June 30 | How Crazies in the Past Might Have Described Our Present and How You Might Predict the Future
Thursday, June 30, 7:30 pm | Dialogue leader: Rick Casady
Mark & Elizabeth England's home at 1194 South 500 East in Salt Lake City.
Late-comers, please use the back door.
Discussion:
Imagine yourself living a century ago, making predictions about coming events. Who would have foreseen the Great Depression, hyperinflation, World War II, the nuclear era, the Cold War, the Civil Rights movement, the collapse of colonial empires, today's technological marvels, or the massive social upheaval which attended these? We invite you to read one author's descriptions (attributed to people associated with the Dada movement and Zürich, Switzerland in 1916) and share your observations about our wildly improbable present. We would also like your predictions about what significant events or trends will occur in the coming decades.
San Francisco native. Father, a veteran of the Big Red One and school teacher, had pioneer ancestry on maternal line (Parkers, Knowltons, Corays, Dusenberrys). Mother, a social worker and musician, had pioneer ancestry on paternal line (Walls, Josephsons, Hendriksensd from Sweden and Denmark). Grew up in San Jose, California. 5th of 6 children. We drove parents to early graves. Main family misfit (only registered Democrat, only divorced sibling). Professional student for many years, until death and incapacity of parents prompted pursuit of employment and marriage. Finally ended up with B.A. in German, M.L.S (Masters in Library Science), and M.A. in Comparative Literature (all from BYU). I sired three bright, aspiring children, and have grandchildren. Worked for many years for FamilySearch.org, Salt Lake City and County Library systems. Aspiring writer, researcher, and Weltverbesserer.
To explore:
Come prepared to have fun with this document that Rick produced:
Come prepared to have fun with this document that Rick produced:
- Futures studies as discipline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futures_studies
- Emerging technologies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerging_technologies
- List of predictions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions
- Partial list of apocalyptic predictions from the past:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dates_predicted_for_apocalyptic_events
Here is the document link for your perusal: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1xXecYcgwWRAm3JmyhNiX9VIX-k64gz3xH8ffVECdmQk/edit
ReplyDeleteHere is another group with related content: http://www.wfs.org/
ReplyDeleteIf anyone would like to offer their own descriptions of our day from the imagined perspective of someone from the past, please share. Somewhere, I recall someone writing a short story about what it would be like for Joseph Smith to visit a modern ward Sacrament meeting. Ideas like this are pregnant with possibilities.
ReplyDelete