By Jim Selman | Bio
Since Alvin Toffler published Future Shock in the 1970s, futurists have been speculating what will happen in the coming decades. As with most attempts at long-range predictions, the proof is in the pudding. Most turn out to be somewhat accurate, along with lots of unpredictable ‘surprises’. No one, for example, anticipated the Internet, globalization, Google, global terrorism, cell phones or the unimaginable cost of energy. The future continues to be a fickle mistress and pretty much does what she wants to do, regardless of our prognostications.Behind our fascination with future scenarios is our belief that if we know what will happen, it will inform our actions and choices and we will be more successful, happier or merely survive. In the Michigan Citizen last week, environmental leader Maynard Kaufman was quoted as having predicted that we are going to again become an agrarian society. In another piece in the same paper, Shae Howell is speculating on the future of globalization following the recent collapse