Future Day – March 1st

Why are nearly all our holidays focused on celebrating the past, or the cyclical processes of nature? Why not celebrate the amazing future we are collectively creating?

That’s the concept behind a new global holiday, Future Day (celebrated early March), conceived by AI researcher Dr. Ben Goertzel, and shepherded by Adam Ford.

• Future Day could be adopted as an official holiday by countries around the world.
• Children can do Future Day projects at school, exploring their ideas and passions about creating a better future.
• Future Day costume parties — why not? It makes at least as much sense as dressing up to celebrate halloween!
• Businesses giving employees a day off from routine concerns, to think creatively about future projects
• Special Future Day issues in newspapers, magazines and blogs
• Use your imagination — that’s what the future is all about!

The Future & You

It’s time to create the future together!

We have aspirations, yet we are all too often sidetracked in this age of distraction. Lurking behind every unfolding minute is a random tangent with no real benefit for our future selves – so let’s ritualize our commitment to the future by celebrating it! Future Day is here to fill our attention economies with useful ways to solve the problems of arriving at desirable futures, & avoid being distracted by the usual gauntlet of noise we run every other day. Our future is very important – accelerating scientific & technological progress will change the world even more than it already has. While other days of celebration focus on the past – let’s face the future – an editable history of a time to come – a future that is glorious for everyone.

What can you do to advance dialogue about the future in your local area?

Even a small dinner and chat with friends will help.

Join the conversation on Future Day March 1st to explore the possibilities about how the future is transforming us. You can celebrate Future Day however you like, the ball is in your court — feel free to send a photo of your Future Day gatherings to adam [at] scifuture [dot] org, and your jubilation may wind up being commemorated for the future on the Future Day website or the Facebook page!

About Future Day

Future Day is intended as a general holiday not tied to any specific organization. Holidays provide a fantastic way of channeling peoples’ attention and energy. Most of our holidays are focused on past events or individuals, or on the rhythms of nature. History and nature are wonderful and should be honored — but the amazing future we are building together should be honored as well. Future Day is a way of focusing and celebrating the energy that more and more people around the world are directing toward creating a radically better future. This is a brand new holiday — the first Future Day was in 2012. This year on March 1st Future Day will be even better! Let us all work together to continue to make Future Day a great success!

Future Day 2012 gatherings were held in more than a dozen cities, as well as in Second Life. In 2013 there were even more events – 2014 gatherings in Melbourne were fun!

Get in contact and tell us what you want to do for Future Day!

“Celebrating and honouring the past and the cyclical processes of nature is a valuable thing,” says Goertzel. “But in these days of rapid technological acceleration, it is our future that needs more attention, not our past.

“My hope is that Future Day can serve as a tool for helping humanity focus its attention on figuring out what kind of future it wants, and striving to bring these visions to reality.”

“The past is over; the present is fleeting; we live in the future.” — Ray Kurzweil re Future Day

“Ray Kurzweilpredicts that technological paradigm shifts will become increasingly common, leading to ‘technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history,’” says Goertzel.

“Future Day is designed to center the impossible in the public mind once a year as a temptation too delicious to resist,” says Howard Bloom, author of Global Brain.

 

Early official Future Day websites are archived here, here and here.