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The
MEME
Pool |
;)
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Drachma-Denarius
Applied Futures Research
and
Strategic
Planning |
July 28 2002
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From: |
Raymond Bouchard |
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To: |
Arthur Cordell |
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Subject: |
Meme 021 |
Dear Arthur
Here's the latest edition of the Meme Pool, the newsletter
of web articles that 'deserve' to be repeated, re-used and re-cycled. Articles
of interest to futurists and strategic planners are presented once a week. They
highlight the appearance and disappearance of trends, technologies and
paradigms.
ENVIRONMENT
Forecasting
And Action
In 1980, James Gustave Speth chaired the US Council
on Environmental Quality for the Carter Administration. One of their tasks was
to prepare what became the "Global 2000 Report to the President." In it they
projected the population and environmental outcomes that would unfold by 2000 if
societies did nothing to change course.
As he reports in Foreign
Policy, "We saw it coming. 'Global 2000' projected that population would
grow from 4 billion to 6.3 billion by 2000. The actual number was 6 billion. We
projected that tropical deforestation would occur at rates in excess of an acre
per second, and for 20 years, that's what happened. We projected that 15 to 20
percent of all species would be lost, and recent analysis suggests that this
estimate was not far off the mark.
The report projected that an area
about the size of Maine would be rendered barren each year by desertification.
And that remains a decent estimate. We predicted that growing energy use would
lead in this century to a 2 to 3 degree Celsius rise in mid-latitude
temperatures and to significant changes in rainfall patterns. This description
of the greenhouse effect still falls neatly within current estimates."
As
futurists it is well worth noting that accurate forecasts which don't produce
results are not too helpful. Too often we make predictions based on exploratory
techniques to describe what could happen or even what is likely to happen. On
many issues however, more emphasis needs to be placed on normative forecasting
to show how we can get where we need to go. We need to establish road maps,
plans, that (almost) everyone can live with.
[Foreign
Policy]
COMPUTING
Device Interaction
And Device Convergence
Scientific American has an article on
asynchronous computing. Typically, modern computers are synchronous, which means
that all chips on the motherboard operate and communicate in time to the pulse
generated by the system clock. In asynchronous computing, individual components
operate on a time cycle suitable to them.
This may seem like a fairly
obscure technology, yet it has important implications in areas where
technologies converge. Wireless technologies are already capable of allowing
devices to sense the presence of other devices, and to communicate with them.
Trivial uses include allowing computers to access the nearest available printer.
More interesting is the possibility of increasing computing power merely by
placing computers next to each other and having them collaborate. Asynchronous
computing allows them to share resource in a manner consistent with device
capability, rather than process need.
The value of, and need for,
asynchronous technology becomes even greater in remote sensing devices and
bio-sensing devices. It will likely result in the need to develop a 'technology
of society' which will create 'rules of etiquette' for machines.
And as
always, we need to add the disclaimer. Technology has the potential, but it may
not ever be realized. Privacy and data ownership issues inevitably are raised.
Consider the case of the "black box" in automobiles. This is of enormous
potential value in designing safer automobiles, and is also useful in lawsuits.
In 1999, GM was the subject of a class action lawsuit for installing such
devices without consent of the vehicle's owners. It seems that some auto owners
don't want their car to testify against them.
[Scientific
American]
INTERNET
Social
Impacts
There is no question that the Internet has brought
many new innovations into our world. But has it changed how we interact
socially?
Apparently not. IT&Society is a new web-based
scholarly journal devoted to the scientific analysis of the social impact of
information technology on society, with special emphasis on quantitative survey
analysis. The first issue focuses on sociability. Contrary to predictions, many
of the articles report that not much has changed.
[IT&Society]
GLOBAL
PERSPECTIVE
Human Development
Western
priorities, for technology, culture and social development do not translate well
into the third world as it struggles with poverty and disease. The United
Nations has recently published its Human Development Report, which focuses on
the progress of democratic governance.
Simple data can challenge
perspectives. For example, voter turnout in the "land of the home and the free"
is only 51%, and in Switzerland - a long-standing democracy - it is a scant 43%.
Meanwhile, in Cuba, turnout is 98%.
[UN Development Report]
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Back issues can be found at
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An
introduction to the theory of memes can be found at
Principia
Cybernetica. |
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