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Sci Fi Futures

Our Annual Spring Gathering is an opportunity for our extended futures family to come together and socialize, and dig a little deeply in new, emerging, and or even neglected topics. The influence of science fiction on futures, particularly Horizon 3 futures, is pretty obvious for most (although I recall a boss who felt it was “useless” in terms of application to “real” futures work). Several science fictions authors have navigated in to professional futurist work. Bruce Sterling and David Brin come to mind from the past, and Karl Albrecht more recently

We’ve been talking about doing this topic for a few years and finally I was able to persuade alum, futurist, and sci fi guy Tim Morgan to teach a summer elective on Sci Fi Futures, so we decided to get the ball rolling by focusing our Spring Gathering on the topic. Tim is a past chair of FenCon, a literary science fiction and fantasy convention.

In our curriculum, we’ve been exploring the pioneering work of futurist Brian David Johnson on “science fiction prototyping.” In short, the method uses science fiction as a way to imagine our future in a whole new way. It’s a significant shift from reading sci fi for provocative ideas to applying it as a distinct project methodology.

If you’d like to attend the Spring Gathering in Houston on Friday April 17 and Saturday the 18th, shoot Laura (laura.schlehuber@gmail.com) an email. — Andy Hines

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Why create visions or images?

We had a nice discussion on the APF list last week that started out on the gig economy and ended up exploring ideas for visions or images of the post-capitalist future. It was suggested that those looking at after capitalism were perhaps hypnotized and failing to recognize that capitalism was simply reinventing itself again. Fair point! A big question from the works I’ve reviewed so far is that many indeed suggest a next phase of capitalism, which I’m capturing as the Horizon Two transition concepts. It was also suggested that the smart money is on these reinvention ideas compared to post-capitalism. Again, fair point. But that raises a question of what futurists ought to be doing.

Is our job to suggest where to put the smart money on the future? In some cases  the answer is yes. For many clients, we are indeed helping them to develop a more informed view of the emerging future by crafting plausible alternative futures — so that they can make the necessary course corrections. But we have another job: crafting images of preferred futures! Long-term preferred futures at that. Horizon Three. If we don’t, who will? [Well, science fiction does some of that — and some of it is very, very good]. But I think most futurists would agree that at least part of our job is to open up the possibility space for our clients, the public, and everyone to imagine where we might go (and what we want to avoid).

My answer: I spend more of my time on Horizon 2 and I’d like to shift to more time on Horizon 3.

Indeed, more Horizon 3 work is part of the motivation for the After Capitalism work. We know Polak’s charge – the lack of a positive guiding image is the downfall of a civilization. So we’ve been sifting through concepts via the capitalism/post-capitalism lens for the last few years. Clearly, the question is bigger than just economics, but the “centrality” of capitalism to much of the world’s way of life makes it a fruitful starting point.

The argument about “is capitalism dying” or “when will it die” is an interesting and useful one that needs to be discussed. But that doesn’t mean we should neglect to consider what might come after. Shame on us if it is dying, and we don’t have positive and compelling alternatives to suggest. Andy Hines

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The Sharing Economy Transition

In my emerging scheme for organizing the concepts for what’s next and after capitalism, I am placing the sharing economy and its brothers and sisters in the Horizon Two Zone of Transition (and innovation). To put it simply, it seems to me that these concepts have one foot in the old neoliberal capitalist world (H1), and one in the emerging visions of H3. I found a nice book on sharing: Arun Sundararajan’s The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based Capitalism that provides us some great ideas to play with.

The sharing family of concepts has some aspects of traditional markets and some aspects of “new” gift ideas. Some is profit-motivated and some is purpose-driven. Airbnb hosts typically join sharing platforms to make money. Couchsurfers do it as a way to meet people or to make new friends, as well finding a place to stay. Of course there is lots of overlap between these two.

Lawrence Lessig notes this dual nature in his 2008 book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy“ observes that there exists not just the commercial economy, which meters access on the simple metric of price, but also a sharing economy, where access to culture is regulated not by price but by a complex set of social relations.” Botsman and Rogers’ Rise of Collaborative Consumption observes that access in hyper consumption is defined by credit, whereas access in collaborative consumption is driven by reputation.

He also bring in Juliet Schor’s notion of “stranger sharing,” which shift the source of what we value commercially away from traditional corporations and toward a crowd of entrepreneurs we find through a digital marketplace.

Perhaps the shift could be summed up as:

 

 

 

Some questions

There are still lots of questions about how this might work:

  • Will the sharing economy ultimately represent the rise of the microentrepreneur—a generation of self-employed workers who are empowered OR will it represent the culmination of the end of broad-based and high standards of living that the United States witnessed in the 1950s and 1960s—a disparaging race to the bottom? For instance, Robert Reich asserts that a better name for the sharing economy would be the “share-the-scraps economy.”
  • While there’s clearly tremendous potential efficiency from “access over ownership,” are peer-to-peer rental markets viable at scale for anything other than really expensive assets like homes and cars?
  • Might we witness the emergence of new guilds—worker organizations that set their own standards of service?

There are some interesting ideas relating to p2p and Blockchain as well, but let’s save that for part 2. – Andy Hines

 

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Horizon timing

We have no shortage of big issues ahead: the Singularity, post-capitalism, possible ecosystem collapse. These are plainly in view. At the same time, we can reflect at some other issues – while perhaps not on the same impact scale, that we also had plenty of lead time for: 3D printing, fracking, and automated vehicles are couple in the new today that we started discussing decades ago.

Futurists do a great job of identifying Horizon 3 weak signals and the stronger signals in Horizon 2. I wonder, however, if we can do a better job with their timing? In theory we should see a jump in scanning hits for H3 (and H2 as well) as the transition “heats up.” We should also see scanning hits portending the decline of H1. Interestingly, I don’t think I’ve called out the importance of detecting the decline of H1 – I’d be interested to hear if or how others do that!

In H3, we look for scanning hits to cluster and catalyze change. We always pay particular attention to signals coming from many sectors pointing in a common direction, that is, signals from multiple STEEP categories are “hitting.” There is help available. We have Molitor’s emerging issue curve to help us here. I have Bill Sharpe’s “Three Horizon: the Patterning of Hope” on my Bookshelf.” For those new to the horizon’s I high recommend Andrew Curry and Anthony Hodgson’s “Seeing in Multiple Horizons,” and APF Most Significant Futures Work award (from which I derived the figure). And a host of work on emerging issues.

Most of my scenario work is aimed at Horizon 2, which makes sense, but I’m wondering if I’m neglecting the emergence of H3 from the fringe toward H2? Another  challenge that I have is that my attention to various issues wavers over time. For instance, there have been times over the last twenty years that I  dug into 3D printing, but also long periods where it was not on our project radar and I’d lose track of it a bit. For me, in terms of how I practice as a futurist today, I’m rarely able to consistently track issues over time. I might have time to pick one, for instance, I did maintain a fairly consistent eye on consumer values changes. And now I’m trying to do the same with post-capitalism.

But I wonder how many of we “generalist” futurists switch from topic to topic such that we might miss some of the subtleties of the transition between horizons. It may be that we need to lean on our colleagues who are in-depth subject matter experts on a topic. In sum, I’m looking for better ways to “time” the future and be more useful to clients and the public. After all, that’s what its all about! Andy Hines

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[The idea of] the Singularity is Here

Timing and the future has been coming up a lot in my recent work. [My favorite piece is “seeing in multiple horizons“] Whether it’s talking about shale, and how futurists (and others) were talking about non-conventional oil production back in the 1990s. Or a similar story with 3D printing/desktop manufacturing. And now with the Singularity, as audiences are asking questions about it and where it came from.

It’s no long “near” – the [idea of] of the Singularity is “here,” in the sense of entering the mainstream. Hollywood, as is often the case, helps bring an image of the future to a mass audience. In this case it is the rather disappointing treatment of the Singularity in “Transcendence.” There were, of course, the Terminator (way back in 1984) and Matrix series, but they did not make explicit mention of the Singularity. Kurzweil and the Singularity Institute folks are also making pretty regular appearances in mainstream news as well.

On Monday, I talked about it to a group of chemical industry professionals the 2015 Polyolefins Conference. A show of hands suggested about half of the room had heard of the Singularity. And then it came up on a KTRH Houston radio interview yesterday, actually in the context of discussing Michio Kaku’s idea on brain control, which triggered a reference to yet another movie – Total Recall.

It’s usually true that futurists are chewing on issues long before they reach the mainstream (that’s kind of the idea, right?). By the time they get here, we may be a bit bored with them. Friend and colleague John Smart reminded me that I somewhat glibly said I was bored with the Singularity a while back.

The singularity is a bit different in that it’s the concept – not the singularity itself – that is exploding on the scene. I guess I’m just acknowledging the transition – kinda of cool to watch an issue move along the emerging issues curve right before our eyes. Andy Hines

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APF Most Significant Futures Works Program 2015

One of my favorite things I do as a futurist is to help coordinate the APF’s Most Significant Futures Works program. It is an opportunity to recognize the outstanding work of futurists and others exploring the future. It is also vitally important that we spread the word about good foresight work, so the public and potential clients know what it looks like….and want more of it.

The program kicked off in 2008 with a retrospective recognition of outstanding futures works from the past. Since then, it’s been an annual event (with a “pause” in 2010 and 2011) in which judges recognize outstanding works in three categories:

  • Category 1 Advance the methodology and practice of foresight and futures studies
  • Category 2 Analyze a significant future issue
  • Category 3 Illuminate the future through literary or artistic works.

To get the ball rolling this year, I have nominated two works (in Category 1 and 3):

Nominations are restricted to APF members, but if any reader has come across a great piece of foresight work, let me know (ahines@uh.edu) and I’ll explore getting it nominated. Check out the previous winners. —Andy Hines

Past MSFW Award Winners

2014 Awards
Category 1 Advance the methodology and practice of foresight and futures studies
1. Teaching about the Future , Peter Bishop & Andy Hines

  1. The Five Futures Glasses: How to See and Understand More of the Future with the Eltville Model, Pero Micic
    3. (tie):

Category 2 Analyze a significant future issue
1. Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World, Emma Marris
2013 Awards
Category 1 Advance the methodology and practice of foresight and futures studies

  1. Foresight Maturity Model,Terry Grim
  2. A New Methodology for Anticipating STEEP Surprises, Oliver Markley
  3. Seeing in Multiple Horizons: Connecting Futures to Strategy, Andrew Curry and Anthony Hodgson

Category 2 Works that Contribute to the Understanding of the Future of a Significant Area

  1. Anticipatory Governance: Practical Upgrades, Leon Fuerth with Evan Faber
  2. 2052: A Global Forecast for the Next 40 Years, Jorgen Randers

Category 3 Presents New Images of the Future

  1. Food for the City , Stroom den Haag
2012 Awards
Category 1 Advance the methodology and practice of foresight and futures studies

  1. It’s Your Future… Make It a Good One! Verne Wheelwright
  2. The Black Swan , Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Category 2 Analyze a significant future issue
1. Prosperity Without Growth: Transition to a Sustainable Economy, Professor Tim Jackson
2. The Biggest Wake Up Call in History, Richard Slaughter

Category 3: Illuminate the future through literary or artistic works
1. “Evoke!” Jane McGonigal
2009 Awards
  1. “SuperStruct,” IFTF/Jane McGonigal, Jamais Cascio & Kathi Vian
  2. “Integral Futures,” edited by Richard Slaughter, Peter Hayward (APF), Joseph Voros
  3. “Six Pillars: Futures Thinking for Transforming,” Sohail Inayatullah

Honorable mentions were awarded to three others.
2008 “Retrospective” Awards

 

 

 

 

 

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Foresight and the Clash of the Timeframes

In this morning’s New York Times, I came across three stories relating to the future and the public sector.

The story that first caught my attention was “With a Departure, a Job Is Again Redefined.” President Obama just appointed his third “Senior Advisor,” Dan Pfeiffer, succeeding David Axelrod and David Plouffe. The story suggests that the president wasn’t sure if needed this advisor, but ultimately decided yes, in order to have someone who could continue to take the long view. They quote Plouffe saying “The president does want someone who’s thinking down the road a little bit….thinking about things strategically…..you’re thinking about the next move or two or three.” The piece goes on to suggest the role is akin to equal parts counselor, confidant, strategy and truth-teller. I initially just sighed and longed for a day when futurist might at least be one of the “equal parts.” But within constraints of a “next move or two” timeframe, there might not be much for a futurist to do anyway.

The second story was “Official Says Israel Has Options Short of War to Hinder Iran’s Nuclear Ambition.” In it, a senior US defense official was quoted: “The US military constantly plans for a range of contingencies we might face around the world, and our planning is often quite detailed….That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.” Without getting into a discussion of whether it is a surprise or not, clearly the military’s planning horizon is extending beyond the administration’s.

One final ingredient.  A third story, The “Disaster Preppers Next Door” featured the “bug-out” bag, basically the essentials for making one’s escape from the collapse of civilization. It veers between good, sensible disaster-preparedness, and a somewhat surreal notion that a backpack full of gadgets will enable one to survive an apocalypse. The timeframes of this movement seem to vary between a very short-term “escape” and a larger notion of adapting to a civilizational collapse. Just the fact that this movement is out there means that a constituency of the government has really given up on it. This is not the typical complaining, or even disgust or anger, but literally checking out. As this article points out, the movement is not just a bunch of crazies, and most of us probably know someone taking these kinds of steps (in a personal note, my tax guy is one). Their timeframe is murky, but one might say it’s a fairly long-term view (although some may feel the collapse is imminent).

So here we have three different timeframes regarding the public sector in one Sunday edition of the newspaper. It reminded me of a point raised in my recent re-read of “Panarchy: Understanding Transformations in Human and Natural Systems.”

It talked about how a tricky problem in dealing with natural and human systems is that “P9 “one of the most telling properties of ecological systems emerge from the interactions between slow- and fast-moving processes….” Put simply, systems operate on different timescales.

Another connection I made comes from an Association of Professional Futurists listserve discussion of systems mapping, in which an excellent piece by Schultz, Crews and Lum: Scenarios: A Hero’s Journey across Turbulent Systems suggests how scenarios can handle multiple timeframe challenges. It referenced some outstanding earlier work by Curry and Hodgson: “Seeing in multiple horizons: Connecting futures to strategy.”

As I think about where foresight might benefit from putting its attention, I’ll nominate dealing with multiple timeframes as a challenge worthy of greater attention. And we’re seeing some nice work beginning to emerge around it. Andy Hines