Historian vs. Futurist on Human Progress

The Long Now Foundation's monthly series Seminars About Long-term Thinking
http://www.longnow.org/projects/seminars/

Niall Ferguson and Peter Schwartz debate
Historian vs. Futurist on Human Progress

Seminar hosted by Stewart Brand

Distinguished historian Ferguson and renowned futurist Schwartz disagree profoundly on the nature of human progress. Both use scenarios (called "counterfactual history" by Ferguson) to analyze how events play out. Ferguson wrote THE WAR OF THE WORLD (2006), a history of the violence that defined the 20th Century. Schwartz wrote THE ART OF THE LONG VIEW (1991), the standard text on scenario planning, and THE LONG BOOM (1999), on global prosperity in the 21st century. Both speakers regard history as highly contingent. The question is, contingent on what?

Monday, April 28th, 02008

Doors open 7:00pm, talk at 7:30pm lasting ~1.5 hours
Located at The Cowell Theater at Fort Mason Center
http://www.fortmason.org/directions/index.shtml

$10 suggested donation

We recommend you arrive early; priority seating is available for Members of Long Now.
https://secure.longnow.org/members/

There will be a reception at the Long Now Museum & Store following the Seminar.
http://www.longnow.org/contact/



For more information contact:
Danielle Engelman
Community Development Director
[email protected]
415.561.6582 x1


The Seminars About Long-term Thinking were started in 02003 to build a coherent, compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking, to help nudge civilization toward Long Now's goal of making long-term thinking automatic and common instead of difficult and rare.