my life, as purpose. And I think purpose is super important. And people feeling as if they are doing something which may be different for me than it is for you, but doing something that makes the world a better place in some way. It doesn't even have to be in a big way. You know, I've met people who are, say, helping the homeless or simply planting lovely gardens and taking care of a piece of land that are very happy because they're doing something that they feel is making the world more beautiful. And I think it can come down to simple things like that. And frankly, I'm going to throw another word in there. I think we all want love and affection, and I think that that's the thing that we can, you know, we don't talk about the emotional happiness of people. And I think we should be talking about that as part of what makes up a good future. I mean, right now we have a.

Lot of the key worries. Yeah, it's one of the key worries. Also a big topic for the Good Future project. We have three topics there, which is, of course, climate change and energy and then technology and humanity, and lastly, of course, sustainable capitalism. So one of the key issues is if technology will grow and grow and grow in power, which it is doing right now, and then how do we stay human? How do we stay humanly connected? For example, humans are basically basing their lives and their experiences, emphasis on engagement and relationships and feelings, and has nothing to do with computers at all. It's very uncomputing, you could say. I would say it's multinary, not binary. How do we maintain that? How do we protect it without pouring out the baby with a bathwater like with AI when artificial intelligence becomes actually intelligent, right now, it's just kind of smart, right? How do we keep that in balance? And what's your view on this? Do we have to worry about that?

Yes, we have to worry about it. I don't know that I have the solution. I've been writing about it a lot about how we deal with both AI and robotics and just generally being surrounded by a lot more technology. We ourselves are becoming a little more technological. I'm not wearing it right now, but my Apple watch runs my life. I think that it's really important that we design technology in such a way that the technology doesn't exacerbate the problems that we have now. We've explored and looked at the algorithms for a lot of the social media companies. I haven't done this personally, but I've read about it, and many of those algorithms support the sort of institutional racism or some of the other problems that we're trying to resolve. And so I think we need to build these algorithms in a way that helps us to resolve that. We need to be very careful, I think that we don't allow AI, even in service of good, to become an overlord. So we need to be careful about how much power we give it. And I think that's a. A pretty interesting and difficult question because frankly, it's already in every piece of software I buy has something that at least some marketer is calling AI. Whether it really is, it's probably a significantly different question. But there's a lot of work going on in order to help have computers take bigger loads and manage larger amounts of data and do more than people individually are capable of. And I think we need to be careful of that and yet understand it could be a big force for good.

Yeah, this is of course, the hard part, because if we have too much of a good thing, as I like to say, this is like coffee or alcohol, cigarettes, whatever drug you choose a little bit may be okay, but like coffee or cigarettes, if you're so inclined, or alcohol, but a lot of it would kill you. And I think it's the same with technology, that there needs to be a way of saying this is good enough. And it's fast enough, but it's not going to run my life, just like alcohol shouldn't be running my life when I drink a beer in the evening. I think this is a really important conversation because technology is now so powerful. And that's why I've been asking my speeches sometimes we should have technology companies that create what I call the Technocratic oath, like a Hippocratic oath. So a doctor isn't going to use his power to kill people. That is the oath of a doctor. Or to do bad things. And I think we should have the same for technologists and say, well, let's not use your power to create bad human side effects or to purposefully undermine humanity or by indirect design like Facebook, which essentially creates a business model of dehumanization. And by. That's why I left Facebook a long time ago. And this is a very big issue. As you said earlier today, we're sitting here looking at social media, which used to be a good thing and now it's become toxic. And this is not the fault of Zuckerberg or any individual person, but it is the result of more machines taken over, doing useless stuff. And basically we are the outcome. We're being impacted by AI in such a way. So that's, in my view, that's a big concern that the Good Future Project needs to look at. How do we keep technology human?

I'm going to take you up on that in two ways. One, I think we each have some of our own responsibility for that. For example, my Facebook feed is not toxic. I don't react to memes. I don't post very much, really strong political posts that are not maybe well thought out. I tend to post happier things. I tend to react to happier things. And in general, I keep track of a lot of my friends who are all over the world on Facebook in a way that works for me. But I know a lot of people who don't do that and have a very different experience with the very same platform. So some of that is, what are we as users doing in order to interact with this platform? Knowing that it's going to react to whatever we do and that it has a bias to pick up on anything that amplifies negative emotions like anger. So I'm very careful not to post angry things because if I do that, I think I'll poison my feed. So some of it is, what are we doing? And then the secondary part of it is, I think you are right about the Technocratic oath, but I think it's bigger than that. I Think it's not just the technologists. I think it's big pharma. I think it's many of the other things, the oil companies. I mean, there are many companies that are getting a lot of economic rewards for doing bad things. And I think it'd be very important for us to try to figure out how do we build more economic rewards for doing good things instead.

Yeah, this is one of the key points, of course, that we have in common. I really feel like a lot of business models today are out there making very good money doing very bad things. And the stock market makes that possible and rewards it, right? I mean, the biggest company in the world is Aramco, right? What do they do? They're basically killing our world step by step. Not that I'm personally blaming anybody there, but I mean, this is a big story. So I'm like, okay, this can't. I mean, how can we make so much money with something that's bound to kill us, right? It just doesn't make any sense. And you know, Facebook makes $150 million, used to rather profit per day, per day. And then you have to say, well, there's something wrong with our economic logic, right? Incentivizing things that will be really bad for us and that has to end. So that is part of the sustainable capitalism allegory, the sort of future fit economics that is at the core of everything. We're not going to change what's happening with climate change until we get around to saying that the economic logic underneath has to change.

Right?

And the stock market, like I work with many clients who keep saying, oh, you know, we would do that, but every time we do that, we get whacked by the stock market, you know, that says, hey, get off this thing and just make money. Right? That's not good. So it's one of those things where.

Yeah, I would say we're beginning to see some shift in that. It's not widespread, but I, for example, invest in a couple of. I mean, I'm not a big investor. I mean, I'm talking about retirement level money for a working person. But I invest in some stock portfolios that are designed around clean energy or designed around positive things. And those portfolios have done as well or better through Covid as the other similar portfolios I could have invested in instead. So I think we can make choices about what we choose to invest in. This goes back to there being some personal accountability that we need to take in order to help make these changes. I mean, if we as individuals value A good future, whether we're rich or poor or in between, like I am. I'm solidly middle class. You know, what we choose to do builds the future. You and I both know that as futures, it's what we believe now and what we do now that will help impact the future far more than what choices we make 20 years from now.

Well, you know, I do see a groundswell on this. When I talk to people about what's happening. A lot of people are saying I want to personally divest from anything to do with fossil fuel. Any fund, any retirement, I'm going to divest. I've done the same thing. It was tedious, but I've done it. I got rid of my car. I'm sharing a car with my wife now. We're barely using the car. We're taking the train when we can. But you know, in my job, of course, I'm the biggest sinner as far as flying is concerned. I'm trying to solve that problem, but that's going to be a tough one. So in any case, you know, we need to wrap up and it's been really great speaking to you. I hope we can resume some other time. Maybe at the end, could you tell people where they can find out more about you and your books and more information about what you do?

Sure. I have a website, brendadashcooper.com I Google fairly well. You can find most of my books available in most electronic outlets. For where you can buy books. I have a lot of free fiction online if people are interested. I mentioned the Slate story. I have a story coming out shortly in Anthropocene Magazine. I'm not sure exactly when that'll be out. So you can find my work that way. You can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm also pretty easy to find there and hopefully I'll have more interactions as well with the Good Future Project. And I'm hoping everyone interacts with that. So there you go. Thanks a lot.

It's fun. Thank you. I mean, we have big plans for the Good Future project, but we're going slowly because it's funded just privately, everything. So more information@the goodfutureproject.com you can also sign up to be a member there and we have a YouTube channel and of course Twitter is Good Future Feed is the Twitter handle and you can find us everywhere just by looking at the Good Future. And maybe my name Gerd, like gastrointestinal reflux disease. Same thing. G, E, R, D. So thanks very much for tuning in and I hope to see you down the road. And thanks. And over and out.