Okay...where to begin?
Vacation in Sweden has started and although I have some overseas assignments in the coming months, life has wound down. What better way to spend it than to catch up on some reading, TED talks and fellow futurologists (in between feeding session and walks with the twins, that is)?
This morning, the good people of Welledge, a chiropractic clinic in Stockholm, invited me to a session with "futurist" John L. Pedersen of the Arlington Institute. We were about fifteen people in the room who was going to listen to Mr Pedersen's view of the future. What I heard astonished me...for all the wrong reasons.
Before I begin to recap Pedersen's rant, let me point out that the word "Institute" is in no way a proprietary title. Anyone who wants (or needs) to give their company a feeling of weight and academic credibility can tag on the I-word in their company name. Compare Pattern Recognition AB with The Pattern Recognition Institute. Which one would you trust for a research report? Secondly, I intentionally stay away from the title “futurist” although some journalists insist on using it to describe what I do. The futurists were semi-fascist Italians and Russians in the early 20th century who frowned on the past and embraced (often violent) change. Enough said. On to Pedersen.
John Pedersen began by outlining the biggest challenges in the world today. It was basically the stuff that’s filled the news in the past few years – climate change, financial market meltdown, the end of oil and China turning belligerent (although Pedersen’s rather amusing reasons for China’s future violence was a cadre of Chinese bachelors unable to find a wife in China because of the one-child-per-family policy). He kept on saying things like “we are entering an area we’ve never seen before” or “unimaginable change” for dramatic effect, I guess. His conclusion was that “the entire system that we’re basing the world on right now” will collapse. Finance, oil, etc are all going out the window because “they did not work”. This rather drastic conclusion was followed by a prediction that we’re entering a new age “where even mankind might evolve into a new being”.
When I challenged him on some of the assumptions that he built his argument on (peak oil, the credit crunch, and so on), he smirked and gave me one of those “if you had to ask you just wouldn’t understand”-answers.
So what lies ahead in this “new age”. Well, said Pedersen, “competition is going to disappear because it’s based on an idea of separateness”. The future is about…are you ready…collaboration! Disregarding the fact that the word competition comes from Latin’s com petare – to strive together and that competition tends to be beneficial for consumers and sports fans alike, the idea of collaboration can hardly qualify as any kind of groundbreaking prediction. Most of the 20th century was about companies, regions and nations getting closer to each other and collaborating (and competing at the same time in some instances). Then came Pedersen’s denoument. Forget all talk of Black Swans and unpredictable events; The Arlington Institute has the answer. It’s called a Dream Machine (or a “Wether Report” as in “Whether or Not?”…it was unclear what the actual name was). The technology, which Pedersen is “refusing to sell to the US government although they want it” is based on the assumption (and make that assumption as in vague guess) that people tend to “dream more vivid dreams prior to big tragedies like The Tsunami and 9-11”. The idea then is to hook all these people up to a machine so they can talk about their dreams and intuitions “before the events happen”. A prediction machine…
Whoa…
Ehhh….
When I pointed out (quite generously if I may say so myself) that the US government was working on something similar back in 2002 minus the metaphysical aspect, he went even further by talking abut the CIA’s remote viewing project and about psychic’s predicting the future. His friend has in fact already predicted the future and you’ll be happy to know that “after 2012 everything looks different…something has changed”.
And so on.
And so forth.
The more worrying aspect of this session was the amount of nodding and “oh yes” that went on amongst the participants.
Someone asked “who owns the Federal Reserve” and Pedersen gave the common near anti-Semitic answer that “ultimately it’s owned by a few families…The Rothschild’s and others”.
I didn’t know whether to laugh (I did, believe me) or sigh (I did that too).
What do people like John L Pedersen do to our profession (trendspotters and futurologists alike), I wonder. What if someone would mistake what I do with what he does?
Doomsaying, quasi-scientific conspiracy theorists may be amusing to listen to in small doses but when they start masquerading as “professors”, “futurists” and “consultants”, it may actually do some harm.
What about the people who felt “enlightened” by Pedersen?
Still, I guess it’s people like him that make me do what I do. I can’t help to quote the central mission of The Economist:
“Founded in 1848 to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress”
I don't know whether I should acknowledge (i.e. admit) or completely ignore my dismal blogging record this past few months. To all readers - I'm sorry. I have only excuses and very few reasons besides the balancing act of a career, a marriage and two twin boys.
In Brussels yesterday evening, I had the great pleasure of meeting entrepreneur and leadership coach Eric Vogt. Having founded such firms as Communispace, Eric has now turned his attention to his greatest interest, wine. His company, Eprovenance, uses RFID technology to ensure a high quality level of wine bottles. The RFID sticker transmits bottle temperature constantly. Eprovenance reminds me of the introductory chapter of the book I'm currently
I just spent the week in London, doing workshops and speaking at the London Business Forum. I may just start with the most remarkable bit first: meeting Richard Branson. Before I get back to that, here are some reflections of trends in the UK.
Cross-published (in Swedish) at Talarforum.
Sex feels good! Sex feels pleasant. According to Richard Layard's Happiness: Lessons from a New Science,
sex is the one activity that most contributes to our sense of wellbeing (although we paradoxically spend the least time doing it compared to other activities). Isn't it remarkable that sex feels good and makes us happy? Imagine if sex was painful and that just thinking about it made us chronically depressed. It's a safe assumption that fewer people would have sex and the human species would slowly die out. Procreation hinges on the fact that sex feels good and makes us happy - nature takes care of the rest.
This intro isn't just a cheap trick to make you read the rest of the blog post. Sex and procreation is a parallel to how information spreads in society. Let me show you how. Can you recite Pi to six hundred decimals or even five? Most people can't. Why? Because Pi is just so damn boring to talk about so most people don't. What we do talk about, however, is Britney's latest rehab stint or Bradgelina's latest endeavors. Or we watch Youtube clips with furry little baby bunnies, sneezing panda's or laughing babies. In other words, we prefer lies, gossip and trivialities to the inaccessible, boring or hard-to-grasp. Sexy lies are more attractive than boring or inconvenient truths. This blog is about what kinds of sexy lies we see in society, why they appear and what we can do about them.
Simplifications
How many speeches haven't we seen or heard about India or China in the past year? All with the same predictable line of argumentation that goes something like this: China and India are two big countries and because they're big, they'll take over everything from Refrigerator manufacturing and The Nobel Prize. With marketing-like slogans ("The World is flat", anyone?), the audience is expected to tremble, work harder, think creatively and prepare for the imminent Chinese invasion. These kinds of peptalks use gross simplification as an efficient means to make themselves heard. In reality, China and India are two big countries that are currently enjoying high, if imbalanced, growth from a low base. But both countries lack a number of conditions that made Europe rich a century or so ago; independent institutions, a judicial system free from political involvement, a strong focus on a few sectors that were allowed to thrive, and so on. But this kind of critical analysis and in-depth descriptions of what actually makes an economy thrive aren't very efficient peptalk-ingredients. That China has 1,3 billion people willing to work for a tenth of your wages and in less than three years have built twenty seven skyscrapers in Shanghai, on the other hand, are terrific features of a funky keynote speech.
FeelGood
My grandfather, Harry Lindqvist, wrote a number of books about positive thinking with titles like - You're twice as good as you think. I have often thought about how hollow yet efficient a statement like "You're twice as good as you think" is. Hollow because it generalizes grossly - from a scientific standpoint, peoples' self-image is usually somewhat positively correlated to their achievements - and efficient because it promises effortless improvement; you can improve without doing anything at all. This kind of self-help therapy is high currency. It's nothing new. My grandfather's books are from the 1950's and only format differentiates the message from the 21st century's "You are what you eat"-programs and Oprah-like "I like you just the way you are". The genre is signified by quasi-scientific assumptions ("Drink a lot of water" or "People with a vision can accomplish more") mixed with tips so easy that even the laziest reader can do them ("Write down a positive thought every day" or "Eat more fruit"). All is characterized by a strong sense of feelgood; to live should be easy, comfortable, simple and feel good. Imagine if these kinds of self-help books started with four chapters containing complex biochemistry and the followed by a chronological walkthrough of all grave sacrifices and dogmatic stubbornness that often distinguish what we call success. The title "You probably don't have what it takes to make it" wouldn't attract many readers and both book sales and seminar attendance would drop and disappear quickly.
Scare tactics
The climate crisis and peculiarity of the weather has filled newspapers, magazines and newscasts throughout 2007-2008. Meteorologists have become celebrities. Ex-politicians have been given a second chance. There may indeed be a number of climate issues worth taking seriously but they are buried underneath doomsday scenarios about Tsunamis swallowing Europe, deserts in Denmark, Typhoons in Stockholm, and many more. When the scientific establishment was the primary driving force behind the climate crisis, the conclusions were more moderate and usually more correct but few people cared. We needed movies, powerpoint slides and articles with worst case scenarios to make anyone react. Opportunistic politicians connected the climate to agricultural protectionism and crisis management planning to make us "understand". The paradox is that the images and scenarios that have been drawn up often lie far from the scientific discourse about the earth's climate. But people love being scared and love scaring others and images of drowning polar bears are more efficient monsters than spreadsheets and statistics.
Don't shoot the messenger
A couple of years ago, Harvard Business Review wrote that people were more inclined to work with a friendly second-rater than with a brilliant asshole. Information is impossible to separate from the messenger. Who is saying something is as important as what they're saying. The slightly nerdy and boring scientist has few listeners but when the bald, leather-clad guru enters the stage, the audience is listening. Who cares if what he's saying is true when it sounds true?
What can we do?
The human brain loves stories and often can't resist telling them ("See those seven stars - they are really seven sisters who..."). In our urge to tell stories, it's sometimes easy to leave the truth behind. The inconvenient and boring is defeated by the simplistic and audience-friendly. Nick Davies, in his book Flat Earth News, has coined the expression "churnalism" - the kind of journalis that is only regurgitated without anyone checking facts. He claims that as little as 12% of all news are fact-checked. In other words, we should only trust about 12% of what we see, read and hear. James Surowiecki, author of The
Wisdom of Crowds, has highlighted the risks of the connected, blogging society we live in today by drawing a parallel to an ant colony. If an ant gets lost, he starts to follow the ant ahead with the impression that he should know the way back to the anthill. And so on. There have been kilometer-wide ant circles found in forests where ants have followed the ant ahead when in reality everyone was lost and the ant circle ultimately died of starvation. If we don't want to starve in today's information inferno of bloggers, media, speakers and so-called "experts", we should probably use the Roman "Cui Bono?" - who gains form this information? Who has something to gain from me passing it on?
Ever since Daniel Gilbert mentioned his idea about an "information diet" in the BBC World Debate at TED in february, I've been semi-obsessed with the topic of information consumption. (That's not the reason my blog has been idle lately - for that I have no reasons, only excuses...that I won't bore you with).
A few weeks ago, I read and reviewed Matt Mason's book The Pirate's Dilemma here on the blog. He spoke at The Medici Summit in early March and his presentation is terrific; insightful and fun to watch.
Just over ten years ago I began a psychoanalytic treatment. Psychoanalysis, as you may be well aware, is the original, hardcore Freudian approach to psychotherapy wherein the analyst takes a passive role and the patient freely associates whilst lying on a couch. It was a dramatic and ultimately very helpful treatment for me. However, psychoanalysis has become the whipping boy par preference in the psychotheraputic establishment. It is accused of being misdirected, cumbersome, old fashioned and, above all else, slow.
For once, a picture really does say more than a million words...
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Magnus Lindkvist said:
PL and Lucy! Thanks for reading and posting. Always much appreciated. read more
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[this is good]I like your writing here. I think "Library Lovers" and hearts on the van is a ridiculous advertisement. I had... read more
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The arguments of the Library Lovers campaign are irrelevant and old-fashioned, because they equate distribution of physical books with learning.... read more
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