Futurist Interviews

The World Future Society occasionally publishes interviews with prominent futurists, which may appear in The Futurist magazine, Future Times, or elsewhere, or may be exclusive to this site.

Comments are the intellectual property of the interviewees, who retain full responsibility for and rights to their content. For permission to publish, distribute copies, use excerpts, etc., please contact the interviewee.

Ending the Oil Era
Reliance on oil is a major environmental concern among industrialized nations, particularly the United States, which uses and imports more oil than any other country. Oil dependency is emerging as a major national security issue as well. Last fall, we asked former CIA director James Woolsey for his take on ending the oil era.

Learning to Look Up
One of cosmology's leading stars is astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. Tyson was recently appointed to serve on the nine-member commission on the Implementation of the U.S. Space Exploration Policy (the "Moon, Mars, and Beyond" commission). In his teaching, public lectures, and popular writings, Tyson inspires the world with ideas about the universe.

Germinal Choice Technology: Our Evolutionary Future
Like human cloning, technologies giving us control over our genetic destiny will be developed, whether they are banned or not. Gregory Stock, author of Redesigning Humans and director of the Program on Medicine, Technology, and Society at the University of California, Los Angeles, explains what these new technologies are, how they may be used to prevent disease and extend our lifespans, and how they may alter our social institutions.

A New Look at Utopias
WorldView 2002 conference chairman Arthur B. Shostak, a sociology professor at Drexel University, has taught several courses on utopian dreams and dystopian nightmares. Based on his 40 years of teaching experience, plus contributions from 34 fellow scholars and 10 students, he has just published a compilation of source materials and sample course outlines for college use. Utopian Thinking in Sociology: Creating the Good Society (American Sociological Association, 2001).

Anti-Terrorism Should be a Top Priority for National Security
Just days before the September 11, 2001, apparent terrorist attack on the United States, including the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the World Future Society spoke with futurist author and speaker Marvin Cetron on the global threat of terrorism.

Creative Hothouses
Barton Kunstler, a professor and program director at the Leslie University School of Management, reflects on the lessons that organizations can learn from history's most successful "creative hothouses," such as ancient Greece, Renaissance Florence, Elizabethan England, and Parisian cafe society.

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