The Future: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Futures studies as I use the term in this book is a transdisciplinary academic field combining education, philosophy, sociology, history, psychology, and economic theory with real-life observation to propose, for the benefit of society, not just one kind of future but multiple futures.

The US Department of Defense coined a new term in the 1990s: VUCA, which stands for volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous.

All these new things, these new inventions and new powers, come crowding along; every one is fraught with consequences, and yet it is only after something has hit us hard that we set about dealing with it.

We need to be aware that we use a kind of ‘everyday foresight’ in order to conduct our daily lives, based on certain assumptions, such as public transport being reliable, travel bookings being trustworthy, and weather forecasts being mostly right.