Nice article in the Atlantic concerning why there aren’t more women futurists.
Personally I think the problem is that in the early years ‘futurology’ – or whatever f-word you care to use (and I can think of a few) dropped out of science and technology and to some extent science fiction writing. Both of these were fairly male preserves until quite recently. But that can’t quite be it. Maybe women are far to sensible and intuitive to have anything to do with such nonsense?
Well I thought that I spoke fast but you should see this guy in action. If you click on this link you’ll see an ABC show in Australia about the future of the future. Fast forward to 32 minutes or click on the bit on the far right that says Will We Be Gods?
Two thoughts. The first is that futurists seem to segment. There’s the young lot (under 35) who are relentlessly optimistic. The future is very fast and full of batteries. The second lot (50 or 60+) tend to be pessimistic. It’s the end of the world, or at least things used to be much better when they were under 35.
The trick, it seems to me, is to be somewhere in the middle. Personally I’m rather pessimistic about the next 18-months, but hugely optimistic about life from about 2015 onwards. “Just keep swimming” as the fish says in the movie Finding Nemo.
PS. Technology making religion obsolete in the future? I don’t think so.
Apologies about the dreadful headline to this post, but I needed to put a few things in one place to help people looking for various videos, podcasts and articles, most of which are scattered all over the place. So here they are a few links with a brief description of each. At the end of the videos I’ve added a handful of other items. If you can’t find what you are looking for contact me via the contact me page at nowandnext.com
VIDEOS
Lego Future City competition (2018)
The future on a single sheet of paper (2017)
The Future of Energy (Adelaide, 2017)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bV21yBaGjb4&feature=youtu.be
The Future of Ageing Well (Panel, 2017)
https://openstate.com.au/speakers/richard-watson
Talking to Adam Morgan about my 2017 roadmap of trends and technologies
Some funny AI out-takes (2020)
Clifford Chance Talk about digital culture (2016)
Royal Society of Arts ( 5 trends for the next 50 years)
Royal Society of Arts (How the digital age is changing our thinking)
TEDx Munich (The Perils of Prediction)
TEDx Lodz (Thinking Spaces)
Barilla Milan (2012) (Eating in 2030)
Work Tech 2011 (The future of work)
Communities in Control Conference – Part 1
Communities in Control Conference – Part 2
Perils of Prediction (short version for NHS)
HBAA Futures Assembly (on the downsides of digital)
RADIO
ABC Radio ‘Big Ideas’ in conversation about Digital Vs. Human (2016)
Click here
https://radio.abc.net.au/programitem/pg0JGO1mNV?play=true
ABC Radio ‘Future Tense’ on my book Digital vs. Human (2016)
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/futuretense/digital-vs-human/7379044
ABC Future Tense (On the paperless office)
ABC Radio National (On Work and lunch with Geraldine Doogue)
ABC Radio National (Future Files with Philip Adams)
ABC Radio National (On thinking spaces with Alan Saunders)
NEWSPAPER ARTICLES
Daily Telegraph (UK) – Article about life in the Year 2050
Sun Herald (Aus) – On how digital devices are changing how we behave
Courier Mail (Aus) – Some predictions for 2011 (made January 2011)
Various ‘Fast Company’ (US) about innovation
PODCASTS
An interview from Dec 2020. The New Abnormal
Open 4 Business (January 2021)
A weird one. Me in a cheese shop talking about climate, loneliness, humanity, AI and, of course, Trump. (July 2018).
https://tinyurl.com/y9ajju6m
SCENARIO PLANNING
An example of a set of scenarios for the Future of Public Libraries
That’s all folks…well it’s not, but that’s more than enough.
I can’t resist this. I’m reading an essay in Harper’s magazine (US) about the life and death of great American newspapers (Harper’s November 2009, ‘Final Edition by Richard Rodriguez) and there’s a great quote, which I agree with: ” Something funny I have noticed, perhaps you have noticed it, too. You know what futurists and online-ists and cut-out-the-middle-man-its and Davos-ists and deconstructionists of every stripe want for themselves? They want exactly what they tell you you no longer need, you pathetic, overweight, disembodied Kindle reader. They want white linen tablecloths on trestle tables in the middle of vineyards on soft blowy afternoons.”
Great quote the other day from someone in an audience: “I love listening to futurists, they are always interesting. And they are always wrong.” Fortunately this wasn’t about me. I was billing myself as a writer on this occasion but I take the point. Part of the problem is that futurists seem to believe in only one future. The one they have picked. Yesterday the future was rather bleak. Improbably bleak. But I don’t believe that there is ever one future.
The future is highly uncertain and therefore there must be more than one future. Moreover, we have the power to invent the future we want. As Barrack Obama said a few days ago” “We do not fear the future, we shape the future.” The other problem futurists seem to suffer from is that they get ahead of themselves. Quite often their ‘what’ is quite accurate but their ‘when” is usually way off. Their timing stinks and once again I think that’s because they assume a singular future. They assume, for example, that all newspapers will be e-papers in the future or that all music will be digital. But the word rarely works like that. It’s a marginal world out there and hardly anything is ever 100%. More often than not more than one proposition is true and it can take a very long time indeed — half a generation or more — for one idea to replace another.
1. Cultivate the look of an expert (glasses are always good)
2. Sound really certain about things (people love precision)
3. Go against any traditional wisdom (always pick the opposite position)
4. Say things that are very difficult to substantiate
5. Be hazy about when things will happen
6. Never reveal your sources
7. If any prediction ever comes true make a lot of noise about it
8. If anything doesn’t come true come true keep really quiet about it
9. Take a big position on big issues…then wait until you are right
10. Steal things from all over the place*
* For example, most of this is adapted from The Evil Futurists’ Guide to World Domination, but I’ve already made the mistake of telling you that!
1. Call yourself a futurist
2. Don’t comb your hair
3. Grow a beard (grey is ideal)
4. Wear glasses (even if you don’t need them)
5. Change your name to something really wacky
6. Write a book (or otherwise claim expert status)
7. Make a wild prediction set in the very distant future
8. Avoid any form of detail or explanation
9. Specialise in simplistic sound bites (Twitter is ideal)
10. Try not to be a woman
It seems to me that there are broadly two types of futurist (or futurologist) around at the moment. One is the doomsday or Apocalyptic futurist. Climate change, population growth, global pandemics, peak water, rogue asteroids, artificial intelligence, Generation Y — they are all out to get us. Pick your favourite doomsday scenario, pull up a comfy chair, pour yourself a nice glass of wine and wait patiently for the end of the world. And, of course, these merchants of gloom have their talismans (and women). Here, for instance, is a quote from James Lovelock.
“A billion could live off the earth; 6 billion living as we do is far too many, and you run out of planet in no time.”
The second type of futurist is what I’d call the e-vangelical futurist. These are usually people aged under-thirty that fawn and gush at the sight of any new electronic device. They are, more often than not, Twits. Twits as in people that are totally addicted to Twitter. And they have their Talismans too. Here’s one from Richard Thieme, a technology expert.
“I’m not a futurist. I only describe the present to the 98% of people who are not there yet.”