From
April to October of 1962, some ten million people visited the Seattle World’s
Fair, popularly known as Century 21 and officially opened by President John F.
Kennedy. With construction of the Space Needle, the Coliseum, Science Pavilion,
monorail, and other architectural feats that imparted a glimpse into the
future, Seattle was said to have entered the 21st century
thirty-eight years ahead of schedule.[i]
Trans-Federal Futuring at its Finest
Yet again, over the
course of two and a half days, some 900 futurists are expected to gather in
Chicago for more than sixty sessions, workshops, and special events featuring
world future studies, coupled with reports of progress toward achieving a
coveted, one-world order.
Starting July 19,
the World Future Society 2013 will convene at the Hilton Chicago to explore
humanity’s “next horizon”—this, under the watchful eye of the mainstream media.
The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and Washington Post will
join MS-NBC and CBC to cover this annual convention.
With an eye to the
22nd century, politicians, scientists, and laypeople alike will
dialogue on what the planet’s future holds. At Chicago’s World’s Fair of Ideas
(Century 22), deemed-to-be-premier minds will collectively map out the future
of science and technology, humanity and religion, economics and global
governance.
Sponsored by the
Gorbachev Foundation, and called for in the Club of Rome’s 1972 book, Limits
to Growth, the 1995 World Forum first used the term “global governance”
instead of “New World Order.” The latter was considered too emotionally charged
and, therefore, not likely to be as well received. Limits to Growth
likewise called for a sort of clearinghouse for all global conglomerates—enter,
the World Future Society merging together political, spiritual, and economic
aspects of one-world government.[ii]
The World Future Society: Century 22
Situated in
Baltimore, the World Future Society engages global advisors consisting of
directors, professors, scientists, analysts, and authors from observatories,
polytechnic institutes, universities, foundations, and corporations.
Institutional members likewise represent foundations (Baha’i World Centre
Library, for one), business firms (Pacific Foods of Oregon), studies (the
Millennium Project), educational institutions (high schools, community
colleges, universities, graduate schools of law, business, medicine, and
emergency services), government agencies (immigration, transportation,
military, natural resources), and even the U.S. Secret Service!
Previous attendees
at the World Future Society's annual conference have been Gerald Ford, Al Gore
Jr., Sen. Edward Kennedy, Betty Friedan, and scientist-inventor Ray Kurzweil,
to name but a few. This year, World Future 2013 will feature MIT Media Lab
founder Nicholas
Negroponte, visionary author Ramez Naam, Ford
futurist Sheryl
Connelly, and geo-security expert John Watts.
Among visionaries expected to attend will be corporate planners, business
leaders, government officials, scientists, doctors, and forecasters from all
over the world.[iii]
The Next Horizon
Director of
engineering at Google, Raymond ("Ray") Kurzweil is a brilliant
American inventor, evolutionary futurist, and author of The Age of Spiritual
Machines (1999), The Singularity is Near (2006), How to Create a
Mind (2012), and more. Through his “Edges of Life Lecture Series” at the
College of Science (University of Arizona), Kurzweil characterizes information
processes of technology as being quite predictable.[iv]
Correspondingly, he
accepts that the future also can be predicted, but not by employing intuitive
linear thinking. Instead, one must take into account exponential progression.
What Kurzweil calls the “paradigm shift rate” will allow thirty-two times more
progress in the next fifty years than what was achieved in the last fifty. In
his view, the next horizon includes harnessing artificial intelligence.
Eventually, Kurzweil believes, our brains will be uploaded to the Internet.[v]
· The Language of
Foresight
The conference’s
keynote luncheon speaker, H.G. Wells award-winning author Ramez Naam calls for
a Future Day because, in carefully considering the future, we’ll not be
surprised by it. Less popular in academia than “futures studies,” “futuring”
(verb for the noun, “future”) is a very broad term for the art or science of
identifying and evaluating possible future events.[vi]
Advancing a unique,
agenda-backed vocabulary, the World Future Society’s Dictionary of Foresight begins with the glossary from Futuring:
The Exploration of the Future.[vii] “Backcasting,”
for example, gets a group of “bellwethers” (forerunners) to envision a desired
future and, then, analyze what must transpire to realize it. “Proactive
managers” identify, and then prepare for, challenges or opportunities likely to
present; and “alternative futures” allow for several, mutually exclusive
scenarios that clarify options available to global decision makers.
“Reductionism” explains
complex phenomenon by observing, measuring, and analyzing individual, component
parts. To think systematically about each one, “morphological analysis” studies
the structure and/or form of isolated issues. An option deemed “futurible” is
considered possible, though not probable.[viii]
A diagrammatic ”relevance
tree” establishes hierarchy. “Ideation” (ideas) emerges from “heuristic”
techniques, such as brainstorming; “gaming” (simulation); historical- and/or
trend-analysis/ monitoring/ projection, polling, scanning (systematic
surveying); and/or visioning. Effectiveness in stimulating research and/or
discovery determines a model’s “heuristic value.” By means of the “Delphi
technique,” a consensus view is reached.[ix]
Decision makers
heed “the butterfly effect,” metaphor for how a very small event may produce
very large effects. A matrix method (“cross-impact analysis”) explores effects
that future developments may have on each other. “Singularity” signifies a
postulated time in the future when technological progress and evolutionary
development become so rapid that reliable conceptions are no longer possible;
the “wild card” is an unexpected, unlikely event with enormous consequences.
· The Language of God
In many ways, the
brainy language of foresight parallels, yet counterfeits the language of God.[x] This being
the case, we do well to consider an old Yiddish proverb, “We plan; God laughs.”
Yes, to have vision for the future is key to survival;[xi]
and to assume proactive posturing is wise indeed.[xii]
Where there is no counsel, plans fail; [xiii]
but God alone imparts soundness of mind.[xiv]
In using our God-given, disciplined minds to prove all things, we mustn’t fail
to hold fast to what is good and acceptable in His sight.[xv]
At Century 22,
however, leadership consultant Megan Mitchell and creativity expert Marci Segal
promise to free people’s thinking in their transcendent, “co-creative journey”
to enhance business success and personal fulfillment. Nevertheless, these two
creativity muses, despite all good intentions, fall far short of Holy Spirit
inspiration and revelation.[xvi]
Sadly, despite the
certainty of unprecedented proliferation of knowledge,[xvii]
there remains an ever-escalating global famine for biblical truth.[xviii] Having
reflected on the history of futuring, an internationally acclaimed expert on
long-range trends (Glen Hiemstra) will suggest strategy for “creating a
preferred future.” What he fails to comprehend is that the times of our lives
are in God’s hands, not his.
Man merely “discovers”
and “invents”; only God “creates.” Moreover, He knows the end from the
beginning—and what’s to come just ahead. When held up to the language of God,
the speculative language of foresight presumes to instruct God.[xix] In fact, His
prophetic word warns of a coming world power, the nature and structure of which
mirror the “preferred future” advanced by Century 22. In contrast, a believer’s
hope remains fixed on God’s intended New World Order, a theocratic Millennial
Rule and Reign of the Prince of Peace Himself, Jesus Christ.[xx]
More to come in
Part 2.
[ii] Debra Rae. ABCs
of Globalism: A Vigilant Christian’s Glossary (Lafayette: Huntington House
Publishers. 1998). 317-318.
[viii] Matthew 19:26—“With
man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
[ix] Biocentric,
politically-correct thought (“one mind”) shared by group-conscious and
enlightened cosmic world citizens who will have joined the ranks of the
deceived (2 Th. 2: 11) in having willingly submitted to Antichrist (Re. 17:
13), as indicated by acceptance of what the Bible calls the Mark of the Beast,
a brand attesting to ownership and subservience (Re. 13: 4-18).
[x]
2 Timothy
3:16—“All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is]
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in
righteousness.”
[xi] Proverbs 29:18—“Where
there is no vision, the people perish.”
[xii] Proverbs 6:6—“Go
to the ant”; “see her ways”; take your lessons from her and thereby “be wise.”
[xiii] Proverbs 15:22—“Plans
fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.”
[xiv]
2 Timothy 1:7
–“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and
of a sound mind.”
[xv]
1
Thessalonians 5:21—“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”
Romans 12:2—“And
be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind, that ye may prove what [is] that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will
of God.”
[xvi]
1 John 5:20—“And
we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that
we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, [even] in his Son
Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”
[xviii] Amos 8:11—“’The
days are coming,’ declares the Sovereign LORD, ‘when I will send a famine
through the land—not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of
hearing the words of the LORD.’”
[xix] 1 Corinthians
2:16—“For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct
him? But we have the mind of Christ.”
[xx] The Millennium will start at the 2nd Coming of Christ
with overthrow of Antichrist and his confederates. It is made possible by the
power, preplanning, and execution of Almighty God. The thousand-years
millennial rule and reign of Christ will begin an altogether new dispensation
on earth toward restoring “all things” (Joel 2:25). Finally#, there will be
regeneration and renewal (Matt. 19:28), great light and prosperity, and binding
of the breach of God’s people (Isa. 30:18-20). Moreover, there will be no more
sickness (Isa. 33:24). Humanity will be blessed with uncompromised spiritual
revelation, righteous leadership (Ps. 77), and subduing of the animal kingdom
(Isa. 11:6-9). Not only will the child play safely on the hole of the asp, but
he will be as a prince under the LORD’s undisputed rule (Ps. 45:16).
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