The outlook
for the future of humanity is not great at the moment. In the several years
since I started taking a serious interest in this, including extensive academic
research, substantial reading and study and direct engagement in online debate
and discussion, not much has improved.
We have been
strongly conscious of our collective ability to shape, transform, and in
particular, damage our world and our societies, for at least fifty years. For
much of this time, the focus of academic attention has been on Environmental ‘issues’
and the relationship between human exploitation of resources and ecosystems’
capacity to absorb this. More recently, the focus has shifted to the questions
which arise from recent observations of the global warming of the planet’s ‘system’.
Today, more
than has been apparent before, we live in a time when people who think about
the bigger issues and problems of society are aware that our Human world is at
least partially dysfunctional. Though it is hard to place a number on this
outside the realms of serious statistical (quantitative) research, and though
observation bias is no doubt in play, since I tend to socialise with people who
share my world-view, or at least my concerns, my best guess is that a
substantial minority of Northern Europeans, and a slightly smaller but still
significant minority of Americans, Canadians, Australians, Africans, Asians and
Southern/Eastern Europeans, are both aware of at least some of the issues
facing our species and others, and also concerned about them with respect to
the future.
For some
time I have been working to map out a vision of how the near future of Humanity
might progress and so, given that there may be some interest, intend to present
some of my guesses, along with the reasoning behind them, here over the next
few posts. For my own reasons, I have named this the ‘Morrow Project’. It would
be more than helpful, in this case, were some readers to offer contributions,
in particular where they think my reasoning has gone astray, or where they are
not clear about my meanings, so come on, folks, say your bit…
Coming up
next on the blog, then, the Morrow Project, Episode 1…
