Does history have to be only about the past? “History” refers to both a subject matter and a thought process. That thought process involves raising questions, marshalling evidence, discerning patterns in the evidence, writing narratives, and critiquing the narratives written by others. Whatever subject matter they study, all historians employ the thought process of historical thinking. What if historians were to extend the process of historical thinking into the subject matter domain of the future? Historians would breach one of our (...) profession’s most rigid disciplinary barriers. Very few historians venture predictions about the future, and those who do are viewed with skepticism by the profession at large. On methodological grounds, most historians reject as either impractical, quixotic, hubristic, or dangerous any effort to examine the past as a way to make predictions about the future. However, where at one time thinking about the future did mean making a scientifically-based prediction, futurists today are just as likely to think in terms of scenarios. Where a prediction is a definitive statement about what will be, scenarios are heuristic narratives that explore alternative plausibilities of what might be. Scenario writers, like historians, understand that surprise, contingency, and deviations from the trend line are the rule, not the exception; among scenario writers, context matters. The thought process of the scenario method shares many features with historical thinking. With only minimal intellectual adjustment, then, most professionally trained historians possess the necessary skills to write methodologically rigorous “histories of the future.”. (shrink)

"Technological balance" occurs automatically when the designer, builder, and user of a tool is the same person. "Technological imbalance" occurs when these activities become separated and in opposition to one another. Tools become menacing exoge nous objects. We see a shift in connotation of the word technology from the skill of the person to the object produced. Designers and builders create tools with the passive consent and willful ignorance of users. Curricula often contribute to this imbalance. Apprentice designers and builders (...) receive specialized instruction in creating objects, whereas users uncritically learn the procedural requirements of the resulting objects. This system of education turns "machine tending" into a pedagogical goal. The university has the potential to become a model of technological balance for the soci ety as a whole using such means as selecting tools that encourage balance, "technology audits, " and break ing down the specializations among designers, builders, and users. (shrink)

The apparently universal presence of digital technology is an insufficient condition for a global civilization. An examination of the distribution of the physical hardware of cyberspace reveals deep continuities with earlier patterns of international commerce and information flow, which contradict the supposedly revolutionary nature of the global information network. These patterns have reflected and continue to reflect hierarchical power relations—not global harmony—between the technological haves and have-nots.