futures

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What kind of world do we want?

The model below shows different types of societies. Which one (or possibly a combination) we would like to have in the future depends on our choices. The horizontal axis represents borders and limits. To the right is globalization and an integrated world, and to the left are small nation-type units. The value line is the vertical axis. At the bottom are selfishness and materialism. At the top are ethical and spiritual values. The balance between all these is where humanity may end up in the near or distant future. When we realize that our own individual and collective actions (or choices) determine the results, we also recognize the importance of our individual and collective values. These values determine our actions both in the short and the long run.

As you will discover, this web site attempts to show that a sustainable, ecological, just and democratic future can only be secured by a combination of ethical and spiritual values together with full global integration. Only dialogue and engagement can achieve this goal. The Earth Charter process is here given wide coverage to show that this process holds one of the few promises for mankind to achieve this necessary basis of global ethics.

However, the future is yours, so find out which one of the many options you prefer.

The noise in to-day’s news media and the wealth of information available makes it difficult to envisage where the world is presently going. The purpose of this web site is therefore to give some hints on the global future.

Searching the web for futuristic sites does not necessarily give that many results. This is firstly because search engines and portals have not identified “future” as a category by itself. Secondly, only future study organizations consider themselves “involved” with future business and use it as a key word. And after all, these organizations are not all that many on a world basis, and progressive thinking about the future is not widespread. Moreover, we have widened the concept of “future” to include also global ethics, religion and science itself.

For obvious reasons this web site does not include stock market analysts, clothes fashion designers, horoscope makers and other fortune-tellers.

A changing World Here you find a selection of descriptions of the amazing process of change the world (and we) are undergoing just this moment. Most people are simply not aware of how enormous these changes actually are, and that few have the slightest clue where these changes are taking us.

Science Fiction is no longer sciencefiction. Companies around the World involved with information technology have employees reading new and old SF literature in order to give engineers ideas to follow up. Here "virtual reality" becomes identical to "real life".

Alternative futures This is the place to find those who think rather differently about the future. Even SF may here seem old fashioned and outdated in comparison.

Future studies One type of future research is called scenario investigation. This means that one starts out with different possibilities or initial assumptions. As example may be a researcher being asked to investigate the results of an epidemic of salmonella, Creuzfelt-Jacobs or Scrapie coming from animal farming. This may cause a wave of vegetarian attitudes or result in higher ethical demands on agricultural products. The researcher investigates each set of conditions giving one scenario for each set of assumptions. Next, politicians, managers of agricultural organizations and catering companies may use these data for making appropriate decisions on preparedness if such an epidemic should actually occur.

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