Not surprisingly, I've been doing a lot of talks about The Economics of Enough (see the Facebook page for details of talks past and future), and it's always interesting as an author to see what audiences pick up on. One popular theme is the banking industry and immoral bankers. But another is, of course, the future – why does it matter, how much should we care about it? And two upcoming panel discussions – 20th May at the Arnolfini in Bristol as part of the Festival of Ideas and 24th May at the British Library – are explicitly about the future. Both panels will include Mark Stevenson, author of An Optimist's Tour of the Future, and Jon Turney, author of Rough Guide to the Future.
So my request to blog readers is this: what should I read between now and then to refresh my thinking about the idea of progress and the relevance of the future to the present? All ideas welcome!
Henry George's Progress and Poverty.
J M Greer's “The Ecotechnic Future” – a very long term view of the patterns of industrial change following an increase in fossil-based energy scarcity.
Andrew
Both great ideas. Any fiction suggestions too?
Books by Alvin Toffler (eg Future Shock) or John Naisbitt (eg Megatrends) perhaps?
Also “The Great Reckoning – How the World will Change in the Depression of the 1990's” by James dale Davidson & William Rees-Mogg. Did they just get the decade wrong?
These authors were writing a while ago so it is interesting to see what of their predictions have already come to pass.
Thomas Homer-Dixon's The Up Side of Down.
Ian Morrris: Why the West Rules–For Now, especially the final chapter on the possibility of “the singularity” and “nightfall”.
“Brave New World” Huxley to be read alongside Ray Kurzweil's “The Singularity is Near”.
Also watch some videos about Jacques Fresco and The Venus Project on Youtube.
If you can get a copy, Yorick Blumenfeld's “2099:A Eutopia” It's fiction but very, very likely. You can borrow mine if you want.
Was just at a Futures mapping workshop last week: NZ in 2058. Some great speakers but blown away by Dennis Bushnell, Chief Scientist At NASA. They are completely on top of things. Shame their government isn't.
The monetary system is kaputski just as the gold standard was back in the early 1900s (just reading Polanyi and the Great Transformation).
We are heading into a period of monumental change. It really does feel like 100 years ago…..we know what happened then 🙁