[excerpted from Fatal Certainty] Consider the following passage, in light of the SARS Coronavirus 2 (COVID-19) pandemic of late 2019-present: …[A] variant of the supposedly beaten SARS corona virus made its way into the United States… At first the new virus was downplayed by public officials. When voters started dying in western…
Category: Rigorous Imagination
Forecasting
Introduction: Fatal Certainty
Fatal Certainty: The Cult of Prediction and the Need for a New Way to Deal with Fundamental Future Uncertainty Since ancient times, human beings have craved certainty. Two and a half millennia ago, rulers facing life-and-death decisions sought guidance from prophets and oracles; closer to our own time, astrologers such…
Popular Culture
“Barbenheimer” and the Need for Rigorous Imagination
August 15, 2023 “Barbie was everything we didn’t want to be . . . everything the feminist movement was trying to escape.” – Gloria Steinem on Barbie (the doll) I’ve had a week or two to digest the two giant moviegoing experiences of the summer, and it occurs to me…
Popular Culture
“Oppenheimer” and the Real Miracle of the Nuclear Age
July 31, 2023 The Christopher Nolan film “Oppenheimer” is all over the headlines this summer (along with the film “Barbie,” directed by Greta Gerwig). Having just watched it, as a professional scenario planner and “futurist” (whatever that might mean), I have thoughts. The main thought is my amazement that we…
Algorithms
“The Data Delusion” vs. Rigorous Imagination
July 20, 2023 Jill LePore is a Harvard historian whose wide-ranging scholarship has embraced the broad sweep of American history (These Truths), Native American-colonial conflict (The Name of War), superheroes (The Secret History of Wonder Woman), and even the Beatles (introduction to Paul McCartney’s 1964: Eyes of the Storm). In her…