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This article builds on recent reflections following an event where right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, in support of Donald Trump’s narrative, launched a series of fake futuristic innovations.

How easy is it to accept this future? The one that gleams in all its chrome-plated glory where shiny robots and sleek vehicles glide effortlessly through smart cities and skyscrapers pierce the sky like the fingers of progress itself. We know it has to be like this, don’t we? It feels inevitable as if we’ve been primed to wait for this kind of future—a future where visionary leaders present grand solutions where the promise of technology shines so brightly that we don’t question its direction.

Think about it. We crave these promises, needing them to be true. We expect someone—some genius—to stand on a stage, point to the horizon and show us the future as if it’s a product, something we can buy and believe in. Steve Jobs did it first, right? The iPhone, sleek and seamless, was our first step into the shiny, digital tomorrow. It wasn’t just a product; it was a vision. We didn’t just buy a phone—we bought into a future where everything would become smarter, faster, cleaner.

But now we’re looking for something bigger. Enter Elon Musk, the man promising to take us to Mars, build colonies in space and automate the world around us with robots and rockets. The scale has grown, the vision more expansive—Mars isn’t just a destination it’s a destiny. His promise feels grander than Jobs’ ever did. It’s not just about technology; it’s about making history. It’s the next great leap for humanity. And here’s the thing: we want to believe it. We want to live in those mega-cities with their sleek, frictionless futures where the messiness of our current world is left behind on Earth.

But why does this future feel so right to us, so inevitable? What is it about these leaders and their shiny technologies that makes us believe in a future that looks more like science fiction than reality? It’s a trap really—a futurist illusion.

This future makes us feel safe. It reassures us that everything will be better if we just keep moving forward, if technology keeps advancing. The promise of progress empowers us, making us believe we’ll benefit through smart homes, AI-driven assistants and clean, efficient cities. It tells us that all our problems—inequality, environmental damage, labor issues—will be solved by technology.

This is such a naive and immature vision. It reveals a deep misunderstanding of life and our planetary interdependence. This future also assumes that our resources are infinite, that we can keep extracting, expanding and exploiting them without consequences.

At best, this is a video game future. It’s a world of conquest and expansion, where the goal is always to go bigger, colonize more and accumulate endlessly. But life isn’t a game. How did such a shallow worldview—rooted in dominance and extraction—become the default vision of progress?

So then, what kind of future is this? It’s not one for a society; it’s one for consumers. In this vision, citizens are reduced to subscribers, premium members or simple users. Social relationships are transactional, defined by what you can afford by the services you subscribe to. This future isn’t about communities or shared human experiences—it’s about a corporate vision of power and wealth where technology smooths the way for greater control and higher profits.

When we buy into these visions, we’re not just buying the technology; we’re buying the story.

These grand spectacles of the future—filled with spaceships, AI and megacities—are a kind of theater, a performance that masks the deeper reality. The future presented to us is a carefully crafted narrative, one that taps into old myths about progress, control and dominance.

It’s the same story we’ve been told for centuries—the story of expansion and conquest, now wrapped in the language of technology and limitless growth.

This future is rooted in the same ideological framework that shaped the colonial projects of the past. Look closely at Musk’s dream of Mars: is it really so different from the dreams of European empires, who sought to conquer new worlds, extract their resources and expand their reach? It’s the same logic of domination, just repackaged in the sleek aesthetics of innovation and progress.

And we, the audience, play our part in this performance. We accept the story because it’s comforting. It tells us there’s a way out of the mess we’re in—whether it’s the environmental crisis, global inequalities or political dysfunctions—without us having to change anything fundamental about how we live. The future we’re shown is one where technology solves everything, where robots take over care work, where smart cities eliminate inefficiencies and where space exploration provides us with an endless frontier.

But this future isn’t real. It’s a distraction, a shiny object preventing us from asking harder questions—questions about inequality, the value of labor, who benefits from this future and who gets left behind. When we focus on the spectacle of space colonies and smart cities, we avoid looking at the social and environmental costs of building such futures. We avoid asking who will do the work, who will bear the burdens and what kind of world we are really building.

This future, the one pitched to us in dazzling presentations and visionary talks, is a trap. It locks us into a narrow vision of what progress means—one that’s defined by masculine ideas of control, expansion and dominance. It’s a future where power dynamics remain unchanged, where care work is outsourced to machines instead of being valued and where the ecological limits of our planet are conveniently ignored.

It’s seductive because it’s simple. It tells us we don’t need to rethink our social structures, question the way we live or face the hard truth that the future may need to be slower, smaller and more connected to life on Earth. Instead it offers us a fantasy of seamless progress, where technology does the hard work and we get to sit back and reap the benefits.

But maybe it’s time to break free from this illusion. Maybe it’s time to start imagining futures that don’t rely on shiny robots and massive cities—futures that value care, connection and sustainability over control and domination. Futures that are fair, diverse and human. Because the future doesn’t have to look like the one we’ve been sold. It can be something much richer, much more hopeful and much more real.

What kind of progress do we need?

To move beyond the shiny Technofuture and its alluring yet shallow promises, we must critically examine the underlying assumptions driving these visions.

The first step is to look beneath the surface. It’s easy to be dazzled by sleek designs, robotics and space exploration but we must question what lies behind these visions. Who benefits from this future? Whose labor is rendered invisible and whose voices are excluded from the conversation? A critical foresight perspective urges us to dig deeper, examining how power, inequality and environmental degradation are woven into these technological narratives of our monofuture.

Next, we must break free from the straightjacket of techno-determinism. The assumption that technological progress is both inevitable and inherently positive prevents us from engaging with alternative futures that prioritize human well-being over control and consumption. Instead of relying solely on technology as the driver of change, we must also consider social, political and cultural transformations to create futures that are more just and resilient.

We must finally recognize that this shallow, narrow, shiny technofuture is perhaps one of capitalism’s greatest assets. By presenting itself as the inevitable natural horizon, it shields the system from critical examination, keeping its dominance unquestioned.

AI generated images

Article written using an AI tools to help extract personal notes into structured content. AI tools were also used to optimise the grammar and the overall cohesion of the text.

The images are generated using Midjourney. A visual exploration of the billionaire oligarch pitching the shiny technofuture on stage, introducing new toys and destinations.