September-October 2010

September-October 2010, Volume 44, No. 5

2020 Visionaries V

Life Dollars: Finding Currency in Community

By Douglas Rushkoff
by restoring our connections to real people, places, and values, we’ll be less likely to depend on the symbols and brands that have come to substitute for human relationships. As more of our daily life becomes dictated by the rules of a social ecology instead of those of a market economy, we will find it less necessary to resort to the behavior of corporations whenever things get rough. We might be more likely to know the names of our neighbors, and value them for more than the effect of their landscaping on our block’s real-estate prices.

Learning From Informal Cities, Building for Communities

By Pavlina Ilieva and Kuo Pao Lian
What if there were a better way of living? A way that was more environmentally sound, more economical, more conducive to the building of community, and didn’t require huge monetary investments? What if this new method of existence was already visible, and people were already participating in it, in places we had never thought to look?

Books

The Postemployment Economy

In The Lights in the Tunnel, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Martin Ford argues that technologies such as software automation algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics will result in dramatically increasing unemployment, stagnant or falling consumer demand, and a financial crisis surpassing the Great Depression.

Driving Toward a New Economy

Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards. Without a clear incentive, like more money, complemented by a disincentive, like poverty, people wouldn’t contribute to society. They might hunt and gather, but they wouldn’t build skyscrapers, invent new computer languages, or teach high-school algebra. That carrot-and-stick approach worked well in the twentieth century, but as Wired magazine contributing editor Dan Pink shows in his new book, it’s the wrong way to inspire people to tackle the challenges of today.

Tomorrow in Brief

Musical Clothing // Bridging the Mentor Age Gap // Crowd-Sourcing the Crowd // 3-D Posters // Arctic Warming, Mid-Latitude Freezing.

FutureScope

Mental-Health Benefits of Parks // The Well-Being Gap in America // Rise of Rwandan Women // Wordbuzz // Econophysics

World Trends and Forecasts

Prospects for Brain-Computer Interfacing // Designing Buildings for Climate Change

Books in Brief

Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World // Change the World, Change Your Life: Discover Your Life Purpose Through Service // The Flooded Earth: Our Future in a World Without Ice Caps // The Lifestyle Puzzle: Who We Are in the 21st Century // The Neuro Revolution: How Brain Science Is Changing Our World // Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet // The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves // The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger // State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures

Asia Redraws the Map of Progress

By Joergen Oerstroem Moeller

Over the last 30 years, unique opportunities for high and persistent economic growth have blessed Asia, and policy makers grabbed them with both hands. Global growth was high, commodity prices were low, and a growing labor force turned China into the world’s top manufacturer. Meanwhile, there was not much pressure to heed environmental warnings. The policy challenge for Asia’s political leaders was primarily to manage economic growth.

All that is changing.

From Eco-Friendly to Eco-Intelligent

By Erica Orange
Around the world, growing numbers of consumers are purchasing supposedly eco-friendly products such as organic clothing, energy-saving light bulbs, and reusable shopping bags. But how much is actually known about these products, and are they as environmentally beneficial as they claim? Consumers are repeatedly told it’s okay to consume everything that’s eco-friendly, but the cumulative effect of that consumption on the environment is immense.

Wisdom Facing Forward: What it Means to Have Heightened Future Consciousness

By Tom Lombardo with Ed Cornish
In recent years, I have explored the nature of future consciousness—its psychological dimensions, its historical evolution, and its future possibilities—as well as ways to enhance future consciousness through education and self-development practices. Meanwhile, I have also explored the nature of wisdom—its connection to the ideals and goals of education, its impact on the quality of life, and its relationship to future consciousness.

I have come to the conclusion that wisdom is the ideal toward which we should aspire as we develop our awareness and understanding of the future. Heightened future consciousness and wisdom go hand in hand.

Future View: Tried and True-Technological Transformation, from Paper to Disk to Cloud

By Cynthia Wagner
Once upon a time, if you wanted to own music, you went downtown and bought sheet music for the hits of the day. You probably had a piano, a fiddle, or a guitar at home, and someone to give you lessons. If you wanted to share the music, you had a soiree.

Cut to a century later, and the new music I’ve been waiting to purchase has already been shared across the Internet. Ironically, the “new” music happens to be Clay Aiken’s album Tried & True, a collection of classic songs (i.e., old), and the hundreds of friends I’ll share “Moon River” with all live in my computer, in the clouds of online fan communities.