Peter E. Pflaum - Golden Globe -

The Synergy Network Wiredbrain home site ppppflaump@cfl.rr.com


Will the real Future, please stand up?


In a few places on the planet the Agricultural revolution of 30,000 years ago is not firmly in place.

The Bushmen of S.W. Africa are just adapting to being farmers from hunter gathers. In my travels to north Africa the yoke is not used but oxen are pulling by their horns - I've seen this in Latin America as well. In Haiti the Age of Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, Liberal Democracy are some where in their future. Of the five billion souls on the Earth maybe a billion are living in the present. Even in America, Great Britain, France, Spain and other industrial countries there are pockets of peasant farmers unchanged over the last century.



The future will increase these differences.

The gaps become wider.


The future is for some but not for others:



The future is coming at us and we have little control over what it will be. An image of the future is one of our most important assets. What we would like it to be may help shape the reality of what it will be.



The present has not been close to past projections and "futurist" thinking. I have been reading "futurist" from the 70's and 80's and wonder why they are so wrong. It's not clear why the major themes of today are almost always missed. Why does futurist thought become so quick dated and obsolete. One reason is has been it is technology based, not principle based. Futurism has consistently fail to understand the driving forces in society.

The engines that make the future not the engineers in the roundhouse making new gadgets.



The competitive position of the world, the changes in the USS was, declines in social values and collective virtue, crisis of confidence, decline of public sector, all have been missed, missed, missed

The futurist are almost all dated and short sighted. Why has there been such a systemic failure to understand global trends. Why do futurist thought of the last decade seem so misguided and wrong? All the major trend have been over looked and almost all the their thoughts are not meaningful to today world. No other field become so quick obsolete. Even the grateful dead are still with us. If you look at almost any of the literature of the 70's or 80's from the Club of Rome, to thousands of expert reports on the future they are all strangle dated.

They are so wrong as to cause wonder if there is a systemic bias that lead otherwise smart people to be so wrong.


One problem is the pack instinct, they all say the same wrong things. It is the focus on technology and "what it can do". Technology is not the engine of change but social-technical systems.

They have missed the train while talking to the engineers in the roundhouse. What are the engines that drive the future and why can't we see it.

The underlining social values and collective actions that underline change have been understood by Monanhan, Wilson, Lipsets, Bell, and many other social scientist.

The decline in elites and power structures means a much more defuse system. It is international competition that drive s the engine on Health Care, Education, restructure etc.

The USS was, was trying to keep up when it failed.

The engine is coming at us and we need to see where we and it are going. We have some control over the future we want or the future we get.

The image of the future is out greatest asset. It has been very cloudy. Futurist are of no use. We will have to understand the world and our motives for ourselves and pay more attention to the wisdom of novelist, social critics, even journalist.


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