[ExI] What's Wrong With Academic Futurists?

[Robin D Hanson]

On Jan 24, 2014, at 1:03 PM, Keith Henson wrote:
>> I'm talking about the kind of futurists mentioned here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studies
>> The kind that publish in the journals listed there. The Singularity Institute isn't part of that.
> 
> The list is a really mixed bag, and, among other things, it is missing
> Eric Drexler.  I might fix that and include Charles Stross as well.
> Who else should go on that list?

It isn't intended to be a list of all futurists. It is a list of a particular kind of futurist.

> A list that includes Ray Kurzweill and the Club of Rome would be hard
> to exceed in discordant views of the future.
> 
> I find it hard to take futurists seriously who are not on the bleeding
> edge of technology, but even those can be blind to the obvious.

To the contrary, I find it hard to take seriously futurists who seem to spend
all their time focused on the latest tech press releases. At most that helps you
see short term fluctuations. Futurists interested in the long term should focus
on long term trends and not so much short term fluctuations.

Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
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