David Brin on future forecasting

Discover magazine interviews David Brin, the tech writer and novelist best known for his exploration of surveillance in The Transparent Society and the prophetic science fiction tale Earth. In the interview, Brin discusses the art of future forecasting and the expansion of human perception. From Discover:

Why do you have such a good track record as a prognosticator? When prediction serves as polemic, it nearly always fails. Our prefrontal lobes can probe the future only when they aren’t leashed by dogma. The worst enemy of agile anticipation is our human propensity for comfy self-delusion.

Peering ahead is mostly art. We all have tricks. One of mine is to look for “honey-pot ideas” drawing lots of fad attention. Whatever’s fashionable, try to poke at it. Maybe 1 percent of the time you’ll find a trend or possibility that’s been missed. Another method is even simpler: Respect the masses. Nearly all futuristic movies and novels—even sober business forecasts—seem to wallow in the same smug assumption that most people are fools. This stereotype led content owners to envision the Internet as a delivery conduit to sell movies to passive couch potatoes. Even today, many of the social-net and virtual-world companies treat their users like giggling 13-year-olds incapable of expressing more than a sentence at a time of actual discourse.

A contrarian trick that has served me well is to ponder a coming technology and then imagine, What if everybody gets to use it? In really smart ways? Most of those imaginings have come true.

Link

UPDATE: BB reader Patrick Shifley writes: "It might also be useful to link to his blog Contrary Brin where he regularly writes short essays on transparency, freedom, government and other miscellany." Link