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"There are therefore four logical combinations of the two oppositions, resource abundance vs. scarcity and egalitarianism vs. hierarchy. To put things in somewhat vulgar-Marxist terms, the first axis dictates the economic base of the post-capitalist future, while the second pertains to the socio-political superstructure. Two possible futures are socialisms (only one of which I will actually call by that name) while the other two are contrasting flavors of barbarism."

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"And on and on. If futurists have become almost too good at technological foresight, we remain woefully primitive in our abilities to examine and forecast changes to cultural, political, and social dynamics.

Why is this? There isn't a single cause. "

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"“There are three scenarios: Heaven – in which our inventions conquer pain, suffering, stupidity, ignorance, and even death. Hell – in which our creations wipe out the human race or all of life on earth within a generation. And Prevail – which argues that these first two scenarios are technodeterministic.

“In the Prevail Scenario, what really matters – as always – is not how many transistors we get to talk to each other, but how many ornery, imaginative, unpredictable human beings we can bring together to arrive at surprising ways to co-evolve with our challenges. Because only in this bottom-up way will humans really control their destinies, rather than have them controlled by our creations.”"

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"In every foresight or forecasting exercise, there are two overarching tensions:

The more certain and detailed the forecast, the more people will accept it and believe it to be useful.
The more certain and detailed the forecast, the less likely it is to happen."

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Analysis of speculative Luna Ring project by a Japanese company that would put a solar power station on the moon.

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"Welcome to the future! Here you will find a speculative timeline of future history. Part fact and part fiction, the timeline is based on detailed research that includes analysis of current trends, projected long-term environmental changes, advances in technology such as Moore's Law, future medical breakthroughs, and the evolving geopolitical landscape. Where possible, references have been provided to support the predictions"

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"In other words I have a new ambition for my own SF: not as prediction, and not cautionary, either--but aspirational.

The fact is that if I've learned one thing in two years of studying how we think about the future, it's that the one thing that's sorely lacking in the public imagination is positive ideas about where we should be going. We seem to do everything about our future except try to design it. It's a funny thing: nobody ever questions your credentials if you predict doom and destruction. But provide a rosy picture of the future, and people demand that you justify yourself. Increasingly, though, I believe that while warning people of dire possibilities is responsible, providing them with something to aspire to is even more important. The foresight programme has given me a lot of tools to do that in a justifiable way, so I might as well use them."

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"Here's another game it's useful to learn how to play if you want to write near-future science fiction: spot the Existential Threat.

An existential threat (for purposes of this thought experiment) is some phenomenon or activity — it may be natural or may be human-contrived — that threatens, in ascending order of threatliness, the survival of (1) technological civilization, (2) the human species itself, (3) life on Earth, or (4) the universe."

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"Shell uses scenarios to explore the future. Our scenarios are not mechanical forecasts. They recognise that people hold beliefs and make choices that can lead down different paths. They reveal different possible futures that are plausible and challenge people’s assumptions."

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"t’s officially known as the Forecasting World Events Project and is sponsored by the Intelligence Advanced Research Activity (IARPA), a little-known agency run by a woman, Lisa Porter, who is occasionally described as America’s answer to the fictional Agent Q who designs cutting edge gadgets for James Bond. Much of IARPA’s work is classified, as is its budget. But the forecasting project is not classified. Invitations to participate are now on the Internet.

The idea is to raise five large competing teams of people of diverse backgrounds who will be asked to make predictions on fields that range from politics and global security to business and economics, public health, social and cultural change and science and technology. The project is expected to run for four years and stems from the recognition that expert forecasts are very often wrong."

futurism predictions expertise crowdsourcing wisdom distributed cognition intelligence spying

Retro images of the future, from various sources.

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so now it's time for the next project: The Evil Futurists' Guide to World Domination: How to be Successful, Famous, and Wrong.

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The New York Times has a piece (Future Vision Banished to the Past") about the likely destruction of Kisho Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower, a "rare built example of Japanese Metabolism, a movement whose fantastic urban visions became emblems of the country’s postwar cultural resurgence."

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Nice little prank on the chaos during the first half of the 20C

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