Futuring: The Exploration of the Future

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World Future Society, 2004 - 313 pages
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Contents

Explorers of the Future
1
Inventing the Future
4
Gaining Power Over the Future
5
Productive Dreaming
6
Setting Out on Our Expedition
7
The Great Transformation
9
Our Experience of Change
10
Hyperchange
11
Averting Catastrophes
112
The Terrorist Attacks of September 112001
113
Could the Attacks Have Been Anticipated?
114
Future Catastrophes
116
Eight Future Benestrophes
117
A Century of Wild Cards?
120
Inventing the Future
122
The Role of Chance in Creativity
124

Exploring the Transformation
13
Three Technological Revolutions
14
The Cybernetic Revolution
17
Future Revolutions
19
But Where Are We Going?
20
Six Supertrends Shaping the Future
22
The Six Supertrends
23
Will the Supertrends Reverse?
29
Higher Living Standards
30
Work and Education
32
A MoreCrowded World
33
A Devastated Environment
34
Shaping Our Future
35
Summary
36
Understanding Change
37
Watching Trends
39
Our Unknown World
41
Trends That Reverse
43
Patterns of Change
45
Stages in Technology and Society
46
Change and Stability
48
Systems Chance and Chaos
49
The Importance of the Systems Approach
50
A World of Interacting Systems
51
The Enormous Potential of Chance Events
54
How Chance Influences Our Lives
55
The Influence of Chaos
58
The Implications of Chaos Research
60
The Infinitude of Our Possible Futures
62
Summary
63
Futuring Methods
65
Consulting Experts
66
Very Serious Games
67
Models and Simulations
70
Visioning
72
Easy Ways to Use the Methods
75
An Overview of Futuring Methods
78
Knowing the World Around Us
80
Scanning the World Around Us
81
Classifying Trends
82
Trend Extrapolation
86
Causes and Impacts
88
How Might a Trend Affect Us?
89
A SurpriseFree Future
91
Using Scenarios
93
Scenarios for Population and Economics
96
Making Choices and Forecasts
97
Forecasting and Backcasting
100
Other Uses of Backcasting
102
Personal Backcasting
104
Scenarios for Careers
105
The Wild Cards in Our Future
108
Future Wild Cards
110
The Science of Discovery
127
Basic Tools for Shaping the Future
128
Mapping Our Ideas
130
Planning a Pleasant Evening
131
Progress in Futuring
132
The Past as a Guide to the Future
134
Practical Lessons from Financial History
137
Using History in Decision Making
139
Creating a Better Future
141
The Recent Past as a Guide
142
The Value of the Long View
145
Predicting the Future
147
Follies of Forecasters
148
Miracles That Were Postponed
153
A Stealth Technology
156
Todays World as Envisioned a Century Ago
161
Todays World as Envisioned a Generation Ago
163
Coming to Judgment
164
Progress in Forecasting
165
How the Future Became What It Used to Be
169
The Idea of Progress
170
Science and the Industrial Revolution
173
The Triumph of the Doctrine of Progress
174
Science Fiction and Utopias
175
The Collapse of Optimism
178
The Impact of World War I
181
The Death of Progress?
183
The Futurist Revolution
186
Can France Have a Future?
187
Planning Frances Future
189
De Jouvenels Influence
191
The Rise of American Futurism
193
The RAND Corporations Influence
196
The Space Age Begins
198
Futurist Groups Form
201
Improving Our Futures
203
Challenging Fatalism
204
The Knowability of the Future
206
The Improvability of Our Future
209
The Urgency of the Future
211
The Secret Ingredient of Success
213
Responsibility for the Future
215
Future Generations
217
A Pledge to Future Generations
219
Helping Young People
221
What We Can Do
224
Humanitys New Potential
226
A Fellowship of Explorers
229
Notes
231
Bibliography
249
Glossary
291
Index
301
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Futuring: The Exploration of the Future
Edward Cornish
Snippet view - 2004
Futuring: The Exploration of the Future
Edward Cornish
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Common terms and phrases

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References to this book

About the author (2004)

Edward Cornish is president of the World Futurist Society and editor of its magazine THE FUTURIST. With support from comprehensive designer Buckminster Fuller, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman and many others, he organized a small group to develop plans for a World Future Society, which was officially born in October 1966 as an organization for people interested in the future. The Society now has some 25,000 members in 80 countries. As a futurist, he has served as an advisor for four U.S. presidents, co-authored a report by the White House's National Goals Research Staff, and served as Chief Investigator in study of futuring for the National Science Foundation and the Library of Congress. He also wrote a textbook on futuring, The Study of the Future, that was widely used in colleges and universities. He resides in Bethesda, Maryland.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Futuring
TitleFuturing: The Exploration of the Future
AuthorEdward Cornish
PublisherWorld Future Society, 2004
ISBN0930242572, 9780930242572
Length313 pages
  
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