INTERVIEW:
Question 1
What are the assumptions, aims and strategies of the Millennium Project, and what is the
United Nations University?
Answer
The Millennium Project is a global futures research project. It collects information
around the world about change in all the major conditions of life: technology, economics,
human health welfare, and so forth. It has nine nodes around the world: a node of the
project is a group of individuals and institutions that translate the work into
development language, identify the key futures scholars in that region, collect their
information through questionnaires, and then feed it back to them for further thinking. It
also then takes these ideas and trends, issues, opportunities, strategies and policies and
presents them to various policy makers. For example, in Italy, I believe two of the people
interviewed in Italy were the Minister of Environment, Minister Ronchi, and the President
of the Equal Opportunities Commission, Costa. So the futures research that we publish in
books and on home pages is not simply the work of futures scholars but has also been
tested by policy people who have the responsibility for these kinds of things.
The United Nations University is the principal academic research organ of the United
Nations. It is legally the same thing as UNDP, the United Nations Development Program, or
the same as UNICEF: it was created by the United Nations to do research around the world
of interest to the United Nations. The Millennium Project is not a project of the United
Nations University directly but of the American Council for the United Nations University.
The American Council handles relations between Washington and the UN University, and the
Millennium Project is just carried out by the American Council, which gives the project a
little more flexibility than usual UN research. The UN University is an interesting
phenomenon in history. It is the principle organ of the UN that connects all of these
research centres, to make their work available to the world: from the nutritional content
of the food being eaten in the world, to new ideas and software technology which could
help economic development in the world.
Question 2
Could you describe the Delphi method, and how the method you use relates to that?
Answer
The Delphi method was invented back in the 1960s, I suppose, by the Rand Corporation to
identify strategic military technology of the future, during the Cold War time. The idea
was to very inexpensively collect the best judgements of engineers and scientists on when
certain things might occur, what would enhance their coming into being, what would prevent
it, possibly the budget considerations and so forth. The idea was to pool knowledge and
projections. The first study is still one of the most popularly sold and distributed works
of the Rand Corporation to this day. We use a variety of methodologies. People say we use
a global Delphi method to collect information through questionnaires. That is true, but it
is not exactly a Delphi, we use the term Look Out panel. Look Out because we didn’t
want to be associated necessarily with the previous, Cold War analysis, and how it had
been used in the past so much. Also, we are not looking for convergence on a forecast on
when some technology will occur, we are looking for a range of judgements, from
knowledgeable, wise, well informed people, on trends. It is an unusual approach in the
sense that we are trying to document what is the best thinking of humanity we can bring
together, and organise that in some way.
We also do scenarios, we do modelling, we do a lot of different kinds of forecasting
methodologies. We try to use the technologies a in an innovative way. We also document
eighteen different categories of futures methodology: saying here is how the method works,
how it got invented, how it is used, its weaknesses and its strength, and speculations
about its future. We are thinking about adding add new kinds of approaches like Science
Mapping: where are the different directions of science going, where is the technology
coming from ? One of the innovations on scenarios that we are doing, looks at the various
ways a war could be created and how to prevent it.
Many people look at global change, on behalf of a country, or at change on behalf of a
corporation or whatever. We look at global scenarios, at global change on behalf of
humanity in general. So the clan in a sense is humanity, rather than a particular focus.
In this approach to the global scenarios, we ask people what are the primary drivers of
these scenarios, and what are the primary norms, what kind of a desirable future do we
want to have? These are rated, invented, analysed, and then out come a set of exploratory
scenarios, and a set of normative scenarios. We are now in the process of beginning to
integrate those two things: we take the information from those Delphi or Look Out panels,
so in a sense these both exploratory and normative scenarios are done through a global
participatory process. And that is unique.
Another unique thing that we have added in the methodology is that instead of using a
computer model, and then running the model to create scenarios, which is the normal way of
doing it - the Club of Rome and so forth - we decided to do it the reverse way. Take all
the data from around the world, create the scenarios, and then take various models and see
where are the inconsistencies. In this current work we use computer modelling to check the
quality consistency of scenarios, and that is also unique. We work out eighteen
categories, and that is a lot.
Question 3
What do you think are the major challenges, opportunities and threats, of the new
millennium?
Answer
I’ll just give you some examples, to give you a chance to actually see a range of
things. We identified developments of change through this process as I discussed, rated
them, categorised them into issues, and then asked: what are the developments around the
world and will they make a difference for a positive future? Rated those, distilled those,
categorised those into opportunities, so here are fifteen issues, and fifteen
opportunities. That requires a complex process of analysis. One of the rules of thumbs in
forecasting is that whatever you want to look at in the future, make the assumption it is
more complex than you are willing to believe.
One is the principal changes is the change in the meaning of work, unemployment and
leisure. They are changing everywhere, and changing in more complex ways. The change of
work, the changing meaning of it is more complex and diverse than people are expecting. We
have seen that today, we expect this to be much more in the future, because you will think
of yourself as being a holding company rather than employed somewhere in the future. The
gap between living standards of the rich and poor is threatening to become more extreme,
and more divisive, and more full of conflict. Again, we can intervene in this process, but
as it is going right now it is getting worse, not better. You will sometimes hear the
expression "the rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting richer".
That’s true if you continue to include the whole of China and the whole of India into
the world analysis, but if you take India and China out, then most of the poor countries
have got either worse or stayed the same. Secondly, and this is also extremely important
to understand, it is not simply a national issue, rich and poor is a human issue. In very
rich countries, the poor are getting poorer, and the rich are getting richer. When that
gap is too wide historically, you have conflict. We’ve got to address this far more
seriously than we are now. If you think you are addressing it in a far-fetched way, I am
saying you are not, because the trends are not turning round yet.
The growth of population and economies impacts adversely with environmental quality.
This is becoming extremely well understood, but the action to address it, is not there.
I’ll come back to that on the opportunity side. Fresh water in localised areas of the
world is becoming scarce. This is one of the primary issues of environmental security
facing humanity today. Considered the demands on water, considered the availability of
biological activities and biological weapons, considered the problems of plumbing in large
systems: you want clean water going into Cairo, but the plumbing is old, and the water
that comes out is not that clean. So it’s not always an easy thing to fix,
you’ve got tremendous delivery problems, not only with the capacity but with the
management system.
Nuclear power plants around the world are ageing. It is not simply a problem of
decommissioning and getting rid of the old nuclear power plants that have outlived their
life and you’ve got to take them to waste, because that’s one of the most
difficult problems facing humanity. Around five hundred nuclear power plants need to be
decommissioned in the next fifteen years. Not only is that an obvious problem with all
nuclear waste management and moving across borders and towns barriers like that, but all
that electricity is coming out of use. It’s coming out of use. This means that we not
only have to create that much new source of electricity, but the world population is
increasing as well, and the economic demand is increasing as well, and our source of
electricity is going out of commission. So the requirement for a new kinds of electrical
producing systems is not being faced, let alone the issue of how we are going to
decommission all these nuclear power plants without a problem.
Economic growth brings both promise and threatening consequences, some of them we just
mentioned. Information Technology holds both promise and peril; obviously many people are
very concerned about the cultural implications of the globalization of change. We have
learned that we can use software to block homepages on the Internet that people find
offensive. Now them find their own groups, to find what they don’t want, create the
software that blocks it, and make it available to people. That looks like a reasonable
solution to some of the problems, but the whole cultural sensitivity to the world
information change has not been fully addressed yet.
The status of women is changing worldwide and it is not simply a question of women
growing in increasing economic autonomy and responsibility, and economic income and
freedom and so forth, but the role of men and women are changing in many more complex ways
than simply one growing up to the other. Their roles are becoming new. New kinds of
fertility systems are being created; new kinds of transborder living in different places;
much more complex relations than we had ever before.
There are also some opportunities. One of the extremely important opportunities is that
the world has agreed that sustainable development is more important than any other single
goal. That is a hopeful sign: the impact of the Rio conference, the impact in climate
change in Kyoto, recent global warming, the ozone thinning. As a species we are now waking
up to the fact that sustainable development is a reasonable goal, we just have to work out
the details. It is very positive that humanity can agree on something. The political
orientation does not mater; we need some sort of a spark, some sort of an act, some sort
of improved dialogue to galvanise the human response. History is very clear: when people
have a general feeling about something, but there isn’t that spark to change, than
change doesn’t occur. We haven’t got the spark yet to make sustainable
development real. One of the problems with is that maintenance is not a very exciting
goal. I mean, sustainability for what? So, the spark may well have to be another sense of
where humanity’s next leap is, long beyond the Cold War, beyond being one
nationality. Where is the next major leap of civilisation. We have to figure out how to
sustain, and then produce that spark to make a sustainable development real. We pay lip
service to the idea, but the action is not there.
I don’t want to go on too long because you can find all this in State of the
Future 1998, edited by Ted Gordon. However, one last example. One of the other
opportunities is the ability to change institutions. This is an opportunity, and it’s
very big, and people don’t appreciate how rapidly, and how much we really know about
how institutions change. On the one hand people say we have these out-of-date systems, we
have fossilised systems in the universities and in governments, but we also know to change
them. One example: In California last year we had something called Net Day. Net Day was
the day that 25000 schools were connected to the Internet by 25000 people in one day;
there was no budget for that day, and no staff. It was a self-organising Internet activity
that changed the life of literally millions of people in a day. That is an example of new
kinds of institutional forms. So we have opportunities here, we have, as I mentioned,
problems which are extremely important, extremely big, but the capacity to deal with them
is there. We have to have the will to do that.
Question 4
There are those who call for a lowering of our expectations for the future. Does
that mean that, if we actually lower our expectations, there is some reason for optimism?
May this lowering of expectations be itself be a theoretical suggestion?
Answer
Yes, it’s difficult to answer questions like this because advising futurists tend to
be a little bit like a doctor: if the particular ministry, government, or agency or
corporation personnel that you are dealing with tend to be very pessimistic, then you try
to have a good bedside manner and show them how they can succeed. If on the other hand
they are very optimistic, and think everything is going fine, then we will scare them to
death. So, whether one is an optimist or pessimist depends on the person you are speaking
to. That does not apply today, so I’ll just give a little bit of advice. If you look
back at Africa in the 1960s, it was believed that if you got rid of the Italians, the
French, the Germans, the Spanish and everybody else that wasn’t African, then peace
and prosperity and growth would occur. In fact, it didn’t. As a result, many Africans
are depressed about their own future, and this is very serious, because if you don’t
believe there is going to be a future, your own conscious mind is filled with this, and
why should the mind learn, why try, it’s only going to get worse. By having their
expectations in Africa so high, it ended up creating the reverse effect, of having them
now very pessimistic. Now we have to spend time in Africa saying it is possible, you can
do these things. It’s useful to also know during the Cold War, in my own informal
polling of audiences, how many people thought we were going to have a thermonuclear war.
The majority of the audiences, the majority of times, believed we were going to have
complete thermonuclear war between the United States and the then Soviet Union, which
meant that the unconscious mind of civilisation did not take long range thinking
seriously. If the mind doesn’t take long range thinking seriously, then why should
the brain learn for the long term. Now, if you go around and say, the earth is slowly
falling like sands through our fingers and we are going to lose a whole lot of forces, you
are going to create a barrier in the unconscious mind again. To me the responsible
position is: we have serious problems - any one of these fifteen categories I referred to
can wipe us out - but we also have fifteen categories of very positive things that can
make things work. So, we’ve got some real problems, we’ve got some answers, we
have got to work on them. Not being an optimist or a pessimist, but work on how to get
them done.
Question 5
Do you think that these methods and forecasts are sufficiently popularised? What access do
they have to the media?
Answer
The media are incapable of covering globalization as a whole; it is a very difficult task.
This is a one-way medium: I am talking to you, I don’t know what you are thinking
back. As a result the way that the media generally keep your attention is through some
sort of conflict, some sort of drama, some sort of good or evil. Fortunately, with the
interactive media, the Internet for example, the way you keep the audience’s
attention is through co-operation. So we have created a different dynamic. It is difficult
for conventional media to make available large pictures of the future, because the future
is a large, complex scene, not one simple issue. It is a difficult task, and we hope next
year to actually start working on how to work better with the media. We don’t have
the answers to that right now but we hope to have some.
On the methodology, many of the metaphors, ideas of futures thinking has become
normalised around the world. If you go back to the 1960s and 1970s, nobody would say:
"Give me a scenario on that, what’s your worst case scenario? Doing more with
less, synergy, what’s the impact of that? How do we get these institutions to work
together?" Today, many of the concepts of futures thinking are permeating much of the
culture. You talk about trends today, you talk about impact of these trends today, but the
people talking and writing scenarios around the world, many of them don’t even know
the word "futurist", people who do environmental scanning, keeping track of
literature on change. Monitoring for change didn’t exist in the 1960! The idea that
change was a constant dynamic, that you are inventing your future, was a myth.
Furthermore, the idea of normative futures was in the realm, predominantly, of theologians
and ideologies: communism was a vision of the future, Christianity was a vision of the
future, but the idea of creating and inventing visions of the future, did not exist. Now
it is normal to think that you have to invent your life, what kind of world do you want to
have. It was not normal to your grandparents. So I would say that, although many of the
fancy techniques of futurists are not around that much to the general public, and that it
is very difficult for the media to cover that kind of stuff, the media have done the job
of bringing many of the concepts and ideas into contemporary culture today, and we now
think ahead more than we used to.
Question 6
What is the role of imagery? What power and responsibility do Futurists have on the
future, in the very process of representing it?
Answer
That’s a very important question, and it should always be asked.
The one who controls your vision of the future controls your behaviour. That is the
purpose of advertising: If I have a car, I put an attractive person next to the car, the
unconscious mind says if I buy the car, I get the person. They are controlling your image
of the future. This is why it is very interesting that one of the things we were doing in
the 1970s and 1980s, is the opening up of the idea that we create our own future. I think
that one of the ethics of futures work is not to give one view of the future, but to give
a variety of views of the future, and some variety of thinking about that, and then force
you to make up your own mind. The idea of plural imageries of the future is great. As long
as there are a lot of images of the future, so we could think about the ecology of images
of the future, then I think we have got a healthier species. IF we only think in terms of
monofutures that everything is going to be negative, or everything is going to be
positive, then I think we only make ourselves stupid. By having a range of thinking, it
engages the mind to learn; therefore what do I have to do? Make the images, participate in
making your own images of the future. Futurists themselves have responsibility for this in
the way that I have just said, and one of the ways that we can do that is to try to give
more than one image.
Question 7
Do you think that technological determinism may have affected or may affect Futures
Studies?
Answer
Certainly. It is a lot easier to forecast the changing efficiencies of a computer than the
changing efficiencies of the human brain, or the changing quality of the values systems in
a changing world. It is the easiest, most dramatic. But obviously technology is one of the
forces in the future, it’s not the only force in the future.
Question 8
Do you agree with those that welcome the Technological Revolution as bringing with itself
an easier way of life?
Answer
When you consider the range of choices and the complexities that we are facing I think
that technologies have actually made things more complex. People sometimes say that the
communication industries are in competition with the transportation industries, the answer
is no: you put a cellular phone in a car, which means that the thing is more
complex than it was before. So I would say that technology does not simplify the condition
of life, it may make our life "simpler" in the sense that I don’t have to
wash my clothes by hand, so yes, technology has simplified manual work, but it has made
our life extremely complex. It is very easy for anybody to flood the world with
information on paper all over the world; that was an impossible task before. So technology
is one of the drivers of complexity, but I would ask those of you that are hostile to
technology to understand it. You know, there are classes of things that you don’t
like it and you can change or avoid, but this would be a bit difficult. Complain and do
nothing seems really irresponsible. For example, there were complaints that 2% of all
Internet home-sites were in non English. That has moved up to 18% last year, and very
quickly it will change. There is now software which can convert homepages into different
languages. When China opens up more, you are going to see many Chinese homepages. So,
rather than cursing the wind, make windmills.
Question 9
What major changes should we expect for communication?
Answer
This is a classic one about complexity, the changes in communications and in information.
A couple of things to keep in mind. One, whatever it is, pretend it becomes alive. For
example, you look at the old videocassette recorder, you start the videocassette in, it
plays, you press the button and you sit down. Now, imagine, if that videocassette recorder
was more alive, what would it do? It might keep track of what you say, i.e., what
selections you have made, when you made those selections; it might also be able to get an
instruction from you by hearing it rather than by your pressing it. So look around you,
your TV set, your computer, your clothing, your jewellery, whatever you have, imagine that
in twenty five, thirty years time any built object has the ability to talk to you, to hear
you, to learn your behaviour, so that your chair becomes more your chair, your computer is
much more your computer. How is this going to happen? Miniaturisation is one, increasingly
we are making these things smaller and smaller. For example, my glasses could be my
computer, with the chips in the legs. I could be say a key word and communicate with a
friend of mine who happens to be in Trieste at the moment, and another word and somebody
else appears on the lens and I am watching both of these people, and you don’t even
know that’s going on. With nano-technology advances and very small technology we can
take the computer, the voice recognition chips, the microphone and the speakers very
small, and split screens in different ways, so that I could be having multi-communications
all the time. I have done experiments to show that that can be normal. Let me try to
explain: you are in an old car, you go faster and faster and it starts to shake. Some of
you may push harder until you go faster, and eventually it smoothes out. It is the same
thing with multi-communication. You can have a communication with two people on one side
of the camera, two people on the other side of the camera, somebody going along the side,
and get used to this way of living; in the same way the complexity hits a new sense of
stability. People say we only use 10% of our mind, we know is that we have an incredible
complexity of brain, we have tremendous amounts of downtime. So, part of the future of
information and communication technology is it becomes smaller, it becomes
"them", and we create realities through many different streams. That’s why
I mentioned the kind of holding company, that you are many different things in the future,
it really opens up and make your life much more complex than before.
|
 |
