[ExI] Too Much Futurism or Not Enough?

[Natasha Vita-More]

I remember 20-30 years ago when we talked about the future, it was exciting
and the ideas of living longer and building new bodies was fun. The only
"future" folks making projections about the future were Al Toffler, FM
Esfandiary and John Naisbitt. Then there was Faith Popcorn and a few others,
but no one reached the level of Toffler in his vision and insights, scope
and reason.

 

Today, it is everywhere.  It is advertized like Coca-ColaR and some of the
hyperbole is like loud noise.

 

I'm wondering, is the future part of science or is it entertainment?  On the
one had we need to understand the future and participate in the discussion,
know the terminology and the references. On the other hand, futurism - this
new branding of the field of futurology has taken a neofuturist turn and I
am not sure it is helping or not.

 

What has occurred is this (imho):  Futurism got married to entrepreneurism
(the Silicon Valley virus that started many years ago, but was hyped by TED,
and has infiltrated some strong segments of design (product design and
industrial design) in academics, and now more recently the Singularity
University). This is good on many fronts and not so good on others.  The not
so good has to do with the depth of knowledge and understanding about the
future, its historical links to the past, the deeper issues and need for
discussion rather than running after rainbows.  A friend of mine posted this
video clip on his blog:  http://www.gf2045.com/  It caused me to gag
(probably because of the voice over). The term neohuman is just another way
of saying transhuman . But this looks like a fun project and I see some
people I truly love who are involved.  

 

Anyway, back to the topic:  Is there something here that is missing?
Something that the scope of all the talk about the future is missing?
Everywhere one turns, it is about the future and rushing to get it done,
make money off it of, produce conferences, create celebrities of people who
think about the future .  

 

It seems that there is something missing.  I don't know what and perhaps it
is just a "gut" feeling.  But I trust my instincts and I sense this quite
strongly.

 

Natasha

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