Download or read book Shareable Futures The Future Reclaimed as a Commons written by Shareable Magazine and published by Hyperink Inc. This book was released on 2012-11-07 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introducing Shareable Futures Where our future used to be, we now face a massive debt. The debt is national and measurable. We in America spent two decades buying on credit. We made promises we couldn’t keep to buy cars, houses, vacations, and plasma screens we couldn’t afford. When we defaulted, the debt shifted upward to a government that had already been putting its wars and occupations on the global equivalent of plastic. The debt is also environmental and abstract. All this crap we bought on credit had to come out of the earth. We’ve razed forests and eroded soil, over-fished the oceans and depleted fresh water, and turned our bodies and environment into toxic waste dumps. We took oil and coal out of the ground and turned it into smoke that has been trapping heat in the atmosphere. In short, we consumed like there was no tomorrow. And as a result of the economic and environmental crises triggered by our multi-decade spending spree, tomorrow now seems to be shrinking to a little black dot. To state the problem in the starkest, most personal terms: I look at my son and I try to imagine the future in which he will live, and I can’t do it. I don’t dare. I don’t believe that I am unique in feeling this way. Too often, when we now look to the future, we face a “Keep Out!” sign propped up by a combination of our own fear and anxiety. This is another crisis, one that is unfolding on the most intimate and the most public levels. It’s a crisis because we need futurity in the same way that we need air, food, and water—other resources threatened by the forces of enclosure. Not just any futurity, but concepts of the future in which tomorrow is in some way better than today. To put it another way: We need to know that our actions in the present will count toward something, will be meaningful. Not just a future for our own damn selves, but for the whole of the planet and humanity. The future belongs to everyone, or it should—and, indeed, the future is much more difficult to enclose than other commons. Anyone can access or use the future, through the power of our imaginations. That's one way of defining “the commons”: anything that no one owns but everyone can access and use. The Internet is a commons. So are the oceans and our atmosphere. The radio spectrum is a commons. So are our streets and water delivery systems. All of these things require intention and cooperation to maintain, lest we use them up. In other words, all the commons need people to care about them. They need cultivation. So does the commons we call the future. We don’t cultivate the future with shovels or software, the way we might tend other commons. Instead, we cultivate the commons of the future through stories. The future is, in fact, just a collection of stories that we tell each other. The more and the better stories we tell—and the more people we tell them to—the more we strengthen the commons of the future. That’s why Shareable.net launched the Shareable Futures series, where some of today's most visionary and accomplished literary futurists imagine futures where technology has changed the rules of ownership and access, and people are able to share transportation, living spaces, lives, dreams, everything and anything. These are futures in which we are surviving and even thriving, largely by learning to share our stuff. The short stories and speculative essays of the Shareable Futures series are ultimately hopeful, but they are not utopian propaganda; our writers come from the perspective that the laws of social thermodynamics are impossible to escape. Instead of utopia, these stories give readers troubles and ambiguities, vividly conceived characters and places, compelling narratives and intelligent speculation. We hope you’ll enjoy them, and enjoy them in the context of the other, real-life, here-and-now stories we tell on Shareable.net.
Download or read book Our Common Future written by and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Foundations of Futures Studies written by Jose Valciukas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Futures studies is a new field of inquiry involving systematic and explicit thinking about alternative futures. It aims to demystify the future, make possibilities for the future more known to us, and increase human control over the future. This book summarizes and expands contributions of futurists to the envisioning power and well-being of humanity. Bell brings together futurist intellectual tools, describing and explaining not only the methods, but also the nature, concepts, theories, and exemplars of the field.Foundations of Futures Studies fulfills Bell's five main purposes for writing this two-volume effort: (1) to show that futures studies, like other fields from anthropology to zoology, exists as an identifiable sphere of intellectual activity; (2) to create a teaching instrument that can be used as a basic text for core courses in futures studies; (3) to futurize the thinking of specialists in other disciplines; (4) to contribute to the further development and improvement of futures studies; and (5) to provide tools to empower both ordinary people and leaders to act in ways that create better futures for themselves and their societies. Bell maintains that despite its sometimes doomsday rhetorical style and widespread use by special interests, futures studies offers hope for the future of humanity and concrete ways of realizing that hope in the real world of our everyday lives. It will appeal to all interested in futures studies, as well as sociologists, economists, political scientists, and historians.
Download or read book Foundations of Futures Studies Volume 1 written by Wendell Bell and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Futures studies is a new field of inquiry involving systematic and explicit thinking about alternative futures. It aims to demystify the future, make possibilities for the future more known to us, and increase human control over the future. Author Wendell Bell brings together futurist intellectual tools, describing and explaining not only the methods, but also the nature, concepts, theories, and exemplars of the field. Now available in paperback with a new preface from the author, Foundations of Future Studies is the fundamental work on the subject. Bell illustrates how this sphere of intellectual activity offers hope for the future of humanity and concrete ways of realizing that hope in the real world of everyday life. His book will appeal to all interested in futures studies, sociology, economics, political science, and history.
Download or read book Our Common Journey written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999-12-09 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World human population is expected to reach upwards of 9 billion by 2050 and then level off over the next half-century. How can the transition to a stabilizing population also be a transition to sustainability? How can science and technology help to ensure that human needs are met while the planet's environment is nurtured and restored? Our Common Journey examines these momentous questions to draw strategic connections between scientific research, technological development, and societies' efforts to achieve environmentally sustainable improvements in human well being. The book argues that societies should approach sustainable development not as a destination but as an ongoing, adaptive learning process. Speaking to the next two generations, it proposes a strategy for using scientific and technical knowledge to better inform future action in the areas of fertility reduction, urban systems, agricultural production, energy and materials use, ecosystem restoration and biodiversity conservation, and suggests an approach for building a new research agenda for sustainability science. Our Common Journey documents large-scale historical currents of social and environmental change and reviews methods for "what if" analysis of possible future development pathways and their implications for sustainability. The book also identifies the greatest threats to sustainabilityâ€"in areas such as human settlements, agriculture, industry, and energyâ€"and explores the most promising opportunities for circumventing or mitigating these threats. It goes on to discuss what indicators of change, from children's birth-weights to atmosphere chemistry, will be most useful in monitoring a transition to sustainability.
Download or read book Making Futures written by Pelle Ehn and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-10-31 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book describes experiments in innovation, design, and democracy, undertaken largely by grassroots organizations, non-governmental organizations, and multi-ethnic working-class neighborhoods. These stories challenge the dominant perception of what constitutes successful innovations. They recount efforts at social innovation, opening the production process, challenging the creative class, and expanding the public sphere. The cases considered include a collective of immigrant women who perform collaborative services, the development of an open-hardware movement, grassroots journalism, and hip-hop performances on city buses. They point to the possibility of democratized innovation that goes beyond solo entrepreneurship and crowdsourcing in the service of corporations to include multiple futures imagined and made locally by often-marginalized publics.
Download or read book Dialogue as a Means of Collective Communication written by Bela H. Banathy and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-02-28 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dialogue as a Means of Collective Communication offers a cross-disciplinary approach to examining dialogue as a communicative medium. Presented in five parts, the book takes the reader on a journey of exploring the power and potential of dialogue as a means for communication. In particular, this volume comes at a time when the global society's attention has been directed to creating more productive conversations in the name of world peace and harmony. It provides a unique new work on dialogue that brings the reader into a "dialogue with dialogue", offering an opportunity to understand the communicative potential of dialogue. In the book, readers are introduced to five sections: Section I examines the historical and cultural perspectives of conversation. This examination helps to create a foundation for a deeper study of the emergent and salient aspects of conversation as it relates to cultural creativity and human systems design. Sections II offers the reader an examination of dialogue through different philosophical and theoretical perspectives as well as methodological ideas related to conversation. Section III explores different modalities of conversation and the application of design conversation within and across various types of design settings and human experiences. Section IV examines the field of practice as related to use of different forms of conversation. Here various authors will share their different approaches to conversation and their reflections and insights in using conversation in a variety of settings. Concluding the book, Section V reflectively examines the authors' contributions to the book and provides the reader with a focus on the future.
Download or read book Learning Futures written by Keri Facer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2011-03-29 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the twenty-first century, educators around the world are being told that they need to transform education systems to adapt young people for the challenges of a global digital knowledge economy. Too rarely, however, do we ask whether this future vision is robust, achievable or even desirable, whether alternative futures might be in development, and what other possible futures might demand of education. Drawing on ten years of research into educational innovation and socio-technical change, working with educators, researchers, digital industries, students and policy-makers, this book questions taken-for-granted assumptions about the future of education. Arguing that we have been working with too narrow a vision of the future, Keri Facer makes a case for recognizing the challenges that the next two decades may bring, including: the emergence of new relationships between humans and technology the opportunities and challenges of aging populations the development of new forms of knowledge and democracy the challenges of climate warming and environmental disruption the potential for radical economic and social inequalities. This book describes the potential for these developments to impact critical aspects of education – including adult-child relationships, social justice, curriculum design, community relationships and learning ecologies. Packed with examples from around the world and utilising vital research undertaken by the author while Research Director at the UK’s Futurelab, the book helps to bring into focus the risks and opportunities for schools, students and societies over the coming two decades. It makes a powerful case for rethinking the relationship between education and social and technological change, and presents a set of key strategies for creating schools better able to meet the emerging needs of their students and communities. An important contribution to the debates surrounding educational futures, this book is compelling reading for all of those, including educators, researchers, policy-makers and students, who are asking the question 'how can education help us to build desirable futures for everyone in the context of social and technological change?'
Download or read book The Change Handbook written by Peggy Holman and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 761 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Change Handbook features chapters by the originators and foremost practitioners of such high-leverage change methods as Future Search, Real Time Strategic Change, Gemba Kaizen, and Open Space Technology. The authors outline distinctive aspects of their approach; detail roles and responsibilities; share a story illustrating usage; and answer frequently asked questions about how to put it into practice. Examples of successful change efforts acquaint readers with the diverse array of methods being employed today. A one-stop comparative chart allows them to evaluate the methods to determine what will work best fro them, and an in-depth reference section helps them locate the resources they need to get started.
Download or read book Knowledge Democracy written by Roel in 't Veld and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-03-10 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Knowledge democracy is an emerging concept that addresses the relationships between knowledge production and dissemination, as well as the functions of the media and democratic institutions. Although democracy has been the most successful concept of governance for societies for the last two centuries, representative democracy, which became the hallmark of advanced nation-states, seems to be in decline. Media politics is an important factor in the downfall of the original meaning of representation, yet more direct forms of democracy have not yet found an institutional embedding. Further, the Internet has also drastically changed the rules of the game, and a better educated public has broad access to information, selects for itself which types to examine, and ignores media filters. Some citizens have even become "media" themselves. In a time where the political agendas are filled with combatting so-called evils, new designs for the relationships between science, politics and media are needed. This book outlines the challenges entailed in pursuing a vital knowledge democracy.
Download or read book Information Technologies and Social Orders written by Carl J. Couch and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-08 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: According to Carl J. Couch, the history of human society is one of successive, sometimes overlapping, information technologies used to process the various symbolic representations that inform social contexts. Unlike earlier “media” theorists who ignored social context in order to concentrate on the information technologies themselves, Couch implements a consistent theory of interpersonal and intergroup relations to describe the essential interface between information technologies and the social contexts in which they are used. Couch emphasizes the formative capacities of information technologies across historical epochs and cultures, and places them within the major institutional relations of various societies. He views social orders as reflexively shaped by the information technologies that participants use, and as susceptible to mass brutality and oppression due to oligarchic control though he hopes technology will remain humane. The original edition of this manuscript was nearly complete at the time of Couch’s death and was brought to completion by two of his closest associates. Now after two decades, during which its impact is indisputable, it has been updated for a new generation of students and scholars. Additions include discussions on books in the digital age, social media, mobile telephones, recordings, participatory culture, and more.
Download or read book Introduction to Futures and Options written by Donald Spence and published by Woodhead Publishing. This book was released on 1997-08-27 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a comprehensive guide to the workings of the world's commodity and financial futures and options markets. It examines the markets and instruments - including the OTC market and evaluates the likely developments in futures and options.
Download or read book First Person Futures in Pindar written by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer and published by Franz Steiner Verlag. This book was released on 1999 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is about passages where Pindar uses the future tense with reference to himself or to his song. It addresses the question as to exactly what the function is of the future tense in those passages. This is a vexed problem, which has played a major role in Pindaric criticism for the last decades and which has recently gained relevance for the interpretation of other authors as well. This book offers a detailed examination of all the relevant passages in Pindar, as well as a generous amount of examples from other authors. It takes a firm stand against the communis opinio that first person futures in Pindar merely express a present intention: the so-called "encomiastic" or "performative" future. It demonstrates that the reference to a future moment is relevant in every single instance of a future verb in Pindar and concludes that there is no such thing as an "encomiastic" future. Inhalt: Futures with a text internal reference - Futures referring to a later moment in the ode - "Fictional" futures - Generic futures - Futures with a specific text external reference - The case of Olympian XI - First person futures in Theocritus' second Idyll & magical texts. (Franz Steiner 1999)
Download or read book Designing Suburban Futures written by June Williamson and published by Island Press. This book was released on 2013-05-07 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suburbs deserve a better, more resilient future. June Williamson shows that suburbs aren't destined to remain filled with strip malls and excess parking lots; they can be reinvigorated through inventive design. Today, dead malls, aging office parks, and blighted apartment complexes are being retrofitted into walkable, sustainable communities. Williamson provides a broad vision of suburban reform based on the best schemes submitted in Long Island's highly successful "Build a Better Burb" competition. Many of the design ideas and plans operate at a regional scale, tackling systems such as transit, aquifer protection, and power generation. While some seek to fundamentally transform development patterns, others work with existing infrastructure to create mixed-use, shared networks. Designing Suburban Futures offers concrete but visionary strategies to take the sprawl out of suburbia, creating a vibrant new, suburban form.
Download or read book Resilient Urban Futures written by Zoé A. Hamstead and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book addresses the way in which urban and urbanizing regions profoundly impact and are impacted by climate change. The editors and authors show why cities must wage simultaneous battles to curb global climate change trends while adapting and transforming to address local climate impacts. This book addresses how cities develop anticipatory and long-range planning capacities for more resilient futures, earnest collaboration across disciplines, and radical reconfigurations of the power regimes that have institutionalized the disenfranchisement of minority groups. Although planning processes consider visions for the future, the editors highlight a more ambitious long-term positive visioning approach that accounts for unpredictability, system dynamics and equity in decision-making. This volume brings the science of urban transformation together with practices of professionals who govern and manage our social, ecological and technological systems to design processes by which cities may achieve resilient urban futures in the face of climate change.
Download or read book Discovering Common Ground written by and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Software Engineering and Formal Methods written by George Eleftherakis and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Software Engineering and Formal Methods, SEFM 2012, held in Thessaloniki, Greece, in October 2012. The 19 revised research papers presented together with 3 short papers, 2 tool papers, and 2 invited talks were carefully reviewed and selected from 98 full submissions. The SEFM conference aspires to advance the state-of-the-art in formal methods, to enhance their scalability and usability with regards to their application in the software industry and to promote their integration with practical engineering methods.
