X-Message-Number: 10775
From: 
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1998 21:56:27 EST
Subject: "Yesterday's Tomorrows"

"Yesterday's Tomorrows"  

REASON magazine's current issue (December, 1998) features a special (30th)
anniversary section in which contributors were asked "to identify three
books on the future--one that accurately identified important factors that
made a difference between 1968 and 1998, one that fell flat, and one that
appears to best identify the trends shaping the next 30 years…"  

Contributors were: Walter Truett Anderson, political scientist and author
of FUTURE OF THE SELF; Ronald Bailey, who is editing EARTH REPORT 2000;
Gregory Benford, U. Cal. Irvine physicist/novelist; K. Eric Drexler,
nanotech maven, chairman of the Foresight Institute, author of ENGINES OF
CREATION; Charles Paul Freund, a senior editor of REASON; Michael Fumento,
author of books on science and health; Steven Hayward, fellow of the
Heritage Foundation; Charles Murray, fellow of the American Enterprise
Institute; Walter Olson, fellow of the Manhattan Institute; Randal
O'Toole, economist; John J. Pitney Jr., a professor of government; Robert
W. Poole Jr., president of the Reason Foundation; Virginia Postrel, author
of THE FUTURE AND ITS ENEMIES; Adam Clayton Powell III, V.P. of technology
and programs at the Freedom Forum; John Shelton Reed, professor of
sociology; and Lynn Scarlett of the Reason Public Policy Institute.  

There was a clear winner in the booby prize department--Paul Ehrlich's THE
POPULATION BOMB, 1968, which informed us that large scale world starvation
was inevitable by 1975. A close second was the similar Club of Rome's THE
LIMITS TO GROWTH.  

Winners in the about-30-year-old category, with number of votes:  

Herman Kahn's THE YEAR 2000 (1) J.D. Bernal's THE WORLD, THE FLESH, AND
THE DEVIL (1) Robert Ettinger's THE PROSPECT OF IMMORTALITY (1) (Thanks,
Dr. Drexler.) Edward Banfield's THE UNHEAVENLY CITY (2) Milton Friedman's
CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM (1) Douglas North's and Robert Thomas' THE RISE OF
THE WESTERN WORLD (1) Jane Jacobs' THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN
CITIES (2) Kevin Phillips' THE EMERGING REPUBLICAN MAJORITY (2) Peter
Drucker's THE AGE OF DISCONTINUITY (1)  

For those who keep track of the count, not every contributor named a
30-year- old book.  

Winners among more recent books:  

Susantha Goonatilake's MERGED EVOLUTION (Gordon & Breach, 1998) (1) Max
Singer's PASSAGE TO A HUMAN WORLD (Hudson Institute, 1987) (1) Freeman
Dyson's IMAGINED WORLDS (Harvard U. Press, 1997) (1) Marc Stiegler's
EARTHWEB (Baen Books, April 1999) (1) Sherry Turkle's LIFE ON THE SCREEN
(Simon & Schuster, 1995) (1) Alexandra Wyke's 21ST CENTURY MIRACLE
MEDICINE (Plenum, 1997) (1) Francis Fukuyama's THE END OF HISTORY AND THE
LAST MAN (Free Press, 1992) (1) E.O. Wilson's CONSILIENCE (Knopf, 1998)
(1) Joel Garreau's EDGE CITY (Doubleday, 1991) (1) James Pinkerton's WHAT
COMES NEXT? (Hyperion, 1995) (1) Virginia Postrel's THE FUTURE AND ITS
ENEMIES (Free Press, 1998) (1)  

Unfortunately, Dr. Drexler couldn't politely name ENGINES OF CREATION or
his other books, and no one else did. And the focus on
politically-oriented contributors tended to deemphasize books on the
future of biotech.  

A quote from Chris Peterson and Gayle Pergamit: "If a thirty year
projection 'sounds like science fiction,' it may be wrong. But if it
doesn't sound like science fiction, then it's definitely wrong."  

Reminder--If you would like to help the Immortalist Society at no cost to
yourself, then whenever you are interested in buying a book through
Amazon.com, please go to our web site and link there to Amazon.com.
(Amazon's link is on our Contents page and also on our Bibliography and
References page.) The Immortalist Society will get a little slice of the
price. Research sponsored by the Immortalist Society is published and
freely available to all.  

Robert Ettinger Cryonics Institute Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org  

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