idle gaze 016: envisioning a cozy future.
Imagining an alternative to Thiel, Bezos & Musk's designs for a stressful dystopia.
Science researcher José Luis Ricón Fernández de la Puente published a blog post discussing the divide between cool-shit futurism (space colonization, moon telescopes, tech for the sake of tech) vs what he calls “cozy futurism”: a future vision where the goal is a nice future, not just a technically advanced future. “Cozy futurism” envisions how tomorrow might look if humanity succeeded in solving today’s major challenges instead of imagining a future where technology resembles the pages of science fiction, that often involve threats of human extinction, intergalactic warfare and catastrophic world events:
Cozy futurism starts not with technology but with current problems and human needs and looking at how those could be solved and met; so you could imagine societies where poverty is absent, housing is affordable, cities are architecturally pleasing, economies are environmentally sustainable, and all disease is cured. Then you work backwards from there to the technologies, cultural shifts or policy changes needed to get there.
Cozy futurism" is likely a riff on Venkatesh Rao’s concept of domestic cozy (the retreat to the non-judgemental sphere of homes and interior life in response to the public show of luxury that is “premium mediocrity”). There are also some similarities to Solarpunk (embracing low-tech ways of living sustainably such as gardening, positive psychology, and DIY culture).
Cozy futurism is an obvious concept, but feels distinctly radical because “cool shit futurism” has become the dominant future design blueprint spearheaded by Thiel, Bezos and Musk. Lyta Gold in Current Affairs called this Silicon Valley future worldview “stressful dystopias”, informed by a lacklustre and immature obsession with Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. An obsession that is driving misguided ventures like seasteading, bunker living in New Zealand and eventual Mar-a-Lago style holiday resorts on Mars.
Musk recently introduced a slice of his stressful dystopia to the streets of NYC (coinciding with his SNL debut). Last year in a Jay Leno CNBC segment - Leno - driving the polygonally shaped and fully armoured vehicle asks passenger-side Musk: “Why’s it important for it to be bulletproof?”:
“Because it’s badass & super cool! I mean, do you want your truck to be bulletproof or not? Of course you do! ... We want to be a leader in apocalypse technology”.
“Cozy futurism” is the warm and fuzzy, polar opposite of “apocalypse technology”. In a cozy future, vehicles don’t come with impenetrable exoskeleton shells and bulletproof glass as standard. In a “cozy future”, technology is used to make the world more hospitable, rather than equipping us for an increasingly dangerous and inhospitable future.
What the Tesla Cybertruck is to apocalypse technology, the anticipated Virgin Hyperloop passenger experience is to “cozy futurism”. The Hyperloop, with planned routes including Chicago to Pittsburgh, Jeddah to Riyadh and Pune to Mumbai, envisions a much more optimistically designed environment, where the team avoided any unintentional dystopianism, instead developing an “aesthetic treatment that foregrounds optimism”. Bands of greenery and wood textures, ‘unassuming’ displays, embedded behind a biophilic wood veneer. A sonic identity system that “instils confidence, safety, and clarity – you “feel" it rather than “hear”. A light, airy and calming departure lounge.
A vision of a “cozy future” means aspiring to radical convenience. Stockholm has set its sights on building the world’s first ‘1-minute city’. While Paris works with a 15-minute radius and Barcelona’s superblocks with nine tree-lined block-chunks of the city, Sweden’s project operates at the single street level, paying attention to “the space outside your front door — and that of your neighbours adjacent and opposite”. It’s an urban future vision that is less Blade Runner’s towering metal and glass skyscrapers and sprawling open-air markets, more pinewood seats, scooter racks, children’s play spaces and electric car charging stations, moveable modules like Lego blocks, according to the needs of residents.
“Cozy futurism” acknowledges that the most world-changing solutions are often the simplest ones. The cutting-edge might capture attention, but with the right problem-solving skills, the solutions to some of society’s biggest problems don’t require shiny, new and novel tech. As José Luis Ricón Fernández de la Puente notes:
“Being a cozy futurist is being aware that even when indubitably science & technology are cool, we can't forget about the lives of the users of said technology; the goal is a nice future, not just a technically advanced future.”