Futures Festival Online 2019 – Radical Transformations
Talk: “The futures of vengeance — An exploration from the dark side”
Site: https://futuresfestival.online/
About the talk: The talk presents an overview of an experimental exercise done by foresight students from CENTRO University in Mexico City. The topic: vengeance. The purpose of the exercise was to enter a dark mindset without predefined judgments, to reflect on the ethical implications on the use of futures design methods. The assumption was that evil people are free to use foresight as well, so empathizing through this mindset could uncover strategies to avoid negative futures. Through research, detection and analysis of signals and trends, and Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) the group used the Aspirational Futures model resulting in four scenarios from the darkside: as if the group was a Think Tank offering vengeance services in economic, esoteric, social and digital categories for Mexico in 2040. How will a future where vengeance could be monetized looks like? Being able to explore their darker thoughts served as a way to reflect on the group’s present actions. The talk explains the methodology, some findings around vengeance in the Mexican culture, and the four resulting scenarios.
