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Glen Hiemstra has been a futurist for close to 40 years. But if you think his specialty is forecasting the future then you’d be wrong. No. Hiemstra’s focus has not been on the most probable, or even the possible future. Instead, Glen has chosen to focus consistently on what he calls “the preferred future.” This is also what he’s been advising his clients to do. And shouldn’t we all do just that, focus on our preferred future, be it individually – as humans, professionals, and citizens, or collectively – as corporations, organizations, nations, and even as a civilization? Because as Hiemstra often says “the future creates the present.”
During this 2-hour interview with Glen Hiemstra, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as: what being a futurist means; major failures of futurism such as the collapse of the USSR; Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History and Peter Turchin’s cliodynamics; the probable, possible and preferred future; science fiction as Greg Bear’s sugar-coated pill; why science helps us live more comfortable lives but the humanities give us reasons to live for; genius and stupidity as roommates; collective decision making as the #1 problem we are facing today; the Fermi paradox and the McDonald’s Theory of Peace; declaring wars and other national emergencies as a way of maintaining power; Barbara Marx’s futurist vision; compassion as the way for diminishing polarization; Ray Kurzweil’s concept of the singularity; technological unemployment and a guaranteed minimum income.
My favorite thought that I will take away from this interview with Glen Hiemstra is:
The Future is something we do!
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Who is Glen Hiemstra?
Glen Hiemstra is the Founder and CEO of Futurist.com. An international expert on long range trends and creating the preferred future, Glen has advised professional, business, and governmental organizations for more than two decades and served as a technical advisor for futuristic television programs. He is the co-author of Millennial City: How a new generation can save the future, author of Turning the Future into Revenue: What Businesses and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Future, and co-author of Strategic Leadership. Futurist.com is regularly visited by people from over 120 nations.