When they say you cannot know the future, they are planning it for you

Tonight, I am hosting an event in Downtown Saint Louis (map below) to officially launch my new book, How to Predict the Future...and WIN!!! The chance to speak exclusively about this book this evening is giving me an opportunity to reflect on why I started writing it in the first place.

The world is going through a series of shocks because of the internal inconsistencies of our economic system. The catastrophic financial meltdown of 2008 was certainly a part of it, but only a symptom in a much larger systemic transformation. We are experiencing a variety of these shocks around the world, all related to a central issue of a regime of economic development which no longer produces value. This manifests itself in seemingly disconnected ways. One day it's the Dow dropping 700 points, the next it's Ireland asking for a bailout, then it's the Bangladeshis in the streets over skyrocketing food prices, followed by a persistent Arab democracy movement that has as much to do with peak oil as it does social consciousness. While these events seem to have nothing in common, they are bound by an economic system that confuses speculation for investment, regards the transfer of wealth as the creation of wealth, and which rises to a level of complexity beyond which the average executive - much less citizen - can comprehend.

So why respond to this historic shift with a book that satirizes a fake futurist? In late 2008, I heard something from certain leaders that made me crazy: "Nobody could see the financial crisis coming." Or, "There was no way for anyone to tell that housing prices might destabilize." This refrain can be heard every time something really significant unfolds, such as the Greek economic collapse or young Arabs finally rising up against their octogenarian dictators, nobody can tell the future - at all.

Add to this the media's frequent alternation between "Gee, aren't futurists and forecasters nifty," and "It's all a fraud, nobody can see anything about the future at all." Any time in the last decade, you can find one or the other sentiment in every major business or news property. Between the decisionmakers ducking responsibility and the media saying that foresight is impossible fifty percent of the time, the average person would conclude that there is no way at all to understand what will happen in a year, five years, ten years.

It is not true. In fifteen years of work in the field of foresight, I have learned two things:

1. You can always know more about where your future is heading.
2. When somebody says it's impossible to know the future, it is usually because they are planning yours for you, and theirs for them.

Notice at no time do I mention predicting the future. (I leave that to Dr. Egon) This is a question of knowing who you are, where you are, and where you are going - as an individual, a group, a nation, a species. The people who say we cannot know more about our future through a simple understanding of large, powerful trends are not only wrong, they are doing harm.

Housing in America was a potent example of this. Nobody was willing to say what was obvious - that doubling the cost of housing in a five year period was made possible only by risky financial instruments and pure speculation. The notion that nobody could see a collapse, or at the very least long-lasting ill effects, is wrong.

Aging populations are another great example. There are lots of Baby Boomers. They are getting older. They have a lot of money and drove the economy for the last forty years. They aren't going to be having more kids, buying bigger houses for those kids, or spending money on those kids' educations. They will spend trillions on medical care and assisted living. The pension system is malformed and the government entitlement system is not designed to handle this development. It will be a mess or a collapse.

Computer, internet and media business trends are another gimme. More processing power. Smaller devices. More Internet. It all means more media, and thus the lowering of the price of individual content. The record industry got hit first, books are next, TV and movies will follow soon after.

See? That's the future. And if you're reading this, you're thinking about it, and even changing it. You can do the same with any subject you want. If somebody tells you that you cannot do this, that you should not do this, that it is impossible - ask yourself why they want you to keep thinking the way you are. I bet it is not so that you can be more innovative, flexible or successful. Perhaps it is because they like the way things are just fine.

To sum up, there is nothing wrong about foresight at all. And there is nothing wrong with you for being interested in it. Moreover, our world absolutely cries out for the ability to see over horizons, to anticipate the next shock and the golden opportunity.

I have not invented these sentiments. They have been expressed by "futurists" in this modern form since the dawn of nuclear weapons awakened us to the awesome potential for good and for ill upon which humanity has stumbled. It is time for individuals and organizations alike to reclaim the promise of this intellectual adventure.

I hope you'll join me. At 6pm down at 1141 S 7th St., Saint Louis, MO, at the very least.

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