Throughout history, people have imagined what the future might look like, sometimes in bold visions, and sometimes in outlandish predictions. Dreams of a Future Past is a podcast that explores how humanity has dreamed of the future through movies, technology, philosophy, and design.

What if the atom could power everything from your home to your car? The Atomic Age blended retro-futurism, midcentury modern design, and Cold War anxiety, inspiring sleek gadgets, bold architecture, and stories of both optimism and destruction.

The Atomic Age emerged in the wake of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when the world realized the atom could be both a weapon and a source of boundless energy. Governments, corporations, and pop culture embraced nuclear power with a mix of hope and fear, inspiring futuristic design, cartoons, sci-fi films, and ambitious visions of atomic-powered cities and vehicles that resonate with today's modern resurgence of AI and data center nuclear power.

Throughout history, people have imagined what the future might look like, sometimes in bold visions, and sometimes in outlandish predictions. Dreams of a Future Past is a podcast that explores how humanity has dreamed of the future through movies, technology, philosophy, and design.

Dune imagines a future where humanity rejects thinking machines and instead pushes human potential to its extremes, creating Mentats, Bene Gesserit, and entire cultures engineered to replace technology. Its world warns that overreliance on machines can erode human agency, while also suggesting that true power comes from mastering the mind and controlling scarce resources.

Blade Runner: The Neon Blueprint for Our Future

Throughout history, people have imagined what the future might look like, sometimes in bold visions, and sometimes in outlandish predictions. Dreams of a Future Past is a podcast that explores how humanity has dreamed of the future through movies, technology, philosophy, and design.

What if the future wasn’t sleek and utopian, but messy, corporate-controlled, and neon-lit? Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner flipped the script on science fiction when it hit theaters in 1982. Based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the film envisioned a decaying Los Angeles in 2019 that felt hauntingly real. Its influence can be seen in everything from The Matrix and Cyberpunk 2077 to our own urban skylines.

Rooted in the dark paranoia of Philip K. Dick, whose stories blurred reality and perception. Initially a box office disappointment, it became a cornerstone of modern sci-fi. Originally envisioned and created 50 years go, at a time well before artificial intelligence, corporate big tech, and neon megacities were a reality.

What It Got Right

• The Cyberpunk Aesthetic: Syd Mead’s concept art of rain-soaked, neon-drenched cityscapes became the look of the future, Tokyo by way of noir.
• AI & Humanity: The Voight-Kampff empathy test predicted today’s debates about consciousness and artificial emotion.
• Urban Dystopia: Overcrowding, climate decay, and social division was once fiction, and now part of our global familiar headlines.

What It Missed

• Tech Timeline: Flying cars, replicants, and off-world colonies didn’t arrive on schedule.

Its Lasting Impact

From The Matrix to The Fifth Element, Blade Runner’s DNA runs through modern sci-fi. Its world of glowing skies and corporate towers reshaped how we imagine progress, and are less a warning and more a mirror.

Join Greg, Ian, and McKay as they explore this hugely influential movie and discuss how it has shaped the future in which we’ve already begun to live.