Breaking the internet

During our conversation about Emerging Issues Analysis in class yesterday, I asked if anyone could think of issues that *seemed* to be emerging a few years ago, but then didn't wind up having the expected impact. Someone then raised the question of whatever happened to fibre-optic cable after all the buzz around it. Coincidentally, this article appeared at tech/culture website Wired on the same day:

"Fiber Optic Cable Cuts Isolate Millions From Internet, Future Cuts Likely"
by Ryan Singel, Threat Level (a Wired Blog), 31 January 02007
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/01/fiber-optic-cab.html

Large swaths of the Middle East and Southeast Asia fell into internet darkness after two major underseas fiber optic links were damaged off Egypt's coast on Wednesday.
[...]
Telecoms in Egypt, India, Pakistan and Kuwait (among others) are scrambling to find other arrangements to carry their internet and long distance phone traffic.

Moving on to the next question that was asked, about why wireless doesn't simply replace this kind of cable, take a look at this picture:



It shows how ultra high-bandwidth, long-distance data delivery happens via "intercontinental fiber" while wireless spectrum is used to deliver locally to the user, what they call in the industry the "Last Mile".

Like I said, fibre-optic cables didn't go away, they just went underground. :)

Minute Paper 1/31

When reading about how to be a futurist, i thought to myself that some main things you need are: common sense, imagination, and a good search engine. Talking about futures in class though, felt kinda like a discussion in philosophy, because you never know what could happen. The reason why "futures" has an 's' on the end instead of just "future". Also, talking about history and what if someone didn't start talking about, or writing about what happened in early life, what might have happened. Would we be in a linear world where we only know how to do one thing, or that the generations would make the same mistake over and over throughout life, would we then annihilate our race if someone hadn't made history possible?

Minute Paper 1/31

I found today’s discussion about how history has effected our perspective on the progression of time, and how that shift of perspective has resulted in a change in the way we view and approach the future very enlightening. Originally I interpreted the idea of how the Jewish people wrote the first history as being a result of these people experiencing limited change(s) in their lives. This, I thought, caused them to study their past, which would have seemed diverse in comparison to their present existences. Unfortunately I was missing the entire point of why we looked at “From Death to Life” in the first place. Professor Candy’s explanation, of why we read the article, outlined how the Jewish peoples’ creation of a written history made them rethink their cyclical view of time and adopt a linear model in which the future is unknown and constantly changing. This, in my opinion, brings up the question: if written history is in fact the main reason people began to look at time in a linear fashion, causing us to try to prepare for the unknown instead of believing we are simply going through known cycles, is it possible that it is also where more complex forms of society like towns and cities (both of which seem to generally be inhabited by people with linear outlooks on time) originated from, as an attempt to better protect ourselves or be prepared for the unknowns of futures?

Mark Alexander

minute paper 1/31/01

First off I think that bionic exoskeleton propulsion thing was sick as hell! I think UH should buy 10,000 of the prototype test suits for trial, testing and evaluation. With the idea of the long now, I think it's crazy to think we can even remotely predict what life will be like 10,000 years from now. With all the possible futures that we may be anticipating and all the possible forks in the road we will encounter with the rate of change at which the world has been accelerating, (especially with this bionic exoskeleton idea) the future will definitely be exciting to see. It's kind of crazy to think the future is already here as we communicate through cell phones, laptops and the numerous other innovations of technology that was originally thought of in comic books and sci fi movies/books and originally thought of to be ridiculous.

Re: 1 Minute paper 1/31/2008

 I learned something new today the concept of counterfactuality, and its a type of thinking which is a,"would of could of" mentality. The actions that we make during our lives give us thoughts of what if i would have done it (it being an action) this way, or that way. Just as people talk about being at a fork in the road and which ever way they decide to go is up to that person and their choice.  We as individuals each have a destiny and its different depending upon which way down the road we decide to go. 

Andrew's Minute Paper 1/31

While the concept of a longer now does have great merit, especially in the context of encouraging forward thinking, the Long Now group seem to be taking it a little far. It seems to me that if the concept of the new were extended forward and back 10000 years, it further promotes one of the continuing problems I find in the promotion of futurism. Like a previous one, one of the readings for today again made the assertion that this concept the longer important time and future are at the expense of the present, which seems to me to be an over all hard to sell pitch. By telling someone that what matters is people 10000 years from now, it seems more likely to alienate them from the idea, rather than encourage it. One thing that really jumped out at me when I was doing the readings for today was a kind of funny connection to a sci-fi book I once read. In the reading, the point of putting off present sensation as the cost of better sensation in the future, reminding me of a line from that book in which humans are referenced as withstanding pain in anticipation of revenge.
As an unrelated note, I was really glad to find out other people seemed to be having the trouble of finding an emerging issue that hadn't already hit the mainstream.

Minute Paper 5 (1/31/08)

Minute Paper 5 (1/31/08)

 

Today was very interesting and it was so many to think about because everything we discussed is an important issue of everyday life from the futurist point of view. We need more time to analyze and ponder on how the futurist might try to figure out how the world, people, and issue will be like ten or fifteen years from now. All the readings by the futurist and different authors give us (people) the chance to think hard and make their own point of view of what they support and not support. It is true what all the futurist said that it is impossible to predict the future the best thing is that we should make some suggestions, opinion, and supporting detail to lay out some of the criteria at looking at the future. So, it's all up to the person to pick which philosophy of looking at the future they believe is related to them. It's best to be open-minded and accept all alternative of brighter future. The Long Now article, I liked how the author comes up with his own predictions of the future by using different scenario and related to the people. He point out how time is essential to meet what the future may bring for us. I am looking forward for the next class discussion.

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minutemen #4 Jan3108

today we spoke about the concept of "futureS." It was really unexpected how philosophical the conversation became. I understood the idea behind the creation of "history", and thus the creation of the concept of "future," and I feel as though we, as individuals, can create alternative futures and thus creating a multitude of possibilities; but the idea of "creating" or having some control over our future is also a limiting state of mind. This is all a really broad concept, but I feel as though there would be some basic similarities in these concepts across cultural regions, based on each culture's belief system, morals, concept of what life really is, and "who" or "what" controls or does not control the fate of we as humans, spirits, or life energies.
it was interesting. sorry i was late.
virgi*

Minute Paper for January 31, 2008

I have to say the most intriguing portion of class was when the idea of counter factual thinking was introduced for it's something I do frequently, but have recently tried to avoid, thinking it would be considered dwelling in the past, which is frowned upon by many of my dearest friends. However, the whole idea of "what if" is difficult to not ponder because there are so many huge moments or little events that lead us to where we are and where we go. For instance, what if Britney Spears' aunt hadn't died? Would she be as unstable as she is today? Maybe not. Or what if Brad Pitt hadn't made Mr. and Mrs. Smith with Angelina Jolie? Would he have like a whole bunch of kids right now? Probably not. I like the idea of referencing the past to look towards the future as well. And the whole clock in a mountain thing is pretty interesting. I think I'm going to try and keep up with the development just to see the end product and how it affects people. Good class.

minute paper...

Everyday in this class, a new idea that i have never thought about is brought to my attention. before today, i sometimes ask "what if..." but it is not usually in the sense that was brought up in class. its very true, the whole notion of pluralism... if thats a word. thats how i would say it at least. sticking out in my mind from todays discussion is an image of the world, and then like a time line with at one end the beginning of agriculture and recorded history, and at the other end, some futures beings finding a clock in a mountain 10000 years from now. hopefully by then our society will not have self-destructed. right now is when we should be asking "what if" though... instead of looking back on mistakes (not that we can avoid some of them) we can look forward and play out as many of the infinite possibilities starting right now. every moment may be a pivotal point. we may not even realize it now... is there a way we can look holistically at say, all of time past present and futures all at once? perhaps in chunks is less overwhelming... i really like the idea of systematically diversifying ideas. systematic implies ordering and diversity is basically abundant differences. ordering different ideas to make more sense and give value to a variety of thoughts and opinions. how much healthier and happier would we be if we all had more open minds? i feel like the more diversity we have in everything, the more educated and aware we can be of our environment and ourselves... so as to better actively pursue creativity and... in a sense... alternativity? 

my head is spinning! wahoo

one minute paper 1/31

Today in class we had a big discussion about emerging issues that have yet to hit the mainstream media. One student talked about this robotic vest that you wear and it reads your muscle senses and sort of helps you walk and move. I found that to be really interesting because i had yet to hear about that. Then we discussed the papers and talked about how it effected us as we read through it. Overall todays class was mostly a discussion about what were some emerging issues.

one minute paper 1/31

In todays class i found the topic about that outer shell thing pretty
interesting. I think that in the next couple of years that will become
a huge deal on the market because it can help with rehabilitation and
walking. One thing that i was sort of confused about was disscussion
about the mixing of the genes between animals and humans.

minute paper 1/31

I really enjoyed the discussions and content of todays class. I think one of the topics that really had my attention was the counterfactual thinking concept. It's amazing to actually realize some of the things in life that should or would have happened if it weren't for, mostly, minute incidences. I'm actually enjoying thinking about many of those times, and wondering "what if". I think it will help me learn to appreciate everyday decisions that could be life-altering.  Another topic that struck my attention was how societies decide to thrive or fail. The Easter Island example was interesting because.... i knew of self-destructed civilizations, but i never really thought about them, or how they came to the point of self-destruction. The notion that self-destruction was a possibility for other civilizations, and very well is a possibility for our civilization, is very scary, but intriguing. Great class.

Your emerging issue

Hi guys,

This is a quick reminder of the exercise you're preparing for tomorrow's class.

On Tuesday we talked about the fact that society is changing must faster now than it once did.

Another way of speaking about this accelerating change process is to note, as we did in class, that novelties (as opposed to cycles or continuities) comprise a larger part of the "landscape of change" than in earlier eras. To clarify this using the landscape of change metaphor, as time goes by and we look around us as our world, those elements that seem to have always been there, we could call continuities (arguably, some features of "human nature" might be counted here). Those that we see regularly cropping up ("I've seen that before!") we could call cycles (such as swings between boom and bust in the economy, freedom and order in politics, or the regular procession of the seasons). The things we have not encountered before ("What the hell is that?") can be labelled novelties (for instance, to preliterate societies, writing was a novelty; to preindustrial culture, the steam engine came as a novelty).

All novelties have to start somewhere.

They begin very small. Then, as they get more attention, become more common, or more widely used, they reach a sort of saturation point. (Later on, they might drop off as other novelties enter the picture and replace them.)

One of the techniques of futures thinking is to try to identify novelties in their earliest stages (things at the left-hand end of the curve shown below, which depicts one way of evaluating the rise and fall of new innovations, technologies, trends, and so on).

The S-curve used in Emerging Issue Analysis
Wildman & Inayatullah Image from metafuture.org

Your job is to try to identify and tell the class (very briefly -- less than a minute) about an Emerging Issue you've found which you think has potential to grow into a fully blown trend, and which -- if it did -- could be quite shocking or disruptive. And the challenge is to find something that no one else in the class has heard of. Tell us where it's starting, how you found it, and why you think it could be important.

Remember, if it's been in the mainstream media we've probably already heard of it (i.e., it's no longer an emerging issue -- it's a full-on phenomenon!) so you might try fringe communities, e.g., subcultures of sport, art, fashion, or thought. Maybe you're involved in one that could give you some ideas.

If you can't do it in time for this class, that's okay -- we'll be touching on this next Tuesday also.

Cheers,
Stuart

Minute Paper 1/29/08

Wow, today in class we really brought together a lot of the ideas that we had been hinting at all week. The whole concept of what it means to be future conscious is really important. I think what stood out to me the most was the idea that instead of creating strict rules or regulations about future planning, the point we instead seemed to get to was that it needs to be part of the individual. I believe that the readings bring that to light when talking about government. Democracy is good, but the candidates job is to get elected. They're trying to get the people behind them and what people today care about is advancing themselves and their country economically. In the end, if the people themselves don't take future planning to heart, then the government will not be stressed to deal with the issues that planning ahead beyond this generation or the next will bring.

ridiculousness

Today's class makes me excited to be alive in the time we all happened
to be born. The concept of this... exponential growth of the rate of
change in the world is something that has been brought to my attention
before. everyone in this class should watch the movie waking life. its
a good one. however, i have never thought about the issue quite like
this. i understand the need to "anticipate massive change." the idea of
useful statements needing to be ridiculous makes sense. but what i
can't wrap my head around is how there can be genuinely novel ideas yet
to be thought up. i feel like anything that is "new" these days is just
a cheap copy of something from the past... what is revolutionary
anymore? there is no way we can know what is going to happen next. all
i can do is keep an open mind, i guess. the phrase "surfing tsunamis of
change" is such a fantastic idea i think. surfing takes practice,
knowledge of waves... so what we should do for ourselves and our future
generations is be as conscious as possible of the waves of change
(whats going on in the world around us)... and practice being creative
and open minded. these ideas make me think for some strange reason
about childrens theatre, and art in school systems... the best way to
ensure a positive future is to instill creativity and a sense of
improvisation in the youngest generation...
lets practice ridiculousness with everyone around us? haha

minute paper 01/29

today at class, we discussed about the reading material we read before the class. There was 2 articles and they were both talking about looking at future and concerns for future generations.
I think I chose a very good class. Because I've been thinking of changing my major to PoliSci and I found out during the past class times that UH has very good future oriented political science program. When we were talking about the future, there was many ideas on what we need to do or what we can do. After hearing everything, I thought there isn't much we can do except trying our best to preserve the planet's resources and take steps in technological terms to make sure human race prevails. Even that technological way we decide to take for the future generation fails, we had good intention and Socrates said as long as the intention was good, it's better then not trying at all.
I wish we will get to talk about this subject more so I can think and reflect on it more.

-minho jeong-

Minute Paper 4 (1/29/08)

Today's class it was confusing and interesting at the same time. I think because I did not read the documents. The phrase "future generation" captures memory of graduations from secondary school, high school, and colleges. Leaders, politicians, and parents always enforce students to become good future leaders. For the students to follow their footsteps and be prepare for what's ahead of them. It seems that leader, politician and parents initiate the process of getting students prepare for the future but doing further systematic process of getting all the specific things ready is not really accomplish. Listening to the discussion we had today give some very useful information and things that most of the time people never think about it but its something that we should pay much attention to it. Planning for the future will help eliminate chaos that we faced now and will prepare readily for what the future may bring for us. Most people do not like change at all this is the problem people face; instead we should try other new things and be more open minded.

 

posted by Ruta..

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Andrew's Minute Paper 1/29

One thing that particularly struck me both about the discussions in class today as well as the readings that were assigned was that the arguments for a futurist outlook focus entirely on the how of futurism, not the why. Because, while it is all well and good to state such things as "it is ethical to give a damn about the future" or "future generations are our conscience", such arguments aren't necessarily going to win over those whose overriding obsession is the now. One segment in particular from the reading caught my mind with regards to fore thinking. There was a section implying that the future generations might be entitled to more weight in decision making than present generation. While one might admit that helping the future is worth accomplishing, one might also question a belief that requires that to be at the expense of the present.

minute paper 01.29.08

Unfortunately today I was thirty minutes late to
class, so I missed the beginning of the discussion.
The part that I did hear, however, I found educational
and quite alarming. Novelties were defined today as
something disruptive that require radical change.
Based on the estimation that 80% of future experiences
would be novelties, I thought Prof. Stuart made a very
sound point when discussing our current educational
system and the idea that it may be a misplaced
investiment if the proposed estimation is true. It's a
very scarey thought. Also, the excerpt read from the
geology book about mother nature being 46 years old
really hit home and put it all in perspective. The
word "staggering" was used, and i can think of no
other word that better describes the radical changes
that mankind has undergone in the recent past. It's
even crazier to think that our generation is the very
first to experience first-hand all of mankinds major
technological advancements. In a sense we are
inevitbaly the guineapigs of the technological age. In
reference to the assingment we were given today, I
find it a lot harder than expected to think of new and
orignial ideas regarding the future. Hollywood images
and cliché concepts keep clouding my thoughts and
hindering my ability to come up with something
untainted by the opinions of others.

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Minute Paper 1/29

Today was the first class that I truly saw all of the ideas that we’ve been discussing separately in each class start to piece themselves together. Through the readings and the ensuing discussions we looked at how or current political systems approaches and quite often avoids the future, and how thru attempting to be better prepared for possible futures, we and our governments can at least give ourselves and generations to come a chance for a better future. Today’s class also helped me to better understand the full effect of our mental real estate in not only on how we view our future but also on how we are able to cope with the extreme changes that we have been living through. When I read the article “The future as a way of life” and how it addressed the concept of future shock, my first response was that I have never experienced this overwhelming shock/disorientation to the changes in this society that I grew up in. In this observation I found what I believe to be the answer to why my generation hasn’t experienced what I would roughly interpret as a “novelty adaptation puberty”. This is because most of us don’t really know any other type of society or patterns of change. In fact our mental real estate is comprised almost exclusively of ideas from this information society, meaning that we have not really experienced any change in our ways of life because these drastic changes are simple how things have always been for us.

Mark Alexander

I think thinkers that imagine the future and figure things, that we can do today, to make life as good as possible for future generations are the ones who keep hope alive. Humanity may or may not survive without people with foresight, but if humanity wants to continue without considerable suffering then we need to make a plan that will counter the actions of the past and present. We are currently on the course for probable extinction, and we wouldn't be going out alone. We would drag the majority of life with us.

One Minute Paper 1/29

In todays class we talked about planning for future generations. In my
opinion i dont think that we should really plan for future generations.
I think that we should worry about what is going on in this world in
our own generation. One thing that i was sort of confused about was
when you talked about how the people gave the percentages about the 3
subjects

Week 3 readings

Hi all,

A couple of notes about the reading for this week. Below are the bibliographical details for the readings we covered today.

Jan 29:

- Jim Dator, "Caring for future generations" [pdf], July 02007

- Alvin Toffler, "The future as a way of life" [jpg], in Society As It Is: A Reader, Glen Gaviglio & David E. Raye (eds.), Macmillan, New York, 01971, pp. 450-461 (first published in Horizon, Summer 01965)

- Walt Anderson, "The Virtual Republic" [jpg], in Tae-Chang Kim & Jim Dator (eds.), Co-Creating a Public Philosophy for Future Generations, Adamantine, Twickenham [UK], 01999, pp. 17-23.

- Tae-Chang Kim & James A. Dator, "Future generations: They are our conscience" [pdf], first published in Kim & Dator (above), 01999.

And for Thursday, Jan 31:

- Stewart Brand, "Uses of the Future", [jpg], from The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility, Basic Books, New York, 01999, pp. 1:18-1:23.
- Thomas Cahill, excerpt from The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels, [jpg], Nan A. Talese/Anchor, New York, 01998, pp. 123-132.
- Jim Dator, "What Futures Studies Is, and Is Not" [doc]
- Jim Dator, "Aiglatson (To Be a Good Futurist)" [pdf], from "Futures Studies as Applied Knowledge", 01993, http://www.futures.hawaii.edu/dator/futures/appliedknow.html

I am sending these to you as a zipped folder attachment. Please remember to bring your hard copies to each session.

Keep those minute papers flowing in -- I'm interested to know what you all thought about today's class.

Cheers,
Stuart

Minute Paper 1/29

Today in class, we talked about future generations and futures. We also talked about the articles we were supposed to read for class. We do want the future generations to inherit the earth  without it having any big problems. To be able to do this, we need to start solving the major problems that we have right now in our world. Future generations, whether it be people, animals, or whatever you want to look at, will be happier if we start to solve our problems now instead of when they are growing up.

The pace of change

Folks,

Here's the piece I read to you in class today to illustrate how quickly events around us are unfolding, especially when compared to geological time...

[W]e can depict Mother Earth as a lady of 46, if her “years” are megacenturies. The first seven of those years are wholly lost to the biographer, but the deeds of her later childhood are to be seen in old rocks in Greenland and South Africa. Like the human memory, the surface of our planet distorts the record, emphasising more recent events and letting the rest pass into vagueness – or at least into unimpressive joints in worn down mountain chains.

Most of what we recognise on Earth, including all substantial life, is the product of the past six years of the lady’s life. She flowered, literally, in her middle age. Her continents were quite bare of life until she was getting on for 42 and flowering plants did not appear until she was 45 – just one year ago. At that time the great reptiles, including the dinosaurs, were her pets and the break-up of the last supercontinent was in progress.

The dinosaurs passed away eight months ago, and the upstart mammals replaced them. In the middle of last week, in Africa, some man-like apes turned into ape-like men and at the weekend Mother Earth began shivering with the latest series of ice ages. Just over four hours have elapsed since a new species calling itself Homo Sapiens started chasing the other animals and in the last hour it has invented agriculture and settled down. A quarter of an hour ago, Moses led his people to safety across a crack in the Earth’s shell, and about five minutes later Jesus was preaching on a hill farther along the fault-line. Just one minute has passed, out of Mother Earth’s 46 “years”, since man began his industrial revolution, three human lifetimes ago. During that minute he has multiplied his numbers and his skills prodigiously and ransacked the planet for metal and fuel.

(From p. 11 of Restless Earth, a geology textbook by Nigel Calder published in 01972.)

one minute paper 1/29

Today in class we went over the readings and we discussed weather or not it was good to prepare for future generations. Weather we should be encouraged to help our childrens childrens lives be better or should we focus on the problems that we have in the present. In my opinion i feel that we first need to figure out the problems that face our society now before we can move towards the future and help the future generations. I enjoyed todays class and it was fun to see how people viewed this topic

Minute Paper 1/29/08

I thought today's discussion on caring for our future generations covered a lot of interesting points. Some of the readings did bring up some good points, but I think in general most of the readings were more focused on the vast changes that mankind is experiencing now. It is true that technology is reinventing itself so often that even a 3 year old computer is considered old as many programs are constantly upgrading. It has only been 13 years since the world wide web was accessible to most people and now the internet is used globally by everyone for almost anything. If you really think about it, it is really scary to imagine the possible role the internet or advanced technology will play in the future as humans won't be needed for various types of jobs. I also thought the percentages of the novelties, continuities, and cycles were explained very well in terms of what the future will be like.

Paula

minute paper 1/29/08

Both of the articles we read and discussed in class today brought up the issue that we(mankind) have an obligation to look at the potential problems of the future in order to implement resolutions today that may (as we see it) help out our children tomorrow. This demand to implement sustainability for our children is a recent phenomenon as the industrial revolution and technology have driven such change in such a short amount of time. For thousands of years mankind has seen little change (until the last 100 years) and there was no need to think outside the box because things were so constant with little to no change.

Re: 1 Minute paper 1/29/2008

Mario Hernandez <mariohernand@pacbell.net> wrote:

WHAT UP EVERYBODY i felt that all the articles focused on the same idea, that the future is coming and we have to do something that will allow future generations to live in a world that has been sculpted by previous lives. Tofflers article about the "future shock" was by my opinion the most informational he actually predicted some thing that did not exist in 1970.  For example he spoke of the computer programmer soon being as absolete as the black smith. Which unfortunately is very true, for our country is now outsourcing to other countries for less wage laborers. And how our society has gone from precivilized, to civilized, to "post civilized".  Toffler also spoke of our generation to be that of the "second industrial revolution".  What was the most intriguing was when he talk about human brains being "plugged in" which is, i think not to far away, we have already uncovered the human genenome allowing us to create ourselves without fear of irregularities. All the articles made points about what kind of future we want so what kind do you want?

29January Mintue paper

Think about the future is a little scary at times. But it does have to
be thought about and something does have to be done.I think that we
should learn more about the futures, but not eliminate learning about
our history either.Because history does repeat itself. Also the paper
by Toffer, was dated but it also had good points. One reason i dont
think we notice the future shock as he called it is because we do not
know anything else. We are living it , and not taught anything
differnt. I dont remeber who said it, but i agree with him who said we
are not affect by the future shock. We could be, but we arent, we dont
know any thing different to be effected by it. Thanks.