Futurology: Identifying The Trends – Expanding The Imagination
Presenter: John Pope
December, 2017
The solstice season is that time of year we use for reflection, but also a time when we have hopes for the future. Let’s all take an imaginative look at that future, the hopes as well as the fears, and share our thoughts about what is to come.
Future studies or Futurology is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them.
Here is a good place to start: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studies
Also: The World Futures Studies Federation – https://www.wfsf.org/
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Questions:
What kind of a world will your great-grandchildren be living in?
How often do you think about the long-term future of civilization?
What are you personally doing now to improve the lives of you great-grandchildren?
What are nations around the world doing now to improve the lives of our great-grandchildren?
If we do not expect to ever have grand-children, should we care about the long term future at all? Why or why not?
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Some interesting links to twig the imagination:
Artists’ rendering of future worlds – https://www.google.ca/search?q=future+worlds&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiZ2LDEkezXAhVX1WMKHU7YC_MQsAQIPg&biw=887&bih=551
“Having machines carry out cognitive functions on our behalf raises the fatalistic and depressing prospect that we simply won’t need to think anymore. Machines will “know” our needs and wants better than ourselves.” – http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/enough-of-the-stem-obsession-we-need-more-philosophers/article/2641397
Human brains to connect to cloud storage! • Mini human brains implanted in rodents! • Psychologists study moral intuition https://philosophynow.org/issues/123/News_December_2017_January_2018
Accelerationism: “Accelerationists argue that technology, particularly computer technology, and capitalism, particularly the most aggressive, global variety, should be massively sped up and intensified – either because this is the best way forward for humanity, or because there is no alternative. Accelerationists favour automation. They favour the further merging of the digital and the human. They often favour the deregulation of business, and drastically scaled-back government. They believe that people should stop deluding themselves that economic and technological progress can be controlled. They often believe that social and political upheaval has a value in itself.” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/11/accelerationism-how-a-fringe-philosophy-predicted-the-future-we-live-in
“…robot automation will “take 800 million jobs by 2030.” “In about 60 percent of occupations, at least one-third of work activities could be automated. https://www.opposingviews.com/i/society/robot-automation-will-take-800-million-jobs-2030-report