Copyright 1989 by J.F. Coates, Inc. All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Catalog Number: 88- 82961 -I -S-BN: 0-912338-66-0 (Clothbound) : ISBN: 0-912338?9 (Microfiche) A World Future Society Book Published by: Lomond Publications, Inc. P.O. Box 88 Mt. Airy, Maryland 21771 and The World Future Society 4916 St. Elmo Avenue Bethesda, Maryland 20814 TABLE OF CONTENTS FoREwoRn ........................................... vil PREFACE ..............................................xi PART ONE ROLE OF TIiE FUTURIST Chapter 1 The Futurist and the Corporation ..................2 Chapter 2 Characteristics of the Selected Futurists ............. 9 Chapter 3 What Futurists Believe: Comparisons Among 17 ......19 Chapter 4 Strengths, Weaknesses and Gaps in Current Futures Thinking .....................45 PART TWO FUTURIST PROFILES Chapter 5 Roy Amara ..................................59 Chapter 6 Robert U. Ayres ..............................71 Chapter 7 Daniel Bell .................................. 87 Chapter 8 Kenneth E. Boulding ..........................103 Chapter 9 Arthur C. Clarke .............................115 Chapter 10 Peter Drucker ...............................127 Chapter 11 Victor C. Ferkiss .............................143 Chapter 12 Barry B. Hughes ............................. 155 Chapter 13 Alexander King ..............................167 Chapter 14 Richard D. Lamm ............................181 Chapter 15 Michael Marien ............................. 195 Chapter 16 Dennis L. Meadows ...........................207 Chapter 17 James A. Ogilvy ..............................219 Chapter 18 Gerard K. O'Neill ............................229 Chapter 19 John R. Pierce ...............................241 Chapter 20 Peter Schwartz .............................. 253 Chapter 21 Robert Theobald .............................265 PART THREE OVERVIEW Chapter 22 As We See the Future ......................... 281 vi What Futurists Believe Keeping Up and Digging Deeper: A Guide to thé Fatntea Uteratnte .......................309 Second Thoughts : Roy Amara, Robert U. Ayres, Kenneth E. Bonlding, Victor C. Ferkiss, Barry B. Hughes, Richard D. Lamm, Michael Marien, Péter Schwartz, and Robert Theobald ........................313 Name Index ............................................ 327 Key Word Index ........................................ 330 FOREWORD by Edward Cornish President, World Future Society Editor, The Futurist The term "futurist," in its current meaning, did not become part of our language until the 1960s, when it began appearing in U.S. magazines as a handy way to describe people who are seriously interested in what may happen in the years ahead. Until then, it seems, such people were sufficiently rare that the absence of a word for them was not a serious problem, though one Fortune magazine writer in the pre-futurist days was driven to invent the phrase "wild bird" as a name for the visionary thinkers who were moving into corporations. During the sixties, futurists multiplied in the excitement over space exploration and the abundance of scientific and technological breakthroughs, and Time magazine devoted a major essay in 1965 to describing these "futurists." This usage of the term in its new sense-it had previously been used to describe an early-twentieth-century art movement-seems to have been the impetus that made the term what it is today. The World Future Society named its initial newsletter (later a magazine) The Futurist, and today "futurist" is widely used as a catch-all term for people interested in long-term issues. It received a kind of official status in 1985 when the President of the United States invited a group of people described as "futurists" to have lunch with him at the White House. Many people now described as futurists might prefer to call themselves something else-long-range planner, forecaster, social theorist, trend analyst, etc.-but the public cannot get very excited over niceties of word and meaning; the term "futurist" is easily understood, and being called one is no longer the worst of fates. Society has corne to accept futurists as people worth listening to, not because they have the right answers, but because they do have the right questions-those that concern the serious long-term issues that our society faces. Since the sixties, futurists have acquired steadily increasing respect in government, business, education, and other areas. The U.S. Congress now has its own futurist "club:" the Congressional Clearinghouse on the Future, to which several-score senators and representatives belong. Top business leaders participate in futurist activities and hire futurists to vüi What Fntnrists Believe advise their companies. And futurists at universities have established numerous courses dealing with the future. The growing respect accorded futurists does not mean that there is agreement on just what a futurist really is-or should be. Some futurists want the term to apply only to people professionally engaged in studying or planning for the future; they want futurists to be a professional group, with the usual accouterments of such-academic degrees, peer review, etc. Other futurists insist on a more democratic approach, arguing that the future belongs to everyone and should not be made a private preserve for specialists. This conflict has resulted in a World Future Society policy: People of all kinds are admitted to membership, but there is also a professional section with its own journal and members-only meetings. Though anyone interested in the long-term future may be called a futurist, the term strongly implies an interest in a broad range of issues, not just those in a particular specialty. The interconnections among the many different aspects of our society become abundantly clear to anyone who tries seriously to explore the future: new technology will influence education, which will mold the work force of the future, and the new work force will have values that may encourage an entirely new direction for technology. Nothing in our society exists all by itself; each element is connected to every other element by subtle and intricate chains of cause and effect. Thus, good futurist thinking is holistic. Futurists insist on a rational or even scientific basis for their speculations about the future. They have little patience with mystical predictions (palmistry, astrology, etc.), but are generally ready to listen to a very wide range of opinions based on scientific or historical evidence. As a group, they are pragmatic rather than ideological: They want to know what will "work;" that is, what will really be effective in improving the human condition over the long term. Though they distrust ideologies, they are very hospitable to social experiments and innovations. The reality of human choices in shaping the future is one of the basic tenets of today's futurists. They do not see the future as predetermined by fate or divine providence, but as constantly being shaped and reshaped by human actions based on human choices. We humans determine the future, so we think about the future not to predict what will happen, but to create a better future than we will otherwise have. Each of us is an active participant in the historic process of determining mankind's future. Futurists thus share a basic orientation toward the world that provides the framework for fruitful dialogue. Because they are broad-gauge in their thinking habits and generally open to new ideas and experience, they have considerable flexibility in their thinking and are Foreword ix more willing than most people to change their minds and adopt new positions. The broad, long-term perspective of futurists means that they have a lively appreciation of the complexity of society and the myriad interactions that appear and influence it over time. Because the subject of their concern is extraordinarily complex, individual futurists see different things happening and wind up with very different views about what is likely to happen in the future. The notion that futurists are mainly concerned with predicting the future is one of the persistent myths that futurists have to live with. A corollary myth is that their predictions are usually wrong. The latter myth arises partly from the hilarious blunders made mainly by nonfuturists, prominent amateurs who, through the ages, have attempted to anticipate the future. At the turn of the century, for instance, many distinguished scientists went on record as stating that no successful flying machine would ever be built. Another myth is that futurists are technocrats, who believe that technology will solve every human problem. This myth is countered by the fact that futurists led the movement to establish the U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, which serves as a kind of check on technology by advising Congress on both the pros and cons of new technologies now being developed. Yet another myth is that futurists are neophiles-lovers of gee-whiz gizmos-who have little concern for either the natural environment or the treasures of antiquity. In fact, futurists as a group are extremely concerned about the environment, constantly sounding the alarm about such dangers as acid rain and the greenhouse effect; they also want to preserve the human heritage so that future generations can benefit from it. As editor of The Futurist magazine, 1 well remember the outraged protests that erupted when we published an item suggesting that earth might someday solve its waste-disposal problem by rocketing the stuff out into space.