Cindy Wagner's blog

A little over 40 years ago, I brought my new master’s degree, one heavily edited published newspaper clipping, and lots of ignorance into the cluttered office of the president of the World Future Society, who was also its magazine’s editor, Ed Cornish. During a recession, I felt lucky to have an interview at all when I left Syracuse, but it seems The Futurist was looking to expand its editorial staff as the organization was heading into its 1982 General Assembly, focusing on Communications and the Future.

Review of Beyond Identities by Jim Dator.

It’s been said we can’t read the label when we’re inside the bottle, and perhaps we’re not called on to do so very often. Who I think I am doesn’t come up much, except when I’m filling out an official form or encountering someone clearly different from myself who has already formed an opinion of me. (And I of them, probably.)

Are robots replacing artists? Not yet. But I have questions. (Commentary)

“What we do now echoes in eternity.”

“Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

The two quotations are usually attributed to two of my personal philosophical and moral guides, Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) and Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948), respectively. But unfortunately, neither seems to have written these lines.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” George Santayana, The Life of Reason (1905).

Since retiring from full-time future-writing (editing for The Futurist magazine), I’ve had time to catch up on some books I’ve saved on my shelves over the past few decades. Though I’ve gone about it backwards, I do recommend reading the past before writing the future. This might help us avoid the pitfalls that have contributed much to present misery.

Just as manufacturers "stand down" operations to focus their teams on safety issues, other organizations should stand down to brainstorm about the future. As Future Day approaches (March 1), here are some tips for organizing a Future Stand-Down Day for your organization.

Imagine you could visit your grandparents (or great-grands) 100 years ago, and you want to bring them the gift of the future. Create a time capsule from today for yesterday. What would you put in it to bring to the year 1920?

In honor of Women’s History Month, Forbes magazine published its list of the world’s 50 leading female futurists—including the article’s author, Blake Morgan, who describes herself as “a Customer Experience Futurist, Author and Keynote Speaker.” See “50 Leading Female Futurists” by Blake Morgan, Forbes.com (posted online March 5, 2020). [Disclosure: The Forbes article includes me in the “extended list” of honorably mentioned. —CGW]

The digital tools for manipulating images, sounds, and other information—already used for such things as making movies—are increasingly being misused as well as democratized, said panelists at the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation’s March 12 forum, “Responding to the Deepfakes Challenge.” But calls to regulate “deepfake” technologies that create deceptive sounds and images could have unintended negative consequences, they pointed out.

On January 9, 2020, the Brookings Institution and R Street co-hosted a presentation by the American Political Science Association’s Task Force Project on Congressional Reform.