From: Steve Davies (steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Fri May 23 2003 - 11:59:22 MDT
Natasha said
. Inasmuch, it seems to me that a future oriented political agenda would pertain to the current issues - even the ones we like to ignore because they are beneath us - rather than so dramatic a belief about how things ought to be. It isn't productive or promising to be staunch in any one 20th Century political sphere. A more apt agenda would be one that is workable and global. This is why I tend to imprint on catalytic schemas such as the ones produced by Bucky Fuller. I'd like to know of someone who is thinking more futuristically when discussing political models.
Me too! There's clearly an interest in/demand for this but it doesn't happen. I think the problem in part is the lack of a vocabulary or discourse for discussion of such matters. The only kind of language that seems to be widely used now is the apocalyptic one, according to which the world is going to the dogs, we are on the edge of catastrophe, nothing can be done but a pure remnant will be saved and start afresh. The whole language of "progress" and "improvement" has been tarnished unfortunately.
Natasha
> At ExI, we are working on a "Worlds Smallest Futurist Quiz, and
> I'm working on a version for my talk at the TransVision
> Conference. For this, I was planning on solicitating Ander's
> keen mind :-)
Anders
I would be delighted! After all, there are different kinds of
futures and futurists too. However, that sounds somewhat different
from the inherently political quiz I suggested in this thread.
Maybe that's a misleading distinction?
>I'm not sure just how to does this for a futurists' quiz, but at
>least I've got the first 2 questions. The night before last, my
>mother, Max and I tossed around a few ideas and this was provoking
>because of the differences between an 85 year old and baby
>boomers. We focused on biotechnological questions and my mother
>proved to be extropic in her thinking here. But not everywhere!
>I think that to design a balanced quiz, it would require either a
>person who is very sharp or a team of people from diverse
>backgrounds to test the questions.
I think we need to think about what the quiz should reveal or be
used for. One approach is to show the assumptions about the
speed/size of future changes and one's valence to it (e.g. Bill Joy
is close to our idea of the size and speed, but not that it is a
good thing, while many conservative thinkers are negative but do
not believe any real change is on the horizon). Another approach is
to look at how radical changes are conceivable within different
areas, and how well these can be integrated into coherent world
models of the future.
I think this is very important. It's amazing how little work has actually been done on how people generally conceive of change, the future, and their place in it.
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