Throughout history, people have imagined what the future might look like, sometimes in bold visions, and sometimes in outlandish predictions. Dreams of a Future Past is a podcast that explores how humanity has dreamed of the future through movies, technology, philosophy, and design.

Dune imagines a future where humanity rejects thinking machines and instead pushes human potential to its extremes, creating Mentats, Bene Gesserit, and entire cultures engineered to replace technology. Its world warns that overreliance on machines can erode human agency, while also suggesting that true power comes from mastering the mind and controlling scarce resources.

Blade Runner: The Neon Blueprint for Our Future

Throughout history, people have imagined what the future might look like, sometimes in bold visions, and sometimes in outlandish predictions. Dreams of a Future Past is a podcast that explores how humanity has dreamed of the future through movies, technology, philosophy, and design.

What if the future wasn’t sleek and utopian, but messy, corporate-controlled, and neon-lit? Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner flipped the script on science fiction when it hit theaters in 1982. Based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the film envisioned a decaying Los Angeles in 2019 that felt hauntingly real. Its influence can be seen in everything from The Matrix and Cyberpunk 2077 to our own urban skylines.

Rooted in the dark paranoia of Philip K. Dick, whose stories blurred reality and perception. Initially a box office disappointment, it became a cornerstone of modern sci-fi. Originally envisioned and created 50 years go, at a time well before artificial intelligence, corporate big tech, and neon megacities were a reality.

What It Got Right

• The Cyberpunk Aesthetic: Syd Mead’s concept art of rain-soaked, neon-drenched cityscapes became the look of the future, Tokyo by way of noir.
• AI & Humanity: The Voight-Kampff empathy test predicted today’s debates about consciousness and artificial emotion.
• Urban Dystopia: Overcrowding, climate decay, and social division was once fiction, and now part of our global familiar headlines.

What It Missed

• Tech Timeline: Flying cars, replicants, and off-world colonies didn’t arrive on schedule.

Its Lasting Impact

From The Matrix to The Fifth Element, Blade Runner’s DNA runs through modern sci-fi. Its world of glowing skies and corporate towers reshaped how we imagine progress, and are less a warning and more a mirror.

Join Greg, Ian, and McKay as they explore this hugely influential movie and discuss how it has shaped the future in which we’ve already begun to live.

The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair - When America Invented the Future

Part 2

-- Throughout history, people have imagined what the future might look like, sometimes in bold visions, and sometimes in outlandish predictions. Dreams of a Future Past is a podcast that explores how humanity has dreamed of the future through movies, technology, philosophy, and design.

In Part 2 of this episode, we dive into the forces that shaped the fair, the dark side of the fair including "The Devil" in the White City, and its lasting impact on Chicago and world in which we live today. Join Ian, Greg, and McKay as they explore the many futuristic themes of the fair and uncover more of what they got right, and missed, at this amazing World's Fair.

What it Missed

• The just plain weird and gimmicky including Glow-in-the-dark cocktails and electroshock “Health Machines.”
• Depictions of global cultures.

Its Lasting Impact

• The structures with you can still visit today, including the Palace of Fine Arts which became the Chicago Museum of Science & Industry and the World’s Congress Building which became the Art Institute of Chicago.
• The serial killer "Devil" at the fair and his murder hotel.

Join us to find out how much of The White City was a blueprint for our future and how much a dream that faded with the lights.