This is the inaugural post of The Future Project blog.
This "barefoot futurist" blog will serve as an accessible, serious/not serious forum for discovery, speculation and lively discussion of possible futures.
Be warned, you may encounter what my former students would call "old stuff," which is also known as "history" or "the past."
And there may be some outta left-field observations that are only peripherally about the future. However, we'll try to keep irrelevancies to a minimum.
Today, billionaire hobbyists would have us believe that exile to Mars is the only future for humanity. They say we have no chance of saving ourselves from ourselves so we may as well give up. They may be right, but I doubt it.
In rebuttal, I offer "Earthrise," (above) the Christmas 1968 photo by Apollo 8 astronauts, presenting the planet with its first view of itself from another celestial body.
The photo presents the unity of all Earth's living things, the planet itself presented in a single image. We saw a world not defined by national borders or lines of conflict but as a single warm, beautiful blue planet, home to all of us. Some called it the beginning of the environmental movement.
Apollo 8 Astronaut Bill Anders said, "We set out to explore the moon and instead discovered the Earth."
Certainly we have a future in space, but is isn't the only future.
We've all heard it since we were kids - "You can't go out until you clean up your room!"
Humanity has made a hash of things in the last 300 years, true. But it isn't to0 late to turn things around - if we act.
So the future begins now.
Engage!