{"id":49372,"date":"2016-10-10T00:05:06","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T07:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/?p=49372"},"modified":"2016-10-09T12:35:34","modified_gmt":"2016-10-09T19:35:34","slug":"the-futurists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.todayifoundout.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/the-futurists\/","title":{"rendered":"The Futurists"},"content":{"rendered":"
The following is an article from Uncle John\u2019s Bathroom Reader<\/a><\/em><\/div>\n

\"robot-future\"<\/a>What do today\u2019s top forecasters see looming on the horizon? That simple question introduced us to the fascinating field of \u201cfutures studies\u201d\u2014its checkered past, muddled present, and uncertain tomorrow(s).<\/em><\/p>\n

NOSTRA-DUMB*SS<\/strong><\/p>\n

For most of human history, professional prognosticators could only guess what the future would bring. If you sought advice from a shaman, a soothsayer, or Nostradamus, you\u2019d hear whatever the bones or the crystal ball \u201ctold\u201d them. It wasn\u2019t until the last few centuries that people began to look at the future from a more scientific point of view. Why? Because for most of history the world that you died in was basically the same one you were born into. Societal changes via scientific and technological advances\u2014fire, the wheel, agriculture, metallurgy\u2014were few and far between and could take centuries to spread around the world.<\/p>\n

Then, in the mid-1400s, came the printing press and with it the book industry. For the first time, the world\u2019s accumulated knowledge was available to the masses. (At least to the ones who could read.) That advance ushered in the Age of Enlightenment, followed by the Industrial Revolution. All of a sudden, the modern world was taking shape\u2026and fast!<\/p>\n

GULLIVER\u2019S TRAVAILS<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first futurists weren\u2019t necessarily scientists, but a keen understanding of both history and human nature helped them project what might be on the horizon. That concept is called foresight. \u201cIt refers to a process of visioning alternative futures through a combination of hindsight, insight, and forecasting,\u201d explains Tuomo Kuosa in his book The Evolution of Strategic Foresight<\/em><\/a>. \u201c(Hind)sight is about systematically understanding the past, (in)sight is about systematically understanding the true nature of the present, and (fore)sight is about systematically understanding the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the first men to display that foresight was Irish satirist Jonathan Swift. In his 1726 novel Gulliver\u2019s Travels, the hero travels to a strange island full of futuristic gadgets\u2014one of them a giant \u201cEngine\u201d containing \u201cBits\u201d that allow even \u201cthe most ignorant Person to write Books in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Law, Mathematicks, and Theology.\u201d It\u2019s all \u201clinked together by slender Wires.\u201d Swift basically described electricity, computers, and the Internet hundreds of years before they were invented.<\/p>\n

Even more impressive, Swift wrote about \u201ctwo lesser stars, or satellites, which revolve around Mars.\u201d How did he know that Mars had two moons 150 years before they were discovered? He wasn\u2019t psychic (as some assumed), just logical: the two planets closest to the Sun have no moons, ours has one, and it was known even then that the large outer planets have several moons. Mars, Swift concluded, might have moons- he picked two. His foresight was spot-on.<\/p>\n

TO THE MOON, JULES<\/strong><\/p>\n

Swift used fantastical settings to mock his world, but he wasn\u2019t a prognosticator by trade. French writer Jules Verne, however, did try to predict the future. In 1828, when Verne was born, ocean voyages took months, and there were hardly any sets of railroad tracks that stretched from one town to another. Just three decades later, steam-powered ships and locomotives were taking people across oceans and continents in only a week. Knowing that the rate of change was increasing, in 1863 Verne attempted to track it in a book called Paris<\/em><\/a> in the 20th Century. Among Verne\u2019s predictions for the 1960s: glass skyscrapers, high-speed trains, gas-powered cars, air-conditioned houses, fax machines, and convenience stores. His publisher rejected the manuscript as being too \u201cfar-fetched.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verne\u2019s next novel, From the Earth to the Moon<\/em><\/a>, has since been hailed as a pioneering work of both science fiction and foresight. The plot: three wealthy men finance a trip to the moon. Their ship was launched from a cannon, so Verne got that part wrong, but he was close to the mark on other details\u2014including the rocket\u2019s escape velocity, the Florida launch site (where NASA missions would take place a century later), the three-man crew, and the splashdown in the Pacific. Even more uncanny, Verne\u2019s moon trip cost $5,446,675\u2014$12 billion in 1969 money. Cost of the actual moon mission: $14.4 billion.<\/p>\n

DEEP WELLS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like Verne, British novelist H. G. Wells witnessed significant change in his lifetime. When he was born in 1866, cities were lit by torches and oil lamps, and there were no horseless carriages or air travel. By the turn of the century, cities were being lit by gas lamps, and automobiles were steadily replacing the horse. In 1901 Wells published his groundbreaking treatise on the future, Anticipations<\/em><\/a>. In it, he foresaw the end of the steam age and the rise of oil. He accurately predicted that the entire region from Boston to Washington, D.C., would become one long system of suburbs, cities, highways, and traffic jams. He even predicted speed limits.<\/p>\n

Yet for all his foresight, Wells got a lot wrong: He said that airplanes were just a passing fad and that moving sidewalks would be commonplace in cities. He also predicted that the world\u2019s governments would merge into one \u201cNew Republic\u201d ruled by scientists who would eliminate all but the white race and \u201cestablish a world state with a common language and a common rule.\u201d That future hasn\u2019t arrived, though the Nazi’s unfortunately gave part of that prediction their best “college try.”<\/p>\n

COME TOGETHER<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the most part, however, Verne, Wells, and other early futurists worked alone. Wells realized that in order to make accurate forecasts, an incredible amount of information would be required to construct a more complete world picture. That meant bringing together scholars and scientists from disparate fields to share and compare data. So in 1932 he made an impassioned speech on the BBC, calling for \u201cProfessors of Foresight\u201d:<\/p>\n

It seems an odd thing to me that though we have thousands of professors and hundreds of thousands of students of history working upon the records of the past, there is not a single person anywhere who makes a whole-time special job of estimating the future consequences of new inventions and new devices. There isn\u2019t a single Professor of Foresight in the world. But why shouldn\u2019t there be? Isn\u2019t foresight as important as history?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Though Wells never saw the formation of a coalition of futurists, his use of the word foresight helped lay the foundation for modern futures studies. The field soon came to be viewed as not just an honorable pursuit, but a necessary one. Two world wars left much of the planet in tatters, and the Cold War threatened to destroy mankind for good. Suddenly, forecasting the future became a respected science\u2026and a bona fide fad.<\/p>\n

THE GOLDEN AGE OF FUTURISM<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 1950s, World\u2019s Fairs showed millions of people what the \u201cWorld of Tomorrow\u201d would look like: Dad flies the family car to work while Mom activates the self-cleaning house and picks out a three-course meal (in the form of a pill) for dinner. In 1958 the TV show Disneyland<\/em> predicted that by 2008 American highways would carry driverless cars, glow in the dark, and automatically melt ice and snow. Atomic reactors would burn tunnels through mountains in mere minutes. And of course, The Jetsons<\/em> predicted that every future family would have a sassy robot maid.<\/p>\n

In 1966 a futurist named Edward Cornish (who would later predict the 9\/11 attacks) brought H. G. Wells\u2019s dream of a future-oriented think tank to life when he founded the World Future Society. Billing itself as \u201ca neutral clearinghouse of ideas on the future,\u201d the WFS\u2019s mission was (and still is) \u201cto enable thinkers, political personalities, scientists, and lay-people to share an informed, serious dialogue on what the future will be like.\u201d The society amassed thousands of members from all over the world. Senior members advised U.S. presidents (last one to be advised by the WFS: Ronald Reagan) and other world leaders, and the most famous futurists became household names. Here are a few:<\/p>\n