Raising Retirement and Medicare Ages Can Backfire

There was a time when I thought that raising the retirement age was a good idea. People were living longer and healthier, and most work was information or service work. So why not? The U.S. age for Social Security is already going up to 67. What would be the harm in raising it to 70?

More recently I have come to the view that this would be bad public policy. Why? For those in the top 50% of earners life span is indeed increasing, but for those in the bottom 50% of earners life span is barely changing. Raising the retirement age would be quite harmful to those earning less, who are often in the most physically demanding jobs.

Digby has written about this with passion and clarity.

Then there is the recent proposal being floated to save some Medicare spending by increasing the eligibility age from 65 to 67 here in the U.S. This would be a disaster for many, many people age 65-67, who could not afford private health insurance (if they could get it) and may no longer be covered by employers. And it may not save much money for the government. It is Insurance 101 to keep younger, healthier people in your program. In fact a recent analysis shows that while there may be a small saving in Medicare itself, the costs to individuals, employers, and states, plus higher costs to remaining Medicare enrollees will be more than twice any anticipated savings. Uh oh. Maybe this idea needs to be re-thought.

Related Blog Posts:
Future Careers and Aging
Four Challenges for CEO's

Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, author, consultant, blogger, internet video producer and Founder of Futurist.com. We are booking events for the Fall-Winter and for 2012. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.

Carbon Nation – the Movie – Now on DVD and Recommended

Carbon Nation is now available on DVD and on most download and On Demand sites. This important, entertaining and hopeful documentary, produced by Peter Byck, is highly recommended by us here at Futurist.com. Read the press release here. Learn how to order the film here.

I saw Carbon Nation this spring when Boeing sponsored a premier here in Seattle, and we blogged at that time that it would be come the “new must see film on our common future.” In the movie Peter travels throughout the country documenting amazing stories of individuals and companies who are creating the next clean and low-carbon energy future. If you see climate change as a problem, or if you don’t but would like cleaner and cheaper energy anyway, this film tells you how it can be done, and is already being done.

We encourage you to buy the DVD, and what we are really recommending is that companies, educational institutions, and conference events consider a bulk purchase of DVD’s for use as a premium, an educational asset, or strategic planning tool. Carbon Nation would be terrific for any of those uses, and I have already begun talking with one speaking event I am doing about the possibility of a purchase and give-away of the DVD to those in attendance.

By the way, our new Futurist.com Office Manager, Mallory Smith, university graduate this year, just watched the DVD and loved it. If you have a message that speaks to both the sustainability and next jet fuel managers at Boeing, as well as the most recent college grads, chances are you have message that is worth watching.

To order the DVD or to inquire about a bulk purchase we suggest you contact Carbon Nation directly at www.carbonnationmovie.com. You can always contact us at info@futurist.com for information.

One more important announcement: We are pleased to announce that Peter will become a featured associate at Futurist.com, and is available for public speaking events where he can show the film and talk about it, or in a shorter format provide a presentation sprinkled with excerpts from the movie. Peter has over 20 years experience as a director and editor. His first documentary “Garbage” won the South by Southwest Film Festival, screened in scores of festivals and played at the Museum of Modern Art and Lincoln Center. In addition, he has edited documentaries for Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” and “King Kong.” As an associate, he will be available for speaking engagements and we will also be looking for ways to develop collaborative projects. There will be more news to come on that in our next newsletter. Contact us at info@futurist.com about arranging a speech by Peter.

The Movie Trailer

Related Blog Posts:

Carbon Nation a Great Film - Go See It

World Oil Prices Heating Up

Debt crisis – from history to the future

Watching the U.S. "debt crisis" unfold, I am reminded that to see the way forward, it is often good to look backward. History does not consist only of facts, but history is full of facts that cannot be ignored. In this case, it helps to see where the debt came from - this is essential to dealing with it. The New York Times provided such a summary in one simple picture on July 24.

(New York Times Editorial Graph)

We can see that going back to the tax rates prior to 2002 eliminates some 40% of the deficit that contributes to the debt. We have always borrowed to pay for wars, but not every penny. So, ending the current wars that are unpaid for eliminates much of the rest of the deficit. One could go further. The Institute for Policy Studies reported this spring that if the U.S. could return to the tax rates of 1961, after the Kennedy tax cut of that time, the resulting revenue would eliminate not just the annual deficit but the entire U.S. debt in about ten years. (This would take us back to the halcyon year of 2000 when the U.S. was running a surplus and the debt was set to disappear by 2014. Then came the tax cuts of the day, the wars, and the underfunded drug benefit program.)

I will simply remind everyone that the most prosperous period in U.S. history (1946-1979), when the great middle class was built and much of our legacy infrastructure was put in place, coincided with a period of higher taxes.

You get what you pay for, and it may just turn out that what you get for higher progressive tax rates is a thing we call a civilization. What you get when you refuse to pay taxes is something else, I am not sure what to call it, but probably not a civilization as we have known it.

Our Future in Space: Moving Offworld

Three milestones in space were passed in the last four days. The NASA spacecraft Dawn began its close approach to the second largest of the know asteroids in the asteroid belt, the asteroid Vesta.

The final space shuttle mission ended with the landing of Atlantis this morning.

And, yesterday marked the anniversary of the day that Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon for the first time, 42 years ago.

How do you feel about these three milestones? I feel some pride and optimism that the human venture into space will continue. But more than that I feel a sense of regret that so little of the original promise has been fulfilled, because we did not try.

It is safe to say that my interest in “the future” coincided with my interest in our future in space. Coming of age as Sputnik was launched, eagerly getting up in the early morning to watch all the manned launches of 1960’s, waiting nervously for Eagle to touch down on Tranquility Base in 1969, were all formative experiences in how I thought about the future. By sheer synchronicity the college at which I was a student in 1970 hired as its president the person who had been director of program planning for building Apollo, Ed Lindaman. Working with him cemented my belief that the human adventure in space would be part of the likely, and desired future.

Dr. Lindaman said, in the 1970’s that while the early manned missions from Mercury through Apollo, along with the Russian manned space program, were analogous to the early explorers of the globe. They would go out, see what is there, and return with a report. The shuttle, he believed, would be more analogous to the Conestoga Wagon, which carried average people into the wilderness with the intent that they stay there as settlers.

One can make a case that the final shuttle missions, which focused mostly on building and maintaining the International Space Station, have in a way succeeded in delivering settlers into a near permanent presence in space. It is an achievement, but a modest one. Along the way we have been diverted into other investments, other problems and issues. For the next few years U.S. astronauts will rent space on Russian spacecraft when they want to go into space. Several private companies will compete to build the next U.S. spacecraft designed to put people into orbit. It will be several years before we know who succeeds, or whether they will succeed. We will find out whether companies that must ultimately show a profit can actually make a business of space travel. If the answer to that is no, then I suspect that years from now when we watch humans return to the moon, or land on Mars for the first time, they will not be from the U.S.

Other writers are noticing the same events as I, and commenting in pithy ways. I was especially taken by the work of The Pain Comics, who thought to compare the adventure of going to the moon to the adventures in Afghanistan. Both the cartoon comparison and the commentary that goes with it are enlightening.

The author comments...

So this is the future we’ve chosen: instead of colonies on the Moon or Mars, sandbag bunkers in Afghanistan and concrete fortifications in Iraq. Instead of soaring upward and outward, we’re hunkering down with ammo. The new generation of consumer toys that mostly just lets us pursue the same tawdry old primate pastimes of bragging, gossip and getting off are pretty chintzy consolations for the promise of new worlds reneged on. So okay, we can find out whether that old PSA about lead poison that gave us nightmares as kids is on YouTube yet, or get back in touch with our middle school crushes on Facebook. That’s cool, I guess. But we could have walked on Mars.

I do think that human destiny is in part tied up in moving off world. If I was King for day, we’d go there faster.

Were you there 42 years ago? Where should we be 42 years from now?

Can we become Apollo’s Children?

Building the future: Do the opposite of what we are doing

For a long time I have said that many of our policies in the U.S. seem, to me, to be the opposite of what is actually needed to revive the economy and build a better future. Recent evidence from Germany, which is in fact doing pretty much the opposite of the U.S., suggests this view might be valid. From a blogger named brooklynbadboy:

1. Germany faced a budget crisis to which they responded by substantially raising taxes on the wealthy and holding the line, not cutting, spending.

2. Germany then faced the financial crash by increasing debt, increasing taxes, and investing those funds in infrastructure, increased social spending, and tax cuts for things like an extensive (far bigger than ours) national cash for clunkers program.

3. Germany then dealt with the employment crisis by not laying off people, but instead cutting hours. Then they made up the lost income through direct government payments to their people.

But here we are doing the almost direct opposite of what we know is working:

1. We are extending tax cuts for the wealthy.

2. We are cutting infrastructure and social spending.

3. We are laying people off by the hundreds of thousands and then paying them a meager amount to do nothing, but only for 99 weeks at the most.

So, according to the dominant economic policy controlling both the White House and Congress, Germany should be Somalia by now, right?

Wrong:

BERLIN — Germany’s unemployment rate dipped to 6.9 percent in June as the booming economy bolstered the country’s labor market further, official figures showed Thursday.

The unadjusted jobless rate was down from 7 percent in May, and the number of people registered as unemployed was 2.893 million — the lowest figure for June since 1992. The total was 67,000 lower than the previous month and down 255,000 from a year earlier.

Strong exports and signs of a recovery in domestic demand have powered the German economy — Europe’s biggest — for more than a year now, making the country a standout in the 17-nation eurozone.

How to reverse direction here? I wish I knew. Arguments and evidence seem to make little difference. Right now ideology seems to trump pragmatism. But eventually we will have to figure things out, don't you think?

The Solution: Conquer Your Fear, Control Your Future

3 Steps to Control Your Fear

A guest post by Lucinda Bassett, author of The Solution: Conquer Your Fear, Control Your Future was posted on My Super Charged Life on December 28, 2010

Lucinda posted the following expert from her book.

3 Actions to Help Control Your Fear in the Face of Change

Glen Hiemstra, our expert futurist, designates three actions that will help you control your fear in the face of challenge and change:

1. Get Current With the Latest Technology
   If you’re not skilled technologically, it’s time to learn some cool networking techniques that will help you connect to other people and the world at large. Then you won’t have the sense that the world is leaving you behind.
2. Improve Your Personal Communication Skills
   Nothing will get you further in life than being able to communicate clearly and directly. Then you can ask for what you want with no confusion.
3. Complexify Yourself
   This made-up word means that you need to discover your array of choices. Glen suggests you find a book on science fiction or management theory and read it. Or find a book on the history of the Great Depression and see how your ancestors coped during difficult times. Whatever attracts you, learn more and become a far more interested and interesting person.

Conquer Fear to Increase Your Sense of Importance

People often say, "You know, I’d really like to do something important. I’d like to be part of something that matters."

If you fear the future, you will ruin your chances of making a difference because you will react to life with paranoia instead of hope. Like a tortoise hiding in its shell, people become so overwhelmed by fear, they are paralyzed, unable to move in any direction. There is a proven neurological response to fear that causes people to shut down at the precise moment when they need to make an important decision. Once the response kicks in, they either can’t make any decision whatsoever, or they make the wrong one based on fearful projections about the future.

The challenge is to stay outside the boundary, Glen tells us, and find some alternatives to unfreeze yourself. You might engage in physical exercise like a hike or a bike ride to try to break up some of the stress. The point is that doing the three actions listed above can open you to change and the possibilities that come with it.

Most successful people do this on a steady basis. Glen regularly tells his groups, "The next twenty years are all about a mission. We’ve become more sustainable on a planetary basis, developing personal economies . . . that are maybe a little bit more modest but mostly just more sustainable, greener, and so forth."

At some time or another, we all must change the way we think, act, respond, and, most of all, the way we view the world and other people in it. It’s time to stop the thought patterns that keep you stuck, like "I know it won’t work." If that’s your belief, then it won’t. No excuses or reasons for not doing something, no matter how intricately thought out and expressed, can help you get what you want. Embracing challenge and change and turning them into opportunity is the solution.

Author Bio

Lucinda Bassett, author of The Solution: Conquer Your Fear, Control Your Future and President of the Midwest Center for Stress and Anxiety. is a nationally acclaimed motivational speaker and best-selling author. Her life-changing techniques have been shared with a variety of major corporations such as AT&T and McDonalds, and professional associations such as LPGA and the AIDS Foundation, as well as many educational institutions. She has appeared on hundreds of national radio and television programs including Oprah, The View, Live with Regis and Kelly, and Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power. Bassett and her emotional wellness solutions have been featured in a variety of high-profile publications including Health, Family Circle, Cosmopolitan, and even the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

The Impending Dominance of the Electric Car

On May 4th I had the pleasure of attending a Washington Clean Technology Alliance (WCTA) Lunch Seminar to hear James Billmaier, author of JOLT! The Impending Dominance of the Electric Car and Why America Must Take Charge.

After listening to Jim speak, I was fully convinced that America will soon become an "electriconomy" as he puts it. The way he explained it, it will be similar to the evolution of the internet, which existed for a fair amount of time before it became easily accessible to the general public through the introduction of the internet browser. Soon electric cars will be mass produced, charging stations will be easily found, and battery life will last longer to make it not only feasible, but desirable to own an electric car as your primary vehicle.

Jim had a number of enlightening facts about the current gas economy as well. As much as we complain about gas prices, they are currently paying $9/gal in France and the U.S. is not even in the top 100 for gas prices around the world. As gas imports increase, jobs will be lost to overseas production. Some would argue that there is gas to be found within our nation, which is true, but not nearly enough to meet our current needs. A much brighter picture will be painted as energy production becomes a higher priority. There are many ways to keep this production within our borders and increase the number of jobs here with it. Currently the government is still subsidizing gas and defending the pipelines in the Middle East, but even on this uneven playing field the current electric technology is highly superior.

Some people are unnecessarily worried about our current electric grid being overwhelmed by the increasing amount of cars that will need to be charged. Jim put this in perspective for us and explained that electric companies currently produce enough energy to meet the highest demands during the day, but the demand lowers so dramatically at night that even with a conservative estimate, 100 million cars can be charged at night on the unused energy that is currently available. And the future of energy production will only increase that amount. Charging an electric vehicle is equivalent to hooking up a new fridge, NOT a new house. Even air conditioning units take up to 75% more watts than are used to charge an electric vehicle for a 40 mile commute, and AC is more of a luxury than a necessity in many places.

Gas continues to sound more and more wasteful as it is compared to energy use and dollars spent on electric cars. It takes 6-7 kilowatt hours to make 1 gallon of gas. Even one of the newest electric cars, the Nissan Leaf, goes 30 miles on less than 6 kilowatts! In 2010, on a good day, $1 could buy you enough gas to get about 8 miles in a standard car, but in an electric car that same $1 could take you 50 miles! For those interested in sustainability, the Nissan Leaf is made from 90% recycled material and is fully 95% recyclable. And the lithium that batteries are made from is also endlessly recyclable.

Jim currently has two fairly new cars that he told us about, one that runs on gas, and one Nissan Leaf that he could not bring himself to wait to buy. It sounded like he bought it based on ideals, but he drives it because it is such a comfortable and efficient ride. He said that 95% of his miles are driven in his electric car and the other one is kept around now for longer trips or weekend holidays. I had expected to be convinced by the end of his speech that I should read his book, but instead I am convinced that my next car will be electric. If you ever have the chance to hear James Billmaier speak, you should take it. Until then, I would highly recommend his book because if it is half as informative and entertaining as he is in person, it will be one of the best of the year.

He has an even better conclusion on his Jolt! website:

There is no longer any question of whether or not we will adopt an electric-based transportation system. We will. And the transition will come much more quickly than most “experts” predict. All major auto-makers have some type of plug-in vehicle coming out in the very near future, with the first cars due out at the end of 2010. The U.S. can’t afford to be left behind. But we’re going to need to move fast to become the undisputed market leader.

The good news is that we’re halfway there, at least in terms of ability. The U.S. has a well-established history of economic leadership and is renowned for its innovation. It also has a resourceful and skilled workforce able to capitalize on every aspect of the coming electriconomy, from conception and development to manufacture and delivery. In short, the U.S. workforce is a veritable Dream Team.

And the electric vehicle is a Dream Car. EVs are good for us individually. They’re good for us as a nation. And they’re good for the planet.

Hang on, America! The EV is going to take us on an amazing ride.

- James Billmaier

The Truth About Climate Change

In a perfect world, people would rely on facts to uncover the truth. I don't want climate change to be real, but I'm not going to ignore all of the statistics that tell me that it is. However, the problem that many people face is how to change not only their beliefs, but their entire life just by accepting these facts. As Upton Sinclair pointed out nearly a century ago, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

In his New York Times opinion article, The Truth, Still Inconvenient, Krugman writes about five “expert witnesses” Republicans called for last week’s Congressional hearing on climate science.

But what we had, instead of high seriousness, was a farce: a supposedly crucial hearing stacked with people who had no business being there and instant ostracism for a climate skeptic who was actually willing to change his mind in the face of evidence.

Krugman goes on to say "it’s terrifying to realize that this kind of cynical careerism — for that’s what it is — has probably ensured that we won’t do anything about climate change until catastrophe is already upon us." I prefer to look at the bright side and point out that one scientist with strong climate-skeptic credentials not only changed his views based on his own research, but had the courage to present it to a Congressional hearing that was eager to hear something else.

Global Challenges In Next 20 Years

Later this week, on April 14, 2011, I will be doing presentations to the World Foresight Forum event in The Hague, Netherlands. On that day I will be part of a panel entitled Future Global Challenges. Along with panel members Sang-Hyun, Chairman of the International Criminal Court, and Edward de Bono, creator of "lateral thinking," to discuss what we each see as the "major challenge facing the world in the next 20 years." There are so many global challenges that it is difficult to choose one. Here is a preview of what I plan to say.

The Major Challenges Facing the World in the Next 20 Years

The future creates the present. Our images of the future exert a powerful influence on the choices we make today. If we want to change our present choices, we must change the future. Therefore it is important to ask what futures we should try to avoid, what futures we need to get ready for, and what futures we want to create.

Since the question of major challenges implies futures to avoid or get ready for, we will concentrate there. I divide challenges into four categories: Nuisance, Existential, Primary, and Causal. Before I name what I have selected as the major challenge facing the world, let me review the candidates, in these categories.

Nuisance: Global terrorism fits here. So long as there are relatively small groups of people with grievances and access to weapons, global travel, and instant communication, the threat of terrorism will persist. It is a matter for global intelligence, police, and occasionally military response, but it is not the major challenge.

Existential: There is one threat that could, in fact, wipe out civilization, which we know about but pay scant attention to. Scientific evidence suggests that on average about every 1200 to 4800 years the earth receives an asteroid strike sufficient to do major damage, up to and including wiping out most life on the planet.

Primary: This list would seem to provide the best candidates for the major challenge. The list includes:

• Climate change & global warming.
• Global water shortages.
• Threat of a global pandemic.
• Food security.
• National and international debt and economic crisis.
• Tendency toward increasing rich-poor gap in advanced and advancing economies.
• Rebuilding or building national, regional and local capacity in food production, manufacturing, and services.
• Stop moving mass.
• Global population and workforce imbalances and a lack of jobs worldwide.
• Wide acceptance of sustainable lifestyle.

If one were forced to choose just from this list, I would choose climate change and global warming as the primary challenge facing us in the next 20 years, because with each passing year and decade the ability to mitigate this threat becomes more remote. One can even produce scenarios in which climate change runs out of control and becomes a near existential threat.

Causal: Beneath the primary challenges lie deeper causes that, if not addressed, make it essentially impossible to confront the primary issues in ways that solve them rather than merely decrease their impact. Some causal challenges are practical, some deal with the deeper values and even with the nature of humanity. The causal challenges of major importance are:

• Energy – unless we reinvent the energy business, we cannot deal with climate change.
• Me vs. We, Greed and Habit, the Ethos of More – so long as the purpose of economic activity remains the accumulation of ever more wealth for the few and ever more consumption by everyone, for reasons of conscious and unconscious greed and sheer historical habit we will create the challenge of wealth divergence, and debt and economic instability, not to mention unsustainable resource depletion. With a billion people this was acceptable. With 9 billion people this will not work.
• Rejection of science in favor of popular opinion, and political and religious views, for example with regard to climate change.
• The purpose and nature of work - in a world where sufficient goods and services can be produced with less than the available workforce, and where the number of jobs is already insufficient, we must address work and what it is that humans are meant to do in the future.
• Inability to see, to think, and to act with a view of the long term and in a systemic way. The big challenges extend across borders, philosophies, approaches to governance, and biological and ecological systems. We know this, but barely understand how to deal with the reality of interconnectedness.

Conclusion: The major practical yet causal challenge facing the world in the next 20 years is the reinvention of energy. The major values-based causal challenge facing the world in the next 20 years is shifting from Me to We, to a less greed-based ethos that no longer accepts over-consumption as the natural order and the inevitable result of development.

Draft program by Glen Hiemstra 10 April 2011
"Me to We" concept from Gerd Leonhard

Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, author, consultant, blogger, internet video producer and Founder of Futurist.com. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.

When Visions of the Future Turn Negative

Later this week, on April 15, 2011, I will be doing presentations to the World Foresight Forum event in The Hague, Netherlands. On that day I will be part of a panel entitled Roadmaps for a Shared Future, where we will discuss envisioning alternative futures in the context of the "Gross National Happiness Index" as proposed by French President Sarkozy. Thinking about alternative visions brought me back to this article that I wrote originally in early 2001. It can be found in our article archives, but is worth sharing here once again, I think. It was written prior to 9/11, by the way.

Any student of the rise and fall of cultures cannot fail to be impressed by the role played in this historical succession by the image of the future. The rise and fall of images precedes or accompanies the rise and fall of cultures. As long as a society’s image is positive and flourishing, the flower of culture is in full bloom. Once the image begins to decay and lose its vitality, however, the culture does not long survive. (The Image of the Future, Fred Polak, 1961)

I have been thinking about images of the future lately. I have noticed that when I complete one of my typically positive and optimistic presentations, a certain number of people will stand in line to comment. Some wish to say that they appreciate the hopeful view of the future, but a surprising number wish to say that I am wrong, that things are bad, worse than they have ever been, and getting even worse by the moment. We do not have long to last, they say.

It is not so much that I am surprised at this view, or even that within particular limited domains the view might have some validity. It is consistently surprising, rather, to notice how pleased many people are with their assessment of the future. A few are positively giddy that things are so bad.

Perhaps it is that certain types thrive on crisis. Perhaps a dour view of the general future allows the satisfaction of feeling lucky that your personal future does not look so bad. Surveys for years have demonstrated that people tend to be more optimistic about their own future than about the future in general.

What happens when a growing proportion of a society adopts a decaying view of the future? Which vision of the future is dominant in post-industrial world-around culture today?

Robert Heilbroner, in his 1995 book, Visions of the Future, outlines three historical visions of the future, which have existed successively in the Distant Past, Yesterday and Today.

By the “Distant Past” Heilbroner refers to all of human existence from the appearance of Homo Sapiens 150,000 years ago down to the emergence of “Yesterday,” approximately two or three hundred years ago. The Distant Past began with primitive societies using stone and flint tools, followed by ten to twenty thousand years during which material progress slowly accelerated with the use of copper and bronze. This was followed around the 6th millennium B.C. by a tremendous social change that itself lasted several thousand years, the emergence of the first complex and stratified societies of history, the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Indian and Chinese kingdoms and empires. The Distant Past eventually included Greece and Rome, the Aztecs and Mayans, the Middle Ages, and finally the appearance of the modern nation-state in Europe in the 17th Century.

This Distant Past encompasses an enormous range of human societal forms and experience. It was diverse in myriad ways, except for one, “its earthly view of the future,” according to Heilbroner. From seers to oracles to priests, from rulers to commoners, the record that exists suggests that people shared one view of the future: that it would not change. They did not imagine that the material conditions of the masses of people or its rulers would change “in the slightest degree.”

This view of the future remained stable despite increasing travel and trade, and the ebb and flow of kingdoms and empires. People believed in the acceptance of things as they had always been and must henceforth always be. Varying religious systems reinforced this view, promising only reward or punishment in an afterlife.

Yesterday began about 300 years ago, and lasted until perhaps the middle of the 20th Century, says Heilbroner. With the Renaissance, the emergence of science and of theories of material progress and then machines and industry, the view of the future changed. Seemingly overnight, there emerged a vision of the future as the “carrier of previously unimaginable possibilities for improving the human condition at all levels.” In other words, hope and confidence had arrived and became dominant.

Yesterday’s image of the future was not evenly distributed around the world, in contrast to the Distant Past. In many parts of the world – Africa, parts of Asia, Latin America, parts of Europe – the material conditions remained relatively unchanged, and an unchanging image of the future remained in place.

Today covers the period beginning in the middle of the 20th Century and continuing into 2001 (remember the year that the future arrived!). In this period, the one in which most people have lived, our images of the future have come to be dominated by large and impersonal forces, namely science, economics and mass political movements. It is Heilbroner’s central thesis that these forces, seen as benign and positive Yesterday, have come to appear as “potentially or even actively malign, ominous, threatening.” Moreover, it is in the most advanced industrial and capitalistic regions of the world that the vision of the future has taken on this dark tenor. Today’s image of the future is marked by a new degree of pessimism.

The pessimism differs from Yesterday obviously, but also from the Distant Past. In the Distant Past people believed that things would not change. Today many people believe that things will change, but for the worse. As an audience member commented to me one time, “I knew that things were changing, but I didn't know it was this bad.”

It is not clear that a malign image of the future has become dominant. It is clear that, Today, the future is seen as “contestable.”

There are positive consequences of this contestability, the most important of which is a heightened vigilance against unconsidered technology, social inequality, and exploitation.

There is a cost as well. It seems to me that the cost is reflected most significantly in a drift back to the future of the Distant Past, in which a growing proportion of people adopt a future image marked by discouragement and stagnation, and ultimately hopelessness.

Contrast a dour future image, prevalent Today, with the image of a visionary who bridged Yesterday and Today, Buckminster Fuller. It was Fuller who argued that only as recently as the 1980′s had the world reached a level of technological, scientific and imaginative knowledge, as well as sufficient connectivity, that it would now be feasible to take care of all humanity on the planet at a high standard of living, ever doing more and more with less and less, and thus preserving and enhancing the environment in the process.

Such an image seems both alluring and quaint in 2001. What will be the image of the future that emerges in the 21st Century?

[Postscript 2011: The tendency to negative future images seems much more pronounced today than in 2001 when this was originally written. Global challenges have multiplied since then. The question is whether both the challenges, and the images of the future, can be reversed.]

Glen Hiemstra is a futurist speaker, author, consultant, blogger, internet video producer and Founder of Futurist.com. To arrange for a speech contact Futurist.com.