By Erica Orange & Jared Weiner, The Future Hunters, and Eshanthi Ranasinghe, Exploration & Future Sensing, Omidyar Network
Download the full report: Trends to Watch in 2019 & Beyond
What if you could extend your life, feel like you’re 40 when you’re actually 80; but you’d have to make yourself less human in the process — would you do it? What about micro-dosing LSD, would you take a potent hallucinogen and mind-alterer, risking your mental balance, to treat your depression and anxiety? Would you pay for YouTube followers to secure a sponsorship deal, so you could become a star that connects genuinely to your generation?
In Trends to Watch in 2019 & Beyond, our second annual trends report, we partner with the Future Hunters to share some of the most interesting — and coincidentally self-contradictory — trends we’re seeing, which we deemed “trends to watch” this year. We hope it surprises, concerns, and expands your thinking to the unknown.
China Ascendant: “Soft Power” in an Open Global Order
While the West turns inward, China goes abroad.
The Rise — and Fall? — of the Social Media Influencer
An industry built on authenticity may crumble as it becomes anything but that.
The Race to Quantum
The latest arena for global competition pegged to change the world doesn’t even exist yet (and potentially won’t, in a useful form, for a decade).
8 Billion “MEcosystems:” Transhumanism Becomes Reality
In the effort to extend human life, we must become less human.
A Mental Health Epidemic: Is the World Getting More Depressed, Anxious and Lonely?
Technology made mental health worse, but it may also be a solution to making it better.
Consider Explorations an open space for discussion. We welcome new perspectives — especially those rarely heard, contradictory, relevant, and tangential — and most of all, conversation and partnership to build the future we want, one that includes and empowers us all. To connect and follow new insights we generate, please reach us at explorations@omidyar.com.