El futuro de...

Atypical netflix docuseries: nauseatingly multicultural...check, little to no research....check, semi professional experts who really aren't experts...check. The series talks alot about the future but provides no real detailed path or technology that is leading us there. The viewer learns within about ten minutes that it isn't really about the future but about inclusion (the message). I would pass.

The ideas presented are ideas worth discussing. Some ideas are 10 years away and others 100. Yes, the production values are poor. But the point is to imagine how life on earth could change for the better and to hear from those who are trying to make progress. Could you imagine trying to tell people in 1922 to imagine 2022? They would dismiss most everything that ended up happening.

The show offers a superficial view into the possible future of technology. Allthough the show lacks any form of depth and is sometimes a bit too unrealistic (looking at you 'talking to your dog' episode) the show does offer some fun new visions for the future. Nothing too mindblowing, but enough to make you think.

Went into the show because I heard Rose Eveleth was in it and I'm a fan of the podcast Flashforward podcast, which is an intelligent show with deep and thoughtful analysis about possible futures and does an excellent job of talking to experts on the issues.

The show is not like that. It's trying to be more accessible to a wider audience. It winds up being mostly techno-optimistic fluff, with every so often a teeny bit of more nuanced commentary from an expert like Rose Eveleth. I wanted much more of the latter and way less of the former.

I get they're trying to make this really accessible to a wide audience through random-people-on-the-street commentaries and the like. I found myself wanting more depth, and I was dismayed at how many minutes of every episode are spent breathlessly showcasing random tech startups. It felt more like long-form advertisements than documentary journalism.

Flashforward fans: don't get your hopes up. For every minute of an STS-type scholar trying to invite a smarter conversation, there are five minutes of hyping up random tech CEOs advertising their latest startup.

Despite below-par and boring production, interesting ideas are presented, as another review pointed out. It's just creative theories and speculations yes, but that's all it claims to be. I liked it.