The MIRED World in the Athropocene

A Critical Parody. An Essential Mirror. A Guide for the "Overdeveloped" World.‍

‍Author: Ted Hunt, Designer & Critical Theorist, Fellow School of Critical Design
Foreword: J. Paul Neeley, Designer & Researcher, Founder School of Critical Design

Are you ready to stop forecasting the future and start understanding the present?

Every year, we are bombarded with glossy trend reports promising the "next big thing"—a parade of tech-optimism and infinite growth that ignores the ground shifting beneath our feet. We don’t need more WIRED visions of a utopian tomorrow. We need a critical look at the stuck, complex, and entangled reality of today.

Enter The MIRED World.

This is not a trend report. It is an anti-trend report.

Designed as a satirical yet deeply serious counterpoint to The WIRED World annual forecast, this publication invites you to step away from the cult of "newness" and engage with "cautious criticality". It is a toolkit for unlearning the default mindsets that brought us to the brink of the Anthropocene.

While written in 2023, the lessons and insights feel timeless, and essential for today's thinkers.

What You Will Explore

Across 77 pages of incisive commentary and critical design provocations, you will dismantle the myths of progress through eight distinct lenses:

• FUTURES: Move beyond the obsession with the transitory. Discover Permanence Forecasting—identifying what won't change—and the power of "Weird Futures" that challenge the dominant Western worldview.

• SOCIETY: Why we need "Off-boarding" processes for toxic social norms and why "Giving Up" might be the most effective climate strategy we have.

• ENVIRONMENT: A critique of "Sustainability™" (the marketing fluff) versus the hard ethical reality of "Do No Harm." Explore why being "green" isn't a badge, but a spectrum of "Shades of Green".

• BUSINESS: Welcome to the Corpropocene. Is it time to move from "Leadership" to "Stewardship"? We propose Plan C: a shift to cooperative economies of care.

• SCIENCE: Forget Artificial Intelligence; it’s time for Alt-Intelligence. Learn why "Empirical Turbulence" is the blowback from our denial of physical realities.

• CULTURE: Brands Aren't Real. They are atheistic veneers. We explore "Moral Fashions" and how "Cultural Consumption" can replace material extraction.

• ECONOMICS: Shifting from million-dollar questions to "Billion Dollar Answers." What happens when we calculate the "Cost of Everything" based on impact rather than price?.

• TECHNOLOGY: Why the internet should be a verb (".ing") and how "Biopomorphism" can help us see nature within ourselves, rather than projecting humanity onto machines.

About the Author

Ted Hunt Designer & Critical Theorist

In a landscape often dominated by consensus and committee-led futures, The MIRED World In The Anthropocene represents a singular, cohesive act of critical authorship. Ted Hunt is the sole creative force behind this publication, utilizing the project not just as a collection of essays, but as a holistic piece of design performance.

By adopting the tropes and modes of future forecasting to create an obvious parody of the status quo, Ted invites us to look beyond the "default mindset of optimism/progress"  and into the mirror of our shared reality.

Project Credits:

• Editorial Director: Ted Hunt

• Content Director: Ted Hunt

• Art Director: Ted Hunt

• Production Director: Ted Hunt

• Designer: Ted Hunt

• Illustrations: Ted Hunt (with Noun Project)

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Why This Matters Now

As J. Paul Neeley writes in the foreword, "The MIRED World In The Anthropocene becomes a mirror we all should be looking into... to take a good look at ourselves, our work, and the systems we exist within and create".

If you are a designer, strategist, researcher, or citizen tired of "convenient half-truths"  and ready for a journey of introspection and discovery, this is your departure point.

Don't just predict the future. Critically design it.