Information and big history

Start a conversation about the future and history is usually invoked in the first minute or so. The small band of brave academics who pursue “Big History” are good to ponder here – creating narratives which cover the whole shebang, not just a special period.
Half way there are those who take one key theme through [...]

Optimism defined

Speaking of optimism…
The Guardian quotes John Stuart Mill as a quintessential optimist, with his declaration that “All the grand sources… of human suffering are in a great degree, many of them almost entirely, conquerable by human care and effort”.
That does seem a key part of an Enlightenment-influenced worldview. The question is how many people still subscribe to [...]

Other blogs

 
There are quite a few folks out there interested in the future (I’m glad to say). The blogroll down on the right is getting longer as I come across them. It’s a convenient place for me to keep them -  and to add links to offer further distraction from whatever you’re supposed to be doing today. [...]

Optimism (3)

Forgot, when I posted the last two items, that “what are you optimistic about?” was John Brockman’s Edge question for 2007. Ray Kurzweil’s response here is a good way in to the many and varied answers.
The traditional book which follows these web ruminations is already out, but the other 160 answers are still on the site, [...]

Optimism 2

All very well to place published work on some optimism…   pessimism spectrum. What about personal feelings?  These seem to vary (mine at any rate), according to mood, last news item read, even day of the week. And they can be consistently complex.
I was talking the other week to a very senior government-advising type scientist – [...]

Optimism (1)

Stay confident, urge Peter Schwarz and his co-authors at the end of The Long Boom. OK, their book was overtaken by events even sooner than futurist musings usually are, but they make a good case for the optimists. (see their original article in Wired)
I see debates about futures generally dividing between the optimists (about human [...]