World-renowned future forecaster, game designer, and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Jane McGonigal gives us the tools to imagine the future without fear. How can we be confident about making plans? How might we feel secure despite the future being unknown? How do we learn to feel at peace with the unexpected? Today it feels more challenging than ever to feel unafraid, hopeful, and equipped to face the future with optimism. How do we map out our lives when it seems impossible to predict what the world will be like next week, let alone next year or next decade? What we need now are strategies to help us recover our confidence and creativity in facing uncertain futures. By learning to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable you can better plan for a future you'd like to see. And by seeing what's coming faster, you can adapt to new challenges, reduce anxiety, and build hope and resilience. 'An accessible, optimistic field guide to the future.'-San Francisco Chronicle 'Jane McGonigal is unusually adept at anticipating events that most of us can't even fathom. In this eye-opening, actionable book, she teaches you how to widen your peripheral vision, extend your imagination farther into the future, and conceive of the inconceivable.' Adam Grant, #1 Bestselling Author of Think Again __________ 'Top 10 innovators to watch' Business Week 10 most powerful women to watch' Forbes 'Top 100 creative people in business' Fast Company

"Scenarios are now a part of every successful manager’s toolkit. This book is the first comprehensive guide to the latest developments in scenario thinking written by today’s leading practitioners in the field." —Napier Collyns, a pioneer of scenario planning at Dutch/Shell now Managing Director, Gloal Business Network (GBN) "In twenty years of helping companies create and plan for their futures, I have never come across a book that dealt with the use of scenario-based planning as comprehensively as this one." —David Kelley CEO, IDEO Product Development the creators of the Apple Mouse "This book is the greatest reference today on scenario planning—the preeminent tool for those who believe that the future belongs to those with the imagination to create it. The combination of scenario planning and strategy formulation can be a wondrous right brain process that galvanizes teams with a compelling vision and common purpose." —David E. Schnedler Director, Corporate Planning Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Organizations must create intellectual and organizational tension around distinctly different views of the future. Learning from the Future demonstrates why scenarios are ideally suited to generate such tension and how to use scenario learning as a steppingstone to superior strategies." —Richard Pascale, Associate Fellow of Oxford University and author of Managing on the Edge: How the Smartest Companies Use Conflict to Stay Ahead "An invaluable guide to the mind-stretching benefits of scenarios that are fully embedded in the strategic thinking process. It should be required reading for any management team embarking on scenario development so they can realize the benefits and evade the pitfalls." —George Day, Geoffrey T. Boisi Professor and Director of the Huntsman Center for Global Competition and Innovation Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Predicting the shape of our future populations is vital for installing the infrastructure, welfare, and provisions necessary for society to survive. There are many opportunities and challenges that will come with the changes in our populations over the 21st century. In this new addition to the 21st Century Challenges series, Sarah Harper works to dispel myths such as the fear of unstoppable global growth resulting in a population explosion, or that climate change will lead to the mass movement of environmental refugees; and instead considers the future shape of our populations in light of demographic trends in fertility, mortality, and migration, and their national and global impact. How Population Change Will Transform Our World looks at population trends by region to highlight the key issues facing us in the coming decades, including the demographic inertia in Europe, demographic dividend in Asia, high fertility and mortality in Africa, the youth bulge in the Middle East, and the balancing act of migration in the Americas. Harper concludes with an analysis of global challenges we must plan for such as the impact of climate change and urbanization, and the difficulty of feeding 10 billion people, and considers ways in which we can prepare for, and mitigate against, these challenges.

"A gifted and thoughtful writer, Metzl brings us to the frontiers of biology and technology, and reveals a world full of promise and peril." -Siddhartha Mukherjee MD, New York Times bestselling author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene Passionate, provocative, and highly illuminating, Hacking Darwin is the must read book about the future of our species for fans of Homo Deus and The Gene. After 3.8 billion years humankind is about to start evolving by new rules... From leading geopolitical expert and technology futurist Jamie Metzl comes a groundbreaking exploration of the many ways genetic-engineering is shaking the core foundations of our lives-sex, war, love, and death. At the dawn of the genetics revolution, our DNA is becoming as readable, writable, and hackable as our information technology. But as humanity starts retooling our own genetic code, the choices we make today will be the difference between realizing breathtaking advances in human well-being and descending into a dangerous and potentially deadly genetic arms race. Enter the laboratories where scientists are turning science fiction into reality. Look towards a future where our deepest beliefs, morals, religions, and politics are challenged like never before and the very essence of what it means to be human is at play. When we can engineer our future children, massively extend our lifespans, build life from scratch, and recreate the plant and animal world, should we?

This book predicts the decline of today's professions and introduces the people and systems that will replace them. In an internet-enhanced society, according to Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, we will neither need nor want doctors, teachers, accountants, architects, the clergy, consultants, lawyers, and many others, to work as they did in the 20th century. The Future of the Professions explains how increasingly capable technologies - from telepresence to artificial intelligence - will place the 'practical expertise' of the finest specialists at the fingertips of everyone, often at no or low cost and without face-to-face interaction. The authors challenge the 'grand bargain' - the arrangement that grants various monopolies to today's professionals. They argue that our current professions are antiquated, opaque and no longer affordable, and that the expertise of their best is enjoyed only by a few. In their place, they propose five new models for producing and distributing expertise in society. The book raises profound policy issues, not least about employment (they envisage a new generation of 'open-collared workers') and about control over online expertise (they warn of new 'gatekeepers') - in an era when machines become more capable than human beings at most tasks. With a new preface exploring recent critical developments, this updated edition builds on the authors' groundbreaking research into more than a dozen professions. Illustrated with numerous examples from each, this is the first book to assess and question the relevance of the professions in the 21st century.

The first English-language collection to establish curiosity studies as a unique field From science and technology to business and education, curiosity is often taken for granted as an unquestioned good. And yet, few people can define curiosity. Curiosity Studies marshals scholars from more than a dozen fields not only to define curiosity but also to grapple with its ethics as well as its role in technological advancement and global citizenship. While intriguing research on curiosity has occurred in numerous disciplines for decades, no rigorously cross-disciplinary study has existed-until now. Curiosity Studies stages an interdisciplinary conversation about what curiosity is and what resources it holds for human and ecological flourishing. These engaging essays are integrated into four clusters: scientific inquiry, educational practice, social relations, and transformative power. By exploring curiosity through the practice of scientific inquiry, the contours of human learning, the stakes of social difference, and the potential of radical imagination, these clusters focus and reinvigorate the study of this universal but slippery phenomenon: the desire to know. Against the assumption that curiosity is neutral, this volume insists that curiosity has a history and a political import and requires precision to define and operationalize. As various fields deepen its analysis, a new ecosystem for knowledge production can flourish, driven by real-world problems and a commitment to solve them in collaboration. By paying particular attention to pedagogy throughout, Curiosity Studies equips us to live critically and creatively in what might be called our new Age of Curiosity. Contributors: Danielle S. Bassett, U of Pennsylvania; Barbara M. Benedict, Trinity College; Susan Engel, Williams College; Ellen K. Feder, American U; Kristina T. Johnson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Narendra Keval; Christina Leon, Princeton U; Tyson Lewis, U of North Texas; Amy Marvin, U of Oregon; Hilary M. Schor, U of Southern California; Seeta Sistla, Hampshire College; Heather Anne Swanson, Aarhus U.

This important Manifesto argues that we still need a concept of society in order to make sense of the forces which structure our lives.
Written by leading social theorist William Outhwaite
Asks if the notion of society is relevant in the twenty-first century
Goes to the heart of contemporary social and political debate
Examines critiques of the concept of society from neoliberals, postmodernists, and globalization theorists

The first decade of the twenty-first century marked the demise of the current world order. Despite widespread acknowledgement of these disruptive crises, the proposed response from the mainstream remains the same. Against the confines of this increasingly limited politics, a new paradigm has emerged. Fully Automated Luxury Communism claims that new technologies will liberate us from work, providing the opportunity to build a society beyond both capitalism and scarcity. Automation, rather than undermining an economy built on full employment, is instead the path to a world of liberty, luxury and happiness. For everyone. In his first book, radical political commentator Aaron Bastani conjures a new politics: a vision of a world of unimaginable hope, highlighting how we move to energy abundance, feed a world of nine billion, overcome work, transcend the limits of biology and build meaningful freedom for everyone. Rather than a final destination, such a society heralds the beginning of history. Fully Automated Luxury Communism promises a radically new left future for everyone.

A Stata Companion for The Fundamentals of Social Research offers students the opportunity to delve into the world of Stata using real data sets and statistical analysis techniques directly from Paul M. Kellstedt, Guy D. Whitten, and Steven A. Tuch's new textbook. Workbook sections parallel chapters in the main text, giving students a chance to apply the lessons and techniques learned in each chapter in a statistical software setting. Detailed chapters teach students to reproduce results presented in the textbook, allowing them to become comfortable performing statistical analyses for evaluating causal claims through repeated practice. Step-by-step instructions for using Stata are provided, along with command lines and screenshots to demonstrate proper use of the software. Instructions for producing the figures and tables in the main text are integrated throughout the workbook. End-of-chapter exercises encourage students to formulate and evaluate their own hypotheses.

'A terrific book - essential reading for everyone seeking to make sense of Artificial Intelligence' Professor Sir Adrian Smith, Director and Chief Executive of the Alan Turing Institute In this myth-busting guide to AI past and present, one of the world's leading researchers shows why our fears for the future are misplaced. The ultimate dream of AI is to build machines that are like us: conscious and self-aware. While this remains a remote possibility, rapid progress in AI is already transforming our world. Yet the public debate is still largely centred on unlikely prospects, from sentient machines to dystopian robot takeovers. In this lively and clear-headed guide, Michael Wooldridge challenges the prevailing narrative, revealing how the hype distracts us from both the more immediate risks that this technology poses - from algorithmic bias to fake news - and the true life-changing potential of the field. The Road to Conscious Machines elucidates the discoveries of AI's greatest pioneers from Alan Turing to Demis Hassabis, and what today's researchers actually think and do. 'Nobody understands the past, the present, the promise and the peril of this new technology better than Michael Wooldridge. The definitive account' Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist 'Effortlessly readable. The perfect guide to the history and future of AI' Tom Chivers, author of The AI Does Not Hate You

As his health begins to fail, a historian in the year 2084 sets out to document the irreparable damage climate change has wrought on the planet over the course of his life. He interviews scientists, political leaders and ordinary people all around the world who have suffered its catastrophic effects, from devastating floods and mass droughts to war and famine. In a series of short chapters, we learn that much of New York has been abandoned, 50 million Bangladeshis are refugees and half of the Netherlands is under water. This is all fiction. But it is rooted in scientific fact. Written by a professor of geochemistry, James Lawrence Powell, The 2084 Report accurately chronicles the future we will face if nothing is done to address the climate crisis. A vivid portrait of climate change and its tangible impact on our lives, The 2084 Report is a powerful prophecy and urgent call to action.

Are paperclips going to destroy life as we know it?
What can Mickey Mouse teach us about how to programme AI?
Could a more rational approach to life be what saves us all?

This is a book about about a community of people who are trying to think rationally about intelligence and what insight they can and can't give us about the future of the human race. It explains why these people are worried about an AI apocalypse, why they might be right, and why they might be wrong. It is a book about the cutting edge of our thinking on intelligence and rationality right now by the people who stay up all night worrying about it.

This book examines science fiction's theoretical and ontological backgrounds and how science fiction applies to the future of tourism. It recreates and invents the future of tourism in a creative and disruptive manner, reconceptualising tourism through alternative and quantum leap thinking that go beyond the normative or accepted view of tourism. The chapters, focusing on areas such as disruption, sustainability and technology, draw readers into the unknown future of tourism - a future that may be disruptive, dystopian or utopian. The book brings a new theoretical paradigm to the study of tourism in a post COVID-19 world and can be used to explore, frame and even form the future of tourism. It will capture the imagination and inspire readers to address tourism's challenges of tomorrow.

A profound meditation on race, inheritance, and queer mothering at the end of the world. In a letter to her six-year-old daughter, Julietta Singh writes toward a tender vision of the world, offering children's radical embrace of possibility as a model for how we might live. In order to survive looming political and ecological disasters, Singh urges, we must break from the conventions we have inherited and begin to orient ourselves toward more equitable and revolutionary paths. The Breaks celebrates queer family-making, communal living, and Brown girlhood, complicating the stark binaries that shape contemporary U.S. discourse. With nuance and generosity, Singh reveals the connections among the crises humanity faces--climate catastrophe, extractive capitalism, and the violent legacies of racism, patriarchy, and colonialism--inviting us to move through the breaks toward a tenable future.

Democratic Crisis and Global Constitutional Law explains the current weakness of democratic polities by examining antinomies in constitutional democracy and its theoretical foundations. This book argues that democracy is usually analysed in a theoretical lens that is not adequately sensitive to its historical origins. The author proposes a new sociological framework for understanding democracy and its constitutional preconditions, stressing the linkage between classical patterns of democratic citizenship and military processes and arguing that democratic stability at the national level relies on the formation of robust normative systems at the international level. On this basis, he argues that democracy is frequently exposed to crisis because the normative terms in which it is promoted and justified tend to simplify its nature. These terms create a legitimising space in which anti-democratic movements, typically with a populist emphasis, can take shape and flourish.

Unless something really remarkable happens like Armageddon or a dot.com company declaring profits as we enter the year 2001, things will stay pretty much as they are: images of Princess Diana will still appear in magazines everywhere, the railways will still use rolling stock built in the sixties, and old men driving cars will still inexplicably wear hats and gloves. But behind the facade of normality the future is taking shape. With Sam Goldwyn's famous saying 'Never predict anything - especially the future' firmly in mind, Jonathan Margolis inoculates himself against the pitfalls of prophecy with a chastening look at the history of futurology. Then he takes courage in both hands and sets out to describe the world that's yet to come in the fields of medicine, mind, spirit, home, food, work, leisure, politics, war, society, transport, environment and space.

In a world plagued by wicked problems, escaping the win-lose dynamics of zero-sum game approaches is crucial for finding integrated, inclusive solutions to complex issues. In this book, the reader will uncover real-life examples of inclusive leaders that have broken the zero-sum game. From Ivy League colleges to African villages, from the very top of the Catholic Church to anarchist conferences and meetings, inclusive leadership can be applied - and the protagonists will tell you how. As the examples in the book demonstrate, inclusive leadership is not the privilege of a few gifted individuals with extraordinary human qualities. Inclusive leaders are not necessarily charismatic (like Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, or Martin Luther King, Jr). The vast majority of inclusive leaders are just regular everyday people. They only differ - and what a difference it makes! - in being able to turn what seem to be zero-sum problems into opportunities for inclusiveness. Including a foreword from Edwin Hollander, a pioneering visionary of inclusive leadership, you will find concrete examples and tools in this book that you can start using from day one (and in your own way) as an inclusive leader.

First came the postwar High, then the Awakening of the '60s and '70s, and now the Unraveling.  This audacious and provocative book tells us what to expect just beyond the start of the next century.  Are you ready for the Fourth Turning?

Strauss and Howe will change the way you see the world--and your place in it.  In The Fourth Turning, they apply their generational theories to the cycles of history and locate America in the middle of an unraveling period, on the brink of a crisis.  How you prepare for this crisis--the Fourth Turning--is intimately connected to the mood and attitude of your particular generation.  Are you one of the can-do "GI generation," who triumphed in the last crisis?  Do you belong to the mediating "Silent Majority," who enjoyed the 1950s High?  Do you fall into the "awakened" Boomer category of the 1970s and 1980s, or are you a Gen-Xer struggling to adapt to our splintering world?  Whatever your stage of life, The Fourth Turning offers bold predictions about how all of us can prepare, individually and collectively, for America's next rendezvous with destiny.

The tremendously well-received New York Times bestseller by cultural critic Chuck Klosterman, exploring the possibility that our currently held beliefs and assumptions about the world will eventually be proven wrong — now in paperback.

But What If We’re Wrong? is a book of original, reported, interconnected pieces, which speculate on the likelihood that many universally accepted, deeply ingrained cultural and scientific beliefs will someday seem absurd. Covering a spectrum of objective and subjective topics, the book attempts to visualize present-day society the way it will be viewed in a distant future. Klosterman cites original interviews with a wide variety of thinkers and experts — including George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Alex Ross, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Díaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Dan Carlin, Nick Bostrom, and Richard Linklater.

Klosterman asks straightforward questions that are profound in their simplicity, and the answers he explores and integrates with his own analysis generate the most thought-provoking and propulsive book of his career.

Democratic Crisis and Global Constitutional Law explains the current weakness of democratic polities by examining antinomies in constitutional democracy and its theoretical foundations. This book argues that democracy is usually analysed in a theoretical lens that is not adequately sensitive to its historical origins. The author proposes a new sociological framework for understanding democracy and its constitutional preconditions, stressing the linkage between classical patterns of democratic citizenship and military processes and arguing that democratic stability at the national level relies on the formation of robust normative systems at the international level. On this basis, he argues that democracy is frequently exposed to crisis because the normative terms in which it is promoted and justified tend to simplify its nature. These terms create a legitimising space in which anti-democratic movements, typically with a populist emphasis, can take shape and flourish.

This book presents a series of possible future scenarios in wildlife and animal tourism by combining critical thinking and imagination to stimulate reflection and ways forward. The future of wildlife tourism faces uncertainties that revolve around many factors, including climate change, mass wildlife extinction, human population growth, deforestation, sustainability and ethical assumptions. For wildlife tourism to meet these challenges, new ways of thinking are necessary. The chapters in this volume focus on future wildlife tourism development and management; the experiential value, educational components and ethical relevance of tourism-animal encounters; and the technology applied to wildlife tourism. They offer critically-imagined futures in order to encourage readers to reflect on the possibility of shaping a better future. The book will appeal to researchers, students and practitioners in wildlife tourism, environmental studies, sustainability and conservation.

Lenin once said, "There are decades when nothing happens and weeks when decades happen." This is one of those times when history has sped up. CNN host and best-selling author Fareed Zakaria helps readers to understand the nature of a post-pandemic world: the political, social, technological, and economic consequences that may take years to unfold. Written in the form of ten "lessons," covering topics from natural and biological risks to the rise of "digital life" to an emerging bipolar world order, Zakaria helps readers to begin thinking beyond the immediate effects of COVID-19. Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World speaks to past, present, and future, and, while urgent and timely, is sure to become an enduring reflection on life in the early twenty-first century.

This book discusses how to build optimization tools able to generate better future studies. It aims at showing how these tools can be used to develop an adaptive learning environment that can be used for decision making in the presence of uncertainties. The book starts with existing fuzzy techniques and multicriteria decision making approaches and shows how to combine them in more effective tools to model future events and take therefore better decisions. The first part of the book is dedicated to the theories behind fuzzy optimization and fuzzy cognitive map, while the second part presents new approaches developed by the authors with their practical application to trend impact analysis, scenario planning and strategic formulation. The book is aimed at two groups of readers, interested in linking the future studies with artificial intelligence. The first group includes social scientists seeking for improved methods for strategic prospective. The second group includes computer scientists and engineers seeking for new applications and current developments of Soft Computing methods for forecasting in social science, but not limited to this.