In this first episode of On the Pulse, we reminisce about 2018 together with LSE’s student body and look into the future. While doing so, a more basic question arises: why do we like forecasting so much? Professor Jonathan White (#EU481) of the LSE’s European Institute helps us answering the question and illuminates us about the history of the future as a concept, and what it means for politics. Want to know more? Here’s some of Prof. White’s reading suggestions: Nisbet (1994), History of the Idea of Progress. Beckert (2016), Imagined Futures: Fictional expectations and capitalist dynamics. White (2013), ‘Thinking Generations’, British Journal of Sociology 64 (2). White (2017), Pitfalls of generational thinking: https://www.opendemocracy.net/transformation/jonathan-white/pitfalls-of-generational-thinking