For their 50th year anniversary, NewScientist invited over 70 of ‘the world’s most brilliant minds‘ to ‘forecast the future’ (timehorizon: 50 years from now). Among the interviewed are Steven Pinker, Nathan Myhrvold, Edward O. Wilson, Bruno Latour, Michael Gazzaniga, Jane Goodall, Bill Joy, Oliver Sacks, etc.

Expectations range from the demystification of consciousness, computers passing the Turing test, machine-brain interfaces, background gravitational waves, a general theory of imagination, the discovery of alien life etc. … Reading through the list, a general feeling resurges that many of the interviewed seem to share a common direction, a direction with expectations perhaps not all that surprising, but with obviously a significant expected impact on our future lives. As we like to think about alternative futures, not merely in terms of how trends may be seen differently by different people, but also in terms of expectations taking different directions in general, we wonder what those might be. Taking a step back from the singular points of view, putting the article as a whole in perspective, there are some aspects that leave one wondering …

There is obviously a difference between asking people to make a prediction about the world 50 years from now or asking them to imagine, to describe as visually, as ‘experience-ably’ as possible, what the world would look like should their predictions come true (or turn out otherwise). While the former often results in a ‘development’ or a ‘new thing’, the latter would imply also to think through some of the consequences of that breakthrough, it would paint a broader picture. It would have been interesting to look into the minds of the great minds as such.

Furthermore, the article follows a rather traditional path of (select) scientific disciplines or communities, while a significant amount of tomorrow’s great insights will probably come from the crossroads, from inter-, multi- and transdisciplinary endeavours. A significant amount of them can be expected to emerge from the inbetween between disciplines and new fields of exploration and experimentation perhaps not even considered science today, yet with a huge impact on our lives in the future.

Last but not least, if we are talking about the world’s most brilliant minds, from a geocultural perspective the list of interviewed ‘minds’ leaves a rather biased aftertaste. What about the brilliant minds and top-notch scientists in China, Japan, India, New Zealand, Africa, South America, the Middle-East, Russia etc.? I’m sure many of you along with us would love to hear their expectations and viewpoints as well.

Via PlausibleFutures.com

Among the names often heard in the context and history of scenariothinking, foresight and future studies are without doubt Shell and RAND. Along with several other organizations, they shaped significantly the approaches and methodologies used within the field.

The Insitute for the Future recently brought to attention once again a study published by RAND a few years ago, titled “Shaping the Next One Hundred Years : New Methods for Quantitative, Long-Term Policy Analysis” (pdf’s available on site). Alongside a historical overview of attempts to tackle the future, the report pays further attention to developments in computer science which might aid in long term policy analysis. From the study:

“This study proposes four key elements of successful LTPA:

• Consider large ensembles (hundreds to millions) of scenarios.
• Seek robust, not optimal, strategies.
• Achieve robustness with adaptivity.
• Design analysis for interactive exploration of the multiplicity of plausible futures.

These elements are implemented through an iterative process in
which the computer helps humans create a large ensemble of plau­
sible scenarios, where each scenario represents one guess about how
the world works (a future state of the world) and one choice of many
alternative strategies that might be adopted to influence outcomes.”

Via FutureNow

The future is not only about tomorrow, but very much about today. Choices we make today influence what our lives will be like in the future. Vice versa, the ways we think about the future today, the ways in which we envision it, also influences the way we look at our choices for tomorrow. The bottom line of all this: start today.
Our long-term thinking friends over at worldchanging.com (also check out their manifesto) have published a fascinating book, titled: “Worldchanging: A Users Guide for the 21st Century”. As their website describes it, the book is “a groundbreaking compendium of the most innovative solutions, ideas and inventions emerging today for building a sustainable, livable, prosperous future.” It features a plethora of articles bundled together under seven headings:

1. stuff: about the things we make, buy, use and live with. articles include entries about green design, biomimicry, sustainable food, clothing, trade and technology etc.
2. shelter: about building future-friendly homes. articles deal with themes such as green building and landscaping, clean energy, water, disaster relief and humanitarian design
3. cities: about living green by living urban. the chapter informs about developments in terms of smart growth, sustainable communities, transportation, greening infrastructure, product-service systems, leapfrogging and megacity challenges
4. community: about working together for the common good. think: education, women’s rights, public health, holistic approaches to community development, South-South science, social entrepreneurship and micro-lending, and philanthropy
5. business: about growing sustainable prosperity. articles deal with themes such as socially responsible investment, worldchanging start-ups, ecological economics, corporate social responsibility and green business
6. politics: about progressing toward a free and fair world. the chapter explores developments in networked politics, new media, transparency, human rights, non-violent revolution and peacemaking
7. planet: about restoring and exploring the earth. this final chapter is about the big picture, about everything from placing oneself in a bioregion to climate foresight to environmental history to green space exploration

More information can be found on the book’s website (or click here to hit the bookshop right away).

Most of us know our shoesize, but few of us know our ecological footprint (calculate yours here). It is a metaphor used to depict the amount of land and water area a human population would hypothetically need to provide the resources required to support itself and to absorb its wastes, given prevailing technology (definition from Wikipedia).

In their recently released bi-annual Living Planet Report 2006, the WWF publishes new statistics on ‘how large we live’. Conclusion: way too large. If the situation does not change (read: if you and I do not change our ways), by 2050 humanity will consume two Planet Earths.

Seems we are still a long way from reaching ‘zero-footprint’.

Via: De Standaard (in dutch)

We all remember them, those 50′s posters and commercials of the kitchens of the future, the skies filled with strange travelmachines etc. MSNBC features a review of a new book, titled “Follies of Science: 20th Century Visions of Our Fantastic Future” by two brothers, Eric and Jonathan Dregni, in which they take readers on a trip through futures that never happened … or that happened and turned out more nightmare than dream (think asbestos etc.)

“By the end of “Follies of Science,” any modern technologist is bound to start wondering: Are our current predictions about the future any smarter than the endless parade of goofiness and gullibility that “Follies of Science” gleefully enumerates?
[...]
But of course we know far more about science than they did 50 years ago, don’t we? Yes — in just the same way that the hapless futurists in “Follies of Science” knew far more about science than did their counterparts at the turn of the last century.

In other words, each generation seems to inherit not only new knowledge but also new ignorance. Thus far, our generation has been supremely confident about our new knowledge. The really interesting question that remains is the exact nature of our ignorance. “

Check out ModernMechanix and Tales of Future Past for more retrofuturistic eyecandy.

Thanks to Mark at Putting People First for pointing this article out to me, and Jasper for the ModernMechanix link.

Philips’ Design’s latest issue of their quarterly publication New Value by One Design, features (among other interesting reading material) an article on how they look at and deal with the future.

Making sense of the future explains how and why Philips Design jumped on the foresight bandwagon early on. Josephine Green, Senior Director, Trends & Strategy, New Solutions Development:

“[Previously] most forescasting was driven by technology forecasting with the idea that technology drives the future. However, the future is not driven by one agent and it is not predictable, it is much more open ended.” Indeed, Philips Design believes that there exists more than one set future, “there are different possible futures, including preferable or desirable futures”

Furthermore the article explains the strong value of (qualitative) foresighting as an exploration and orientation tool as well as the human-centredness of their approach.

Futurist and trendwatcher, Dr. James Canton, CEO of the Institute for Global Futures, (and student of futurist Alvin Toffler) has published a new book titled: ‘The extreme future: the top trends that will reshape the world for the next 5, 10 and 20 years’.

Publishers Weekly writes the following:

“[...] Taken individually, none of the trends Canton believes will shape the upcoming decades are surprising: major crises brought on by energy shortages and climate change; economic transformation wrought by globalization; and the “war on terror” has barely started. But he recognizes that the future is created by a “convergence” in which these developments interact. [...]“

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(Via Amazon)

This underlines once again the added value of an integrative, scenario-based approach to future thinking, instead of reasoning purely in terms of the extrapolation of trends.