PickVidsBest Futurism & technology and society Videos
The 116 Futurism & technology and society videos here were recommended by different people across different months. Choose by who it is for: 2 introductory, 4 intermediate, 110 for a general viewer, and 0 for someone who wants the harder derivation. Most of them are a talk. What they share is that one speaker finishes a claim, and the examples exist to hold that claim up. Channels you will keep seeing include TED, Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, Isaac Arthur.
Louis CK Everything Is Amazing And Nobody Is Happy
A clip of Louis CK on Conan riffing that everything is amazing and nobody is happy, about people complaining over airplane wifi and taking modern technology for granted.
Construction of the 10000 year clock - Alexander Rose (SETI Talks)
Alexander Rose of the Long Now Foundation describes the design and construction of the 10,000 year clock conceived by Danny Hillis.
Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming (Episode 1)
A short, music-driven video built from Neil deGrasse Tyson's remarks on why advancing the space frontier matters, contrasting NASA's small budget with war spending and stressing inspiration.
Clean Disruption - Why Energy & Transportation will be Obsolete by 2030 - Oslo, March 2016
Tony Seba's 2016 keynote argues that batteries, electric vehicles, self-driving cars and solar will converge to disrupt energy and transportation.
The Internet is Worse Than Ever – Now What?
A Kurzgesagt video arguing that social media's problem is information flooding and tribal polarization.
THE SAGAN SERIES - The Frontier Is Everywhere
A short unofficial NASA-style spot from Reid Gower's Sagan Series, setting Carl Sagan's words about humanity spreading through the Solar System to visuals and music.
Andreessen's Corollary: Ethical Dilemmas in Software Engineering - Bryan Cantrill | Craft 2019
Bryan Cantrill's Craft 2019 talk on the ethical dilemmas software engineers face as software eats the world.
The Classroom Only Works for One Kid in the Room
CGP Grey argues that a classroom works well only for the one student pitched at the average level, and sketches a future of personalized instruction.
Arcologies
An Isaac Arthur episode on arcologies, self-sufficient habitats that could house whole cities, on Earth or on harsh worlds.
Why Alien Life Would be our Doom - The Great Filter
A short Kurzgesagt animation explaining the Great Filter, the idea that finding alien life might be bad news because it implies something usually destroys civilizations.
Everything is a Remix (2023 Edition)
Kirby Ferguson's updated four-part video essay arguing that creativity is built on copying, transforming and combining existing work.
Hauntology, Lost Futures and 80s Nostalgia
A video essay explaining hauntology, Mark Fisher's idea of lost futures, and 80s nostalgia.
There is No Algorithm for Truth - with Tom Scott
Tom Scott's Royal Institution discourse on science communication in the age of social media, how recommendation algorithms shape popularity, and why view counts can matter more than truth.
A Conversation with Peter Thiel and Niall Ferguson - Institute of Politics
A 2012 Harvard Institute of Politics conversation between Peter Thiel and historian Niall Ferguson.
Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
Michael Wesch's five-minute video about Web 2.0, showing how the read/write web, XML and user-generated content change how people create and share information.
The War on Sensemaking, Daniel Schmachtenberger
Daniel Schmachtenberger discusses why the information ecology is damaged and what healthy public sensemaking would take.
Beware online "filter bubbles" | Eli Pariser
Eli Pariser's TED talk argues that personalized web services trap users in filter bubbles, limiting exposure to challenging information.
Eric Schmidt and Peter Thiel - Fortune Debate, 2012
A 2012 Fortune dinner debate between Peter Thiel and Eric Schmidt over whether technological progress is healthy or stalling and whether Google can still innovate.
Fermi Paradox: The Dyson Dilemma v2.0
Isaac Arthur examines the Dyson Dilemma, the puzzle of why we see no Dyson spheres or megastructures if growth-oriented civilizations should build them.
AI Slop Is Destroying The Internet
Kurzgesagt examines how AI-generated content is flooding the internet, from video and music to news and books.
Max Headroom 20 minutes into the future 1985
The 1985 Channel 4 TV film 'Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future', the origin of the computer-generated TV host Max Headroom, with a soundtrack by Midge Ure and Chris Cross.
Epic 2014
Epic 2014 is a short science-fiction film that imagines the media landscape merging into a personalized, computer-generated news service.
David Deutsch on Optimism
An excerpt from an RSA event in which physicist David Deutsch makes the case for optimism as a driver of progress in the 21st century.
How the US Is Destroying Young People’s Future | Scott Galloway | TED
Scott Galloway's TED talk uses data to argue that young Americans are financially worse off than earlier generations, calling it a great intergenerational theft.