Matt Taylor Notebook - Scenario to the 21st Century

Scenario to the 21st Century

1979

I wrote this SCENARIO in January of 1979. I did it in one 18 hour work session without use of references. The source material which I recalled from memory was drawn from my 1974, 1975 years of reading which formed the basis of my Redesigning the Future Course which I taught in Kansas City.

Every event and trend listed here was to be found in multiple articles and books of the time. The clustering in Periods, the order of Events, and their timing were of my own devising. This is what I call a push-pull scenario. It was not an attempt to list events as the research indicated the sequence and timing that they were most likely to come about. This was one consideration. The other was to explore what might be the soonest that certain selected events could occur which would result in a radically different outcome than the world at the time seemed to be drifting toward. This is not a scenario of only “good” happenings yet it was an idealized scenario based on what “might and ought to be” if Humanity decided to focus on certain areas of problem/opportunities and take appropriate action.

Another thing about the kind of scenario that this is. It employs a “CUSP” focused architecture. Each event is based on a set of circumstances and issues that are expected to surface in a time period thereby forcing action of some kind. The event chosen (because it is deemed likely or, as I have stated in this scenario, desirable) is a tension which can resolve in many ways. The event can come about as stated. The issue can be buried or ignored. Or, the opposite of the event can happen as in a case where there is a tension point likely to lead to war or peace.

Scenarios are used for different purposes and the viability of the scenario is determined on how well they serve their purpose. This scenario was used in workshops and seminars between 1979 and 1982 to get people thinking concretely about issues that were generally just emerging into public awareness. By weaving them into a story which had a transformational ending, the result was to make tangible the magnitude and kind of change that Humanity would be facing over a quarter of a century.

The scenario is structured in two parts. The first is the vertical, overlapping lines on the left side which provide a theme and basic description of the six periods of the scenario. The second, the horizontal statements which constitute the specific forecasts (crusp points).

The Mass Production of CyberCon never happened. What did was a “piece” approach. Instead of doing a crude CyberCon and improving it all the components were develop singularly and competitively. All the pieces of CyberCon are on the market now yet no integrated system. The Linkages did start forming leading to the WWW a capability which the CyberCon concept, a great deal of science fiction, and numerous technical papers profiled long in advance no matter the myths associated with its “discovery.”

The Hidden Economies issue did flare up in the early 80s and has since died down. The conservative estimates are that 15 to 40 percent of the U.S. economy is not reported. You would think that this would be an issue today but maybe it is better that it is not. Local and regional economies with their own script may be a good alternative to - and stabilizing influence on - a poorly designed, tightly connected, global system not able to deal with its own complexity.

posted: April 27, 2008 • revised October 1, 2008


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