While the World Future Society conference last week was more enjoyable than the previous one I attended, this was due to meeting old friends, having more of an idea what sessions to attend, and having lower expectations, rather than a qualitative improvement. There's still something disappointing about the event in particular and the WFS in general. It could be simply because the WFS is more populist than I'd like, emphasising the effect of Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap). However, this issue aside, for me the problem boils down to three related factors: the average age; the "out-of-touchness"; and an undefinable yet cringe-worthy x-factor.
The average age of attendees was made easier to guess by the large amount of grey hair. As a 31 year old I felt like a a fresh college graduate compared to the legions of 50+ futurists. It would be interesting to find out if this is because new memberships have tailed off and the society is still populated largely by those who joined in the comparative futures heyday of the 1970s. While I've no doubt age brings a wealth of experience it's hard to generate the fully-rounded view that futurists aspire to when most people are from similar generations (whether old or young).
The "out-of-touchness" is perhaps emphasised by the age balance. While many at the conference had a wide-ranging knowledge of a vast array of fields, it appeared as if there was some kind of complacency around this set of acquired facts. It's hard to put my finger on but it was quite neatly illustrated by a rather smug man I chatted to before the very first session. When they (he and his undefined colleagues) started they "were all young" and "way out" (I assume this was the 1970s given that they also "invented computers"). But these days things have changed. "You have to remember," he said breezily, "that science fiction's reality now." Pack up your bags, he seemed to be saying, the future's here, we've reached the end! Wow, I thought; we're only just beginning.
The third problem, the cringe-worthy x-factor, is even tougher to pin-down. To some extent it could be because I'm a thirtysomething Englishman amidst a sea of largely greying Americans. There was, however, something unrelentingly positive, almost comfortably new-age, about too many of the sessions, an angle my cynical London mind found hard to cope with. This could be just a reflection of the division between futurists who feel we should be working towards their remarkably uniform vision of a "better" world and those more interested in methods to help others achieve their own vision, too large a topic to go into here.
It's hard enough to identify these problems, let alone come up with solutions. More "young" people would be an obvious start, preferably from a variety of fields. After the 2000 conference I thought the answer would be to bring in people who really knew something about their field. When it comes to the internet, for example, perhaps Clay Shirky or Stephen Johnson would be able to shake a few cobwebs from those complacent futurist skulls. But now I'm not so sure. However knowledgeable such experts are they rarely think as far ahead as futurists (I'd love to be proved wrong on this). We'd be in danger of gaining knowledge of a domain while losing the long-term view.
I feel happier that I've identified the issues that dissatisfy me about the WFS and its events, even if I'm no closer to solving them. Perhaps I should simply accept this is the nature of the organisation and look elsewhere, although this is a shame when it's the most prominent face of futurism as a profession.
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