John Schroeter - After Shock: The World’s Foremost Futurists Reflect on 50 Years of Future Shock—and Look Ahead to the Next 50

In 1970, futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler were thrust upon the world stage by the publication of their sensational bestseller, Future Shock the title describing a condition whose characteristic shattering stress and disorientation would inevitably be brought about by too much change in too short a period of time.

Whether the Tofflers warnings about the acceleration of technological and social change have proved prophetic or apocryphal, their insights wereand continue to bepotent catalysts for contemplating our probable, possible, and preferred visions of the future. Indeed, in the end, we will realize either the world we fear to imagine or the world we dare to dream.

Dare, then, to journey into all these potential futures, guided by the extraordinary insights of the worlds foremost thought leaders who in these pages collectively chart the course to an abundant future for all.

The worlds foremost futurists reflect on 50 years of Future Shockand look ahead to the next 50

Edited by

An imprint of John August Media, LLC

Copyright 2020 by John Schroeter. All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Abundant World Institute, an imprint of John August Media, LLC

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please refer all pertinent questions to the publisher.

Book design by Ed Rother, ER Graphics

Printed in the USA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN Print: 978-0-9997364-4-9

ISBN eBook: 978-0-9997364-5-6

LCCN: 2019914119

| SOCIAL SCIENCE/Future Studies |

| TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING/Social Aspects |

| BUSINESS & ECONOMICS/Forecasting |

First Edition

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This book has been 50 years in the making. But its just one static milepost marking the way to the future, which is like the sign that hangs in the bar that reads, Free Beer Tomorrow. The sign is there every day. And every day we return to it. Indeed, the future is a perpetually rolling state of being and becoming, beckoning us on.

In celebrating this milestone, After Shock comprises both a constellation and a distillation of thought that converges in making manifest the power of each and every individual to contribute to the ongoing creation of a future of abundance. In every way, the wholewhich now includes you, dear readeris greater than the sum of its parts.

Several of the contributors to this volume worked for and collaborated with the Tofflers, while many others were children or were not even born when Future Shock first sent its shock waves around the globe. The differences in their perspectives creates a third lens by which we can take stock of the present and consider (and reconsider, reimagine, retool, rewire) our probable, possible, and preferred versions of the future.

This books very existence is due entirely to the amazing generosity of its many contributors, and certainly to the enthusiastic support of Alvin and Heidi Tofflers eponymous organization, Toffler Associates, and its remarkable chairman, Deb Westphal. Special thanks also to our partners and collaborators in foresight and futures studies around the world, including Singularity University, Institute for the Future, Association of Professional Futurists, Institute for Alternative Futures, The Millennium Project, future/io, School of International Futures, and others.

In releasing After Shock into the wild, I am especially indebted to two true visionaries who personify the very idea of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts: Bo Rinaldi and Martin Guigui. Everything associated with this project is better for their touch. I am also grateful for the meticulous care of our copy editors, Bryanann Stavley, Michaelan Ferguson, and Rachelle Kuramoto, as well as the inspired work of our creative director, Eduardo Rother. Further enabling the project has been the enduring support of Jaime Cumminsa man who lives the future in every breathand Naveen Jain, who continues to throw open the doors of possibility. My heartfelt gratitude to all of you.

And now to the personal note.

The germ of this project reaches back to 1970, when my mother brought home a new book with a bright blue cover bearing the compelling title, Future Shock . It captured my 10-year-old imagination then, and never let go.

I was fascinated by all things future in no small part because my father was involved with JPL during the shoot and hope days of NASAs Ranger program. Its mission objective, which was designed to inform the Apollo program, was to obtain the first up-close images of the lunar surface and send them back to Earth just before impact. That my father etched his name into the frame of Ranger 6, which impacted the moon on February 2, 1964, ignited my fantasies as a would-be lunar archaeologist, scratching about in the moon dust for that metallic relic bearing his name. It still does.

Sometime later, he brought home a box of old Mechanix Illustrated magazines, dating from the 1950s, that a coworker was cleaning out of his office. To this young teen, he might as well have brought me the moon. I consumed those musty magazines, with their yellowed pages, filled with an unbridled excitement about the future. Jet Age-inspired concept cars, images of spacecraft that were still more science fiction than science fact, personal jetpacks, and other wondrous fare transported my imagination via this amazing look back on looking forward.

It had to have been a magical time, I thought, because the spirit of innovation that came through those pages seemed all but gone in the early 1970s. At that time, the energy crisis had imposed an absurdly low speed limit, Viet Nam was lost, and the Watergate scandal was unfolding. Muscle cars had given way to crappy Vegas and Pintos. Skylab was launched, but the Apollo program was finished. Not a great decade for science, industry, or culture.

Fast-forward to the present, and we find ourselves hurtling headlong into a sensational new eraa period of unprecedented innovation and possibility. Today the exciting rise of robotics, the nascent but rapidly ascendant field of artificial intelligence, the burgeoning democratization of space, the massive disruptions coming in energy, self-driving cars, and many other developments are converging and conspiring to redefine virtually every aspect of life here on Earthand beyond. Indeed, we are witnessing a major hinge of history. And like all hinges of history, it is squeaky.