Ep 198. Tomorrow's Disorder — Florence Gaub on Our Flawed Relationship with the Future

This week on Disorder latest, Jason is joined by Dr Florence Gaub, futurist, military strategist, and Director of the Research Division at the NATO Defense College. Florence has spent her career thinking professionally about something most of us do rather badly: systematically plan for the future.

Her book, The Future: A User’s Guide, was a best seller in German. It is now available in English from Hurst. It argues that the future is not simply something that happens to us. We imagine it, fear it, misunderstand it and — crucially — in thinking about it in certain flawed ways, help create it.

Jason and Florence discuss why humans are simultaneously obsessed with the future and terrible at thinking about it: from catastrophising and the Cassandra Complex to optimism bias, surprise and science fiction. They explore why governments are so often blindsided by seemingly predictable crises — and whether strategic foresight can help Orderers stop responding to yesterday’s problems.

In Ordering the Disorder, they discuss how imagining positive futures might itself be a tool for Ordering the Disorder.

Producer: Sam Cluley

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Show Notes Links:

Buy Florence Gaub’s The Future: A User’s Guide: https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-future/

Read about Florence and her work at the NATO Defense College: https://www.ndc.nato.int/research/researchers/florence-gaub/

Listen to Florence on NATO 2099 and strategic foresight: https://www.nato.int/en/news-and-events/articles/news/2024/12/20/nato-through-time-podcast-nato-2099-with-dr-florence-gaub

Read Florence on futurism, geopolitics and the risks of stumbling into wider war: https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-03/florence-gaub-natos-futurist-you-can-slide-into-a-world-war-even-if-nobody-wants-it.html

For our collaboration with the Epstein Book Club who are running our Andrew Lownie Episode see here: https://www.epsteinfilesbookclub.com/the-british-component-disorder-podcast-cross-post/

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