BLURRED VISIONS OF FUTURES PAST

PERHAPS the standout event of 2026 is already over—the US campaign against Venezuela, with the plainly-declared aim of taking over its oil resources.

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There is widespread outrage about national and international laws being breached, but isn’t it just as outrageous that oil remains a credible casus belli this deep into the 21st century?

Back in the progressive era, the world was expected to be almost fully nuclear-powered and squeaky clean very soon. And then, most inconsiderately, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima melted down and sentiment turned against the atom. It was left to renewable sources to fill the gap, and the solar energy industry is proving its viability. But the futurists of the past, who predicted the death of fossil fuels, could not have imagined that a pro-fracking, climate-crisis-denying nation-state would lead a fightback against green energy in the future. That's just one of the serious questions that futurism got wrong, and it’s a wonder that it still thrives.

Speaking of nation-states, weren't they expected to wither away as globalisation made borders porous and irrelevant? But outside of regions like the European Union, they remain the building blocks of the world’s land surface. Borders have always been differentially porous—shamelessly transparent to capital in various forms, from outsourced services to blood diamonds, but retarding the movement of humans by visa and border bureaucracies.