http://blog.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk A scrapbook of progress, ideas, emerging findings, and developments from the Beyond Current Horizons programme Thu, 18 Jun 2009 08:10:19 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Rory Carroll is wearing the robes this week, exhorting us to look to the Mayans for an awful reminder that nothing lasts for ever and that we ignore the signs of imminent doom at our peril: much of the article is a recapitulation of Jared Diamond's argument in Collapse: According to ... http://blog.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/2008/11/24/177/ Back at work, and over breakfast enjoyed this article from John Gray, discussing the inability of the West to recognise that the relationship between it and Russia has changed, and the part played by a particular story in confirming that delusion. The story he has in mind he calls the ... http://blog.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/2008/09/09/100/ Listening to the MP3 of a LongNow seminar given by Forcaster Paul Saffo, he explains that the best, indeed the only tool for forcasting is a mirror. A way of looking at history to make informed explorations of the future. In particular, he suggests looking for ... http://blog.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/2008/08/08/55/ Friday afternoon! Time for a video: H. G. Wells and Alexander Korda's 1936 film Things To Come, based on Wells' The Shape Of Things To Come. It starts in 1940 as a world war starts to unfold, a prediction Wells got wrong by a year: other prescient elements include the ... http://blog.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/2008/07/18/25/ When looking at the future it's easy to forget that we aren't the first people to live in the present. What's happening to us now is naturally much more real than what happened before we existed, or what has yet to exist, and it's only human to privilege it without ... http://blog.beyondcurrenthorizons.org.uk/2008/07/15/11/