Futurology is a difficult and inexact science, with a poor history of getting it right. However, there are ways of giving yourself a chance or, at least, avoiding some of the more obvious mistakes and oversights. This post looks at a tool for considering the bigger picture in futurology and reflects on the results of using it with various user groups.
We’ve made the point before that technologists aren’t necessarily (or solely) the best people to ask what the future may hold because:
- they only tend to think about technology, or
- when they think about things other than technology, they’re not very good at it.
Of course, there’s probably a parallel observation to be made about any focused specialist in a particular field (economists, lawyers, politicians, etc.) but the observation doesn’t invalidate 1 and 2: it just shares the blame around a bit. So, what can be done to help, and where does it take us?
Turing's Radiator 