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How science fiction can help predict the future - Roey Tzezana

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Would you like to know what’s in our future? What’s going to happen to humanity tomorrow, next year, or even a millennium from now? Well, you’re not alone. Everyone from governments to military to industry leaders do as well, and they all employ people - called ‘futurists’ - who attempt to forecast the future. Roey Tzezana explains some of the ways that futurists venture to do so.

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Additional Resources for you to Explore
What exactly is futurist? Want to know more? Visit the World Future Society.

Want to learn more about the history of science fiction? Visit Tom Lombardo’s Center for Future Consciousness: a place for science fiction lovers to learn about the history of the field. Take some time and peruse the website. The Library has great resources from both the web and print.

Interested in reading a blog about science fiction and the future cycle times? Check out Roey Tzezana’s Curating the Future blog post that explains how science fiction enables us to look further into the future by expanding our future thinking.

Intel’s The Tomorrow Project: creating anthologies of science fiction stories that teach us specifically about certain futures. The anthologies are open for reading by all! What an opportunity. Take advantage of this and spend some time looking through the site, find something of interest and sit back and read it!

Do you think science fiction can be used as a way to study the future? This book by futurist Brian David Johnson: Science Fiction Prototyping might just be what you have been looking for.
TED-Ed
Lesson Creator
New York, NY
Should we encourage science fiction writers to take part in governmental and international relations committees? Do you think politicians should consult science fiction writers? And if so, what would be the result?
01/26/2016
Avatar for Enoch Bennett
Enoch Bennett • COMPLETED LESSON

no I don't think its a good idea

01/26/2016
Avatar for Geoffrey Wheeler
Geoffrey Wheeler • Udon Thani, Thailand • COMPLETED LESSON

I think it is a good idea because such people think out-of-the-box. They'll ask what-if questions that need asking and they'll have some ideas about answers. They have imagination.

01/31/2016
Avatar for Francesca Ellis
Francesca Ellis • LESSON IN PROGRESS

I think that politicians should consult science fiction writers because than they will have a look at the possible future and know how to prevent bad outcomes if this future is good. Or keep things intact if that future is good.

02/07/2016
Avatar for Carlos Alberto
Carlos Alberto • COMPLETED LESSON

Yes , because I think science fiction writers see the world in a more open way and this would help to get out of this "bubble" in which we live.

There could be prevented certain falls in the economy and creativity of these people who would have more opportunities in a next problem

03/01/2016
Avatar for kanako eguchi
kanako eguchi • NARA, Japan • COMPLETED LESSON

I think it's a good idea. In committees, we need as many point of views as possible. If S.F. writers are attend, we can notice the possibility of future in both side of good and bad .

03/14/2016
Avatar for Antonio Santos
Antonio Santos • COMPLETED LESSON

Of course.
We will have many ideas to think about

04/15/2016
Avatar for Wagner Fraga
Wagner Fraga • LESSON IN PROGRESS

I believe that is not a good ideia put together fiction writers with the guys from governmental and international relations committees. Science need to study a lot to know or try something new and the other side fiction writers can think in thinks with no sense. It’s a waste of time.

06/14/2016
Avatar for Raina Batalon
Raina Batalon • COMPLETED LESSON

I think we should let science fiction writers to take part in govermental and international relations committees because they can give us hints/clues to the future

09/14/2016
Avatar for Maria Pastu
Maria Pastu • LESSON IN PROGRESS

Yes, because they can come up with useful ideas about the future, they are very imaginative people!

09/29/2016
Avatar for Luis Gonzalez
Luis Gonzalez • LESSON IN PROGRESS

My class feels that it is a reasonable action since SCIFi authors may bring fresh new perspectives in regards to difficult situations and can help due to their skills in thinking and creating "out of the box" scenarios
STv,JH,JC

08/29/2017
Avatar for Simone Piccotti
Simone Piccotti • COMPLETED LESSON

I think that could be a worst idea, because the write re are write re, and politic, the populations life, si totally another thing. So I think that the writers can immaginated something near the future, but the aren t fortune tellers.

12/14/2017
Avatar for Rosario Diaz
Rosario Diaz • COMPLETED LESSON

I think it's a good idea since the writers of science fiction in their imagination have a different way of seeing things and the leaders to be leaders of the population have the resources and power to make decisions if the ideas or recommendations of writers could solve or not something.

03/08/2018
Avatar for Lourdes Martínez
Lourdes Martínez • COMPLETED LESSON

Yes, I think that we have to consider different groups, including science fiction writers to take part of the committees. They have their way of seeing things and it can be a good contribution to bear in mind.

03/09/2018
Avatar for Raul Gonzalez
Raul Gonzalez • COMPLETED LESSON

I'm not convinced. But I think that in the governmental and internacional relations discussions should participated engineers in technology because they could know better than other (including writers) what is the progress and advance of technology and could extrapolate with accuracy to improve the mankinds devolopment.

03/10/2018
Avatar for Alberto Garcia
Alberto Garcia • COMPLETED LESSON

I think governments should encourage science fiction writers to participate in conventions about the possible inventions in the future for their high sense of creativity to see the future.

But that is no enough, the science fiction writers that going to participate in this conference will have to be studies people with hight knowledge of situation and actual problems in the world. In the same way, the governments can form a team of scientists, statisticians and science fiction writers to determine that “inventions” suggest for the writers are really possible in the future.

03/10/2018
Avatar for Demi Fry
Demi Fry • LESSON IN PROGRESS

I think it is a good idea because then people would ask questions that they need answers to and they would become better science fiction writers😀😀😀😀💗😐📱🐴🐴 peace out🤞🇧🇿🇧🇬🇧🇪🇧🇼🇰🇭🇧🇼🇨🇳🇦🇽🇦🇲🇧🇪🇦🇽🇨🇬🇧🇼🇦🇽🇦🇲🤘👌

05/09/2018
Avatar for Viviane da Costa
Viviane da Costa • COMPLETED LESSON

Considering that science fiction writers are schollars of the social, economic and political context of the society we live in, I really believe they could contribute to governmental and international relations committees. I think they could share knowledge and, specially, experiences about what the future would be. I see science fiction writers as consultants, not with decision power, and I always believe that to be open to new points of view is an opportunity to go beyond your own limit and capacity of thinking and understanding.

05/10/2018
Avatar for Vicky.I Iasillo
Vicky.I Iasillo • LESSON IN PROGRESS

Yes because science fiction writters have other way to think and that can help the government to have new ideas based on the ideas of the writters. In the other part politics have to understand how the public think and i don't think that science fiction can help the politics to understand what the people want.

07/11/2018
Avatar for Vicky.I Iasillo
Vicky.I Iasillo • LESSON IN PROGRESS

Yes because science fiction writters have other way to think and that can help the government to have new ideas based on the ideas of the writters. In the other part politics have to understand how the public think and i don't think that science fiction can help the politics to understand what the people want.

07/11/2018
Avatar for Julieta mova
Julieta mova • LESSON IN PROGRESS

I think that is better to not include the writers of science fiction in the goverment. Because they have to learn new things that the goverment know and they don't predict the future, they only say WHAT CAN happen, so for me it's a bad idea.

07/11/2018
Avatar for ignacio flores
ignacio flores • LESSON IN PROGRESS

I think it is a good idea because futurist can make good decicions for all of us

07/12/2018
Avatar for Logan Tramburg
Logan Tramburg • LESSON IN PROGRESS

No, that is a terrible Idea. Just because they wrote a couple books, and a few things from those books become true doesnt mean they should have any more of a say in our government as any other person.

We shouldn't give political power to someone who writes books, then they could change the course of our nation, just because they chose a specific genre.

With that logic, I could become a Science Fiction writer, write a few books, and then somehow be sitting next to the president in the oval office discussing the sequel to my new hit Sci-Fi series.

Its almost idiotic to think that someone who gets a prediction right should be able to alter the trajectory of our nation.

If you are going off of the fact that some of these writers got a prediction right, then why not appoint the local weatherman mayor for predicting that its gonna rain.

03/24/2020
Avatar for Jack Bridleman
Jack Bridleman • COMPLETED LESSON

No because they might steer the government the wrong way and make them have bad ideas of the future.

03/24/2020
Avatar for Maia Patt
Maia Patt • COMPLETED LESSON

I do not think that we should encourage science fiction writers to take part in governmental and international relations committees. Science fiction writers write the things they imagine, they are not always accurate and reliable. Consulting science fiction writers in politics is not a smart idea. The end result could be a horrible situation; writers are not trained to think as government officials or politicians do.

09/25/2020
Avatar for Ari Murillo
Ari Murillo • COMPLETED LESSON

I don't think they should, better let the futurists do it; since they have more knowledge and handle the subject better. It is true that most of the writings that have been on the subject have served most of the technology that we have today, but that does not mean that everything is useful or that the writers themselves know about the subject of how predicting the future.

10/21/2020
Avatar for Graciela Santoyo
Graciela Santoyo • LESSON IN PROGRESS

science fiction is something so crazy but at the same time real that when you think what could really happen is something impressive

10/29/2020
Avatar for Diego Baltierra
Diego Baltierra • COMPLETED LESSON

No I think that ain't a great idea

11/05/2020

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