BEYOND KNOWLEDGE IS DRIVING AN AGE OF BY WILLIAM HALAL A Book Review
By Victor V. Motti
T
HE story behind this book is that
exclusively left or right viewpoint.
revolutions and revolutionized access to higher education. This puts him within
of a mature futurist, opening the
For example, he has a good faith in
doors into the possibility of global
an improved version of capitalism called
the integral futures tradition and close to
consciousness and maturity of human
collaborative enterprise, which is not
scholarship circles led by Ken Wilber and
civilization. Bill Halal is a leading and
surprising given his affiliation to a business
Richard Slaughter.
respected author and lifelong teacher
school in the US capital, Washington DC.
working in the field of futures studies and
Actually he believes that corporations,
clear. In terms of the methodology and the
has contributed consistently over many
despite their focus on the bottom line of
tradition that determines the assumptions
years to the quality of both methods and
profit, can indeed change and contribute
underlying the frameworks of his foresight,
content of foresight.
to the overall wellbeing of the society if
Halal follows primarily the empirical,
regulated by some sort of lean responsive
scientific, evidence-based, expert guided
book deals with a very important question:
government. They will continue to be
forecasting systems. This is one of the key
What is going to happen within the next
a fundamental source of cutting edge
contributions of his book. We are given a
few decades, and specifically until 2050, as
innovation which depending on the whole
somewhat rare opportunity to read from
a direct result of the ongoing Technology
planetary maturity and wisdom, will be
the output of a collective intelligence data
Revolution? Put it another way, what is the
either extremely useful or harmful.
management and analysis system that
Beyond Knowledge as the key title of his
nature and the characteristics of the next
On the other hand, even though raised a
Yet, his choice of the futures tradition is
draws on the professional insights of an
revolution and what we know about the
Catholic, he is embracing modern science
elite group of observers and analysts. It
transition period?
and spirituality and therefore is critical of
gives us key forecasts about the well-known
We are very fortunate to notice his
traditionalist and fundamentalist organized
trends related to the technology adoption
ideological position on the usual political
religions. The mental or spiritual revolution
rates on specific time horizons, with clearly
spectrum from the left to the right. Halal
and inner space transformation which
specified likelihood intervals and level
clarifies from the very beginning that
according to him will herald the age of
of uncertainty across diverse industrial
he supports centrist politics and does
consciousness, are evidently related to a
sectors such as energy and environment,
not approach the challenging task of
personal, secular experience and primarily
information technology, digital economy,
diagnosis of the global mega crisis from an
driven by the whole range of technology
manufacturing and robotics, medicine and
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HUMAN FUTURES
