Futurism is not a fad

I was at a party last night with a whole bunch of poli-sci grad students, all from the same program. They were talking about the various ways they find to kill time on the net while still nominally thinking about their dissertation. One guy spent 3 hours that day watching YouTube clips of Irish folk discussing the recent defeat of the EU referendum. He's a European policy studies major-it's topical, right? More or less, anyway.

This got me thinking as I brushed my teeth later that night: where do I lurk on the net, and how does that relate to my work? Sure, I spend a lot of time reading about sustainability and environmental policy, which directly applies to my work. But I also find myself reading a lot about futurism, even when it has nothing to do with "green". Why? The short answer: because it's Important. Yes, with a capital I.

Once upon a time it was fine if Nostradamus was the only guy with a bead on the future. Change happened so slowly that you were pretty sure to live and die under the same rules. Events might come and go, but the governing principals of the universe as you knew it didn't alter. When change did happen, it was usually isolated and well-announced, making it easier to assimilate. World-shattering change occurred on a time scale measured in generations.

These days world shattering change comes around several times a decade, and smaller changes proliferate like bored bunnies on Viagra. We have to keep looking ahead just to avoid getting clobbered by some unforeseen upheaval. Five years out is cloudy, and 50 years out is essentially impossible to predict. The only way to be even mildly prepared is to wade through the ocean of daily events and look for the sticky stuff. What's a Tickle-Me Elmo, and what's the next World of Warcraft? What's going to hang around and have an impact?

Searching and sifting through the proliferating changes of our world is not something most people can devote a whole lot of time to in a day. Most of us still have to write the memos, sell the sandwiches, and pave the roads that keep our society running. That is why futurism, and futurists, are so important. They do the foresight for us, and hopefully we learn to listen and adapt. It's like Nostradamus, if Nostradamus had wandered down south in the early 1800s talking about the new-fangled cotton gin and the fact that slave labor was on its way out.

As long as the pace of change outstrips our ability to predict and process, we are going to need futurists. Someday they may be seen like the meteorologist or the market analyst-just another purveyor of specialized knowledge that we consult in the daily paper to guide our decision-making.