“Without Electricity, the air would rot.”  Ralph Waldo Emerson   What might Ralph Waldo Emerson say if he lived in the age of “shelter-at-home?”   Perhaps he’d opine that without electricity, we all would rot.  At any rate, we’d all be a lot more miserable, if not in far greater danger.  The reliability of electricity has […]

“The main purpose of the stock market is to make fools of as many men as possible.”–Bernard Baruch   For all the pain, suffering, sickness in death, all we have to look forward to if we survive the pandemic, is the worst global economy since the 1930’s.  Does one need a financial analyst or a […]

“If a severe pandemic materializes, all of society could pay a heavy price for decades of failing to create a rational system of health care that works for all of us.”–Irwin Redlener   There is no doubt about it.  The after-effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will be with us for many years into the future.  […]

“Automation is going to cause unemployment, and we need to prepare for it.”–Mark cuban   Unfortunately, mass unemployment has apparently hit us without any help from automation.  But if there is a silver lining in the COVID-19 pandemic–and it’s awfully hard to imagine one–it might be that this may prepare us for dealing with mass […]

“I want to die on Mars–just not on impact.”–Elon Musk “I am convinced that humans need to leave earth.”–Stephen Hawking Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking are not alone in their calls for humanity to become a multi-planetary species.  But they certainly are the most  visible advocates for space colonization.  And while the moon […]

“Future shock is a sickness that comes from too much change in too short a time.”–Alvin Toffler   The newly released volume, After Shock, features 50 of the world’s most renowned futurists reflecting on the 50-year legacy of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, and looking ahead to the next 50 years.  In this episode recorded just […]

“No serious futurist deals in prediction. These are left for television oracles and newspaper astrologers.”–Alvin Toffler   The newly released volume, After Shock, features 50 of the world’s most renowned futurists reflecting on the 50-year legacy of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, and looking ahead to the next 50 years.  Seven of the contributors have been […]

“Your future self is watching right now through your memories.”–Aubrey de Grey   The newly released volume, After Shock, features 50 of the world’s most renowned futurists reflecting on the 50-year legacy of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, and looking ahead to the next 50 years.  Seven of the contributors have been guests on Seeking Delphi™  This is […]

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”–Albert Einstein   The upcoming volume, After Shock, features 50 of the world’s most renowned futurists reflecting on the 50-year legacy of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, and looking ahead to the next 50 years.  Seven of the contributors have been guests on Seeking Delphi™  This is the  fifth in a series of repeats […]

“We’re doing a lot better than people think.”–Jerome Glenn “Change is the process by which the future invades our life, and it is important to look at it closely.”–Alvin Toffler, in Future Shock   The upcoming volume, After Shock, features 50 of the world’s most renowned futurists reflecting on the 50-year legacy of Alvin Toffler’s Future […]

“It’s dangerous when people are willing to give up their privacy.”–Noam Chomsky The upcoming volume, After Shock, features 50 of the world’s most renowned futurists reflecting on the 50-year legacy of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, and looking ahead to the next 50 years.  Seven of the contributors have been guests on Seeking Delphi™  This is the third in […]

“Change is not merely necessary to life–it is life.”–Alvin Toffler The upcoming volume, After Shock, features 50 of the world’s most renowned futurists reflecting on the 50-year legacy of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, and looking ahead to the next 50 years.  Seven of the contributors have been guests on Seeking Delphi™  This is the second in a series […]

“Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.”–Roger Ebert The upcoming volume, After Shock, features 50 of the world’s most renowned futurists reflecting on the 50-year legacy of Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, and looking ahead to the next 50 years.  Seven of the contributors have been guests on Seeking Delphi™  This is the […]

“For me, the key to longevity – and immortality, in a sense – has to do with transformation.”–Marilyn Manson Is transformation the key to immortality?  A better question is: will radical life extension–the end of aging–in itself be transformative?  I believe the answer to that second question is a resounding yes. In this special Seeking […]

“As an entrepreneur I like to know the next two or three things I might start a company on.  For me it was robotics, bio-hacking, and quantum.”–whurley As one of America’s leading technologists, when whurley speaks, people listen.  Lots of them.  We first heard from him on Seeking Delphi in an exclusive interview after his […]

“Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories.”– Arthur C. Clarke “I’m leaving my body to science fiction.”–Steven Wright   Science fiction pervades our culture.  Movies, television, books, even stage productions.  It’s rich history, and its significance in shaping our views of the future–or for that matter, inspiring us to invent the future–is […]

“The day healthcare can fully embrace AI is the day we have a revolution in terms of cutting costs and improving care.”–Fei-Fei Li   In part two of this 2-part series, Oriana Beaudet and Dan Pesut discuss a healthcare future that includes automation, artificial intelligence and robots.  And what about potential disruptive futures that change […]

“Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.” – Dag Hammarskjold  While many futures are generalists, there is a need for foresight professionals centered on specific fields, as well.  Perhaps no area is more in need of innovative outlooks for the future than healthcare. With rising […]

“I did not come to NASA to make history.”–Sally Ride “Going to Mars would make NASA great again.”–John Grunsfeld   A new space race is upon us.  But unlike the cold war-driven days of the 1960’s and early 1970’s, it is now a multi-player  competition to dominate and exploit the final frontier.  The U.S. and […]

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”–Malcolm X “Be open-minded, but not so open-minded that your brains fall out.”–Groucho Marx   In our myopic, short-term minded society, how do we start to take a long view of the future?   In Seeking Delphi™ episode #34, host Mark Sacckler chats with Frank Spencer, founder […]

“This is the age of disruption.”–Sebastian Thrun “Innovations can only be disruptive in relation to something else.”–Clayton M. Christensen   Disruption.  It’s a term that’s frequently on the lips of just about anyone interested in technology.   Is it the technology, though, that’s disruptive? Or is it the individuals that are driving the technology?  Maybe all […]

“As far as I’m concerned, ageing is humanity’s worst problem, by some serious distance.”–Aubrey de Grey     If we could prevent the diseases of aging, we could prevent aging itself.  We could empower “older” people to work like younger people for as long as they want to–if they want to.  In this Seeking Delphi™ […]

“We should celebrate when optimism and hard work triumph over cynicism, lethargy, and fatalism.”– Sadiq Khan   Bad news sells news.   Chaos sells movies and television series.  What hope is there for the future of humanity?  But for all the gloom and doom, there are probably as many positive indicators of the future as there […]

“With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon.”–Elon Musk   One might easily say about the notion of the ethics of disruptive technology–much like Mark Twain’s misattributed missive about the weather–that “everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything.”  But IEEE, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, is doing something.   Freshly minted from their […]

“The challenge is that the day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea. And crazy ideas are very risky to attempt”–Peter Diamandis   If you want to know the raison d’etre of the X Prize, you need go no further than the Peter Diamandis quote above.  It’s all about pushing the boundaries […]