On the responsibility to vision.

1. On the responsibility to vision. Club of Amsterdam Summit for the Future 26-68 January 2005 Dr. Wendy L. Schultz Infinite Futures http://ww.infinitefutures.com/

2. No vision = no future? • Of course not: • The world will carry on -- • entropy and • evolution. Infinite Futures

3. Momentum? Or inertia? • Will the world carry on well? • accountability • responsibility • We can create change; • how should we create change? Infinite Futures

4. What do we care? • We won’t be here to deal with the mess -- or will we? Infinite Futures

5. Certainly they will. • They will live in a future created by our actions; and • Colonised by other people’s images of possible and preferred futures -- • Unless we learn to articulate our visions. Infinite Futures

6. Who’s created this present? • MacDonald’s and Starbucks have colonised the high streets; • Microsoft has colonised our desktops; • And we know from biology that monoculture creates vulnerability: • Strength in choice among competing images of the future; • Let’s try an open source approach. Infinite Futures

7. Rangefinding our vision. • An open source approach begins with each of us articulating and clarifying our own visions. • Let’s borrow a vision test format from opticians: • Focus your vision (preferred future) by comparing contrasting possible futures, and choosing among them: Infinite Futures

8. Is this better? A rural future? Infinite Futures

9. Or this? An urban future? Infinite Futures

10. Is this better? A future transformed by technology? Infinite Futures

11. Or this? A future transformed by mental and spiritual attainments? Infinite Futures

12. Is this better? A large-scale, nuclear energy future? Infinite Futures

13. Or this? A small-scale, solar-powered future? Infinite Futures

14. Is this better? A future of increasing digital pervasiveness and invasiveness? Infinite Futures

15. Or this? A future of biological manipulation and transformation? Infinite Futures

16. Tough choices. • Rangefinding our vision means making tough choices among alternative possibilities, guided by our values. • What trade-offs are we willing to accept in choosing one path over another? • What compromises? • How do we share differentially distributed benefits and drawbacks? Infinite Futures

17. The Image of the Future The rise and fall of images of the future precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures. As long as a society's image of the future is positive and flourishing, the flower of the culture is in full blossom. Once the image of the future begins to decay and lose its vitality, however, the culture cannot long survive. Fred, L. Polak, 1961, vol. 1, p. 50. Infinite Futures

18. Existing images ofalternative futures: sources • Individuals… what do people think? • e.g., Surveys, Ethnographic Futures Research, etc. • Culture... what do religions imply? political ideologies? what do artists imagine? writers? advertisers? other artifacts? • Content analysis; hermeneutic analysis, etc. • Forecasts… what trends have researchers extrapolated? what scenarios have futurists built? • Secondary analysis of existing research and data. Infinite Futures

19. Images of the future:a continuum of infinite possibilities wild cards! scenarios: upside utopias visions scenarios: PTE dystopias nightmares scenarios: downside wild cards! all possible images of the future Infinite Futures

20. Scenarios • Scenarios are futures for the HEAD: they allow us to explore our assumptions about possibilities. Infinite Futures

21. …vs. Visions • Visions are futures for the HEART: allowing us to voice our most deeply felt values and goals. Infinite Futures

22. Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline, Organizational Capacity for Vision Creation HIGH CO-CREATING required capacity for direction-setting and learning consulting testing selling telling LOW HIGH degree of active staff involvement Infinite Futures

23. Your task for this Summit: • Listen. • Collect interesting and provocative ideas with implications for different futures. • Clarify your own values, goals, and ideals. • Share your emerging visions; listen. Infinite Futures

24. Cloud Atlas Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why? Because of this – one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the doom written within our nature? Infinite Futures

25. Cloud Atlas If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw; if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword. A life spent shaping a world I want [my children] to inherit, not one I fear [my children] shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth living. Infinite Futures

26. Let us dream with courage. Thank you.