Each member of the team wrote a personal, speculative story of a future somehow changed by the aftermath of WTFutures.
Before we describe some serious ways in which WTFutures’s work could be pursued, we decided to use our own medicine. Each member of the team wrote a personal, speculative story of a future somehow changed by the aftermath of WTFutures.
Rose Rondelez: Teenage Crisis
Sunday, October 8, 2045, 11 a.m.
We can hear a show from the living room.
“The passing of this law makes me terribly sad. I feel that the Assembly only listened to the technical arguments but ignored the feelings of doubt expressed by the scientists. Are we back in the 20’s?
- That’s exactly what I was thinking. We’ve learned to trust our instincts! But some Members of Parliament seem to be nostalgic for an era of pretense and empty rhetoric..
- Haha you are indeed getting very angry at them.
- And I should! I mean, have you seen the part on facilitating regulatory access to clinical trials and market authorization?? It’s nonsense to see it passing like that!
- It is true that in our latest survey, 68% of the citizens expressed fear and/or anxiety when thinking about the clinical trials of advanced neurotechnologies for cognitive enhancement. But 52% were also feeling hopeful about what the technological developments could do to address mental health issues.
- I feel like human relationships and seeing a real therapist are much more…”
– Moooooom, can you turn off the live stream?
– What’s going on, Jim?
– I can’t stand these streamers who are always talking about hope, love, sadness, blah blah blah. WE DON’T CARE!
Jim is thirteen. I try to be patient. I remember when I was their age.
I had a pretty terrible teenage crisis myself.
– What would you want them to talk about instead?
– I don’t know… maybe the technical details! It’s much more interesting than knowing that Noah, Kéo or Mia are hopeful for the mental health problems of a loved one I don’t even know!
– Okay… I see. You know it hasn’t always been like this. When I was your age, journalists and politics only cared about economic or technical arguments. And when emotions were brought into the discourse, it was only to spread hatred and mistrust towards others.
– Yeah, yeah. You already told me this. But right now I’m just angry, I don’t need discussion. It’s getting on my nerves. I need a timeout. I’m going outside.
I could add that when I was their age, emotions were so rarely discussed that I didn’t even know how to put words to those teenage feelings. That I would never have known how to ask for or take a timeout. My parents imposed it on me as a punishment.
I am so proud of my kid, who already knows so much about how to take care of themself.
I would love to tell them all these things, but the wisest thing to do for now is to let them handle it on their own. They’re old enough.
– Okay sweetie! I love you!
Chloé Luchs: From revolt to revolution
Since countries voted, in 2030, to establish official youth delegations within parliaments around the world, today in 2035, statistics began to show a remarkable shift: young people found it easier to imagine themselves in the future. What they learned in school, still at times, disconnected from the actual challenges of tomorrow, no longer felt like their only roadmap. The fact that they were recognized and listened to suddenly expanded their sense of “futurity” and possibility in the world of tomorrow. Of course, there was still a lot to do and the planet was not really doing any better than in the 2020’s (multiple climate crises of all shapes and formats). But, new jobs and new possibilities for involvement were shifting their sense of feeling valued and feeling like they had a role to play. In other words, new examples of alternative pathways to adulthood made it clear that there were many ways to “make it” in life. So many things were to be invented and the barriers to “do things” or “express one’s needs” felt less inflexible. Of course, this decision had come after the Gen Z protest of 2025, where revolts from different parts of the world ( Morocco, Nepal, Georgia, Italy, Madagascar, Indonesia, Kenya..) became a revolution.
Students realized that following traditional courses such as marketing or translation, professions that had, in many places, already been automated, or courses such as “designing mufflers” or “coding python”, were not the only route towards relevance, meaning or work. Instead, public life and civic engagement began to stand out as valid, powerful options for building their individual and collective future – since, on the side of the people in power, the listening was real and their opinions honestly valued. Youth were being asked for help in designing new curriculums, in reflecting on how they saw the future of their city and in imagining what type of climate orientated jobs could be needed and useful – among many other things. Not only were they being asked these things, but the ideas that emerged from these discussions were passed on to the youth delegations in different parts of the world and budgeted to be put in place within the coming year.
For Pina, this transformation felt perfectly natural. Getting involved in climate youth movements 5 years ago when she was 20 had become a defining part of her identity, especially when the subjects of her engineering class (planes, motors, speed, fuel) didn’t feel like they made any sense any more for the world she wished to see.
Through her engagement in different climate not-for-profits, she met countless inspiring peers from across the globe, all united by the desire to fight for the kind of world they wanted to live in. Advocating alongside them gave her an immense sense of power and belonging. Today, at 25 years old and as the right hand of Supina Fox, 26 years old, the Canadian youth representative, Pina had the chance to travel across the country, sit in on conversations with adult delegations from around the world, and play a leading role in shaping the social media campaigns that kept young people informed, mobilized, and passionately engaged in political debates.
Her generation was growing in strength, numbers, and confidence. For the first time, Pina felt they were not just being heard but were actually shaping the rules of the game. With persistence and unity, youth delegates succeeded in pushing forward ambitious climate legislation. For example, where she lived in Canada, strict and enforceable bills to halt deforestation and put a stop to cross-border pipelines to the United States. These victories gave Pina and her peers proof that youth influence was no longer symbolic: it was becoming structurally embedded in governance.
Furthermore, daily life itself became a more fertile ground for expression. Young people felt freer to articulate their visions of justice, solidarity, and ecological responsibility, whether in parliament, in schools, or in their communities. The future, once abstract and distant, now seemed like a shared project in which they had a tangible, legitimate stake.
Daniel Kaplan: Showdown at the United Nations!
JOHANNESBURG, 9.29.2050 – The Precautionary Council (PC), the United Nations body representing “Present Future Generations”, is set for a showdown with the Security Council after having vetoed the latter’s Moon and Interplanetary Nature-preserving Exploitation (MINE) resolution. The resolution would have allowed economic exploitation of all Solar System asteroids and moons, which has raised alarm from environmentalists as well as from the majority of countries without access to space.
The PC’s swift decision came as a surprise. It was not expected until November, since one half of the schools that make it up during this 5-year mandate (Johannesburg, Alep, Bangkok, Karashi, Munich, Recife, Vancouver, Wellington) only reopened a few weeks ago. “The Teens and Young Adults constituencies have been active all summer, and that is the result”, rejoiced the Tent Home of Youth Networks for Earth (THYNE) after the veto.
The PC’s resolution was also unusually short and blunt, at least under UN standards:
“Having failed to take into account the interests of the generations, including ours, that would live with the consequences of their resolution on Earth’s climate;
Having failed to even consider the needs of other countries;
Having failed to consult with other UN bodies, including this one;
The MINE resolution brought by the UN Security Council is deemed contrary to the UN’s 2043 Revised Charter, and therefore vetoed.”
As usual, speaking with a representative of the PC’s various age constituencies has been a challenge. The Pre-Teens were eager to communicate, but mostly in damage-control mode, since, apparently due to a miscommunication on their Twitch forum, they were the only constituency to have voted against the veto. The Children could not immediately be reached for comments, finding themselves, according to one of the Parents-in-Residence, “out playing and they cannot be interrupted”. The Teenagers are in the middle of a four-week self-educational trek in the Bush, with intermittent network access. The Young Adults are in an intense process of mutual retraining with the Teenager’s teachers, who have little else to do during these four weeks. We did, however, manage to get ahold of Amogelang Mkhize, who was authorized by her fellow Young Adults to act as spokesperson on this occasion.
“As long as the Security Council or other UN bodies keep coming up with this kind of sh.. and not even trying to talk to us, we won’t waste arguing why it’s a no”, said Mkhize in typical Young Adult parlance. “As most everybody except, perhaps, UN diplomats, we can not dedicate all our time to the PC or any other organization. We have subjects to study and teach, local projects to organize, commons to manage, we’re on Basic Needs Duty one day a week. And we want time to make our own proposals, not just veto the ones put in front of us.”
The Security Council has yet to issue an official reply. Off-the-record, an anonymous diplomat complained of “being prevented from ensuring the future of the Economy by a bunch of amateur, woke kids” (“What’s ‘woke’?”, asked a puzzled Amogelang Mkhize) The Chinese representative more diplomatically extended an olive branch by opening two million admissions in the country’s best universities to students from the PC’s current host countries. So did SpaceX Nation, the Security Council’s eighth and newest member, by offering free trips to Mars. But it may take more than overt bribery to sway the Precautionary Council.
