DARK FUTURES 2016: Tickets now on sale

This is year 3 of DARK FUTURES. As always, this incredible event is brought to you by Nikolas Badminton, Futurist, and the team that brought you the Cyborg Camp YVR, From Now: Humanity with Technology, and PRODUCT events.
Society goes about their daily routine oblivious to the psychological, physiological, macroeconomic and technological forces at work. Are we sleepwalking? Can we wake up to what is happening and affect it? Do we even have a choice?
Many conferences talk about the incredible possibilities that are delivered by innovations, this conference speaks about the hidden systems that affect our daily lives (whether we are aware of it or not).
We invite you to come with a keen and open mind and be prepared to question and discuss what is being said. We have developed this evening with five thought leaders and future-forward thinkers and they will guide us through the evening.
Davyde Wachell – DARK DEBT: Securitization and Debt 2.0: Blockchaining Your Couch
The advent of securitization in 1600s funded high risk transatlantic dutch sea expeditions and kept the Netherlands from flooding. Blockchain and crowdfunding are allowing for radical new forms of securitization. Startups can now bootstrap off of a cloud of small investors. Will it be long before AirBnb gives you a mortgage for your couch, and criminals privately finance clandestine operations under the safety of encrypted P2P lending?
Dr. Stella Lee – DARK LEARNING: E-learning dehumanizes people
The emphasis on technology in online education is making human more machine like, instead of leveraging technology for a better learning experience. E-learning was once the poster child of the future of education and has become a large industry ($107 billion by the end of 2015). Universities are cramping more e-components in their course catalogs and 74% of companies state that they currently use some form of learning management systems (LMS) and related educational technologies.
However, the sense of isolation, the lack of motivation, and the mind-numbingly boring, one-size-fits-all design all contributed to the dehumanizing experience of e-learning. As a result, the online learning attrition rate is higher than ever with some for-profit college reaching the 90 percentile. In this presentation, we will explore the perils of poorly design e-learning, how it contributes to the decline in formal education attendance, and demotivates learners.
Jordan Eshpeter – DARK ENDS: The Doomsday Effect
Eschatology is the study of the final events of history; including death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind. Hidden from conscious thought and action, latent eschatological beliefs are almost always Dark Ends. They include Eventual and Sudden Extinction events to Supernatural Apocalypse or Alien Invasion scenarios. Why do these hidden or subtle eschatological beliefs matter? Because like all ‘ends’, they dictate the ‘means’. Believing in a near-certain extinction, some people hedonistically consume while others dedicate themselves to survivalism or the advancement of space colonization.
Bartosz Bos – DARK COMFORT: “It’s the Little Things: Life and (wasted) Times in the Soft Dystopia”
While the term Dystopia conjures visions of jack-booted thugs and pervasive surveillance, the truth has turned out far stranger than even the wildest dreams of Huxley or Orwell. The innovations which promised for decades the liberation of humankind from the drudgeries of daily life, are now dictating our destinies.
From Healthcare to Entertainment, we are suffering a death by a thousand cuts which don’t seem so bad at first glance, but are designed to keep us preoccupied and distracted from the more pressing issues at hand. Join Bartosz Bos in a trip down the rabbit hole of convenience and leisure which has so enriched our lives, but at the cost of what makes us human.
Nikolas Badminton – DARK JOURNALISM: Where’s the truth?
Conversations, Events and happenings surround us every minute of every day. And, over 6 billion of us have access to mobile connections which allow us to broadcast our thoughts and opinions of them to one or many people instantly.
This means we often report the news and become the news simultaneously and mainstream media’s role as the ‘record’ is being demoted to being just part of the overall story created by us all. And, no one knows what the truth is any more.
In 2015, DARK FUTURES sold out in 2 days and there was a long waitlist. This event will sell out so grab your tickets today to avoid disappointment.

We are most grateful to our friends at UNBOUNCE in providing the amazing venue for this event.
UNBOUNCE continues to help businesses create better marketing experiences by improving what is already the world’s fastest and most customizable landing page builder.

Yet again, world-renowned futurist Nikolas Badminton pushes thinking and what it means to create compelling events that change the way you look at the modern world.