Blogs

Organizations use scenarios to help understand a wide range of trends, but the process of moving from data collection and analysis to communication via storytelling may result in the loss of consistency and information. A review by Timothy C. Mack

A report from from the second Future Work/Tech 2050 Workshop, June 15, 2018, focusing on the culture discussion. The workshops in Washington, D.C., were organized by the Federal Foresight Community of Interest and The Millennium Project.

The Future of Learning: Redefining Readiness from the Inside Out by Katherine Prince, Andrea Saveri, and Jason Swanson (KnowledgeWorks, 2017), offers a forecast for work in 2040 and strategies for preparing learners. Reviewed by Timothy C. Mack.

Starting in the middle of the last century, humanity embarked upon the largely serendipitous development of a wide spectrum of massively disruptive technologies, including information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, quantum computing, and energy technologies. These are projected to alter nearly everything, including precepts of the human existence theorem.

A report from from the Future Work/Tech 2050 Workshop, April 25, 2018, focusing on the culture discussion.

A futurist and Washington state resident provides an insider's view of the state's work to integrate local stakeholders' input into its visioning and planning processes.

Written by an outsider to the foresight community, an MIT Professor of Digital Media, The Future takes a very interesting approach to its subject. While author Nick Montfort considers the works of futurists, he also examines the works of artists, inventors, and designers and how they have imagined the future. Montfort takes a broad view of the future, but one skeptical of the forecasting mode as the only pathway to visioning. Instead, he examines an increasingly popular approach to social, economic, and political change—i.e., what he (and others) have called future making.

Book review by Timothy C. Mack. When Verso Books in London released a new edition of More’s Utopia nearly 500 years after its first publication, it produced a bit of cultural shock. For many, the term utopia has come into some disrepute as a reactionary or even a delusional social goal, while among others, especially the technocracy of Silicon Valley, it is viewed as just another easily achieved social building project—all it would take is their unlimited funds.

By Joergen Oerstroem Moeller
The European Union (EU) is in much better shape than is normally portrayed, with a strong economy and initiatives introducing new common policies or strengthening existing ones. In due course, a stronger EU may emerge, setting a course distinctly different from that of the United States. This analysis discloses how the EU and the United States choose a different approach on almost all major issues. Common and shared values once kept the Atlantic Alliance together, but divergent values will split the alliance. Brexit aggravates this somber outlook, as Britain in many ways acted as an interlocutor that understood both the United States and Continental Europe. The geopolitical consequences will be huge.