Results for articles with tag 'paelofuture' (1 total)
05/17/2007 06:50:19 AM 
The blog is the brainchild of Matt a 23-year-old student who’s currently finishing up a journalism/advertising degree.
Influx fired some questions off to him and here are his responses are below.
1. Who are some of history's most interesting visionaries?
My favorite visionaries tend to be those that think big without claiming to know the future. I’ve had an odd fascination with Walt Disney my entire life.
People like Disney are interesting to me because they had an optimistic sincerity that the world could change for the better. As I’ve written about on the blog, we live in an era of postmodern paleo-futurism. We don’t own our visions of the future. We co-opt past visions of the future (see Futurama, Meet the Robinsons, etc) with an ironic
detachment. I often wonder if an era of sincerity will ever return.
2. Who did you think in the mid C20th came closest to seeing what the C21st century would be like?
I think post-WWII America had a blank canvas of consumerism to work with. For that reason, the corporations were usually the most accurate in projecting the technological advancements 10 and 20 years out. Predicting the world of 50 years hence is quite a task, and no one in the mid-20th century did that with much accuracy. One of the lesser known futurists of that era I recommend checking out is Victor Cohn. He was a science and medical journalist that had the fantastic visions of
the future you’d expect from the 1950s futurists but he approached futurism with a journalistic ethic which provided the input of MIT engineers and the like.
3. What' are some of the things that no one saw coming?
There are few things that no one saw coming. The things no one saw coming were accidents like Scotchgard and Post-It notes. We still haven’t caught up to the fanciful future envisioned in 1900! Personal flying machines, weather control, meals-in-a-pill; none of these things have yet become commonplace, often for very good reason. I think one of the few things people didn't see coming was how little the world would
change.
The world is quite obviously a better place thanks to advancements in public health but we still haven't cured cancer. People were expecting flying cars but didn't necessarily see the ability to hold 20,000 songs on a portable music player.
4. What do you think of the role of the futurist today? What's changed?
The role of the futurist is still to excite our imaginations. That hasn’t changed. What has changed is the tone. If the 2007 equivalent of Walt Disney pitched an idea like EPCOT today he would be laughed off the face of the planet.
That is not to say I advocate the idea of an authoritarian community like EPCOT, but 2007 seems to be missing the positive thinking futurist that can be taken seriously. We dwell on the negative rather than emphasizing the possibilities of the future.
5. Who would you recommend Influx's readers check out who has an
interesting take on the next 50 years?
Ray Kurzweil is the most interesting futurist of our time but quite frankly he predicts a rather bleak future for humankind. His ideas about the coming “Technological Singularity” and using technology to achieve immortality are interesting but if researching for the Paleo-Future blog has taught me anything, it’s that no one is
omniscient.
6. What's your current reading list- blogs, books, etc...
The Anarchist in the Library by Siva Vaidhyanathan (after you’ve read
Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture, pick this one up.)
Where’s My Jetpack? By Daniel H. Wilson (the very definition of
paleo-future)
The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman (I flip through this quite
often. John Hodgman is brilliant. Read the section about the Mall of
America if you get a chance. It is hilarious.)
Dilbert Blog
Boing Boing
AdvertisingLab
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Articles for tag paelofuture (1 total).