Future?

SP.256 The Coming Years:

An Exploration of the Future

Weekly Calendar:

Explore the future through modeling, reading, and discussion in an open-ended seminar!

See the syallbus. For more information, contact James Rising at jrising (at) alum.mit.edu.

February 8Introduction and the Recent Past
Handouts:
February 14Techniques in Futurology
Readings: Assignments:
  • Download and install Vensim for Windows or Mac.
  • Play with the World3 Model. Use the SynthSim function, the summary page (at the end), and the sliders. Look for conditions that provide for a better Human Welfare Index by 2100.
  • Write a portrait of college life in 2028. (Half a page.)
Handouts:
February 21Historigraphic Theory: Class Struggles, Cycles, and Paradigm Shifts
Reading: Assignments:
  • Make a cyclic system in Vensim (choose your own system to model; the examples included with the software might be helpful).
  • Write a portrait of college life in 2028. (Half a page.)
Handouts:
February 28Catastrophic Change, Power Laws, and Fractals
Reading:
  • Excerpt from Ubiquity by Mark Buchanan; Chapter 1 (Causa Prima) and Chapter 11 (A Question of Numbers).
March 6Disasters and Collapses: Nuclear War, Global Warming, Peak Oil, Bioterrorism
Reading:
  • Excerpt from A Short History of the Future by Colin Mason: Chapter 2 (Running Out of Fuel: The Coming Energy Crisis) and 4 (Climate: How Long to Tipping Point); optionally also Chapter 1 (The Drivers) and 7 (The Fourth Horseman)
Assignments:
March 13The Singularity
Reading: Assignments:
  • Write one page on an extreme scenario-- either a disaster (collapse) or a utopian revolution.
March 20World Changing, Revelations, and Revolutions
Reading:
April 3Future Politics
Reading:
  • Excerpts from Mapping the Global Future: The Executive Summary, Chapters 1 (The Contradictions of Globalization) and 2 (Rising Powers: The Changing Geopolitical Landscape).
April 10Society in Motion
Reading:
  • Excerpts from Future Shock by Alvin Toffler: Chapters 4 (Things: The Throw-Away Society), 5 (Places: The New Nomads), and 6 (People: The Modular Man)
April 17Science and Technology
Reading:
  • Excerpts from The Next Fifty Years, ed. by John Brockman: The Future of the Nature of the Universe by Lee Smolin, The Mathematics of 2050 by Ian Stewart, The Future of Happiness by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and The Future of Matter by Peter Atkins
April 24Economics and Demographics
Reading:
  • Excerpt from Futurecast: How Superpowers, Populations, and Globalization will Change the Way You Live and Work by Robert J. Shapiro: Chapter 2 (The Demographic Earthquare) and either pages 147 - 266 or pages 266 - 284 of Chapter 7 (The Coming Crisis in Health Care, Energy, and the Global Environment)
May 1Describing the Future
Reading:
  • Excerpt from Snow Crasy by Neal Stephenson; Chapters 1 to 6 (pages 1 to 54)
May 8Memetics
Reading:
  • Memes vs. Genes: Notes from the Culture Wars by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi from Speculations, ed. by John Brockman
  • Excerpt from The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell: Introduction and One (The Three Rules of Epidemics)
May 15Final Presentations