Blogs

WorldFuture Preview: Lee Rainie and Brian David Johnson Forecast the Next 10 Years of the Web, Entertainment, and Human Life

WorldFuture 2012, the annual conference of the World Future Society, is your opportunity to take part in the biggest discussions of our day.

Register before the price goes up, so you don't miss your chance to meet...

Future of the City: Virtual Mirrors

Disney's EPCOT Center pays tribute to Walt Disney’s dream of what the city of the future might look like, or more accurately what that city might contain. This "Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow" would have plenty of robots, to be sure. He envisioned a city that would entertain, inform, foster human connection and collaboration, improve overall quality of life, and serve its inhabitants...And though the two parts of EPCOT are separated from one another for the sake of entertainment, staging and creating the magic for which Disney is so very famous, it’s in the meshing of these two images that a more accurate "city of tomorrow" is realized.

The Rise of the SuperProfessor

For colleges and universities, the great age of experimentation is now upon us.Harvard and MIT recently announced a new nonprofit partnership, known as edX, to offer free online courses from both universities.

The Minerva Project recently announced it will become the first elite American University to be launched in over a century, at the same time, transforming every aspect of the university-student relationship. The Ronin Institute is promising to reinvent academia, but without the academy.

Will Iran get to the Moon?

On February 29, 2012, Iran’s Alborz Space Center, with much public fanfare, was opened to the international media for the first time. Situated 40 miles west of Tehran, the space facility is one of the keystones of the country’s ambitious space program, which has plans to land an astronaut on the moon by 2025.

The Theory of Opposites (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love Amendment One)

The Internet is lit up with hand-wringing about a referendum in North Carolina regarding the passage of a referendum aimed at making gay marriage illegal in the state forever more. On Facebook, Twitter and in the comments sections of all the usual Internet hangouts, well-thinking people are lamenting this step toward a new Dark Ages, a further deepening of injustice, a coarsening of society.

More Eyes in the Sky

While a solo unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is starting to become a common sight over war zones and, to a lesser extent, over civilian communities, researchers in Germany are taking on the next great challenge: UAVs that fly in pack formations.

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The Futurist

In the Current Issue:

  • A Thousand Years Young
  • Engineering the Future of Food
  • Unlimiting Energy’s Growth
  • The Future of the Commercial Sex Industry
  • Anticipating an “Anything Goes” World of Online Porn
  • To Predict or to Build the Future? Reflections on the Field and Differences between Foresight and La Prospective

Interviews

THE FUTURIST Interviews Ozzie Zehner, Energy Policy Scholar, on the Future of Global Energy Supply

in

Solar panels, wind turbines, and other renewable-energy options aren’t as sustainable as you may think, according to Ozzie Zehner, University of California-Berkeley visiting scholar. In his new book Green Illusions: The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism (University of Nebraska Press, 2012), he cautions against placing too much faith in “clean energy.”

THE FUTURIST Interviews Tomas Brückmann On Creating a Chemical Free Future For Farming

in

As the world’s farmers strive to produce more food, they rely on ever-increasing quantities of pesticides—which includes products to kill weeds, insects, and any other organisms that might threaten crops. Environmental groups warn that the extra food comes at a heavy cost, however, of severe harms to the health of farmers, consumers, and ecosystems everywhere.

How to Read Minds: THE FUTURIST Interviews Neuroscientist Jody Culham

in

Your secret plans aren't so secret after all. Last year, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which reveals blood flow within the brain, Jody Culham and her fellow researchers at the University of Western Ontario discovered that areas of the brain associated with motion exhibit increased blood flow not only when acting but also when considering whether or not to act. In the January-February issue of THE FUTURIST magazine, we look into the study. Culham explains her work and its applications to FUTURIST magazine deputy editor Patrick Tucker.

World Future Review

In the Current Issue:

  • Revolt of the Global Middle Class
  • Establishing a New Information Paradigm
  • Will Psychological Disorders Afflict Uploaded Personalities?
  • Nuclear Energy After Fukushima
  • Occupy Booklists! Best Futures-Relevant Current Affairs Books of 2011
  • Wishful Thinking: A Serious Risk Factor in Planning and Strategy?

Reviews of New Books

The Future of God in the Global Village: Spirituality in an Age of Terrorism and Beyond

Image of The Future Of God In The Global Village: Spirituality In An Age Of Terrorism And Beyond
Author(s): Thomas R. McFaul
Publisher: AuthorHouse Publishing (2011)
Binding: Paperback, 208 pages
List Price: $18.04

Religion thrives at the start of the twenty-first century, despite a plethora of predictions that it would die out a century ago, according to retired religion professor Thomas McFaul. In The Future of God in the Global Village, he looks at the myriad faith traditions that flourish today and the reasons for their continuing strength.

Forces of Nature: Our Quest to Conquer the Planet

Image of Forces of Nature: Our Quest to Conquer the Planet
Author(s): Barry A. Vann
Publisher: Prometheus Books (2012)
Binding: Hardcover, 342 pages
List Price: $26.00

Human population trends have always been at the mercy of Earth’s climate, says geographer Barry A. Vann. Since prehistoric times, nomadic people have migrated to where food and water were plentiful. When scarcities made hunting and gathering no longer an option; then they would settle and commence farming.

The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined

Image of The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Author(s): Steven Pinker
Publisher: Viking Adult (2011)
Binding: Hardcover, 832 pages
List Price: $40.00

Humanity is becoming more peaceful, and the proof is all around us, asserts Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker. In The Better Angels of Our Nature, he retraces the last few millennia of human history to show a clear evolution across the globe away from violence, war, and exploitation, and toward nonviolence, compassion, and equality.

Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think

Image of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
Author(s): Peter H. Diamandis, Steven Kotler
Publisher: Free Press (2012)
Binding: Hardcover, 400 pages
List Price: $26.99

In Abundance: Why the Future is Better Than You Think, (Free Press, February 21) Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler offer a vision of the future that’s truly awesome in both the most traditional and modern understandings of the word; it’s as big as it as awe inspiring.

Learn about the future of ...

Commerce

The Coming Bubble of Obsolete Advice

Last week I read a piece in Forbes about how...

Earth

THE FUTURIST Interviews Ozzie Zehner, Energy Policy Scholar, on the Future of Global Energy Supply

Solar panels, wind turbines, and other renewable-energy options aren’t as sustainable as you may think, according to Ozzie Zehner, University of...

Futuring

WorldFuture Preview: Lee Rainie and Brian David Johnson Forecast the Next 10 Years of the Web, Entertainment, and Human Life

WorldFuture 2012, the annual conference of the World Future Society, is your opportunity to take part in the biggest discussions of our day....

Humanity

The Theory of Opposites (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love Amendment One)

The Internet is lit up with hand-wringing about a referendum in North Carolina regarding the passage of a referendum aimed at making gay marriage...

Sci/Tech

More Eyes in the Sky

While a solo unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is starting to become a common sight over war zones and, to a lesser extent, over civilian communities...

Governance

Will Iran get to the Moon?

On February 29, 2012, Iran’s Alborz Space Center, with much public fanfare, was opened to the international media for the first time. Situated 40...