7/1/2005

The Futurist

By Edward Cornish

The world today is moving rapidly toward a super-technological civilization, but is that the way we want to go?

Maybe not, suggest futurists Joel A. Barker and Scott W. Erickson. At the very least we should think carefully about it, and their new book, “Five Regions of the Future”, offers a useful way to go about this task of weighing our technological options.

Barker and Erickson propose that we think of technologies as ecologies--complex systems in which tools and techniques interact with each other in ways that are both mutualistic and competitive. In other words, choosing any given technology means that we are favoring the development of complementary technologies while thwarting the development of others.

So by choosing a particular technology we are, so to speak, voting for a certain kind of world. The automobile, for example, has radically reshaped not only the technologies we use, but also the global economy, world politics, and social relations. Among the countless effects of the automobile are today's concerns about soaring gasoline prices and the rise of Arab terrorism.

Today, we are choosing "Super Tech" technologies, and therefore a world dominated by Super Tech, but we could choose among four other technological ecologies (or "Tech Ecologies"), which Barker and Erickson call Limits Tech, Local Tech, Nature Tech, and Human Tech.

Much of Five Regions of the Future is devoted to describing these five technological ecologies, but they may be summarized in five brief scenarios for potential developments in the decades ahead.

Super Tech Scenario: "Bigger Is Beautiful"

By the year 2050, drugs make it unnecessary for humans to exercise to stay fit, and robots do all the work people do not want to do.

Robots have become such empathetic listeners that people are acquiring them as friends.

Ninety percent of Earth's people live in mile-high supercities. Homes are so smart they do almost everything from preparing meals to watering the house plants.

For fun, people watch sports on three-dimensional television. Human players in the games come in two varieties: "natural athletes" and "augmentors." In addition, there are competitions for robot athletes, in which the robots--now equipped with consciousness--invent their own games.

Limits Tech Scenario: "Efficiency Is Beautiful"

The Limits Tech approach would favor population control and the careful conservation of resources. Clothing, for example, would be made to last, and handicrafts would be encouraged.

In the Limits Tech world of 2030, the world's population has been controlled and is expected to level off at 8 billion.

A big Earth Restoration Effort is under way with the goal of renewing the earth's living systems. Already, the world consumes 30% less energy per capita than in the 1980s.

People live in energy-efficient homes thanks to aerogel insulation. Windows are coated with self-cleaning material.

Clothing is designed for durability. Fabrics are programmed so that people can change the color and patterns of their clothes without buying anything new.

The world's train systems have revived, reducing the need for automobiles. The trains use electricity generated by fuel cells.

Local Tech Scenario: "Small and Local Is Beautiful"

Local Tech communities in 2050 have a simple population principle: Don't crowd. People need room for a good life.

Local Techers also believe that people need to work. "Hard work is its own reward," they say.

In their small or modest-sized villages and towns, Local Tech volunteers handle community tasks. Each community tries to use local resources for energy: wave power for a coastal community or windmills in a windy area. Bicycles and light-rail vehicles are favored for transportation.

Homes may be constructed of rammed earth, adobe, bales of hay, or stacked wood, depending on local resources and weather conditions. A home may be equipped with ponds for raising fish and a waterless toilet to convert waste into compost for the garden.

A home desktop manufacturing system serves for making small objects. Larger "replicators" may be rented at the village tool shed.

Nature Tech Scenario: "Nature Is Beautiful"

Nature Tech emphasizes using nature's systems and living in harmony with the natural world. Biotechnology may encourage this approach. In a Nature Tech world envisioned for 2050, humans work in a close partnership with nature, using natural processes as much as possible.

Sunflowers trap soil pollution in their roots, which can be harvested and fed to microbes that turn the roots into harmless waste products.

Green algae produce hydrogen for fuel, and agricultural wastes are turned into ethanol. Earthworms convert household wastes into compost for the family's gardens. In medicine, maggots clean wounds, and leeches draw off old blood during transplant operations.

Microorganisms produce plastics as well as drugs. Biofilms protect human bodies against sunburn. Computers grown from vats of DNA solve problems faster than electronic computers.

In Brazil, Nature Techers train trees to grow into homes. These arboreal cities enable the forests to flourish while also providing homes for humans.

Human Tech Scenario: "We Are Beautiful"

The flavor of life in a Human Tech world may be glimpsed in a scenario for schooling in 2030.

Faculty members at a "life preparation center" specialize in such subjects as parent coaching, friendship and bonding, visionary and strategic thinking, and ethics.

Music and math are taught together by the same teacher. Such "double-up learning" experiences enable students to learn two subjects at once.

Another double-up subject is nutrition and chronobiology, the science of biological rhythms. In the 2030 school, "learning events" are synchronized to fit the students' chronobiological rhythms. Teachers have chronomaps for each student to help structure testing and problem-solving times appropriately.

Lunging Toward a Super-Tech World

The authors believe the United States is now leading a global rush toward a Super Tech world, and the door will close on the Limited, Local, Nature, and Human technological ecologies. The implications for the world's future will be profound, since technological choices have so many important consequences.

In the book, Exhibit A is the extraordinary influence of the automobile on the world's economy and social order.

Barker and Erickson stop short of suggesting just what should be done to get us on a different technological path, assuming we want to escape a Super Tech future. Instead, they say the world needs "a more sophisticated way to catalog and describe our technology. We think the five regions offers that. As citizens of this new world, we all need to begin to think more systemically. Our technologies are bigger than our nations."

“Five Regions of the Future” is an original, serious, and challenging book that deserves a wide readership among thoughtful people. Future-oriented educators may find its five scenarios especially useful for stimulating students to think more seriously about the future world in which they will be living.

Five Regions of the Future by Joel A. Barker and Scott W. Erickson. Portfolio. 2005. 240 pages. $24.95.

Authors Joel A. Barker and Scott W. Erickson say that the following technologies have major applications in all five of the technological ecologies they discuss in Five Regions of the Future:

* Aerogels A highly efficient insulation material, made out of almost nothing. Uses could range from insulation for space colonies (Super Tech) to lining winter coats (Limits Tech).

* Computers. Single supercomputers, large computer arrays, and DNA computers. In the Super Tech scenario, for example--they could create a total information base of all human endeavors. In Nature Tech, they could catalog plant and animal genomes.

* Stereolithographic (3-D) manufacturing. Using a derivative of ink jet technology, this process "prints" three-dimensional objects. Instead of ink, the jets squirt out tiny droplets of plastic, metal, or other materials in minute layers, building up complete objects one layer at a time.

* Hydrogen fuel. Burning hydrogen produces mostly water as its primary waste product, making it "the most environmentally friendly of the burnable fuels as long as it doesn't leak into the atmosphere unburned."

* Holography. This visual display process generates 3-D images, both still and moving. A Human Tech application might be to provide a new artistic medium.

* Lab on a Chip. This technology is made up of a miniature matrix of thousands of individual testing chambers carved onto a clear silicon rubber square of one inch by one inch. It can test up to 10,000 different elements at once.

* Nanotubes. These carbon-based fibers have extraordinary strength and lightness. Extremely small and capable of conducting electricity with high efficiency, nanotubes can be woven into fabric or assembled into structures of any size.

* Space satellites. These orbiting devices can be used for communication, monitoring the planet or outer space, energy generation, and habitation.

About the Reviewer

Edward Cornish, founding president of the World Future Society, is editor of THE FUTURIST and author of Futuring: The Exploration of the Future (World Future Society, 2004).