Bridge Makers

Becoming a Citizen Futurist

April Reagan

• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781637301470
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Öffentliche Politik in den Bereichen Naturwissenschaften & Technik

"Our moral responsibility is not to stop the future, but to shape it... to channel our destiny in humane directions and to ease the trauma of transition." ? Alvin Toffler

Bridge Makers: Becoming a Citizen Futurist answers an echoing call for a beginner's guide to foresight. Drawing from her decades of experience in high-tech, April Reagan presents an array of historical information, tools and research to guide readers through an educational journey.

Bridge Makers is designed as an easy read that aims to spark an interest in every citizen to find agency in their anticipation of the future. This is done by painting the past, present, and future with optimism, while still encouraging all to maintain a sense of urgency to act, in order to avoid dystopian futures. If you have ever asked yourself:

• How will science and technology change the way we live?
• How can I influence the future of science and technology in society?
• How do I reclaim agency in the future?

Bridge Makers: Becoming a Citizen Futurist should be added to your required reading list.

Part 1

The Call to Futurism

“The planet does not need more successful people. The planet desperately needs more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of all kinds.”

—David W. Orr8

1

Futures... Literacy?

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Fundamentally, literacy is understood to be the ability to read and write, along with skills in basic numeracy. The importance of these building blocks for education is well understood but perhaps not the tight connection they have to a thriving society. Concern Worldwide highlights the benefits of functional literacy, including improved health, gender equality, and reduced poverty. The organization notes those who are literate can participate in democracy—those who can follow what is going on can participate in the dialogue. Literacy gets at the heart of people being equipped to gain access to and participate in processes that affect them.9 During the global COVID-19 pandemic, Concern noted that “with so much misinformation about the novel coronavirus, one of the best—and most cost-effective—responses we have is education, including educating our communities on prevention, symptoms, and what to do if they need treatment.”10

The broader definition of literacy includes having knowledge or competence.11 When applied to specific domains—such as personal financial literacy—the term refers to being equipped with a particular set of skills; the 2008 President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy defined it as “the ability to use knowledge and skills to manage financial resources effectively for a lifetime of financial well-being.”12 The World Economic Forum has identified, as part of its New Vision for Education, several literacies needed for the future: scientific, information, and communications technology, cultural and civic.13 There are also documented efforts to improve health literacy, vaccine literacy, visual literacy, and data literacy.14

In the introduction, we considered this definition from UNESCO to help us understand what it means to be futures literate:15

A capability that allows people to better understand the role of the future in what they see and do. Being futures literate empowers the imagination, enhances our ability to prepare, recover, and invent as changes occur.

In other words, being futures literate is to have the skills and mindset required to participate in processes that influence futures. Let’s consider some of these.

The Change Mindset

In the year 2020, everyone learned the importance of being flexible. Some people in your circle likely easily adjusted on the fly and others are weighed down in shock and anxiety. Have you reflected on your own reactions to the unexpected or considered why it is that some people are quicker to adapt? Rinne and I caught up recently to talk about futures literacy and this important topic.

In Rinne’s book Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change, she brings three unique lenses to the topic of flux and constant change: those of a futurist, a global citizen, and a human who has experienced profound loss firsthand.16 Rinne’s mission is to help people develop a healthy relationship with change, and you could not have a better mentor. The first funeral Rinne attended in her life was, tragically, at age twenty after both of her parents were killed in an auto accident. After being thrown into flux by this event, she realized a deeper gratitude for being alive. “It is a gift and a privilege simply to be alive. All too often, we seem to forget this and see it as some kind of entitlement. Yes, we have a right to dignity, humanity, etc. but we don’t actually have any right to be alive, so to speak,” she wrote in a message following our interview, closing the sentiment by quoting Stephen Colbert: “It is a gift to exist, and with existence comes suffering.”17

Rinne returned to her passion for global development with a boomerang into law. She lived and worked all around the world, from the slums to the most advanced urban centers of the world. These diverse work and life experiences made her multilingual not just in the languages of word but in the languages of life. Rinne could explain to aspiring social entrepreneurs and venture capitalists the realities of the very context they sought to build business and invest in but which they all too often didn’t fully understand (to everyone’s detriment). Rinne’s book explains how you can unlock the agency you have with regard to the future by taking a deep, honest, and holistic internal look at your own relationship with change. By doing this internal work, we can see change as an opportunity, not a threat.

It is not that people do not like change, as is commonly said. Think about it—we continue buying new clothes, trying new hairstyles, driving new cars, upsizing, or downsizing homes, and so on. These are examples of controlled and anticipated changes (and many driven by consumerism). Anticipation is the key. Otherwise, we are reacting. What we are less comfortable with is anything we did not plan for—especially something we do not understand. Humans are hardwired to be focused on the present, for survival, constantly surveying our surroundings to form our best opinion on how to act.18 Rinne includes in her book how different cultures have a different way of dealing with change. Certainly, many in the West “are emotionally addicted to certainty,” explains futurist Amy Webb, founder of Future Today Institute.19 This natural anxiety about the uncertain future affects how we think.

When confronted with something unexpected, we compare what we see with our memories of the past, searching for times we faced a similar situation so that we might make sense of it—and all in a split second. Our reaction is informed by what we know and understand to be true. I admit my own relationship with change needs some work; my reactions to change varies, like the first reactions of toddlers to a jack-in-the-box toy—either total shock or pure delight (and sometimes a mix of both!).

Conceiving of the Future

Parents find it easy to imagine idyllic futures for their children, just as people excel at giving other people the same advice they themselves have trouble heeding. But because it is harder to imagine a future for oneself different than what is familiar, we dwell on decisions, procrastinate, and ignore obvious truths about our behaviors. People put off all sorts of things—going to the doctor regularly, investing in retirement, letting go of vices, or putting in the work on challenging relationships.20

Sometimes people turn to professionals, like motivational speakers Tony Robbins and Brene Brown, in search of fixes for the bugs in their human software, hoping to hack into a futures mindset that can conceive of something more, something better. When we don’t accomplish everything we want to, we beat ourselves up mentally because we have a fixed story about ourselves. Some of the techniques taught by life coaches are designed to essentially reprogram the brain, rewriting our personal story by rewiring it, using neurolinguistic programming. Coaches guide us to live more intentionally—that is, to influence our own futures with our actions of today. Most of us know exactly what we should do—eat well, exercise often, maintain strong relationships, contribute to society. But more often than not, we don’t follow through. Without a strong Why, it can be hard to source that motivation to change. Imagining a better future can help shine a light on and help us to articulate the Why.

Even with coaching, the cycle can sometimes continue to feed itself: plan to be “better,” eventually “fail,” and then admonish our efforts. Don’t give up—give yourself a little grace. When it comes to making life easier for our future selves, it is in part because it is hard for us to imagine who we will be. Science has shown that we think of our future selves as stra...