Futurists are people who try to predict and analyze what will happen in the future. There are professional futurists who study the future for a living, as well as amateur futurists who study the future in their chosen field. The arguments for modern futurism were pioneered the German Ossip K. Flechtheim in the mid-1940s, who claimed that even if we could determine the most basic statistical trends and plot them a few decades ahead of time, we’d be generating useful information for society. Many large corporations now hire futurists and scenario planners to help them gain a competitive advantage.
The futurist’s job begins with a review of historical data, the extraction of regularities, and a brief projection of those trends, if only to see what numbers emerge. For example, for the last hundred years or so, the human population has doubled roughly every 34 years, and while the rate of doubling has slowed slightly in recent years, it makes sense to assume that the general trend will continue, even if the doubling time is extended to, say, every 40 years. These are the general and uncontroversial statistical trends on which the futurist paints more speculative projections. Futurists must be cautious about making irrational assumptions in the fundamentals, lest they anger those who pay them to make serious predictions.
A futurist will frequently engage in “scenario building,” which entails formulating concrete scenarios and categorizing them according to their likelihood, after putting together a general idea of the next 5, 10, or 20 years. “Probable,” “possible,” and “wild card” scenarios, for example. These aid the company or organization in question in making wise decisions in the present in order to create the future they desire. For example, it is possible that we will do the majority of our shopping online in 20 years, but it is unlikely that we will do the majority of our work in virtual worlds.
Certain scientists are enthralled the prospect of the future. Scientists are frequently part-time futurists because science describes the world around us with greater precision and empirical support than most laypeople’s guesses. Many scientists enjoy sketching a larger picture and explaining to the public how their small piece of research is a small part of a much larger useful effort because they work on small pieces of small problems. A researcher developing a new nanotech film, for example, might speculate that his work could one day be used to filter water for children in developing countries. Even if the person does not identify as a futurist, this is a good example of one. Futurists go a variety of names, but anyone who looks more than 5 years ahead deserves to be labeled as such.