The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades

At this year's SXSW, sorting the promises from the propaganda at Dubai's Museum of the Future.

Dubai’s Museum of the Future at SXSW aimed to spark discussions about how we might shape the future in a positive way.

There was very little “museum” in the Museum of the Future SXSW, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn anything.

The Dubai Future Foundation, “a government entity that aims to make Dubai one of the world's foremost future cities,” sponsored this free activation at this year’s South by Southwest, which drew more than 16,000 people in its first few days, making it one of the most popular events of this year’s festival.

Since 2016, the government has funded the Dubai Future Foundation to push the idea that this desert city is where, to put a spin on the William Gibson quote, the future arrives first.

Austin, historically, has thought of itself as a place where the future arrives first. But with federal and statewide policies that are taking us back to the mid-20th century, there’s very little that feels hopeful about the near or distant future right now.

But I can’t let that keep a girl down.

The Museum of the Future in Dubai opened in 2022, but this is the first time they’ve brought a pop-up version of the museum to SXSW.

So, on Friday, I stopped by the Museum of the Future in what is usually a parking lot at Third and Congress.

Dubai has an actual Museum of the Future that opened in 2022 as a place dedicated to ideas that might be seen in our lifetimes, but this pop-up version came to SXSW to promote both the museum and the upcoming Future Forum, which draws some 2 million people to this Middle Eastern hub.

The “museum” comprised two rooms: a whimsical giant immersive digital projection room with mirrors on the ceiling and another, more conventional conference room that hosted a series of panel discussions and speakers over the week.

All the conversations featured people with ties to Dubai, a conservative emirate whose dwindling oil reserves are forcing it to rethink its own future and how it markets itself to the world.

I saw some old media friends, took some selfies in front of the video wall, and then played a hands-on activity called Leaders for Humanity, a spin on Cards Against Humanity that asked participants to solve problems or address situations that might arise in the future.

People who visited the Museum of the Future were asked to give their responses to questions like “If you could fast-forward to 2050, what would you hope the headlines might say?”

Some of the potential answers silly. Others were serious, but by the end of the round, we were all talking about issues around artificial intelligence and resource use in new ways.

The host of the event wrapped up the game by asking us to write on Post-It notes our answers to the following questions:

• What is one emerging shift you believe would redefine how we live, work or lead in the future?

• If you could fast-forward to 2050, what would you hope the headlines might say?

• How might I take action to create a future I want to participate in?

It was really pretty cool to think about these ideas with people you’ve just met. And then it became clear that one of the participants was not like the rest.

He’s what I’ve come to call “a depopulation guy,” a follower of a certain unelected Financier-in-Chief who has long promoted the notion that the world's greatest problem today is not too many people but too few.