Forecasting and Decision Making
How We Got To This Point - Rise and Fall of Civilizations
Where We Are Now - The Anthropocene
Perspectives:
Technology Memoir: "The Telephone Tree", By Tony Scarlatos, The Southampton Literary Review, Volume IV No.2, Summer 2010
Music Video: "The Future's So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades", by Timbuk 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qrriKcwvlY
Cartoon: "The Jetsons Intro", by Hanna-Barbera Productions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyinD6ZDqeg
Op-Ed: "The Darkness Where the Future Should Be", by Michelle Goldberg, NY Times, 1/24/2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/24/opinion/sunday/william-gibson-agency.html
Talk: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters", by Peter Thiel, Yale School of Management
https://som.yale.edu/blog/peter-thiel-at-yale-we-wanted-flying-cars-instead-we-got-140-characters
Data: "6 new findings about Millenials", By Bruce Drake, Pew Research, 3/7/2014
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/03/07/6-new-findings-about-millennials/
DVD: "What Will the Future Be Like?", with David Pogue, NOVA, WGBH Educational Foundation, November 2012
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/what-future-be-like.html
Special Topic: Prophecy
Predictions for the Year 2000, from the Ladies Home Journal, December 1900
Predictions for 2033 from Forbes Magazine, 2013
"15 Theses About the Digital Future", PewResearch Internet Project
http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/03/11/15-theses-about-the-digital-future/
Future Studies Timeline, compiled by Janna Anderson of Elon University
Forecasting and Decision Making
Video: "The Galton Board: Math In Motion", Four Pines Films
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QuPHf1xi-4
Visualization of the normal distribution (binomial distribution) in probability, invented by Sir Francis Galton in 1876.
Video: Pascal's Triangle, Sierpinski's Triangle, and Probability
https://ed.ted.com/lessons/the-mathematical-secrets-of-pascal-s-triangle-wajdi-mohamed-ratemi
Definition: The Anna Karenina Principle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Karenina_principle
The first sentence of Tolstoy's novel presents a theory about success and failure applicable in many domains.
"An Overview of Forecasting Methodology", By David S. Walonick
https://stanford.edu/~knutson/nfc/walonick93.pdf
Cognitive Bias
Critique: "The Silver Bullet Syndrome: A Critique of Decision Analysis", By Tony Scarlatos, 2010
How good are humans at making rational choices? Limitations of Decision Analysis appear on page 3.
Video: "The Dunning-Kruger Effect"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOLmD_WVY-E
Video: "John Cleese on Stupidity"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvVPdyYeaQU
Overestimation of competence is proportional to lack of expertise.
Bill Gates’ review of Hans Rosling’s book, “Factfulness”
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Books/Factfulness
Video: “How Not To Be Ignorant About The World”, Hans Rosling TED Talk
https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_and_ola_rosling_how_not_to_be_ignorant_about_the_world
Interactive: World Health Organization data from GapMinder.org (Hans Rosling)
https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$chart-type=bubbles
Visualization of trends in world health and wealth that contradict popular misconceptions.
Factfulness 10 Rules of Thumb
https://www.gapminder.org/factfulness/instincts/
Ten cognitive biases that obscure an accurate view of the world.
“The Overton Window”, Mackinac Center
https://www.mackinac.org/OvertonWindow
The possible is constrained by the political.
How We Got To This Point - The Rise and Fall of Civilizations
• Rise of civilizations:
Special Topic: Human Nature
Maslow's Heirarchy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Expanded_Maslow%27s_Needs.webp
Dialectical Materialism and Psychology
Special Topic: Engines of Innovation
DVD: "How We Got To Now - The Story of Clean", By Steven Johnson, PBS, 2014
http://video.pbs.org/program/how-we-got-now/
The many unlikely stories and unsung heroes that paved the way for the modern world.
Article: "Wonder Dog", By Melissa Fay Greene, New York Times Magazine, 2/2/2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/magazine/wonder-dog.html?pagewanted=all
Article: "Those Puppy Dog Eyes You Can't Resist? Thank Evolution.", by James Gorman, NY Times, 6/17/2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/science/dogs-eyebrows-evolution.html
Video: "We Met the World's First Domesticated Foxes", Verge Science, 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dwjS_eI-lQ
Video: "Spanish Jimenta Horsemanship", from the Guns, Germs, and Steel documentary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YXusV8q1cI
Are dogs and horses a form of technology?
"So Bill Gates Has This Idea for a History Class ...", By Andrew Ross Sorkin, NY Times, 9/5/2014
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/07/magazine/so-bill-gates-has-this-idea-for-a-history-class.html
Bill Gates has proven the value of being a history buff.
Gobekli Tepe
https://www.bighistoryproject.com/chapters/4#creating-settlements
This ancient temple predates agricultural settlements by 2000 years.
DVD: "Guns, Germs, and Steel", By Jared Diamond, National Geographic, 2005
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/guns-germs-and-steel/ (parts 1 & 2)
Diamond's hypothesis from "Guns, Germs, and Steel" as a flow chart.
Diamond's hypothesis from "Guns, Germs, and Steel" as a cartoon.
A documentary based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book about how European societies came to colonize the globe.
• The fall of civilizations:
Video: "Why Societies Collapse", talk by Jared Diamond, TED Talks
http://www.ted.com/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse.html
Themes from Diamond's subsequent book, "Collapse", which studies the failure of several ancient societies.
Article: "The Self-Destruction of the One Percent", By Chrystia Freeland, NY Times, 10/13/2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/14/opinion/sunday/the-self-destruction-of-the-1-percent.html?pagewanted=all
Reflections on the fall of the mediaeval superpower, Venice, and its implications for societies today.
"The History of Nauru: How The World's Wealthiest Country Lost Everything", NowThis World, 12/14/2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG_eaAt2JN0
"The Internet of Things Is Coming for Us", By William Neuman and Luis Jaime Castillo Butters, NY Times, 1/21/2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/sunday-review/the-internet-of-things-is-coming-for-us.html
Lessons to be learned from the Moche people.
Article: "We the People Loses Appeal With People Around the World", By Adam Liptak, NY Times, 2/6/2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/we-the-people-loses-appeal-with-people-around-the-world.html
Can a national constitution be compared to an operating system? Can it become obsolete?
Article: "Enter the Anthropocene—Age of Man", By Elizabeth Kolbert, National Geographic, March 2011
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/03/age-of-man/kolbert-text
Mankind's mark on the geologic record will endure longer than our cities themselves.
Article: "Generation Sell", By William Deresiewicz, NY Times, 11/12/2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/the-entrepreneurial-generation.html?pagewanted=all
The author claims we're all brands now.
Infographic: “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”, National Geographic
https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/great-pacific-garbage-patch/
Video: JibJab’s animation “Big Box Mart”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2UI
A cartoon satire of consumer culture.
Video: "The Story of Stuff"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GorqroigqM
A compelling critique of global consumer culture.
Archive: Victor Lebow’s article in the Journal of Retailing, 1955
https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Lebow.pdf
The origin of post WWII consumer culture in the USA.
Video: Vice President Nixon and Premier Khruschev’s “Kitchen Debate”, 7/24/1959
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRgOz2x9c08&t=167s
The geopolitics of the cold war meet consumer culture.
Article: Tom Friedman’s OpEd piece in the NY Times about “The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention”
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/08/opinion/foreign-affairs-big-mac-i.html
Video: “The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIX24dmtwZA
Also known as the Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention, it holds that nations that share the same supply chains will not risk war with each other.
Article: "The Beautiful Dumb Dream of McDonald’s Peace Theory” By Paul Musgrave, Foreign Policy, 11/26/2020
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/26/mcdonalds-peace-nagornokarabakh-friedman/
Video: “The End of the Golden Arches Doctrine”, Bloomberg News, 5/11/2015
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2015-05-11/the-end-of-the-golden-arches-doctrine-edward-luce
Critiques of the Golden Arches Theory.
Book Review: "The Earth Is Full", By Thomas Friedman, New York Times, 6/7/2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/08/opinion/08friedman.html
Video: "The Great Disruption: How humankind can thrive in the 21st Century", The Royal Society of Arts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsXID1kSuf4
Paul Gilding's book, "The Great Disruption", declares that the era of growing GDP's is over, to the benefit of all humankind.
Paper: "Is U.S. Economic Growth Over? Faltering Innovation Confronts the Six Headwinds", By Robert J. Gordon, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2012
http://faculty-web.at.northwestern.edu/economics/gordon/Is%20US%20Economic%20Growth%20Over.pdf
The author contends that growth in GDP for the U.S. will fall below 0.5 % in the decades to come.
Video: "The Magic Washing Machine", TED talk By Hans Rosling, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoKfap4g4w&list=PLAD53BD53C7A23E96
Can every household on earth have a washing machine of their own?
Video: Zoologist David Suzuki discusses exponential growth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x98KFcMJeo
How much time would the discovery of several panet's worth of resources buy the human race?
Video: "The Population Bomb?", By Retro Report, The New York Times, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000003712862/the-population-bomb.html
What happened to the Malthusian prediction in the late 1960's about overpopulation?
Topic - The modern corporation
Senator Mitt Romney: “Corporations Are People, My Friend”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlPQkd_AA6c
Lord Thurlow Edward: “Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to be condemned, they therefore do as they like.”
https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191826719.001.0001/q-oro-ed4-00010943
Video: "The Corporation", Documentary By Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, and Joel Bakan, 2005 (chapters 1 - 23)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbRfi0bIOsI&list=PLFA50FBC214A6CE87&index=1
A film that examines the predominant institution of the modern world - the corporation. What kind of person is it?
Psychology Today: Psycopathy
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/psychopathy
“The Original Evil Corporation”, By William Dalrymple, NY Times 9/4/2019
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/opinion/east-india-company.html
“Exxon Knew about Climate Change almost 40 years ago”, By Shannon Hall, Scientific American 10/26/2015
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-climate-change-almost-40-years-ago/
Ford Pinto Cost-Benefit Analysis
https://www.agsm.edu.au/bobm/teaching/BE/Cases_pdf/Pintocase.pdf
Video: “Merchants of Doubt: What Climate Deniers Learned from Big Tobacco”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJIW5yVk__w
Video: "On Better Business", Talk By Jay Coen Gilbert, TEDxPhilly, 2012
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGnz-w9p5FU
B-Corps
https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/
The newest form of corporate structure - the B Corp. Can concern for all stakeholders be the key to business sustainability and value for investors and shareholders?
Video: “Government - Investor, Risk Taker, Innovator”, Mariana Mazzucato TED Talk June 2013
https://www.ted.com/talks/mariana_mazzucato_government_investor_risk_taker_innovator
Video: "Invest In Social Change", Talk By Toby Eccles, TED, 2013
https://www.ted.com/talks/toby_eccles_invest_in_social_change?language=en
Can Social Impact Bonds reduce prison recidivism?
Documentary: "The Persuaders", PBS Frontline, 2005
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/
A documentary that explores the power of media, especially advertising, in our society.
Article: "How Companies Learn Your Secrets", By Charles Duhigg, New York Times, 2/16/2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/magazine/shopping-habits.html?pagewanted=all
Target knows your teenage daughter is pregnant, even if you don't.
Special Topic: Inequality
Video: Race Against the Machine: Andrew McAfee at TEDxBoston
Article: "More Jobs Predicted for Machines, Not People", By Steve Lohr, NY Times, 10/23/2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/technology/economists-see-more-jobs-for-machines-not-people.html?_r=0
The Droids have come to take your job.
Article: "The End of the Developing World", By Dayo Olopade, NY Times, 2/28/2014
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/01/opinion/sunday/forget-developing-fat-nations-must-go-lean.html?_r=0
1st world problems, 3rd world solutions.
Article: "The Technologist's Siren Song", By W. Patrick McCray, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 3/10/2014
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Technologists-Siren-Song/145107/?cid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
Is technology the "opiate of intellectuals"?
Animation: "21st Century Enlightenment", lecture by Matthew Taylor, for the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA), 2010
http://comment.rsablogs.org.uk/2010/08/23/rsa-animate-21st-century-enlightenment/
How much do cultural perspectives affect societal outcomes? The author quotes Margaret Mead, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
Special Topic: Automation and Artificial Intelligence
View of the future: The Third Wave
Video: "Revolutionary Wealth", interview with Alvin Toffler
http://fora.tv/2006/05/16/Alvin_Toffler#fullprogram
Tribute to Alvin Toffler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVD65elRrXU
Prediction scorecard from BBC News:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36675260
"Big Thinkers - Alvin Toffler", from TechTV:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCXCDYj6U4E&t=50s
View of the future: The Singularity
Video: "How Technology Will Transform Us", talk by Ray Kurzweil, TED Talks
http://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurzweil_on_how_technology_will_transform_us.html
Charts from "The Singularity Is Near"
Themes from Kurzweil's book, "The Singularity", about a fusion of humanity and technology.
Ray Kurzweil on "I've Got a Secret"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4Neivqp2K4
Brief But Spectacular: Ray Kurzweil, PBS NewsHour
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLOOzMLBwFs
Inventor and futurist talks aout his hopes for the advancement of AI and technology, CBS Saturday Morning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9v5WlPBVnqU
10 Questions for Ray Kurzweil, TIME
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BUYbEgOZt4
Ray Kurzweil: Your Brain in the Cloud
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iTq0FLDII4
Ray Kurzweil - What Is the Future of Capitalism?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX318Lr2eoo
A university for the coming singularity
https://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurzweil_a_university_for_the_coming_singularity
Singularity University
https://www.su.org
Ray Kurzweil & Geoff Hinton Debate the Future of AI, Moonshots with Peter Diamandis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCre83853TM
Article: "The Promise of Rapture for a High-Tech Elite", By Elizabeth Lesly Stevens, NY Times 4/23/2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/us/24bcstevens.html
Kevin Kelly critiques the idea of the Singularity.
Journal Paper: "A possible declining trend for worldwide innovation", By Jonathan Huebner, Technological Forecasting & Social Change, 2005
http://accelerating.org/articles/InnovationHuebnerTFSC2005.pdf
A rebuttal to the idea of accelerating innovation.
"Why the Future Doesn't Need Us", Bill Joy, WIRED
https://www.wired.com/2000/04/joy-2/
Bill Joy's influential article widely seen as a rebuttal to the more utopian views held by Kurzweil.
View of the future: The Technium
Dunkleosteus, armored fish of the Devonian Era
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkleosteus#/media/File:Dunkleosteus_terrelli_(fossil_fish)_(Cleveland_Shale_Member,_Ohio_Shale,_Upper_Devonian;_Rocky_River_Valley,_Cleveland,_Ohio,_USA)_21_(34001200911).jpg
Phylogenetic Tree of the Evolution of Helmets, by Bashford Dean
https://www.voronoiapp.com/diagram/Helmets---their-kinds-and-development-during-the-centuries-1762
A Look at the Life of Bashford Dean, Met Museum
https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/life-of-bashford-dean
Bashford Dean and the Development of Helmets and Body Armor during World War I, Met Museum
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bash/hd_bash.htm
Kevin Kelly Website
https://kk.org
COOL TOOLS: A CATALOG OF POSSIBILITIES
https://kk.org/books/cool-tools
The Whole of the Whole Earth Catalog Is Now Online, WIRED Magazine
https://www.wired.com/story/whole-earth-catalog-now-online-internet-archive/
Whole Earth Catalog Online
https://wholeearth.info
What Technology Wants
https://kk.org/cooltools/what-technology/
"The future will be shaped by optimists", Kevin Kelly TED Talk
https://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_the_future_will_be_shaped_by_optimists
Kevin Kelly tells technology's epic story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GS1xL1qcBa4
Video: "What Technology Wants", talk by Kevin Kelly,
TEDxSF
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF-5CMozGWY
Open Source Ecology, a web site supporting the off-the-grid economy with open source hardware and software
Video: "Global Village Construction Set", presentation by Marcin Jakubowski, TED Talks
http://vimeo.com/30171620
Can DIY save the planet?
Video: Crowdsourced Prosthetics from OpenSource.org
http://opensource.com/life/14/3/3D-printed-hand-enable
A global group of 3D printing enthusiasts giving a hand to those in need, literally.
Video: "Cloud Computing for Good" (11:00 - 26:00)
http://poptech.org/blog/cloud_computing_for_good
Providing mobile payments, weather reports, communications and independence for people who make less than $1 a day.
Article: "Foldit Gamers Solve Riddle of HIV Enzyme within 3 Weeks", By Michael J. Coren, Scientific American, 9/20/2011
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/foldit-gamers-solve-riddle/
Journal Paper: "Crystal structure of a monomeric retroviral protease solved by protein folding game players", by Firas Khatib (et al), Nature Structure and Molecular Biology 9/18/2011
http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/zoran/NSMBfoldit-2011.pdf
Gamers in a crowdsourced application solve a problem supercomputers couldn't.
Mine Kafon | Callum Cooper
https://vimeo.com/51887079
The Ocean Cleanup System Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1EAeNdTFHU
Paramusical Ensemble
https://vimeo.com/143363985
Peter Maxwell Davies: Farewell to Stromness
https://www.classicfm.com/composers/maxwell-davies/music/farewell-stromness/
One Day - Matisyahu, Concert in Haifa 2/14/2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqvKDCP5-xE
Activating a Generation: From Live Aid to the Ice Bucket Challenge
https://retroreport.org/video/activating-a-generation-from-live-aid-to-the-ice-bucket-challenge/
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