By Leopold P. Mureithi Introduction Curiosity and wonder about what the future holds has occupied humans as far back as scholars can tell.[i] Over time, Homo sapiens have come to realize that the future is not just one, but several futures[ii]. Given the reality of quantum interactions, the choices of the future can be – for example — among the probable, the possible and the preferred. This prospective foresight, though, has occurred at various degrees of scope, depth and intensity across the entities engaged in such futuristic preoccupation. These entities can be of any size: micro, meso, macro and other…
Author: Admin
by Sohail Inayatullah At the summer retreat of the Ananda Marga movement in Australia, a socio-spiritual group that advocates the adoption of Prout ideals, I had the chance to experiment with gaming and creating progressive policy futures by running the first Prout parliament game. The core question was what would the world look like if Prout – as theory and movement – was in power; if the core ideas of Prout[1] were adopted as the norm, as informing and framing global and local legislative priorities? [2] Prout itself is an acronym of the Progressive utilization theory, articulated by P.R.…
By Leopold P. Mureithi One thing that strikes a reader of this book is the use of the prefix “re” in the words “reinvented” and “reimagining”. Ordinarily, this would imply doing again, like in repeat; afresh; anew. But, on second thought, the “re” is used to emphasize refinement and the intensity with which such clarification is done.[1] Short of giving definitions of these titular terms, RohitTalwar and his co-authors Steve Wells, Alexandra Whittington, April Koury and Maria Romero clarify that their ‘goal is to encourage readers to challenge both “the official view” and [one’s] own perspectives on which changes will…
By Leah Zaidi Trends are all the rage. As we enter 2019, there are no shortages of predictions and speculation about what the future may hold. Trends can be useful, but they are also problematic. Despite their appeal, trends: Are a reflection of the past because all data is historical by nature Don’t account for wildcards and unpredictable events Become more difficult to predict the further out we look Encourage extrapolating the past into the future, rather creating new visions Support an economic/tech-driven mindset (e.g. what to invest in next) which isn’t always the right approach Are simple and linear,…
By Peter van der Wel Try to imagine a future world in which almost no one has to work anymore. Everything can be produced by robots. Even the robots themselves are made by other robots. In that world, green energy is abundant and available almost for free, thanks to the sun, the wind and perhaps nuclear fusion. With this abundant energy almost for free, all materials can be recycled continuously. Environmental pollution no longer exists. Too good to be true? Well, no; if the technical development of recent years continues to accelerate, our world could look like this in the…
By Leopold P. Mureithi When Sir Thomas More’s wrote his book – Utopia –in 1516, he described an imaginary land where life was perfect.[i]Other authors have depicted a dystopian imagery of society. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World,[ii] written in 1931 describes a dictator’s pharmacological people control and manipulative tool named Soma. George Orwell’s book 1984[iii] (published in 1949) depicts a Big Brother “seeing” everyone anywhere all the time;no privacy these two are examples of scenarios depicting the use of technology to control and manipulate people. Another nightmarish scenario is where technology (machines) is portrayed as a dangerous competitor by Samuel…
Sohail Inayatullah This blog is based on the book by Sohail Inayatullah and Lu Na, “Asia 2038: Ten Disruptions that Change Everything”, Tamsui, Graduate Institute of Futures Studies, Tamkang University, 2018. DISRUPTIONS ASIA 2038 My own view of Asia is very much informed by the “great rise,” watching the region – particularly, East, South and South East Asia – move from poverty to economic wealth (uneven as it is); from passive recipients of knowledge to the possibility of active creators of reality, and from being past-based to possibly futures-oriented. I see potential in Asia going from strength to strength, and…
By Peter van der Wel New developments in medical science can keep us alive longer and longer. However, should we want to live longer? Perhaps it is necessary to draw a line somewhere in the (near?) future. A fixed maximum lifespan. Imagine we, as a society, determined the moment of death for everyone at 250 years old (for example). That could be accomplished, for instance, by a genetic modification of our genes. This may seem like an absurd idea now, but there are several good reasons for thinking this through. Why do we (at least most of us) have to…
By Dr. Sarah Bell The water-energy-food nexus has become a key concern for governments and researchers confronting future constraints on resources and the environment. Whilst forecasts of future scarcity of energy resources, water resources and food have a long legacy, in the last decade the interactions between resource futures have become apparent, adding complexity to already considerable challenges. The ‘nexus’ reflects inter-dependencies between major resource consuming infrastructures. Water is required to grow food, cool thermal power stations and drive turbines for hydro-power stations. Energy is needed to pump and treat water, and to distribute food from field to market. As…
By Umar Sheraz Dr. Sohail Inayatullah holds the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies at the Islamic Science University of Malaysia (USIM) and a professor at Tamkang University (Taiwan) and an associate at Melbourne Business School (Australia). He has worked extensively with governments, international corporations, and non-governmental organizations around the globe to re-author their futures. He is co-editor of the Journal of Futures Studies, associate editor of New Renaissance and the author of more than 300 journal articles and books including The Causal Layered Analysis Reader and Globalization and World Systems. He was a presenter at the USIM-COMSATS International workshop on…