Futuring

Josh Brown, the Reformed Broker, has a brief and insightful post about the tension between two of the most important factions in finance, the macros versus the traders.

There's an interesting piece in this year's Nebula Awards Showcase, a lively short story about an alternative future premised on Aztec culture, "The Jaguar House, in Shadow," by Aliette de Bodard.

"Twitter is the telegraph of the impending Singularity." -- rachel lichtman (@DJRotaryRachel), on Twitter, June 6, 2012

First,

Identify an outcome normally attributable to magic (immortality, invisibility, free treasure, secret super-knowledge, love potion, mind-reading, unquestioning slave-minion) that we cannot accomplish but which can be made to seem at least not logically impossible.

Second,

The world as you know it is completely screwed, so full of internal inconsistencies that the coming decades will be florid with failure after breakdown after predictable catastrophe after mind-numbing disappointment. So smile! Let's have some fun and fix it all!

THE FUTURIST magazine's in-depth coverage of our rapidly changing future is usually only accessible to World Future Society members as one of the major benefits of membership. But until the end of July, the entire July/August issue will be freely available to FUTURIST UPDATE subscribers and the general public.

This special issue focuses on how the advent of big data and immersive networks are altering our lives, from what communities will look like down to how household technology will impact family life. Many of the authors will be speaking at the World Future Society's annual WorldFuture conference this July.

We at World Future Society were saddened to see the news early this morning that legendary science-fiction author Ray Bradbury died yesterday at the age of 91. According to our founder, Edward Cornish, Bradbury was one of the first members of the World Future Society. ("The Search For Foresight: The Society's First Members")