summary of "futures 2.0: rethinking the discipline" by askpang
DESCRIPTION
These slides were from a talk summarizing Alex Soojung-Kim Pang's (askpang) awesome paper "Futures 2.0: rethinking the discipline" for a Futures Studies class at the University of Houston.TRANSCRIPT
Reality Check for “Alternative Perspectives” on
“Futures 2.0: rethinking the discipline”
by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
J.h Lindenger – November 1, 2012 @jlindenger | [email protected]
A re-envisioning of futures based on the shape of things today…
dealing with 21st century problems
cognitive biases
new tools for collaboration/understanding/shaping
that people (all of them) create the 3ture
understanding
harnessing
realizing
But first…
Who is Alex Soojung-Kim Pang?
look up “askpang” on the interwe6 to find all of his stuff
21st Century Challenges
Image: eddie colla – “my life” mural by *eddie, on Flickr
Everybody is an influencer
Image: the_future_rfk by indy_slug, on Flickr
wired to think about the future, but poorly
Image: youth is the future by guy fawkes, on Flickr
Expertise in forecasting can also be problematic
Image: in the future we’ll consume radiated dog – wtf?! By shira golding, on Flickr
Despite all this,
We just need to figure out how to do it better…
we MUST think about the future
Enter the tools…
Social scanning | prediction markets
For dealing with the compl8 3ture…
For evaluating methods and impact…
For shaping the co-created 3ture…
bias mitigation | ethnographic studies
Choice architecture and nudges
Social scanning
harnessing current scanning efforts
them with algorithms
aggregate, collective results to the greater community
would shi9 from a private activity to a public one
massaging
delivering
Prediction markets…
are kind of like a De/phi, but different
present some challenges for use by 3turists
are a forecasting technique based on market economics
Futurists need tools that help
Mitigate the cognitive biases
“better anticipate the 3ture by more objectively engaging with [our] own pasts”
that plague 8pertise
A quick aside for cont8t…
IARPA’s Aggregative Contigent Estimation (ACE) challenge
Ethnographic studies
:e “not about being right, but use3l” phil.ophy is hard to stomach if you
don’t really know what use3l means.
could help us understand how forecasts are used
When well-designed
Choice architectures and nudges
and reach better 3tures
present choices in ways that can
Help people make better decisions
:is paper is really one take on
The future of futures and a pretty interesting one at that
The new tools could help us get at some pretty important things for the field…
assessing the importance of accuracy
cognitive biases
the various strands of Futures
“take thinking about the 3ture out into the world, and make it more of an everyday activity”
Countering
uniting
The Challenge of Futures 2.0:
How do we help people
for themselves? Create better futures
Reframe how we think of Futures
Not production of t8ts about the 3ture…
social practices and performances creating 3tures
What is our role then?
Futurists as
compl8ity | long-term perspective | creativity Choice architects
Image: brussels – the future is in the air by infomatique, on Flickr