A Brief History of the Future: Making the World A Better Place

Climate change, terrorism, social inequality and poverty, wars between nations, and injustice. Things do not look too good for the world today, and there seems to be little to no hope for the future. A Brief History of the Future, a new docu-series on PBS, challenges this pessimistic outlook. Directed by Andrew Morgan and presented by Ari Wallach, the series visits people from all over the world who are doing something – no matter how big or small – to make the world a better place, not just for their today, but also for everyone’s tomorrow. Andrew is Matthew Sherwood’s guest on this episode of Factual America. Together, they explore why humans are given to pessimism – ironically, the reason is not a negative one, the idea that what we regard today as possible was once thought to be impossible, and how creativity can come out of what Andrew calls ‘this season of chaos and complexity’. Andrew talks about A Brief History of the Future from an intensely personal perspective: he came to the series suffering from burnout after making other documentaries about problems facing the world. Conversely, his view of the future is both epic and dynamic: the future is a verb; we do it, make it, every day. Discover how on Factual America. Watch the episode at https://factualamerica.com “We have a bias towards negativity, but we also have this extraordinary capacity for creativity and imagination, and just goodness.“ – Andrew Morgan