Futurology

General circulation model simulations suggest the Earth's climate will be 1-3.5°C warmer by AD 2100. This will influence disturbances such as forest fires, which are important to circumpolar boreal forest dynamics and, hence, the global carbon cycle. Many suggest climate warming will cause increased fire activity and area burned. Here, we use the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index to simulate future forest fire danger, showing the expected increase in most of Canada but with significant regional variability including a decrease in much of eastern Canada. These results are in general agreement with paleoecological data and general circulation model results from the 6000 calendar years BP interval, which was a time of a warmer climate that may be an analogue for a future climate.

Scenarios for the future of renewable energy through 2050 are reviewed to explore how much renewable energy is considered possible or desirable and to inform policy-making. Existing policy targets for 2010 and 2020 are also reviewed for comparison. Common indicators are shares of primary energy, electricity, heat, and transport fuels from renewables. Global, Europe-wide, and country-specific scenarios show 10% to 50% shares of primary energy from renewables by 2050. By 2020, many targets and scenarios show 20-35% share of electricity from renewables, increasing to 50-80% by 2050 under the highest scenarios. Carbon-constrained scenarios for stabilization of emissions or atmospheric concentration depict trade-offs between renewables, nuclear power, and carbon capture and storage from coal, most with high energy efficiency. Scenario outcomes differ depending on degree of future policy action, fuel prices, carbon prices, technology cost reductions, and aggregate energy demand, with resource constraints mainly for biomass and biofuels.

Biotic responses to future changes in global climate are difficult to project for a particular region because the responses involve processes that operate at many spatial scales. This difficulty is exacerbated in mountainous regions, where future vegetation changes are often portrayed as simple upward displacements of vegetation zones in response to warming. We examine the scope of future responses that may occur in a mountainous area by illustrating the potential distributions of selected tree taxa in the region of Yellowstone National Park. The output of a coarse-resolution climate model that incorporated a doubling of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was interpolated onto a 5-minute grid of topographically adjusted climate data. The output was also used as input into statistical relationships between the occurrence of individual taxa and climate. The simulated vegetation changes include a combination of elevational and directional range adjustments. The range of high-elevation species decreases, and some species become regionally extirpated. The new communities have no analogue in the present-day vegetation because they mix low-elevation montane species currently in the region with extralocal species from the northern and central Rocky Mountains and Pacific Northwest. The projected climate changes within the Yellowstone region and the individualism displayed by species in their potential range adjustments are equal or greater than the changes seen in the paleoecologic record during previous warming intervals. Although the results support conservation strategies that include habitat connectivity, the magnitude of the changes may exceed the ability of species to adjust their ranges. The predicted patterns call into question the adequacy of current management objectives to cope with the scope of future changes.

Twenty-four term infants with disproportionate intrauterine growth retardation (SGA group) and 24 normally grown term infants matched for age, sex, birth rank and social class were followed from birth until 7 years of age. Both groups were free from perinatal complications and chronic diseases. The children in the SGA group continued to be underweight-for-height with a low ponderal index and a relatively small head circumference at the age of 7 years. Only minor shifts occurred in the individual growth curves since the age of 3 years. In 12 SGA children and 1 control multiple 'soft' neurological signs were found. Their grammar school teachers observed problematic behavior (hyperactivity, poor concentration and clumsiness) in 9 and academic problems in 5 of the 12 SGA children with neurological dysfunction. These findings indicate that disproportionate intrauterine growth retardation at term can have long-term effects on growth and development. small-for-gestational age infants; disproportionate growth; neurology; behavior; academic skills; school age

This article examines the debate concerning the employment implications of the so-called 'Fourth Industrial Revolution' (FIR) or the increasing presence of artificial intelligence and robotics in workplaces. I analyze three 'genres' associated with this debate (academic studies including neo-classical and heterodox/posthuman approaches, the 'gray literature', and popular media) and I argue that together they represent 'futurological fodder' or discourses and knowledges that 'perform' the FIR and its purported consequences. I contend further that these genres involve a complex mix of ethics and politics, and I conclude with a reflection on the political implications of the FIR debate.

Possible future changes in land ice volume are mentioned frequently as an important aspect of the greenhouse problem. This paper deals with the response of the Antarctic ice sheet and presents a tentative projection of changes in global sea level for the next few hundred years, due to changes in its surface mass balance. We imposed a temperature scenario, in which surface air temperature rises to 4.2° C in the year 2100 AD and is kept constant afterwards. As GCM studies seem to indicate a higher temperature increase in polar latitudes, the response to a more extreme scenario (warming doubled) has also been investigated. The mass balance model, driven by these temperature perturbations, consists of two parts: the accumulation rate is derived from present observed values and is consequently perturbed in proportion to the saturated vapour pressure at the temperature above the inversion layer. The ablation model is based on the degree-day method. It accounts for the daily temperature cycle, uses a different degree-day factor for snow and ice melting and treats refreezing of melt water in a simple way. According to this mass balance model, the amount of accumulation over the entire ice sheet is presently 24.06 × 1011 m3 of ice, and no runoff takes place. A 1°C uniform warming is then calculated to increase the overall mass balance by an amount of 1.43 × 1011 m3 of ice, corresponding to a lowering of global sea level with 0.36 mm/yr. A temperature increase of 5.3°C is needed for the increase in ablation to become more important than the increase in accumulation and the temperature would have to rise by as much as 11.4°C to produce a zero surface mass balance. Imposing the Bellagio-scenario and accumulating changes in mass balance forward in time (static response) would then lower global sea level by 9 cm by 2100 AD. In a subsequent run with a high-resolution 3-D thermomechanic model of the ice sheet, it turns out that the dynamic response of the ice sheet (as compared to the direct effect of the changes in surface mass balance) becomes significant after 100 years or so. Ice-discharge across the grounding-line increases, and eventually leads to grounding-line retreat. This is particularly evident in the extreme case scenario and is important along the Antarctic Peninsula and the overdeepened outlet glaciers along the East Antarctic coast. Grounding-line retreat in the Ross and Ronne-Filchner ice shelves, on the other hand, is small or absent.

Human values seem to vary across time and space. What implications does this have for the future of human value? Will our human and (perhaps) post-human offspring have very different values from our own? Can we study the future of human values in an insightful and systematic way? This article makes three contributions to the debate about the future of human values. First, it argues that the systematic study of future values is both necessary in and of itself and an important complement to other future-oriented inquiries. Second, it sets out a methodology and a set of methods for undertaking this study. Third, it gives a practical illustration of what this 'axiological futurism' might look like by developing a model of the axiological possibility space that humans are likely to navigate over the coming decades.

The heart may be a mirror of the soul, but the human mind is more than its heart rate variability (HRV). Many techniques to quantify HRV promise to give a view of what is going on in the body or even the psyche of the subject under study. This "Hypothesis" paper gives, on the one hand, a critical view on the field of HRV-analysis and, on the other hand, points out a possible direction of future applications. In view of the inherent variability of HRV and the underlying processes, as lined out here, the best use may be found in serial analysis in a subject/patient, to find changes over time that may help in early discovery of developing pathology. Not every future possibility is bright and shining, though, as demonstrated in a fictional diary excerpt from a future subject, living in a society geared toward preventive medicine. Here implanted biochips watch over the health of the population and artificial intelligence (AI) analyses the massive data flow to support the diagnostic process.

Narratives of the future can be seen as a form of colonialisation, structuring fields of discourse, in a process which Johan Galtung (cited in refers to as 'chronological imperialism'. However, futures narratives can also be used to disrupt these attempts at colonialisation through surfacing problematic assumptions in order to explore alternative scenarios. In this paper I first consider modal narratives and possible worlds and their relevance to the social sciences. I then discuss Sohail Inayatullah's 'Causal Layered Analysis' (CLA) -a narrative technique for constructing past and present and imagining the future. CLA draws on a 'poststructural toolbox' to examine problematic issues using a process which focuses on four levels of analysis: litany (the official public description of the issue); social science analysis (which attempts to articulate causal variables); discourse analysis or prevailing worldview; and myth/metaphor analysis. The aim is to disrupt current discourses which have become sedimented into practice and so open up space for the construction of alternative scenarios. In the third part I demonstrate how this approach can be used to examine 'big issues' taking as my example the current preoccupation with troubled and troublesome youth.

In this article the author analyzes the growth of US information work in order to test Bell and Porat's view of the information society as post-industrial. The findings presented here indicate that the information work sector grew significantly in the 1920s, rather than in the 1950s, due to ...

The limitations of serological assessment in toxoplasma infection of the eye are well recognised, but the predictive value of clinical examination is not defined. We undertook a prospective investigation into the role of clinical examination and of serological findings in cases of suspected toxoplasma infection of the eye by means of the dye test and multiple IgM assays. Seventy-four cases of retinal disease and 202 control patients were studied. Patients with retinal disease had a significantly higher incidence of toxoplasma seropositivity than the control group. This was because some patients with retinal disease had acquired the infection congenitally. Half the patients investigated for toxoplasmosis were seronegative. Possible explanations for these findings included misdiagnosis, clinical uncertainty, or, the use of serology testing in the confirmation of other diseases. An excess of IgM reactivity among the retinal disease group may indicate low level immunoglobulin-M production associated with an acute exacerbation of ocular toxoplasmosis. There is a need to consider invasive procedures in cases of ocular infection and for novel techniques to aid the diagnosis of toxoplasma retinochoroiditis.

If the media of research figure in the constitution of the sociological phenomenon, how is it possible to find out how they do so? Drawing on Garfinkel’s idea of breaching experiments, we propose such an experiment to unearth the role of the media of sociology. The breaching experiment consists in an experimental setup to produce new disaster scenarios and accompanying forms of emergency provision. In the experiment, research subjects are asked to play in a sandbox with animal figures and other props to simulate disasters. The subjects are first asked to ‘build a world’, then to ‘turn the world upside down’, and finally to find an ‘emergency provision that would change the course of the disaster’. These plays are recorded with a purpose- built computer program and photographed and then transformed into fables and emergency provisions. The experiment breaks with three assumptions of media-use in sociology: First, sociologists use media exclusively for description, not creation of worlds. Second, sociologists do not tinker or produce their own recording technologies for specific research questions, but use existing ones, which define subdisciplines. Third, sociologists routinely rely on texts as the sole medium to represent the world.

In "Retrotopia", Zygmunt Bauman derives the title phenomenon from the double negation of Thomas More's utopia and uses it to describe the returns of the imaginary past, whose resurrected potentials make it possible to return to forgotten ideas. This paper examines the relationship between futuristic technology projections and the retrotopian shift taking place in liquid modernity. To this end, the author's research focuses on the literary narratives of the artificial intelligence in Stanisław Lem's "Golem XIV" (1981) and Łukasz Zawada's "Fragmenty dziennika SI" (2018). The languages, medium, and stories of the non-human Other illustrate the mechanisms of the modern prophetic fantasies through repetition act and mediating them in the lost/un-dead past. Simultaneously, the (retro)futuristic voices of the superintelligent computers reveal the difficulties of these narratives-trying to slow down Sci-tech progress and embed the past into the future technologies.

Sparrow argues that military robots capable of making their own decisions would be independent enough to allow us denial for their actions, yet too unlike us to be the targets of meaningful blame or praise—thereby fostering what Matthias has dubbed “the responsibility gap.” We agree with Sparrow that someone must be held responsible for all actions taken in a military conflict. That said, we think Sparrow overlooks the possibility of what we term “blank check” responsibility: A person of sufficiently high standing could accept responsibility for the actions of autonomous robotic devices—even if that person could not be causally linked to those actions besides this prior agreement. The basic intuition behind our proposal is that humans can impute relations even when no other form of contact can be established. The missed alternative we want to highlight, then, would consist in an exchange: Social prestige in the occupation of a given office would come at the price of signing away part of one's freedoms to a contingent and unpredictable future guided by another (in this case, artificial) agency.

The ambitious goal of the original approach, presented in this report, is shaping the face of technologies, platforms and systems which creation in the nearest future can demonstrate significant results and unlock the access to the legacy of technologies of the next generations
The reference point for planning of prospective technological development is the basic set of the triplet of following technologies: human-based; robotics; network models. Foreign developments in this field, not conceptually different in novel ideas, demonstrate a deep level of understanding of existing of physical and information capabilities.
The critical review of research programs of other countries shows that there are three key points in their implementation: clear planning of vision and results; technological will in achieving of high outcomes; courage to lead the program up to the end or refuse in midway to continue in the face of incontrovertible evidence. The importance of these breakthrough humanitarian technologies encourage to pay attention not only on technological components but also for deep motives of the development and possible variants of application of yet non-existent technical solutions.
Using a strategic approach in the form of stratagems that have influenced the direction of the transformation of the U.S. national defense sector in the recent 20 years, also traditionally used in China's foreign policy, allows to select several of them for rapid achievement of technological excellence. Implementation of these stratagems in the form of prospective technological solutions gives the opportunity to point out several promising areas, which results will have a significant advantage in the nearest future.
Consideration of advanced technologies in the framework of problems of national security and development is inevitable, as an appeal to traditionally one of the most important areas of their primary application.
Note: Downloadable document is in Russian.

In agriculture, biotechnology and genetic engineering are expected to change production methods, the products themselves and the structure of the whole agricultural sector. We have conducted an international survey of plant and microbial biologists, plant breeders and experts in product development and management to gauge the likely directions and time-scales for such developments. The survey aims to provide useful data for realistic discussion on the extent, purpose and effects of future developments in arable agriculture.

This article offers the first posthumanist and cultural evolutionary conceptualization of Modernity and capitalism. It develops a deep futurology which allows to extrapolate the currently observable developments based on general cultural evolutionary tendencies, enabling to derive potential future civilizational states emerging out of Modernity. This approach provides insights into the chances for and constraints on a general system transition. The argument comprises three steps. In the first part (para. 2-5) the cultural evolutionary framework is laid out. It is shown that stages of cultural evolution and civilizational history can be discerned by the depths of operational chains of technologies, starting with the first use of stone tools three million years ago leading up to information technology. Furthermore, it is argued that the depths of operational chains are directly correlated to types of economies and ontologies of time. In the second part (para. 6-7) the hallmarks of three successive stages of history leading up to globalization and the “world-society” are briefly sketched out based on Arno Bammé’s theory of axial caesura. After the Axial Age in Greece, in which the coin was introduced, Modernity follows as another axial shift in which capital emerges, leading to the Technological Civilization, a transition which we are currently witnessing. In this part the axial stages are interpreted with the cultural evolutionary framework which shows that the principles and patterns of early cultural evolution can be applied to the axial caesura and that each axial shift brings forth a new ontology of time. In the third part (para. 8-11) the emergence of types of economy and temporal ontologies is correlated with the structure of the technologies characterizing each of the axial shifts. This allows for an extrapolation of a post-capitalist economy and a post-linear time concept emerging out of the technological structure characteristic of the Technological Civilization. It is argued that information technology represents a qualitative deepening of operational chains which will lead to the erosion of Modernity’s institutions and the capitalist class structure, since they cannot reduce the complexities of interdependencies and map the temporal relations growing out of these technologies.

Before modern era, religion became more dominant in daily life of human being because religion institution is the sole authority to dicide either religion aspect or scientific one. But in modern era, especially after some inventions of modern science and technology, secular scientist in the West very proud of his intellectual ability to explore the nature. They neglect religion and even accused religion as an opium and illusion. In fact, human being cannot free from believing in Supra Natural Being because even though in the atheist community still respect the spirit of ancestors. Therefore, every effort to attack religion will fail because religion could not separated from basic need of human being and religion is the the sole doctrin of life in hereafter. Naisbitt, a famous futurolog, also declares that the spiritual of religion will become dominant in new era.

During the previous century, the preparation for global citizenship has proceeded rapidly, in order to adapt to social, technological, and environmental disruption. In this process, basic knowledge and skills necessary for citizenship of the digital world are determined. Since the world has become stable due to such preparation, the challenges of predicting the next century (2100-2199), such as studies of the next citizenship, and the revision of social studies pedagogy to next citizenship with respect to future changes of the post-digital society, prove to be interesting topics. This article presents the scenarios based on the projected future view of the next citizenship in the next century, in addition to the perspective of the possibilities in terms of the preparation of the next citizenship to tackle future changes.

Fraction of the timeline that is yet to occur is known as future. Educational strategists have largely emphasized upon the use of statistical techniques. They can learn extensively from the futurologists and the study of future in terms of the development of various perspectives on planning for future trends and issues in the area of Education. The emanating field of Educational Futures arena has its inception in study of futurology as a relatively new constellation of disciplines. It shows a strong percussion on policy in the form of foresight, scenario planning etc.

At the end of the Second World War, the Hungarian-Jewish painter Magda Cordell McHale fled to London, where she remained until 1961, when she moved to the United States to pursue a career in futurology with her husband, the artist John McHale (d. 1978). The decade or so she spent in London was the most prolific phase in her artistic career. It saw her involved in the foundation of the Independent Group (1952–55), and exhibiting at the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Hanover Gallery. Although Cordell was widely recognized for her ambivalent portrayals of the female body as mythic archetype and techno-scientific testing ground, she has not received due acknowledgment in the recent literature on postwar Britain and the Independent Group. This article re-evaluates the legacy of her proto-feminist artworks, arguing for Cordell’s important contribution to postwar British art and culture.

This paper summarizes the results of a 28-month study, funded by the Canadian government, which developed new methods for analysing the technical and economic potential for conservation and renewable energy alternatives in Canada to the year 2025. The results of the study show that under conditions of strong economic growth and moderate population growth, it would be technically feasible and cost-effective to operate the Canadian economy in 2025 with 12-34% less energy than it requires today and, over the same 47-year period, to shift from 16% reliance on renewable sources to over 77% (mostly biomass and hydro). Over the study period, energy use per capita falls to between one-haIf and two-fifths of its level in 1978, and energy use per dollar of GDP to just over one-quarter of its 1978 level.

Numerous estimates for the date of the first interstellar mission have been made in the existing literature. However, these estimates are not based on existing elaborate scenarios from other domains, which project the next 100-300 years. In this paper, the implications of these projections on the hypothetical development of an interstellar probe are assessed. For this purpose, first, relevant scenarios are selected, where the Gross Domestic Product is chosen as the key indicator for the increase in technological capability. Second, different funding patterns from past space programs are derived in order to estimate the funding distribution over time for an interstellar program. Finally, integrated scenarios are developed and it is analysed how different funding structures shift the estimated earliest date where an interstellar program can be initiated. Depending on the political and economic background, potential dates stretch from within the 21st century to the 24th century and beyond. The earlier the potential program initiation date, the bolder the economic and political projections get from today's viewpoint. This is a submission of the Project Icarus Study Group.

This research discusses future development of Iran's petroleum industry by using strategic management approaches relying on scenario-based planning models. The theoretical frame of this research is a normative paradigm in upper range documents advocate approach. Delphi methods, cross-impact analysis, and scenariobased planning have offered flexible and comprehensive planning combinations in proposing new styles in foresighting products development. In addition, Micmac software was employed to analyze dates. In this research, 235 influencing factors on a product development trend were selected using a PESTEL model and a Delphi approach, then the effects of these factors on each other were tested that eventually 22 key factors were selected. Among 22 key factors, 2 main factors including "political relations" and "the government's dependence on petroleum" were selected using a cross-impact analysis. After that, a 2×2 matrix was formed that contains four scenarios including a playful rabbit, a runaway snake, a noble horse, and a sleeping lion. This research can enhance decision making abilities of top managers through identifying key signals of how each scenario appear in future of Iran's petroleum industry. Results show that management team of petroleum products requires serious etiology and attitude rehabilitation.

This concluding chapter of _Techno-Fixers: Origins and Implications of Technological Faith_ examines the widespread overconfidence in present-day and proposed 'technological fixes', and provides guidelines - social, ethical, environmental and technical - for soberly assessing candidate technological solutions for societal problems.

If machines could one day acquire superhuman intelligence, what role would still be left for humans to play in the world? The 'midwife proposal, ' coming from futurists like Ray Kurzweil or James Lovelock, sees the invention of AI as a fulfillment of humanity's cosmic destiny. The universe 'strives' to be saturated with intelligence, and our cyborg descendants are much better equipped to advance this goal. By creating AI, humans play their humble, but instrumental, part in the grand scheme. The midwife proposal looks remarkably similar to modern Christian anthropology and cosmology, which regard humankind as "evolution becoming conscious of itself" (Pierre Teilhard de Chardin), and matter as having a predisposition to evolve toward spirit (Karl Rahner, Dumitru Stăniloae). This paper demonstrates that the similarity is only superficial. Compared to the midwife hypothesis, Christian theological accounts define the cosmic role of humanity quite differently, and they provide a more satisfactory teleology. In addition, the scientific and philosophical assumptions behind the midwife hypothesis - that the cosmos is fundamentally informational, that it intrinsically promotes higher intelligence, or that we are heading toward a technological singularity - are rather questionable, with potentially significant theological and ethical consequences.

El desarrollo de la teoría de la complejidad en ciencias y humanidades se apoya, principalmente, en las contribuciones desarrolladas en el mundo anglosajón y europeo continental. Menos evidente, es el aporte de contribuciones pioneras efectuadas desde América Latina al desarrollo de las teorías de la complejidad. Este trabajo, recupera la filosofía constructiva del científico argentino Oscar Varsavsky como estrategia para pensar la complejidad de la innovación y la construcción del futuro. La pregunta central de la filosofía constructiva se interroga por “cómo es la sociedad que queremos y cómo se pasa de la actual a la deseada”. El enfoque constructivo examina el tipo de práctica científica y de conocimiento necesario para construir un futuro deseado. La obra de Varsavsky permite explicitar y problematizar el vínculo entre lo epistémico y lo ético-político y habilita a considerar una articulación crítica entre las estrategias del pensamiento complejo y las ciencias de los sistemas complejos.

At this day and age, it is necessary to carefully plan and anticipate a desirable future. The focus on positive future orientation and a successful educational process enables young people to improve their professional and personal affirmation and lead to the decrease of problematic behaviour. For those reasons, it is extremely important that the activities in university courses are focused on contemplating about the future, possible new roles, and future outcomes so that young people who are being educated are more prepared to deal with different future scenarios but also to be able to prepare more successfully future generations of students for similar scenarios. In that context, it is important to encourage students to use divergent thinking that, together with imagination, makes the starting point for the search of acceptable solutions to most of the upcoming challenges that they may face in the future. In that context, the question arises as to whether our university teaching is in line with the aforementioned global challenges. Research results show that, according to students' opinion, university teaching does not educate for the future (92%)! Also, students of teacher studies predict negative social scenarios in the future (62%), and when it comes to the role of teachers in the future, they predict (89%) that they will be replaced by holograms.

Este escrito es una invitación a pensar en la posibilidad de un tiempo universal en medio de una sociedad y una academia absolutamente relativista. Un tiempo cuantitativo y sintético que se cimentó sobre el tiempo católico, pero que comienza a adquirir carta de universalidad mediante la expansión ibérica alrededor del mundo y los contactos planetarios que ello supuso. Gentes de aquí, allá y acullá que forjaron un tiempo franco como forma elemental de comunicación y de sentido práctico. El texto fue leído el 25 de junio de 2019 en el Lateinamerika-Institut de la Freie Universität Berlin. Corresponde a la presentación del proyecto de investigación Relojes para el Nuevo Mundo: historia del tiempo universal. De Lima a Greenwich (1584-1884).

O presente dossiê tem como objetivo engajando profissionais e a sociedade para sustentabilidade e Patrimônios Futuros. Atividades que refletem sobre museus, patrimônio sensível, educação patrimonial, turismo, arqueologia contemporânea e métodos fazem parte desta edição Cadernos do LEPAARQ, Revista do Laboratório de Ensino e Pesquisa em Antropologia e Arqueologia da Universidade Federal de Pelotas (LEPAARQ-UFPEL). O objetivo aqui é apresentar como museus e atividades internacionais lidam com patrimônio aplicado em diversos contextos e como suas propostas de ações pedagógicas/museológicas podem ser orientadas para o futuro. Para além do impacto da covid-19 no patrimônio cultural (Saladino & Muniz, 2020), o dossiê visa dialogar com perspectivas da arqueologia no contemporâneo (Gonzalez- Ruibal, 2006; Hamilakis, 2018; McAtackney & McGuire, 2020) abordando engajamento para futuro global considerando o papel do patrimônio cultural (Harrison et al 2020, Holtorf & Högberg, 2020), visões desde a América Latina (Muniz & Almansa-Sánchez, 2020), interpretações dos patrimônios (Rampim et al 2020) e métodos educacionais (Petersson & Holtorf, 2016) no contexto do patrimônio aplicado e por uma saúde planetária (Horton et. Al. 2014)

Visions of the Future in the Writings of Stanisław Lem (Wizje przyszłości w twórczości ‎Stanisława Lema) Saarbrücken: Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010 - Vol.  I Visions of the Future in the Writings of Stanisław Lem (Wizje przyszłości w ‎twórczości Stanisława Lema)‎

Prospective, catastrophe et collapsologie Par Jacques THEYS Ancien enseignant à l'EHESS, vice-président de la Société française de prospective L 'effet de sidération lié à la prise de conscience bru-tale de l'extrême gravité du changement climatique et du déclin rapide de la biodiversité a donné un écho considérable à l'hypothèse d'un effondrement pro-chain des systèmes socio-écologiques dans lesquels nous vivons, et aux thèses développées à ce sujet par les « collapsologues ». Six Français sur dix se disent ain-si aujourd'hui convaincus qu'« un effondrement de la ci-vilisation est possible », en raison d'abord de l'effet de serre, mais aussi de la démographie, de l'accroissement des inégalités ou du nucléaire (1). Depuis deux ans, il n'est pas un seul média qui n'ait consacré à cette hypothèse au moins un article ou une émission-sans oublier les séries télévisées-, ce qui permet de dire que c'est désormais un véritable phénomène de société s'étendant bien au-delà du cercle des experts et des écologistes. C'est essentiellement en France que les débats se sont ouverts sur ce sujet, mais la question est abordée dans beaucoup d'autres pays-et dans une perspective qui va au-delà des préoccupations pour le climat ou l'envi-ronnement. C'est ainsi qu'en septembre dernier, l'OCDE a organisé une importante conférence ayant pour thème "Averting sytemic collapse", avec pour objet d'évaluer l'éventualité de nouvelles crises financières, écologiques, géopolitiques ou sociales et de discuter de l'hypothèse d'un effondrement lié à leur conjonction ou à des effets en chaîne (cascading effects (2)). Cette préoccupation est également de plus en plus présente dans la plupart des instances internationales qui travaillent sur les risques à l'échelle globale avec des groupes de travail ou des études qui sont partout lancés sur les risques systé-miques, les catastrophes en chaîne ou la résilience aux chocs extrêmes (3). L'objet de cet article n'est pas de discuter sur le fond des idées portées par les collapsologues, ni même de faire une critique approfondie des arguments qu'ils uti-lisent pour annoncer qu'un effondrement est prévisible à un horizon proche. Il est, de manière beaucoup plus modeste, de resituer la place de la prospective dans ce débat-comme une des formes parmi d'autres d'appré-hension du futur, puisque c'est du futur dont il s'agit. Le paradoxe est en effet que cette prospective a joué-à tra-vers le rapport du Club de Rome-un rôle important dans la structuration de ce que les collapsologues considèrent comme une « science de l'effondrement », alors qu'elle ne s'est jusqu'à présent pas avancée sur cette perspective, sur laquelle d'ailleurs elle n'a jamais été sollicitée. Entre les collapsologues, les spécialistes du risque ou des sys-tèmes complexes, ceux de l'économie, de la géopolitique ou de l'environnement-mais aussi la philosophie morale La prise de conscience brutale de l'extrême gravité du changement climatique et du déclin de la biodi-versité a donné un écho considérable à l'hypothèse d'un effondrement prochain des systèmes socio-écologiques et à la collapsologie. Celle-ci a des aspects multiples : à la fois choc émotionnel, vision idéo-logique du monde futur, nouvelle science et prévision sur l'avenir. Seules les deux dernières dimensions sont abordées dans cet article, car il s'agit essentiellement de resituer la place de la prospective dans le débat sur l'effondrement, et de voir en quoi celle-ci se différencie de la collapsologie à la fois sur le plan épistémologique et de ses hypothèses sur le futur. Si l'interrogation sur les risques d'effondrements-au moins partiels-est légitime, ni les raccourcis qu'emprunte la collapsologie pour annoncer leur réalisation prochaine ni l'attitude de mise en retrait qu'elle préconise pour y faire face ne se justifient. Moins fataliste et catégorique, la prospective, art pratique orienté vers l'action, préfère se situer entre deux extrêmes qu'elle refuse : le déni de l'hypothèse catastrophiste et la certitude de sa venue. 22 (1) Sondage Huffington Post, 2 décembre 2019. Ces thèmes sont les quatre principaux cités par les personnes consultées. (2) Conférence organisée en septembre 2019, qui a donné lieu à la publication de plusieurs rapports, dont LINKOV I., TRUMP B. & HYNNES W., « Face aux menaces systémiques, des stratégies et des approches fon-dées sur la résilience ».

Weapons technology is a key factor contributing to cultural evolution because it enables humans actively to protect themselves from a variety of natural threats and expand their access to resources. In contrast to non-military technologies, the purpose of which is to subordinate and shape inanimate, non-intentional or trivial, regular states, weapons primarily serve to assert one's own will against self-determined, intentional and non-trivially acting organisms. This functional idiosyncrasy establishes the basis for a continuous arms race, which begins with the need to anticipate phenotypical and mental abilities of animals and other humans through weapons technology before leading to the anticipation of attack and defence capacities of groups and, ultimately, the anticipation of accumulated intelligence and productive accomplishments of entire political states. The dynamics of development in weapons technology prove that weapons are simultaneously an index and a motor of cultural and cognitive evolution. Weapons reflect the organizational and technical capabilities of cultures, indicating special cognitive capacities bound up with the abstract anticipation of enemies as well as the ability to produce mental models of complex adversarial entities. At the same time, weapons relay intercultural and internal selection pressures by playing a decisive role in the processes of general technological and organizational innovation. This innovation also influences the formation of practices, norms, motives and self-images. As such, weapons technology concretizes an integral principle governing cultural evolution and civilizational history.

Resumen. Este documento es una colección de respuestas para las críticas más usuales que los sectores bioconservadores esgrimen contra la filosofía transhumanista. El documento se ha dividido en tres (03) categorías, cada una de las cuales se subdivide en diferentes argumentos. A cada una se le ha brindado respuesta a partir de los escritos desarrollados sobre el tema. La corriente Transhumanista a la que se hace referencia es la visión de la Asociación Transhumanista Mundial Humanity Plus.

Palabras clave: transhumanismo, cyborg, posthumanismo, human enhancement, NBIC, extrapolitica, tecnología, filosofía de la tecnología.

Resumen. La Cuarta Revolución Industrial y las tecnologías que la caracterizan ofrecen nuevas posibilidades y estrategias de desarrollo social y humano. El Transhumanismo es una filosofía derivada de dicha disrupción tecnológica que promueve su aplicación directa en el hombre. En Perú, aunque no de manera masiva, se ha difundido esta escuela de pensamiento en Universidades, Casas Culturales, Artículos y organizaciones particulares.

Palabras clave: transhumanismo, Perú, posthumanismo, futuro, filosofía, ciencia

I survey and discuss obstacles to forecasting the future, especially to making accurate predictions, in various areas: in economics with its inadequate models and financial crashes, big business ventures with their cost overruns, the role of novelties, affective forecasting, and ecology. Given the great diversity of these areas, the kind of obstacles are equally diverse. Altogether, I conclude, they should certainly not prevent us from planning for the future as best as we can, if not by means of accurate predictions, then e.g. by means of qualitative estimates and prognoses, or by working out alternative scenarios.

As we know, photography, as automated visual art, only indicated the need to rethink human artistic activity, it did not completely destroy it. On the contrary, it was the catalyst for processes that led to the increased complexity of this activity and the crystallization of a number of its characteristic features in contemporary art, including the reinforcement of innate, specifically human features such as a unique ‘signature’ and distinctive human expression, or even the opposite tendency of the mimicry of machine art or collaborative activity – geometric abstraction, the rationalization of visual forms or even production art. In a certain sense a situation in which the artist is formed together with an archive of future art is like the situation of a chess player who plays with the help of a computer that calculates the consequences of the human being’s strategic decisions, but does not take decisions independently. Rodchenko already dreamed of a time when the development of technology would mean that an artist only had to imagine a specific work of art in his mind, after which it could be realized automatically. Today the mass production of images that is typical of the social networks exploits various kinds of filters as a similar kind of technology (including filters with the distinctive stylistic features of the art of the past): the user makes his selection each time, depending on his concept. The existence of an archive of all potential artistic forms carries this tendency to the limit. Co-creation and the coexistence of human being and robot in the field of art represent a scenario for the further development of the tendency towards automation that is optimistic for the human being, although there are no grounds for assuming that it will exist for long without the disappearance of the clear boundary between the ‘natural’ and the artificial.

The decade of the Sixties has brought with it an important change in the intellectual climate throughout any parts of the world, evidenced by a new attitude toward the future […] The effect has been to extend customary planning horizons into a more distant future and to replace haphazard intuitive gambles, as a basis for planning, by sober and craftsmanlike analysis of the opportunities the future has to offer. Olaf Helmer: Analysis of the Future -The Delphi Method (The RAND Corporation, 1967) Die Analyse der Zukunft weist mitunter in Vergangenheiten. Etwa in das Jahr 1647. Gegen Ende des spanischen Siglo de Oro, in dem Literatur und Kunst eine fulminante Blüte erleben, in einem Spanien, das noch koloniale Weltmacht ist, dessen ökonomische und politische Vorherrschaft allerdings unwiderruflich zu zerfallen droht, in einer Sphäre, in der religiöse und soziale Ordnung in Bewegung geraten, erscheint unter Pseudonym ein Brevier höfischer Spielund Lebensregeln: Baltasar Graciáns Handorakel und Kunst der Weltklugheit, im Original Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia. 1 Der Jesuitenpater Gracián wird wegen seiner protoaufklärerischen Ideen und regen Publikationstätigkeit unter Decknamen als Professor für humanistische Studien abgesetzt, 1 | Balthasar Gracián: Handorakel und Kunst der Weltklugheit. Aus dessen Werken gezogen von D. Vicencio Juan de Lastanosa und aus dem spanischen Original treu und sorgfältig übersetzt von Arthur Schopenhauer, München 2008. Die Nachweise erfolgen unter Angabe der Aphorismus-Nummer im Fließtext. Kursivierungen sind von Gracián übernommen.

In questo articolo vengono messe a confronto le narrazioni dominanti
sul futuro del lavoro. È in atto un mutamento di paradigma nell’ambito delle analisi di scenario, alla luce dell’impetuoso sviluppo delle tecnologie robotiche e informatiche degli ultimi anni. Vicino alle due principali tradizioni di pensiero, che pongono enfasi rispettivamente sulla “disoccupazione tecnologica” e sulla “teoria della compensazione”, sta infatti emergendo una terza visione del futuro che prende in esame trend e scenari ignorati dalle teorie economiche tradizionali, tra i quali il fenomeno dell’hollowing out (“svuotamento”). Se la tendenza si mantiene invariata, la tecnologia non provocherà la scomparsa integrale del lavoro, ma di quello mediamente qualificato. In altri termini, in assenza di interventi correttivi, la società del futuro sarà caratterizzata dalla compresenza di una minoranza di cittadini privilegiati, che potranno godere pienamente dei frutti dell’automazione, circondata da una maggioranza di cittadini adibiti a lavori precari e degradanti. Il pensatore più lungimirante su questi temi si conferma Karl Marx.

In  what  sense  do  we  speak  of  the planetary university? This  essay  belongs  to  a  more  comprehensive, still  unpublished reflection  that the authors have been developing over  the  past  years  while teaching  and  doing  research in Italy  and  abroad. However,  the essay  delineates  neither  the  situation  of  single  academic institutions, nor  a  general picture obtained by induction starting  from a variety of observational data. Rather,  it  attempts  to clarify,  in  the  specific  situation in which the authors  operate,  the powers  that  act  upon  teaching  and  research  once  they  let  themselves  be  informed  by  the laws  of  the  earth  turned  into  a  planet, that is,  in the words  of  common  language, by the new order of the globalized earth.