Futures in the Rear-View Mirror

Every now and then I need to pick up a back issue of THE FUTURIST to check a quotation, reference, or some idea that's being discussed in the issue we're working on now.

The July-August issue, which members will receive in early June, focuses a lot of attention on the growing amount of data inundating us. I had recalled a forecast made by Mike Marien, editor of the late, great Future Survey, and found this great cover of our January-February 1997 issue.

In the issue, we transcribed one of the "great debates" that Mike had organized for the 1996 conference. On the question of whether more information was better than less information, it seemed inexplicable to me at the time that Mike was arguing for "less." (Stewart Brand of the Global Business Network and Whole Earth Catalog, and co-founder of The WELL, took the "more" information side.)

Actually, what Mike was pointing out was that the increase of information means both good and bad information, and that more of both makes it harder to discern what is good, useful, important information. The problem was "infoglut." He itemized his "Top 10 Reasons the Information Revolution Is Bad for Us," and pointed out that infoglut "may well be the greatest under-studied problem of our time."

He also warned that infoglut is bad for national security: "We have the capacity to wage infowar," he wrote, "but we are also equally vulnerable to infowar and infoterrorism."

That issue of THE FUTURIST brought back an eerie sense of deja vu for me. Among the other articles accompanying the Information debate were "Get Ready for Another Oil Shock!" by L. F. Ivanhoe and "Smart Cards: Key to Cashless Economy?" by Doug Manchester, two subjects still very much on futurists' minds.

That issue also featured "FUTURIST Forecasts 30 Years Later" by founding editor Edward Cornish.

Ed gave the inaugural, February 1967 issue of our magazine a respectable score of 23 hits to 11 misses; actually, that would be an awesome batting average if this were baseball. But forecasting the future has a lot more riding on it than a baseball game, and it's important to constantly assess our form, technique, and equipment.

For my money, I'd give Mike Marien a "hit" on his forecast about infoglut, especially considering how much desk clutter I had to crop out of the above photo. I'm looking forward to hearing how you all respond to our special section on dealing with data in the next issue.

Feedback, including evaluations of what you see in the rear-view mirror of futuring, is always welcome! Write to letters 'at' wfs.org.

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Cynthia G. Wagner is editor of THE FUTURIST magazine and the forthcoming conference volume, Moving from Vision to Action.