The Thesis of a new publication about building our future

At the end of last year, Brett Fink and I found ourselves confronted with an overwhelming question: if we knew what 2040 was going to be like, what should we spend our time on today?

We were inspired. We heard Andrew Ng’s comparison of AI to “the new electricity,” Andrew McAfee’s juxtaposition of the increase in human brainpower today and the augmentation of human muscle during the Industrial Revolution, and the ideas of so many friends, colleagues, and great thinkers. So we set off to think about how we might even approach answering this question.

A few months later, we’re ready to kick off.

The Why

What it comes down to is that we can answer this question for ourselves, but for our shared future, we can’t answer it by ourselves. Project MMXL (The Future of Things) is our way to create discourse about the future.

We know that each generation builds on those that came before them through their work — the pursuits and passions that individuals decide to spend their time on.

But we believe that we can learn about what our future will look like by analyzing what our future leaders are spending their time on today. This is the thesis of this publication.

The How

We are going to take a fundamentally different approach than what we’ve seen, which will manifest itself in three types of posts (to start):

Bold Predictions

• First and foremost, we want to know about the bold predictions that our future leaders are making about what society will look like (say, in 2040), and how they’re preparing for it through their work.

Technology Peaks

• Second, we’ll dig into how new technologies are affecting and are about to affect the world, so we can better understand the long-term trends they are a part of.

Paradigm Shifts

• Third, we will break down shifts in our society’s philosophy and values as the next working generation grows in its leadership of society, and how this manifests itself in our day-to-day lives.

The What

Now, what specific topics are we interested in covering? Here’s the raw five-minute brainstorm version:

Reframing community, artificial intelligence, the singularity, computer cognition, computer vision, futurism, cognitive science, civic responsibility, mind expansion, philosophy, education, blockchain, digital cities, kinetic energy, the future of the brain, motivation, sustainable living, water commoditization, electronic dependencies, consumption trends, incentive structures, microhousing, nanocities, solar energy, virtual experiences — just to name a few.

Wait, who?

At this point, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for you to be wondering who the heck we are, or how we came up with launching a publication together.

We’re two guys who met at Northeastern University that have since worked with hundreds of inventors, founders, and makers who are focused on changing the world. We want to keep meeting the people that will shape our world and give them a platform to talk about their ideas.

Right now, Brett is in SF, Nick is in Boston, we’re both focused on creating and helping startups. If you really want to learn more about us individually, you could check here and here.

So, if you’re interested in all this, follow us and stay tuned for some Grade A fresh future talk with a side of inspiration and a dash of cynicism. Until then, we’ll pose the same question to you that took us months to figure out:

If you knew what 2040 would be like, what would you spend your time on today?

Looking forward to what’s to come. — Brett and Nick

Get in touch!