Deep futures : our prospects for survival / Doug Cocks.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cocks, K. D. (Kenneth Douglas)

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Forecasting.

Physical Description:

xvii, 332 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Montreal ; Ithaca : McGill-Queen's University Press Sydney : University of new South Wales Press, 2003.

Summary:

Deep Futures addresses many questions, largely about the future of humanity, such as: Will the human lineage survive, reasonably happily, the twenty-first century? Assuming we survive, will this millennium be particularly difficult ... or just plain difficult? Will we eventually become extinct (like most species) or continue to evolve? Deep Futures is divided into three parts. Part 1 looks at what serious futuregazers see as the prospects for the human and post-human lineage, looking at and beyond this century and this millennium, far into the future. Part 2 reflects on ideas for thinking about the future drawn from an array of disciplines and on broad questions that will continue to confront humanity. Part 3 identifies science-based strategies that may be adopted to maximise humanity's chances for surviving 'well', into the near future and beyond.

Contents:

Part 1 Futures we have Glimpsed 1

Chapter 1 21C: A difficult century 3

Global springboard to the future 4

Hobsbawm's coming problems 6

Geopolitical futures 9

Geoeconomic futures 18

World-shaping technologies 27

A growing world population 40

Geosocial futures 42

Global environmental futures 55

Global resource futures 64

Summary: change in the 21st century 68

Chapter 2 Deep futures 73

M3: The world of the third millennium 74

The next glacial age 88

Beyond the next glacial age 94

Overview: dungeons and dragons 128

Part 2 Understanding the Task 133

Chapter 3 What is the question? 135

Why do people think about the future? 135

What do people want of their own futures? 136

What sort of society do people want? 137

Can societies have goals? 138

The process of setting social goals 141

Quality survival as a goal for world society 142

From goals to objectives 144

Can we shape the future? 145

Recapitulation 146

Chapter 4 Understanding how societies change over time 148

Ideas from history 151

Some social psychology 167

Sociology and societal change 169

Systems theory and societal change 174

Ecological theory and societal change 186

Evolutionary theory and societal change 190

Overview: A plurality of frameworks 198

Part 3 Taking Charge 205

Chapter 5 A strategy for managing the deep future 207

Picking a metaphor for the deep futures problem 207

Wicked problems 208

Accepting that rationality is bounded 209

A strategy of responding to priority issues 212

Four priority issues 213

Chapter 6 Guidelines I: Nursing the world through endless change 215

Managing the change rate 216

Managing trends 217

Managing fragility and senescence 219

Managing unpredictability 223

A Sisyphean task 231

Chapter 7 Guidelines II: Learning forever 234

Four pillars of social learning 235

Nurturing social learning 236

Boosting social learning 239

Managing science and technology 243

Managing stocks and flows of knowledge 251

Recapitulation 253

Chapter 8 Guidelines III: Working on perennial issues 256

Managing social relations 257

Managing global governance 272

Managing production and distribution 278

Managing the global ecosystem 284

Chapter 9 Stories to live by 294

Backtracking 294

Style, attitude and role 296

Appendix Basic properties of dissipative (energy-degrading) systems 300.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [304]-320) and index.

ISBN:

0773526714

0773526722

OCLC:

52039272