Back to the Futurists at the Movies

We're now just a couple of years away from the 2015 imagined in Back to the Future Part II (BTTF-II), and I'm ashamed to admit that I hadn't seen the movie (directed by Robert Zemeckis, co-written with Bob Gale)  since it first hit theaters in 1989. So I spent another weekend watching yet another sci-fi marathon, including the third installment of this popular trilogy. Perhaps my biggest shame: that I had never seen Part III until last weekend.

Arguably the biggest deal about sci-fi visions of the future is the flying car issue. BTTF-II gave us aerial traffic that looked a lot like the ground-based traffic we still have today. I did like the story's use of VTOL technology, though I do question how they imagined the engineers of the future could make these vehicles so quiet. The hoverboard was pure trend extrapolation; sadly there is little in the way of supermagnetic personal mobility at the consumer level just yet.

BTTF trilogy fans still entertain themselves with discussions of this past vision of the future we're approaching, but I take these films more or less at face value. They're entertainments. The special effects are there to show off the skills of special-effects departments, led by the awe-inspiring work of Industrial Light & Magic, the offspring of director George Lucas (one of the few movie makers who can truly be called a futurist).

What caught my eye at the end of BTTF-II was the listing of several "future consultants" in the credits. At IMDb, these eight individuals are lumped in with personal assistants, dog trainers, caterers, and body doubles under the category "Other Crew."

These "futurists" comprise an assortment of visual artists, including Mike Scheffe, the "construction coordinator" for the BTTF deLorean (the time machine), and hair and makeup designer Kerry Warn, whose other film credits include turning screen goddess Nicole Kidman into Virginia Woolfe for her Academy Award winning performance in The Hours.

This might be what real futurists do best--envision and present a visually realistic image of what the future may look and feel like.

The real futuring work in the film is less flashy than the holographic billboard for the 19th sequel of Jaws. It has to do with the existence not just of alternative scenarios, but of alternative realities. At any point when Biff or Marty or Doc could go back to the past to alter the linear path of the future, it created a new outcome and a new reality. But it did not (as happened in the original BTTF) erase the previous reality.

There's your solution to the time travel paradox: Not just multiple, but infinite universes.

And one more thing BTTF-II got terribly right: Any scenario in which a Donald Trump-like entity (to wit, rich Biff) has created a massively vulgar, decadent, and dissolute world is by definition a dystopia (see also the non-George Bailey scenario of "Pottersville" in It's a Wonderful Life).



Cynthia G. Wagner is editor of THE FUTURIST. Her opinions on sci-fi, physics, politics, and entertainment are strictly her own.

Editorial Mission of THE FUTURIST

As someone who’s spent her entire career and the majority of her life at THE FUTURIST, I smile when I think of myself as the “new” editor. So let me first thank Edward Cornish, our Founding Editor, for his mentorship and for having confidence in me.
Longtime readers will see few significant changes in the approach that this magazine takes in dealing with important issues. We aim for diversity of subject matter and neutrality in coverage. We rely on contributors who volunteer their expertise and work closely with our staff editors to present ideas to our readers in a way that is engaging and thought-provoking.
Our goal will be to ensure that each issue of the magazine covers the following four general areas:

Regions, with a focus on a place, be it Haiti (page 46) or the Moon (pages 34 and 39).

Resources, examining any of a number of critical physical resources, such as food (page 43), water, or energy.

Sectors of the economy, such as health care, education, or technology (page 16)

Methodologies for studying the future, which very often will include conversations with or profiles of foresight pioneers such as the late Daniel Bell (page 63).

Toward that end, we have enhanced the Future Active section (see page 66), edited by Aaron M. Cohen, to cover news for the futurist community. More such stories about news and events are also featured on our Web site. Additionally, Rick Docksai covers the latest future-oriented literature in his Books in Brief column (page 56).
We are also dedicated to delivering more content to members electronically via our free monthly e-mail newsletter, Futurist Update and via our Web site. World Future Society members may now read the text of all articles online and download a PDF reproduction of the magazine.
I hope THE FUTURIST will continue to be a welcome guest in your home, office, school, or wherever else you may be when you are inspired to journey to the future with us.
-----
Cynthia G. Wagner is Editor of THE FUTURIST.

Burying Fukushima?

On solutions to the nuclear crisis in Japan: If the decision is made to entomb the entire Fukushima complex, as has been most recently recommended by physicist Michio Kaku, at least one constituency needs to be informed: The future.

In the 1990s, the concern among American nuclear physicists was over nuclear waste and how to warn future generations of its existence. What signage would be required? What barbed-wire fence would last for 10,000 years?

From "The 10,000-Year Warning: Alerting Future Civilizations about Our Nuclear Waste" by Gary Kliewer, in the September-October 1992 issue of THE FUTURIST:

"How could you label Pandora's box so that on one would mess with it for 10,000 years?

"The U.S. Department of Energy recently asked a panel of experts to design a marking system that would warn people against digging into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in southeastern New Mexico, where radioactive materials from U.S. nuclear defense operations will be permanently entombed. The markers need to last as long as the danger, and this waste will pose a threat to human health for 300 generations.

...

"The panel confronted a number of challenging questions: How do yoo make a sign that will never fade away? What languages do you use? What surface do you write the message on? How do you relay a clear message to an audience so distant in time that you cannot know its culture, politics, level of technology, or religion?"

One of the answers to those questions drew from ancient wisdom: using symbols like the hieroglyphics carved in Eygptian pyramids, so the messages would convey our warnings pictorially.

Kliewer wrote:

"By setting down in granite symbols the contradictory messages of the creative and destructive powers of our technology, perhaps we are leaving a far better message in the desert than we intend. Our descendants will see that we, a civilization lost in their distant past, cared for their safety. Perhaps they will also see that we understood both the natural world and our place in it. Our warning will imply the hope that they too will look ahead for the well-being of their descendants."

-----

Cynthia G. Wagner is editor of THE FUTURIST.

Futuring for Haiti: Tools, Not Rules

At our small office in downtown Bethesda, Maryland, the World Future Society welcomed the former Haitian ambassador to the United States, Raymond Joseph. He was accompanied by his son, Paul Joseph (a futurist and activist who arranged the meeting), and Emmanuel Henry, a former vice president for Panasonic. The goal of the meeting was to explore ways that the tools of futuring can help rebuild their nation.

(From left) Raymond Joseph, Timothy C. Mack, Emmanuel Henry, Cynthia G. Wagner, Paul JosephWorld Future Society photograph by Lisa Mathias

Raymond Joseph is an ambitious man. Not only does he want to save his own country, but he wants Haiti to become a role model for other countries written off as “failed states” with no futures.

As one of many would-be candidates in the recent presidential election whose eligibility was revoked (allegedly because he had abandoned his duties as ambassador in order to make a bid for the presidency), Joseph conceded that his ambitions are political. The first thing his country needs, he said, is leadership, but one that is based on trust.

The Josephs and their compatriot Henry, who helped manage the Friends of Raymond Joseph for President campaign in 2010, spoke with Society President Timothy Mack and myself (FUTURIST magazine editor Cindy Wagner) on January 13, one day after the first anniversary of the devastating earthquake that brought international attention to Haiti.

Four days later, exiled dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier returned to Haiti accompanied by heavy security, leaving Joseph’s hopes for the future—his country’s and his own—even more uncertain.

Below are excerpts from our dialogue.

Raymond Joseph: [Speaking of the immediate aftermath of the earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010, at which time he was in Washington, D.C., serving as ambassador.] The leadership was absent, they were not to be seen anywhere, so all of a sudden I became the face of Haiti for the world. And also I had to take the first decisions in the first 48 hours, to get help to the country.

It’s based on that, quite a few of my friends, both Haitian and foreign, came to me and said, “You know what, we need new leadership in Haiti. You should consider the president’s candidacy,” which I did. And for no reason at all, they disqualified me.

Mack: Let me speak frankly to you. I think that they felt they had lots of reasons, because you posed a threat. You were too well known and too popular.

Raymond Joseph: Yes because of that I was a threat. Yesterday I wrote a piece in the Wall Street Journal, and in there I say what needs to be done if we’re going to get Haiti back on track. And what I said should be done is for the president who’s there now, whose term ends February 7th, to exit on February 7th with his team and not try to hang on as he wants to until May 14th. Because in three more months, he will not be able to accomplish what he could not do in five years.

Now, what I seek in government for Haiti is a large coalition, and that’s what I’m working for, that’s why I stayed in the country after they disqualified me. They thought I was going to go back abroad. I did not do that.

I feel that we need to look at ways of changing Haiti. And to do that, we have to change the leadership. That’s what I’m working on.

But besides changing the leadership of Haiti, people know that I have some ideas for the future. One of the ideas I have is about energy, what are we going to do about energy, and another major idea for us is reforestation, and what we’re going to do about that.

And to get these things moving on, I feel that we have to entice a percentage of Haitian intellectuals and professionals living abroad … and according to the IDB, the Inter-American Development Bank, that’s 83% of our intellectuals and professionals living abroad. I feel we have to entice a percentage of them to come back.

Wagner: To reverse the brain drain.

Raymond Joseph: To reverse the brain drain.

...

Wagner: Part of the enticement, of bringing the intellectuals back into Haiti, has to be from Haiti itself.

Raymond Joseph: Right.

...

Wagner: But what you face is a collection of problems, and the decision has to be made, what do you tackle first?

Mack: And of course the biggest problem you face is leadership.

Raymond Joseph: That’s it, that’s it.

Mack: And how do you get the strong leadership that is necessary to make this change even be considered. ... What are your next steps? What are you hoping to accomplish in the next few weeks?

Raymond Joseph: My next steps. That’s what I’ve been working on. Since I was bumped off the ballot, I have stayed in Haiti and worked with various candidates that even some who were running, and some who were not running, and looking towards having a large coalition for future change. That’s my goal.

...

So, the idea that I have tried to do in the past of building a coalition of ethical leaderships have been successful. Since they have bumped me off the ballot as for the presidency, I’ve come back. Now we have quite a few candidates for presidency. I want to tell them you cannot all be president of Haiti, but you can all work for change.

Mack: Yes. You can all be friends of Haiti.

Raymond Joseph: Exactly. So, let’s work together to do this. Immediately, the next thing I’m doing is to help annul the elections that took place, which was not an election. Now, that’s what I’m working on right now.

Mack: Are you also working on observers for the coming elections too, or is that something that will happen no matter what?

Raymond Joseph: We haven’t gotten there yet. However, the first democratic elections in Haiti, which the press talked about, in 1990, December 16th, I was the one that signed the agreement with the OAS back then. I was the representative of the country to OAS, and the UN took that agreement and expanded on it, and we had 3,000 observers in Haiti the week of the elections. So I’m used to doing that. And I will want to, [in] the elections coming up, after we get through this harrow here, to have the best observer teams. I brought President Carter to Haiti in 1990, and others. I want to get to that point in the next elections coming up. Which will probably be in a year, because this thing here that they’re trying to patch up, they cannot patch it up. They’re trying to patch it up at the level of the presidential elections, however, the fraud was widespread. It was at the legislative [level] also.

Mack: And that may be very self-defeating in the sense that a weak government does not last, especially if that government is clearly founded on fraud.

Raymond Joseph: Exactly. ...

To be frank with you, since the earthquake, Haiti has had too many NGOs, so much so that now they’re calling Haiti “The Republic of NGOs.” They’re saying ten thousand. ... There’s no coordination, ... and you don’t see what they accomplish.

Wagner: There’s duplication and gaps.

Mack: Right, right, the gaps are very important, but also they are there to accomplish what they are built for, which is their own, their own …

Paul Joseph: … agendas.

Mack: Not just agendas, their own pride. You’ve seen that. You know, NGOs are very proud. And they are very moral, but not always in a good way. “Maybe you should change the way you live your life because I say so.” Too much of that in NGOs. [chuckling in agreement] I think that what we bring is tools for the people of Haiti to use, as opposed to rules for the people of Haiti to follow.

Henry: That’s well said.

Raymond Joseph: Good. That’s well said. I will take that. [chuckling] I want to take that sentence.

Henry: And when you have ten thousand NGOs, everybody wants to pull you in different directions. “My direction is better, yours is better” and nothing is accomplished, nothing is achieved.

Mack: But we’re very, very pleased that you would come here and talk to us about this, and we want to be as helpful as we can. That’s my answer.

Raymond Joseph: And I’m going to tell you, also, Paul has tried to get me to talk to various people, and you know …

Mack: Some you say Yes, some you say No.

Raymond Joseph: When he talked about you, I said I want to come. Not because I know you’re going to help me solve the problem right away, but that you can help me think about the future.

Raymond Joseph

World Future Society photograph by C. G. Wagner

"Futcha"!

I just wanted to share these pictures from my New Year's Eve treat at the Kennedy Center - a chance to go backstage after seeing our "futurist" songwriter Nnenna Freelon perform with the Jon Faddis Jazz Orchestra of New York.

Nnenna, as you know, wrote "Future News Blues" and other songs with an inspiring message for futurists, and inspired the creation of our Futurist Playlist.

Nnenna Freelon, backstage, Terrace Theater, Kennedy Center, December 31, 2010:

Nnenna Freelon with Cindy Wagner ("hosaa")

A memento! Nnenna signs a copy of her latest CD, Homefree

love, "Futcha" girl...

Information Archaeologists and a Futurist's Desk

Today in Twitter land...

WorldFutureSoc Archaeologists should study the desk drawer I'm cleaning out: Rolodex cards, plastic file tabs, Post-It fax notes, lots of dead rubber bands

WorldFutureSoc: ...desiccated crumbs of cranberry muffins, reading glasses Elton John would consider OTT... What's a #futurist w/o longitudinal data?

WorldFutureSoc: ...ooo, a Pantone chip: C=0 Y=65 M=90 K=20 ;-) my favorite color!

WorldFutureSoc: ... two sticks of Beemans! SCORE!!

WorldFutureSoc: Sorry, @paleofuture, I had to throw out the extra floppy disk labels I just found. They were nasty. ;-)

WorldFutureSoc: I have no idea what these little keys go to, but I'm afraid to throw them away.

WorldFutureSoc: Paperclips, re-recycled for years RT @fayfeeney My #bizrelic: Redi-reply memos - triple copies w/ carbon paper. What's yours?

WorldFutureSoc: Found another Pantone chip: C=100 Y=0 M=90 K-40 We love our primary colors here at The Futurist magazine!

WorldFutureSoc: Okay, desk drawer cleaned. (Sort of.) Worst crud: the mess from a bottle of Wite-Out that leaked. Yuck.

WorldFutureSoc: Best finds: two 29-cent Elvis stamps, a loupe, T-square, protractor, compass, and one of those little curvy things for drawing curves.

WorldFutureSoc: So concludes the tweet-story of a #futurist cleaning a desk and finding the history of the Information Age. Thank you, thank-you-very-much!

love, hosaa,
dreading cleaning out the filing cabinets next

Futuring The Futurist

A friend asked whether the magazine I work for, The Futurist, would be going all digital soon, as so many publications seem to be doing.

At The Futurist, we've talked about the magazine going digital (I talked about it 10 years ago, but there was no technology for it). Right now, I'm still not satisfied with the technology, though I haven't seen it on the devices they're designed for (Kindle, Nook, iPad, whatever).

The e-magazine displays I've tried to view on my desktop or laptop are just horrible. I have to zoom in to read anything, and then I can't navigate the pages. Just yesterday I tried to read the Washington Examiner's supplement about the Cherry Blossom Festival and couldn't find the event listings. The pages were pretty but unreadable. That would never work for our magazine.

Also, what about readers who like print or can't use the latest technologies? Even our e-mailed newsletter, Futurist Update, is output in text rather than html in order to be accessible to the lowest-common-denominator technology.

So there you have it - why The Futurist isn't very futuristic. We also don't have the money to do a big risky technology switchover while the formats and platforms are still shaking out. Donations are desperately needed right now. (Here's a scoop: Our landlord is gently suggesting we move into a smaller suite. Like, within the next few months.)

Much Futurist content is already available on our Web site; when we switch over to the new (Drupal-powered) site, all content and archives will be available to members. We think this will enhance the value of WFS membership and thus increase membership, which will help support our products and services. That's the plan.

I've said before, and I'll say again: Don't mistake the container for the thing contained. We are a very tiny nonprofit association that specializes in content: information, ideas. It's what we do. It's what our members value. The container, be it a print magazine or a conference or a Web site, has to meet the needs of the largest number content users. Improving the container takes more time and resources than we've been able to devote.

And as I've said, donations (and knowledgeable volunteers) are always welcome. If anyone wants to donate free Kindles (or whatever the technology of choice might turn out to be for future magazines) to ALL of our members, I think I can say we'd be fine with that too! :)

love, hosaa
working on another d**n Saturday morning

P.S., the opinions expressed above are, of course, strictly my own.

Back-up Plans, aka Alternative Scenarios

Thanks to the comments recently added to my previous blog, the snow pictures, I realize I didn't quite lose everything when I crashed my laptop's hard drive.

Note the use of the active voice in that statement. Heh. Laptops don't take kindly to being "jostled," I suppose. The friend of a friend who was believed to be capable of recovering files from dead drives proved not so able.

Other than a few new Clay Aiken videos from the Golfing for Inclusion event earlier this year, which are replaceable from the massive vaults of my fellow fans (oh what a cloud they've built!), the most critical files I lost were the videos of our org's president and board chairman, which I was in the process of splicing together for promoting our conference in July.

As my brother would say, gum wouge (bum gouge).

The other files I thought I lost were my personal photos and videos from 2010, including the above-mentioned, below-posted snow pictures. There were also the snaps of the pretty tulips I bought from the grocery store to brighten my spirits earlier in this horrible winter. All my other files, from 2009 back, were either on the external hard drive or on data DVDs (which are unfortunately horribly unorganized, but that's a different problem).

The back-up "clouds" of Photobucket and Blogger and Snapfish and the like are not quite satisfactory, since they automatically resize the images. To make my calendars for next year, I need my high-res originals. But aha! I found that I'd actually uploaded those latest pictures to my office computer, so the originals were safe.

Anyway, since my crashing of the drive, my brain has been in quite a bit of a muddle. A couple of weekends ago, I misplaced a thousand-dollar check and my car. (Both turned up eventually, thank goodness.) I can blame all the distractions I want, but unless I start dealing with the clutter in my life and mind, the Crashing of the Drive could turn ugly. Literally. It makes me a little worried about this upcoming road trip to Raleigh. I don't have a back-up plan for her own self.

love, hosaa,
head in clouds

McNamara's Ford

In Remembrance of Robert S. McNamara

Yes, I re-watched the Errol Morris documentary about Robert McNamara last night, The Fog of War.

For those who haven't seen it, the film comprises interviews with McNamara and historic footage, photos, audio tapes, and documents. It is as much about World War II as it is about Vietnam, and tries to put all of McNamara's life and work into perspective.

The segment showing the fire bombing of Tokyo and the decisions leading up to it were terrifying and wrenching, and probably the keystone of the documentary for me. He confessed that if the United States had lost the war, he, Curtis Lemay, and other key figures would have been tried as war criminals. Hell of a confession.

But the other small thing in the film that got to me (really killed me, in a Holden Caulfield sort of way) was when McNamara was filmed driving his car through downtown Washington. The closeups on his care-worn face were poignant.

Then the camera pans down to his hands on the steering wheel, and you can see.... many years after briefly running the Ford Motor Company, McNamara was still driving a Ford.

Love, hosaa
owner of her third Ford

Michael Jackson and The Futurist

The Futurist magazine has so rarely covered celebrities that I could almost instantly pull up the article in which we used a photo of Michael Jackson.



It was the August 1984 issue, and we used MJ as a representative of one of the "Nine American Lifestyles," an article by eminent social scientist and futurist Arnold Mitchell of SRI International.

MJ represented what Mitchell termed the "I-Am-Me" generation. The caption reads:

Entertainer Michael Jackson symbolizes young people moving away from the outer-directed values of their parents and turning inward to find unique ways of expressing themselves. The confusion and contradiction of this "I-Am-Me" group is evident in their tendency to be simultaneously exhibitionistic and demure, narcissistic and self-effacing, confident and insecure, innovative and conforming, says Mitchell.

The only other celebrities whom The Futurist has featured (to my best recollection) are:

* Actress Ellen Burstyn, who helped fete futurist/inventor R. Buckminster Fuller at the World Future Society's 1982 conference (her photo with him appeared in our conference coverage in the October 1982 issue).

* Pop princess Britney Spears, whose image was used to illustrate the growing influence of pop music over traditional American music and the potential future demise of folk music. (November-December 2003, World Trends & Forecasts, "Where, Oh Where, Have the Good Old Songs Gone?")

* The Black Eyed Peas, whose anti-hate rap anthem "Where Is the Love?" was cited as a sign of a possible values shift in hip-hop culture. (July-August 2004, Optimistic Outlooks, "Values Shift for Urban Music?")

* Clay Aiken, whose use of the celebrity spotlight to focus attention on including individuals with special needs into programs with "typical peers" earned him recognition as a Visionary. (September-October 2004, "Enabling the Disabled to Serve")

Of course, the unexpected and untimely death of the "King of Pop" serves to remind all of us that our pop culture icons are more than merely symbols of our civilization. They are very much human beings, who live, love, and struggle for the best futures possible. Just like the rest of us.

ETA - gosh, how could I have forgotten Arianna Huffington! Pictured with Al Franken during their stint with Comedy Central, Ms. Huffington illustrated the concept of "celebritizing" oneself to improve paychecks. (June-July 1998, World Trends & Forecasts, "Marketing to a Celebrity-Obsessed Society")

What's in a Name?

I've been a supporter of the Bubel/Aiken Foundation for almost six years. I haven't seen the press release yet, but I understand that its name is being changed.

Clay Aiken--co-founder and Chair of the foundation that provides education and other resources for promoting the inclusion of children with disabilities into programs with their "typical" peers--has long said that he wanted the Foundation to be sustainable without the need for his celebrity spotlight.

I've sent in my share for a place at the table at the October "Champions for Change" gala. Their good work will continue to need our support, no matter what they call the Foundation! I champion them, I champion their change.

(Now I only wish I could steal all their good ideas to help my own organization, the World Future Society. Stay tuned....)

love, hosaa
not naming names

Punk Rampant!

My curiousity sometimes leads me down curious avenues, and when I was watching a DVD of Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet recently, a bit of the dialogue didn't quite sit right.

The Nurse is trying to find Romeo to tell him where and when to meet Juliet, but he's hanging out with his friends. She has a go-around with sharp-tongued Mercutio, whom she declares a "scurvy knave." All right, that's good Shakespeare.

But then her servant Peter is rolling on the ground laughing, and she screams at him, kicks him down the steps, and bellows out, "Punk rampant!"

(with apologies: the video has been removed)

WTF?

Well it sounds good, but it ain't Shakespeare. Zeffirelli's film came out in 1968, so at first I suspected the line was contemporary, perhaps borrowed from Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, the definitive film on punks rampant. But that didn't come out until 1971.

I did a Goodsearch for the phrase, but came up empty. So then I turned to Google Book Search, and by gum... It's from The Dutch Courtesan By John Marston, 1605:

Freevill (to Franceschina): Go; y'are grown a punk rampant!

So the phrase is authentically of Shakespeare's era (or a tad later) and not Zeffirelli's. But how modern is it! "Punk Rampant!" could describe any number of contemporary scurvy knaves.


Love, hosaa,
mind rampant

Forecasts in Hindsight

The May-June 2009 issue of THE FUTURIST is on the way to subscribers soon from the World Future Society. Here's a sneak peak at the Future View editorial:

Forecasts in HindsightBy Cynthia G. Wagner

Every now and then, we at THE FUTURIST are asked to look back at previous forecasts to see how we did. Many magazines have turned back the clock briefly to recall what topics interested the readers (or at least the editors) 10, 20, 50, or even 100 years ago.

So a curious thing happened when I picked up the May-June 1989 issue of THE FUTURIST to see what we were forecasting then. I had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

In the Future View editorial “Tomorrow? Who Cares?” economics professor Thomas Oberhofer wrote of the consequences of short-term focused and greed-driven financial maneuvering by businesses and individuals alike. He attributed this phenomenon to impatience.

“When we are impatient with the little things, it is hard to be patient with the big things,” he wrote. “We see this in many areas of contemporary society. Financial markets in the 1980s have been driven by merger activity and corporate raiding as a means of capturing value. This is in lieu of the old-fashioned way of investing in productive capacity and building a business. Consumers have plunged into debt to enjoy a fling today, often with limited concern for the longer-term consequences of their actions. And the American people have tolerated the creation of massive federal indebtedness and the international erosion of their financial power in the world economy.”

Oberhofer advised economic policies that created incentives for patience and disincentives for immediate gratification, though he noted that implementing and enforcing such policies would require a change in the cultural mind-set.

Looking around the international financial landscape just now, I think I can safely say that cultural mind-sets are very difficult to change: Impatience persists, exacerbated by accelerating change in all directions and by a proliferation of distractions.

Several other topics we covered 20 years ago ring familiar today, too, including the cover story, “Cars That Know Where They’re Going” by Robert L. French, a consultant on vehicular navigation systems. Indeed, as he foresaw, the use of GPS in cars today is widespread.

“Once a sufficient fraction of all cars are equipped with navigation systems,” French predicted, “even unequipped drivers will benefit because traffic will be spread uniformly over the road network.” Unfortunately, this forecast has not quite met with success, though perhaps today’s traffic congestion is not as bad as it could have been without drivers’ ability to better manage their personal routes.

What else was on THE FUTURIST’s mind? Among the other feature articles in the May-June 1989 issue were “Renewable Energy: Power for Tomorrow” by Robert L. San Martin, “Human Factors: The Gap Between Humans and Machines” by Edie Weiner and Arnold Brown, and “A New Era of Activism: Who Will Frame the Agenda?” by Rafael D. Pagán Jr.

Pagán foresaw the impacts of the Information Age creating better-informed and better-connected citizens, who would pursue an active interest in improving public and private institutions. But he warned of fallout from anti-corporate movements: “Leaving the authorship of public policy to activists is irresponsible,” he argued. “Corporations can find a way to retrieve eroded public trust, can be dynamic participants in the debates of our time, and can fairly balance the social contract between themselves and consumers.”

Pagán was clearly optimistic on corporate responsibility, both for self-regulation and for stewardship. “The doctrine of the stewardship of the earth has developed dramatically in the last two decades,” he noted. “Now we are coming to see ourselves as caretakers, and we are holding ourselves responsible for the way we use our resources.… The choice for industry is no longer whether it will be responsible, but how.”

Our World Trends & Forecasts section likewise covered topics that continue to have an impact on our lives and futures, such as family–work balance, investments in children’s health and education, and the phenomenon of “environmental refugees”—entire groups of people forced into migrating due to insurmountable environmental problems. As Hurricane Katrina painfully illustrated, some problems just cannot be planned away, but they can (and must) still be planned for and, if possible, prevented.

And that lesson continues to be the principal subject matter of THE FUTURIST and the World Future Society.

About the Author
Cynthia G. Wagner is managing editor of THE FUTURIST.

For further discussion of financial manias and their causes and impacts, see Chapter 11, “The Past as a Guide to the Future,” of Futuring: The Exploration of the Future by Edward Cornish (WFS, 2004), which may be ordered from Amazon.com.

Back in the old office, back in the day.

"Mirage" and "Fallen Angel"

The 1965 psycho-suspense drama Mirage, directed by Edward Dmytryk and starring Gregory Peck, Diane Baker, and Walter Matthau, has yet to be made available on DVD, and even VHS copies of it are hard to come by.

An even rarer commodity to come by is the novel upon which the film was based. IMDb credits Howard Fast, but it turns out that he wrote the story under the pen name Walter Ericson, and the original title was Fallen Angel. I managed to find a copy at a local warehouse, Second Story Books in Rockville, Maryland.

For those interested in collectibility, the book itself was in great condition, hardcover with a plastic covered dust jacket. No tears or marks. It is a first edition, signed by the author, so that is what put its price up more than I wanted to pay ($127 including tax), but I wanted the book. I wanted to read it.

I really can't tell you why I "had" to read the book. You want what you want. In fact, it had been so long since I had read a complete book, uninterrupted, that this in itself was a startling mission to find myself on yesterday. When I got home, I'd realized I'd done all my Saturday morning errands without benefit of breakfast or coffee, so I set myself up at Starbucks and dug in with my new prize. Two hours later I was a third of the way through the book, but I got tired of sitting in the coffee shop, so went home and finished the story.

I am not a fast reader, so to tell you I raced through this book at a rate of 30 pages an hour (or two minutes a page, and yes, I read each word in my head. None of this 'scanning down the middle of the page' crap for me), should tell you the story was gripping.

Though created roughly 15 years apart during the rise of the Cold War era, Fallen Angel the book and Mirage the film were definitely one and the same. By the time the film was made, the Cold War's influence on the American psyche had altered somewhat, from the post-World War II existential angst induced by more recent memories of its atrocities to an almost sophisticated hubris about how to prevent those atrocities.

A few alterations seem minor, but I like noting them. The principal character (played by Gregory Peck) was David Stillman in the book and David Stillwell in the movie; the private eye (Walter Matthau) was Mike Caselle in the book and Ted Caselle in the film. And the sinister character Vincent in the book became The Major on film. (There was also more cussing in the book, a distracting insertion of "toughness" that I was glad did not convey to the film version.)

The most interesting invention added to the film adaptation was a peace-promoting organization founded by the heroic character of Charles Calvin (unseen in the book but shown in fleeting but memorable flashbacks in the film; he's the fellow who is found having fallen from the skyscraper in the opening scenes). The story involved research on atomic weaponry; in the book, written in 1951, the goal was to make cheaper atomic bombs, but by the 1960s, when the film was made, the goal had transformed to finding more-peaceful use of atomic technologies (which, in the hands of evil, would still be perverted toward further destruction).

The goals of the peace-promoting foundation were noble but corrupted by a military influence (hence, The Major) and by corporate influences. The foundation run by the fictional Charles Calvin (film version) attempted to achieve its goals by violating some rules, such as mixing for-profit and nonprofit activities. Calvin saw his work as existing above these arbitrary rules, and his hubris helped lead to his downfall.

I bring all this up because the military had a great deal to do with the rise of futures studies in the mid-1960s and advanced such techniques as scenario writing. More so than the book, the film well articulates the fears of the era surrounding the birth of the World Future Society. Read about it in founding President Edward Cornish's memoirs, "The Search for Foresight: A Brief History of the World Future Society," a series of articles appearing in The Futurist magazine in 2007.

More than half a century has passed since Howard Fast expressed his fears of man's isolation and animal aggression, and of technological progress used to promote power and destruction. Are we any closer to solving these problems, taming our obsessions?

My own adventure in an obsessive little search seems to indicate that we can still be taken over easily by an idea. We want what we want. We should try to want good things.

Parallel Worlds

In my little world everything is either Clay Aiken or future related. So here is today's parallel-world example.

Voice of America covered the World Future Society's conference this summer, and here is their little story: Futurists Consider Trends, Look to the Future.

An American inventor once said, "We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there".

With that in mind, perhaps, an international gathering of so called futurists, attended the annual conference of the World Future Society recently, to discuss their views and concerns about tomorrow's world.

VOA Paul Sisco reports.

At least one of our members complained about how our organization is being cast in a bad light in this news clip, that it makes us look like a bunch of eccentrics. [Substitute "futurists" for "Claymates," and you'll see what I'm getting at.] It's actually a professional futurists' listserv where the angsting is taking place - you know, one of those insiders' back channels.... [this should sound familiar to hard-core Clay fans]

This is the second time that some less-than-fabulous publicity popped up about our organization in the last few years, but I've learned so much from being a Clay fan that it's easier to get some perspective.We get so little mass market attention that, when we do, we're super-sensitive to what is being said about us. I think we Clay fans can be the same way. I want every single passing mention of Clay to be about how fabulous he is, but that just doesn't happen.

The reportage about the futurists' conference, to me, was fairly neutral, and obviously done by a reporter who had no clue what futurists are about. "So-called" futurists do not stand up and tell you what the future is going to be like. We show you ways that you can be prepared for what may happen.

The diversity of our membership, the diversity of points of view, actually facilitates that understanding. Clay fans discuss all aspects of Clay's life and career, bringing their own values and filters and experiences to the discussion. And that's what "future fans" do at WFS conferences.

That's one reason I've always thought of Clay as a poster boy for the Wild Card scenario (a low-probability, high-impact event). We watched him jump head-first into the deep end of an unknown future, and what an adventure it's been!

Getting back to the VOA clip:

It’s not bad at all, just a little superficial. The “Jetsons” theme beginning and ending is very typical of what non-futurists think our field is all about. It’s one reason we did the Sci-fi theme in the September-October issue of The Futurist (which also mentions the Jetsons). It’s a popular hook, and we just have to deal with that. A phrase like “so-called” futurists just shows the writer’s lack of awareness, like people who still use a term like “so-called greenhouse gases....”

The point the video reporter makes that futurists don’t know exactly what will happen in the future is the same point we make ourselves. The fact that the future is unknowable is the reason we work so hard to understand trends, wild cards, forces of change, and so on. The expectation is common among non-futurists that futurists are supposed to come up with a pat answer to the question, “what’s going to happen in the future?” This video showed that this is not what we do. It also showed that we’re a diverse group of people who approach the study or understanding of the future from different perspectives.

The lack of real content in the video (other than the interviews with WFS communications director Patrick Tucker and conference chairman Nat Irvin) is just because it’s only a couple of minutes long. For what it was – a mention of our work and a sampling of the people who do it – I thought the piece was fine.

Futurists, like Clay Aiken fans, are passionate supporters of something in a world that seems often indifferent if not downright hostile. We want everyone to agree with us that the Future and Clay Aiken are incredibly interesting and important and worthy of universal attention and support. But sometimes we're the butt of a joke. It hurts, but that doesn't make what we support less important, less interesting, or less worthy of attention.



love, hosaa
inspired anyway

Back from the Future

WorldFuture 2008 has come to an end, and the first couple of videos are now posted.

The first is from the Q&A during the opening plenary session, during which business futurist Edie Weiner gave a presentation on why the world is NOT flat yet. (Audio from the entire session will be available from the World Future Society soon; please check back.)

Edie Weiner, The Truth About Diversity


The second video is from the closing plenary session. Michael Marien, long-time editor of Future Survey, receives the distinguished service award from World Future Society President Tim Mack. Marien will step down from FS by the end of this year after having been the sole editor of the newsletter since 1979, a position he describes as "unsupervised play."

Michael Marien, World Future Society Distinguished Service


Thanks to all those who worked so hard to put the conference together, the meeting went smoothly. The Meet the Editors session for FUTURIST staff was a lot of fun (no tomatoes thrown!) and there was a lot of interaction throughout the meeting.

Since this IS a personal blog, I'll mention a couple of personal things...

During the Future of Men session, I was soooo tempted to raise my hand when speakers Amy Oberg and Joe Bourland of the Kimberly-Clark Corporation sought an archetype of the future adaptive male with the nurturing/caring skills necessary for the service economy. (Archetypes of males of the past included Steve McQueen and Fred MacMurray, and the two archetypes of the present confused male are the Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer characters on Two and a Half Men.)

Yes, I would have said UNICEF ambassador and inclusion-advocate Clay Aiken, but unfortunately, through no fault of his own, his name is something of a punchline these days. Eh, whatever. He's a long-termer. I'll save my thesis on why he's a perfect futurist for another blog, but there was a short article on him in Futurist Update awhile back.

Speaking of future men, I'd like to thank the sweet fellow who paid me a nice compliment at the end of the meeting. Sorry he ran away so fast. Are we future females all that scary?

Love, hosaa
futuring and trying to figure it all out

Speaking of the future...

A word from our sponsor:



The World Future Society has also posted some other videos of conference speakers on their YouTube channel, which can give you a better idea of what they actually talk about during these conferences.

Dr. Helen Fisher, author of Why We Love, addresses the World Future Society's 2007 conference, describing the impacts of antidepressants on the brain systems associated with romance and attachment.

Biomedical researcher Gregory Stock, author of Redesigning Humans, speaks on "Biotechnology and Health Care: The Road Ahead" in this excerpt from his presentation at the World Future Society's 2007 conference.

Business professor Nat Irvin II (University of Louisville) tells a personal story about his partial blindness and his insights as a futurist at the World Future Society's 2007 conference. He will chair the Society's 2008 conference in Washington, D.C.

Fog of Future Wars?

This just in! A hosaa's blog exclusive:

This photocollage illustrates an article in the latest issue of the World Future Society's Futurist magazine, which just landed on my desk this afternoon.

"Nanopollution: The Invisible Fog of Future Wars" by Italian physicist Antonietta M. Gatti and colleague Stefano Montanari of Nanodiagnostics describes the effects of pollution from nano-scale particles, which "expands traditional battlefields and extends warfare's impacts to innocent victims, including future generations." This article is part of a special section on Bioviolence.

The cover story is on finding sustainable solutions to global shortages of freshwater.

Members should be receiving their copies later this week.

Superman of Futurism

Sir Arthur C. Clarke
b. December 16, 1917, d. March 19, 2008


Video by TVE Asia Pacific

"Superman" of Futurism, Sir Arthur C. Clarke, dies at age 90

The Foundation named for him reports with quiet dignity this morning: "After a prolific and esteemed career, Sir Arthur has passed away in Sri Lanka."

Best known as the author of the short story on which the film 2001: A Space Odyssey was based, Sir Arthur C. Clarke was both an inspired writer and a source of inspiration for others.

In a poll of futurists for the Encyclopedia of the Future (Macmillan, 1996), Sir Arthur C. Clarke was ranked sixth of the 100 most influential futurists in history--ahead of Jules Verne and Isaac Newton.

He was an early supporter of the World Future Society, participating in its first conference, purchasing books about the future from the Society's specialty bookstore, and ultimately joining its Global Advisory Council.

Society founder Edward Cornish noted in his series on the Society's founding that "Arthur C. Clarke not only joined but sent in a membership for Stanley Kubrick, the producer/director of 2001: A Space Odyssey."

Described as a "prophet" for the space age for his inspiring stories and meticulous scientific perspective, Clarke was one of very few science-fiction writers equally gifted on both the science side and the fiction side of the genre.

He was also modest; he demonstrated a graceful integrity when he wrote a letter to the editor to THE FUTURIST to correct another author, who had inadvertently credited him with "inventing" the solar sail--a sun-powered spacecraft he described in his story "Sunjammer."

Clarke could justifiably be described as the Superman of futurism, and not just for his longevity against extreme physical challenges. According to newspaper obituaries, he had suffered from post-polio syndrome for the past two decades, succumbing to respiratory ailments.

But his forward-looking spirit led him to "predict" in his 1999 book Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! that he would celebrate his one-hundredth birthday as a space tourist, one of the first guests in the Hilton Orbiter. In that regard, his goal-driven life calls to mind that of Superman star Christopher Reeve, who set a goal to walk again by age 50 after the riding accident that paralyzed him.

Sir Arthur "was a good friend and an inspiration to us all," said Cornish.



Sir Arthur C. Clarke (center), the famed science and science-fiction writer, is welcomed at a Society meeting by World Future Society founding president Edward Cornish (left) and board member Michael Michaelis. Clarke, who died early on Wednesday, March 19, at his home in Sri Lanka, was a member of the Society’s Global Advisory Council. Photo: WFS Archive.

Links:
1. World Future Society's tribute to Sir Arthur C. Clarke

2. New York Times obituary

3. Arthur C. Clarke Foundation

4. Edward Cornish's series on World Future Society history, which notes Sir Arthur's early involvement in and support of the Society

5. NASA Remembers Arthur C. Clarke

Footscapes

"My Pedestrian Documentary" by the World Future Society:



The big-picture thinkers often look at a broad landscape and forget to watch their steps. You need to see where you're going, yes, but you also need to get there.

The video ends with a wry lesson. A schlemiel is someone who falls on the slippery ground. A schlimazel is someone who trips on the "Slippery When Wet" sign.

love, hosaa
stepping cautiously into the future