The Art of Forecasting, Part One: The Era of Exponential Growth, with John L. Petersen

source: New Thinking Allowed    2015年11月27日
John L. Petersen, one of the world’s foremost futurists, is founder and president of the Arlington Institute. He is author of Out of the Blue: How to Anticipate Wild Cards and Big Future Surprises, Strategies for 2012, and The Road to 2015: Profiles of the Future. He has worked for National War College, the Institute for National Security Studies, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council staff at the White House. He also serves as chairman of the Charles A. and Anne Morrow Lindbergh Foundation.
Here he points out that everything is connected to everything else. He notes that we are living in an extraordinary, unprecedented time where the rate of change of many phenomena is growing exponentially, and furthermore these developments converge with each other in unexpected ways. The basic framework for keeping track of such accelerating, complex trends is systems theory. Scenario building is also an important tool for futurists. An important trend to watch is that human capabilities are increasing in many domains. He also describes a methodology to help organizations prepare for potential surprises. He anticipates a major phase transition for humanity so that the future will be very different than the past has ever been.

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). His master’s degree is in criminology. He serves as dean of transformational psychology at the University of Philosophical Research. He teaches parapsychology for ministers in training with the Centers for Spiritual Living through the Holmes Institute. He has served as vice-president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, and is the recipient of its Pathfinder Award for outstanding contributions to the field of human consciousness. He is also past-president of the non-profit Intuition Network, an organization dedicated to creating a world in which all people are encouraged to cultivate and apply their inner, intuitive abilities. His American Indian name, chosen at age eight, is Soaring Eagle.
(Recorded on November 16, 2015)