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A magazine of forecasts, trends, and ideas about the future
 

Remaking Education for a New Century
Communications scholar Janna Anderson is charting a new path for education outside of the classroom.  In this interview, she talks about the future of teaching, learning, and the changing notion of "school."

 

 

 

The Singularity, Explored
We talk to Michael Vassar of the Singularity Institute about the upcoming summit, the Singularity, and the technological breakthroughs of tomorrow.

Assessing Global Trends for 2025
In November 2008, the National Intelligence Council released a landmark study, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The report lays out the possibility of a future very different from the reality to which most of the world is accustomed. THE FUTURIST asked four experts — Newt Gingrich,  Elaine C. Kamarck, Peter Schiff, and Dennis Kucinich — for their views on the report’s key forecasts and what the future of the United States, Asia, and the global economy looks like now, in the wake of the global financial crisis.

Stephen Thaler’s Imagination Machines
Inventor Stephen Thaler discusses his revolutionary form of AI — a highly proficient synthetic consciousness that has quietly existed for more than 30 years.

 

 

 

Repairing the World's Financial System
For globalization to endure, poor nations must stop lending, start borrowing, an interview with economist Martin Wolf.

 

 

 

 

Reinventing Morality

Discoveries in the fields of neuroscience and evolutionary biology have the potential to achieve something remarkable in this century: an entirely new, science-based understanding of good and evil. Q & A with Marc Hauser,
 

 

 

 

Science Fiction Vs. Reality
The Castaways:
In a series of interviews, researchers discuss the future of ocean habitation.
And
Where's My Flying Car:
We talk to Skycar car inventor Paul Moller and designer Donald Norman.

 

 

 

 

The 21st Century Writer
I
nterviews with
Tim O'Reilly,
Publishing magnate and tech guru,
Stephen Abram,
past president of the Canadian Library Association,
Frank Daniels,
COO of Ingram's Digital Group,
and Douglas Rushkoff
author of Media Virus, and Innovation From the Inside Out.

 

Germ Warfare Under the Microscope: interview with Jeanne Guillemin, author of Biological Weapons, on what governments should do to reduce the worldwide threat of bioviolence.

 

 

The AI Chasers
MIT roboticist Rodney Brooks,  Adaptive A.I. Inc. founder Peter Voss, Self-Aware Systems founder Steve Omohundro, Powerset CEO Barney Pell, and Google research director Peter Norvig discuss how they see AI developing in the years ahead.  A special supplement to the March-April issue of THE FUTURIST.
 

 

 

Retiring Retirement

Life-cycle expert Maddy Dychtwald, who will be attending WorldFuture 2008, says that planning for life past 65 is more important now than ever before.

 

 

 


Fighting the Cult of the Amateur:
 A Web 2.0 Critic Takes on the Confederacy of E-Dunces
Web entrepreneur Andrew Keen argues that the user-driven content frenzy of the Internet, in which anonymous posters can say virtually anything they want, has led to increased incivility in Web-based discourse as well as critically compromised the reliability of Web-based information.

 

Report from the Luxury Frontier
There are more billionaires and more millionaires inhabiting the globe than ever before in human history. And with economic growth accelerating in places like China and Russia, it's a safe bet that luxury marketers have a bright future. To find out what's on the minds of the world's wealthy, and what, besides big bucks, they might have in common, we went to Larry Bean, editor-in-chief of Robb Report magazine, which covers the luxury lifestyle like no one else.



Whither, Western Civilization?
Is Western civilization bound for collapse? In the November-December issue of THE FUTURIST, we broach the issue with celebrated editor and historian Lewis Lapham.
 


Imperial Parallels

The military and economic power of the United States has invited comparisons between America and the ancient Roman Empire. What, if anything, can the United States learn from Rome's decline? For answers we turned to Cullen Murphy, Vanity Fair editor at large and author of the recent book Are We Rome?
The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America.
  Part of the November-December 2007 issue of THE FUTURIST magazine.


 

Ending the Oil Era
Reliance on oil is a major environmental concern among industrialized nations, particularly the United States, which uses and imports more oil than any other country. Oil dependency is emerging as a major national security issue as well. As part of our July-August issue, THE FUTURIST presents this interview  with Former CIA Director James Woolsey on ending the oil era. 




 

Learning to Look Up
One of cosmology's leading stars is astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Tyson was recently appointed to serve on the nine-member commission on the Implementation of the U.S. Space Exploration Policy (the "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" commission). In his teaching, public lectures, and popular writings, Tyson inspires the world with ideas about the universe.




 

Germinal Choice Technology: Our Evolutionary Future
Like human cloning, technologies giving us control over our genetic destiny will be developed, whether they are banned or not. Gregory Stock, author of Redesigning Humans and director of the Program on Medicine, Technology, and Society at the University of California, Los Angeles, explains what these new technologies are, how they may be used to prevent disease and extend our lifespans, and how they may alter our social institutions. See exclusive video of Stock's presentation at WorldFuture 2007.


 

A New Look at Utopias
WorldView 2002 conference chairman Arthur B. Shostak, a sociology professor at Drexel University, has taught several courses on utopian dreams and dystopian nightmares. Based on his 40 years of teaching experience, plus contributions from 34 fellow scholars and 10 students, he has just published a compilation of source materials and sample course outlines for college use. Utopian Thinking in Sociology: Creating the Good Society (American Sociological Association, 2001).



 

Anti-Terrorism Should be a Top Priority for National Security
Just days before the September 11, 2001, apparent terrorist attack on the United States, including the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the World Future Society spoke with futurist author and speaker Marvin Cetron on the global threat of terrorism.








 

Creative Hothouses
Barton Kunstler, a professor and program director at the Leslie University School of Management, reflects on the lessons that organizations can learn from history's most successful "creative hothouses," such as ancient Greece, Renaissance Florence, Elizabethan England, and Parisian cafe society.