An Age of Uncertainties

About the March-April 2012 issue of THE FUTURIST
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With a burgeoning economy that may no longer be providing good jobs, and a growing demand for energy sources that are clean, affordable, and safe, the future’s many challenges elude easy solutions—at least, solutions that we might all agree on and that don’t create new problems.

Nuclear energy is one such solution offered as an alternative to environmentally destructive fossil fuels, but as the Fukushima Daiichi catastrophe demonstrated a year ago, the risks are great. In this issue, energy policy scholar Ozzie Zehner provides a cogent overview of nuclear energy’s pros and cons, pointing out that its future depends as much on psychological factors as on ecological and economic considerations. (See “Nuclear Power’s Unsettled Future,” page 17.)

As for the economy that has automated many good jobs out from under the global workforce, all is not hopeless. Investment manager James H. Lee showcases the lessons to be found from today’s most innovative workers (“Hard at Work in the Jobless Future,” page 32). Management experts Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee provide a detailed action agenda for promoting the kind of innovation that will keep tomorrow’s workers productive and the economy growing (“Thriving in the Automated Economy,” page 27). And World Future Society President Timothy C. Mack reexamines the whole concept of investment and what a return on investment really means in this new environment (“Rethinking ‘Return on Investment’: What We Really Need to Invest In,” page 36).

Finally, while the small, hoarse voice of our inner Luddite might remind us that technology is clearly not a panacea, it is also not a villain. The Internet, for example, is a tool, and one whose growing sophistication is transforming civilization. What is coming, says Michael Chorost, is not just a vast global encyclopedia, but a hyperorganism that understands our collective minds and intuits our collective feelings. The result he envisions is “A World Wide Mind: The Coming Collective Telempathy” (page 22).

And of course a great way to work through the future’s uncertainty is to join your fellow futurists at the World Future Society’s annual meeting, to be held July 27-29 in Toronto. For more about WorldFuture 2012: Dream. Design. Develop. Deliver, please visit http://www.wfs.org/worldfuture-2012.

Cynthia G. Wagner is Editor of THE FUTURIST