Forecasters of Future Ignore Human Folly
A reader has sent me a promotional brochure for the World Future Society, (4916 Elmo Ave., Bethesda, Md. 20814-5089) “an institution for the study of alternative futures” and publisher of The Futurist, “a journal of forecasts, trends and ideas about the future.”
The brochure appears to be out of date, since it says the 21st Century is 15 years away (it is 11 years and eight months away), but its “social and technological forecasts for the next 25 years” are for dates that remain in the future.
It is my belief that the future does not exist. There is, especially, no such thing as “the foreseeable future.” The World Future Society denies that it predicts the future. Rather, it tries to predict what may happen if present trends continue, so we can work to change it for the better. So all its predictions imply an if .
I have heard time compared to a river. What is upstream is the future; what is downstream is the past. But of course we can intervene in the flow both upstream and downstream; we can not intervene in time past.
Most of the wonders of the 20th Century were unforeseen in the 19th. Men dreamed of flying; some imagined going to the moon; but who foresaw lasers, television, nuclear fusion, organ transplants, computer dating? Only madmen.
Still, future events are often a natural, if not inevitable, consequence of present events, so some of the society’s forecasts are fascinating; some seem absurd.
It predicts, for example, that by 2000 the average car will be mostly plastic and will last an average of 22 years. Plastic it may be; but it will require a change in human nature if the “average” car lasts 22 years. It is changing styles that cause people to junk their old cars for new ones. Who wants to drive a 20-year-old car, unless it’s a classic?
They note that NASA plans to have a moon base by 2007, a self-supporting outpost made up of people from all nations. “This settlement could make important contributions toward establishing world peace.”
I predict that if such a moon base exists by 2007 it will be rent by discontent, greed, rivalry, political turmoil and boredom, and by 2017 it will be in civil war.
They forecast that by 2000 52% of the world’s people will reside in urban centers. “That number may leap to 90% by the end of the 21st Century.”
According to present trends, the first prediction may be accurate. But how can they foresee what will be in 2100? By 2100 the planet may have been wiped clean of humanity by nuclear warfare, though that seems more and more unlikely. Half of those who now live in cities will have been nauseated by overcrowding, traffic congestion (one plastic car will bang into another plastic car every two seconds), trash, pollution and the general computerization of life, that they will have moved to such rural havens as Good Thunder, Minn., and Buffalo Gap, Tex.
The society forecasts that “a worldwide economic collapse is extremely likely in the next few years.” It also reports that by the end of the century “economists are forecasting that the U.S. economy will generate $4 (trillion) to $5 trillion in new capital assets.” Which forecast do you believe?
It forecasts that by the 1990s “animal and plant species may be disappearing at the rate of 10,000 per year,” largely due to the destruction of tropical forests. “Every hour one species will become extinct, some biologists believe.”
I think that is undoubtedly true--but not in the future. It’s happening now. Maybe if we get those people up on the moon they can stop it.
But I’d like to hear some predictions about the near, if not the foreseeable future.
Will the Lakers make it three championships in a row? Will the Dodgers make it two? Will President Bush live out his term? Nadine Gemignani of Long Beach has put the possibility of Bush’s untimely demise, and its consequences, in a morbid verse:
There’s a nasty little rumor
That if Bush’s heart should fail
There’s an agent with a zoomer
Who has orders to shoot Quayle.
Do you realize that our President then would be Jim Wright?
Sometimes it’s best not to think about the future.
