World Futures Review

Humanity has come to dominate the Earth for many reasons. We are robust, intelligent, industrious, cooperative, fecund, and have invented adaptive means to meet many difficulties. While we have been exceedingly successful on the individual and tribal levels, the collective impacts of seven billion people have taken a dark turn summarized in this unresolved conundrum: what is best for the individual is no longer best for everyone. Unfortunately, the institutions of democracy and capitalism have grown rigid and partisan, unable to constructively respond to current crises. The crux of the problem lies not with institutions, but ultimately in the flaws of individuals. Society is a reflection of culture, culture is a reflection of beliefs, and beliefs reflect our deepest needs and wants as human beings. If we are to change our fate, we must begin by changing ourselves: we need a better human.

This article outlines a dozen big and overlapping uncertainties that deserve to be addressed as serious concerns by anyone engaged in long-range planning. Authoritative reference works relating to each of these often overlooked or underrated concerns are noted.

Modern science offers grounds for optimism concerning human comfort and well-being in the decades ahead. Yet, forces in nature and society still threaten to create conditions of worldwide physical and economic hardship unparalleled in recorded history. If, without despairing, we accept as a working hypothesis the likelihood that resource depletion and climate change will make deep and lasting changes in Earth’s geography and traditional social order, we can still find ways to keep alive the never-fully-realized aspirations that make life worth living. Drawing examples from human history and proposing novel attitudes and values, the authors argue that human beings can indeed survive and even manage to achieve lasting happiness in a future world of greatly diminished prospects and far fewer material comforts.

The author presents ten plausible scenarios, together with accompanying commentaries, that trace alternative paths which developments in the area of civil liberties might take between now and the twenty-second century. Conclusions regarding the desirability and relative likelihood of these different scenarios are purposely left to the reader.

Although overall Internet use rates have leveled off, users with disabilities remain active participants in a new cultural model for how we work, shop, learn, and socialize. By recognizing and accommodating these “digital outcasts,” a health care model that emphasizes self-empowerment and accountability can demonstrate what the future of managed health care might become.

Has “the future”—like the icebox, the buggy whip, and life without social networks—become something the world has outgrown, a concept whose time, having triumphantly come, is now ignominiously gone? We are not suggesting that time will somehow stop, or that we will stay frozen in an eternal present. But we are asking whether, in an increasingly high-tech, globalized world, the idea of “the future” may have strayed from its historical cultural idiom and lost at least some of its meaning and purpose in and for our lives.

Life never quite runs to plan. Just when we think that we can see the road ahead, something turns up to make a mockery of our planning. These unforeseen circumstances can be both good and bad for us. Such are the vagaries of life. These surprises can have a major impact on our lives or they can be fairly minor in effect. We tend to take the minor surprises in our stride, but the more significant ones lead us to a period of reevaluation. In futures literature, surprising events tend to be known as wild card events. They are defined as low-probability, high-impact events that have the potential to completely disrupt our plans for the future. Much of futures work is about anticipating a range of possible futures. We normally call these visions of the future scenarios. When we inject wild card events into our scenario set, we normally call the result a set of wild card scenarios. Their purpose is not to replace the original scenarios but to enhance our understanding of them. In this way, if we play our wild cards right, the future ought not to be as surprising as it could be.

At a time when the gap between rich and poor is growing, and widespread economic instabilities are severe, people are placing great hopes on the effort to develop a global green economy. Yet 60 percent of the ecosystem goods that support human life and well-being have already been degraded or are currently being used in an unsustainable manner. By comparing problems and achievements relative to green development in two of the world’s most influential nations—the United States and China—this paper addresses the following related questions: “Where does the problem lie?” and “What should we do?” To help further promote dialog, we report on current conditions in China, as well as recent initiatives in the United States, and propose systemic and integrative approaches for developing green economies worldwide.

Automation has increased well-being because it has increased productivity, and most people who have been displaced have been able to find jobs that made better use of their human skills. This cycle may end if machines are developed that can do almost everything better than humans, so that there are few remaining jobs that require human skills. If this happens, continued increases in well-being for the average person will require adjustment of our economic system.