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The Future of The Past

This is a PAST event. See "Meeting Notes" section for audio, video, documents and other information.

Original event date/time: Friday October 27th, 2006, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Today we strive to answer the question: Who in the past predicted the future correctly? Did they use the right conceptual models, or were they just lucky?

Abstract:

This is a past event.

Meeting Notes:

John and I (Wayne) both did a bit of research for this one, as it turned out. I read "Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler and John read "Visions: How Science Will Revolutionize the 21st Century" by Michio Kaku. "Visions" was written in 1997 and "Future Shock" was written in 1970, and both have a reputation for predicting some things correctly.

An interesting contrast between these two books: Michio Kaku's book was totally technology-focused. It predicted the future of gadgets -- but said nothing about how those gadgets would impact people's lives. So much so that John said it was frustrating -- the book was purely for gadget freaks. On the other hand, "Future Shock" was entirely about people. Toffler didn't try to predict technology with any great degree of detail, but did try to predict how tumultuous technological change would impact people's day to day lives.

So the question is, how did these people make predictions? Kaku is a physicist, so he was looking at what physics makes possible. For example he predicts quantum computers. In our April meeting where we discussed quantum computing (Seth Lloyd's book), I expressed skepticism that quantum computing would every be used by everyday people for ordinary computing, outside the realm of simulating chemical reactions and other specialized uses. But John pointed out that people were just as skeptical of semiconductors in the 1940's and 50's -- no one would have predicted then what computers have become today. So I could be *completely*wrong* in my negative assesment of quantum computing. Many of Kaku's predictions, such as quantum computing, are still out in the future (assuming they will happen).

Toffler, on the other hand, does his prediction using what I call "trend extrapolation". First he describes how technological innovation feeds on itself. He describes a 3-step cycle, where first an idea is invented, then it is turned into a commercial product, and finally it diffuses throughout society. Once diffused, it becomes the foundation for new ideas, and the cycle repeats. Then he presents evidence that this cycle is happening faster and faster. For example, the straw combine (a machine that mows, theshes, and ties straw into sheaves) was invented in 1836, using technology that was invented in the 1810's, but it wasn't until the 1930's that the straw combine was marketed as a commercial product. Today such delays between invention and commercialization are unthinkable. Then he asks what happens to society if this acceleration continues without bound.

In other words, he observes a trend happening (the acceleration of change) and, armed with a theory as to what causes the trend, extrapolates that trend out into the future, indefinitely. Then he works backwards from that to try to predict how the lives of regular people will be impacted. In this regard, it was my opinion that he usually got the "big picture" right but was wrong in many of the details. For example, he predicted the phenomena of "overchoice", where supermarket shelves are stocked with more items than anyone could possibly choose from. And he predicted an increase in religiosity. But he predicted that religiosity would take the form of a vast diversity of religions, an "overchoice" of religions ("a surfeit of subcults" as he put it). In fact religions have stayed relatively mainstream, and Toffler completely missed the meteoric rise of fundamentalism (which, as John points out, failed to happen in Europe). This serves as a good example of how Toffler would often get things wrong, but not entirely wrong -- he got important aspects of the big picture right.

As a "Futurist", the issue I have with trend extrapolation is that it depends critically on picking the right trend -- most trends do not, in fact, keep going. We went from the Wright Bros in 1903 to supersonic jets in the 1950's -- if that trend had continued, we should be able to fly to Tokyo in 30 minutes today. But that hasn't happened. Stock prices in the 1990's didn't keep going up. We don't have nuclear vacuum cleaners. And so on -- you look around, most trends stop. (In our "Future of Religion" session, I pointed out the phenomenal growth of Islam, and asked if *that* trend will continue?)

When I read "Future Shock", I thought it would be good to discuss the topic of "Future Shock" in its own right -- in other words, to discuss Toffler's predictions themselves, not just his methodology of prediction. A lot of our discussion wandered to the ideas themselves.

We talked about how, for example, people tend to feel more "disconnected". I mentioned the article by John Perry Barlow (link below) where he counted smiles in various countries and found we had less than Africa. Amazingly this sense of "disconnectedness" is one of the things Toffler predicted.

Annie brought up a lot of related issues, like how people obsess with perfection, and do things like cosmetic surgery. (I have a link below on beauty that relates to a lot of the stuff we talked about on this issue.)

And just how there is so much pressure for everything to look "slick". I experience the same thing trying to make websites look "slick". (How "slick" is my boulderfuture.org website? By the way the graphic at the top was redone by a professional graphic artist in LA, because my original attempt was too un-slick).

We had a great deal of discussion of these "psychological" issues, how the pace of change affects everything from marriage to theater to shopping for boots. (!) (You had to be there for that one).

So I think I will bring back the topic of "Future Shock" for a future discussion (date tbd). First I have to be clear what Toffler means by "Future Shock". He borrowed the term from "culture shock", the feeling of disorientation that you experience when you go to another culture. (If you, say, moved to France). So the idea is that when the pace of change is fast enough you feel disorientation in your own culture, because it changes faster than you are comfortable. I have to explain this because the term "Future Shock" has been borrowed by other people to mean different things, for example many people use it to refer to the feeling of shock you feel at the moment you realize some particular thing (artificial intelligence, for example) could happen in the future. That's not what Toffler meant. So anything relating to this general concept of adapting to accelerating change is appropriate.

So the idea is to get together and see if we can predict (or at least make some good guesses) what will happen in the future with all of these "psychological" issues/questions.

Additional Links

• The Pursuit of Emptiness by John Perry Barlow
• Why I Hate Beauty