“Aspirational Guidance for Wiser Futures,” explores four “Type II Wildcard” alternative future scenarios in which a turbulent “global megacrisis” might unfold. It ends with plausible practices through which to minimize and/or mitigate the crisis.
This research paper was published in the peer reviewed journal, Foresight (Vol. 17 No. 1, 2015, pp. 1-34). To make its essential content freely available, however, an expanded version can be seen here.
To enable a quick overview, shown below is an outline of the four scenarios, followed by an idealized graphic depiction of them, to help visualize their historical significance – both past and future.
- VUCA – A present trends extended (PTE) Future involving continued technological progress and economic inequity but not ecologically sustainable regime change. [VUCA is an acronym for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity.]
- STEEP Disintegration – A worst-case future beyond hard landing in which societally wide ego-centric protectionism prevents systemic recovery before civilizational collapse occurs
- Reformative Recovery – An aspirational open-source eco-centric rebuilding from a hard landing future in which a critical mass of open-source thought-leaders facilitate a crowd-sourced regime-reformation, leading toward eco-centrically sustainable human communities soon enough to prevent civilizational collapse.
- Proactive Transformation – A best case, audaciously aspirational soft landing future involving pre-megacrisis emergence of open-sourced regimes based on eco-centric worldviews, institutions, and technologies, leading toward further evolution of socio-spiritual maturity.
Idealized alternative paths following an epochal transition
Please note that the “Ecological Load” of human-caused impact is calculated as roughly the product of population, affluence, and technology.