1. Limits to Growth and Abundance
STOCKHOLM FUTURISTS MEETUP
23 April 2014
Adam Jorlen, Futurist
Emerging Fellow, Association of Professional Futurists
Member, World Futures Studies Federation
@adamjorlen

2. Jim Dator’s 4 Generic Futures
As always, we begin our Meetups with
four alternative futures in mind…

3. Jim Dator’s 4 Generic Futures
• Continuation – the current historical trajectory continues, most usually conceived
of as ‘continued economic growth’;
• Collapse – a breakdown of the social order due to one or more of a number of
possible causes, such as economic instability, environmental overload, resource
depletion, moral degeneration, military conflict such as an external attack or
internal civil war, meteor/comet impact, etc;
• Disciplined Society – a society organized around some set of overarching values,
whether ancient, traditional, ideological, natural, environmental, God-given, etc;
• Transformational Society – which sees the end of current forms of behaviour,
beliefs, norms, or organization, and the main sub-variants are ‘emergence of new forms
(rather than a return to older or traditional ones, as above), possibly even including intelligent
life-forms. The two high-tech’ (technological) and ‘high-spirit’ (spiritual) transformation.
Source: Joseph Voros - Galactic-scale macro-engineering: Looking for signs of other intelligent species, as an exercise in hope for our own

4. Jim Dator’s 4 Generic Futures

5. TONIGHT!
Generic Future #1 - Continuation

7. Trust the
people in
power
and the
systems
in place.

9. THE INVISIBLE
HAND OF THE
MARKET
(ADAM SMITH)

10. I struggled with the title of tonight’s Meetup…
Limits to Growth and Abundance?
Limits to Growth or Abundance?

11. I chose ‘Limits to Growth
and Abundance’.
• It might have seemed more logical to use the
title “Limits to growth or abundance”, as these
two often are seen as polarities.
• We will begin to look at the two concepts and
then relate it back to Dator’s four archetypes.

12. Concept 1: Abundance
• Who has watched Peter Diamandis TED talk?

13. Abundance is our future!
• Onstage at TED2012, Peter Diamandis makes a
case for optimism — that we'll invent,
innovate and create ways to solve the
challenges that loom over us.
• "I’m not saying we don’t have our set of
problems; we surely do. But ultimately, we
knock them down.”

14. From the Diamandis TED talk:
• In 2010, we had just short of two billion
people online, connected.
• By 2020, that's going from two billion to five
billion Internet users.
• Three billion new minds who have never been
heard from before are connecting to the
global conversation.
• What will these people want? What will they
consume? What will they desire?

15. From the Diamandis TED talk:
• And rather than having economic shutdown,
we're about to have the biggest economic
injection ever.
• These people represent tens of trillions of dollars
injected into the global economy.
• And they will get healthier by using the Tricorder,
and they'll become better educated by using the
Khan Academy, and by literally being able to use
3D printing and infinite computing [become]
more productive than ever before.

16. What’s behind this belief in
abundance?

17. Exponential Technology
• While previous disruptive technologies have
tended to stabilize we are not seeing that with
digital technology. Our digital technology
infrastructure is unprecedented in human history.
It is not stabilizing.
• The core technology components – computing,
storage and bandwidth – are continuing to
improve in price/performance at accelerating
rates and the best scientists and technologists
suggest that this exponential pace will not slow
down in the foreseeable future.
John Hagel III, Deloitte Center for the Edge

18. Concept 2: Limits to Growth
Who has watched Paul Gilding’s TED talk?

19. From Gilding’s TED talk…
• The Earth is full. It's full of us, it's full of our
stuff, full of our waste, full of our demands.
• Yes, we are a brilliant and creative species, but
we've created a little too much stuff -- so
much that our economy is now bigger than its
host, our planet.

20. From Gilding’s TED talk…
• We've had science proving the urgency of
change.
• We've had economic analysis pointing out
that, not only can we afford it, it's cheaper to
act early.
• And yet, the reality is we've done pretty much
nothing to change course. We're not even
slowing down.

21. From Gilding’s book:
The Great Disruption
“As the full scale of the imminent crisis hits us,
our response will be proportionally dramatic;
mobilizing as we do in war.
We will change at a scale and speed we can
barely imagine today, completely transforming
our economy, including our energy and
transport industries, in just a few short
decades…
… it is precisely the severity of the problem
that will drive a response that is overwhelming
in scale and speed and will go right to the core
of our societies.”

22. What’s behind these beliefs in ‘The Great
Disruption’ and ‘Limits to Growth’?

23. Let’s go back to
1972…

24. Limits to Growth
• The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book about the
computer modeling of exponential economic
and population growth with finite resource
supplies.
• Authored by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L.
Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W.
Behrens III.

25. Limits to
Growth
on a
Finite
Planet

26. Ecological Footprint
• The Global Footprint Network calculates the
world's ecological footprint to be the
equivalent of 1.5 planets (as of 2014),
meaning that human economies are
consuming 50% more resources than the
Earth can regenerate each year.
• In other words, it takes one year and six
months to regenerate what we consume in a
year.

27. “The economy is a wholly owned
subsidiary of the environment, not
the reverse.”
― Herman E. Daly

28. So to summarize, we have two
conflicting concepts…
1. Abundance 2. Limits to Growth

29. TED curation
• The first two talks at the TED conference in
2012 was curated with this conflict in mind, as
Diamandis vs. Gilding, i.e. Abundance vs.
Limits to Growth.

30. And now… back to the futurists…
Which of Dator’s four
generic futures are
represented by Diamandis
and Gilding?

31. Jim Dator’s 4 Generic Futures
• Continuation – the current historical trajectory continues, most usually conceived
of as ‘continued economic growth’;
• Collapse – a breakdown of the social order due to one or more of a number of
possible causes, such as economic instability, environmental overload, resource
depletion, moral degeneration, military conflict such as an external attack or
internal civil war, meteor/comet impact, etc;
• Disciplined Society – a society organized around some set of overarching values,
whether ancient, traditional, ideological, natural, environmental, God-given, etc;
• Transformational Society – which sees the end of current forms of behaviour,
beliefs, norms, or organization, and the main sub-variants are ‘emergence of new forms
(rather than a return to older or traditional ones, as above), possibly even including intelligent
life-forms. The two high-tech’ (technological) and ‘high-spirit’ (spiritual) transformation.
Source: Joseph Voros - Galactic-scale macro-engineering: Looking for signs of other intelligent species, as an exercise in hope for our own

32. Who is Peter Diamandis?

33. Who is Peter Diamandis?
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Peter H. Diamandis is an American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur best
known for being the founder and chairman of the X PRIZE Foundation, the co-
founder and chairman of Singularity University and the co-author of the New
York Times bestseller Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. He is
also the former CEO and co-founder of the Zero-Gravity Corporation, the co-
founder and vice chairman of Space Adventures Ltd., the founder and
chairman of the Rocket Racing League, the co-founder of the International
Space University, the co-founder of Planetary Resources, founder of Students
for the Exploration and Development of Space, and vice-chairman & co-
founder of Human Longevity, Inc.

34. Who is Paul Gilding?
“Earth is
full”

35. Who is Paul Gilding?
FROM WIKIPEDIA:
Paul Gilding is an Australian environmentalist, consultant, and author. Gilding, a
former executive director of Greenpeace International, and a fellow at the Post
Carbon Institute, is the author of The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis
Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World (2011). He lives
in southern Tasmania with his wife and children.

36. Who can we trust and why?
Diamandis bases his assumptions and his
proposed future on science.
Gilding bases his assumptions and his proposed
future on science.

37. Which scientists can we trust?
Why?
Can we trust scientists?
How can we know which scientists to
trust?

38. A Shift in Values?
The majority of Danes: “We have enough”

39. Is new technology cool or creepy?

40. Discuss

41. See

42. Discuss!
• Use the futures triangle (see next slide) to
think about the three factors in the ‘Limits to
Growth’ vs. ‘Abundance’ scenarios:
PUSH:
PULL:
WEIGHT:

43. Upcoming recommended events this
spring and summer
(These are hyperlinked from this slideshare presentation, found on the Meetup group)
• Future Infinite Conference
• Future Perfect, Grinda
• Hannes and the Humanity+ crowd
• More… Sussi, Johan?
• Others in the room?