Four Ways to
See the Future (Fonte)
There are four ways to envision
the future, argues James Cascio. As
any interpretative scheme, it sometimes
fails to capture complexity. Why would
it not be possible to hold simultaneously
to optimism/pessimism and realism/idealism.
In P2P Theory, that's precisely what
we aim to do.
"It struck me recently, while talking
with my friend Jacob Davies, that the
relative success of WorldChanging and
similar projects could be linked to
the re-invigoration of a worldview combining
optimism (a belief that success
is possible, and can be broadly achieved)
and realism (a belief that
global processes are imperfect and cannot
be perfected, and change happens through
compromise and evolution). Jacob gave
some further thought to this idea, and
elaborated a bit on its implications
in a comment at the Making Light weblog.
The combination of belief sets -- optimism
vs. pessimism, realism vs. idealism
-- offer us a matrix for describing
divergent ways of looking at the future.
It's important to note first off that
there isn't a strict correlation here
between politics and foresight worldview.
Both premillennial dispensationalists
(the Left Behind, "rapture
ready" types) and traditional revolutionary
Marxists would be situated in the lower-right
Idealist-Pessimist box, for example.
It wouldn't be hard to find similar
pairs of contrasting ideologies for
the other boxes.
Instead, let's populate the matrix
with examples of differing approaches
to understanding a changing world.
In the upper left, Optimist-Realist,
we can put WorldChanging and its fellow-travelers
-- success is possible, but requires
a clear understanding of problems and
a willingness to adapt to meet changing
conditions (use new tools, work with
new allies, etc.). I put myself in this
category, too (unsurprisingly), and
I suspect that a large portion of the
new generation of people doing foresight
work would call this box home.
In the upper right, Pessimist-Realist,
probably the most familiar manifestation
would be the cyberpunk sub-genre of
science fiction, where the world
is complex, change is messy, and the
best we can hope for is staving off
the worst of it for our own (likely
small) group. As Jacob noted, many traditional
environmentalists fall into this box;
I'd also put various critics of technology
such as Neil
Postman or Bill
McKibben in this category.
In the lower right, Pessimist-Idealist,
we can find (as noted) the religious
revolutionaries, be they Left Behind-type
Christians, Caliphate-fixated Muslims,
or Third Temple-building Jews, all ready
to wash away the unbelievers and enemies
in order to transform the world.
I would also put the "back to the Pleistocene"
Deep Ecologists here, too, the folks
who think that the only way to save
the planet is to wipe out 9/10ths of
the population.
Finally, in the lower left, Optimist-Idealist,
are those who see a transcendent, transformative
future available to all. The most visible
manifestation of this worldview can
be found in those who see the advent
of a technological Singularity fixing
the world's problems and giving us all
near-infinite knowledge and power.
I don't put all Transhumanist-type folks
here; James Hughes is an excellent example
of someone who sees both a potential
for technology-driven transformation
and the need to work to make sure the
benefits extend beyond a small group
of elites. But anyone who has read Ray
Kurzweil's books The Age of Spiritual
Machines and The Singularity
is Near knows how readily the Singularitarians
can slip into millennialist language.
For now, this matrix gives us a taxonomy
of futurism, but it may prove to be
a useful tool for understanding heretofore
unexpected alliances (such as the growing
anti-technology coalition between some
environmentalists and some religious
conservatives).