A friend recently recommended “Breaking News: An Autozombiography” [1] for me to read. They thought that I might find it interesting, informative, and that I would enjoy the storyline. The recommendation was based upon the knowledge that we are currently deep into a project on wild card scenarios, and that we are now writing into fiction some of the storylines that have been generated by that project. I have already written about a structural framework through which wild card scenarios – or storylines – can be generated [2], and this aspect of our work takes it to the next step.

I am not quite ready to accept that a zombie novel could be considered a wild card scenario because it only has two of the three key attributes that we would like to see from a wild card scenario. The zombie novel certainly has a very low probability 0f occurring, and it will definitely have a high impact if it were to occur, but the central premise of the zombie story – the living dead – lacks a key element of scientific plausibility. It is this lack of plausibility that places the fiction of the zombie story outside of the canon of wild card scenarios. There is a contrary view that, in a world with the possibility of global pandemics, such as with Ebola disease [3], we ought not to be too dogmatic in our view because, in the new diseases of the future, there is no way of knowing how they will play out.

If we were to experience a zombie emergency, how would we react to it? The Kubler-Ross model ( the five stages of grief) from psychology provides a good framework for analysing this [4]. The model suggests a transition from denial to anger, to bargaining, to depression, through to acceptance. In many respects, the progress of the book is along this journey. The novel splits into four sections. The first is concerned with the recognition that there is a viral outbreak of the zombie virus. I found that to be quite an interesting part of the book. It is all about a denial by the general population of the evidence all around them. It takes a while for people to work out what is going on, and by then, for many of them, it is too late.

Once the survivors had recognised what is going on, then anger soon sets in. The second part of the book is all about retribution (killing as many zombies as possible) and finding somewhere to stay. There is an element of bargaining in this, where the group goes out to forage for food, water, and other essential supplies. This contrast between the destruction of the zombie hordes and the creation of a new society provides a dramatic tension within the novel that works very well. It provides the focus for the depression within the story – that the task of building afresh whilst fighting off the zombie menace might overwhelm the small community. This creative aspect occupies the third part of the book, which I found immensely interesting.

Of course, like all quest stories, the heroes of the story manage to attain their quest. The fourth part of the book is the one devoted to the future of the small community. I have to say that is an issue which I consider well worth studying. However, I found this to be the weakest part of the book. It would seem that the British monarchy have survived the crisis and are seeking to command the loyalty of the remaining small communities of survivors. Why these communities should have any particular loyalties towards an institution that abandoned them to their fate escapes me. There were so many inconsistencies in the ending that I found it to be pretty unconvincing. However, the story is to be continued in a sequel to the book, which I await with great anticipation.

The book is well written and the pace of the narrative keeps the reader moving along quite nicely. There are some good touches to the narrative, such as the golfer zombie who continues his swing on the golf course, just out of the sheer habit of doing so. I guess we all know someone like that. There are also some good jokes and quirks in the narrative that manage to keep the plot interesting, such as Bub the captured zombie. In terms of being just a good read, the book has much to recommend it. However, it also has something extra. The book serves as a good template for writing wild card scenarios, whether it be the aftermath of a flu pandemic or the consequences of a solar burp that wipes out all of the electronics on Earth. It is for this reason that I am grateful to my friend for recommending this book.

What do zombie novels have to do with future studies? Until recently, I would have answered that they don’t really have an awful lot to do with each other. I think that it now might be time to change my mind.


Stephen Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2014

References:

[1] ‘Breaking News: An Autozombiography’ by N J Hallard (Cissbury Publishing 2010, ISBN 978-1-4457-8538-7)

[2] My piece can be accessed at: http://www.eufo.org/uploads/1/4/4/4/14444650/wfr_june_2013_aguilar-millan.pdf

[3] See the Wall Street Journal for one case of Ebola disease being moved from the point of incubus in Africa to North America for treatment: http://online.wsj.com/articles/cdc-chief-seeks-to-allay-ebola-fears-1407081530

[4] See the Wikipedia entry for the Kubler-Ross model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model

by Bill Sharpe

ISBN 978-1-909470-27-9

This book is more like a collection of essays. The essays are connected, but also distinct and could quite easily stand alone. I have to say that I came to 3 Horizons from a practical perspective. I learned about it in action, I saw it in action, and that led me to want to read about some of the genesis of the technique.
I am a bit of a fan of 3H. It can work well if you keep in mind what it can do, and what it can't. It is not a model - there is no causality path. It is a tool - something that can help in the process of reaching the objects of a futures exercise. It is good in the examination of the flow of change, in the identification of why it is that some people embrace change whilst others resist it, and helping people map a transition from an old paradigm to a new one.

What I particularly like is the idea that there is an emergent future (H3 in the jargon) in the present, that elements of the present (H1 in the jargon) will still be seen in the future once it has emerged, and that the transition to the new future (H2 in the jargon) will be seen in both the old and the new. That came as a bit of a revelation to me because it underpins why it is that people embrace the future and why others are also resistant to change. This is a concept to which I will return quite frequently in the future.

I think that the book could do with a good edit. It is a bit bitty in places and the pace can be a bit uneven at times. The first two essays - why we do it and how we do it - are the real payload of the book. The third essay - on how others have used the technique - is interesting, but could easily be missed. And the fourth essay - on some of the philosophical underpinnings - could be seen by some as being a bit abstract.

On the whole I enjoyed the book. I would recommend it to others. It is a technique with increasing popularity, and one that futurists could do well to study.


Stephen Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2014

Further information about the book can be found on the International Futures Forum web site at:
http://www.internationalfuturesforum.com/p/three-horizons-the-patterning-of-hope

Shell’s New Lens Scenarios mark the company’s 40th year of working with scenarios that anticipate the future.  Their newest set of scenarios seek to consider what the world may look like in the year 2100. In honor of their 40th year of crafting scenarios, it would be worthwhile to review just what Shell anticipates for the future.

According to Shell, “The world in the future will be defined by how people and governments meet the challenges posed by institutions, inequality, and insecurity in relation to the paradoxes of prosperity, leadership, and connectivity.”  Keeping this statement in mind, New Lens uses two very different scenarios to explore the future: Mountains, and Oceans.

In “Mountains”, Shell sees a world where those in power seek to maintain and promote the status quo. Economic development is moderate, while environmental and energy policy transforms our global transportation network to create cities that are more compact. Shell sees natural gas as the foundation for the world’s energy, with demand in oil peaking around the year 2035. Towards the end of the century hydrogen and electricity will be the energy source of choice to run automobiles.

Shell sees the world not achieving the goal of limiting global warming by 2°C, despite a decline in green house gas emissions beginning after 2030.

In “Oceans”, influence and power are more diffused. The world is more prosperous, but also more volatile. Market forces and society shape the world’s energy system, much more than government policy. Both oil and coal continue to play a major role, while natural gas and nuclear power, hampered by public resistance, slow technology adoption, and policy inertia, experiences limited growth. High energy prices and demand cause oil resources to be developed in hard to reach places, but demand plateaus around 2040. In the 2060s, solar becomes the largest primary source of energy, spurred on by the high prices which helped to encourage increased efficiency.

Shell’s glimpses into the future are intriguing, and Shell certainly puts much rigor into New Lens. Their outlook on the balance of power is very interesting, though there are a few things left that need resolution. Both shifts to alternative energy sources take place after peaks in demand. In making the transition to the next energy source in both scenarios, one can wonder how that transition will play out in the energy markets. Another observation is that presenting only two visions of the future, over a very long time horizon and with a very broad remit, seem a little limiting. The future may turn out to be more pluralistic than two scenarios on their own suggest.

In the end, 40 years of exploring the future is very admirable. Shell has set an example for other companies to follow in their ongoing efforts of studying the future. While there are some minor issues with the New Lens scenarios, both Mountains and Oceans present interesting views of the future and equally interesting implications. As a Futurist, but more importantly as a human being, I wonder which of these two futures we shall actually enjoy?

Jason Swanson
© The European Futures Observatory 2013

Resources:

The scenarios can be accessed at: http://www.shell.com/global/future-energy/scenarios/new-lens-scenarios.html

Rudolphe Durand & Jean-Philippe Vergne
(Harvard Business Review Press 2012; ISBN 978-1-4221-8318-2)

How do futurists ply their trade? One method is to take a large number of observations of the world, join the dots to form an hypothesis about its workings, develop a model of the underlying causality of those workings, and then use the model to explain the past and speculate about the future. In terms of that process, this book represents an important work that has joined up quite a few dots.

When we think about piracy, we normally have in mind a vision of piracy on the high seas in the Eighteenth Century. This is historically inaccurate. The golden age of piracy was two hundred years earlier – in the Sixteenth Century – at the point where the European nations were starting to colonise and develop the freshly acquired lands in the New World. It was more Drake and Hawkins than Long John Silver. This is an important distinction that becomes evident when we consider what piracy is about.

It is best to view piracy as a process by which property rights are established in an environment where it is unclear to whom they belong. It is the mechanism by which public goods – in the economic sense, where nobody and everybody owns those goods – are made private. The golden age of piracy helped to develop the rule set by which behaviour was conducted on the high seas. The later brigandage on the high seas in the Eighteenth Century was about the enforcement of that rule set rather than its development.

This has resonance for us today in those areas where property rights are not fully developed. For example, one could argue that we are still in the process of shaking out the rule set that governs the digital world. Here we have a public good (cyberspace), which has been fairly unregulated in the recent past, where social norms and rule sets are still being developed, and where ‘deviant’ behaviour is categorised as piracy. From the perspective of a futurist, this is an uninteresting area because the governing rule set is now largely developed. If you doubt this point, try defaming Lord McAlpine using Twitter to see how fast and how hard the law can come down upon you. Digital piracy has moved from the rule making phase to the much later enforcement phase.

The authors do, however, point to an area that ought to excite the futurist – our genetic make-up. We are currently at the early stages of determining who ‘owns’ our DNA, and the uses to which it can be put. If the model suggested by the authors is correct, then we can anticipate a good deal of genetic piracy in the next decade or two. At the microscopic and nanoscopic scale, there are still vast uncharted areas that present the opportunity for commercial advantage. The conditions are right for all sorts of skulduggery until the rule set governing this area is determined.

This hints at the importance of this book. Central to the argument is the assertion that capitalism, as a form of social organisation, is constantly evolving. However, that evolution is dominated by leaps in both hard and social technologies. It is a bit like the movement of tectonic plates – gradual, but with dramatic earthquakes when there is movement. Piracy represents the earthquakes when the tectonic plates of capitalism move. In this respect, the onset of piracy in a given area acts as an early warning signal of an emergent future. The containment of piracy represents a more settled period of social and economic relations.

If - as many believe today – there has been a breakdown of the Washington Consensus and that a new capitalism is emerging, then the model suggested by the authors would indicate a period of piracy is about to emerge. We have already pointed to genetic piracy as one strong candidate for an emerging future. There are others. For example, one aspect of piracy is a lack of respect for established forms of authority. One could argue that this creates an opportunity for new ‘piratical’ forms of government – varying from the producer collectives of La Mancha in Spain to the rise of the ‘Occupy Movement’ around the world. They all indicate an unsettled prospect where the established rule set will come under pressure.

It should be said that this book represents an important first step towards understanding how capitalism evolves and changes. The model is only suggested and not developed, and could do with more historical instances of pirate organisations. For example, the English Enclosure Movement of the Seventeenth Century would make a good example of how a public good (common land) was captured and turned into private property. From a long term perspective, this proved to be beneficial (it allowed for the development of the capital surpluses that funded the Industrial Revolution), even though it was an unmitigated disaster at the time (it gave rise to rural impoverishment, destitution, and vagrancy). A more complete work would start to capture these different dimensions of piracy.

It should also be said that this is a book written by two French academics and is written in an academic style. It is not an easy read and the reader will have to work at taking away some of the points made. Is the effort worth it? Yes, this is an important book that adds to our understanding of the transition between different phases of capitalism. For that reason, we recommend it.

Stephen Aguilar-Millan
© The European Futures Observatory 2013