The study of the future researches the medium-term to long-term future of societies and of the physical world. In a linear conception of time, the future is the portion of the timeline that is still to occur, i. ... For the song by the California punk band Pennywise, see Society (song). ...

Sample predicted futures, as of 2003, range from predicted ecological catastrophes, to a utopian future where the poorest human being lives in what present-day observers would regard as wealth and comfort, to the transformation of humanity into a posthuman life-form, to the destruction of all life on Earth in a nanotechnological disaster. 2003 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, and also: The International Year of Freshwater The European Disability Year Events January events January 1 Luíz Inácio Lula Da Silva becomes the 37th President of Brazil. ... Man-made negative alteration of the ecosystem that has widespread or long lasting consequences. ... Utopia, in its most common and general meaning, refers to an imaginary perfect society, that does not (yet) exist, or that can never exist because people are unable to reach perfection or endure tyranny forever. ... Posthumanism is an emergent philosophy. ... A mite next to a gear set produced using MEMS, the precursor to nanotechnology. ...

Futurists have a decidedly mixed reputation and a patchy track record at successful prediction. For obvious reasons, they often extrapolate present technical and societal trends and assume they will develop at the same rate into the future; but technical progress and social upheavals, in reality, take place in fits and starts and in different areas at different rates. Thus many 1950s futurists predicted commonplace space tourism by the year 2000, but ignored the possibilities of ubiquitous, cheap computers, while Marxist utopias have yet to fully materialise. On the other hand, many forecasts have portrayed the future with some degree of accuracy. Many futurists aim to present multiple scenarios in order to help their readers/listeners envision what MAY occur instead of merely "predicting the future". Understanding potential scenarios, they claim, will help individuals and organizations prepare with flexibility. // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the height of the baby-boom from returning... Space tourism is the recent phenomenon of space travel by individuals for the purpose of personal pleasure. ... A computer is a device or machine for processing information according to a program — a compiled list of instructions. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century German philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Utopia, in its most common and general meaning, refers to an imaginary perfect society, that does not (yet) exist, or that can never exist because people are unable to reach perfection or endure tyranny forever. ...

As of 2003 over 40 tertiary education establishments around the world teach one or more courses in futures studies. The World Futures Studies Federation has a comprehensive database of futures courses. 2003 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, and also: The International Year of Freshwater The European Disability Year Events January events January 1 Luíz Inácio Lula Da Silva becomes the 37th President of Brazil. ...

Terminology

The discipline goes by different terms, depending on the cultural context, including future studies, futurism, futurology, prospective (France), and prospectiva (Latin America). Futures studies has become the common term in the English-speaking world.

The Acceleration Studies Foundation maintains a webpage listing several types of futurist definitions.

Methodologies

Practitioners of the discipline previously concentrated on extrapolating present technological, economic or social trends, or on attempting to predict future trends, but more recently they have started to examine social systems and uncertainties and to build scenarios. In mathematics, extrapolation is a type of interpolation. ... Technology (Gr. ... Economics (deriving from the Greek words οίκω [okos], house, and νέμω [nemo], rules hence household management) is the social science that studies the allocation of scarce resources to satisfy unlimited wants. ... // Latin root meaning The term social is derived from the Latin word socius, which as a noun means an associate, ally, companion, business partner or comrade and in the adjectival form socialis refers to a bond between people (such as marriage) or to their collective or connected existence. ... In statistics, a trend is a long-term movement in time series data after other components have been accounted for. ... A prediction is a statement or claim that a particular event will occur in the future. ... A system is an assemblage of inter-related elements comprising a unified whole. ... Scenario planning is a strategic planning method that some organizations use to make flexible long-term plans. ...

Apart from extrapolation and scenarios, many dozens of methods and techniques have uses in futures research; they include:

1. the Delphi method
2. brainstorming
3. morphological analysis.

Futures Studies also includes normative or preferred futures, but a major contribution involves connecting both extrapolated (exploratory) and normative research to help individuals and organisations to build better social futures amid a (presumed) landscape of shifting social changes. The Delphi method and consensus building The Delphi method is a technique aimed at building an agreement, or consensus about an opinion or view, without necessarily having people meet face to face, such as through surveys, questionaires, emails etc. ... Brainstorming is an organized approach for producing ideas by letting the mind think without interruption. ... Morphological analysis is a technique developed by Fritz Zwicky for exploring all the possible solutions to a particular technical problem. ...

Practitioners use varying proportions of inspiration and research.

Futures studies, although sometimes based on science, cannot follow the scientific method, as they cannot falsify their predictions except by waiting for the definitive future to happen. They can and do, however, apply many scientific techniques. // What is science? There are different theories of what science is. ... The characterization phase can require extended and extensive study, even centuries. ... This page discusses how a theory or assertion is falsifiable (disprovable opp: verifiable), rather than the non-philosophical use of falsification, meaning counterfeiting. ...

Futurists

Practioners of future studies classify themselves as futurists or foresight practitioners (previously "futurologists").

Several authors have become recognized as futurists. They research trends (particularly in technology) and write accounts of their observations, conclusions, and predictions. In earlier eras, futurists followed a cycle of publishing their conclusions and then beginning research on the next book. More recently, they have started consulting groups or earn money as speakers. Alvin Toffler and John Naisbitt exemplify this class. Many business gurus present themselves as futurists. A consultant is a professional that provides expert advice in a particular domain or area of expertise such as accountancy, information technology, the law, human resources, marketing, medicine, finance or more esoteric areas of knowledge, for example engineering and scientific specialties such as materials science, instrumentation, avionics, and stress analysis. ... Alvin Toffler Alvin Toffler (born October 3, 1928) is an American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communications revolution, corporate revolution and technological singularity. ...

Futurists have some things in common with the writers of science fiction, and indeed some science-fiction writers, such as Arthur C. Clarke, have aquired a certain reputation as futurists. Some writers, though, show less interest in technological or social developments and use the future only as a backdrop to their stories. For example, in the introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin wrote of prediction as the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurists, not of writers: "a novelist's business is lying". Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (born 16 December 1917) is a British author and inventor, probably most famous for his science-fiction novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... The Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, published in 1969. ... Ursula K. Le Guin at an informal bookstore Q&A session, July 2004 Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (born October 21, 1929), is an American author. ... Categories: Business | Academic disciplines | School subjects ...

Several organizations for futurists exist. For instance, the Association of Professional Futurists aims to promote futurists as valuable professionals through networking, conferences, and other activities involving its members. A profession is a specialized work function within society, generally performed by a professional. ...

Scope

Some futurists have tackled cosmological studies, attempting to predict the long-term future of the entire universe, typically predicting either the heat death of the universe or a cosmic Big Crunch. Cosmology is the study of the large-scale structure and history of the universe. ... The heat death is a possible final state of the universe, in which it has reached maximum entropy. ... In cosmology, the Big Crunch is a hypothesis that states the universe will stop expanding and start to collapse upon itself; a counterpart to the Big Bang. ...

The discipline excludes those who make future predictions through supernatural means, and also usually excludes those people who attempt to forecast the short-term or readily foreseeable future. For instance, future studies would not generally include the work of economists who forecast movements of interest rates over the next business cycle, whereas those predicting the relative wealth of nations or blocs in a generation's time may well class as futurists. The supernatural (Latin:super- exceeding+nature) comprises forces and phenomena which are beyond the realm of current scientific understanding, and which may actually directly contradict conventional scientific understandings. ... U.S. Economic Calendar Economics at the Open Directory Project Economics textbooks on Wikibooks The Economists Economics A-Z Institutions and organizations Bureau of Labor Statistics - from the American Labor Department Center for Economic and Policy Research (USA) National Bureau of Economic Research (USA) - Economics material from the organization... An interest rate is the rental price of money. ... An abstract business cycle The business cycle or economic cycle refers to the ups and downs seen somewhat simultaneously in most parts of an economy. ...

Specific topics in futurology

• Future energy development
• Hubbert peak
• The Skeptical Environmentalist
• 15 Global Challenges

Energy development is the ongoing effort to provide abundant and accessible energy, through knowledge, skills and constructions. ... The Hubbert peak theory, also known as peak oil, is an influential theory concerning the long-term rate of conventional oil (and other fossil fuel) extraction and depletion. ... The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World (TSE) (Danish: Verdens Sande Tilstand) is a controversial book by political scientist Bjørn Lomborg, which argues that claims made about global warming, overpopulation, declining energy resources, deforestation, species loss, water shortages, and a variety of other global environmental issues...

Books predicting the future

• The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
• Brave New World: "The Essential Road Map to the Twenty-First Century"
• The Communist Manifesto
• Future Shock
• Limits to Growth
• Macroshift
• Rees, MJ. Our Final Hour. ISBN 0465068626.
• Visions

Time periods between key events in human history shrink expotentially in a chart by Kurzweil depicting his Law of Accelerating Returns, explained in the book. ... Book cover of Aldous Huxleys Brave New World. ... The Communist Manifesto, also known as The Manifesto of the Communist Party, first published on February 21, 1848, is one of the worlds most historically influential political tracts. ... Future Shock is a controversial book written by the sociologist and futurologist Alvin Toffler in 1970. ... Limits to Growth was a 1972 book modeling the consequences of a rapidly growing global population, commissioned by the Club of Rome. ... Sir Martin John Rees, FRS (born 23 June 1942) is a professor of astronomy. ... Our Final Hour is a 2003 book by the British Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees. ...

Near-term predictions

A long-running tradition in various cultures, and especially in the media, involves various spokespersons making predictions for the upcoming year at the beginning of the year. These predictions sometimes base themselves on current trends in culture (music, movies, fashion, politics); sometimes they make hopeful guesses as to what major events might take place over the course of the next year. Cultural studies developed in the late 20th century, in part through the re-introduction of Marxist thought into sociology, and in part through the articulation of sociology and other academic disciplines such as literary criticism. ... A prediction is a statement or claim that a particular event will occur in the future. ...

A number of paranormal activists, including self-proclaimed psychics, astrologers, and some religious figures, also make bold predictions regarding startling events that they believe will occur within the upcoming year. Anomalous phenomena are phenomena which are observed and for which there are no suitable explanations in the context of a specific body of scientific knowledge, e. ... Parapsychology is the study of the evidence involving phenomena where a person seems to affect or gain information about something through a means not currently explainable within the framework of mainstream, conventional science. ... An astrological chart (or horoscope) _ Y2K Chart — This particular chart is calculated for January 1, 2000 at 12:01:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time in New York City, New York, USA. (Longitude: 074W0023 - Latitude: 40N4251) Astrology (from Greek: αστρολογία = άστρον, astron, star + λόγος, logos, word) is... Look up belief in Wiktionary, the free dictionary Belief is assent to a proposition. ...

Some of these predictions come true as the year unfolds, though many fail. When predicted events fail to take place, the authors of the predictions often state that misinterpretation of the "signs" and portents may explain the failure of the prediction. A prediction is a statement or claim that a particular event will occur in the future. ... This article is about the Signs movie. ... Omens or portents are signs encountered fortuitously that are believed to foretell the future. ...

Marketers have increasingly started to embrace future studies, in an effort to cope with – and benefit from – a hypercompetitive marketplace with fast production cycles. Methodologies range from trendspotting, as popularized by Faith Popcorn; to actionable futurism, which translates classic futurist approaches to the shorter time-horizons deemed appropriate for marketing. Marketing is the collective field of advertising and promotion. ...

See also

• Astrology
• Cybernetics
• Drake equation
• Ecology
• List of futures scholars
• Malthusian catastrophe
• Millennium Project
• RAND Corporation
• Sociology
• State of the Future
• Technological singularity
• Timeline of the Future in Fiction
• Transhumanism
• World Future Society
• World Futures Studies Federation

An astrological chart (or horoscope) - Y2K Chart — This particular chart is calculated for January 1, 2000 at 12:01:00 A.M. Eastern Standard Time in New York City, New York, USA. (Longitude: 074W0023 - Latitude: 40N4251), using the tropical zodiac Astrology (from Greek: αστρολογία = άστρον, astron, star + λόγος, logos, word) is... Cybernetics is a theory of the communication and control of regulatory feedback. ... The Drake equation (also known as the Green Bank equation or the Sagan equation) is a famous result in the speculative fields of xenobiology, astrosociobiology and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. ... (Ecology is sometimes used incorrectly as a synonym for the natural environment. ... A Malthusian catastrophe, sometimes known as a Malthusian check, is a return to subsistence-level conditions as a result of agricultural (or, in later formulations, economic) production being eventually outstripped by growth in population. ... The Millennium Project provides an international capacity for early warning and analysis of global long-range issues, opportunities, and strategies. ... Alternate meanings: See RAND (disambiguation) The RAND Corporation is an American think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the U.S. military. ... Social interactions of people and their consequences are the subject of sociology studies. ... The annual State of the Future (print edition) assesses 15 Global Challenges, updates the State of the Future Index, gives brief summaries of other reseach during the year, and contains a CD an annotated scenario bibiograph of over 550 secenario sets, and research results and methods of all major research... When plotted on a logarithmic graph, 15 separate lists of key events in human history show an exponential trend. ... Science fiction and other related fields of fiction are often set in the future, or at least involve events in times that have not yet occurred. ... Transhumanism (sometimes the term is coded as >H or H+) is an emergent philosophy analysing or favouring the use of science and technology, especially neurotechnology, biotechnology, and nanotechnology, to overcome human limitations and improve the human condition. ... The World Future Studies Federation (WFSF) is a global network of practicing futurists -- researchers, teachers, scholars, policy analysts, activists and others. ...

External links

• The World Future Society
• A Futurist's Toolbox: a guide to methods and tools used by the UK government in medium and long-term trend-forecasting
• Principia Cybernetica: Links on future development
• Future-Institute
• Future Studies Methodology: Introduction to futuring and methods
• The Institute for the Future: The Institute for the Future (focuses on consumers, technology, health and health-care, workplaces, global commercial trends)
• Institute for Future Studies: Institute for Future Studies (focuses on education and technology)
• Masters of Science of Studies of the Future at the University of Houston: A future-studies graduate program
• Association of Professional Futurists: Professional organization for futurists
• Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies