Gonzo Futurism

A framework for sense-making and action in post-normal-times, articulated by justin-pickard in A Gonzo Futurist Manifesto (2012). Drawing on Hunter S. Thompson’s ethos of immersive, subjective journalism, gonzo futurism proposes a model of the futurist as a “deep generalist” and “analytical polyglot” who navigates VUCA environments through idiosyncratic expertise, social sense-making, and iterative action. ¹

The diagnosis it answers

The manifesto opens on 2011–12 as a hinge moment, and names the condition with two borrowed terms:

• Turboparalysis (Michael Lind, Salon 2011) — “vigorous and dramatic motion with the absence of steady movement in any particular direction”: wheels spinning furiously, engines gunned, to no effect. Lind’s neologism for a post-2008 politics (Arab Spring, Occupy, Tea Party) of intense activity that produces no movement. (Pickard mis-cites the author as “Mark Lind”; it is Michael Lind.) ²
• Transition to Nowhere (Bruce Sterling, Reboot 11, 2009) — “There’s neither progress nor conservatism, because there’s nothing left to conserve and no direction in which to progress.” Sterling’s name for the same interregnum: an old system that cannot be re-created, a new one that cannot yet be built, and the dread of “falling toward earth at nine hundred kilometres an hour and then you realize there’s no earth there.” ³

Against this, the manifesto prescribes Hunter S. Thompson’s line: “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

Core Principles

1. Be a “thoroughly spiky person” — develop idiosyncratic, specialized knowledge rather than aiming for well-roundedness (Bruce Sterling, 1991)
2. Use the OODA loop as a prosthetic decision-making framework: Observe, Orient, Decide, Act
3. Maximize exposure to randomness — avoid filter bubbles, seek cognitive dissonance, follow weak signals
4. Listen to your amygdala — elevate the subjective, emotional, and pre-cognitive as valid data sources
5. Act with courage despite incomplete information — prototype, beta-test, and iterate rather than waiting for certainty
6. Build tribes of affinity — social sense-making, distributed cognition, collaborative action

The supporting toolkit

The manifesto weaves in a set of distinct decision-and-sense-making ideas, each worth its own reading:

• The adjacent possible (Stuart Kauffman; popularized for innovation by Steven Johnson) — the explorable frontier of “the set of possible next steps,” which expands as each novelty is realized. The gonzo futurist keeps “one eye on the adjacent possible”: rather than predicting a fixed future, she maps the immediately reachable moves that open up more moves. Kauffman’s original claim is biological — biospheres keep expanding into the adjacent possible, increasing the diversity of what can happen next. ⁴
• Strong opinions, weakly held (Paul Saffo; popularized in futurist circles by Bob Johansen) — the orientation discipline: let intuition carry you to a conclusion, then actively work to prove yourself wrong. The antidote to intransigence and “digging in” that the OODA Orient stage demands.
• Killer imps, not killer apps (Stuart Candy) — the weak-signal instinct. Where design hunts killer apps (convergent applications), the futurist hunts killer imps: the divergent, disruptive implications hiding in weak signals and “big weird shit.” Train the pattern-recognition on what exceeds your frame of reference.
• The gonzo futurist archetype — modeled on Cayce Pollard (protagonist of William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition): a “self-facilitating media node” with pre-cognitive sensitivity to patterns, an “empress of the amygdala” whose pattern recognition operates faster than conscious deliberation. ⁵

Cross-Domain Connections

• security: Penetration testing requires exactly this kind of OODA-loop-driven, pattern-recognition-heavy, iterative approach to unknown environments
• organizational-behavior: Organizational culture change requires “strong opinions, weakly held” and the willingness to prototype
• ooda-loop: The military strategy framework Pickard adopts as the gonzo futurist’s primary tool

Sources

• Michael Lind 2011 — The Age of Turboparalysis — turboparalysis (Lind, Salon)
• Bruce Sterling 2009 — Reboot 11 closing talk (Transition to Nowhere) — Transition to Nowhere (Sterling, Reboot 11)
• Stuart A. Kauffman 2003 — The Adjacent Possible — the adjacent possible (Kauffman, Edge)
• 2012 — Pickard Gonzo Futurist — the manifesto itself

See Also

• justin-pickard
• vuca
• ooda-loop
• post-normal-times
• filter-bubble
• technological-singularity, clarke-horizon — the futures gonzo futurism tries to sense-make

Footnotes

1. 2012 — Pickard Gonzo Futurist ↩

2. Michael Lind 2011 — The Age of Turboparalysis ↩

3. Bruce Sterling 2009 — Reboot 11 closing talk (Transition to Nowhere) ↩

4. Stuart A. Kauffman 2003 — The Adjacent Possible ↩

5. 2012 — Pickard Gonzo Futurist ↩