This document contains the transcript from a presentation by Wendy Schultz on thinking about the future. Some of the key points discussed include: - Change happens gradually through overlapping waves rather than straight lines, due to human complexity. - New ideas and technologies proposed by visionaries and entrepreneurs may disrupt existing paradigms but not necessarily become established. - When new inventions are introduced, unintended and unexpected consequences are likely to emerge through interactions with existing systems. - It is important to consider different perspectives and worldviews when thinking about potential futures.

1. “…for there is nothing
either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.”
Wendy Schultz
Infinite Futures
ICT2013
Vilnius Lithuania
7 November 2013

2. “…for there is nothing either good or bad,
but thinking makes it so.”
• Today, I’ll leave the facts and forecasts to others
• I’m here to suggest how to think about the facts
and forecasts they’ve offered
Wendy Schultz
Infinite Futures
Vilnius Lithuania
7 November 2013

3. xkcd

4. BEWARE OF STRAIGHT LINES

5. xkcd
BEWARE OF STRAIGHT LINES
• Change in living systems – particularly in
human systems – is neither simple nor ballistic
• Because we are
curious, creative, inventive, playful – and
contrary, addictive, and perverse

6. CHANGE EVOLVES IN OVERLAPPING WAVES & TURBULENCE
THREE HORIZONS FRAMEWORK
MANAGER
Eg, MUSI
C, MOVIE
S, CDs, D
VDs
ENTREPRENEUR
Eg., MUSIC, MOVIES –
transformational disruptor iTunes
VISIONARY
Eg, MUSIC, MOVIES –
paradigm buster Napster

7. CHANGE EVOLVES IN OVERLAPPING WAVES & TURBULENCE
THREE HORIZONS FRAMEWORK
• The operating assumptions of today are built on
successful responses to past waves of change: Those
assumptions create stability, but also resist change
• The visionaries and inventors of today challenge
those assumptions – but often in ways that are
ultimately unworkable: they disrupt paradigms and
perspectives
• Entrepreneurs build on visions to create the
marketable goods and services – they transform
capacity – and create new operating assumptions

8. The Crapularity
3D printing + spam +
micropayments = tribbles
that you get billed for, as it
replicates wildly out of control.
90% of everything is
rubbish, and it's all in your
spare room – or someone
else's spare room, which
you're forced to rent through
AirBnB.
Source: Alternatives to the Singularity, online;
also at Journal of Futures Studies: “The Singularity is Boring:
An Open, Collaborative „Mock-up‟”
http://www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/17-1/S06.pdf
A pile of worthless "crapjects"
(neologism coined by @iftf)

9. The Crapularity
3D printing + spam +
micropayments = tribbles
that you get billed for, as it
replicates wildly out of
control.
90% of everything is
rubbish, and it's all in your
spare room – or someone
else's spare room, which
you're forced to rent
through AirBnB.
• You may have invented
something ‘insanely great’
• But when you set it free, it
will immediately and
unpredictably interact with
everything else in its context
A pile of worthless "crapjects"
(neologism coined by @iftf)
Source: Alternatives to the Singularity, online;
also at Journal of Futures Studies: “The Singularity is Boring:
An Open, Collaborative „Mock-up‟”
http://www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/17-1/S06.pdf

10. MANOA SCENARIO BUILDING

11. MANOA SCENARIO BUILDING
• Try brainstorming the impacts – and the
impacts of the impacts – of three different
new ideas you’ve heard discussed today
• Now ask yourself, ‘what next new thing will
the colliding impacts of those three
changes generate?’

12. The Grouponularity
In which aggregate consumer
purchasing power + pricing algorithms
+ applied captology, allows your
mother (working in concert with
everyone else's mother) to reduce the
price of 99% of mainstream consumer
goods to ~0.
The global economy is replaced by
something almost equally improbable.
Unfortunately, it's comprised entirely of
jet-ski adventure days, bread
makers, and underwhelming restaurant
meals.
Source: Alternatives to the Singularity, online;
also at Journal of Futures Studies: “The Singularity is Boring:
An Open, Collaborative „Mock-up‟”
http://www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/17-1/S06.pdf

13. The Grouponularity
In which aggregate consumer
purchasing power + pricing
algorithms + applied
captology, allows your mother
(working in concert with everyone
else's mother) to reduce the price
of 99% of mainstream consumer
goods to ~0.
The global economy is replaced
by something almost equally
improbable. Unfortunately, it's
comprised entirely of jet-ski
adventure days, bread
makers, and underwhelming
restaurant meals.
Source: Alternatives to the Singularity, online;
also at Journal of Futures Studies: “The Singularity is Boring:
An Open, Collaborative „Mock-up‟”
http://www.jfs.tku.edu.tw/17-1/S06.pdf
• How will those colliding
impacts affect society?
• What counter-intuitive
results emerge when a
change that’s good on a
small scale goes global?

14. BEWARE
the
LONE
WOLF
FUTURE
http://bethwalshphotography.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/lone-wolf/

15. BEWARE
the
LONE
WOLF
FUTURE
• Change is not binary, and the
future is not monocular
• We don’t face a single future –
no matter how compelling new
technologies are, or how much
momentum they seem to have
http://bethwalshphotography.wordpress.com/2013/04/13/lone-wolf/

16. CHANGES
GENERATE
MYRIAD
POSSIBLE
FUTURES

17. CHANGES
GENERATE
MYRIAD
POSSIBLE
FUTURES
• Multiple emergent
futures are possible given
different initial
conditions; complex
interactions of multiple
onrushing changes; and a
complex context that
includes cultural diversity
and all of your individual
points of view

18. BEWARE OF INTENTIONS

19. BEWARE OF INTENTIONS
• So you’ve invented a new technology, or a
new service, or a new form of organization
• What you designed it to do is not
necessarily what your fellow humans will
actually do with it.

20. BEWARE OF
INTENTIONS
A diagnostic tool
becomes
an artist’s medium
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES ABOUND

21. BEWARE OF INTENTIONS
…or, as with so many media,
a new avenue for porn
UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES ABOUND

22. Verge General
Practice Framework
for Futures Studies
and Foresight
WHERE WILL UNINTENDED
CONSEQUENCES ARISE?

23. Verge General Practice
Framework for
Futures Studies and
Foresight
Dr Richard Lum
• Artists will use the invention as
a new medium
• Children will turn it into a
game
• … and of course, someone
somewhere will use it to create
porn
• Use guides like Verge to
explore how your invention
will reverberate through all the
arenas of human endeavour
WHERE WILL UNINTENDED
CONSEQUENCES ARISE?

24. BE AWARE OF YOUR LENSES

25. • How do you see the world?
• Who else sees the world that
way – what are the embedded
values, myths, metaphors of
your assumptions?
• How do different
values, myths, and metaphors
drive responses to your
inventions / ideas / policy
initiatives?
BE AWARE OF YOUR LENSES

26. OTHERS MAY USE DIFFERENT FILTERS

27. Causal Layered Analysis
Sohail Inayatullah
OTHERS MAY USE DIFFERENT FILTERS

28. • You can’t just change the buzz
• You can’t just invent a new system
• You need to engage with, and
develop, different worldviews
• Re-perceive the world with a different
metaphor, a new myth
• Ask the next five people you meet for their
myths and metaphors for the worlds and
fuures we are inventing.
OTHERS MAY USE DIFFERENT FILTERS

29. “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking.
It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
Albert Einstein
“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as great
and sudden change.”
Mary Shelley
Thank you.
Wendy Schultz
@wendyinfutures