Stewart Brand on Finding Where the Future is Being Made
For at least a decade, I’ve frequently cited the quote:
If you want to know where the future is being made, look for where language is being invented and lawyers are congregating.
I’ve always attributed this quote to Stewart Brand.
I think it’s brilliant. At once it provides a practical heuristic for finding areas of innovation –- both those unknown to you and ones you’re currently swimming within – and identifies the common quality they all share: active negotiation.
When I studied cultural anthropology at UC Santa Cruz, areas of active negotiation were our chief concern. These spaces – where new ideas were emerging, cultures engaging, and structures being questioned – were the best place to discover what mattered most to everyone engaged. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s Friction is a great example text exploring this concept, though Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto might be the ur-text of it all.
Brand’s quote puts a practical spin on the heady discussions taking place in the hills above Santa Cruz. It’s snappy and immediately grokked by those actively building.
But I cannot find a source for this quote!
Every few months, I would search again, but it resisted my efforts. Finally, out of frustration, I DM’ed Brand himself. He believes he said it, but the published origin eludes him as well.
So I’m publishing it here, for those searching from the future. But if you know the source, please drop it in the contact form below and I’ll update this post.
