About the atlas
How to read a scenario
Every scenario page is built from the same set of sections. This page explains what each one is doing, and - more importantly - which parts are factual summaries of an existing discourse and which parts are speculative extrapolations by us, the editors.
Appearance in this atlas is not a prediction.A scenario being catalogued means it has been seriously imagined by some community - not that SuperFutures believes it will happen, nor that we endorse it. “Culturally dominant” does not mean “probable”.
Hero
factual summaryThe name, subtitle, and cultural-visibility badge. The aliases-list captures the other names this scenario travels under. The short definition is our one-paragraph paraphrase of what the scenario claims - grounded in the sources listed below, but written by the editors.
Quick facts
editorialScenario type, time horizon, human position, framing. These are our classification along the four axes defined in Ontology & classification. Editorial judgements, not measurements.
Central thesis
factual summaryA one- or two-sentence distillation of what the scenario says. Where possible we quote or closely paraphrase the scenario’s most notable proponent so that the thesis reads in their voice, not ours.
Overview
editorialThe long-form prose. Written by us, based on the sources listed. This is where the majority of the interpretive work lives - read it as an editor’s synthesis, not as the proponents’ own account.
Classification
editorialLonger restatements of the quick-facts axes plus additional fields like geographic concentration and discourse status. Editorial descriptions, calibrated against the sources.
Impacts
speculativeMechanism and domain-by-domain consequences. Extrapolations from the scenario’s premises, written to help you compare scenarios along the same categories. Treat each domain paragraph as a plausibility exercise, not a forecast.
Discourse
factual summaryProponents, institutions, critics - the people and organisations most associated with articulating or contesting this scenario. Increasingly these render as real entity chips linked to their own pages; the “Notes on critique” block is prose we’re gradually turning into linked entities as they’re identified.
Pop culture
factual summaryFilms, books, TV series, songs, and games that dramatise the scenario. As with discourse, these are becoming real Work entities you can click through. The cultural-note paragraph is our editorial gloss on how the scenario reads in popular media.
Acceptance
editorialAssumptions the scenario rests on and audiences who tend to find it plausible. Editorial characterisations of the scenario’s intellectual footprint.
Personas
illustrative fictionPersona sketches - including any “Hard believer” profile - are illustrative composites. They’re fictional characters we construct to make the scenario’s worldview recognisable in a specific person. They do not describe real individuals. If a persona’s biography sounds like a specific real person, that resemblance is coincidental.
References
factual summaryBooks, papers, essays, interviews, and other sources the scenario draws on. The specific claims in the Overview and Discourse sections are grounded here. We’re gradually attaching individual citations to individual claims - the current bottom-of-page reference block is the interim.
A scene from this future
illustrative fictionA short vignette dramatising what the scenario might feel like from the inside. This is fictionby us. It’s here because a well-written scene often clarifies a scenario faster than an argument does. It is not a claim about what actually happens or when.
Connections & related scenarios
editorialThe right-hand sidebar. Edges to other scenarios in the atlas - variants, contradictions, precursors, inspirations. Editorial judgements about how scenarios relate.
What is not on a scenario page (yet)
A few sections mentioned in the roadmap aren’t live yet. They’re called out because their absence changes how you should read what is here.
- Signal feed - evidence from the present world that a scenario is gathering or losing momentum. Until this ships, treat scenario pages as static snapshots.
- Probability engine - explicit probabilistic estimates, with methodology. Until this ships, no probability is claimed. Cultural visibility is not probability. Absence from the atlas is not an argument against a scenario.
- Discussion- pro / con threads. Until this ships, disagreement lives only in the “critique” text.
Legend
Factual summaryEditorial synthesisSpeculative extrapolationIllustrative fiction