Ye Olde Futurist Union

Ye Olde Futurist Union (YOFU) was a winter and spring 2018 lab project in Los Angeles. A lively, outlandish, Oxford-style debate filled with experts, novices, and at least a few people who dressed like they were already from the future.

We gathered both in AltSpaceVR and at Angel City Brewery to take on the biggest ideas of our time in a balanced way. Each debate began with a resolution, paired two teams against it, and put the audience in charge of voting it up or down at the end.

Resolutions debated included: CRISPR designer babies live. Mind control is good for you. Universal basic income is the solution to automation (failed). We need virtual reality to recreate reality (failed). A one-world cryptocurrency is the way forward. We welcome our new robot overlords.

The point was never to land a verdict for the ages. The point was to give people in 2018 a structured, sociable way to stretch their imagination toward the future being built around them, while still buying each other a beer afterward.

“A debate club for the galactic age.”