How to Be a Futurist
January 23, 2015 6:59 AM   Subscribe

 
How to Be a Futurist

1. We want to sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and rashness.
2. ...ah shoot, wrong Futurists
posted by capricorn at 7:17 AM on January 23, 2015 [5 favorites]


Yeah, gets me too. That's futurology. This is what a Futurist does.
posted by Devonian at 7:33 AM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


That's Jamais.
posted by jeffkramer at 7:43 AM on January 23, 2015


Ack! Of course. I'll ask for a fix.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:50 AM on January 23, 2015


Too late, I've come from the future and already fixed it!

[not futurist]
posted by cortex at 7:51 AM on January 23, 2015 [2 favorites]


In Hal Duncan's Ink & Vellum universe, the Futurists control half the world....

These futurists, on the other hand, pretty much pull stuff out of thin air, confident that no one is ever going to check that their prediction rate is at least as bad as any other professional fortune teller's.
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:52 AM on January 23, 2015


I have a lot of respect for Jamais, and his approach to his gig. I worked with him a little on WorldChanging back in 2003, and he's always seemed really pragmatic, considering he has to wander around telling people things they don't really want to hear.
posted by jeffkramer at 7:57 AM on January 23, 2015


1. Be William Gibson.
2. Don't not be William Gibson.
posted by Sangermaine at 7:59 AM on January 23, 2015 [5 favorites]


Does he pronounce it like the French "never"?

Was he born with it?
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:01 AM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


the emphasis isn't on what will happen, but on what could happen

Well thats, um, convenient.
posted by yoink at 8:37 AM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


Futurology is a good gig, if you've got a bit of showman in you and don't mind waving your arms around while spouting bollocks (what Adam Hart-Davis calls 'testiculation'). You can use this gift for good or evil, and your success depends on getting the right personal mix of confidence, imagination, self-deprecation and trustworthiness. Earnest futurologists who take themselves too seriously. as well as the frankly embarrassing, can do well for a while but tend to burn out when the public tires of them or past glories wane (in the case of those who come from a background of actually doing useful stuff),

Frequently combined with a mix of TV, journalism and other punditry, the real money comes from corporate gigs - either speaking at events or doing high-profile 'consultancy' and brand-building. If you give good quote and stay current on present concerns you will have a constant presence in the media - journalists and researchers value name recognition, pith and low latency above all. Get a book out if you possibly can, make it portentious but easy to read. Title each chapter with a glib neologism: they don't have to tie together or even be consistent.

Accuracy, critical thinking and a good knowledge of your subject area are strictly optional and not by any means always advantageous.

And remember this handy chart.

"... in the next six months to a year" = it's happened already but nobody's noticed
" ... in the next five years" = Vaguely probable
".... in the next five to ten years" = Vaguely possible
"... in the next twenty five years" = you hum it, I'll play it
".... further out, we'll see" = no court in the land can make me give you the money back
posted by Devonian at 8:45 AM on January 23, 2015 [9 favorites]


If you get enough futurologists together, you can have yourself a congress.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:21 AM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


You forgot the part about always wearing clothes that are just a little bit more "interesting" than other people's clothes. That's the part I couldn't handle, all the pressure while staring in the closet every morning.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:57 AM on January 23, 2015


You can get away with English Professor. One friend of mine, admittedly not a futurologist but in a similar sort of role in education, has gone the full Edwardian English Professor - really, his garb would make a very decent Doctor Who - and reports it completely wows a large proportion of his foreign students. It's a static wardrobe, too, and very smart while maintaining a definite eccentric edge, so it's low maintenance and light on decision.
posted by Devonian at 11:17 AM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]


Devonian, you scare me. I have a friend who's fairly high in the Futurist lineup and you just described him to a T (the "showman" comment, not the English Professor part).
posted by dlugoczaj at 11:47 AM on January 23, 2015


The important thing in being a futurist, is to begin all your pronouncements with "Good news everyone!"

No wait, that's a Futuramaist. Ah well, close enough.

I have it on good authority that's how Elon Musk always enters the room.
posted by happyroach at 12:40 PM on January 23, 2015


Favorite bit from a Jamais talk:

"R2D2 will give you lip."
posted by eviltwin at 12:50 PM on January 23, 2015




My field sort of discovered the future over the last couple years, and went so overboard it started to cloy. There was a good blog post about how yeah, the future is awesome, but actually it might behoove us to solve some of the extremely critical problems we have now rather than farting around on websites talking about 3D printing our memories and that sort of thing.
posted by Miko at 7:46 PM on January 23, 2015 [1 favorite]




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