Selling Tomorrows

On the Anniversary of Berlin Wall Fall, Why we Miss Existential Threats

The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall has a lot of people thinking existentially, and their insights illuminate some interesting aspects of how we think about the past and future.

First, check out this fascinating op-ed in today's NY Times by Ross Douthat.  He asks why aren't we celebrating our victory more, and then points to a deep seated need for people to feel under threat in order to spur moral behavior.

"Twenty years later, we still haven't come to terms with the scope of our deliverance...we keep returning to the idea that liberal society is just as vulnerable as it was before the Berlin Wall came down...These paranoias suggest a civilization that's afraid to reckon with its own apparent permanence. The end of history has its share of discontents - anomie, corruption, "The Real Housewives of New Jersey." And it may be that the only thing more frightening than the possibility of annihilation is the possibility that our society could coast on forever as it is - like a Rome without an Attila to sack its palaces, or a Nineveh without Yahweh to pass judgment on its crimes.

Obama's Speech to Students Steeped in the Future

 

President Obama's speech to students today contained nearly 10 uses of the concept of the future to promote hard work, responsibility and not giving up.  Some rhetorical gems:

"Maybe you could be a great writer -- maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper -- but you might not know it until you write that English paper -- that English class paper that's assigned to you. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor -- maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or the new medicine or vaccine -- but you might not know it until you do your project for your science class."

 

 

"What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. The future of America depends on you. What you're learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future."

"You'll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You'll need the insights and critical-thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free."

My favorite:

"Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you, because here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future."

New Book: "Future: A Recent History" Will Change the Way You Think About Tomorrow Today

I’ve just finished reading Lawrence Samuel’s new book, “Future: A Recent History.” Suffice it to say, I’ve underlined a fifth of its passages, written in the margins of almost every page and scribbled dozens of check marks for the "wow" insights I want to remember later.  It’s that good.

 

The book explores 100 years of history in 200 dense pages, taking readers on a tour of how people's expectations of the future have changed over time.  An ambitious number of topics are covered -- politics, religion, class, gender, pop culture, fashion, the home, business, jobs, travel, architecture, and lots of science and technology.  But the payoff is equally large, as Samuel’s brisk writing style delivers a fascinating look into an aspect of our culture that we are barely conscious exists.

 

Marketers and PR professionals will find Future to be an especially valuable tool for better understanding target audiences.  If you needed proof that your vision of tomorrow needs to adapt to people’s preconceptions of what’s ahead, this work offers plenty.  And while Samuel doesn't take on what people are thinking right now (many others do that) his voyage through history teaches you how to spot the patterns.

 

It’s worth noting that a lot of books make fun of futurists who have gotten things wrong.  Rightly so.  Many of them are hysterical and it's part of what makes this topic fun.  Not Samuel.  He found a chillingly large number of predictions that have come true.  Sure, sometimes the predictor got the technology right and its impact on society wrong, or vice versa.  But there are patterns to the errors, and understanding them will help you be a better marketer, historian or futurist when it comes to dissecting and using predictions.

 

If all that’s not enough, the exhaustive research that went into this work offers a treasure trove of books, articles and pop culture moments to be further explored by anyone interested in futurism. 

 

A worthy successor to I.F. Clarke's "The Pattern of Expectation," "Future: A Recent  History" will change the way you see tomorrow today.

Newsweek Traces Germany's Fears of Nuclear, Biotech, Nanotech to 80s Green Movement

Germany's biotech and nuclear power industries have already been stunted by technological fears unique to Germany, Newsweek reports, and its nanotechnology sector may be next.  The magazine traces these fears to the country's 1980s green movement, where it:

"defined nature-or what is mythified as such, for there is no wild nature left in densely settled Germany-as 'good,' and viewed technological intrusions with suspicion.  These modern Greens harked back to powerful back-to-nature movements that defined science and scientists as 'cold,' corrupted by capitalist masters, and blind to catastrophic risk.  You, idealistic Germans in search of their post-World War II identity embraced these themes as a way to prove to themselves that they were 'good' again.  That movement's victory in the German culture wars produced powerful taboos, which seem especially strong concerning any tampering with nature on an invisible level-whether it's the climate, the atom, the cell, or (potentially) machines that operate on a nano level."  

The article offers a fascinating perspective. 

Documentary on Jacque Fresco, Futurist Fighting Scarcity Through Design

A peer to Buckminster Fuller, Jacque Fresco has spent much of his 90+ years focusing on solving the issue of humanity's perception of scarcity; something he blames for the search for wealth, power and manipulation of people.  His designs, captured beautifully in the film Future by Design, seek to meet people's needs in ways so that they won't feel like they're missing anything. 

Fresco:  "When you try to think about the future, remember this.  The process with which you think about things is based upon indoctrination, which are given by a society.  So your range of thought is limited by the dominant values of your society."

Here's a press kit for the multi-award nominated documentary which explains parts of his philosophy.

Mr. President, is scientific consensus enough to tell us what we can and cannot do?

From tonight's press conference with President Obama:

Question: I meant to ask -- just to follow up -- do you think that scientific consensus is enough to tell us what we can and cannot do?

Obama: No. I think there's always an ethical and a moral element that has to be a part of this. And so, as I said, I don't take decisions like this lightly. They're ones that I take seriously, and I respect people who have different opinions on this issue.

Full transcript here on CNN.com.