Lifeboat Foundation

The importance of learning, unlearning, and relearning the wisdom in foresight

By Alexandra Whittington and Teresa Inés Cruz

Futurist Alvin Toffler famously said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” It is time for the foresight community to take Toffler’s sage advice, starting with one basic assumption of the Western futurist perspective that dates back to the Victorians: progress.

The concepts of learning, unlearning, and relearning belong in every futurist’s repertoire in the sense that we need to learn our bias for progress, unlearn its primacy as a societal objective, and relearn that the human condition is best served by achieving homeostasis–steady equilibrium. Homeostasis can be relearned because it’s inherent to worldviews within many indigenous and ancient societies, including the Law of Origin, which instructs people that living in balance with nature must be the driving force behind our decisions.

Continue reading “Terranascient Futures Studies & Foresight” »

Together with my fellow member of the World Futures Studies Federation, Dr. Thomas Lombardo, we have begun a YouTube video series of ongoing dialogues on topics pertaining to the future. In this first dialogue we focus on the book Science Fiction: The Evolutionary Mythology of the Future and discuss the nature and value of science fiction in the modern world. We discuss the historical evolution of science fiction and the nature of mythology and why science fiction is the modern mythology. In future dialogues we will delve more deeply into books on science fiction and more broadly on futures studies and future consciousness.

In the coming decades, the planet’s most heavily concentrated populations may occupy city environments where a digital blanket of sensors, devices, and cloud connected data are orchestrated to enhance humanity’s living experience. A variety of smart concepts are forming key elements of what enable city ecosystems to function effectively – from traffic control and environmental protection to the management of energy, sanitation, healthcare, security, and buildings. In this article, we reflect on the potential personal impacts of the smart city, and its technologies, on the individuals residing there.

Eyes on the Prize

In the race to attract ideas, business, talent and money, the world’s premier cities are competing to build highly interconnected smart environments where people, government, and business operate in symbiosis with spectacular, exponentially improving technologies. These include big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, hyperconnectivity, artificial intelligence (AI), robots, drones, autonomous green vehicles, 3D/4D printing, and renewable energy. The trick will be to ensure that this array of technological goodies is harnessed in service of the humans that make cities what they are.

Continue reading “Living Smart: The City of the Future” »

Space, Oceans, Literature, Entertainment, Sports, Medicine, Fashion, Longevity — Honored to be among this group of thinkers, coming up with the innovative ideas that shape the future — http://radioideaxme.com

https://speaker.future.consulting/en/home/search/video/video…re-cancer/

“The Future: A Very Short Introduction” (OUP, 2017) by Dr. Jennifer M Gidley.

Oxford University Press has just released a wonderful little animation video centring on my book “The Future: A Very Short Introduction” published in 2017. In an entertaining way it shows how the concept of the future or futures is central to so many other concepts — many of which are the subject of other OUP Very Short Introductions. The VSI Series now has well over 500 titles, with ‘The Future’ being number 516.

To watch the video click here.

Continue reading “An Introduction to the Future with Oxford VSI” »

[*This article was first published in the September 2017 issue of Paradigm Explorer: The Journal of the Scientific and Medical Network (Established 1973). The article was drawn from the author’s original work in her book: The Future: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2017), especially from Chapters 4 & 5.]

We are at a critical point today in research into human futures. Two divergent streams show up in the human futures conversations. Which direction we choose will also decide the fate of earth futures in the sense of Earth’s dual role as home for humans, and habitat for life. I choose to deliberately oversimplify here to make a vital point.

The two approaches I discuss here are informed by Oliver Markley and Willis Harman’s two contrasting future images of human development: ‘evolutionary transformational’ and ‘technological extrapolationist’ in Changing Images of Man (Markley & Harman, 1982). This has historical precedents in two types of utopian human futures distinguished by Fred Polak in The Image of the Future (Polak, 1973) and C. P. Snow’s ‘Two Cultures’ (the humanities and the sciences) (Snow, 1959).

What I call ‘human-centred futures’ is humanitarian, philosophical, and ecological. It is based on a view of humans as kind, fair, consciously evolving, peaceful agents of change with a responsibility to maintain the ecological balance between humans, Earth, and cosmos. This is an active path of conscious evolution involving ongoing psychological, socio-cultural, aesthetic, and spiritual development, and a commitment to the betterment of earthly conditions for all humanity through education, cultural diversity, greater economic and resource parity, and respect for future generations.

Continue reading “Contrasting Human Futures: Technotopian or Human-Centred?*” »

Will any of the jobs that exist today still be around in 20 years? Fast Future’s Steve Wells, Alexandra Whittington and Rohit Talwar explore whether automation is destined to rewrite all our futures.

Continue reading “Will artificial intelligence mean the end of jobs?” »