#futures thinking

[futuramb]

From managing chaos to acting on what is emerging

What if our experience of crisis — whether described as a polycrisis or metacrisis, or as brittleness and non-linearity in the language of BANI — are not the causes of our instability, but symptoms of a deeper transformation? Not a transition, but a metamorphosis. If that is the case, underlying and mutually reinforcing forces are reshaping the very foundations of our civilization. The current…

[xlelife]

Next on XLE.LIFE's New Terms 2024 list is the very broad arena of Futurisms. I've posted this in two sections so far:

XLE.LIFE: New Terms 2024: Futurisms--Part I: Intro >>

A very brief and loose introduction to futurisms with a similarly loose timeline, in case you've never heard this term in your life!

XLE.LIFE: New Terms 2024: Futurisms--Part II: A List of Emergent Futurisms >>

The more exciting part of the futurisms research--a sprawling, wild list of 235 (and counting) genres of futurisms, including several I've named or predicted. Looking at this list, especially in an array, really makes me feel some type of way. I hope it makes you feel a way also. What a time to be alive.

[futuramb]

We now live in a world that is extremely interconnected and thus it becomes more difficult to understand the potential ripple effects of various dynamics, be it the emergence of the Internet of Things or a pandemic. [...] No serious futurist believes that the future is already written or the future can be predicted. Rather dynamics are in play that can interact to generate something rather unpredictable or trends can emerge that create a future that is quite different from the baseline. The baseline assumes a continuity of key trends and dynamics. Many futurists endeavor to figure out how we can shape these dynamics to create a preferred future.

The Important Role of Futurists – Houston Foresight

[futuramb]

Scientific Advances are Ruining Science Fiction - The Debrief

Best-selling science fiction author Douglas Richards explains why our exponential technological development is ruining a literary genre.

In the early days of science fiction, technology changed at a snail’s pace. But today, technological change is so furious, so obviously exponential, and it’s impossible to ignore. I have no doubt this is why science fiction, a once-fringe, disrespected genre, has become so widely popular and all-pervasive in our society.

Because we’re living science fiction every day.

Rapid and transformative technological change isn’t hard to imagine anymore. What’s hard to imagine is the lack of such change.

[...]

I believe that after a few hundred years of riding up this hockey-stick of explosive technological growth, humanity can forge a utopian society whose citizens are nearly omniscient and nearly immortal. A society in which unrecognizable beings live in harmony, not driven by current human limitations and motivations.

Wow. A novel about beings we can’t possibly relate to, residing on an intellectual plane of existence incomprehensible to us, without conflict or malice. I think I may have just described the most boring novel ever.

I think this text isn't just about science fiction writing. It is a problem for everyone engaged in trying to understand something about longer term futures.

If the stories about the future are not engaging and possible to emotionally relate to, what does that really mean for long term thinking??

[future-me-guide-book]

Future Me - A Personal Futures Guidebook eBook : Brown, T.E., Brown, T.E: Amazon.in: Kindle Store

Future me is guidebook to help you build the future you want. Buy the guidebook and share with anyone you want!

[bewellr]

This post was inspired by Gladwell. It shares how to be a SuperSpreader for Good. Then inspire us by sharing the good you create.

Be a Super-Spreader of Good

[redshift-13]

Today, as never before, we need a multiplicity of visions, dreams, and prophecies. We need sanctuaries for social imagination.

-Alvin Toffler, Future Shock