Joel Barker speaks about attitudes on the future

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Joel Barker, former director of the Future Studies Department of the Science Museum of Minnesota speaking at the Southwest State University in Marshall. Barker spoke about our attitude toward the future. Barker was also the director of the National Teachers Futures Workshop for the past three years.

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Marcus address open the series on the future sponsored by the countryside Council a Citizens Action Group dealing with a 21 County region and Southwest Minnesota Market began by asking the audience for questions if they thought by the year 2000. The majority of Minnesota homes would be heated with solar energy. If a significant number of people would be using other forms of transportation if most families would have computers in their homes. And finally if the future was going to be better than the present the first time a person that you can see I be Define your image of the future. I want to know in your head if in fact somewhere back there you say yeah. My feeling is 25 years in the same Better or Worse interesting. Most people can answer that without me having to Define. Okay. Now the thing that has intrigued me about asking these four questions is almost always the first three responded to the majority.And the last one is responding to in this very small minority that I'm talking like about 12:13 thousand people but I've asked those questions to and about plus or minus a hundred about 500 people have said yes, the future will be better than today. One group is a group of kindergarteners. K five-year-olds could say yes to future going to be better. That's nice. And I would feel really sad if in fact our little kids couldn't say the future is going to be better. Usually by the time in 4th grade. It's gone by the way 100 4th grade the news goes into a minority. So something happens between kindergarten in 4th grade to change their mind another group just happen to be extraordinary extraordinary wealthy, you know, they were worth a million dollars a piece if they're worth a penny. So that was a difficult thing for them to say because they could buy whatever they needed to have a happy future. So yes, it would be better cuz I can afford it. No matter what it is. I'm third group was a group of IBM engineers in this was just recently and I have no explanation for it cuz I talked to a lot of engineering groups in the first group I've ever had that was positive about the future. In Alaska was a group of school superintendents. That's what that's the standard reaction to. Well. No, they look at they said it can't get any worse, you know. right But there's there's importance in that statement. You should because it is your image of the future is very relative. And depending on where you are right now to come in the weather is going to be better or worse from your perspective of the school superintendents. That was an important state because I said she it can't get any worse. It's got to be better and I'll point and I was like 85% of the hands out of maybe 40-50 people. Okay now I think That response Bears counter response and that's what I want to do tonight. I want to talk to you about a couple of things. I want to talk to you. First of all about why it's useful to talk about the future or what I'm going to keep saying is alternative Futures. I may use the plural form, right? Why that's useful why this is a good thing for you to be doing. Alright, I want to try and offer a very strong justification for that. Okay. Secondly, what I want to do is speak to a couple of dilemmas tied to doing that. So you'll find great frustration when you do it. Cuz when you look at it, it's not going to be just nice and crystal-clear is going to be a lot of ambiguity. So I want to talk to that and then prepare you for that thirdly. I want an overview for you three alternative Futures that I think would be worth at least kind of offering categories and then you can you can expand as you explore from that but I think they will help you get a handle on kinds of things that are happening that might help you perceive a little bit more carefully. Okay. Let me start off with a set of assumptions. And then we'll go to some images. All right, I've got a couple of assumptions assumption number one. Is this that wherever you live in this world, what are an American or an English muffin or an Indian or Brazilian, wherever you live in this world you're living in times that are unique for the human species. Are human beings there's probably never been another time quite like this and let me give you four reasons for that. Okay, first of all, just as a package look at how quickly things have been happening lately. And this was this was Toddlers Big Planet Future Shock things are happening fast and fast and Fast and therefore we're getting just worn out by it. All right, if done some dramatic things in the last twenty or thirty years and it looks like we're going to do something extraordinary the dramatic things in the next 20 or 30 years Beyond. So in the last 50 years case number one. We have a truly Global Network of communications and commerce transportation. If you want, I would guess in this group. We could probably represent 10 or 15 countries in the clothes we wear alone. Okay, just a wee one on checked all the labels right Hong Kong Taiwan, Japan England France. You can just run around incredible interlocking of things that are going on right now the likes of which we have never had before 4 for almost all of our evolutionary history. We have depended on the things that we could produce right within a very close range and all the sudden now we depend on our shirts from Taiwan good price and shirts by golly. That's the place you can get a bike or Sears does the buying and they bring it in but the point is global reach. Okay Communications, you can pick up the phone and call half a world away. And talk to somebody real time now. That's a very new thing and that's a very recent point to we have begun a discussion of global and it's okay that I wonder when we're going to run out of then you fill in the blank. It doesn't mean we are running out of it. But she were in the discussion for the first time really serious discussion about how long will plan our last how long will coal last how long will the oil last never been through that before? We always had that other Horizon to go over some totally untouched land that we could come and dig up or do whatever we needed to get what we need and all the sudden we've gotten into the debate and discussion as to what things are. We going to run out of first. Okay. Now there's probably plenty yet to discover, but the discussion has begun and notice it is on a global level again is not what's within the United States or Century. What's at the bottom of the ocean? What's in Brazil? What's in Australia? What's under Antarctica? Is it because it looks like it's really got a lot of good stuff down there. Theme for the resources are okay third point this is an old point though. It was recently made new by the the announcement of our newest bomb the neutron bomb. That is as a species weekend destroy all life in the world. Bingo we got together with the Russians and the Chinese and the Brazilians and the Israelis and the Indians everybody had its and just released everything all at once would not only kill ourselves could kill every living thing in the world. Now you have to mark as a very special time in any species life. I don't care what you're an Android human being when you can say I can take everything with me. Genghis Khan thought he was really hot stuff. Right and he went riding through those out back with his hordes of Warriors and yet when he had left the environment was in Rich. Thanks to those horses. He didn't bother at all didn't even know he was there. He was trivial it relevant. When we do something these days we leave our marks. We can leave our marks for years and years and years fourth point. Which helps demarcate while these times? I think they're so special. We are involved right now in the ethical discussion of whether or not we should create life. Okay. I know it's it's a it's a question of should not ought to give me the question of ought ought we to create life not can we create life? We know we can't we have already done it. We've already begun to manipulate the DNA molecule in such a way that creatures that never existed before on the surface of the planet and are now living and recreating what happened to be very small back. But that's only the beginning High courts ruled about 6 weeks ago that you can patent life-forms. So if you create a creature that never exist before you get a patent for it now, all right. Now you look at just those four things and I could give you 20 more but just look at those four things and then ask yourself when before in human history that we had so many dramatic things happening. So close the ability to destroy the world ability to create a world the ability to begin to finally perceive what it's all about. And what resources are ability to communicate on a totally worldwide scale to share Commerce on a totally Worth's just recently that is happening. We're living in that time. And for that reason I would suggest you that it's very difficult for you to look back into the historical precedents. And this is what they did in 1892. Therefore if we do it now don't work. It's not the same as 89 to it's not even the same as 1940 not the same as when you get in the 1955. Then you begin to say there are some things we can begin to look at. It's a very special time. Now that very special time has created a lot of frustration and a lot of ambiguity and I would suggest that granted some people burned out today. I accept that as part of the explanation. I'll tell you what I can feel their explanation is the other explanation is a lot of people are afraid to hear about the future. They are scared about what's happening. And when they say about the future, I don't want to hear how bad it is. I'll go home. You know, I can get that on the TV if I want but I don't want to bother with that and they take off and I have checked this out at other places talk to people and they said yeah, you know what? I was really hesitant about coming to here. That's the kind of times rain right now. It's difficult to say what tomorrow is going to look like. Alright, and when that happens, especially to those of us and I speaking of human beings for the last million years, but just recently it hasn't done that anymore. Okay. So flight number one. We are in very unusual times point to We could say that these times constitute a paradigm shift. All right. Now I want to define the word Paradigm for you. Then I want to tell you about it because if you are going to explore alternatives for this area of the state of Minnesota, you better understand this concept very carefully. I think it is a key concept if you're going to work out Alternatives write the word as paradigmas Paradigm and I'll give you three definitions for okay definition number one, would you say a model? Cuz that's the Greek root. A paradigm is a model a smaller representation of a larger thing. Okay. definition number two of a paradigm is a set of rules and regulations which Define boundaries Okay. Now in particular there are scientific paradigms. They are probably the best written rules and regulations that you can find. All right now is there is a paradigm for biology and right now it has a very new set of rules and regulations right? It's called the DNA set of rules and regulations because of this discovery operational discovery of the molecule that tells us how life seems to arrange itself. We can do things in biology today that we never thought possible even 15-20 years ago. Alright powerful powerful Paradigm for biological chemistry has one physics has one on it. So a set of rules and regulations for third definition for Paradigm third definition. Is this a worldview The way in which you look at the world could be described as a paradigm because in a sense we look at the world with a certain kind of set of rules and regulations. And because you are a Minnesotan you look at The World Slightly differently then I Nebraska or California or a New Yorker or an Englishman. Okay, and so our worldview your world you constitutes a kind of Paradigm now, why is this important? Why is this word even worthwhile? Why would I say we're living in a time of Paradigm Shift what I'm saying? Obviously we're living in the time when rules and regulations are really getting Rewritten being dramatically changed the energy rules and regulations for infants. All of a sudden what we thought was the best way to go which was oil 15 years ago is now the worst way to go come in fact, we had a total reversal of that rule and regulation from saying boy, let's get that petroleum here to Sanji. What's the last thing we want to do if we build a new thing we certainly don't want to ruin Patrol a minute. Okay. So we live in a time when these rules and regulations have been Going through a dramatic shift the profound shift, but let me tell you the importance of the Paradigm I think is really important to remember Thomas Kuhn through whom I was introduced to this idea wrote a book called the structure of scientific revolutions. And as part of his exploration of the history of science. He looked at the way paradigms change the way rules and regulations and science got Rewritten again, and again, and again the whole process was this he discovered that people perceive the world through their paradigms. And I do see the world according to the rules and regulations that you think are correct. Now that's kind of an obvious statement. If you know practice chemistry, you don't practice without rules and regulations. You've got to do it that way but he said when a scientist is practicing chemistry, he is not an objective Observer. He is an observer who's looking to the filter of the rules and regulations that he is deemed appropriate for chemistry. And there is result of that. That is most intriguing the result is this A person's Paradigm those rules and regulations can actually enhance Vision that is allow you to see or perceive better in some cases, but dramatically interfere with perception in other cases. Now think about that for a minute because it is very very important. That is to say your Paradigm your worldview your scientific set of rules and regulation. Whatever your operating from gives you better Vision in one way, so it's okay if you are a.m. A chemist you can kind of gaze at the world to see things that someone who isn't a chemist just would not be able to understand but conversely that same chemistry perception limits what else you can see and in fact, there's anything that's kind of Breaks the Rules and Regulations. You may very likely not even see it at all. It may literally be invisible to you. Now, that sounds like strong wouldn't let me give you two examples from humans book that suggested that is not overstated it all came in when he began to discover. The impact of paradigms inside said, this is a scary thing to say that in fact the Paradigm Alters perception and it was mixed perception subjective. So he stopped his research in science and went into the research and human psychology to see if in fact there were any examples that would suggest that when people hold certain rules and regulations that they are. Hindered and helped by those rules and regulation. Let me give you the two examples he had in his book in one experiment done with people people were asked to wear inverting goggles goggles with lenses another turn the world upside down. Okay, and they use experimenters besides having a unique sense of humor. We're trying to see how people would respond to this gross inconvenience. You know, how do people walk around when the world is upside down? How do they sit down at a table? How do they shake hands? How did it right cuz everything would be the opposite. All right. Well, their hypothesis was they would kind of adjust to it. But what happened? Every one of those people who are the goggles summed it up quite rapidly others. It took quite a while but everyone who are those goggles ultimately reported that the world was back to normal. Somewhere along in there. They had gotten very tired of dealing with the upside down world. So what did they do? They went inside their heads, they found a switch and clicked it and just turned all the information over a hundred eighty degrees cuz then they could deal with it just like always said that's really important thing to notice because what is happening here is a person's wishes. Alter the information coming into them and they just turned everything around when that explain was over. By the way. They took the goggles off everything went upside down again. So now with their normalize the world was upside down they had to readjust again. He said that's very important cuz it shows people can alter the information by wish OK and there was a machine built by Jerome Bruner as a matter fact back in 1949. He was testing perception and he put cards in a machine that would flip the card one of the time very rapidly. So you had just a teeny bit of a second to look at the car. They started a 47-second Picard very short time. They ask people to tell them what they saw and what they thought of his people went through this card deck is that at the most they needed a twentieth of a second and I could describe each card not faster a lot faster than the snap of my finger. All right and yet that was all I needed to see the cards except that in the deck Bruner was working. Might say he had a stacked deck because he had put on some red Spades and some black diamonds. Okay. Now it was interesting about it was nobody noticed that all need to call them hearts are they called Spades? But then it made no mention about the fact that they were the wrong Colour. So Bruner said she thought she didn't quite get them. All right, we're going to run it through again in slow down there should take another look. Okay began to slow it down, See how long will it take two people to say. Oh, that's an eighth of space but it's red. Okay, they gave him twice as much time and nobody noticed. They doubled it again four times as much time and nobody noticed. They went to eight times as much time. Nobody noticed a couple of people said, let's see that was 1/8 of Spades in the Spade had a funny red red red edged around it. They that goes kind of like something was going to lie when they spend was over at 18 times as much time. Is that original run through people finally started seeing those cards think of that not 18 times as much time. I got all the rest of the cards 18 times faster when the experiment was over 68% of the people 60% of the people saw those exceptional cards 32% of the people with 40 times as much time still couldn't see the cards. Now, what does that got to do with the Paradigm June says this what you're saying. There's the power of the Paradigm these people had rules and regulations for the way a card deck should look and I held it so absolute that even when given 40 times as much time to look at that card as the other cars that they could see quite easily they could not see what was wrong. They kept describing it as Hearts II describing a space or they were so confused. They couldn't even make a comment. I was I just got flustered in this I got to see it again right now. There's a message here and the messages this that are rules and regulations for perception allow us to see something's very very well. But interfere quite dramatically was seeing other things and I would suggest that images of the future are just that way now you are going to start looking at the future of this area this Countryside. All right. And what you must remember is your own images of the future are going to help you see something very well. But they're going to make you say all that's impossible couldn't possibly happen for other things, even though for that other person as they come to talk to you about some possibilities for the future whether it be windmills or underground housing or whatever it is. You may find this very far out just stretching. Those people may be absolute fact and what you'll find you'll find a very strong conflict between your Paradigm of the future and their Paradigm of the future and if you're not ready to respond to that and say look, I will withhold my judgment a little bit you can have a very very difficult time exploring the baddest The Dilemma of the future. I think the power of the Paradigm is significant, but you see the message is this you must be tolerant He must withhold judgment. You must not say I know the future cuz you probably don't I certainly don't infect I'll make a recommendation anybody who comes here and tells you the future. I would be highly suspect. Cuz nobody knows the future of that kind of building but it said no matter how much you study the Future No matter how much time you put in on it. The future will always surprise you. Okay, but he adds you needn't be dumbfounded. That's a very important qualification. It's going to give you a metaphor example, you're driving down the road up in front of you. There's a light and you have the green light then coming from your left is a truck. Okay in the truck is coming quite rapidly and you think to yourself he is moving awfully quickly. So you start slowing down your car even though you have the green light right right to the red light obviously didn't even say it wrong. You are surprised, right? That really surprised you didn't expect him to do that. But You thought about it enough. So you begin to slow down now the flip is this you're driving along. You've got the green light. The truck is coming. It's your green light in the middle of the intersection. You look this way, and there's the truck right here you are dumbfounded. So you have no chance to react you're stuck. You lost it all you've given it up. That's the difference. That's what buildings talking about. Dumbfoundead messes is fatal. You sit there with your jaw Slackline. I never thought that would happen surprises. Oh, I better do something else, you know you jump a little bit but it's not fatal right now. I think that's something to think about in terms of dealing with alternative Futures. If you lock yourself, I called Paradigm paralysis. All right, if you have Paradigm paralysis, you are most likely going to be dumbfounded by the future. And so we want to avoid is Paradigm paralysis and the way you avoid Paradigm paralysis as you make sure you look a distance in front of you and you look around the whole Horizon. You just don't look like that and what that is is stretching your Paradigm. Now that takes a willingness to listen and it takes a willingness to look like human beings are very good that if they want to be that's the key it has to do with wanting to do it. And so as a group I would recommend to you that one of them's you try and watch out for his Paradigm paralysis avoid that at all costs because if you get it you will not you may miss significant positive Alternatives available to you. Just sitting there right on the other side of your rules and regulations. Just waiting to come in and help you out. But if in fact you rules and regulations are written so rigidly that you will not look Beyond those you'll never discover that they even existed. Let me give you just two other examples by the way of Peridot just to show you this a little bit. biofeedback a noiseless is the principle that says if I can give you some information about the internal workings of your system, I can teach you how to regulate your heartbeat how to control your blood pressure how to raise and lower the temperature in your fingers. Okay. Now that's accepted today. There's no question Go to Edmund Scientific and buy a hunk of equipment that will allow you to monitor that stuff and learn how to do that and yet 15 years ago that was considered total impossibility. In fact, even 10 years ago significant medical authorities were saying no this cannot be done. Whatever they doing. Its Holcomb can't really be done at all. I see is a paradigm conflict. Cuz in fact the old rules and regulation said you have automatic functions functions what you cannot control. There's nothing you can do about your heart runs your blood pressure goes up or down with her, but you have no control over will it turns out in fact if you change the rules and regulations you have a lot of control over them literally bring it to a stop started up again by choice to hear a different set of rules and regulations. Let me tell you one story about a 77 mile per gallon car. Here's a beautiful example of a paradigm problem. Okay? Botas Vocational Technical Institute South Hennepin, right right South Minneapolis had a Class A pretty bright kids who went to their teacher. Three Falls ago now and said that a teacher Arnie name is Ronnie Parker Ernie. We want to build an energy-efficient car using the stuff that you taught us. Okay. That's when he said fine. Go ahead and he really facilitated. He got him about $2,500 to try and build a vehicle. That would be energy-efficient. Okay, they started the fall the following February not even a year afterwards. They drove a car out of the garage at The Vocational Technical Institute, which one they took about its first run got 55 miles to the gallon now, they were pleased but they weren't happy there please. It ran but they weren't happy with the mileage cuz they figure they should do much better than that. I took it back and check it out. They found out they had a leaky gas tank which does not do much for miles per gallon. Announce had a bad wheel bearing which also doesn't make you move to a lot. They fix those two things took it back out ended up with 77 miles to the gallon on this vehicle weighs 2000 pounds approximately without passengers and it goes 0 to 60 in about eight seconds. It has an 18 horsepower motor gasoline motor anybody bothered by those three figures. 2000 lb 18 horsepower motor and go 0 to 60 in 8 Seconds. Can that be done? Shouldn't be done 18 horsepower. Cat move 2000 lb to 60 miles an hour that fast do you need more energy than it? And in fact when these kids called at Ford Motor Company said that the Ford plant over in St. Paul they said hey, we got this great car weighs 2000 lb They basically hung up on them. They said no you don't click because that breaks all the rules and regulations of automobiles the key to this car was a very simple key the key was with the kids who built it. We're not auto mechanics. Right, you see they were in fluid hydraulics in anybody has been on a farm those fluid hydraulics in standard automobile, and they don't seem that you don't see him next very often these kids mix to mix them this way. They took your knowledge of fluid hydraulics and they use the storage principles, you know, nitrogen gas and oil to store energy in an automobile and they started from just too obvious places. Number one every time the car stops at a stop sign at 18 horsepower motor turns the sunscreen and hydraulic pump and pumps hydraulic fluid into the accumulator switch on either side of the car instead of scuffing asbestos against iron converted into heat and slowing down. They make the back wheels turn wobble plate hydraulic motor pump which in this case is pumping and it pumps fluid to give me letters building up the pounds per square inch okay pounds per square inch is stored energy simple as that every time I leave a stop sign B18 horsepower motor doesn't even change pitch. Just keeps right on running just doing what he always does but those accumulators release all that energy into the hydraulic motor pump in the back wheels within goes tearing away from the stop sign 0 to 60 seconds is not bad, but they do it with wasted energy Joe Barker of the Minnesota state science museum in an address recorded recently at Southwest State University in Marshall Parker at a group of Engineers from Honeywell in Minneapolis have been working on a similar car for about five years and they were very interested in the car. The students had developed. Our is simpler cheaper to build has less Valves and you're driving yours. Now the reason that car happened was because the kids had a different set of rules and regulations and because they had that ability to look at the problem a different way. They were able to come up with a solution. That's a very very good by the way. There's a drawback with it. Okay. The drawback is pounds per square inch are very dangerous 3000 pounds per square inch released rapidly as a bomb. Okay. So if you are in an auto accident and ruptured one of those accumulators, you would have a heck of an explosion. It would probably be equivalent in dangerousness to carry in 20 gallons of gasoline around in the back of your car. Which we do all the time anyway, right? So you're trading one for the other really it's not that much bigger risk. It just happens to be a risk. They also think by the way, they can put the accumulators right in the center of the car so that if the if in an accident, they get ruptured you wouldn't carry about it. Anyway, I can get in that far. You're not going to be around point. Is this on Paradise? Looking at the problem with different way quite often yields a very very good solution, but you've got to be able to look a different way. And that's what the flexibility is about. All right, so we're going to very dramatic Rule and regulation changes that causes for great ambiguity about talking about the future because I can't tell you what the future going to look like tomorrow. There's no way to do that or keep we're changing the rules and regulations. We can change the rules and regulations for football and then to try and expect what the Vikings will look like next Sunday in other probably a snowstorm. So they look like they did last time but the players when you're changing the rules and regulations extremely frustrating cuz there's nothing to get hold of Most of the news you get about the future in your day-to-day messages is predominantly negative. All right, when you pick up the newspaper, when you watch television, when you listen to the radio, if you hear news about the future, I'll bet on this that most of the time the news you hear is negative. Now. Think about that in terms of its impact in terms of Paradigm shaping. Okay, in other words, what are the rules and regulations you were being given about receiving the future. It's going to be a lousy Place remember this and particular what teachers I feel very strongly about this. Our kids are getting that all the time. In fact, check it out any kid who is 15 years or younger has grown up with from the day of birth and ecological crisis a population crisis food crisis and energy crisis. All they have lived in our times. They have that no other chance to see stability of any sort just simply and here's another problem that's going to do us in and here's another problem. I really applaud any kid has got a positive attitude about the future cuz they have overcome enormous obstacles. We're lucky we live. Do you know through the least of the 50s and early 60s? That's the way things going on. So negative favorite story of my life story about Antarctica was on KQRS, which at this time was an adolescent rock station in Minneapolis-Saint Paul. Okay, and a story was about a guy who's doing research on how Antarctica would melt if it melted temperature gets higher will a Doctor Who's real? How will it melt so he developed the computer model it ran up to the computer when it came out of the other and it said and it will melt from the bottom up. The base will turn to slush and want to get slushy enough all the ice on top of the celestial slide off a continent into the ocean. And so if you're living on Malibu Beach you go to bed one night and I was out there the next morning get up in the oceans in your first floor. Okay. Now he thought that was really a crazy statements a month later friend of his to come back from doing drillings core drillings at an article that he was a meteorologist. He was going to study all the samples right from the bottom of every time we got near the bottom. We kept bringing up slush. That's a very special statement about the future. See every kid who was listening to that radio station. Just been given a message about the future. What was it? And if there is a message there it is. Don't buy real estate along the ocean. All right, but also the messages it's not going to be as nice as place out there. And that's just one of many many many examples. I saw the first good news on a front-page. I've seen a two years in St. Paul last week about the chemical spray the alcohol the Riveter that makes plants grow faster during it was a positive statement about the future impact. The guy was afraid to talk about a number that article said he didn't want to show his fellow scientist the pictures because they're the plants grew so much so rapidly and he didn't know it was going on or was some kind of statement. Anyway, there was on the front page first time. I seen it two years. Okay, but not let me add one more thing to that cuz I think it's important understand the psychology of that of the impact that when we talked about the physiology actual impairment of vision and perception of the paradigms, but psychologically the two guys are doing research on the impact of of what they actually started off at the impact of honesty right there studying honesty and Manhattan and they were tossing out wallets every day on the island of Manhattan find out the money would come back. Okay. I was check to see what you how you perceive the New Yorkers. How many do you think that they scattered everyday less than 10% came back less than 10% of a hundred walls came back. I think between 25 and 50% I mean, it's really okay. Anyway that more than 48% of the wallets came back every day and that impressive image of New Yorkers that I was in 10% of myself to tell you the truth 48% of the wallet were returned except on one day in early June of 1968. No wallets came back. Now if you were doing that research, you would be disturbed right because yours is lovely Trent 48% everything all the sudden. No wallet. They left in the environment is what the heck happened what happened Robert Kennedy and so they made a really interesting reap hypothesis is that could have possibly be that that bad news made people act badly so they stopped a research on honesty. They set up an experiment to test how good news and bad news affect people's behavior when they finish their research and receive money from an inheritance. Here's a person in this is the facts in the case of the innocent or guilty or will you trust a stranger to do the sores and I know these kind of human-related experiments. Okay tasks buy these people were waiting to do their tasks. I sat in the waiting room which had a radio and the radio play music except every once in awhile and play news and they had the news controls. He was all on tape and some of the people heard good news and other people bad news in particular good news about people doing nice things to other people and other people people doing bad things to other people are. Okay. Now the correlation was so significant is this When people heard the bad news, they tended to distrust people more declare the person guilty more often and be less willing to share that inheritance conversely people who heard the good news about people doing nice things to other people tend to be nicer less suspicious less more willing to trust all those kinds of things. Okay, and their conclusion was this what do you know it or not mass media you are shaping behavior on a day-to-day basis. And what is the message we get about people in general on the front page of a newspaper is right. Murders killings robberies thefts. Well, it's not a very nice message. The two guys Halloween orange then concluded that they had better start balancing off the news if they expect people to act more trust into one another anybody. Remember the Mutual Insurance kids getting help by the other people of the ball falling down how many be felt good after you saw that ad that's what they saying people can be nice to one another by Fatboy. We just got to applaud them. There was a 1-1 the few times in the messages or somebody was saying consistently and positively that's happening. Why would suggest you the same impact is true in the news of the future that in fact we get that same kind of behavior is very difficult for us to think positively about fish but they don't get any information about the positive Futures. We don't have a place to go so I can offer you another task think it's very important that somebody in this area. Make sure some positive Alternatives you just get out to the General Public. I've been spending the last four years reading about alternative Futures. I can honestly tell you they're more positive things about the future than there are negative. I mean significant positive things and yet in general what happens if the bad stuff makes my page and the good stuff if it makes it any where is way back with the bridge with the cartoons way out of the way you really have to dig for it. All right now starting what time I'm telling you those are dilemmas in a way to see because If you want to think good thoughts about the future, you can't get those images automatically from your newspapers in your magazines. You have to go searching from them and yet they are very very important guy named Benjamin singer suggest this he's a historian in sociology says that nations rise and fall on their images of the future that is extremely important for a nation to have a positive image of a in fact we talk we got we call it the positive self-image right beside kids have to have a positive self-image uses Nations have to have a positive self-image gives them the most likely a strong future at destination. Perhaps the greatest thing this energy crisis will have done for America's to rekindle our willingness to set a long-term goal and go after it cuz you remember what happened after Nixon said energy Independence a 1985 D. Remember what happened within six months of that goal. What was the General response from the public? Kim Possible can't do that. Sorry Richard. That's a silly goal or I would far rather taken a really good shot at it and a 1985 that why we didn't quite get there and see what we had them 6 months after all our analyses show that we can't can't get there. Sideline Story that relates to that 19321 the four most physicists in the world prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that man would never leave the surface of the planet couldn't be done. He said you have to burn to million gallons of kerosene in for 5 minutes to get the caloric output and cannot be done. But what did we do Uber in about 2 million gallons of kerosene in about four minutes and got the guy to the Moon stay for this guy is an Allison. I can't do that. So you just print off a lot of people he closed off the future. All right. Now keep those things in mind positive images of very important. They are useful their utilitarian to go do something to reach for their importance as important for adults as for kid, but I'd suggest an even more important for kids because if you are growing up and you have no future to look forward to our the future going to be rotten. You know, what you studying for. What do you put in effort for? What did you become quite that I would tell you a lot of kids are justifiably hedonistic right now because all they have been told basically as it's going to get loud is here. Fact that I hate to say this because I respect a man in a lot of ways were President Carter said about this energy crisis a lower quality of life. I think that's baloney. I will accept a different quality of like I will not accept a lower quality of life at all. I'll accept energy from a different Source other than petroleum, but I will not accept the future bologna I'd say just the opposite get ready for a phenomenal quality white because it will probably far more ecological far less polluting and far more self-sufficient for this country. Now that to me is not a lower quality of life. I would prefer to save my money and let the Arabs do something else with their oil. Okay now. That's important. But then by the way, the Arabs have a profound image of their own future. Do you realize they have one of the best solar energy research institutes in the world going right now? They're not Saddam, you know, they got a lot of sun as well as a lot of oil. And they're they're really heading toward an image. Now. They are there future is the energy producers for the world and when they run out of oil they'll be using their solar energy plants to take sea water and hydrogen oxygen. They'll freeze the hydrogen ship it over to us because we're too lazy to do it. I don't think we will be too late to do if they're thinking we will be all right. Now, let me map out for you three, very specific images of the Future. These are going to be thorough breadz. All right. Now, it's almost over State them in terms of in terms of Purity cuz it's a continual click click. Click one of these images. Do you identify with most strongly for yourself? Which image of the future do you want to have other three are not going to describe the all right, and I'm a start off each one by giving you the rules and regulations of that because I do believe in the Futures are paradigms of the future and that you will see the world according to your images of the future. And so try these out you tell me which one of these you agree with the right under their Technologies cuz it's one of the easiest ways Deal with it. All right, we start off with the high-technology image of the future here are the rules and regulations for the high technologist image of the future rule. Number one super abundance is right around the corner more than enough for everyone is 10 15 20 years away at the very most right now. That is a perception you see now when if you actually rule and regulation you see the world in a very different life that you look at the energy crisis right now is Herman condos and he says all this is is it that easy little dimple in the positive curve growing towards super but it's just a little anomaly little exception and so don't even worry about what's going on right now because we will for sure overcoming. Okay rule number to Science and Technology given enough time and money. That's very important qualification Science and Technology given enough time and money can solve all problems. I know that I used to think I was overstating. I don't think I am anymore. I think that is really an accurate perception by high technologist in and keep this in mind that has been proven again and again and again and again, we have overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Thanks to Science and Technology, you know what I won't get into that yet. I'll clarify that for free. Human beings when given the choice will always take Leisure over work. That's a perception of the human species in this case. All right, but in fact, I am. That also I used to think I'm saying that a little strongly to Falls ago. I heard the chairman of coppers. In the streets which produces metals and thanks for a steel Fletcher Byron was his name said it in such a way that just really mean that you said if I had my way I would not allow human beings to touch anything that had to do with their essential things food clothing Water Shelter machines are to take care of all of that human being should spend their time painting and drawing and writing and stuff like that. And I said, hey, could I bake bread for the And he said no, no, no waste your time. You shouldn't do anything like that. Right? So human beings will choose Leisure Time over work anytime. They can just image of the future you see robots a lot. Seriously it is it's okay. It's a logical extrapolation because of people don't like to work with any of that the robots do it and you don't have to worry about so you can go out and fish. Okay last last rules and regulations by technologist is this Nature's done. Okay up to now but it's time for him to be able to take over human beings will arrange the world from here on out the truly artificial environment. Now the DNA recombinant research is the perfect example of that here. We are taking a bacterial plucking out so much information out of its DNA adding in so much DNA information from another source, not a one that that just stuns me science news last week reported that in California. They're taking a little bacterium inserted into it a strand of DNA from a human being it now in streets a neurohormone that was previously only produced by human brain here. Is this stupid little bacteria excreting our brain hormone. Now that was really funny about as we didn't need it anyway, because you can sense the size of great replay but it says something that's not we have tricked this little fella into extreme things at all before only human beings could produce a tid of course is down the line. We want them to excrete methyl alcohol on burn in their cars. We want them to eat up garbage and pollution converted into useful products. We wanted to experience one because it's a lot cheaper to get a straighter than just a test to synthesize that we made him get him to excrete oil. Who knows. But it's a perfect example of man overcoming nature taking over the role in terms of shaping the future that way. Okay. Now that is an image of the future which was predominantly the United States image up until 1962. And in fact right now, it still has tremendous momentum in this country and it should have it has been extraordinarily successful. We have done things with our science and technology which anybody a hundred years ago who came to the United States. They would look at it and say this is a Utopia. This is miraculous television. That the whole tractor, you know, the whole mechanization of farming ssts Boeing 747. Have you ever sat in one and look down the aisle all the way down the aisle and realize that thing was going to take off and fly an extraordinary man on the moon Holograms full free dimensional images created out of the thing called an interference pattern which stands and true 3 Dimensions. You would swear it was there until you pass your hand through it. And those are the fruits of the Science and Technology all our medicine. Science and technology so you can look at the track record is extraordinary. All right, but if that image has been strongly challenged as of late and if you find yourself a little at odds with those rules and regulations, I gave you try on the two other images I want to offer you and see if maybe she identified with one of these second. I mean to the future will call the low technology images of future. This is in fact the kind of the dialectic, you know that the opposite response to the high Technologies about 1962 a lady named Rachel Carson published the book called Silent Spring and if she accused scientists and technologists, I'll be in totally unaware of the long-term implications of what they were doing. She said you fool the DDT kills the bugs it also kills two birds. The birds eat most of the insects the DDT kills very very few. What do you want to do leave us without Birds, then we'll have to put DDT on everything and that was a I'm oversimplifying her message with the point was this all of a sudden a whole lot very large Shadow was cast on all the Brilliance of the high technologist and someone said you I'm not doing your homework and from that momentum gained to the point where in fact these rules and regulations came out. Okay rule. Number one. We are entering an age of scarcity. It's not high-technology super abundance. It is scarcity caused by the misuse of resources by the high technologist. The scarcity of the keyword not super bonus number to science and technology is a Faustian contract that is it is a pact with the devil very very strong language about science and technology always stay away from it. Don't trust it. Don't trust any farther than you can throw it very very grave doubts and what Science and Technology was doing if you want to read the most Outrageous book or outraged book on this topic read a book called where the Wasteland Ends by Theodore rozak and here he is. Just so against science and built a very strong case for why he is angry at science, but it said he really reflects this point of view very powerfully third rule. The question of leisure time question of man like Leisure or work the low technology as you don't even want to ask that question. You are going to have to work your fingers to the Bone just to survive. You have no options of leisure our work. It's just work and it's going to be darn tough work just to make it at all survival is where these an awful lot successes rear and fourthly their attitude toward nature is hands-off. Don't touch don't bother at all nature knows best or Barry, put it this way to nature always bats last. Specially if we going to think about Rod Carew, we know how important that is. What he was saying was give nation of time. She will return with an insect that is DDT resistant. She will return with a bacteria that he's penicillin for breakfast. And I know she will return with a response to that thing that you're doing and so don't mess with nature. She knows best. Okay now special book came out along that time a book called let us to go with the 1972 and that's a book. I would recommend you read at least have somebody review for you and death because it's a very very important book. It was about the coming scarcity. If I had a very strong qualification if we keep doing what we continue to do but there's something very important limits to growth that I want to share with you. It has been called it domesday book. All right, but even in this extraordinary positive image of the future and let me map out that image for you very quickly The Meadows by the way, Dennis Meadows as a Minnesotan don't know if you knew that or not but a whole perception of our self in 1972. Okay. He said luck. We're going to make for recommendations. They are these recommendation. Number one worldwide by golly. We wanted to be a little rule number two. We want to see Capital input and depreciation equalized that if you don't put any more money in the new depreciating out the other end that's called the steady-state theory when that statement was made The Meadows got a whole bunch of letters at the MIT that said by the way down on Sunday nights obvious, you know, nothing about economics cuz there is no way you can ever been a world with a steady state economic system. Okay. That was a 1972. Q76 are now more than a dozen books on steady state economics. You can do it quite well. Once you change your Paradigm, okay to made another recommendation, which was this protect the land with all your heart and all your mind because the land is the most precious thing we have and what it whatever it costs do not allow it to erode. Okay. They said that's the one thing we've even if it's not cost-effective the heck with cost-effectiveness just too important to let go so they're willing to spend large sums of money to make sure that the land stayed in good shape. And therefore they had one more thing is all the products that we make last as long as possible. You know, that's an awesome statement like car should last 25 years home. She last 500 years clothing should last 10 years things like that. Okay is that if you do that a couple of other things that they added it somewhere early in the twenty-first century. The quality of life worldwide will be equivalent to Finland 1972. How are you been to Finland lately for Americans that would mean you would have a smaller home. You would have one less car. You would eat less high cholesterol foods, you would get more exercise. You would live longer and you drink more. Now, I don't know what you like those things or not, but that's the basic description but keep in mind that while you are going down a notch in that sense. Some of those things might actually considered enhancement of quality of life. If you really think about it, the entire rest of the world also comes to that level as a look at that and I could probably be quite happy in a world like that. The point was the entire world could be at that level doing nothing more than those things that I suggested. It's just being a different way. So even in the in the darkest of the books the domesday book limits to growth there's an extraordinary image of the future third image. If you want to read a book that tells it best that the actual markers book small is beautiful. Cuz Schumacher who is a Catholic Buddhist that I know that sounds impossible, but that's what she said. One of the things we have to begin to appreciate is that large-scale is not always the solution to everything big cities are not the best cities giant Farms are not the best Farms megalithic corporations are not the most efficient corporations and his book talks about small is being beautiful that is if there's a scale to work with and he has a set of rules and regulations for his future. Number one. He says there is enough in the world for everyone. Okay. I was he says he talks about sufficiency. It's his favorite words sufficiency. That's a beautiful word. Everyone not enough for everybody to be obese. But enough for everyone to have sufficient sufficient the okay number to he says, you know what Science and Technology are all right, as long as they are ecological. Night was a very stringent qualification of Science. And Technology says you got it treat Mother Earth a little bit more gently. But if you do that go right ahead and practice. What you doing. That's okay. You just have to be a logical thirdly. He said let's talk about work one works at it. We don't want to work the other groups as you have no choice. You have to work your fingers to the Bone. He said look the question is not what do you need to order? You don't need to in terms of production. The question is this what is work do for you work makes you human therefore even if you didn't have to work for goods for the sufficiency, you need to work to be human. And so he defines work as a learning experience through which you become fully human. And if you don't work, you can't get that development. This is not a question of of Leisure Time others. You need the work to grow up to be a mature human being very interesting attitude and lastly he talks about nature differently than the other two, so he said, We are an exceptional nature. We are the most powerful species but we forget is just because you're the most powerful this mean you go on bullying everything. We are the Shepherds of nature. It is our job to make sure that nature has its chance to do what it needs to do to keep the whole world healthy and happy but we must always also realize that there are certain resources. We must take because of who we are and what we do we will do it as gently as possible. So he defines kind of a shepherding relationship between human beings and and nature. I thought you look at those rules and regulations and then the next sat in the next I don't you see are profoundly different world Schumacher loves wind power Schumacher think solar energy bicycles because all those things are there still technology a bicycle is a supreme achievement in science and technology. Okay, assuming you have some kind of smooth surface. All right. Damn, it will make that one assumption. All right. But you see if you take any one of these images and look at it. And you said all right, they seem to be contradictory the same to close off the options for the other. That's not the point. I want to make but I would suggest you is in fact that we're going to see in the next 15 or 20 years is a hybrid of all of these we are already if you look around you can see mixes of and I would bet almost all of you carry bits and pieces of everyone that I've described and we can go on there other images as well. But the point that I'm trying to make us this these kinds of NH have I would say about an equal probability and also happened simultaneously in in some sense is right in this state. We have all three images operating So, I don't know if they have to exclude one another even though they see me at the beginning May the Minnesota state science museum in Minneapolis a citizen action group dealing with a 21 County Regional Southwestern Minnesota. The address was recorded at Southwest State University in Marshall. I'm Vicky sturgeon.

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