Tag Archives: social science

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Podcast #44: The Post Covid-19 Future, Part 1, Urban and Social Issues with Cindy Frewen

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“If a severe pandemic materializes, all of society could pay a heavy price for decades of failing to create a rational system of health care that works for all of us.”–Irwin Redlener

 

Image: shutterstock

There is no doubt about it.  The after-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be with us for many years into the future.  Healthcare. Economics. Social Interaction. Sports. Politics. Education.  Just about everything will feel the effects for the rest of most of our natural lives.

In this, the first of a series looking at various scenarios for a post-pandemic world, we look at urban and social issues.  Dr. Cindy Frewen is well qualified to discuss both of these areas. She is a fellow member of the Association of Professional Futurists–she served as its board chair for many years.  She is an architect, has a Ph. D. in communication, and teaches social change in the University of Houston’s graduate foresight program.  She also was a columnist for the Kansas City Star for many years.

A reminder that Seeking Delphi is available on iTunes and PlayerFM,  and has a channel on YouTube.  You can also follow us on Facebook.

 

Cindy Frewen , Phd
Image credit: Kansas City Star

Image: shutterstock Click for Worldometer coronavirus stats.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Episode #44:  Post-Covid19 Urban and Social Issues, with Cindy Frewen

Full unedited Zoom video of episode #44

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Forethought or Foresight?

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“Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.”–Napoleon Bonaparte

Is it foresight or forethought that is required to navigate forward? www.cartoonstock.com

Is it foresight or forethought that is required to navigate forward?
http://www.cartoonstock.com

Foresight? Forethought?  What’s the difference? Maybe with better forethought, Napoleon would have had the foresight to avoid Waterloo.   Maybe.

But really, the two words are practically synonymous, so we are more in the province of semantics.    Just take a look at how Dictionary.com defines them.   Its first given definition of foresight  is care or provision for the future.  The first definition for forethought is thoughtful provision for the future.  Practically the same thing, no?  But for the purposes of this blog, I’ll come down on the side of none of the above.

Slightly paraphrased, the 4th definition of foresight given by Dictionary.com is knowledge or insight gained by looking forward.  This is foresight as I see it, and for that matter, I believe it is how the true professional futurist sees it.  We cannot really predict the future, but we can be better prepared for it by adroit use of foresight.   This type of insight is the aim of Seeking Delphi.™

Moving forward then (what other direction is there?), posts herein will fall into two broad categories.  Posts in the How to Think About the Future category will discuss the theory and practice of forethought–they will cover the basics for the layman.  They will also delve into some of my heavier philosophical and scientific views on how we ought to think about the future.   Posts in the Seeking Delphi category will delve into the future of various domains of human endeavor,  including, when possible, interviews with experts in the fields covered.  There will be obvious subjects, such as biotechnology, information technology, education, politics and the like;  there will also be less obvious explorations into narrower areas.   A podcast is targeted for a July launch.

Up next will be a reprise of two posts from my other blog The Millennium Conjectures,™  which provide my rather physics imbued philosophy of the future.

 

 

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Welcome

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“Never predict  anything, especially the future.”–Casey Stengel

The Ol’ Perfessor knew what he was talking about.   Well, maybe he didn’t, but the advice is sage nonetheless.  It is notoriously difficult to predict anything in the future with consistent accuracy.  So why in the world would anyone want to become a futurist?  Why bother?  Well, to be blunt, that is exactly why!  Ignoring the opportunities and dangers of the future is what I like to call The Ostrich Syndrome.  Go ahead, hide your head in the sand.  The future is not going to go away;  it will get here.  And if we can’t predict it, there are certainly ways to prepare for it.  To prevent bad outcomes, or at least make them less likely.  To create good outcomes, or at least make them more likely.  And to be  better prepared to deal with whatever does come.

The sad fact is, we live in a short-term oriented society with a short attention span.  So what is the antidote to this malady?  It is more thoughtful foresight.  We have everything to gain and nothing to lose.  Kurt  Vonnegut compared science fiction writers like himself to the proverbial canary in the mine shaft, warning of weak danger signals before others perceive them.  That’s what futurists do, though those weak signals can signal opportunities as well as dangers as the world changes.  That’s what I aim to do with the rest of my life.  I’ve enrolled in the  University of Houston’s Masters in Foresight program.  I’m adding a foresight element to a friend’s existing market research business.  I’m becoming an advocate for taking a longer view of everything.  Economics. Education. Environment. Government. You name it.  This my second blog, aptly named Seeking Delphi after the famed Oracle of Delphi.  We can’t predict the future, but we can anticipate the possibilities, avoid the catastrophes (or some of them) and create the opportunities.

See the about page for my background, and see the link below for a book review I published in 1999 in the Reed Elsevier journal Futures.   It provides a very succinct view of my personal philosophy on how we should view the future.    Here goes something.  See you tomorrow and beyond…

sackler review F31 April 1999