Blogs

The political unrest in the Middle East brings up some geeky thoughts about the techniques of strategic analysis. This is not from the “Hey, you should dig megatrends!” book of the future, but direct from the canon of heavy geopolitics and game theory. E.H. Carr‘s realism versus Walt and Mearsheimer’s Neorealism versus Alexander Wendt‘s theory of constructivism.

Over the last week, people around the world have been instantly struck by unbelievable scenes of turbulence in Egypt, as thousands have taken to the streets to protest against the current political regime. In recent days things have gotten even uglier, too: American journalists have been assaulted, Molotov cocktails have been launched, and rocks and furniture have been hurled at protesters.

In a January 26th New York Times op-ed, "25 Years of Digital Vandalism" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/27/opinion/27Gibson.html?scp=1&sq=gibson%...), William Gibson reflects on the Stuxnet attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. As a genuine futurist, Gibson looks to Stuxnet as a sign of the times--and a bellwether for the future.

In my last post “6 Grand Technological Challenges for 2011 and Beyond” I summarized 6 important challenges that might impact at least one billion people’s lives over the next decade. Now, I’ve build up my preferred list of answers embracing a set of exponential technologies.

All futurism is speculation. It's time someone made some claims. I've picked developments I honestly consider plausible. Here are my 11 predictions for the world of 2030. I'm backing these claims up with previous writings. To access the relevant article, just click the title of each point in the original article on iLookForwardTo.com.

Over the last few days, Egyptians have taken to the streets, demanding that Egyptian president and dictator Hosni Mubarak step down. The protests haven’t so far had a religious or anti-American bent. They’re not Islamist. They’re a wave of people – mostly young people – expressing their frustration at corruption, joblessness, economic stagnation, and above all, at the lack of political and personal freedoms that we in the West enjoy.

What`s so special about the Nordic countries? Global Challenge, an independent think tank that provides solutions to global challenges relating to the fields of economy, environment and democracy, tried to find an answer in a new report that was published this week during the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The president’s State of the Union Speech was - at long last - the one I wanted him to give. It went after the very poison that has so sickened the United States of America. His call for us to shake off the Cult of Future-Hatred, indulged in by both right and left, was about urging us to start looking forward again, instead of to some mythically better past.

Futurist Film Studies Week continues (concludes, actually) with a brief review of the biographical documentary Transcendent Man, one of two movies intended to introduce Ray Kurzweil’s ideas to a larger audience. The other, a feature-length film version of The Singularity Is Near, directed by Kurzweil along with Anthony Waller and Toshi Hoo, is currently making the rounds on the film festival circuit. Filmmaker Robert Barry Ptolemy and subject Ray Kurzweil are currently screening Transcendent Man in various cities around the country. The full schedule of upcoming appearances and events is on the film’s Web site.

Every day in Kyoto carries with it the promise of a rare visual sighting; a geisha moving in graceful but hurried steps between the tea houses in Gion; maple leaves crisping red at their tips beneath the awnings of Shinto shrines.