Whose future is it anyway?
This was the question posed by University of the Sunshine Coast History and Futures lecturer Dr Marcus Bussey when he visited Noosa U3A last Friday.
The answer was less clear cut.
“Futurism is about the process of inquiry, people coming up with strategic plans, finding the preferred one,” he said. But determining your future is difficult when thought processes are engineered, Dr Bussey claims.
“The way we think is caused by the culture we inhabit,” he said. “We are deeply cultural beings.
“If we play by the rules of today it’s the future of the elite.
“We need to fight our conditioning to become more who we are meant to be. If we’re passive it will always be someone else’s future.”
Looking at the past has long been a way to predict the future.
Looking at societies over time Dr Bussey pointed to the rise and fall of civilisations, often resulting from technological advances. Throughout history new technologies from the invention to the bow and arrow to the industrial revolution and the computer have changed society, advantaged some and disadvantaged others.
“Each time newer technologies appeared a whole way of life disappeared,” he said.
Dr Bussey challenged attendees to look at the world differently, to look beyond culture.
“Culture grew out of a need for collective security,” he said. “Rationality is a moving feast. It comes from assumptions about how the world works.
“The way the world runs privileges a certain group of people.”
The discussion was not designed to provide answers but raised questions rarely asked on the culture in which we live and our place in it.
