SCENARIO
INCASTING: Exploring Possible Alternative
Futures
as developed at the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies
(fonte)
This exercise
uses a foresight technique called incasting:thinking up the
specific details of a possible future based on a more general
scenario description. Incasting begins with an array of possible
futures: several different scenarios, all based on observed
trends and emerging issues in society, the economy, technological
innovation, the environment, and political activity. Descriptions
of five different POSSIBLE futures have been distributed.
You and your working group have been assigned ONE of those
scenarios.
IN
USING SCENARIOS for this exercise, it is important that you
suspend your disbelief. Do not ask HOW this scenario came
to exist; do not question its fundamental assumptions: you
have awakened to find yourself living in it. What is your
life like?
Each
group should designate one person to act as your group’s recorder
Given
the characteristics of this scenario, and following the rule
of logical consistency, what would the following be like in
this future?
- Commuting
to work
- Health
care
- Leisure
activities [what do people do for fun?]
- Education
[what skills or substantive knowledge do people need most,
how is that passed from one generation to the next?]
- Crimes
[what would be illegal given the values and perspectives
of this future?]
Report
your findings as a series of headlines in the news media appropriate
to this future [and tell us how news gets disseminated].
Imagine
what political controversies, international events, critical
issues, awards, celebrations, sports events, and other newsworthy
items might occur in this future. Take details to their logical,
if extreme, conclusions. Remember that some traditional activities,
offices, organizations, and lifestyles may disappear entirely
in your scenario. Some lifestyles and activities may be transformed,
existing in this future in an entirely new form. And this
future may compel the creation of entirely new offices, services,
businesses, schools, and activities. Exceed the boundaries
of the present wherever it seems logical given the context
of the scenario: your suggestions only need to be logically
consistent with the assumptions of the scenario.
Be
prepared to present your headlines and cartoons to the group
as a whole.
TAKE FORTY
MINUTES.
The
Continued Growth Future
“Continued
Growth” describes a future in which the global economic system
becomes more and more efficient and effective at mass production,
distribution and marketing: the extreme outgrowth of
the global mass media/ consumption trends.
The late
‘80’s and ‘90s saw increasing privatization of government
services, in an attempt to cut back on government spending
and the federal deficit. “Education Alternatives, Inc.”
was brought to court in 2012 on charges of monopolizing the
primary and secondary educational sector. The Fortune
500 added so many employee amenities to to their benefits
packages that corporate citizenship became more important
than country of origin. The result was the growth of
the corporate-nation-states, and global market integration
and homogenization. Technological innovations in 2023
go swiftly from lab to production line to market, and global
market saturation time for new consumer products has dropped
to less than one year. The rich and the poor have better
access to more goods, and the elite are now those who command
the corporations’ executive privileges. Environmental
preservation occurs only insofar as it maintains comparative
economic advantage.
The
Decline and Collapse Future
“Decline
and Collapse” describes a future of global breakdown:
economic, political, and environmental.”
A worldwide
depression in 2001 generated by the instabilities of over-heated
Asian and American stock markets , and triggered by the havoc
the “Year 2000 problem” wrought on the international financial
communications links, caused the collapse of the international
economic system. This collapse was made worse by terrorism,
regional wars and border skirmishes, and environmental problems.
Technological systems and communications links never
fully recovered from the Y2K glitch -- and the attendant “quick
fix” patches that many desperate systems administrators attempted;
international production and distribution of goods collapsed,
as many of the automated resource, inventory, and tracking
systems had sufferered their own Y2K snafus; and the internal
distribution of needed goods and basic services also collapsed
in many countries. Countries became more isolated from
each other, and communities became isolated within countries.
By 2023, we have seen the return of city-states, urban tribal
systems, war clans, and roving bands of refugee nomads on
both land and sea.
The
Sustainable Development Future
This
scenario, sometimes called the “Green Future,” or “Conserver
Society,” emerges from the growth of environmental values
and ecological concerns worldwide.
The undeniable
environmental changes witnessed around the globe in the late
nineties and early aughts shifted values everywhere away from
materialism, and toward an intense respect for the environment.
This respect translated into the use of appropriate technologies,
the development of environmentally-friendly high technologies,
and the resurrection of traditional modes of relating respectfully
to nature. The cascade of application breakthroughs
in the 2010s in genetic engineering and biotechnology allowed
advanced bioremediation of polluted areas and the beginning
of re-establishment for endangered and extinct species, although
even by 2023 only a fraction of the needed ecological repairs
had been made. More and more human communities scaled
down from metropolises to towns. Socialization in the
2020s stresses self-sufficiency, re-use of material goods,
targetted, high-efficiency use of resources, and nurturing
the biosphere. As a result of the shift away from materialism,
a much higher value is now placed on learning and the arts.
The
Disciplined Society Future
The
“Disciplined Society”emerges from worldwide trends in political
extremism, nationalism, ethnocentrism, and fundamentalism.
The turn
of the millennium seemed to excite political extremists, terrorists,
nationalists, and religious fundamentalists all over the world
into a “now or never” fever of activity: all over the
world, conservative nationalists seized power in provinces,
states, countries. Societies became more and more conservative
in the face of rapid change to which none of their populations,
seemingly, could adjust comfortably. In reaction to
future shock, people became more and more focussed on traditional
mores and modes of life during the aughts and teens of the
new century. Only a very narrow range of behaviors,
beliefs, and political ideologies are considered acceptable
in places where the ethno-fundamentalists now hold power.
Art and expressive communication are cramped and censored
to support political and philosophical regimes. Control
of production became concentrated in the hands of a few charismatic
leaders who hobble economic action with political rules.
Societies in 2023 are not poor -- people’s basic needs are
more often met than in the past -- but the inefficiencies
in production, though they slow resource use, are not particularly
kind to the environment.
The
High Technology Transformational Future
“High
Technology Transformation” assumes that the innovations on
the horizon in the late 90s have flowered into a variety of
applications, both commercial and personal, that completely
overturn our concepts of “normality.”
Human
inventiveness has triumphed! Advances in energy production,
such as cheap fusion power and zero-point energy, give the
world clean, abundant supplies of energy. Advances in
robotics, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnologies, give
humanity very precise, automated control over all of our environments.
Advances in genetic engineering and the biological sciences
give us very precise control over our bodies, and our definitions
of who and what we are: cosmetic sculpting of one’s
appearance and basic bodily structure are possible with targetted
DNA injections. Advances in telecommunications, such
as high-definition, multi-sense holography and virtual reality,
let us create versions of our inner visions and fantasies
so real many people have ceased to interact with “real” social
reality. International data and telecommunications networks
have expanded so that everyone now freely shares information
and opinions: regional and global direct democracies
are the most common form of governance. As for the environment,
respect for the environment is just part of rational environmental
management -- which is handled mostly by the artificial intelligences
anyway.
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