A few of the wild card scenarios I examined 10 years ago for my 1999 book, Out of the Blue, no longer appear so wild: a stock-market crash, ice cap breaks up, virtual reality moves information instead of people, terrorism swamps government defenses. Other scenarios have not been realized but remain highly plausible possibilities: a major information systems disruption, a new Chernobyl, achievement of room-temperature superconductivity, and the politico-economic unraveling of Africa.

Now, a decade later, our society has grown even more complex and the possible new scenarios are even a bit more profound. Because they are so potentially big, the approaches for dealing with surprises need to be ever more agile, yet often they are not. To accept the idea that surprises are simply surprises and cannot be dealt with in advance, however, is to presume that we can’t make a difference—which is not the truth. We, and the future, deserve better.

Read the full article at: http://www.wfs.org/March-April09/WCPetersen.htm