Futurology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vernor Vinge

Vernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels and novellas A Fire Upon the Deep (1992), A Deepness in the Sky (1999), Rainbows End (2006), Fast Times at Fairmont High (2002) and The Cookie Monster (2004), as well as for his 1993 essay "The Coming Technological Singularity", in which he argues that exponential growth in technology will reach a point beyond which we cannot even speculate about the consequences.

“	Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended.	”
	— Vernor Vinge, 1993

 

 

When a group of researchers, led by genius mathematician Paul Hoehler, discover a way to generate "bobbles -- impenetrable, spherical force fields that can separate small areas of space from the normal universe -- a cadre of radicals at the lab site uses the technology to encapsulate important government and military installations all over the world in the name of peace. Fifty years later, the dictatorial group (known as the Peace Authority) has stopped war and mass killings; but in doing so, it has thrown civilization back centuries and has virtually wiped out scientific innovation, most of which is considered illegal. There is, however, an underground network of freethinkers and scientists known as Tinkers, who are plotting to overthrow the Peace Authority and free the millions of innocents being oppressed by the fanatical tyrants. Leading the cause is no other than Paul Hoehler, the man who discovered the bobble technology half a century earlier!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Walt Disney

Walt Disney's original plans for EPCOT, the "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" in Florida with rare documents, photos and transcripts of this great project. Today Walt Disney World in Florida is the most popular vacation destination in the world. Walt Disney World includes more than 20 resort hotels, 2 water parks, 1 night-time entertainment district and of course 4 theme parks: Magic Kingdom, opened in 1971, Epcot, opened in 1982, Hollywood Studios, opened in 1989 and Animal Kingdom, opened in 1998. Even if the original project of Walt Disney did include a Disneyland-like theme park (the Magic Kingdom as it was eventually called), the reason to build Walt Disney World was Epcot. But not Epcot as we know it today (a theme park), but Walt's Epcot, a one of kind project composed of several elements: a prototype community, an industrial park, an airport of the future and much much more... All these elements were imagined by Walt Disney and his staff with new and advanced designs and technologies. This project was conceived between 1962 and 1966 and was stopped after Walt Disney's death. Some elements did survive in the Walt Disney World resort as we know it today but so much more was planned. Unfortunately, the project has lost its main energy: Walt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

H G Wells

The Shape of Things to Come is a work of science fiction by H. G. Wells, published in 1933, which speculates on future events from 1933 until the year 2106. The book is dominated by Wells's belief in a world state as the solution to mankind's problems.

Rather than a novel, it is a fictional history book or chronicle, similar in style to Star Maker and Last and First Men, both by Olaf Stapledon. Wells's book also shared with Stapledon's an understanding of the change wrought in the nature of war by the development of air power; both writers included harrowing depictions of cities destroyed in aerial bombardments (by planes whose bombs also contain poison gas).

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Club of Rome

The Club of Rome is an international Think Tank which addressed the public first in 1972 with the groundbreaking report "Limits to Growth" by Donnella Meadows, Dennis Meadows and Jorgen Randers. For the first time, computer based scenarios were used to describe various pathways to sustainable and unsustainable futures. The report started an intensive discussion about the future development of humankind.

Today, National Associations of the Club of Rome with altogether more than 1800 members are working in an interdisciplinary way on the "World Problematique" - the complex set of interconnected problems facing humanity. Therefore, their works covers a wide range of themes, ecological, social and economic ones.

Following the tradition of the Club, which avoids administrative overhead (sometimes being called a non-governmental non-organisation) The National Associations are working as networks of active individuals. The Centre in Vienna coordinates their activities, provides the infrastructure for organizing events and conducts projects in cooperation with the Associations and the Club's Secretariat-General which is located in Winterthur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alvin Toffler

Alvin Toffler literally invented the role of the futurist with the publication of his seminal work, Future Shock, creating an all new discipline around the study of change and its impact on business and culture.

Throughout his long career, Alvin Toffler has remained one of the world's most prescient, insightful and influential voices in business and intellectual life. He has continued to produce creative ideas that define how we think about our world.

Time magazine wrote that he has "set the standard by which all subsequent would-be futurists have been measured."

What makes Alvin Toffler so extraordinary is that he asks questions nobody else has thought of and and then answers them by fundamentally redefining things in ways that keep making sense as the future unfolds. He's created several lasting thought paradigms—new frameworks for understanding ourselves and the way we change—that offer invaluable strategic advantage to those who are paying attention. And he pegs these frameworks with predictions and insights that consistently verify that his sense of direction is right on.

 

His most recent book has continued to build his legacy. Ten years in the writing, Revolutionary Wealth reimagines the nature of wealth and the paths to its creation.

In addition to Revolutionary Wealth and Future Shock, Alvin and Heidi (his wife and intellectual partner of 51 years) have written one significant book after another, including The Third Wave, Powershift and War and Anti-War.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.leighbureau.com/speaker.asp?id=17

http://www.clubofrome.at/news/newsflash10.html

http://digitalcomposting.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/bobble/

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/v/vernor-vinge/peace-war.htm

http://vaken.se/Filer/books/HG%20Wells/The%20Shape%20of%20Things%20to%20Come.pdf

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17082-five-futurist-visionaries-and-what-they-got-right.html