November-December 2010

November-December 2010 (Volume 44, No. 6)

2020 Visionaries: Networks and Human Impulses

Two Internet experts, a psychologist, and an anthropologist explore our multiplying connections.

Tapping the Cognitive Surplus

By Clay Shirky

The sudden bounty of accessible creativity, insight, and knowledge is a public treasure, says a network guru.

Imagine treating the free time of the world’s educated citizenry as a kind of cognitive surplus. How big would that surplus be? To figure it out, we need a unit of measurement, so let’s start with Wikipedia. Suppose we consider the total amount of time people have spent on it as a kind of unit—every edit made to every article, every argument about those edits, for every language in which Wikipedia exists. That would represent something like 100 million hours of human thought.

Cory Doctorow Meets the Public

Sixty people interview one of today’s hottest science-fiction authors and most dedicated open Internet advocates.

Cory Doctorow is the author of various science-fiction novels, including Makers and Little Brother, which he makes available for free from his Web site. He’s one of the editors of the technology blog Boing Boing. In addition, he’s a current fellow and former European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a fierce advocate for the liberalization of copyright laws to allow for free sharing of all digital media. On June 27–28, he visited Red Emma’s bookstore in Baltimore, Maryland, and then appeared at CopyNight DC, a regular event in Washington, to discuss his work with more than 60 participants. Highlights from those exchanges are presented here.

We Need a Hero

By Philip Zimbardo

A leading psychologist and originator of the Stanford Prison Experiment is applying his understanding of evil to the promotion of good.

What is a hero? I argue that a hero is someone who possesses and displays certain heroic attributes such as integrity, compassion, and moral courage, heightened by an understanding of the power of situational forces, an enhanced social awareness, and an abiding commitment to social action.

Heroism is a social concept, and—like any social concept—it can be explained, taught, and modeled through education and practice. I believe that heroism is common, a universal attribute of human nature and not exclusive to a few special individuals. The heroic act is extraordinary, the heroic actor is an ordinary person—until he or she becomes a heroic special individual. We may all be called upon to act heroically at some time, when opportunity arises. We would do well, as a society and as a civilization, to conceive of heroism as something within the range of possibilities for every person.

The New Monogamy: Forward to the Past

By Helen Fisher

An author and anthropologist looks at the future of love.

Marriage has changed more in the past 100 years than it has in the past 10,000, and it could change more in the next 20 years than in the last 100. We are rapidly shedding traditions that emerged with the Agricultural Revolution and returning to patterns of sex, romance, and attachment that evolved on the grasslands of Africa millions of years ago.

Tomorrow’s Interactive Television

By John M. Smart

The iPad and its successors could revolutionize television. But only if and when we choose this future.

Tomorrow in Brief

Mosquitoes Beware!
The Bus Stops Here: Make Way for AutoTram
Robots to Learn Emotions from Humans
Smarter Metals for Cooling Systems
Virtual Autopsies

Future Scope

Downside of Demand for “Natural” Food
Fewer Restraints in Nursing Homes
Payoffs of Good Kindergartens
Public Transit Helps Fight Obesity
WordBuzz: Mappiness

World Trends & Forecasts

Tweet Patrol

Book Reviews

In Forecasting, “Mini” Is Big

By David Pearce Snyder

Technology forecaster John Vanston explains why trends that are less than “mega” are very much worth watching in Minitrends: How Innovators & Entrepreneurs Discover & Profit from Business & Technology Trends

Foresight Across National Borders

By Rick Docksai

Experts seek global answers for global problems in 2010 State of the Future by Jerome C. Glenn, Theodore J. Gordon, and Elizabeth Florescu.

Books in Brief

The Farthest Shore: A 21st Century Guide to Space
Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia
The Great Reset: How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity
New Flows in Global TV

Future View

Cultural “Stickiness” in Technological Forecasting

By Samuel Gerald Collins

Why forecasters relying on linear projections sometimes get “stuck.”

Strategies for Living a Very Long Life

By Verne Wheelwright

Personal futuring will get more complicated in the future. Try planning for your “old age” when you might live to 120—or longer! A futurist offers some tips.

Outlook 2011

Recent Forecasts from the World Future Society for the Decade Ahead

In the next 10 to 30 years, society will have to learn to deal with “peak everything”—an epoch of critical scarcities of a broad range of resources. Unexpected sources of expertise—such as physicists advising us about the economy—will guide us through hard times. And genetic tampering with crops will gain more acceptance if it solves critical environmental and resource problems, such as resistance to climate change and reducing the release of carbon into the atmosphere.

These are just a few of the forecasts in the latest edition of the World Future Society’s annual Outlook report, in which the editors have selected the most thought-provoking forecasts and ideas appearing in THE FUTURIST over the past year. These are not “predictions,” but rather glimpses of what may happen, warnings of potential problems that could be avoided, or prescriptions for better futures we may wish to begin working toward.