News from the Future from Toronto

News from the Future

World Future Society Conference 2012 Toronto

By Paul Rux, Ph.D.

Once a year, the World Future Society, the leading practice group for experts on discovering likely future trends, holds a three-day conference.  To it come 500-600 experts from all parts of the globe to share their foresights about what probably is coming down the “pipeline” to shape our futures.

As a Professional Member of the World Future Society, who has designed and teaches online courses about trend forecasting for doctoral students at Jones International University, this writer was eager to attend and “mine” the conference for “nuggets” about emerging trends likely to shape our future. I would like to “share the wealth” with you through quick summaries of some “nuggets of foresight” that “bubbled” to the forefront of discussion in various conference workshops in which I participated.

The first “nugget” comes from the one-day workshop on the future of education that “kicked off” the conference for me.   First, education is reaching a “fork in the road” between “learning,” what we do for ourselves, and “teaching,” what others (teachers) do to us.  Emerging learning technologies favor self-paced “learning” and promote a growing trend toward “teacher-less” education.  In effect, learning technologies can “automate” more and more learning processes.  What does this mean for school and college budgets in the future?  Online learning is just the “tip of the iceberg” of this trend.

A second “nugget” comes from the day-two workshop on the likely future of higher education.  Here is the “news from the future” about post-secondary education.  It faces a likely 10% loss of students yearly now because of the growing student loan and lack of jobs crises.  The question for us is:  “At a 10% loss of students yearly, in what kind of shape will post-secondary education be in five years?”  Likely the response from educators will be their standard “more” taxpayer funding.  The U.S. already has $1 trillion in unpaid student loans, 40% of which persons over age 60 owe!  At what point does this “bubble pop” and we start to embrace options like pay-as-you go apprenticeships for most.

A third “nugget” comes from the day-two workshop on policing.  It featured a panel of frontline policing trend forecasters from New York City (20 years service), Denver (14 years service), and Houston (12 years service).  Here in a “nutshell” is their “news from the future.”  We are facing a reset in policing.  The panelists called it “nurturing neighborhoods.”  It is code for do-it-yourself policing.  As budgets collapse at local, county, state, and national levels of government, police will not have the resources to protect us.  In effect, we are going to be on our own.  Justice is becoming “just us.”  Imagine.  The big shots in Washington have money for Wall Street “bankster” bailouts and bonuses, bombs and bullets in the Middle East, but they care and have nothing for the American people.  This is a sobering forecast.  The panelists are veterans; they know where cuts in police budgets are leading.  They forecast a growing trend toward “walled” and “surveillance” neighborhoods as one result.

A fourth “nugget” comes from the day-three workshop on economic development trends.  It dovetails with the day-two workshop on trend forecasts for policing.  As we move into the future, the greatest asset a community will have in the competition for jobs will be public safety – not tax rates, real estate, and taxpayer “give-away” loans and grants.  Nobody in his or her right minds, especially the “knowledge workers” who must drive the emerging economy of the future, wants to live where people get shot on the main streets, gangs beat people on the main streets and state fair grounds – without meaningful consequences.  Computer scientists can easily move from here to Waterloo, Ontario, the “Silicon Valley” of Canada where laws prohibit “concealed carry” of weapons.  If job growth depends on public safety, and common sense knows this, what does this say about our future?

Paul Rux, Ph.D. (Wisconsin-Madison) lives in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin.  He has presented workshops at the Washington, D.C. conferences of the World Future Society and published in its journal, The Futurist.    Last year he was part of an online, global research group on the future of teaching trend forecasting for the European School of Business, Wiesbaden, Germany.   www.paulrux.net

Copyright 2012 by Paul Rux Associates, Inc.