A guidebook for the future

Celebrating WIRED’s 30th anniversary. [View in browser]( | [Your newsletter preferences](newsletter=wir) [In defense of the future]( When WIRED was founded 30 years ago, the editors who started the magazine wanted to create a kind of “guidebook for the future,” a publication that would highlight the emerging technologies that stood to change the world and the way we live our lives. Today, our celebration of 30 years of WIRED continues, defending that future from the kind of doomerism and pessimism that threatens to overshadow the incredible work that activists, governments, companies, and individuals are all doing to make the world of tomorrow a better place. If you haven’t been keeping up with our series “In Defense of the Future,” where we highlight people who are making waves in the world of cyber and geopolitical security, AI and emerging technologies, climate change and mitigation, and more, swing by [our anniversary site to see more](. We’ve recently highlighted how a small group of passionate tabletop game players created [the juggernaut called Critical Role](, and the future they’re charting with their work and their nonprofit. We also looked at how Pixar’s Elemental reveals [how computer graphics and AI will change moviemaking](. We even went back over the 1984 seminal WIRED feature, “The Long Boom,” and broke down [all the ways we were wrong](. After all, you can’t make the future better without learning the lessons of the past. [Portrait of Alan Henry] —Alan Henry, Special Projects Editor My Recommended Reads [Illustration of a contour line drawing of a city with a human silhouette and triangle cut out shapes that are filled with a video of rainbow colored, glitchy fire ]( [Pixar Used AI to Stoke the Flames in ‘Elemental’]( [It’s harder to make fire than you might think. But the Pixar team was determined to do the impossible.]( [Chapea stimulation surrounded by mars surface textures]( [NASA’s Yearlong Mars Simulation Is a Test of Mental Mettle]( [Four people will cohabitate in a small prototype Martian dwelling, mimicking the isolation and stresses of life on the Red Planet.]( [RPG gaming dice on top of a collage of live-action role players and squares featuring illustration of Critical Role characters]( [Critical Role Lays Out the Next Era in Tabletop Games and Live-Action Role-Play]( [The creators that made the original live-play Dungeons and Dragons show a blockbuster are back to share its magic and bring its platform to new and diverse creators.]( [Videos of space and an audio waveform graphic]( [Listen to These Photographs of Sparkling Galaxies]( [How do you make space images more accessible? Turn celestial data into sonic compositions that don’t have to be seen to be enjoyed.]( [Collage of Earth, an 8-ball that says outlook good, and a cracked computer screen]( [The Curse of the Long Boom]( [I run into a lot of incorrect predictions when reading through the WIRED archives. What should the takeaway be?]( [Black and white picture of an old building with sparkling tree stickers placed on it, a colored in tree, and a drawn sun in the top right corner]( [To Make a Greener Building, Start With an Old One]( [Corporations love to show off new constructions with fancy eco features. For truly green architecture, it’s best to build on structures already in place.](   For more of the people, platforms, and organizations that give us hope for the future, visit [WIRED30](. ADVERTISEMENT WIRED30 Raves: Iconic Stories Our Editors Love [We Test the Best Festival Tents in McLaren’s Monsoon Chamber]( [When WIRED tests gear, we really test gear. A great example of this was when we convinced McLaren to let us use their state-of-the-art monsoon chamber (where newly minted cars are subjected to a 16,000-liter downpour at the equivalent pressure of driving into a monsoon at 50 mph) to see just how waterproof our tent picks were. You could go set them up in a field, of course—but where's the fun in that?]( —Jeremy White, Senior Editor [Collage of the digestive system, worms in soil, and plastic trash]( [The World Is Toxic. This is the Metabolic Era]( [How do we talk about, digest, and imagine the imminence of climate catastrophe? Kelly Pendergrast argues that infinite growth is no longer possible, and as a result, we're going to need to learn to digest the toxicity that humans have created. But what's great about Pendergrast's essay is that it readily accepts how unsettling our planet has become while still having a little fun.]( —Eve Sneider, Deputy Ideas Editor [This image may contain Triangle]( [The Epic Saga of The Well]( [Way before social media became synonymous with toxicity, there was The Well, a 1980s vintage conferencing system that improbably gathered a passionate online community whose interests included parenting, and the Grateful Dead. Katie Hafner, acting as a modern-day version of the narrator in “Our Town,” guides us deep into this virtual society, chronicling its joys, feuds, intrigues and, yes, tragedies.]( —Steven Levy, Editor At Large   For the best and weirdest stories from WIRED’s archive, sign up for the [WIRED Classics]( newsletter. [GET WIRED]( [Get 1 year of WIRED for less than $1 per month. That includes Steven Levy's exclusive newsletter and a free tote!]([Subscribe now.]( ADVERTISEMENT [WIRED]( [(image) WIRED on Facebook]( [(image) WIRED on Twitter]( [(image) WIRED on Instagram]( [(image) WIRED on LinkedIn]( [(image) WIRED on YouTube]( [Podcasts]( Have questions or comments? [Reply to this email](mailto:hello@wired.com?subject=WIRED%20Newsletter%20Questions,%20Comments%20or%20Feedback). This email was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our email address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book. View our [Privacy Policy]( [Unsubscribe]( or [Manage your newsletter subscriptions](newsletter=wir) Copyright © Condé Nast 2023. One World Trade Center, New York, NY 10007. All rights reserved.