The Bookseller to the Stars Vs. Oona Strathern

As we take stock of the year and look forward to the New Year, what some would call THE FUTURE, here at The Bookseller to the Stars we are both inquisitive and impatient with the present, so what better excuse than to talk to an expert about the future.

Oona Strathern is the author of ‘A Brief History of the Future,’ a "wise and witty" look at all the weird and wonderful people who have tried to predict the future and shape the way we live. She is a writer and consultant for one of Europe's leading future and trend consultants the Zukunftsinstitut, and currently lives in Vienna. Oona is also the daughter of the historian, Paul Strathern.

Synopsis:

“Predicting the future is a notoriously precarious, profitable and even dangerous business. This book takes a look at the most interesting, important and influential futurists over the years; from Delphi's virgin visionaries, to pop futurists, science fiction writers, trend gurus and evolutionary experts. It provides a chronological history of the future, looking at the predictions that have shaped our world - Leonardo's flying machines; Darwin's evolutionary theory; Mendeleyev's periodic table; Marx's political futurism; Orwell's Big Brother; von Neumann's game theory that nearly led to World War Three; Buckminster Fuller and Corbusier's visions of social change through architecture. Prediction has become an integral part of business - Shell used scenario planning against oil shocks in the seventies, Nokia has a 'foresight' department, even the government of Lichtenstein has a shiny new futures department. But how do these people think, where do they get their ideas and what influence do they really have over our minds, businesses and politics? As well as the history of this influential, mysterious discipline, this book also gives an insider's view of the workings of future prediction today.

Ultimately, we must ask whether we can 'make' the future, or does the future make us?”

Bookseller to the Stars: Tell us about your book, ‘A Brief History of the Future‘.

Oona Strathern: On one level my book ‘A Brief History of the Future’ is the story of how we have tried to predict the future over the years, but on another it is a look at the lives and thoughts of a collection of people we call futurists. What makes futurists so fascinating is the power and influence they have had over the years, to control our lives and our thoughts about the future. Above all they are a curious and colourful bunch of people, many with large egos and crazy ideas, (but others more modest and well mannered) whose own personal peccadilloes have also had a surprising amount of influence on what they have predicted and why.

BTTS: Tell us about being a Trend Consultant.

OS: I like to joke that one of the great things about being a trend consultant is being able to go shopping and be paid for it. In fact this is partly true, as I write a popular monthly report on trends in London for a German magazine, and spend a lot of time window shopping in Notting Hill. That is naturally the fun and easy part, but what is difficult (and where the real work comes in) is to "translate" what you observe changing and emerging in the consumer landscape into bigger relevant social trends.

BTTS: Who are the top futurists in the world and what sort of things have they predicted correctly?

OS: It really depends how you want to define top. The notorious Nostradamus and his most famous book of predictions "Centuries" has for example never been out of print, so by sales alone he is a big name futurist. But his predictions are completely nonsensical, which rather disqualifies him as a top futurist. More recently the American futurist John Nasibitt (though he doesn’t like to be called one) has sold something like 14million books worldwide and is much sought after companies and consultants for his ideas about the future of society.

He predicted the growth of the knowledge society aback in the early 1980s before many realised what was going on or even had a name for it. Other well known people like Peter Schwartz predicted 9/11 in a set of scenarios that he laid out for the US senate in 1990. But while he predicted the possibility of terrorists flying into the World Trade towers, this did not help prevent it.

BTTS: Do publishers use trend consultants? There seem to be a few reading this blog that would benefit on some advice about what or who will sell copious amounts, especially at this time of year, or is it so much harder to predict what people will want to read about?

OS: Funnily enough many of the people writing about the future over the years were obsessed with predictions about the future of publishing, though these were not predictions that publishers might want to hear (or even publish). Jules Verne predicted in 1902 that in the future writers would only work with actual facts, newspapers would replace books and that by 2002 the novel would be dead!

In her utopia "New Amazonia" of 1889 Elisabeth Burgoyne Corbett generously created state aid for “capable industrious” authors, and predicted progressive copyright laws that meant after 100 years the state has all rights to the work - so “no grasping publisher was allowed…to reap the profits of an author’s brain toil”. Another bit of wishful thinking came from Burnham Putnam Beckwith in 1967 when he wrote that “By 2100 most non-fiction authors will be salaried experts who will be well paid whether or not any particular manuscript is accepted and published. For them writing will become a secure profession, rather than a sideline or a series of personal speculations.”

BTTS: What sort of timescale does a futurist have until his/her prediction is considered irrelevant? I mean, Nostradamus has had centuries for something vaguely similar to happen that when his garbled messages were translated, they could maybe interpreted into, 'the Nazis will uprise'. It's all fair and well saying terrorists could fly into the World Trade Center, but isn't that really what they call 'Risk Assessment'?

OS: Some futurists work with long timescales, say 25-50 years for the megatrends such as bio-tech, companies often with only 2-10 years for product development trends and then you have the science fiction futurists who are thousands of years ahead of all of us. With the latter you can really go wild, and most of them do - because it is so far ahead, you can never be proved wrong. It is naturally much harder for those on a shorter time scale - for the next 5 years say. One well-known futurist says very publicly that he doesn’t care if his predictions for 100 years time are right or wrong as he will be dead by then anyway!

There are all sorts of methods for risk assessment - from game theory to scenarios and war gaming - and my book looks at the history of these methods, showing where and how they were used and why over the years. A terrorist attack on the twin towers was just one of several scenarios that were presented - and the difficulty is that unless you have incredibly reliable information gathering, is which one to place your strategy, trust (or fears) in.

BTTS: What do you think about the current trends in publishing at the moment? Why, for example, are science books sexy and books answering inane questions are topping the paperback charts and the subject closest to my heart, the rise of the celebrity autobiography?

Sub question: will our fascination wane in the near future for ghost-written tales of lore?

OS: What I find extraordinary is that 20 years ago people were predicting the end of paper and the demise of the book, and with it the publishing industry as we knew it. And on the contrary it seems to be blooming, and people reading more than ever. What has certainly given it a boost is the popularisation of subjects such as science. Some call it the dumbing down, but even people like "futurist" and neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield says she is campaigning for people to talk about science with the same enthusiasm they talk about football. The wave of popular science books filled a gap for knowledge - and the trend is, if you like, a democratisation of science that was until then very much protected by intellectuals and scientists. The same has gone for philosophy, and mathematics, and i think we underestimate people's thirst for understanding the universe, and the need to reduce complexity.

As for the rise of the cult of celebrity - in trend terms, some see it as counter-trend to collective insecurity (financial, political, or personal), and a form of collective escapism. It is also part of the response to a culture that is defined by shorter attention spans. All we need now is a trend for celebrities to write popular science!

BTTS: Yes, just imagine that. Jade Goody discusses the work of Einstein or the likes of Simon Singh teaming up with Jodie Marsh to discuss the Big Bang theory. Oona, we could be onto something here, I can sense the nervous twitching of the big houses watching as we speak. Seriously though, what publishing trends can we look forward to in the next couple of years?

Aside from publishing, there are certain trends that I come across and am just flummoxed and it's not just me. Some things take off and there are a huge chorus of accompanying boos to go along with all of the mad freaks who adopt the trends. For example, crocs. What the fuck is going on there?

OS: Well that really was a joke about celebrities writing about science, but now i come to think of it.....must talk to my agent!

As for the future of publishing, people in the electronics industry would have us believe that the future of publishing is in e-ink and on-line reading. British Telecom for example predicted that you will be able to save a several seconds a day and eventually a few hours a day if you use mobile electronic displays for reading books and newspapers. But even companies like Philips concede that people are very in the future will still want the tactile experiences of turning pages, the smell of paper and newsprint, and being able to toss a paper or book in the bin or put it on a shelf when they are finished. One publishing trend predicted 50 years ago by a particularly hopeless futurist was lots of rubber coated books we could read in the bath. And as all the writers i know say, if we knew the future of publishing i think we could all relocate to the Bahamas!

Small annoying trends like Crocs or pet rocks or the like are part of a consumer culture and marketing machine that needs and will breed fashions (but this is nothing new, even in Roman/Victorian times fashions came and went albeit more slowly). Luckily things like Crocs disappear off our radar after a while, and seem like a bad dream., but there will always be another such trend waiting in the wings. This is what people like Faith Popcorn live from - helping companies find the next big thing. But what is really interesting is to understand how they spread (i.e. why they are so popular and what are the component factors of these trends). Malcolm Gladwell's book 'The Tipping Point' is good on this, and helps us understand how certain things catch on, whilst others dont according to the signs and social trends of the times. Easily done with the benefit of hindsight, but predicting them for next year is another matter!

BTTS: Ah yes, the e-book. I sense a distant rumbling my end about this but surely people must realise that (as with losing custom to the internet) that nothing beats browsing a table full of books and discovering what someone has laid out lovingly for you and with you in mind. I'm not counting the fake charts and the deep discounts, of course. That's all corporate scheming with an intent to control what is successful and appeasing people in faraway lands on yachts and schooners.

I've been bitching and whining for about ten years about trends in music. For example, that it was a load of shit. Then it all came full circle and it was suddenly cool again to like guitar bands and the sort of music I listen to. But even then, people like Coldplay and over-hyped rubbish like the Kaiser Chiefs and the Arctic Monkeys come along. Am I beyond help?


OS: I fear your year of reading celeb biogs has gone to your head. there is only one cure for you. put on a pair of Uggs, make yourself a cup of camomile tea, hear some classic music and read a proper book!

BTTS: This is probably true. Tell us about your book, 'A Brief History of the Future'?

OS: The interesting thing about my book and all the predictions over the years about the future is that you can find things in every field and for every fetish. So even your obsession with celebrity is catered for - back in 1967 it was predicted by a law professor in a book called "Toward the Year 2000", that ““The privacy of the famous, the great, and the important may yield to the notion that it is in the public interest to have every last detail of their lives and correspondence fully in the press and public record. Henceforth the great will live, so to speak in the public domain.” As well being alert to the potential of the media/celebrity symbiosis, he foresaw “fantasy invasions of privacy as a form of public amusement.” At the time the big shock was shows such as “Candid Camera,” which he marked out as being “a special threat for life in the year 2000.”

That kind of puts it all in perspective for me, as do naturally the predictions of George Orwell back in 1948 ; “It was conceivable that they watched everybody all the time…You had to live – did live… in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement was scrutinised.” While he clearly did not predict the use of night vision cameras, Orwell's vision of Big Brother, is very much the one we know today.

BTTS: What else does your book predict?

OS: There are lots of predictions in my book that have yet to be proven but others that have appeared long before their see-by-time. This is especially true of the rise of virtual worlds - not just in terms of their existence, but their use, their effects and their popularity. Back in 1770 the French revolutionary Louis Sebastian Mercier made some amazing predictions for the year 2440.

In his futuristic novel, Mercier’s time traveller discovers an optical cabinet where all kinds of landscapes, palaces, rainbows, meteors and food are displayed. By pressing buttons he is transported into a virtual world - to a forest with the roar of lions, tigers and bears. These sound and light shows are not for entertainment, but have a profound moral and political purpose - if someone shows signs of wanting to wage war he is taken to a room called “hell” where he has to listen to the horrors of battle, the screams of rage and pain and the howls of the dying. If he is not moved to change his mind, he is condemned to listen to it for the rest of his life. What Mercier was effectively envisaging were the potential psychological and therapeutic uses of virtual reality.

The power of such “worlds” is apparent today not just to parents of children who are addicted to computer games, but also to the Pentagon. In 2005, the Pentagon was reported to have spent $4million creating virtual reality games that simulate combat situations to help treat traumatised soldiers. In a strange echo of Mercier’s thoughts, a psychologist working on the project explained, “We want the virtual reality environment to be enough to trigger the thoughts and feelings so they can control those.”

BTTS: Your book covers the work of sci-fi writers. Who do you think has come the closest to being the best futurist in their writing and sub question, when can we expect to see flying cars?

OS: The best futurist science fiction writers in my view are people like Arthur C. Clarke and Bruce Sterling. Sterling's book called Tomorrow Now is actually more about how we can see the future from the present, than about wild visions of flying cars. One of his great observations is how futurists project their own desires and needs onto their predictions. He calls it the Futurists Monkey Puzzle, The classic monkey trap involves placing something tempting inside a jar with a narrow opening. When a monkey puts its hand in and grips the prize, its fist gets stuck and it is caught in a dilemma between letting go and hanging hopelessly on to the prize. “The lesson for the futurist here is simple,” explains Sterling, “out in the wilderness of delightful trends, conjectures and happenstances is the one you can’t resist. That is your Monkey Puzzle.

It is the one futuristic curiosity that proves unbearable to your heart…It is the scheme that you champion against all odds… It is generally something rather trivial, silly, and goofy. You may find yourself longing to have your head frozen for millennia inside a tub of liquid nitrogen…. It might suddenly occur to you that UFOS might really and truly exist. The Monkey Puzzle is almost never based on a sober, rational analysis. Instead, it speaks to some underfed, sugar-starved part of the victim’s personal psyche.”

Arthur C. Clarke is admirable because he helped to bring to fruition what he predicted would be possible. In 1945 Clarke wrote a detailed four-page article for Wireless World with diagrams entitled “Extra-Terrestrial Relays, Can Rocket Stations Give World-Wide Radio Coverage”. In it he predicted – and proposed - the idea of communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit above the Earth that would be able to send radio and television signals over the entire surface of the planet. “A true broadcast service” he wrote, “giving constant field strength at all times over the whole globe would be invaluable, not to say indispensable, in a world society.” He also proposed that they could be easily and efficiently powered by solar energy. He was on the other hand way ahead of everyone else with his idea of space holidays. In 1953, Clarke wrote an enthusiastic article for Holiday magazine where he described in great detail a space hotel with gymnasiums, swimming pools and even specially curved billiard tales to take into account the radial gravity field.

Flying cars are a classic monkey trap for futurists. The great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov was for example terrified of flying but had all sorts of visions for flying transport to other planets. This theme even foxed Clarke who for a while championed so-called GEM’s (Ground Effect Machines) that hover a few inches from the ground supporting themselves by downward blasts of air. “Because they have no physical contact with the surface beneath them, GEM’s can travel with equal ease over ice, snow, sand, ploughed fields, swamps, molten lava – you name it, and the GEM can cross it.”

He not only wrote great potential advertising slogans for the mini-hovercrafts, but envisaged whole motorways for “aircars” in the 2000s with road signs warning “NO WHEELED VEHICLES ON THIS HIGHWAY.” Because of their unique ability to get about, he foresaw that “breakdown vans of the future are going to receive SOS calls from families stranded in some very odd places.” This is in fact just what happened to Clarke himself. Clarke moved to Sri Lanka in 1956, and during his initial enthusiasm for GEM’s, imported a four-seater “Hover Hawk” with which to get around. He soon realised to his dismay that it was difficult to control and didn’t dare take it out on the roads. Instead he ventured out to sea where the spray obscured visibility. His last outing was to a superb sandy beach where a pile of brushwood ripped open the rubber skirt and deflated both the ego and the machine.

BTTS: What's your next project?

OS: Next major project is to live in the future. I am building a "Future Evolution House" and hope to make a book/film about the process.

BTTS: Does your car fly?

OS: No, not yet. But my next car will be a plug and play car. Powered by the solar energy from the roof of the house.

BTTS: Thanks Oona!

Oona Strathern Website
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