robots Archives - Seeding Our Future

Carbots, carebots, therabots and more…

March 18, 2021November 29, 2020 by Alan Heeks

Coming to your life soon Whilst robots and artificial intelligence are just one of a swathe of major technologies which will impact our lives in the next 10 years, I’ve chosen to focus on them because they are likely to be one of the most visible and unavoidable big changes on the technology front. Here … Read more

Current Events

Inner strength for stormy times: how soul resilience helps | November 25

Wednesday, November 25 7.00 – 8.00pm UK time: free webinar with Alan Heeks This interactive workshop will help you explore what soul resilience could mean for you: what your spirit or higher self wants for you, how to find some steadiness and clarity amid the climate crisis and digital overwhelm, and ways to nourish your inner self. Alan has been exploring this issue for 30 years, and the webinar draws on his forthcoming book: Soul Resilience: inner strength for climate anxiety and digital overwhelm. Free, but advance booking essential. Group size limited to 24 people. To apply for your free place, follow this link.

Light in the Darkness | November 13–15

A men’s peer group in the Welsh hills 13–15 November 2026 | Trwyn Tal, Llanthony Valley, Wales This weekend is a chance to find your light and nourish it, in the face of the darkening season and the worries of the world. We will draw support from the fellowship of the group and the magical landscapes of the Llanthony Valley. This will be a peer group for a maximum of six men, enabled by Alan Heeks and Mark Smalley. The weekend may include group processes, walking, meditation, solo time and enjoying each other’s company over shared meals. We hope to gather younger and older men so that we can share insights and support across generations. Our venue: Trwyn Tal in the Llanthony Valley, Wales Accommodation: £190 for men aged over 35 or on a higher income; £90 for men under 35 or on a low income. Food purchases and cooking will be shared. Travel: Pick-up may be available from Bristol, Abergavenny or Hay-on-Wye. For more information or to book, contact Mark Smalley: or 07764 335 688 DOWNLOAD FULL DETAILS

A Sufi Garden – Monthly Online Group

Wednesday, November 4, 2026 7.30 – 9pm: free online event The Sufi Garden is a life-affirming evening of meditation, body prayer and poems, led by Alan Heeks and Karim Hadden. No previous experience needed. The theme for November 4 is: Greeting life with gratitude: Rumi reminds us that sorrow prepares us for joy and compares being human to being a guest house where, he advises, we should be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. In this evening, through our usual combination of dance, song and embodied spiritual practices we will both acknowledge our sorrows and open ourselves to the transformative power of gratitude to harmonize the music of our lives and increase our capacity to live in community with joy and courage. For more information and registration, see here.

Featured Blog

The Ministry for the Future: Kim Stanley Robinson

A gripping gateway to future possibilities This is a big book in every sense: 576 pages long, spanning decades in time and most parts of the world in place. MFF is often cited as a leading example of Thrutopian fiction: meaning that it offers us a picture of the future which is realistic but at least partly positive. The sheer scale of the book makes it hard to sum up, but also means that it becomes an immersive experience to read it, so you start to inhabit a convincing version of the future. The book is also classed as ‘hard science fiction’, i.e. based on plausible facts. There are many voices in this book, but the main thread is around Mary Murphy, head of the Ministry for the Future, a body set up under the Paris Agreement, which aims to champion the rights and needs of future generations. Seen from the viewpoint of these heavily discounted future beings, the active, manipulative selfishness of big business, the bureaucratic inertia of the international banks (“rulers of the world”, as Mary calls them), and the widespread denial, all feel truly painful, especially as the scale and intensity of climate disaster grows. A catalytic disaster is an extreme heatwave in India, which kills 20 million people within a month, but propels India into becoming a role model of sustainability: closing its coal mines, becoming carbon neutral, moving completely to organic, regenerative agriculture. This sounds a plausible scenario, as do many of its other ideas. During the 2030s, and 2040s, we see climate terrorism becoming widespread, using cheap drones to destroy fossil-fuel systems (e.g. air travel, dirty container ships) and assassinate individuals making big money from polluting activities. Cows across the world are infected with BSE, so meat consumption collapses. The book offers some attractive visions of how technology could step in when fossil-fuelled transport collapses, such as hydrofoil schooners with sails and electric motors coupled with photovoltaic sail fabric, and airships. Overall, what MFF depicts is a future of growing chaos and conflict, in which, slowly and painfully, many right things begin to happen. As confidence in money almost collapses, the international banks at last adopt Mary’s plan for a new carbon currency to reward cutting emissions and not extracting fossil fuels. This is quantitative easing on a huge, global scale, but slowly it works, and atmospheric CO2 finally starts to fall. If, like me, you’d like some glimmers of hope despite the many shades of gloom ahead, I recommend this book. Yes, it’s optimistic, but it is plausible too: progress could happen, and if it does, it will probably have to grow out of things getting worse before they improve, as they do in this book.