Delphi: A brief look backward and forward Linstone, Harold A.; Turoff, Murray
Technological forecasting & social change,
11/2011, Letnik:
78, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In response to a request by the guest editors, we have set down our thoughts regarding the evolution of Delphi, beginning with our immersion in the subject in the late 1960s and concluding with some ...rumination about its future. Our focus is on the changing roles of Delphi. Most importantly, with the profound impact of the internet on organizational and community planning systems, it will foster a new age of participation through communication, coordination, and collaboration.
Technology has molded the industrial and information societies and will mold the molecular society of the future. The latter will encompass nanotechnology, biotechnology, and materials science. It ...will also lead to unprecedented convergence in the sciences and technologies. This discussion considers the unique impacts on technological forecasting and foresight accompanying each of the three societies.
Joseph Coates, an outstanding American futurist, passed away on Oct 16, 2014, in Washington, DC. As Coates was considered an original and stimulating thinker, the journal Technological Forecasting ...and Social Change (TFSC) invited him to share his ideas in a column from volume 38, in 1990 to volume 75 in 2008 (numbered 01 to 41) under the title From My Perspective. The columns present startling thinking that raises surprising issues and recognizes the need for innovative means to deal with the problems of the 21st century. Although Coates begins with an optimistic view of the new world being created, he warns people that democracy in America confronts a darkening future. The astounding evolution of telecommunications and transportation is creating a truly global society with unprecedented complexity. He strongly denounces the self proclaimed and distorted role that economics has insisted on in dealing with science and technology.
•Although previously noted, this trend prompts further comments.•Team research, politics, and growing system complexity bear this out.•Using Perrow’s classification of complexity suggests system ...simplifications.•Stronger crisis management and greater systemic redundancy also help.•These offer promising paths to deal with complexity overload and mismatched subsystems.
The pattern of basic innovation clustering associated with Kondratieff long wave downswings raises questions when we consider the 4th downswing. There is increasing concern expressed that we may be ...facing “innovation starvation” or “innovation stagnation”. Among the questions: Is the internet a cluster of one? Or should the smartphone, ipad, Facebook, icloud, etc. be considered basic rather than improvement innovations as well because of their huge societal impact? Is the long wave pattern exhibited for the past two hundred years continuing or is it breaking down?
