What Exactly is Futurology? (with Nils Gilman & Grant Slater)

May 20, 2026

Nils Gilman, historian of ideas and Editor-in-Chief at Berggruen Press, guides a tour of how societies imagine what comes next. He traces the lineage of futurology from cosmism and Cold War planning to Silicon Valley’s storytelling. Short, punchy segments explore historical analogies, the rise of future-industrial power, and moments when crises open space for new imaginaries.

01:37:27

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ANECDOTE

Facebook's Archive Might Be A Future Historian's Goldmine

Nils told a Facebook archivist that their dataset could become a 100-year historian's goldmine.
The archivist asked which questions future historians will ask, and Gilman answered it depends on what future events make relevant questions.

insights

INSIGHT

Why Change Feels Faster Today

Perceived acceleration arises from two material causes: more people exercising agency and faster technological adoption curves.
Gilman notes ChatGPT reached 100 million users in weeks versus earlier technologies' years.

insights

INSIGHT

Futurology Emerged From Midcentury Crisis Management

Futurology institutionalized after WWII as technocratic social-scientific projects (think RAND) to avert cataclysmic outcomes.
Herman Kahn's Thinking the Unthinkable exemplifies theorizing nuclear strategy to prevent experimental catastrophe.

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Nils's background as a historian of ideas

01:19 • 1min

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What is a futurist and futurology?

02:35 • 1min

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How historians inform future thinking

04:02 • 2min

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History of thinking about the future

05:34 • 2min

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Digital archives and the future of historiography

07:06 • 5min

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When does the future arrive?

11:38 • 3min

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Modernity's control over the future

14:40 • 3min

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Is the future accelerating?

17:19 • 11min

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Origins: cosmism, science fiction, architects

27:56 • 7min

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Coining 'futurology' after World War II

35:04 • 10min

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RAND, game theory and systematic futures work

44:38 • 4min

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Berggruen's pluralist approach to futures

48:35 • 4min

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Edge of chaos and moments of openness

52:13 • 4min

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Creating inevitability and Social Security example

55:45 • 4min

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What does AI rhyme with historically?

59:50 • 4min

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The 1960s counterculture and Silicon Valley roots

01:03:36 • 6min

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Organic intellectuals in tech

01:09:17 • 3min

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The 1970s: neoliberalism, tech, and social change

01:12:19 • 10min

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Technology as an escape from politics

01:21:50 • 2min

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Will tech elites become new monarchs?

01:24:19 • 1min

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Is revolution necessary for institutional change?

01:25:35 • 9min

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Vision for a mature technosphere

01:35:00 • 20sec

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What we're most wrong about today

a nineteenth-century vision of the year 2000

Jean-Marc Côté

Isaac Asimov

Jean-Marc Côté's 'Futuredays' collects late-19th-century speculative illustrations and texts that imagined technological and social life in the year 2000. The volume showcases how past societies envisioned futures, revealing both surprising prescience and amusing mispredictions. It contextualizes those visions within the cultural and technological optimism of the era, showing how imaginaries of progress reflected contemporary hopes and anxieties. The book highlights the role of artists and popular media in shaping collective expectations about the future. Readers gain insight into how futurism has historical roots in culture and imagination as much as in formal disciplines.

#9001

• Mentioned in 8 episodes

The Old Regime and the French Revolution

Alexis Henri Charles Maurice Clérel de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville's "The Old Regime and the French Revolution" offers a profound analysis of the social, political, and economic factors that led to the French Revolution. Tocqueville examines the complexities of the Ancien Régime, highlighting the deep-seated inequalities and tensions that existed within French society. He provides insightful observations on the role of the bureaucracy, the aristocracy, and the peasantry in shaping the course of the revolution. His work is notable for its nuanced understanding of the interplay between class conflict and ideological forces. Tocqueville's analysis remains relevant today, offering valuable insights into the dynamics of social change and revolution.

Thinking about the unthinkable

Herman Kahn

Herman Kahn's 'Thinking About the Unthinkable' explores the strategic logic and scenario-based thinking required to address nuclear weapons and deterrence in the Cold War. Kahn used rigorous, sometimes controversial, thought experiments to reason about catastrophic possibilities and policy responses. His work at RAND and in public debates emphasized the need to consider extreme scenarios to design effective strategy and prevention. The book helped popularize systematic scenario planning and contributed to the development of futures-oriented policy analysis. Kahn's tone and methodology generated both influence and critique for normalizing cold calculation about catastrophic outcomes.

#57874

Teaching about the Future

Peter Bishop

#1639

• Mentioned in 35 episodes

Future shock

Toffler.

Published in 1970, 'Future Shock' by Alvin Toffler and his wife Adelaide Farrell examines the profound effects of rapid industrial and technological changes on individuals, families, and society. The book defines 'future shock' as a state of disorientation and confusion resulting from the overwhelming pace of change. Toffler argues that this rapid change leads to psychological ailments such as anxiety, hostility, and depression, and erodes traditional social structures like families and communities. He identifies three main forces driving future shock: transience, novelty, and diversity. The book also discusses the need for resilience and adaptive strategies to cope with these changes and suggests that societal institutions must evolve to support individuals in managing the 'adaptive range' required to deal with the accelerating pace of life.

#137

• Mentioned in 191 episodes

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Neil Postman

In this book, Neil Postman argues that the contemporary world is more akin to Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World' than George Orwell's '1984'. Postman contends that television's emphasis on entertainment has led to a decline in rational discourse and the trivialization of politics, education, and religion. He contrasts the print-based culture of the 19th century with the televisual culture of the 20th century, highlighting how the medium of television inherently promotes incoherence and triviality, turning serious information into a form of entertainment.

#62898

Mandarins of the Future

Modernization Theory in Cold War America

Nils Gilman

When it comes to the future, ideas matter. From artists and architects, politicians and prognosticators, the concepts guiding what’s next don’t always mix well with what’s right in front of us. This creates "future shock," the disorienting feeling of change happening faster than we can metabolize it. Today, technologists rip storylines from sci-fi into systems of command and control that only they govern. But they don't hold a monopoly on our future.

In this episode, Nils Gilman, historian, futurist, and Editor-in-Chief of Berggruen Press, walks us through the long arc of humanity's grappling with what comes next and describes a future-industrial complex that emerged from chaos in the 20th century. In moments of civilizational crisis, old systems crack under the pressure of accelerating change and make space for new ways of imagining what's possible. That's what Futurology is for.

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Spotify

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Mentioned in this Episode:

Mandarins of the Future: Modernization Theory in Cold War America — Nils Gilman (Book, 2004)

"Teaching the Future" — Osip Flechtheim (Essay, 1945)

Future Shock — Alvin Toffler (Book, 1970)