Futuring

Like the road you can see ahead of you as you drive on a journey, I suggest the future is embedded in emerging, continuous space-time. Although you’re not there yet, you can see the road in front of you. In the rear-view mirror stretches the landscape of the past, the world you have been through and still remember.

Have you ever wondered why so many "assumption-based" forecasts have been proved to be untrue? Have you considered that there could be more "evidence-based" ways of forecasting? Have you ever felt that "assumption-based" forecasting was just too much of a struggle and in many cases failed to trigger timely actions?

Celebrate National Science Fiction Day (January 2, also Isaac Asimov's birthday) by re-committing yourself to live in the future. Start with this cool little spiel by Ed Finn on Slate. Then help make it a real holiday -- by celebrating the future.

And in that spirit...

In a recent post, the famous liberal economist Paul Krugman asks us to "[c]onsider for a moment a sort of fantasy technology scenario." Even for a fan of Krugman's writing like I am, the appearance of that word "scenario" should be chilling enough to those who know how often it portends think-tank non-thinking is on the way.

On this our last headlines posting for 2012 I have selected the following five stories:

• Wind Power Tax Policies Have Worked to Increase Capacity;
• Robockey - Robotic Game Sharpens Engineering Skills;
• Can Geo-Engineering Stop the Arctic Sea Ice From Melting?

We live on Lifeboat Earth. Our sea is the Universe. To be ignorant of this is to ignore the potential consequences of our bad behavior and its impact on the boat. We have to stop putting spikes in the bottom of it otherwise we will eventually sink. Instead we need to protect every square centimeter, husbanding all our on board resources and ensuring we survive the journey.

Here we are in the last week of 2012 with another 88 years before we see the end of the current century and I am one of those who is hopeful that we have the tools to make the world by then a much better place for all of humanity and the biodiversity that surrounds us.