Links tagged with “futurism”
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Station Identification – Petafloptimism
A good turn of the wheel for the brain from Kim Stanley Robinson: “one must be anti-anti-utopian”.
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E.W.Dijkstra Archive: The strengths of the academic enterprise (EWD 1175)
“The Buxton Index of an entity, i.e. person or organization, is defined as the length of the period, measured in years, over which the entity makes its plans.” (via FaveJet)
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Look for the Lungfish
Some great paragraphs from a good post by Charlie Stross about questioning all assumptions when imagining what our future is like.
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Speculating Futures
A reading list. “Speculating Futures looks at past speculative narratives, like those of Ursula K. Le Guin, and past attempts at creating technological utopia, like Chile’s Cybersyn.”
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The Best Way to Predict the Future is to Issue a Press Release
Brilliant transcript of a talk by Audrey Watters on predictions about the future of technology, what they mean, why they’re wrong, etc. Very good. (via Russell Davies)
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Why We Need to Pick Up Alvin Toffler’s Torch - The New York Times
About how futurism isn’t really done any more. Although he only talks to one (maybe) futurist. (via @MikeForester)
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Tom Vanderbilt Explains Why We Could Predict Self-Driving Cars, But Not Women in the Workplace
We think technology will change much quicker than it does, “but when it comes to culture we tend to believe not that the future will be very different than the present day, but that it will be roughly the same.” Lots of good stuff.
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The Future Is A Confidence Trick
“The industry of futurism is bad at the future.”
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Limits to Growth was right. New research shows we’re nearing collapse | Cathy Alexander and Graham Turner | Comment is free | theguardian.com
The “Business As Usual” scenario is looking accurate, 42 years on, although we haven’t yet seen if we reach the turning points, which will be the real (unpleasant) test. (via @agpublic)
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Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
In Cambridge, UK, horizon scanning for high impact, low probability events. (via the Guardian)
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After You’ve Gone by Thomas Nagel | The New York Review of Books
On thinking about the world after we, as individuals, die. And the importance of “the collective afterlife”, “the survival and continued renewal of humanity after our personal death”. (Subscribers only)
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The Online Photographer: (OT) How Do You Build A Starship-Building Organization?
About last September’s first conference by the 100 Year Starship foundation, starting to work out what kind of organisation would be required to launch a starship 100 years from now.
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Why People Really Love Technology: An Interview with Genevieve Bell - Alexis C. Madrigal - The Atlantic
Very interesting interview with the Intel researcher. Some good bits on demographics of the internet; fear (or not) of robots; physical vs digital; tactility; fear of the TV red button. (via @annegalloway)
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Foresight and Futures Studies Graduate Programs - Global List
I didn’t know there were so many these days.
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Teaching about the Future: Amazon.co.uk: Dr Peter C Bishop, Andy Hines: Books
New, expensive, book from my old futures professor and an alumni who now also teaches at Houston.
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Ten Rules for Creating Awful Scenarios
Good (bad) tips from Jamais Cascio
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Timeline of the far future - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Starts in 10,000 years time and goes on from there. (via Dan Hon)
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Open the Future: The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be
About how so much futurism is about technological change, but how that tech change is very incremental and not as interesting as the bigger, messier societal changes. Yes. (via BERG)
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Imperica - The future of the future
Leila Johnston and Chris Heathcote discuss (in text) visions of the future, and advertising’s representation of the future.
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Futurist-blogs.xls
A spreadsheet of blogs about the future. (via Houston Futures)
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Association of Professional Futurists - V-Gathering Futures Festival
A bit tempted by paying to watch the sessions from this. (via @wendyinfutures)
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The Technium: The Futurist’s Dilemma
“Any believable prediction will be wrong. Any correct prediction will be unbelievable. … the sweet spot that science fiction authors aim for” is the point on the cusp of “plausibility and fantasy”.
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BBC News - One word we don’t hear enough: ‘Erm’
From January 2010, Michael Blastland shows how wrong the Bank of England’s GDP projection fan charts can be. (Also, that daft “The face of uncertainty…” stock photo and caption is priceless.)
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Alternatives to the Singularity - “Google Docs”
“A collaborative presentation for/by grumpy futurists” (via @yoz)
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Optimistontour.com - Pragmatic Idealism for the future
‘An Optimist’s Tour of the Future’ sounds like an interesting book. Today’s future needs more optimism. (via @thestory2011)
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A radical pessimist’s guide to the next 10 years - The Globe and Mail
While my favourite Vancouver-based science fiction author (William Gibson) is writing about the present, my favourite Vancouver-based chronicler of the now (Douglas Coupland) has written this about the future. (via @moleitau)
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London futures | images that bring ideas to life and frame the climate change debate in a way that everyone can understand
Images of a flooded future London. (via Beyond the Beyond)
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OCAD - Graduate Studies - MDes in Strategic Foresight and Innovation
I hadn’t heard of this Master of Design at the Ontario College of Art & Design. Interesting.
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SXSW 2010 for Futurists
Some interesting things there, some of which might ease the pangs from the end of ETech. (via Tom Taylor)
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Internet Archaeologists Find Ruins Of ‘Friendster’ Civilization | The Onion - America’s Finest News Source
Brilliant stuff, and an amazing discovery. Why did that civilisation die out so suddenly?
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The Technium: 1,000 Years of Forgetting
I often think how even the most famous people alive today won’t be remembered in the distant future. But more importantly… A BRILLIANT video from the year 3000!
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BLDGBLOG: One Million Years of Isolation: An Interview with Abraham Van Luik
On planning nuclear waste disposal, designed to be stable and safe for one million years. Longest-term futures work ever?
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100 Years of Design Manifestos — Social Design Notes
I wish there were more early twentieth century manifestos (there must be more, right?) but a good list otherwise. (via Kottke)
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This is going into my “best ever” box of forum threads (Philosophistry)
Great future-y thought experiment: “So many of our grandparents were racist, and some of out parents are homophobes. Which of our own closely held beliefs will our own children and grandchildren by appalled by?” (via Danhon)
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Wrong Tomorrow - pundits vs. time
A fabulous way to record what predictions pundits make and keep track of how often they’re wrong (or right; you never know).
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Superstruct! Play the game, invent the future. | The Institute For The Future
“The world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game.” Interesting. There’s either a lot more futures stuff around at the moment, or I’m just stumbling across more of it. (via Wonderland)
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Rule Forty Two - » Welcome to the Future
Scroll some way through for evaluations of how futurists’ predictions turned out. (Although the futurists I know never called them “predictions” because we know they’re never 100% correct.) (via Boing Boing)
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Foundation for the Future
“Was established with the mission to increase and diffuse knowledge concerning the long-term future of humanity.” Less long-term than Long Now is, but perhaps more focused?
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Conceptual Trends and Current Topics - Unthinkable Futures
I like this kind of “thinking the unthinkable” as a way to come up with new ideas about what the future could be. So easy to get stuck thinking about the most likely outcomes otherwise.
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Has Futurism Failed?
Good long summary of the history of futurism (not the art movement) and the state of the industry now. (via Blackbeltjones)
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TIME.com Print Page: TIME Magazine — The Road Ahead
A handful of celebs-in-the-weblog-world talk about the future. (via Kottke)
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Fads are so yesterday - Los Angeles Times
On how “coolhunters” are doing. I find the whole trend-spotting-in-order-to-sell-more-stuff thing pretty sickening. (via Boing Boing)
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Wired News: The Future Needs Futurists
On the need for professionalising futurism. (via Annie)