$10k prize for a meme?! Not a joke

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Announcing the $10,000 Existential Hope Meme Prize

$10k prize for a meme?! No joke

The Foresight Institute is offering a prize for hopeful memes. Most of our cultural imagination about the future leans dystopian. P(doom). The paperclip maximizer. Black Mirror. Brave New World. 1984. The list goes on.

These references are sticky because they’re simple and powerful. Metaphors and short explanations shape how we think and talk about the future. If all the ones we reach for are dystopian, our imagination narrows, and so do our options.

But what if the cultural landscape included equally compelling reference points for hopeful futures? For abundant energy, solved aging, the end of infectious disease, or global coordination that works.

To help seed those kinds of references, we’re launching the Existential Hope Meme Prize: a $10,000 award for the best meme that conveys a scientifically grounded, positive vision of the future.

Memes aren’t just internet jokes. They’re one of the fastest ways ideas spread, cross cultural boundaries, and shape public imagination. Dystopian memes already define much of how society pictures the future.

To help select the winning entry, we’re fortunate to have a wonderful panel of judges: