Futurology, too, tries to understand and evaluate possible future events. Like Seldon’s psychohistory, science is incorporated into it, it falters a bit when it comes to details, and it’s really vulnerable to random occasions. Unlike psychohistory, futurology is as much about instinct and art as it is about science.
As anyone who’s been to the track, frequented Tomorrowland, or even flipped through an old Popular Mechanics issue can tell you, predicting the future is really tricky. Lacking a working time machine or even crystal ball, we draw inferences from current events and past trends, hence all the individual helicopter illustrations.
In addition, when we hit the nail on the head with the great outlines of the technology of the future, we tend to misjudge the reactions of society. For example, some commentators predicted that automobiles would open up a new independence of movement, but few predicted the arrival of bedroom communities, boring suburbs, and inner cities. Nor did anyone foresee the eventual urban sprawl of the American Southwest, the interstate crime sprees of John Dillinger or maybe Clyde and Bonnie, or perhaps the changes in sexual mores influenced by the semi-private and accessible backseat.
The next technological advances are implicit in the technology of these days, just as the mobile phone arose from the telegraph, which arose, via a crooked route, from the drum and the smoke signal. It is this tortuosity, caused by the forces of human nature colliding with the laws of physics, that confounds futurology. Researchers show what is possible, inventors dream it, engineers develop it, and marketers show us that we should buy much more. Human nature, however, in most of its fickle complexity, has the last word in what hits, what hits, … and what falls into the dustbin of the historical past.
Therefore, the best predictions should take human, technological, political and economic factors into account and should do so systematically. The futurologists give him the best chance they have.
Although suggestions for futurology arose in early science fiction and utopian literature, the area did not take hold until the last days of World War II, once technological forecasting had been developed by the US military. Although which were probably the best, the technologies of warfare were changing faster than ever, demanding new methods. This was uncharted territory, so anything official would require a significant investment of money and time. They couldn’t pay for being wrong.
The origins of futurology can also be traced back to the RAND Corp., which grew out of a joint venture between the US Air Force and Douglas Aircraft in 1946. Among other contributions, RAND improved consensus building by inventing the Delphi method and he also created analysis methods to produce much better scenarios (imagined sequences of events). The number processing power of computer systems, as well as the improvement of the game’s principle, raised both of these techniques to new levels.
As the Cold War progressed, nuclear strategists like RAND’s Herman Kahn achieved a degree of celebrity. In 1961, after publishing his seminal book “On Thermonuclear War,” Kahn left RAND to develop the Hudson Institute, where he addressed social welfare and public policy. His work culminated in a 1967 publication, “The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years,” which sparked much controversy and inspired such important (and controversial) futurist features as “The Limits of the ‘ Humanity and Growth’ at the Turning Point,” each commissioned by the global nonprofit think tank, the Club of Rome.
“The Limits to Growth,” published in 1972 by environmental researcher Donella H. Meadows and her colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, catapulted futurology and scenarios into public consciousness. Based on computer models that describe the interplay of global socioeconomic trends, the guide painted an apocalyptic picture of global collapse caused by population growth, manufacturing expansion, pollution increases, food production shortfalls and the depletion of natural resources.
Meanwhile, two of Kahn’s RAND colleagues, Olaf Helmer and TJ Gordon, had established the Institute for the Future. Fueled by the furore over Kahn’s books, they, along with participants from the Futures Group at the Stanford Research Institute and also the California Institute of Technology, pioneered the use of scenarios in later studies.
Companies, starting with Royal Dutch Shell, quickly discovered the importance of scenarios. Much love for that, futurology moved from military think tanks to the marketplace of ideas.