(Anticipation Science 4.) Poli, Roberto - Valerio, Marco - Anticipation, Agency and Complexity (2019, Springer)

Anticipation Science 4
Roberto Poli
Marco Valerio Editors
Anticipation,
Agency and
Complexity
Anticipation Science
Volume 4
Editor-in-chief
Roberto Poli, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
Anticipation Science encompasses natural, formal, and social systems that
intentionally or unintentionally use ideas of a future to act in the present, with a
broad focus on humans, institutions, and human-designed systems. Our aim is to
enhance the repertoire of resources for developing ideas of the future, and for
expanding and deepening the ability to use the future. Some questions that the
Series intends to address are the following: When does anticipation occur in
behavior and life? Which types of anticipation can be distinguished? Which
properties of our environment change the pertinence of different types of
anticipation? Which structures and processes are necessary for anticipatory action?
Which is the behavioral impact of anticipation? How can anticipation be modeled?
The series is interested in receiving book proposals that:

• are aimed at an academic audience of graduate level and up
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especially from disciplines within the human and social sciences broadly
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More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15713

Roberto Poli • Marco Valerio
Editors
Anticipation, Agency
and Complexity
Editors
Roberto Poli Marco Valerio
Department of Sociology PhD Student, University of New South Wales
and Social Research Sydney, Australia
University of Trento
Trento, Italy
ISSN 2522-039X ISSN 2522-0403 (electronic)

Anticipation Science
ISBN 978-3-030-03622-5 ISBN 978-3-030-03623-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03623-2
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Preface
In a world which is moving increasingly fast, constantly on the verge of disruptive

events, more and more professionals and scholars in any field feel the need for new
approaches to make sense of the complexity and uncertainty that the future seems to
bear. Originating from that need, the theory of anticipation tries to give a wider
understanding of the reciprocal influence of future and present, describing how
possible futures may be intrinsically intertwined with the present. In April 2017,
the University of Trento, in Northern Italy, hosted the Second International Confer-
ence on Anticipation. The event gathered some of the most renowned experts of
future studies who, during 3 days of engaging discussions, deepened the knowledge
of the discipline, further developing its theoretical framework. This book aims to
share some of the best contributions of the workshop, bringing to light the important
insights that emerged during the workshop.
The work is structured in 11 chapters. Given the transversal importance of the
topic, the contributions belong to a wide variety of fields, linked together by the three
guiding concepts of the event: agency, complexity and anticipation. In Chap. 1,
Roberto Poli, UNESCO Chair of Anticipatory Systems and main host of the event in
Trento, states two core questions that represent the leitmotif of the volume: how
novelty can be explored, and what processes or approaches can lead to better
decision-making. The prolific scholar then analyses four different aspects of antic-
ipation, namely, best practices, evidence-based policies, innovation and value crea-
tion and pragmatic utopias, claiming that the latter represent the internal driver of
innovation.
The next chapters discuss specific issues related to the questions posed by Poli.
The second contribution examines possible strategies that can enhance future
awareness to influence the ‘living futures’ embedded in the present and presents
three domains that may be able to increase our anticipation of possible futures:
mindfulness, aesthetic and spontaneity.
In Chap. 3, Zaborowski questions the limited debate on multilayeredness in
anticipation, despite its potential as a promising paradigm. After describing the
thoughts of several distinguished philosophers, the author identifies three axes of
v
vi Preface
multilayeredness of anticipation and thus generates six important criteria of

distinction.
Chapter 4 describes how social forecasting, in its expression as self-defeating
processes, should obtain a valuable position within sociology. In fact, as Sabetta
states, self-defeating processes have the potential to reconcile public sociology and
the epistemologically based one, both inevitably concerned with future, anticipation
and prediction.
In Chap. 5, Heinonen and Karjalainen discuss the role of pioneers as drivers of the
future, claiming the emancipatory effect of pioneering actions and their function as
leverage points for broader changes. Moreover, the two Finnish scholars address
how policies can support pioneers willing to be positive shapers of society and to
enable desirable futures to be achieved.
In Chap. 6, Paura suggests the use of existential risk to anticipate the long-term
impacts of scientific and technological progress. According to the author, it is more
adequate than the obsolete precautionary principle. In addition, Paura describes the
origins of the concept of existential risk and the research activities of the three major
international centres working with it.
In Chap. 7, Alvarez-Pereira claims that information and communication technol-
ogies (ICTs) have so far had a negative impact on the overall sustainability of current
social, economic and environmental behaviours, despite the predominant positive
anticipations of their impact as drivers of human progress. The evidence exposed
suggests the need for a more complex anticipatory framework of the interplay
between science, technology and society, in order to increase the usefulness of
digital tech for life as a whole.
Caiati, Quinti and d’Andrea point their attention to what they define as one of the
main challenges that our societies will have to face in the near future: the paradigm
shift toward the so-called low-carbon society. Starting from the observations on
90 anticipatory experiences of communities in 19 European countries, conducted
within the framework of the European Commission’s MILESECURE-2050 research
project, the three researchers investigate how the anticipatory features of the studied
communities generated marked changes not only in the energy system but also in the
local social system and in individual behaviours.
In Chap. 9, Fanzini and Rotaru address the increasing role of anticipation
practices in the built environment field to deal with its growing complexity and
unpredictability. The contribution illustrates some possible applications of
anticipative processes to face contemporary issues of built environment regenera-
tion, such as sustainable development, strategic planning, creativity and major
events. The analysis of some methodological aspects is then followed by an exercise
of anticipation on major events, conceived as a support for urban regeneration.
In Chap. 10, Fiorini postulates that society is an arbitrary complex multiscale
system of purposive agents and actors ongoing continuous change. Given the
ineffectiveness of the traditional top-down optimization of hierarchical systems,
the author proposes a solution to the problem of social multiscale ontological
uncertainty management in any system scale, from single quantum system to full
system governance, strategic assessment policies and beyond.
Preface vii
Chapter 11 discusses a possible approach to manage emerging risks and oppor-

tunities for strategic purposes in increasingly uncertain and complex conditions. To
avoid compartmental views and therefore overcome the focus on single parts, the
authors propose a theoretical framework generated by the combination of fuzzy logic
with other models such as decision trees and artificial neural networks.
As for many concepts in physics, anticipation cannot be directly observed but
only discussed and conceived from multiple perspectives. Thus, the variety of
aspects addressed in the book can be compared to the stars of a constellation:
alone, they may offer specific insights. Conversely, if taken together, they can lead
the reader to envision a bigger picture.
Trento, Italy Roberto Poli

Sydney, Australia Marco Valerio
Contents
1 Pragmatic Utopias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Roberto Poli
2 The Role of Mindsets and Attitudes in Determining Future
Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Marco Valerio
3 Multilayeredness of Anticipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Robert Zaborowski
4 Self-Defeating Prophecies: When Sociology Really Matters . . . . . . . 51
Lorenzo Sabetta
5 Pioneer Analysis as a Futures Research Method for Analysing
Transformations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Sirkka Heinonen and Joni Karjalainen
6 The Notion of Existential Risk and Its Role for the Anticipation
of Technological Development’s Long-Term Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Roberto Paura
7 Anticipations of Digital Sustainability: Self-Delusions,
Disappointments and Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Carlos Alvarez-Pereira
8 Energy Transition, Anticipation and Change: A Study on the
Anticipatory Experiences of the Low Carbon Society . . . . . . . . . . . 121
Giovanni Caiati, Gabriele Quinti, and Luciano d’Andrea
9 Anticipative Processes in the Regeneration of Built Environment
Through Major Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Daniele Fanzini and Irina Rotaru
ix
x Contents
10 A Strategic Proposal for the New Society: Surviving and

Flourishing from Chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Rodolfo A. Fiorini
11 Managing Emerging Risks in Strategic Scenarios of Uncertainty
and Complexity: A Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Liliana Cavatorta and Gianluca Rosso
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Contributors
Carlos Alvarez-Pereira Innaxis Foundation & Research Institute, Madrid, Spain

Giovanni Caiati Knowledge and Innovation – K&I, Rome, Italy
Liliana Cavatorta Reputational and Emerging Risk Observatory, Unipol Gruppo,
Bologna, Italy
Luciano d’Andrea Knowledge and Innovation – K&I, Rome, Italy
Daniele Fanzini Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction
Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milano, Italy
Rodolfo A. Fiorini Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering
(DEIB), Politecnico di Milano University, Milano, Italy
Sirkka Heinonen Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC), University of Turku,
Helsinki, Finland
Joni Karjalainen Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC), University of Turku,
Helsinki, Finland
Roberto Paura Italian Institute for the Future, Naples, Italy
University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
Roberto Poli Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento,
Trento, Italy
Gabriele Quinti Knowledge and Innovation – K&I, Rome, Italy
xi
xii Contributors
Gianluca Rosso Reputational and Emerging Risk Observatory, Unipol Gruppo,

Bologna, Italy
Irina Rotaru President Cities on the Move, Bucharest, Romania
Lorenzo Sabetta University of Columbia/Missouri, Columbia, USA
Marco Valerio PhD Student, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Robert Zaborowski University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Olsztyn, Poland
Chapter 1
Pragmatic Utopias
Roberto Poli
Abstract Four different aspects of the anticipation, agency, and complexity conun-
drum are analyzed: best practices, evidence-based policies, innovation and value
creation, and pragmatic utopias. These four aspects are arranged according to their
level of simplicity and contentiousness, from the simple and less contentious to the
complex and highly contentious, and are related to decision-making. Although the
connection is overly explicit for best practices, evidence-based policies, and inno-
vation and value creation, it may appear less straightforward for utopias. This
chapter frames utopia as the internal driver of innovation, as the sense-making
process internal to decision-making that is able to keep it open.
Keywords Best practice · Evidence-based politics · Innovation · Value creation ·

Utopia · Complexity
1.1 Introduction
As explained by Poli (2017) and other authors, I see futures studies structured into
three main levels: forecast, foresight, and anticipation. As regards the last two levels,
the leading questions behind them are as follows:
• How does one explore/understand/prepare for novelties?
• How does one choose one’s course of action?
These questions demonstrate one way of understanding the difference between
foresight and anticipation. This understanding is grounded in the interplay between
the explorative (foresight) and the normative (anticipation) stances. The difference
between explorative and normative is sometimes used to distinguish among
methods, as when it is claimed that strategic scenarios are explorative, and
backcasting is normative. This is a different understanding of the explorative/
R. Poli (*)
Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
e-mail: roberto.poli@unitn.it
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1

R. Poli, M. Valerio (eds.), Anticipation, Agency and Complexity, Anticipation
Science 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03623-2_1
2 R. Poli
normative distinction. The latter case subsumes the difference between forward
methods (from the present to the future, therefore explorative) and backward
methods (from the future to the present, and therefore normative). However, nor-
mative methods can be used descriptively when exploited to understand and visu-
alize (therefore describe) the paths linking the present and future. This is only one of
the infelicities besetting the discussion of future-based methods. I return to these
issues in another report (Poli 2018).
In this chapter I analyze four different aspects of the anticipation, agency, and
complexity conundrum, namely:
• Best practices
• Evidence-based policies
• Innovation and value creation
• Pragmatic utopias
These four aspects are arranged according to their level of simplicity and con-
tentiousness, from the simple and less contentious to the complex and highly
contentious. Note that I take the simple/complex opposition as absolute (something
is either simple or complex, without intermediate degrees) (Poli 2013b). On the other
hand, contentiousness comes in degrees. Therefore, the above-listed four cases
should be understood as follows:
• Best practice: simple; low contentiousness
• Evidence-based policy: simple; intermediate contentiousness
• Innovation: complex; intermediate contentiousness
• Pragmatic utopias: complex; high contentiousness
1.2 Best Practices
As often said, and for obvious reasons, best practices are always past practices. The
expression “best practice” refers to the best that can be done given conditions that are
already known. I do not claim at all that best practices are irrelevant or should be
easily dismissed. Best practices can greatly improve the capacity and efficiency of
many organizations and communities adopting old-fashioned or dysfunctional
frameworks. However, best practices present a hidden side of which one should be
aware. Best practices also constrain and may become dysfunctional when new
situations arise. In highly uncertain situations, best practices may suggest a kind of
“business as usual” attitude – we have to change, we know that, but we already know
how to change by looking at what others have already done. In this sense, best
practices may become a form of socially constructed ignorance by obstructing the
exploration, discovery, and testing of new practices potentially better suited to new
challenges. In other words, real novelties may require the adoption of a fully-fledged
experimental attitude, and best practices may obstruct the systematic adoption of an
experimental attitude.
1 Pragmatic Utopias 3
1.3 Evidence-Based Policy
Like best practices, evidence-based policy (EBP) may also induce a form of socially
constructed ignorance, generating substantial over-simplifications of the relevant
problems (Rayner 2012). For an extensive analysis of the limits of EBP, see Saltelli
and Giampietro (2017).
Evidence-based policy arises from confounding risk with uncertainty. Risks
allow a probability calculation; uncertainties do not. The incalculability of uncer-
tainties may depend on various factors, such as the unavailability of relevant
information. However, wholly uncertain events are such that no increase in available
information will allow their treatment as risks. The uncertainty of uncertain events is
structural and does not depend on lacking or missing information. Accordingly, I
distinguish uncertainty arising from incomplete knowledge (epistemic uncertainty)
from uncertainty inherent in the system (ontological uncertainty). The former is a
type of risk; the latter is uncertainty proper. Risk and uncertainty pertain to two
different classes of events, and there is an uncrossable boundary between them
(Furlanetto and Poli 2018). Almost all future events are uncertain, in the sense
specified. Put otherwise, only a tiny number of future events are susceptible to
probability assessments.
The production of evidence for policy mitigates uncertainty by trading it for risk.
The main issue here is whether the underlying mathematics is properly used or is
applied beyond its limits of validity. The problem is related to how mathematics is
used to tame uncertainty to produce evidence for policy (Derbyshire 2017;
Furlanetto and Poli 2018; Saltelli and Funtowicz 2014).
I now outline the four main components of EBP to clarify the underlying
problem.
As a rule, an EBP exercise (a) includes quantification (e.g., through risk assess-
ments and cost-benefit analyses), (b) is aimed at optimizing one among a set of
options, (c) corresponds to a single framing, (d) of the issue under consideration.
The dangerous aspects embedded in EBP exercises become more explicit on
reading the four above-mentioned components the other way round, the main
constraint being the single framing of the problem at hand. Almost by definition,
the single view of the problem precludes alternative views. These alternative views
become “uncomfortable knowledge” (Rayner 2012) and are dismissed from policy
consideration. EBP may then generate a dramatic simplification of possibly available
perceptions by neglecting, for instance, the world views of legitimate stakeholders.
As a consequence, this way of using the “scientific” method generates controversies
and erodes trust (Saltelli and Giampietro 2017).
Furthermore, the simplification of the space of possible frames by removing
alternative views may exclude viable options from the analysis, engendering the
decreased adaptability of the system.
An alternative strategy is to explicitly accept the simultaneous use of
non-equivalent frames working on different (temporal and spatial) scales from
different viewpoints. These exercises are often less tidy and polished than standard
4 R. Poli
EBP exercises. This is not necessarily a bad outcome. As Rayner notes: one should
try to use “unshared epistemological or ethical principles” in a way that is “satisfying
rather than optimizing” (Rayner 2012).
Different frames of analysis should be developed before quantification. The ways
in which frames are constructed and data selected should be carefully analyzed. The
aim is to generate a wide set of frames: (a) exploring different viewpoints (using
different lenses through which to perceive the problem and who is involved), (b) on
different temporal and spatial scales, to, (c) develop a socially robust universe of
possible frames (ensuring that all stakeholders have their share).
Once different frames have been generated, they may be filtered according to a
variety of criteria. Frames can be dismissed that are not:
• Achievable – capable of being established in practice.
• Viable – capable of withstanding the test of time.
• Desirable – compatible with normative considerations relevant to the system’s
actors (e.g., by mitigating adverse consequences) (Saltelli and Giampietro 2017;
Wright 2010, pp. 13–14).
Strategically, the plurality of frames helps to make visible otherwise silenced
sources of conflict. This “conflict of frames” is best understood as being among
different models of belief that can interact either destructively or constructively (Poli
2016). The outcome depends on how the actors conceive power as either a zero-sum
game (if you win I lose, and vice versa) or a positive-sum game (we win/lose
together).
Those who view power as a zero-sum game adopt strategies associated with
imposing their will. Although this may be appropriate in certain contexts, it scores
poorly as a path to an actual conversation. Conversely, with positive-sum games,
actors can conceive power as a dynamic resource available to all of them to enable
cooperative and productive relations.
To develop anticipation in asymmetric conflicts, one must understand not only
what the narratives are, but also how they interact – constructively or destructively –
to form new ones. Only strategies associated with win-win frameworks are likely to
be productive in shaping others’ narratives.
The idea of moving from single to multiple frames closely reproduces the passage
from forecast to foresight. In this sense, frames may be understood as scenarios,
which in turn implies that the futurists’ extensive experience with scenarios can be
exploited to generate multiple frames.
1.4 Innovation and Value Creation
To address the innovation and value creation issue, it is helpful to return to the
former issue and ask again: why develop multiple frames? Apart from paving the
way for more robust decisions by giving voice to all the stakeholders involved and
developing win-win strategies, multiple frames enhance the understanding of inno-

vation and value creation.
The passage from the first to the second modernization brought about by tech-
nological changes and social acceleration shows that new patterns of innovation and
value creation are emerging (Rosa 2013; Tuomi 2013). The transition from the
industrial to a service economy model, many growing technological developments,
social changes such as those related to ageing and the present “experimentation”
with different family patterns, climate and environmental changes, the global spread
of cities: these are but some of the most visible changes shaping the present era. They
all bring novelties and reshape values. Many if not most of these new forms of
innovation and value production are largely undetectable or even invisible to
existing economic indicators and policy instruments (Tuomi 2013).
On taking account of these various drivers of change, innovation can best be
understood as the realization of latent and emergent value (Tuomi 2013). This is
certainly an unconventional definition. However, one of its merits is the thesis that
many changes are presently invisible because we still use indicators optimized for
industrial – that is, obsolete – forms of value production.
Present innovations are more understandable in the context of the theory of
anticipation (Poli 2017). The move from a reactive stance to an anticipatory one
shows that innovation concerns creating (anticipating) changes and not merely a
reaction to changes that have already occurred. Moreover, innovative actors often
operate in the context of shared ideas of the future (including preferred futures).
According to anticipation theory, the future includes both extrapolation from
trends (forecast) and exploration of possible futures (foresight), but it is not limited
to these. Anticipation helps to move from a static understanding of the future as
something that is there, to a process-based understanding of the future as something
that can be generated or consumed by our deeds. In this sense, the future becomes a
problem of modifying and eventually expanding our capacity to act. Therefore, the
issue of designing, implementing, and testing new futures comes to the fore.
The connection between innovation and social practice warrants a brief discus-
sion. Most technologies enter the market with pre-established modes of use. How-
ever, the social practices that arise around them may change their meaning by adding
new unexpected uses or not exploiting some of their capacities. In this regard, the
history of phones and text messaging as analyzed by (Tuomi 2002) is exemplary.
What matters more for us is that unintended uses may channel the evolution of the
product in new, very different directions. Novel, creative uses may articulate needs
that did not exist before their emergence.
This means that technologies come into the world only half-made; they are
completed by social practice. The same product can be used in different ways, and
the same functional use may be based on different products. When social practices
change, new aspects of the same product may emerge, new potentialities arise, and
innovation occurs.
Any given product may be “used in unanticipated ways, and perhaps no one uses
it the way its designers expected it to be used.” In other words, “In a very funda-
mental sense, it is the user who invents the product” (Tuomi 2002, p. 10).
6 R. Poli
As soon as we shift our focus from technological to social innovations, the

situation changes in the sense that most social innovations are emergent, ephemeral,
and rapidly vanish; they correspond to what futurists call “weak signals” (Poli
2013a). Emergent signals are stabilized and in time they may even become institu-
tionalized. The problem arises of what may eventually stabilize emergents; that is,
what are the catalysts able to stabilize new, ephemeral social innovations?
For interacting agents, the activities of accepting and stabilizing emergents are
based on values (Fuller and Moran 2000, 2001; Fuller et al. 2004, 2006). “Value” is
used here in a broad sense to include any kind of value – ethical, aesthetic, economic,
etc. – whatever is for any reason deemed “good, ” “right, ” “cool, ” or “ok. ” The
claim, therefore, is that values are the stabilizers for emerging new behaviors and
processes. The role performed by values as stabilizers of emergents explains why the
violation of behavioral patterns tends to be perceived as a normative violation, and
not just as a breach of abstract or conventional patterns.
The next step is based on the concept of the “innovative landscape.” Innovative
landscapes are shaped by the values shared by the community sustaining that
landscape. These values usually compete with those of other landscapes/communi-
ties. Even within functional subsystems (say the economy, or technology) dominant
values may change – such as the leading patterns of values of an industrial-based
economy as opposed to the patterns of a service-based economy. This is precisely the
situation from which we started.
Linkages between actors are produced in a process of mutual co-evolution
forming communities of practice. Communities have a history and are stabilized
by shared values. The resulting ecosystem creates (momentary) stability, reduces
uncertainty, and shapes anticipation (what next?). However, interactions among
actors generate variations of previous behaviors, and even utterly new behaviors.
As a result, new emergents continuously arise. Some of them are appropriated by the
community of users (eventually by other communities), grow, and become new,
stable behavioral patterns.
Different communities may and usually do have different ideas about what is a
valuable way of doing and being. However, this makes sense only if we recognize
and accept that being different is a valuable way of doing and being.
Innovations are not always positive. What distinguishes a positive from a nega-
tive innovation? The hypothesis that I wish to discuss is whether (under what
conditions) win-win strategies should be preferred to win-lose strategies. If it proves
correct that in complex situations, win-win strategies usually yield better results than
win-lose strategies, we have a criterion to use.
1.5 Pragmatic Utopia
To date, the connections between futures studies and utopia studies have been poor.
For some information see Poli (2017). Before continuing, it is mandatory to specify
that the idea of utopia as an intrinsically dysfunctional effort is a narrative born in the
1940s, for obvious historical reasons. Notable references are Mannheim (1979),
Popper (1945), and von Hayek (1944). For details, see Levitas (2014). The idea of
utopia underlying their works is very different from the idea of utopia that one finds
in contemporary utopian literature. Today, no serious scholar of utopia would claim
that utopias are aimed at the perfect society, or that utopian thinkers do not have a
sense of human limitations. Before further deepening our discussion of utopias, it is
important to understand that utopias come in two major variants, which may be
termed the “right” and the “left” understanding of utopias. Given that according to
many, “left” and “right” are losing their traditional meaning, it is perhaps better to
distinguish between utopias of order (the right variant) and utopias of freedom (the
left variant) (Bloch 1995). Plato’s Republic, Campanella’s City of the Sun, and Saint
Simon’s centralized organization are examples of utopias of order. Euhemerus’
Sacred History, More’s Utopia, and Owen’s federative organization are examples
of utopias of freedom.
The idea of utopias as a blueprint is naturally closer to utopias of order. On the
other hand, there is no need for utopias of freedom to be understood as a blueprint –
and therefore the concretization of any one utopia of freedom is not an issue.
Similarly, utopias of order tend to become static and therefore bent on conveying
a sense of perfection and thus a feeling of the end of history. Utopias of freedom, on
the other hand, are primarily focused on processes, not end-points. Therefore, they
primarily value difference, not perfection. The aim of a utopia of freedom is not to
achieve a state of human perfection – but to develop the ability to see things
differently and eventually to arrange society differently (Vieira 2010).
It may be added that learning to see the future as different from the present – that
is, as not following the logic of “more of the same” – is the first step toward
becoming a futurist. From this point of view, futures studies have a natural connec-
tion with utopia studies. Complementarily, the “more of the same” attitude becomes
the anti-utopian stance par excellence.
The aims of utopia are to educate to desire, to generate new visions and new
patterns of desire, and to learn to desire differently. Within the three-layer model of
futures studies, this means that utopia is closer to anticipation than to foresight.
Utopias of freedom are horizons, things that by definition are never achievable,
but that give sense to what we do. Hence, a utopia is a making-sense, a motivating,
process. Consider the idea of justice – it is unlikely that human societies will ever
achieve perfect justice. Nevertheless, the idea of justice works as a motivating force:
a situation characterized by a higher level of justice is preferable to a situation with a
lower level of justice. The same can be applied to many other value-bound terms:
happiness, fairness, respect, care, etc. Philosophically speaking, the connection
between ideal beings (Plato’s discovery) and the logic of preference (Brentano)
raises profound ontological issues that I cannot address in this chapter (Poli 2006,
2009, 2010a, b, 2011).
8 R. Poli
1.6 Conclusion
The four issues mentioned in this chapter, in addition to the issue of anticipation, are
all related to decision-making. Although the connection is overly explicit for best
practices, evidence-based policies, and innovations, the connection may appear less
straightforward for utopia. In Sect. 5 utopia was framed as a component of decision-
making.
Innovation and utopia share the same basis: both require interaction and commu-
nities of practice; both frame desire; both are value-laden. Finally, both work in the
present and hint at new future possibilities. Given all these similarities, what
distinguishes innovation from utopia? Apart from any other aspects, I propose the
idea that utopia works as the internal driver of innovation. Utopia should therefore be
taken as the sense-making process internal to decision-making that is able to keep
it open.
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Chapter 2
The Role of Mindsets and Attitudes
in Determining Future Awareness
Marco Valerio
Abstract The way we perceive time has changed across the centuries. Some authors
suggest that the dynamic complexity of the current world and its intrinsic uncertainty
have loosened and modified the bonds among past, present and future. The present
has extended and has become “thick” (Poli, On the Horizon 23(2): 85–99, 2015),
while we seem to lack the necessary social skills to face the future from
nondeterministic perspectives. Analysing the relationship between future and pre-
sent, I claim that an active attitude towards the present can help us to foresight the
future. Three domains may offer useful hints to evade from our short-sighted view:
mindfulness, aesthetic and spontaneity. Moreover, several studies show that we can
improve our forecasting ability applying specific precautions and changing our
mindset. The paper will then discuss further strategies that can enhance future
awareness and influence the “living futures” (Adam B, Groves C, Future matters.
Action, knowledge, ethics. Brill: Leiden, 2007, p. 198) embedded in the present.
Keywords Futures studies · Thick present · Future Literacy · Reframing ·

Mindfulness · Aesthetic · Creativity · Predictive markets · Present · Future · Living
futures · Superforecasters
2.1 Thick Present and Future Unawareness
Hodgson suggests that the complex multidimensional world we deal with may
require to reframe our everyday understanding of time (Hodgson 2017). Coherently
with this view, several scholars are converging to the idea that present, rather than
being a non-dimensional interface between past and future, is a temporal space with
duration and depth, where different structures overlap (Poli 2011; Hodgson 2017).
Poli defines this concept “thick present”, which is “the locus where things that may
develop in many different ways begin to bent one way or another” (Poli 2013). The
present finds its frames in what we experience as contemporaneous, for instance, the
M. Valerio (*)
PhD Student, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

12 M. Valerio
length of a legislature, the fashion trends of a specific season or the course of a sport
event. Different “presents” become different units, linked to each other in a sequen-
tial order, like natural seasons. Sequences of units constitute simple forms of
rhythms whose visibility, speed and reciprocity can vary. As Poli points out,
The seeds of the future are present not only in our expectations but also in the variety of
natural and social rhythms that are reality itself – and perhaps especially in those that are less
easily accessible. (Poli 2013)
The multiple layers that structure the thick present can be visible or latent
according to their level of embeddedness (Poli 2017).
While psychological present has a limited duration, estimated around hundreds of
msec. (Dainton 2010), social forms of the present can vary markedly, from a few
seconds to a few centuries. The present is bonded to some form of experienced
(or narrated) past and to the anticipation of some aspects of the future (Poli 2010).
Contemporary societies have great competence and capacity to produce futures,
but are not able to estimate the effects and the potential reach of their actions,
especially in sociotechnical domains. Therefore, knowledge of such futures can
only be shallow, and responsibility for the future is often kept outside the frame of
concern (Adam and Groves 2007, prologue). Change is the mantra of capitalist
societies and those who are not able to adapt to a fast-pacing environment risk to be
left behind (Adam and Groves 2007, p. 1). Stability and permanence, once wide-
spread goals, do not seem bearable anymore. Even though these dynamics may
suggest the need of an attentive and receptive attitude towards the future, the thick
present seems to instil a sense of continuity: consequently, the likelihood of disrup-
tive events is underestimated. In Italy, for instance, despite a progressive reduction
of the basic pension system, the dimension of integrative pension funds is markedly
inferior to both international levels and government’s expectations (Ambrosetti
2013). According to the Commissione di vigilanza sui fondi pensione (Pension
funds Supervisory commission), the number of adherents in 2015 were 7.2 million,
which corresponds to 24.2% of the total number of the employed (Colombo and lo
Conte 2016). The percentage is minimal, considering that the result is widely given
by the recent increase in the number of building contractors, who are automatically
subscribed to integrative pension funds. Moreover, in the last year 1.8 million people
interrupted the payment of contributions, equal to around 25% of the subscribers
(Colombo and Conte 2016). The present, with its expanded dimension, seems to
frame concerns within a limited horizon, leaving the unmanageable unpredictability
and complexity of the future outside its fence. The only part of life conceived is the
fragment within the thick present, and gratification in that temporal frame becomes
the main priority. As a by-product of dynamism, complexity and uncertainty of the
capitalist and technological society emerge a subjectivity that Zygmunt Bauman
characterizes as “sensation-gatherer” (Bauman 1997, p. 147), which brings dissat-
isfaction, narcissism, impulsivity and spontaneity (Hayward 2007). In the attempt to
cope with the challenges that the new perspective brings, people may enact “risorial
and carnevalesque actions”, “games for the sake of the game” or “risk for the sake of
the risk” (Asmolov 2016).
2 The Role of Mindsets and Attitudes in Determining Future Awareness 13
According to Poli, “The connection between novelty and the present means that
novelty includes both futures and pasts, as both of them are constitutive components
of the (thick) present. Differently nuanced novelties result from different mixtures
among their past and future components” (Poli 2015). Jameson notes how, in the
past, identity was “the effect of a certain temporal unification of past and future with
one’s present”, but current society determines the inability “to unify the past,
present, and future of our own biographical experience or psychic life” (Jameson
1991, p. 26). With the following “breakdown of the signifying chain”, personal
experience acquires schizophrenic connotations, and it is reduced to “a series of pure
and unrelated presents in time” (Jameson 1991, p. 26). For Asmolov, modernity
causes the “syndrome of contemporary”, which implies personal and cognitive
dissonance. Despite the efforts, “a contemporary inevitably fails to catch up with
the escaping day” and experience fear, stress and neuroticism caused by the
nonlinearity and immensity of the present (Asmolov 2016). The processes of
adaptation, seeking homeostasis and survival, lose their importance, while risk,
previously considered a black swan in the evolutionary process (Asmolov 2016),
becomes a form of life, a usual practice embedded in some contexts and for some
organizations (Asmolov 2016; Giddens 1990; Sztompka 1994). According to Har-
vey, “The immediacy of events, the sensationalism of the spectacle (political,
scientific, military, as well as those of entertainment), become the stuff of which
consciousness is forged” (Harvey 1990, p. 54). The future, as well as the present,
covers subordinate roles, and the idea of postponement and saving for an expected
future loses any relevance (Hayward 2007).
Various behavioural elements may contribute to the mechanisms behind these
processes. Firstly, many of us implicitly tend to believe that negative events are more
likely to happen to others rather than to us. Therefore, future remains a blurred place
with a positive connotation, in continuity with sequential presents (Kahneman and
Tversky 1977; Shepperd et al. 2013) Secondly, time discounting makes us more
prone to prefer immediate gratification over future utility (Weber and Johnson 2009;
Frederick et al. 2002). We tend to overestimate future emotional consequences of
decisions that delay pleasure, and thus the price to pay for present choices may seem
too high (Wilson and Gilbert 2005; Kahneman and Tahler 2006). Kassam et al.
suggest that people prefer to pay costs in the future and enjoy benefits in the present
mainly because they are not able to determine what they will feel when benefits and
costs are actually experienced (Kassam et al. 2008).
For Adam and Groves (2007), the unrestrained pervasiveness of information and
communication technology (ICT) has compressed duration to zero and made present
spatially ubiquitous all over the globe. Instantaneity and simultaneity have become
the features of the globalized present, and intensity has taken over from extensity.
Notwithstanding the incremental acceleration and speed, what has scattered certainty
the most is the loss of causality and sequence and the consequent absence of
reference points. Furthermore, the future leaves “its embodied and embedded posi-
tion in socio-economic, political and socio-environmental processes and events”
(Adam and Groves 2007, p. 12) and once emptied becomes unbounded, unlimited
and indeterminate, open to colonization and transversal (Adam and Groves 2007,
14 M. Valerio
pp. 34–36,101). Moreover, “the usual, primarily local, order of causal dependences
recedes into the background and contributes less and less to sense-making efforts”
(Poli 2015).
Bussey (2001) uses tea bags as a suggestive allegory of how our relation with the
future has evolved. As tealeaves stored in bags, timesaving devices, improvements
and systems of our current world would potentially help us to save our energy from
daily chores and to invest it in “higher-order tasks”. Yet, the “progress” “has
corroded our sense of time and self. Its very accessibility has been an affirmation
that the here and now – the absolute present – is the moment of ultimate power.
Instant gratification becomes an end in itself” (Bussey 2001, p. 451–452). This
accidental shift has great implications on how we relate to the future, and, together
with globalization, it make us lose contact with the space-time continuum:
Tomorrow will take care of itself and can be trusted to behave just as the tea bag itself
behaves with regular, clean, effective good sense. Relativism and economy of time and scale
transcend all else while giving us the misguided sense that we are part of a global village. In
the tea bag, our cultural amnesia is complete. (Bussey 2001, p. 452)
Besides, the tea bag metaphor represents the difficulty of Western cultures to
identify higher-order meaning, which makes universal values such as time, relation-
ship, tradition and reflective space tradable. Futures become pure exchange values
(Poli 2015), a commodity that can be calculated, sold and exploited (Adam and
Groves 2007, p.10) for ephemeral and disposable artefacts (Bussey 2001). The idea
that futures can be known, labelled, priced and traded leads to consider their
uncertainty as a part of “systemic risk” (extending Knight’s definition outside its
initial domain), when in fact it is not, as their probabilities, impact and boundaries
are unknown (Ramirez and Ravetz 2011).
2.2 The Role of Present Awareness in Facing Possible

Futures
The influence of Bayesian probability and mathematics on many studies of the future
may imply that several methods seek to recognize possible outcomes according to
their likelihood to happen. This approach to be appropriate should rely on (a) a
substantial accumulation of facts over time, (b) the identification of mouldable
patterns and (c) the belief that data from the past is relevant for future developments
(Ramirez and Ravetz 2011). Furthermore, the Bayesian approach would suggest
considering intervening biases and judgements. This “predictive epistemological
approach to the future” (Inayatullah 1990, p. 123) can provide reliable results only
with “predictable futures” that show low levels of uncertainty. Conversely,
“unpredictable futures” escape from the mentioned assumptions, and therefore
they have to be approached with less deterministic methods, such as scenarios.
Ramirez and Ravetz propose a third category, called “feral futures”, events
initially considered to be predictable that take unexpected directions at a second
moment in time:
items that had been domesticated, calculable, labelled, and probabilized as risk from the
wilderness of uncertainty actually brought about more uncertainty instead of being tamed.
(Ramirez and Ravetz 2011)
Examples are the recent financial crisis, the April 2010 “Deepwater Horizon” oil
blowout in the Gulf of Mexico or the unexpected instability in Afghanistan. The
concept of feral futures partially overlaps Taleb’s Black Swan theory (Taleb 2007).
Taleb defines Black Swan an event with these attributes (Taleb 2010, prologue):
• Rarity: it is not expected, as it was not conceivable from past data available.
• Extreme impact: its effects are disruptive in the system.
• Retrospective predictability: even if it was not expected, it is conceived and
justified through ex post explanations, which make it apparently predictable.
The attempt to deal with feral futures through a Knightian risk management
approach (Knight 1921), considering risk as quantifiable entity which can be diver-
sified and therefore reduced to minimum levels (Knight 1921; Groz and Huff 2016),
is unlikely to succeed. Once futures become feral, they are “no longer domesticated
but [have] morphed into an unprecedented, unidentified, unpredictable, unclassified
new uncertainty which at least at the beginning is difficult to name, scope, or define”
(Ramirez and Ravetz 2011). However, they can neither be treated as naturally wild
ones, because of their peculiarities. Wild uncertainties tend to be domesticated
through measures within their sociotechnical or ecological niche, while the same
strategy cannot work with potentially feral events.
Recognizing feral future is complex and difficult, as requires the ability to
“unlearn” (Ramirez and Ravetz 2011). To deal with them, we must rely on our
reflexive awareness to control out possibly erroneous optimism and overcome the
“illusion of knowledge”.
One of the main difficulties is that they involve “uncomfortable knowledge”,
which once expressed may question the choices of those in power. As Coulson said:
our problem lies in obtaining an audience that will listen when the information is not
palatable [. . .] what we have is uncomfortable knowledge, the kind of knowledge that
challenges established clichés and puts in question accepted solutions, and so those who
champion them. (Coulson 1985, pp. 193–195)
Usually, when early warnings are raised, the responses may well be denial and
cognitive dissonance (Cohen 2001). According to Matthews and Hattam, we ignore
OR forget any element we do not want to face consciously (Matthews and Hattam
2004), repressing unwanted ideas and their sources. Ramirez and Ravetz claim that a
possible strategy to address feral futures may be to use future practices to conceive
“uncomfortable knowledge” that otherwise would not be accepted if located in the
present (Ramirez and Ravetz 2011). Rather than proposing methodologies that
consider uncertainty and unlikely contingencies, they advocate
16 M. Valerio
scenario work which seeks to extend the peer community by seriously considering that
which had hitherto been unwelcome, politically incorrect, destabilising, and radical, along
with that which questions established categories, labels, connotations, roles, sources of
legitimacy, and power relations. (Ramirez and Ravetz 2011)
To create and foster a similar approach, it is possible to draw fruitfully from three
domains: mindfulness (Zen), aesthetic and spontaneous creativity.
2.3 Mindfulness, Aesthetic and Creativity to Tame Feral

Futures
The first one is mindfulness, as intended in the Zen practice. In recent years, many
writers have praised the effects of mindfulness on sports, professional practice,
organizations, personal well-being and other spheres (Brown et al. 2007; Reb et al.
2005; Hanh and Cheung 2010; Xiao et al. 2017 to cite some sources). Zen pushes
individuals to go beyond ordinary attachment, to transcend comforting but
imprisoning beliefs that keeps them in their ordinary ignorance. The study of the
future through a philosophy about being in the present moment may look like a
contradiction (Soojung-Kim Pang 2011). Indeed, Zen teachings see the future
mainly as a distraction. Hanh and Cheung (2010, p. 2), for instance, claim that we
spend much time worrying about the future, thus missing the present moment. There
is a vast evidence showing the attitude of our mind to wandering in the future
(Stawarczyk et al. 2013; Baird et al. 2011; Killingsworth and Gilbert 2010;
D’Argembeau and Van der Linden 2012), and other studies show how during
time-traveling consciousness of current reality is generally ignored (Brown et al.
2007, p. 214). However, future here is not treated as a place to project anxieties but
rather as a continuation of the present (Soojung-Kim Pang 2011). In addition,
Ramirez and Ravetz notice that the future can be experienced only within the
present: “the prospective condition is an inherently paradoxical one, and thus very
much like Zen”. Considering the future as rooted in present actions orients us to the
possible choices we immediately have in the current time (Bussey 2014) and frees
our images of futures from hypothetical static concerns. Mindfulness can make us
aware of past, present and future unity that has weakened in present society
(Jameson 1991) and go beyond the frame of the thick present (Poli 2015).
Another important aspect is that Zen escapes from definitions, as it requires the
abandonment of any label and distinction. If a definition had to be given, it
paradoxically implies its elusiveness. For instance, Thich Nhat Han defines Zen as:
a special transmission outside the scriptures, not based on words or letters, a direct pointing
to the heart of reality so that we might see into our own nature and wake up. (Thich Nhat
Hanh 1995, p. 34)
Accordingly, it can help to let go assumptions associated to both predictable and

unpredictable futures and to desirable and undesirable prospects as well. These distinctions
engage our emotions, creating rejection or acceptance. Moreover, categorization assigns
labels as if uncomfortable knowledge was part of the predictable world and attempts to
domesticate situations that cannot be tamed anymore. Zen practice and mindfulness in
general try to escape from any mental certainty, in favour of an aware attitude to novelty.
They involve “attending to the peripheral and subtle”, to the taken for granted, while “letting
go of a priori categories and established definitions” (Ramirez and Ravetz 2011). It is not a
passive position towards futures but rather an experimental and iterative approach with
open mind and awareness:
And if you say that Zen is correct teaching, you will go straight to hell like an arrow. Don’t
hold this Compass’s speech. Only perceive what it is pointing you to, and then you can just
do it. (Sahn 1997, p. 32)
Similarly, Karl Weick invited people to “drop their tools” in situations where they
do not make sense anymore. In fact, old categories can cause blindness and create
highly dangerous plights, if not questioned with new possibilities and alternative
frames. Weick refers to an episode that caused the death of some fire fighters. The
heavy tools they were wearing made them unable to escape from a wild land fire,
while others survived dropping their tools (together with their professional self as
fire fighters) (Weick 1996). Feral futures can create the conditions for prospective
sense-making: the separation from labels, tools and distinction that possible and
imagined futures require can be taken back to the future presents (Adam and Groves
2007) and open up possibilities for action (Wright 2005; Ramirez and Ravetz 2011).
Moreover, Zen practice uses embodiment as knowledge and treats the sides of
existence that are considered “dark”, i.e. impermanence, suffering and death, as
resources for self-inquiry (Matthews and Hattam 2004). Its approach, free from prior
negative or positive meaning attributions, opens new perspectives on issues often
silenced or repressed, blending humour and seriousness to deconstruct pre-existing
ideas and beliefs (Matthews and Hattam 2004). A mindful exploration of the present
moment may create the space to recognize the interaction between observer/actor
agency and degrees of uncertainty, which distorts our perceptions of time (Hodgson
2017). Hodgson identifies it as an important step to reframe the paradigmatic linear
perception of time: “A disjunction between our experience of the present moment
and the whole interpretative edifice that we have constructed around time, stasis and
change reveals the subjectivity of our assumed objectivity” (Hodgson 2017). The
generative capability intrinsic in a thick present moment can therefore become
evident, stressing the mere instrumental function of entities such as the past, present
and future to “give an account of now” (Hodgson 2017). Aesthetic is the second
domain that can help to decipher future uncertainty. Aesthetic is the part of Western
philosophy that concerns the perception of beauty. It depends on senses and intui-
tion. Recent findings in psychology and neurobiology suggest that it is one of the
first forms of epistemology to take place in the process of knowledge (Ramirez and
Ravetz 2011). Aesthetic acts before the formalization of perceived patterns in
concepts and then in descriptive word. Therefore, gut feelings may provide early
and useful insight on the future. Furthermore, as Ramirez and Ravetz point out,
beauty is shared mostly with the help of presentational symbol systems that do not have the
discursive semiotic that dictionaries afford to words [. . ., and] an aesthetic appreciation thus
invites us to drop our established labels and to consider what we feel anew, establishing new
connections. (Ramirez and Ravetz 2011)
18 M. Valerio
The concept is not merely theoretical, as aesthetic has found analytical applica-
tion in many fields, from organizations and people behaviour (Strati 1999, 2000;
Ramirez 1996) to NASA decision-making patterns (Feldman 2000), forest manage-
ment (Gobster 1999) and even physical formulae evaluation (Farmelo 2002). Aes-
thetic is, either implicitly or explicitly, a determinant factor, and recognizing its role
may give important insights (Ramirez and Ravetz 2011).
Cyprian Love offers another interesting perspective on the relationship between
human engagement with the future and human spontaneity (Love 2008). Love, a
Benedictine monk, analyses the connection between liturgical spontaneity and
eschatology and notices how after Vatican II (1962–1965) spontaneous activity in
the liturgy increased. Some examples are spontaneous prayers within the congrega-
tion, digressions by the preacher in the homily, the sudden decision of the worship-
pers to sing a song at Holy Communion. Love notices that participants consider
creative self-expression and informality as demonstrations of openness to the Holy
Spirit will, while formality has assumed a connotation of insincerity. From the
nineteenth century, the predominant positive historical scholarship has been
concerned with the authentic retrieval of the traditional liturgical rites; therefore,
liturgical studies have privileged the admiration of the past, giving little attention to
the present (Tracey 2001) and to the importance given by the celebrating community
to the here and now. Liturgy remained “something in a book brought into the
present” (Love 2008), rather than a practice enacted in the present. Using Love’s
words, “The present was seen as a neutral vehicle for, rather than a constructive
dimension of, liturgical experience” (Love 2008, p. 4). Love sees a connection to the
conventional Western understanding of “music” as a musical score, the transcription
on the musical notation (Finnegan 1988, p. 125), rather than as a pure activity
independent from a written support. Contemporary musicological thinking is grad-
ually overcoming this limited vision, and acknowledges that the performance of a
musical score will inevitably differ from the score prescriptions, as the music
performers may implement various factors beyond the dictates of the score (Love
2008; Love 2007). Similarly, liturgical thinking is becoming more and more aware
of the peculiarity of each liturgy. The spontaneous acts of the moment escape from
the structured and standardized descriptions of liturgical texts and do not constitute
“unwanted excrescences” but an “integral part of the liturgy’s identity as a living
practice” (Love 2008, p. 5). Spontaneity constitutes a hermeneutical key to creating a
contemporary connection between the liturgical assembly and the fixed liturgical rite
described in the texts. In the same way, doctrine and morals have to find contem-
porary strategies to bring their domains in the present. Liturgy without spontaneity,
Love says, is “a counterpart to those ahistorical mentalities such as biblical and
dogmatic fundamentalism, and to a static or essentialist view of morality” (Love
2008, p. 8).
For Pierre Bourdieu, improvisation is a “necessary art” and defines excellence
(Bourdieu 1977, p. 8). Love claims that all human spontaneity is “futural” by nature,
and liturgical spontaneity gives to the worshippers a sense of the future empowering
their presence in the “now”. Spontaneity is the result of human imagination, espe-
cially when the act of imagining happens suddenly. It can be a passive process,
inadvertently generated, or an active one, when we try to cultivate our imagination

within a framed moment. According to Love, imagination is futural, because it can
produce original images that has never been realized before and that cannot be
imagined exactly in the same way: a restatement of the same image would be
unavoidably modified by the first representation. Imagination works similarly to
episodic memory, which is continuously modified by present experiences and
memory recalls.
Imaginative acts are irreproducible. This aspect constitutes the main difference
with rational reasoning of System 2 (Kahneman 2011), which on the contrary is a
sequential and ordered process.
Polanyi and Prosch pointed out that when tasks are exclusively a product of
formal reasoning, the mind relies on its fixed mental categories, and hence the
production of new meanings cannot take place (Polanyi and Prosch 1975). Love
takes the claim to the extreme and states that a human mind performing only through
rational reasoning could not conceive futures. Thus, imagination acquires the essen-
tial role of making the very idea of future possible (Love 2008), disclosing space for
new conceivable meanings. The futural attitude of imagination is even more marked
in spontaneous imagination. It unavoidably draws, at least in part, from past expe-
riences, and its expression is framed by pre-existing cultural values and habits.
Despite of this, the spontaneous act stretches the umbilical connection with the
past to the breaking point, and it seems to emerge completely from the present
moment. For this reason, Love concludes, “spontaneity is the form of imagination
where I subjectively dissociate myself most from the past” (Love 2008, p. 12). Now
is not a static moment, but it is always in the making. The arising of novelty into the
present implies a continuous and iterative projection into the future. The result is that
we cannot identify the present moment per se, as it would imply an atemporal
condition. Consequently, now cannot help being futural, as it is a precondition for
its own existence (Love 2008, p. 13):
Spontaneity is felt in the now, but also as an event coming out of the alterity of the
unpredictable future. It is as if the future comes rushing at me in the spontaneous thought
or act [. . .] In spontaneity, the human person comes experientially closest to engaging with
pure futurity. (Love 2008, p. 13)
In brief, Love suggests that spontaneity has roots in the present moment, but it
also unfolds the future. It is only through spontaneity in the now that we can engage
futurity.
Back to liturgy, spontaneity creates a symbolic connection between the now and
the promised future eschatology, bringing the latter into the current celebration as a
spark of what has to come. In this way, it fulfils the need to know what is unknown
and what comes beyond human terrestrial life. Religion tames the unknown future
and makes it knowable and known (Adam and Groves 2007, p. 7).
The complementarity of liturgical freedom and fixed liturgical form entails other
complementarities, such as the relationship between orality and textuality and
between faith and reason. Liturgical freedom can embody reason, and it is mainly
expressed orally, while fixed rituality may embody the faith of worshippers, and it is
mainly bequeathed through written texts. The mentioned relationships need certainly
20 M. Valerio
to find an appropriate balance, as pure forms of the extremes misrepresent the

discipleship and the above-described futural inclination, respectively (Love 2008).
Ogilvy (2011) suggests that creativity and the ability to hold contradictory
possibilities, which he names “scenaric stance”, allow the present moment to be
open, embracing the whole spectrum of human possibilities (Ogilvy 2011) in an
increasingly complex, emergent and reflexive world, living what Miller describes as
the “novelty that defines each instant of the re-assembling present – at once
inerhently novel and closed – until the next moment” (Miller 2011, p.30). For
Hodgson, this means “to rethink our capacity to embrace permanent ambiguity
and to put our faith in acting in anticipatory way in the present. It implies a recovery
of a worldview enabling the creative openness of our experience” (Hodgson 2013).
Bateson resumed, in a more unresolved way, the three observed points of
mindfulness, aesthetic and spontaneity:
We have been trained to think of patterns, with the exception of those of music, as fixed
affairs. It is easier and lazier that way but, of course, all nonsense. In truth, the right way to
begin to think about the pattern which connects is to think of it as primarily (whatever that
means) a dance of interacting parts and only secondarily pegged down by various sorts of
physical limits and by those limits which organisms characteristically impose. (Bateson
1988)
The prolific and multidisciplinary scholar seems to describe an epistemic

approach that merges the conscious ignorance of Zen (“whatever that means”)
recognizing the aesthetic beauty (“a dance of interacting parts”) and the spontaneity
proposed by Love (“and only secondarily pegged down”).
If we consider uncertainty and complexity as challenges and threats, mindfulness
enables us to see both aspects objectively, aesthetics helps us to imagine them and
spontaneity gives us innovative solutions to create new futures.
It is possible to identify four steps from the scenario creation proposed by
Ramirez and Ravetz and the other given considerations:
(a) Detach from established epistemology (Weick 1996) and its related hierarchies
of power, manifested through expertise and authority (Foucault 1980).
(b) Reframe the situation considering sensations and feelings, the aspects in the
periphery and in the background, denied or ignored ideas, to create a new
conceptual space.
(c) Identify new connections and patterns considering gut feelings and spontaneity.
(d) Choose the imagined futures that seem more viable, vivid, beautiful and
sustainable.
The purpose is to reduce pre-existing judgements, beliefs and frames and there-
fore to increase awareness of early signs and contingencies that would otherwise be
neglected, because “uncomfortable knowledge” or conceptually undefinable
(Ramirez and Ravetz 2011). The common suggestion that mindfulness, aesthetic
and spontaneity give is non-attachment to any label, definition and rationalization.
Even Black Swans, feral futures, uncomfortable knowledge, etc. are static concept
and have to be left, despite their utility to describe uncertainty. Otherwise, our
epistemic ignorance will always be lurking.
2.4 Attitudes and Behaviours that May Foster Future

Awareness
The next pages will discuss several observations on attitudes and techniques that
have shown to improve future awareness. In this regard, the work of Tetlock and
Gardner (2015); Surowiecki (2004); Baron et al. (2014) and other authors offer
interesting food for thought.
In 2011, the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), an US
agency that aims to improve American intelligence through predictions improve-
ment, launched a forecasting tournament called the Aggregative Contingent Estima
tion (ACE) program. IARPA posed more than 100 questions each year to the teams
involved, on topics such as Sino-Japanese relations, the Syrian civil war and the
future of Eurozone. Each engaged team was required to collect individual predic-
tions online and to produce collective forecasts on the likelihood of the possible
outcomes (Horowitz 2013). The Good Judgment Project (GJP), the group set up by
Philip Tetlock, Barbara Mellers, Don Moore and other researchers, performed
markedly better than the other participants did and won the ACE increasingly
improving its predictions accuracy (Horowitz 2013; Mauboussin and Callahan
2015). GJP produced forecasts that were 60% more accurate than those of the control
group in year one and almost 80% more accurate in year two, to the point that
IARPA dismissed the other teams (Mauboussin and Callahan 2015)1. Interestingly,
the access to highly classified documents and information such as the wiretappings
secretly collected by the National Security Agency did not improve forecasting
accuracy. In fact, the top 2% of the several thousand forecasters outperformed by
almost 30% intelligence analysts who could rely on reserved data (Ignatius 2013).
Conversely, an excess of information can create noise and decrease forecasting
accuracy (Kahneman et al. 2016; Taleb 2007). According to Tetlock, the ability to
predict is measurable, especially looking at time persistence. The best forecasters,
defined by Tetlock and Gardner (2015) “superforecasters”, were consistent in their
accuracy along the years in 70% of the cases, more than what it could be expected by
chance. Superforecasters had common ways to gather and select information and to
think. These characteristics may be learned and cultivated.
Some of the main obstacles to improve the strategies implied in thinking and
forecasting are the illusion of knowledge (or epistemic ignorance) and insufficient
self-reflection, generated by the so called System 1 (Kahneman 2011). Intuition tries
to recognize patterns that connect “valid cues” (Kahneman and Klein 2009), and our
mind quickly creates cause-effect loops to simplify information. However, these
mechanisms are unreliable in non-linear environments, and can mislead decisions
and evaluations (Kahneman 2011).
1
It is important to note that the time frames of IARPA tournament questions, generally from
1 month to 1 year, were shorter than the 3- to 5-year windows that were common in Tetlock’s
study of experts.
22 M. Valerio
The GJP researchers examined personality traits of the participants through a

battery of psychological tests, to avoid misleading post hoc correlations between
successful forecasters and common attributes (also known as narrative fallacy and
induction problem). The tests showed that superforecasters maintain an open mind,
are aware of the risk that the assumption of knowing hides and know that doubt can
be reduced only through an iterative process of falsification (Tetlock and Gardner
2015, p. 41). Moreover, they recognize the deep complexity of reality and maintain
“intellectual humility” (Tetlock and Gardner 2015, p. 201), which “compels the
careful reflection necessary for good judgment”, but are also self-confident enough
to take inspired action (Tetlock and Gardner 2015, pp. 200–202).
Despite slightly better results on intelligence quotient (IQ) test, superforecasters’
skills do not depend on their intelligence but rather on questioning their own
perspective. They scored especially high on the “Active Open Mindedness Test”
(Tetlock and Gardner 2015, p. 112), created by Jonathan Baron to evaluate the
attitude to consider carefully point of views that are different from one’s own (Baron
1991). Using Tetlock and Gardner’s worlds, if superforecasting has to be reduced to
a “facile [. . .] bumper-sticker slogan” that would be “beliefs are hypotheses to be
tested, not treasures to be guarded” (Tetlock and Gardner 2015, p. 112). They also
scored high in openness to experience in the Big Test, which suggest the constant
attempt to improve, fostered by frequent analysis of their own processes of thought
and by the tendency to share their reflections with others when collaborating. They
value feedback and, despite being highly numerate, rarely use sophisticated mathe-
matical models for their forecasts (Mauboussin and Callahan 2015).
Superforecasters act similarly to the expert described by Tetlock’s study of expert
political judgement (2005). They try to use different lenses, multiple points of view, rather
than focusing on all the details from one perspective. Conversely, if we use a single model,
it is easy to fall in the confirmation bias, trying to fit the available data into the picture we
have already depicted. Tetlock and Gardner refer to Kinsman’s System 1 as the “tip-of-
your-nose perspective”, because it is subjective and unique to each of us (Tetlock and
Gardner 2015, p. 45). Outstanding forecasters seem to be more aware of when they use
System 1 and are able to switch to System 2 when needed. Moreover, they update their
assessments frequently to consider new information and to new developments. Even if
advantageous, this attitude increases the risk of underreactions or overreactions to new data.
Underreaction has three main causes:
– Firstly, we can be too focused to see new information coming (tunnelling).
– Secondly, we may lose sight of the initial question we wanted to answer and
substitute it with a slightly different inquiry. If new information does not answer
to the secondary question we are working on, we can neglect it, despite its general
relevance.
– Thirdly and most commonly, the cause of underestimation is the tendency to seek
only for information that supports our belief (confirmation bias) (Nickerson 1998;
Mercier 2016).
Conversely, overreacting to new information can happen especially when we

obtain new data that would be irrelevant for the issue at stake, but we consider it as
part of our evaluation.
The accuracy in forecasting is also related to what the Stanford University
Psychology Professor Carol Dweck calls a “growth mindset”. While people with a
“fixed mindset” believe that their abilities are innate and hence cannot be changed,
those with a growth mindset believe that skills can improve through training and
effort. It makes a great difference, because the trust on one’s own potential to get
better makes any information and any stimulus a source of growth, and therefore
people with a growth mindset face novelty actively. As Dweck notes, “Only people
with a growth mindset paid close attention to information that could stretch their
knowledge. Only for them was learning a priority” (Dweck 2006, p. 18).
The just mentioned attitude fosters another important aspect, which Angela
Duckworth calls “grit”. The University of Pennsylvania psychologist describes it
as a mix of perseverance and passion to pursue very long-term goals (Duckworth
2016). Duckworth linked these two concepts and disclosed that individuals with a
growth mindset tend to be grittier. Moreover, she noted that they find optimistic
ways to explain adversity, thus increasing their perseverance and their willingness to
face new challenges, which eventually make them stronger (Duckworth 2016,
p. 160). Tetlock and Gardner call the combination of grit and growth mindset
“perpetual beta”, to suggest the idea of a product that is almost complete but has
still room for improvement (Tetlock and Gardner 2015, pp. 152–156).
Every event of our life evokes emotions. In many cases, we do not approach
situations with a cost-benefit analysis but rather our system 1 react to feelings
generated by the imagined scenario (Desvousges et al. 2010; Kahneman 2011).
Kahneman uses the expression “scope insensitivity” and suggests that forecasters
may fall in a similar bias and fail to properly consider the time frame when focusing
on the probability of a specific event to happen. For example, if with a question such
as how likely it is that a particular dictatorial regime will fall, forecasters may focus
on the probability and fail to properly consider the timespan. Results confirm
Kahneman’s intuition, for instance, when asked about the probability that the
Assad regime in Syria fell, forecaster assigned a similar probability to the possibility
that it would happen within 3 months and within 6 months, 40% and 41%, respec-
tively. However, superforecasters assigned more divergent chances to the event to
happen within the two periods, 15% within 3 months and 24% within 6 months,
suggesting again their ability to engage System 2 thinking more effectively. Again,
outstanding forecasters’ accuracy probably finds its roots in the ability to create
automatic System 2 corrections to System 1 fallacies (Tetlock and Gardner 2015,
pp. 204–207).
24 M. Valerio
2.5 Applying the Wisdom of Crowds
James Surowiecki, in his book “The Wisdom of Crowds” (2004), illustrates the idea
that the aggregation of different points of view can improve forecasts’ accuracy, if
done properly. The supremacy of aggregate forecasts on individual ones is supported
by strong empirical evidence across many disciplines, from political polling to
macroeconomic forecasts, but only when they are produced by independent indi-
vidual forecasts aggregated at a second moment in time (Silver 2012, pp. 299–300).
However, it does not mean that group forecasts are always better. For instance, the
quality of some polling firms’ surveys is superior to the other to the extent that it is
better to use their polls alone rather than blending them with less reliable works
(Silver 2012, p. 300).
The wisdom of the crowds principle constitutes the basis of prediction markets
(or predictive markets), forums where participants can trade the probability of the
outcomes of uncertain events (Arrow et al. 2008). The aggregate information in such
markets can outperform other traditional forecasting methods and can be applied to a
limitless array of fields, from National Security (Wolfers and Zitzewitz 2004) to
healthcare industry (Polgreen et al. 2007), multinational corporations’ strategy
(Cowgill and Zitzewitz 2015) and even to evaluate scientific research reproducibility
(Dreber et al. 2015).
To understand how prediction markets work, we can imagine the hypothetical
presidential election in a random State. If we consider a contract that pays 1 euro if
Candidate X wins the election, and the price of an X contract in the market is
65 cents, it means that the market assigns to X a 65% chance of being elected. If
traders believe the assigned probability is too high, they can sell it short and bet that
the perceived chances of X will drop or buy a Candidate Y future (which in a
two-party system would have a 35 cents value, if the market is well-run) (Authers
2016; Arrow et al. 2008). Prediction markets help to solve the intrinsic problem of
information dispersion among different actors. They constitute a mechanism to
aggregate data open to anyone, where the potential for profit increases the hunger
for good information and reveals hidden beliefs. Nevertheless, even prediction
markets are subject to numerous biases, which can notch aggregation processes
and total accuracy (Arrow et al. 2008; Tetlock 2008). Above all, prediction markets
are sensible to pervasive biases of their participants, such as unconscious gender
discrimination or racism: in sports prediction markets, for instance, the contracts of
US baseball teams composed by more African-American players tend to be cheaper,
because their chances are underestimated (Authers 2008). A similar bias might help
to explain the inaccurate forecasts on the Brexit: UK financial markets are in London,
and the attitude towards the European Union in the area was not representative of the
rest of the country. Londoners were probably misled and generalized the perceived
sentiment to the entire UK (Authers 2016). Another problem that deceived predic-
tion markets on the UK referendum is that bets’ worth depends on the quantity of
money invested. Before the Referendum, many investors betted small amounts on
Leave, but were not sufficient to reach the total value betted on Remain. In fact, those
who expected to remain in the EU gambled fewer but higher wagers probably
because the group included the wealthier part of population (Authers 2016).
Prediction markets as well as forecasts aggregators can help to evaluate methods
and results and contrast the effects of cognitive conservatism, epistemic arrogance,
hindsight bias (Soojung–Kim Pang 2010), overcoming experts’ defences to admit
their mistakes. Silver warns of the risk of considering them a panacea but notices
how these markets may be useful to provide real-time information to policymakers,
punish overconfident forecasters and yield reliable estimates of uncertainty in
economic forecasts (Silver 2012, p. 183).
Besides gathering different people’s opinion in contexts such as stock markets,
the aggregation of different perspectives may be useful even considering multiple
hypothetical views in one’s mind. Tetlock and Gardner compare this mechanism to a
dragonfly eye, which is composed by up to 30,000 lenses giving different perspec-
tives. The result is high visual acuity that provides meticulous information on the
surrounding environment (Tetlock and Gardner 2015, pp. 70–73), a necessary tool to
locate and catch fast-moving insects. The ability to synthetize various perspectives is
not a spontaneous and natural mechanism. Two of the various alternative ways to
reach a similar result are to ask others’ criticism on our personal view or creating
recursively imaginary people in our mind and attribute to them different visions
(Mauboussin and Callahan 2015).
2.6 Improving Predictive Accuracy
In line with several other authors (Kahneman et al. 2016; Shanteau 1992), Tetlock
and Gardner (2015) highlight the importance of feedback:
Vague expectations about indefinite futures are not helpful. Fuzzy thinking can
never be proven wrong. And only when we are proven wrong so clearly that we can
no longer deny it to ourselves will we adjust our mental models of the world—
producing a clearer picture of reality. (Tetlock and Gardner 2015, p 220)
Forecasters may improve in two ways: calibration and resolution. Calibration
indicates the conformity of forecasts with outcomes, the correspondence of subjec-
tive probabilities with objective ones. For instance, if a forecaster expects an event to
happen 60% of the times and the event happens in that percentage of cases, the
forecaster is well calibrated. Resolution refers to the fact that if a forecast expect an
event surely (not) to happen, that event actually does (not) happen. Calibration and
resolution differ to each other but correlate with each other.
Tetlock and Gardner notice how we use a wide variety of ambiguous adverbials
of probability, such as maybe, probably, possibly and perhaps. One of the reasons
may be that forecasters using these words avoid to be blamed once their predictions
reveal to be wrong (Tetlock and Gardner 2015, p. 225). In 1951 a US intelligence
report defined the Soviet Union’s Invasion of Yugoslavia as a “serious possibility”.
Sherman Kent, a professor of History at Yale, working with the CIA asked to some
26 M. Valerio
members of his team their interpretation of those words. While an analyst considers
it as an 80% probability, another said it meant 20%. As Kent’s example shows,
specific probabilities reduce the risk of misinterpretation and misunderstanding,
giving better feedback (Tetlock and Gardner 2015, pp. 53–54; Kent 1994,
pp. 134–135). Moreover, the quality of forecasts improves markedly if predictions
undergo a continuous cyclical process of falsification, similar to the one at the basis
of scientific knowledge (Popper 2014), composed of forecasting, measuring and
revising (Tetlock and Gardner 2015, p. 220).
Another question IARPA wanted to answer to was whether working in teams can
improve accuracy. The result of random teams of forecasters created by the GJP and
trained to work together effectively was on average 23% more accurate than
individual predictions. In year two, participants who achieved the status of
superforecasters were 50% more accurate when working in team. Teams of
superforecasters outperformed prediction markets by 15–30%, which can be con-
sidered a notable result.
Work in teams gives important advantages, i.e. information sharing and accurate
forecasts by aggregation. Making people exchange arguments with each other may
be an effective solution to deal with various biases, for instance, the confirmation
bias (Mercier 2016). Conversely, members of a team may fall into group thinking,
adapting their ideas to the dominant opinions in the group and thus reducing
cognitive diversity. Furthermore, GJP researchers express some doubt about the
efficacy of the application of similar teams in corporate settings. Gathering some
employees from different parts of an organization to work together and labelling
them as “super” may create frictions and impair internal dynamics.
In any case, employees’ training, even if very limited, is a priority to foster to
groups interaction and to manage diversity. With just 1 hour of training, the GJP
improved results by 10%. Individuals attended a seminar to contrast cognitive bias
and to sharp probabilistic reasoning, whereas teamwork was enhanced striking a
balance between harmony and conflict: an excess of the two aspects would lead to
false consensus or incommunicability respectively, while an adequate balance cre-
ates constructive criticism (Mauboussin and Callahan 2015).
In an article published in 2014, Baron and collaborators individuated two strat-
egies to improve forecasts. One is to give more weight to outstanding forecasters’
opinion, while the other is to take the aggregate results to the extreme through an
algorithm. The effect of the algorithm depends on the sophistication and diversity of
the group of forecasters (Baron et al. 2014). The rationale behind this choice is that
all the participants create their expectations on some common information and some
information that is not shared. If everyone knew everything the others know, they
would strengthen their confidence. For this reason, the algorithm tries to express the
effect of not shared information (Baron et al. 2014; Mauboussin and Callahan 2015;
Winquist and Larson 1998).
Future unfoldings can be conceived as complex problems, which can be faced
with different approaches. A first strategy proposed by Tetlock and his colleagues is
the question triage: the term was initially used to describe the procedure used in
times of war by medical personnel to sort casualties based on the gravity of their
injuries. Accordingly, it is possible to sort questions, excluding those too hard or too
difficult and using intermediate inquiries that offer a better payoff-effort ratio
(Tetlock and Gardner 2015, p. 240). Another strategy is breaking excessively
complex problems into tractable subproblems, a method frequently used by Enrico
Fermi (Redish 2002). The procedure consists in breaking the issue in a sequence of
increasingly restrictive criteria. For instance, Fermi tried to calculate how many
piano tuners worked in Chicago starting by the population of Chicago, estimating the
number of households, assessing the number of pianos per household and the
number of schools, estimating how often pianos need to be tuned and considering
how many hours it takes to tune a piano (Weinstein and Adam 2009, pp. 7–9).
Another entertaining example is the estimation made by Peter Backus, who calcu-
lated the probability of finding his soul mate in London using the Drake equation.2 A
third strategy consists in using clusters of small questions that can be updated one by
one, instead of bigger questions. The researchers took inspiration by pointillism, the
painting technique that consists in drawing dots on the canvas. One single dot does
not convey anything, but all the dots together create the bigger picture.
Asking good questions is another important element for good forecasting. It
means to identify an issue that is relevant to the world, analysing a clear outcome
and a specific period of time. Tetlock and Gardner (2015) suggest that a question is
good if it passes the smack-the-forehead test: “when you read the question after time
has passed, you smack your forehead and say, ‘If only I had thought of that before!’”
(Tetlock and Gardner 2015, p. 231). It is also important to notice that, to increase
diversity, those who make the questions should not be those who answer to them
(Tetlock and Gardner 2015, p. 230).
The next six points summarize the evidence on how to improve forecasting
(Tetlock 2014; Tetlock and Gardner 2015):
– Open mindedness and fluid intelligence are important aspects to select the
potentially best forecasters. Screening individuals on the two parameters can
lead to results 10–15% more accurate.
– Feedbacks are important to improve calibration and resolution.
– Collaboration of forecasters in teams enhances results by 10–20%, while com-
petition works better for prediction markets.
– Cognitive debiasing training can imply a 10% increase in forecasts quality.
– Overweighting better forecasters and extremizing forecasts to compensate con-
servatism are other two effective strategies to improve results by 15–30%.
– Using alternative strategies like question the triage and Fermi questions can be
useful to reframe complex issues.
2
The calculation was 8 million (an approximation of London population at that time) multiplied by
the proportion of women (about 51%), by the percentage of singles (about 50%), by the fraction of
people between the ages of 24 and 34 (about 20%), by the proportion of university educated (about
26%), by the estimated proportion of people he found attractive (only 5%), by the estimated fraction
that found him attractive (only 5%) and by the proportion likely to be compatible (about 10%). The
result was 26. Despite the adverse statistics, Peter Backus got married in 2013.
28 M. Valerio
The presented evidence suggests that not only a multidisciplinary approach helps
to consider today’s complexity and to be more receptive to its dynamic and
unpredictable transformations, but it is also an attitude that can be learnt and
cultivated. Many authors emphasized the importance of using different optics to
see reality. Multidisciplinary approaches help to break through traditional barriers of
how we think of the rapid world dynamics (Asmolov 2016; Bussey 2014) and are
gaining more and more recognition inside and outside academia. For instance, in
2011 the Royal College of General Practitioners created a commission on medical
generalists, prising them as “doctors prepared to deal with any problem presenting to
them, unrestricted by particular body systems and including problems with psycho-
logical or social causes as well as physical ones” (MSC 2011). Such a stance is quite
significant, as the discipline of medicine has historically focalized knowledge in
specific branches to form experts in very narrow competences. A shift to wider
approaches can imply cultural resistances, which have to be addressed. Narrations
and incentives constitute useful tools to overcome them. Going back to the case of
general practitioners, Oliver suggests “to celebrate the expert generalists who hold
such system critical roles, ensure parity of prestige, and do more to attract potential
applicants” (Oliver 2016).
2.7 Future Literacy
Future Literacy (FL) can constitute another important step to improve our awareness
of the future. Miller (2007) defines it as “the capacity to explore the potential of the
present to give rise to the future”. In a similitude with learning to read, FL proceeds
by steps, from learning the alphabet to decipher the message in a text or even to write
new text: “It is the capacity to think about the potential of the present to give rise to
the future by developing and interpreting stories about possible, probable and
desirable futures” (Miller 2007).
UNESCO is one of the most active institutional actors involved in studying the
basis and implications of anticipation. During the biennium 2013–2014, the organi-
zation proposed a series of events called “Future Literacy Knowlab/Local Scope
events” (FL Knowlab/LSE), to network the emerging diverse futures communities,
foster a sounder knowledge of the existent anticipatory cultures and systems and
experience the consequences of new anticipatory assumptions (Miller 2014). The
aim of LSE is to create “cognitive dissonance between existing and encountered
ideas of the future”: it may generate greater awareness about specific issues and a
proactive attitude towards futures’ uncertainty and complexity. Future Literacy may
also have consequences on cognitive skills, fostering creativity, analytical skills and
the ability to identify alternative solutions on specific issues.
The methodology proposed by UNESCO Knowlab/LSE events is nested in the
framework of the Discipline of Anticipation (Miller 2014). The process usually
follows three steps:
1. Making visible anticipatory assumptions around the problem area, including an

awareness of the participant’s understanding of the past and present context
2. Challenging the dominant anticipatory assumptions through a reframing or
disruptive modelling of imaginary futures (scenarios)
3. Opening up new questions about the framing of the problem area and reflecting
on the attributes of “using the future” as a way to understand and act in the present
In the first phase, participants discuss in groups their beliefs and ideas about how
the analysed topic will develop, distinguishing likely future from preferred future.
Afterwards, the groups report the results to a plenary session, and facilitators help to
identify and make explicit the anticipatory assumptions of the participants’ views.
The process relies on the “collective intelligence” of the group (Miller 2014) and
obliges participants to share and discuss their visions of future, without necessarily
seeking agreement. The length of the first step can vary, according to participants’
involvement.
In the second phase, participants are invited to seek and explore possible discon-
tinuity from the present context, projecting themselves into scenarios or narratives
that challenge the starting ideas of social structures, agency, knowledge and so on
(Miller 2014). Facilitators guide the group through the process, adapting the selected
methods to the participants’ receptivity, and thus let participants “think themselves
into it” as completely as they can (Miller 2014).
In the third phase, participants revisit the anticipatory assumptions they relied on
in the first phase and describe imagined futures through a greater awareness,
generated by the second phase. The reframing process sheds light on questions
and aspects previously seen as unimportant or inconsistent.
The process may be an important step to introduce a vivid discussion on futures
within communities, increasing awareness on the possible long-term outcomes of
individual and shared choices.
2.8 Some Final Remarks
Our assumptions about the future, beliefs, values and expectations influence the
decisions we make today (Bussey et al. 2012; Bussey 2014). At the same time,
behavioural, cognitive and neuroscientists have mapped many of the limits of our
rationality and showed that we find it difficult to imagine and act in the interest of our
future self (Bloom 2008; Gilbert 2006). It is necessary to counter the systematic
biases that influence the way we think about the future and the consequent choices
we make (Sanfey et al. 2006; Soojung-Kim Pang 2010); otherwise our intentions can
be “subverted by biases, instincts, and our willingness to let rationalization trump
rationality” (Soojung-Kim Pang 2011).
People show systematic flaws in how they think about the future, especially
because we live in environments that are much more complex than those in which
we evolved (Soojung-Kim Pang 2010). Therefore, we are more sensitive to concrete
threats, rather than abstract ones, no matter what their real likelihood and impact are.
30 M. Valerio
We rely more on specific and detailed scenarios than on general ones, even if they
are statistically more unlikely than general ones (Soojung–Kim Pang 2010). For
these attitudes, vivid narrations constitute both a problem and a resource. To avoid
narrative fallacy, Taleb proposes to “favour experimentation over storytelling,
experience over history and clinical knowledge over theories”. When we use the
word “cause”, we should be aware that our discussions are either mere speculations
or the results of experiments, but we have to avoid empty stories.
Narrations should be used only to convey ideas: “Only a diamond can cut a
diamond; we can use our ability to convince with a story that conveys the right
message—what storytellers seem to do” (Taleb 2007, p. 84). Paul Dolan sustains the
importance of narratives to make academic results available for decision-makers.
Once good data is available, academics have to present evidence through good
narratives. In this way, policymakers would be more receptive (Pagels 2016).
Another intervention that may effectively influence the future is to produce
cumulative behavioural change in a large part of population (Soojung-Kim Pang
2010). The biggest problems of the current century cannot be solved with transcen-
dent interventions managed by some elites. Rather, their resolution depends on
choices and actions of the entire population (Soojung–Kim Pang 2010). Being
rationality flaws so evident, people involvement can be created with vivid scenarios
that “nudge” individuals to make better decisions consistently over long periods of
time, despite disincentives, distractions and uncertainty (Ramos 2006; Soojung–Kim
Pang 2010). To reach this goal, it could be possible to use what Thaler and Sustein
call nudges and choice architecture. The latter implies “organizing the context in
which people make decisions” (Thaler and Sunstein 2008, p. 3), while a nudge is
“any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behavior in a predictable
way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incen-
tives” (Thaler and Sunstein 2008, p. 6). Instead of eradicating biases and heuristics,
which would be a strenuous task, the proposed approach tries to exploit them and
encourages people to “trade immediate rewards for larger (but sometimes abstract or
uncertain) future rewards” (Soojung–Kim Pang 2010). ICTs may have contributed to
the current uncertainty, but they also offer important opportunities for individuals to
organize and coordinate with others and therefore to affect and create common
futures (Soojung-Kim Pang 2010). According to Soojung–Kim Pang, technology
will allow us to gather information on any activity we do and to receive real-time
feedback to depict vivid futures. Feedback would help us to make our choices
consciously and to go towards our long-term goals.
Using Kuhn’s famous characterization, the chessboard of normal science (Kuhn
1962) cannot address our social and global issues, and the exponential rapidity of
changes does not let us reframe them statically. We assist to the affirmation of “post-
normal” science (Funtowicz and Ravetz 1993), where problems “are in principle not
reducible to the “puzzle-solving’ normal science in Kuhn’s term” (Ravetz 2006,
p. 277). Using Ravetz’s expression, we have to face “hard decisions with soft
numbers” (Ravetz 2002). Many authors describe the current historical moment as
a period of “waking up” (Korten 2006; Macy 2007; Bussey 2014), in which self-
consciousness seems to diffuse outside small elites. In this respect, the future
constitutes an open-access zone where actions and reflections can foster empower-
ment from the grassroots up (Bussey 2014). Popper imagined an “open” society
based on scepticism and awareness of the incurable unpredictability of the world and
therefore against any presumed definitive truth (Popper 2014). Monat proposed an
even more suggestive hypothesis: the main difference between humans and other
animals is our self-awareness, a property that some researchers believe to be intrinsic
to complex neural networks. If we consider all humanity as a neural network, says
Monat, there are today 7 billion individuals, with 3 billion connections through ICT
devices. When human connectivity will reach 70 billion connections, almost as
many as the human brain has, the organismal self-awareness of humanity may
manifest itself with the end of hunger, wars and the collaboration of all individuals.
Monat positions this possible event between the years 2400 and 2600 (Monat 2017).
Although the speculative nature of these visions, we are attending to the most
dynamic moment of human history. It is plausible to see, in the next years, an
improvement of our ability to deal with present and future complexity as a society.
However, this process will require to reframe the way we perceive time as
individuals.
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Chapter 3
Multilayeredness of Anticipation
Robert Zaborowski
Abstract In the paper I argue for the multilayeredness of anticipation. After

presenting what multilayeredness is and how it may be understood, I analyse three
main axes of multilayeredness of anticipation. These are short- versus long-term
perspective, then existence versus non-existence, and, finally, first- versus second-
order anticipation. The three axes concern, respectively, lifetime, existence under-
stood as extending beyond the death of an individual and awareness of anticipation.
They involve the tension between, respectively, short-distanced and long-distanced
futures, the inward and the outward and anticipating and meta-anticipating. I con-
clude that these characteristics may be accepted as formal criteria for distinguishing
the different ways in which anticipation may be viewed.
Keywords Anticipation · Multilayeredness · Meta-anticipating
3.1 Preliminary Remarks
3.1.1 A Concept Clarification
Let me start with a quote from Roberto Poli:

Why is the theory of the levels so little discussed in the literature? Contemporary theories of
the levels of reality suffer from a marked lack of conceptualization. Dealing with this
problem requires knowledge of what is at stake: adopting a theory of levels entails modifi-
cation of the metaphysics implicit in a large part of contemporary science and philosophy.
(Poli 2001, 281)
The paper was presented at Anticipation, Agency and Complexity Workshop, Trento, Apr. 6–8,
2017. I thank Roberto Poli and Kostas Kalimtzis for comments they made on an earlier version
of it.
R. Zaborowski (*)
University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Olsztyn, Poland

38 R. Zaborowski
Even if Poli doesn’t exactly answer the question he asks, his question itself
presumes that the theory of levels has been little discussed. His comments were
published in 2001, and since then we can say that matters seem to have remained
unchanged.
The term multilayeredness (or its equivalent, multilevelness) is outside the main
currents of philosophical research. This means, I suppose, that the concept of
verticality and superposition of several ranks of the same phenomenon are either
rarely used or not used at all. Even if some researchers do look for a solution by
integrating phenomena or interpretations that nominally are exclusive and, thus, on
these grounds, offer a better viewpoint than those who are more selective and opt for
reductionism,1 they don’t, as far as I know, point to multilayeredness as a helpful and
promising paradigm.
Alternatively, it may be said that locating on one-level categories of different
levels is a category mistake.2 Think about putting a geometric shape and a solid
figure in the same box and then comparing them quantitatively. Certainly they share
a common denominator in that they are both shapes, yet there is an essential
difference between them.3 The solid figure entails the geometric shape but the
geometric shape doesn’t necessitate the solid figure. The solid figure is a more
complex concept than the geometric shape. However, it is more than, say, the
geometric shape plus 1-dimension added to it. Rather, I would say, this is the
geometric shape plus 1-dimension, though that which has been added is being
integrated in a specific way. As conceptualized by N. Hartmann, the higher level
contains a novum,4 a very fine category that describes the character of the specific
1
For more see, e.g. Poli (2001, 263, 267 & 276): The ease with which the immediately subsequent
reductionist approach dismantled the tenets of the emergent evolution movement highlights the
intrinsic shortcomings and the superficial generalizations of many of its theses [...] The theme of the
levels of reality can also be used as an acid test to select structurally defaulting ontologies [...] The
ontological poverty of contemporary philosophy and science is evidenced by the constant shuttling
by many authors among problems which belong to different theoretical domains (i.e., theories of
particulars, of wholes, of levels), etc. See also S. N. Salthe (2009, 96): This hierarchical model can
be seen to be non-reductionist because individuals at the different levels are different in kind. For
examples, molecules cannot run, and animals cannot get oxidized. But running can be reduced to
oxidation because oxidation could support any kind of macroscopic activity made available at a
higher level. [...] New semantics are required to describe new levels of reality.
2
See Poli (2001, 268): In other words, applying the categories of one realm to the items of another
realm may give rise to a categorial error, to a metabasis eis allo genos.
3
See Plato (1967, 331d–e, transl. W. R. M. Lamb): Well, at any rate, he said, justice has some
resemblance to holiness; for anything in the world has some sort of resemblance to any other thing.
Thus there is a point in which white resembles black, and hard soft, and so with all the other things
which are regarded as most opposed to each other; and the things which we spoke of before as
having different faculties and not being of the same kind as each other - the parts of the face - these
in some sense resemble one another and are of like sort. In this way therefore you could prove, if
you chose, that even these things are all like one another. But it is not fair to describe things as like
which have some point alike, however small, or ash unlike that have some point unlike.
4
See N. Hartmann (1953, 76): The recurrence of lower categories never determines the character of
the higher stratum. This character always rests on the emergence of a categorial novelty which is
3 Multilayeredness of Anticipation 39
integration which has been brought about by the new addition. And similarly with,
say, pleasure and blissfulness, they belong to the same group of feelings or emo-
tions5 but are as different as the bodily are from the mental.
My examples often come from affective studies, more particularly from philos-
ophy of emotion, the field I am especially interested in. Consider the following:
This survey has not reached any firm conclusions. Within the conscious feelings family,
philosophers may insist that feelings must, in some sense, be conscious. [. . .] The no feelings
family may reply that no feelings occur [. . .] emotions are manifest in various effects upon
other mental states [. . .] Finally, the unconscious feelings theorist may argue that this
commitment to equating feelings to conscious feelings is undermined by explanatory
requirements emerging both from discussions of perception and from psychoanalytic case
studies. [. . .] All three theories [. . .] I confess some sympathy with both these responses, and
suspect that future work in developing a solution to our puzzle will need to take account of
them. (Lacewing 2007, 36–38)6
and along the same lines:

This need not mean, on the other hand, that the approaches are necessarily mutually
exclusive: elements of all three can often be found, albeit in varying ratios and strengths
[. . .] Given the range and complexity of at least human emotion, it seems finally unsurprising
that our emotions could meet – and come apart from – a diverse range of rationality-criteria,
in varying ways according to the particular case. [. . .] All arguments on these issues of
course, are provisional in the light of potential further developments in our understanding of
both emotions and rationality. (Rietti 2009, 57–59)
These are two examples of authors who clearly wish to avoid reductionism yet
both find it difficult to explain the coexistence – which they recognize and don’t
want to deny – of various features of affectivity as well as solutions and approaches
in interpreting them. Yet, they refrain from testing a vertical approach and do not
even mention it as a plausible solution. This is what I intend to do with respect to the
problem of anticipation.
independent of the recurrent categories and consists in the appearance of new categories. The
modification of the recurring elements is contingent upon the emergence of novelty.
5
A group of feelings or emotions is what is constituted by several feelings or emotions sharing the
same modus of affectivity or, to put it otherwise, that have the same kind of formal object, e.g. group
of sorrow(s), group of desire(s), group of fear(s), etc.
6
Page numbers correspond to the online version (https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/2732482.pdf,
retrieved Feb. 28, 2017).
40 R. Zaborowski
3.1.2 Some Antecedents
Before proceeding directly to this issue, I shall mention three philosophers who, in
their attempts at creating systematic explanation, made the concept of hierarchy
central in their systems.7 Chronologically they were Max Scheler who remarked
[. . .] the fact that feelings are not only of different qualities but also of different levels of
depth (Scheler 1973, 331)
and found
this phenomenal character of the ‘depth’ of feeling to be essentially connected with four
well-delineated levels of feeling [. . .] (Scheler 1973, 332),
then Nicolai Hartmann who spoke about

four main strata which embrace the whole sphere of the real world with the multiplicity of its
ontic structures (Hartmann 1953, 46)
and remarked
[t]he fact that in the relationship of two strata, one superimposed on the other, the lower
stratum forms the supporting basis of the higher is so obviously and directly revealed by the
phenomena that it has always been recognized wherever and in whichever way the problem
of ontological stratification has been attended to (Hartmann 1953, 89),
and, finally, Kazimierz Dąbrowski who claimed that

[t]hese two structures appear to have nothing in common. [. . .] unilevel and multilevel [. . .]
cannot be thought of as opposite poles of a continuum. This contradicts the expectations of
some theoreticians that lower levels of organization logically imply the higher ones [. . .] The
point is that there is nothing in the unilevel structure that would suggest hierarchization
because multilevelness, by definition, already is hierarchical and multilevel. Therefore, it
follows logically that the potential for multilevel development must exist already in the
original endowment, i.e. in the development potential. [. . .] The very fact that man can
overcome biological control and determination demonstrates that the power of the potential
for multilevel development is greater than the combined power of primitive drives and
needs. (Dąbrowski 1996, 25-26)8
As we see, Scheler, Hartmann and Dąbrowski explicitly use the concepts of,
respectively, levels, strata and multilevelness. But given that other names also come
to mind, what is of importance is to discern whether their respective uses of these
terms may or may not be comprehended as multilayeredness. A paradigmatic case
would be Plato whose model of the soul leads one to conclude that multilayeredness
7
This is why this is an exaggeration to say that [h]ierarchical classification is a new approach to
emotional analysis (Ghazi, Inkpen and Szpakowicz 2010, 141). However, what these authors say
confirm what Poli (2001, 261) claims, i.e. that on the rare occasions when an author has alluded to
the problem of the levels, by far the most prevalent standpoint has been that of levels of interpre-
tation, not of reality.
8
See also, more recently, Ben–Ze’ev (2010, 41) who observed that [e]motions [...] involve all types
of mental entities and states that belong to various ontological levels [sic!]. Yet, he didn’t develop
his claim.
is inherent to his philosophy.9 But what’s the word for it? Since I find none, the
speculation that such an absence causes and even doubts regarding the problem itself
have to be dispelled. This is why I prefer to rely on the three thinkers mentioned
above.10
In brief, a vertical approach is any approach which recognizes that there is no
passage from one quality to another within the same group. Thus it is different to what
is commonly understood as evolution in which one species comes from another.11 For
example, there is weaker or stronger liking, but the strongest/most intense liking does
not amount to the weakest love, because love differs from liking in quality.12 Two
non-transformable qualities testify to the existence of two levels or layers. A simple
analogy that may help illustrate the point would be that of a Michelin Guide star
system in which one star is given to restaurants with high-quality cooking, worthy of a
stop!, two stars to restaurants with excellent cooking, worthy of a detour! and three
stars to those with exceptional cuisine, worthy of a special journey! Now, it is clear
that the divide between the three is sharp: to be worthy of a stop is different from being
worthy of a detour. Even if a detour requires a stop, there is no vice versa. The same
holds for the divide between two- and three-star restaurants in that a special journey is,
in a sense, a detour from a normal route, but a detour is not a special journey.
3.2 Three Axes of Multilayeredness of Anticipation
3.2.1 Short- Versus Long-Term Perspective
In K. Dąbrowski’s autobiographical test (used as one of five tools in order to qualify

the stage of personal development), one series of questions is:
who you expect to be in 1 year? who you expect to be in 5 years? who you expect to be in
10 years?13
9
This is not a prevailing interpretation. See R. Zaborowski (2012). See also Salthe (2009, 88), who,
however, relies on his own work Development and evolution: complexity and change in biology
(MIT Press, Cambridge, MA 1993), which, in turn, relies on a chapter from an unpublished thesis
by J. van der Meer, Beginnings of the hierarchical view of the world (1989).
10
And also Plotinus who offers an even more explicit model.
11
See Salthe 2009.
12
For a distinction between (purely) bodily and (purely) intellectual kind of pleasure/joy, see Plato
(1900–1907), Protagoras 337c: (εὐφραίνεσθαι μὲν γὰρ ἔστιν μανθάνoντά τι καὶ φρoνήσεως
μεταλαμβάνoντα αὐτῇ τῇ διανoίᾳ, ήδεσθαι δὲ ἐσθίoντά τι ἢ ἄλλo ἡδὺ πάσχoντα αὐτῷ τῷ σω ματι
(Plato (1967), transl. W. R. M. Lamb: [...] for he is comforted who learns something and gets a
share of good sense in his mind alone, whereas he is pleased who eats something or has some other
pleasant sensation only in his body.) The distinction is reported by Plato as made by Prodicus.
13
A personal communication from T. Kobierzycki (on several occasions in 1987–2016). In
K. Dąbrowski (1996, 174–176), the test is presented otherwise. However, T. Kobierzycki provided
me in May 2017 with a typewritten Kwestionariusz do Autobiografii [Questionnaire to Autobiog-
raphy] ¼ Dąbrowski (n.d.), in which the question No 29 reads thus: Who you will be in your
imagination in three years, in 15 years, in 20 years?
42 R. Zaborowski
It is obvious that what is expected in 5 years is not 5 times as much (or as less) as
what is expected in 1 year and in 10 years twice as much as what is expected in
5 years. Supposedly, this is not about answering that, e.g. I expect to be xhappy in
1 year, 5xhappy in 5 years and 10xhappy in 10 years. Nor, again, to obtain a PhD in
1 year, 5 PhDs in 5 years and 10 PhDs in 10 years. This may work for material
aspects of life, say, salary, numbers of cars, houses, trips taken, etc. But how could a
total picture of one’s anticipated future, which would have to include nonmaterial
aspects of life, be captured in this way? Although time marks of 5 and 10 years are,
respectively, 5 and 10 times longer than 1 year, the content of life in 1, 5 and 10 years
is not comparable by multiplication. If it is objected that many nonmaterial contents
or features are incommensurable, I would take such an objection to be a strength-
ening of my position that what is required in this case is a multilevel approach.14
With Dąbrowski’s questionnaire one is facing a simultaneous perspective of
several moments with respect to one’s future life. To respond to the three questions
asked, one needs to anticipate them almost simultaneously.15 One may start by
making a naive sketch, such as a timeline with three points on the line, but quickly
this strategy will prove fruitless. Therefore, we may suppose one will have to
produce three responses, one after another, rather than answering the first and
completing the two others on the basis of multiplication, and more probably with
patently different narratives. I think that the less uniform these narratives are and the
more differences are introduced, the more twofold or manifold perspective is
required. Now, qualifications, such as the less . . . the more . . ., show that I am
providing a vague rather than a clear criterion. This is true, but at his point in my
exposition, I am not concerned with the nature of the levels distinction. For instance,
Scheler and Hartmann differ in how they conceive the nature of the levels and their
distinctions, yet both are supporters of a hierarchical approach. What suffices here is
to admit that there is such a thing as two moments in the future that cannot be
grasped in such a way as to differentiate them only quantitatively. If, however, there
is some reluctance to admit that such is the case, then one may be helped by looking
at the two moments located, as termini, on two opposite ends of the future timeline,
the first coming quite soon and the second occurring as remotely as possible.
14
Roberto Poli informed me – I thank him for that - about a study which may further support
Dąbrowski’s ideas: Quoidbach, Gilbert and Wilson (2013). What is interesting is that they observed
(96) that the older the participants were, the less personality change they reported or predicted (see
also 97, the older participants were, the less change in their core values they reported or predicted,
and again (98), The older the participants were, the less change in preferences they reported or
predicted.) This is, the authors say, consistent with a large body of research showing that
personality becomes more stable as people age. I think however that in the light of anticipation,
another interpretation may be offered: this is so because the older people are, the more realistic their
anticipating is, and the more realistic their anticipating is, less changes are envisaged.
15
This is different to comparing two types of lives one might live. See Sobel (2016, 57–63).
Conclusion to 2.1. In viewing one’s future life, provided an individual makes such
an exercise (which is not, according to both Socrates and Dąbrowski, common to
all), a person may need to apply different kinds of anticipation when a sufficiently
big span is in question. This may be either:
1. Two extremely remote moments, say, the first being in proximate present and the
second being towards the end of one’s life, and this, I think, is the case for any
individual being asked to reflect on their future, or:
2. Any two moments of one’s future life, even as small an interval as that between a
1- and 2-month period, if indeed the person who is asked to think about their life
is a thoughtful individual who is taking a perspicacious approach to their
future life.
3.2.2 Existence Versus Non-existence
Another axis of multilayeredness of anticipation is vouchsafed in a quote from one of

Thomas Mann’s earliest novels:
It is my favourite occupation to gaze at the starry heavens at night – that being the best way
to turn my eyes away from earth and from life. And perhaps it may be pardoned in me that I
still cling to my distant hopes? That I dream of a freer life, where the actuality of my fondest
anticipations [Ahnungen] is revealed to be without any torturing residue of disillusionment?
Of a life where there are no more horizons?
So I dream and wait for death. Ah, how well I know it already, death, that last disappoint-
ment! At my last moment I shall be saying to myself: ‘So this is the great experience – well,
and what of it? What is it after all?’ (Th. Mann (1936, 27), transl. H. T. Lowe–Porter.)
These words express a sentiment of the multilayeredness or, to be more precise,

the two-layeredness of future perspectives. Hopes are less and more distant, more
and less precise and more and less fond, but they are all determined by the death of
the individual. Even if the protagonist’s projects can aim at the beyond, he will not
see the future being instantiated after his death. Accordingly, there is a split that
characterizes his anticipation of the future. One phase occurs in his biological
lifetime, which is limited by his own death and by the expectations that pertain to
this part of the future, and then there is the beyond, a phase which is to occur after his
death and which, though it may be anticipated and projected, will not, however, be
lived by the person in question. These two segments of the future are conceived by
the individual in such radically differently ways that his anticipation is set (I would
say: must be set) on two levels: the first being that which occurs up to his death and
the second occurring in the thereafter. They are qualitatively different because the
world in which he lives and will be living till the end of his life and the world which
he may only imagine or project, without participating in it, are as different to him as
his corporeal being is from his corporeal non-being. He who denies this must deny
44 R. Zaborowski
the corporeal condition of the human being or, at least, the fundamentality of the
corporeal character of human life and must hence consider the biological dimension
as being simply contingent.16 Otherwise, I think, one must come to terms with the
fact that these are two different qualities such that one cannot be transformed into the
other nor is one replaceable by the other.
A similar yet universally known example may be borrowed from the Iliad:
For my mother the goddess, silver-footed Thetis, telleth me that twofold fates are bearing me
toward the doom of death: if I abide here and war about the city of the Trojans, then lost is
my home-return, but my renown shall be imperishable; but if I return home to my dear native
land, lost then is my glorious renown, yet shall my life long endure, neither shall the doom of
death come soon upon me.17
All mythological and eschatological content being put aside, this passage is still
helpful to grasp a human being’s dilemma experienced in the face of his future. We
deal here with a kind of kierkegaardian either – or as follows: either no home-return
but an imperishable renown or a safe return home but no glorious renown. The
dilemma is existential because it goes beyond the biological dimension of Achilles’
life. We may think so because his glory is biologically useless – it will bring him no
profit given that he will be dead at the time that his glory is set to last. As such, the
two solutions differ quantitatively.18 His choice is, therefore, between, on the one
hand, the physical or biological profit that will come due to his longer life, but with
no fame thereafter, and, on the other, winning fame but to the detriment of his
biological life. Since one is not convertible into the second and vice versa, the either/
or is of two kinds. The two solutions, as Achilles conceives of them, are mutually
exclusive in terms of their content. But there is more, because even if one were to
claim that this is only Achilles’ way of conceiving his choices, and, that for this
reason, they only have bearing within the framework of his subjectivity, one would
16
But even then they are qualitatively as distinct as contingency and essence.
17
Transl. A. T. Murray. Homer (1924, IX, 410–416):
μήτηρ γάρ τε με φησι θεὰ Θετις ἀργυρóπεζα
διχθαδίας κ~ ηρας φερεμεν θανάτoιo τε λoς δε.
ν κ᾽ αὖθι μενων Τρω
εἰ με ων πóλιν ἀμφιμάχωμαι,
ὤλετo μεν μoι νóστoς, ἀτὰρ κλε oς ἄφθιτoν ἔσται:
κεν oἴκαδ᾽ ἵκωμι φίλην ἐς πατρίδα γαῖαν,
εἰ δε
ὤλετó μoι κλε oς ἐσθλóν, ἐπὶ δηρὸν δε μoι αἰὼν
ἔσσεται, oὐδε κε
μ᾽ ὦκα τελoς θανάτoιo κιχείη.
18
One may think about the explanation Plato (1900–1907) gives in the Symposium. First he
mentions (180a) Achilles’ eagerness to join Patroclus and then (208d-e) his desire for immortality
(ἐπαπoθανεῖν). Immortality is now understood not biologically. It is not a question of prolonging
the human genus by procreation but a question of Achilles’ individual existence immortalized by
means of the fame that he will enjoy. R. G. Bury (1909, ad loc.) comments 208d thus: An obvious
allusion to 180 A ff.: Diotima corrects Phaedrus by showing the motive for self-sacrifice to be not so
much personal ἔρως as ἔρως for immortal fame. I think there may be no conflict between self-
sacrifice and desire for immortal fame, for they may be two hardly dissociable reasons of Achilles’
anticipation: his ἔρως is as strong as to make him immortal and, on the other hand, it is his personal
ἔρως which is the reason for his act.
still have to agree that the choices before him are mutually exclusive in terms of time
because they are not simultaneous. To paraphrase Epicurus, when Achilles is living,
there is no postmortem fame, and when his postmortem fate arrives, he will no
longer be alive. Achilles may only deliberate about it and approach it by anticipating
the alternatives. More exactly, he may anticipate only one of the two solutions at one
time, but, by anticipating either one as coming about, he anticipates that the second
will be relinquished. An interesting feature of Achilles’ decision is its finality for
either choice will determine his future forever. I mention this because such is not
always the case: often what happens is that after a decision is taken, the resulting acts
are but the first stage of anticipation.
Conclusion to 2.2. This section concerns the existential anticipation. Because death
itself is an event to come, it divides the future of the same person into two exclusive
worlds: there is the period up to the person’s death and the one which comes after
death. Since they are incommensurable, I suggest that the two phases be considered
as two different levels, the one involving anticipations within the world of one’s
lifetime versus the anticipations that apply to the time after one’s death.
3.2.3 First- Versus Second-Order Anticipation
Let me end with first- versus second-order anticipation. Apart from anticipating what
will happen, one may anticipate one’s future (way of) anticipating. Thus, just as
there is a meta-reflection, so there is a meta-anticipation. This is especially charac-
teristic of a creative process as opposed to, say, a spontaneous act of love. For
example:
From this first point of view his work must be considered only as an unhappy love which
inevitably presages others and which causes his life to resemble it, so that the poet hardly
needs to continue writing, so completely will he discover the semblance of what will happen
anticipated in what he has written. Thus my love for Albertine and the degree in which it
differed was already engrossed in my love for Gilberte in the midst of those joyous days
when for the first time I heard Albertine's name mentioned by her aunt, without suspecting
that that insignificant germ would one day develop and spread over my whole life.19
In this case the narrator reflects on a future finding concerning the meaning of
what he has created. And what he has created is an anticipation of what will happen.
This is in fact the same event as the one a lover will experience, yet without
19
M. Proust (1931, 257, transl. S. Hudson ¼ M. Proust (1989, 483): À ce premier point de vue,
l’œuvre doit être considérée seulement comme un amour malheureux qui en présage fatalement
d’autres et qui fera que la vie ressemblera à l’œuvre, que le poète n’aura presque plus besoin
d’écrire, tant il pourra trouver dans ce qu’il a écrit la figure anticipée de ce qui arrivera. Ainsi mon
amour pour Albertine, et tel qu’il en différa, était déjà inscrit dans mon amour pour Gilberte, au
milieu des jours heureux duquel j’avais entendu pour la première fois prononcer le nom et faire le
portrait d’Albertine par sa tante, sans me douter que ce germe insignifiant se développerait et
s’étendrait un jour sur toute ma vie.)
46 R. Zaborowski
expecting or anticipating it. This contrast shows how much two attitudes differ as
regards the future: the lover is responsible for what will happen, but doesn’t suspect
it, while the poet, or the writer, apprehends its meaning ante factum. Now, it is
unclear whether he or she constructs it independently of the very fact of
apprehending it and is simply mirroring it or rather constructs it through the very
fact of apprehending it, which means that he or she anticipates it. On the one hand,
his or her work mirrors his or her own life because, we are told, his work must be
considered only as an unhappy love. On the other hand, his or her works anticipates
his or her life, for what will happen [is] anticipated in what he has written, and, for
this reason, we may say that he or she anticipates the meaning of his or her own life.
This brings to mind Aristotle’s treatment of a similar chicken-and-egg dilemma
which appears in the Nicomachean Ethics. The problem he is dealing with has to do
with one’s becoming such and such a person by doing such and such, while, from a
different angle, it seems that what one does results from who one has (already)
become. Aristotle’s solution refers, even if implicitly, to two levels of anticipation.
Anticipating what one is about to do is different from anticipating who one is about
to become as much as anticipating one action is different from anticipating antici-
pation. The way Aristotle does this is to draw a distinction between deliberately
choosing the act, that is an anticipation that guides a single action or behaviour
which may result in a subsequent choice, and choos[ing] it for its own sake, that is
disposition to anticipating one’s anticipations.
A difficulty may however be raised as to what we mean by saying that in order to become
just men must do just actions, and in order to become temperate they must do temperate
actions. For if they do just and temperate actions, they are just and temperate already, just as,
if they spell correctly or play in tune, they are scholars or musicians. [. . .] but acts done in
conformity with the virtues are not done justly or temperately if they themselves are of a
certain sort, but only if the agent also is in a certain state of mind when he does them: first he
must act with knowledge; secondly he must deliberately choose the act, and choose it for its
own sake; and thirdly the act must spring from a fixed and permanent disposition of
character. [. . .] It is correct therefore to say that a man becomes just by doing just actions
and temperate by doing temperate actions [. . .].20
The crucial distinction is that deliberately choosing the act, and choos[ing] it
for its own sake must be constant, not episodical. The picture is again the same: just
as in the geometric shape versus solid example, here too, the (a) choosing some-
thing for its own sake cannot result from accretions of (b) deliberate choices, and
furthermore, even though the former requires the latter, it is not the result of it and
cannot be reduced to it:
20
Transl. H. Rackham. Aristotle (1934, 1105a–b): ἀπoρήσειε δ᾽ ἄν τις πῶς λε γoμεν ὅτι δεῖ τὰ μὲν
δίκαια πράττoντας δικαίoυς γίνεσθαι, τὰ δὲ σω φρoνα σω φρoνας: εἰ γὰρ πράττoυσι τὰ δίκαια καὶ
σω φρoνα, ἤδη εἰσὶ δίκαιoι καὶ σω φρoνες, ὥσπερ εἰ τὰ γραμματικὰ καὶ τὰ μoυσικά, γραμματικoὶ
καὶ μoυσικoί. [...] τὰ δὲ κατὰ τὰς ἀρετὰς γινóμενα oὐκ ἐὰν αὐτά πως ἔχῃ, δικαίως ἢ σωφρóνως
πράττεται, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐὰν ὁ πράττων πῶς ἔχων πράττῃ, πρῶτoν μὲν ἐὰν εἰδω ς, ἔπειτ᾽ ἐὰν
πρoαιρoύμενoς, καὶ πρoαιρoύμενoς δι᾽ αὐτά, τὸ δὲ τρίτoν ἐὰν καὶ βεβαίως καὶ ἀμετακινήτως
ἔχων πράττῃ. [...] εὖ oὖν λεγεται ὅτι ἐκ τoῦ τὰ δίκαια πράττειν ὁ δίκαιoς γίνεται καὶ ἐκ τoῦ τὰ
σω φρoνα ὁ σω φρων [...].
It may be objected that perhaps he is not the sort of man to take the trouble. Well, but men are
themselves responsible for having become careless through living carelessly [. . .] They
acquire a particular quality by constantly acting in a particular way. This is shown by the way
in which men train themselves for some contest or pursuit: they practice continually.
Therefore only an utterly senseless person can fail to know that our characters are the result
of our conduct [. . .].21
The self-transformation, i.e. transforming one’s own character, is an interrupted

series of anticipations, while a single virtuous act may be committed at random, as a
joke or a fake. Therefore, acting in a particular moment and modifying one’s own
character are as different as anticipating one act and anticipating future choices and
decisions, in a word: anticipating future anticipations. Since the distinction is not of
degree, I call the latter meta-anticipation.
Conclusion to 2.3. In this case, the two-level distinction concerns episodical versus
permanent anticipation, the former being unconscious or spontaneous, whereas the
latter being conscious or deliberate. This distinction may seem simply epistemic. If it
is only this, then let us call it an epistemic distinction of levels of anticipation.
However I hope I have shown that the issue is not simply epistemic, for the correct
epistemology in matters of action, as Aristotle states, are of no avail.22 The upper
level requires a novum, absent in the lower level.
3.3 A Final Conclusion
1. I have pointed to three axes of multilayeredness of anticipation. They concern:

i). lifetime,
ii). existence understood as extending beyond the death of an individual,
iii). awareness of anticipation.
2. I take these distinctions:

i). to testify to the irreducibility of several perspectives,
ii). to be informative with respect to their nature.
3. Yet, to be certain that the claim about multilayeredness is required as a solution to

the problems posed, I must emphasize the novum within each of the three
distinctions. I think that they, i.e. the novi, are the following:
21
Transl. H. Rackham. Aristotle (1934, 1114a): ἀλλ᾽ ἴσως τoιoῦτóς ἐστιν ὥστε μὴ ἐπιμεληθ~ ηναι.
Ἀλλὰ τoῦ τoιoύτoυς γενεσθαι αὐτoὶ αἴτιoι ζῶντες ἀνειμενως [...] αἱ γὰρ περὶ ἕκαστα ἐνεργειαι
τoιoύτoυς πoιoῦσιν. Τoῦτo δὲ δ~ ηλoν ἐκ τῶν μελετω ντων πρὸς ἡντινoῦν ἀγωνίαν ἢ πρᾶξιν:
διατελoῦσι γὰρ ἐνεργoῦντες. τὸ μὲν oὖν ἀγνoεῖν ὅτι ἐκ τoῦ ἐνεργεῖν περὶ ἕκαστα αἱ ἕξεις
γίνoνται, κoμιδῇ ἀναισθήτoυ.
22
See Aristotle (1934, 1105b): [...] πρὸς δὲ τὸ τὰς ἀρετὰς τὸ μὲν εἰδεναι oὐδὲν ἢ μικρὸν ἰσχύει [...]
(transl. H. Rackham: [...] but for the possession of the virtues, knowledge is of little or no avail [...]).
48 R. Zaborowski
i). duration versus momentariness (consider the line and point analogy in
geometry),
ii). universal/interpersonal versus individual/intrapersonal (compare plural ver-
sus singular in grammar),
iii). meta-reflective versus reflective (compare reflexive versus transitive in
grammar23).
Even if it may be objected that what I point to relies simply on a formal distinction
between (i) short-distanced and long-distanced futures, (ii) inward and outward, and
(iii) anticipating and meta-anticipating, without giving any precision as to the matter
of contents of what is anticipated, these six characteristics nevertheless may be
accepted as important criteria of distinction, for their application being formal proves
to be even more universally applicable as a solution to the incoherencies that result
when the opposing distinctions are treated ad hoc and unileveled.
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Salthe, S.N. 2009. A hierarchical framework for levels of reality: Understanding through represen-
tation. Axiomathes 19: 87–99.
Scheler, M. 1973. Formalism in Ethics and Non–Formal Ethics of Values. A New Attempt toward
the Foundation of an Ethical Personalism. Trans. M. S. Frings & R. L. Funk. Evanston:
Northwestern University Press.
Sobel, D. (ed.). 2016. From Valuing to Value. A Defense of Subjectivism. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.
Zaborowski, R. 2012. Some remarks on Plato on emotions. In: Emotions in Pre– & Early Modern
Mediterranean. A special issue of Mirabilia: Electronic Journal of Antiquity & Middle Ages
15, 2, 141–170.
Chapter 4
Self-Defeating Prophecies: When Sociology
Really Matters
Lorenzo Sabetta
Abstract Social predictions (as well as social classifications, regulations, and

criteria), due to their inner characteristic of being published, may have an influence
on their own subject matter and, in return, on themselves. On the basis of this
assumption, in the context of a discontinuous debate, the consolidated distinction
between self-fulfillingness and self-defeatingness has been developed,
distinguishing between predictions that come true thanks to their dissemination
and others that, for the same dissemination, become false. The aim of the essay is,
primarily, to investigate the rationale underlying this distinction. In an innovative
manner, it will be stated that self-fulfillingness always rests on some causal unaware-
ness, because the definition of the situation – originally inadequate – does not take
place as a consequence of the subject’s beliefs. In fact, “inadequate” means that it
would not come true if it were not for the subject’s behavior, which originates from
fear, hope, misconception, and social fatalism, not from an adequate understanding
of the situation; in this regard, it is no coincidence that self-fulfilling prophecies
always have a commonsense background. Conversely, a self-defeating outcome
invariably involves voluntariness and careful deliberation. The prediction fails as a
consequence of the renewed intentions of the subjects, who modify some aspects of
their behavior in response to the new awareness, preventing the prediction from
happening. This new awareness is caused by the prediction itself and is related to its
validity: if the subjects would not have been familiar with the prediction, this latter
would not have been undermined – in this sense, it is a suicidal prophecy. From this
perspective, this essay shows how the self-defeating process, far from being some-
thing to avoid, is instead something to aspire to: and this has been so since the
original Merton’s definition of the self-fulfilling prophecy, which purpose was
precisely to falsify itself, in order to break the vicious cycle of self-fulfillingness.
Keywords Sociological forecasting · Self-defeating prophecy · Suicidal prophecy ·

Self-fulfilling prophecy · Reflexive mechanisms · Social action theory · Pierre
Bourdieu · Robert K. Merton
L. Sabetta (*)
University of Columbia/Missouri, Columbia, USA
e-mail: lorenzo.sabetta@uniroma1.it

52 L. Sabetta
4.1 Introduction. Self-Defeating Prophecies Between Public

Sociology and Scientific Accuracy
The broad consensus obtained by Michael Burawoy’s call for public sociology
(2005) and the wide discussion that has followed it (see Agger 2007; Clawson
et al. 2007; Santoro 2007)1 definitively prove the topicality and the current appeal
of the “long-established and stubborn ambition of sociology to serve a purpose and
be useful” (Campelli 2002: 9): that is, the willingness to remedy the lack of attention
to the public interest that characterizes many sociological analyses. Behind this
ambition lies the wish that (public) sociology “be informed by the concerns of
many publics, shape debates in the public sphere, and demonstrate its public
worth” (Calhoun 2005: 356). At the same time, there is also the determination to
face the increasing institutional marginalization of sociology, in attempting to
overcome the “scandal” (Guba and Lincoln 1981) of the absence of practical impact
of many sociological theories and the public indifference toward them.2 Neverthe-
less, despite having gathered numerous endorsements from a variety of scholars,
there are also some voices against the call for public sociology: in particular, as
pointed out by some critics (see, e.g., Tittle 2004), a controversial point arises in
regard to the compatibility between a public sociology so conceived and the
imperative of methodological, explanatory, and conceptual rigor that defines soci-
ology as science – that defines, in Boudon’s words (2002), the sociology that really
matters, i.e., a full-blown sound sociology built on solid epistemological bases. In
fact, it is no wonder that insisting on the public role of sociology, on its concern with
engaged/activist pursuits, is often seen in explicit opposition to the primary impor-
tance of the scientific foundation of the discipline (Pisati 2007: 1; and besides, it has
been so since the days of Thomas and Znaniecki 1920: 7–16).3 Thus, such a situation
would create the risk of presenting the public engagement of sociology and its direct
impact on society as inherently opposed to the scientific credibility and the episte-
mological reliability of this field of studies, so reinforcing a both long-established
and dangerous dichotomy (“professional” vs. “public” sociology).
1
Not to mention the fact that the American Sociological Association (as well as regional and
subdisciplinary US-based sociological societies), for a number of years now, regularly organizes
(within their annual meetings) mini-conferences and panels specifically dedicated to the issue of
public sociology.
2
As has been argued, Burawoy’s manifesto is indeed also “a strategy for getting our foot in the door
that has been closed to most sociologists, [a strategy for] thinking about why we are left out, and
what can be done about our marginality” (Turner 2007: 264).
3
In fact, in the “Methodological Note” that prefaces their masterpiece, it is stated – in plain terms –
that “from the method of the [sociological] study itself all practical considerations must be excluded
if we want the results to be valid,” supporting so an approach to scientific investigation “which is
quite free from any dependence on practice” (Thomas and Znaniecki 1920: 7).
4 Self-Defeating Prophecies: When Sociology Really Matters 53
On this basis, the aim of the present contribution is to identify a possible meeting
point where it would be possible to reconcile these two demands, thus seeking to find
common ground among them. That the analysis should be focused on social
forecasting is in some measure self-evident. In fact, both public sociology (willing
to “salvage the promise of progress” and actively oriented toward the construction of
a “better world”: Burawoy 2005: 5) and the epistemologically based one (dealing as
it does with social change and unintended consequences4: Boudon 1982 and 1986)
are inevitably concerned with future, anticipation, and prediction. Instead, what may
seem counterintuitive is the specific topic selected as analysis’ subject in this paper:
the topic of self-defeating prophecies. Although they are usually regarded as a
somehow embarrassing and unfortunate feature regrettably peculiar to social sci-
ences, self-destroying prophecies will be considered here – on the contrary – not just
as a desirable result (and sometimes strongly desirable), but also as an outcome that
can demonstrate the compatibility, within social sciences, of explanatory accuracy
and public relevance, of scientific substantiation and ability to influence the future
(or that at least proves the needlessness of their opposition). In this direction, before
trying to set the record straight about self-defeating prophecies, it first needs to
summarize the broader issue of reflexive/self-altering predictions in sociology.
4.2 Self-Defeating and Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Reflexive

Mechanisms in Sociological Forecasting
As is known, social predictions (as well as social classifications, regulations, and

criteria), due to their inner characteristic of being published and spread, may have an
influence on their own study subject and, in return, on themselves: “classifying
changes people, and the changed people cause classifications themselves to be
redrawn” (Hacking 2004: 279). If this “looping effect of human kinds” (Hacking
1995) happens, it is because social sciences stand “in a subject-subject relation to
their ‘field of study’”: they deal “with a pre-interpreted world, in which the meanings
developed by active subjects actually enter into the constitution or production of that
world” (Giddens 1993: 154). Then, since consciousness, beliefs, ideals, and imag-
inings “enter essentially and constitutively into the being of the reality studied” by
sociology (Krishna 1971: 1107), the new consciousness, beliefs, ideals, and imag-
inings propagated by sociological analyses and predictions cannot but alter the
analyzed situations, thus modifying those same developments and trends that had
4
Which are tasks that can be viewed as necessarily related to social forecasting: “the characteristic
problems of the social sciences arise only out of our wish to know the unintended consequences
[. . .]. We wish to foresee not only the direct consequences but also these unwanted indirect
consequences” (Popper 1962: 164, italics added).
54 L. Sabetta
been forecasted.5 After all, it is a well-known fact: within social reality, the distinc-
tion between “real things and constructed ideas” (Voas 2003: 130) is always
problematic and blurred, given that “there are things that exist only because we
believe them to exist” (Searle 1995: 1) and that “if men define situations as real, they
are real in their consequences” (Thomas and Thomas 1928: 572). This is, therefore, a
genuinely (and venerable) sociological issue, precisely that of the social construction
of reality, a construction to which also sociologists (consciously or not) made their
contribution, especially in predicting and anticipating future social trends.
Inside this framework, in the context of a discontinuous and sometimes repetitive
debate (Simon 1954; Kemp 1962; Buck 1963; Romanos 1973; Vetterling 1976;
Stack 1978; Azariadis 1981; Henshel 1982a, b; Land and Schneider 1987; Rogers
1996), has been developed the consolidated differentiation between self-
fulfillingness and self-defeatingness, between predictions that come true because
of their dissemination and others that, for the same dissemination, become false.
This conceptual pair was originally drawn up by Robert K. Merton, who in 1936 and
in 1948 was the first one to distinguish between those cases where an initially false
definition of the situation (i.e., the prophecy/forecasting) becomes true (and fulfills
itself) because of the actions performed as a result of the public acceptance of the
prophecy and those cases where an initially true definition of the situation (i.e., the
prophecy/forecasting) becomes false (and defeats itself) due to the behaviors under-
taken (here again) as a result of its acceptance. In Merton’s words, “public pre-
dictions of future social developments [. . .] become a new element in the concrete
situation, thus tending to change the initial course of developments” (Merton 1936:
903). Thus, on the one hand, there is the self-fulfilling forecast, by which “a false
definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false
conception come true” (Merton 1948: 195), whereas, on the other hand, the self-
destroying forecast represents the exact complementary opposite process (Merton
1936: 904). In sum, both these scenarios involve the presence of a reflexive/self-
altering mechanism, such that “the mode of prediction’s dissemination is sufficient
to change the probability of the predicted event occurring from what it would be if
not disseminated” (Kopec 2011: 1253). However, the difference between those two
kinds of prophecies is not merely formal or logical, but substantial and quite
significant: it is a poignant difference of sociological nature, as it will be illustrated
in the next section.
5
In other words: “concepts and theories invented by social scientists can, in turn, be fed back into
the social world. They become constituting elements of that very subject matter they were coined to
characterize; by that token, they alter the context of their application” (Weinert 2009: 228).
4.3 Unawareness and Its Opposite: The Rationale of Self-

Defeating Effects from the Point of View of Social
Action Theory
While in the abovementioned debate philosophical and epistemological interests

prevailed (above all, focusing on the theme of differences and similarities between
social and natural sciences in terms of predictions6), in this contribution the topic of
reflexive prophecies will be approached within the clearly defined boundaries of
social action theory. In this perspective, it seems possible to state that the actual
dividing line between self-fulfilling and self-defeating prophecies (i.e., between the
self-fulfilling and self-defeating outcome of prophecies) lies in the voluntariness, in
the purposiveness with which social actors respond to the prophecy, as well as in the
awareness of their reactions. On the one side, in fact, self-fulfillingness always rests
on causal unawareness/unintentionality: in the words of Merton, “the specious
validity of the self-fulfilling prophecy perpetuates a reign of error” (1948: 195).
The point is that the definition of the situation (the prophecy) is originally inade-
quate: it takes place and fulfills itself not as a consequence of subject’s conscious
beliefs, but for completely different reasons (i.e., for the objective meaning of their
behavior and for its effective by-products, regardless of what the actors could state or
believe about that). Thus, “self-fulfilling” means that the prophecy was in itself, at
the outset, inadequate; and “inadequate” means that it would not come true if it were
not for subject’s concrete behavior. A behavior which originates from fear, hope,
misconception, and social fatalism and not from an adequate understanding of the
situation: in the classic example of “Last National Bank” failure, we know that the
bank “was solvent, and that it would have survived for many years had not the
misleading rumour created the very conditions of its own fulfilment” (Merton 1948:
196). In this sense, it is no coincidence that self-fulfilling prophecies always have a
commonsense background: as Merton observed, “the self-fulfilling prophecy,
whereby fears are translated into reality, operates only in the absence of deliberate
institutional controls” (1948: 210).7 On the other side, a self-defeating outcome
invariably involves a degree of voluntariness and some aware actions, as the result of
a correct understanding, by the actors, of those causal mechanisms that are at work in
the production of predicted effects. In fact, the prediction failure is a consequence of
the renewed intentions of the subjects, who modify certain aspects of their behavior
in response to the new awareness, preventing the predicted future state from
6
In that respect, in fact, this debate is perfectly in keeping with the Neo-Kantian’s (Dilthey,
Windelband, Rickert, etc.) concern about which parallels and discrepancies can be found between
geisteswissenschaften (“moral sciences”) and naturwissenschaften (“natural sciences”) – namely, a
primarily philosophical concern, and not yet a strictly sociological one.
7
It is not even a coincidence that Merton’s essay has drawn on examples that invariably involved the
perpetuation of racial stereotypes and out-groups segregation, whereby self-fulfilling prophecies
end up constituting an authentic “vicious circle” (Merton 1948: 208), a kind of “self-hypnosis”
(ibid: 200).
56 L. Sabetta
happening (the prediction, thus, is a suicidal one). This new awareness is caused by
the prediction itself and is related to its validity: if the subjects would not have been
familiar with the prediction, this latter would not have been undermined – that is
precisely why the prophecy was initially true. To take a paradigmatic case, think
about Marx’s prediction of the progressive concentration of wealth and increasing
misery of the masses: one of its consequence – perhaps the most remarkable – “was
the spread of organization of labor, which, made conscious of its unfavorable
bargaining position in cases of individual contract, organized to enjoy the advan-
tages of collective bargaining, thus eliminating the developments which Marx had
predicted” (Merton 1936: 904). The self-destroying process, therefore, presupposes
that social actors had understood the sociological analysis/prediction correctly, so
correctly that they were been able to act in such a way to prevent the predicted event
from occurring. In this light, the self-defeating scenario seems to harmonize the
validity of sociological analyses with their impact on society, keeping them together.
For it is only through the soundness and the validity of the forecast that the renewed
behaviors performed by the actors are able to “falsify” the forecast itself, because
otherwise neither the predicted outcomes nor the actors’ behaviors would have any
connection with the actual future situation.8
4.4 Merton and Bourdieu as a Couple of “Classical”

Examples
There is an element related to the writing and the publication of the article The Self-
Fulfilling Prophecy that is, though neglected, extremely interesting and almost
revelatory. Merton struggled to publish his essay in a broadly distributed magazine,
succeeding in doing so only after several rejections: “it seemed to me that this
sociological idea might possibly become of valued pragmatic application if it were
to become widely known and understood” (1989: 317). Focusing on instances of
racial discrimination and pointing out their self-fulfilling character, Merton intended
to show how “ethnic prejudice do die” once the actors become aware of the spiral
that they themselves have triggered (1948: 210). In this perspective, in a seemingly
paradoxical manner, the purpose of Merton’s original definition of self-fulfilling
prophecies was to falsify itself, in order to break the vicious spiral of self-
fulfillingness.9 After all, this is not an isolated case. To give another example
8
All of this, however, leaves open a well-known methodological/experimental problem, the ques-
tion of whether an antecedent (supposedly causal) condition is also a necessary one, namely, an
essential element of the causal chain (for an authoritative reference, see Campbell and Stanley
1963). In this sense, in self-defeating prophecies, it would have to be determined – on a case-by-
case basis – whether the spreading of the prophecy can be considered a necessary condition (or at
least a significant one) for the change of the forecasted trend/effect.
9
It is just seemingly paradoxical given that Merton was particularly familiar with the concept of
“self-exemplification” that refers to “an idea (concept, hypothesis, or theory) that applies to its own
taken from classical sociological theorists, consider the book La misère du monde
(1993), where Pierre Bourdieu openly pursued the same identical goal sought by
Merton (for a more lengthy discussion on this matter, see also Lombardo and Sabetta
2018). As Wacquant noted (2013: 16), Bourdieu wanted “to push the boundaries of
methodological conventions and sociological writing,” so as to reach as many people
as possible, causing so a “short circuit” in the French social situation. Predicting
harsh times for late millennium “social sufferers,” Bourdieu’s aim was to self-
undermine his prophecy: giving them the means to understand the social principle
of their personal predicament, Bourdieu intended to change their fate. Then, it is
possible to state that the rationale underlying self-defeating prophecy resembles the
orientation of the critical theory identified by Max Horkheimer: a theoretical pessi-
mism coupled with a practical optimism (1972: 215) – indeed, ultimately, as
Wilcock said, “one cannot be pessimist and also wish to be right” (2009: 47).
However, what the rationale of self-defeating prophecies and the examples taken
from Merton and Bourdieu are displaying is not merely a vague commendation of
social pessimism: they underscore instead the potential of sociological researches’
circulation and their social incorporation, through which “works that originate as
academic sociology become part of the culture and society that academic sociolo-
gists themselves study” (Merton and Wolfe 1995: 16). It is exactly in this way that
sociology can “defatalize the social world” (Bourdieu 1997) offering the possibility
of control over structural hidden regularities that are generally taken for granted. As
Bourdieu has noted, “determinisms operate to their full only by the help of uncon-
sciousness, with the complicity of the unconscious” (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992:
136): in this sense, sociology would bring to light, render manifest, and – by the
same token – stop the reproduction of certain functions which can be carried on only
if they remain hidden (see Bourdieu and Passeron 1990: 209–210). The positivity
and desirability of a self-altering result depend, of course, on subjective value
judgments, but the self-alteration itself underscores the emancipatory role that
sociology can effectively play by forecasting.
The goal of this essay was to highlight how the self-defeating process, far from
being something to avoid by all means, is rather something to aspire to. As illus-
trated, suicidal prophecies are based on the analysis of those aspects of social action
that are characterized above all by the unawareness of their practitioners: latent
dimensions that are generally “neither intended nor recognized” (Merton 1968: 105).
Since the effects of these dimensions “are not regularly foreseen” by social actors,
“this foresight might alter those same effects” (Goffman 1961: 78), potentially
breaking their unwitting reproduction. Although it is a challenging and infrequently
achieved goal, it seems still a significant target to aim at, which can hold together
both the explanatory strictness advocated by Boudon (2002) and Goldthorpe (2007)
content or is exemplified by its own history” (Merton and Barber 2004: 231). It is not that
surprising, therefore, that when Merton wrote of self-fulfilling prophecies, he would actually
prevent self-fulfilling prophecies from happening, with what was a full-fledged self-defeating
analysis.
58 L. Sabetta
and the impetus of the engaged sociology fostered by Buroway and public sociol-
ogists (2005), pointing the way to a professional, peer-endorsed, sociology that can
also have concrete impacts on the social fabric – representing an example of
sociology that really matters.
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Chapter 5
Pioneer Analysis as a Futures Research
Method for Analysing Transformations
Sirkka Heinonen and Joni Karjalainen
Abstract Pioneers drive futures. The book chapter presents pioneer analysis as a
useful approach for the analysis of transformations in the context of futures research
and anticipation. The chapter begins with an introduction on how pioneers have
typically been conceptualised in academic literature. We claim pioneering actions as
analogous to weak signals of emerging futures, because they manifest possible
futures that may be realised – or not. The chapter provides two methodological
examples, which illustrate how pioneers can be identified, conceptualised and
explored. Analysing pioneers creates critical understanding about the role of key
actors who drive transformations and create the futures. Pioneers tackle uncertainty
with problem-solving and by identifying systemic bottlenecks. Therefore, the
actions of pioneers may have an emancipatory effect and provide leverage points
for broader changes. In terms of policy relevance, we are interested in how policies
can support those pioneers who aim to shape society in a positive way and enable
desirable futures to be achieved. Pioneer analysis is also interested in the positive and
negative outcomes, if such futures are realised. The chapter concludes by discussing
areas for further methodological development.
Keywords Agency · Emancipation · Pioneer analysis · Transformation · Renewable

energy
5.1 Introduction
Societies are complex systems, but where should change start from: from the policy-
makers’ decisions? Academia? Non-governmental organisations (NGOs)? Individ-
ual activism? From the markets? The answer is: everywhere - through pioneering
acts. This book chapter introduces pioneer analysis as a methodological approach
used to study the role of pioneers. Pioneers exist in multiple levels. Pioneers are
S. Heinonen (*) · J. Karjalainen

Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC), University of Turku, Helsinki, Finland
e-mail: sirkka.heinonen@utu.fi; joni.karjalainen@utu.fi

62 S. Heinonen and J. Karjalainen
individuals, organisations, communities, companies, industries/sectors, or even

countries that are ready to tackle all obstacles of adopting new technology or
innovations and by pioneering new practices (Heinonen 2017). Pioneers can also
employ and advocate alternative technology that “possess the greatest potential to
move the sustainability project forward” (Jacob 1997, 214). A pioneer determinately
and boldly looks for opportunities to drive change. Outside the mainstream, pioneers
are consciously building activities on the goals they see meaningful and promising
for the future. With their actions, they open up space for new social practices,
enabling novel ideas to spread, or create demand for new products in the markets.
But how can or should we analyse and explain the role of pioneers for understanding
possible futures?
Pioneering is an emerging and increasingly relevant approach for futures research
(W. Bell 1996), strategic foresight (Lustig 2015) and anticipation studies (Miller
et al. 2014; Poli 2017b). Pioneer analysis aims to provide insights about the nature,
conditions and implications of pioneering. By studying pioneering, we pay attention
to the role of agency in enabling transformations and for envisioning alternative
societal futures in a concise manner. The chapter begins with a definition of
pioneering, reviews approaches interested in pioneers, and then introduces pioneer
analysis as a futures research approach. Pioneer analysis is illustrated by two recent
methodological examples that used different variations of pioneer analysis. The case
studies illustrate how pioneer analysis can be used as a method in the study of
transformations.
Pioneering actions focus on ‘agency’ and its emancipatory nature. Pioneers are
key actors with capabilities that are assumed to deliver or initiate change. Their
actions may open up doors for others to act, trigger benchmarking by followers, and
create further possibilities for future change. They are expected to promote what is
good and positive and help combat negative traits around us, and invite others to
follow them. Today’s pioneers must navigate in an interconnected and globalised
world that faces multiple global challenges. For such reasons, pioneering is also
becoming a subject of policy interest. The United Nations has called a search for the
Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs) pioneers who can fight inequality, injustice
and protect the environment (UNGC 2017). By studying pioneering actors and their
activities as seeds of change, pioneer analysis aims to develop a critical understand-
ing about the motivations, the outcomes of their activities, and the conditions that
allow pioneers to emerge and to sustain their transformative efforts.
5.2 Pioneers as a Subject of Academic Research
This chapter begins by providing a definition of pioneering, reviews how pioneering

has been conceived in academic literature, and explains the research interest in
pioneering in futures research and anticipation studies. The list of examples provided
is far from exhaustive, but serves to illustrate a growing aspiration of scholars to
conceive the world through the eyes of those who make change happen in it.
5 Pioneer Analysis as a Futures Research Method for Analysing Transformations 63
5.2.1 Who Are Pioneers?
The concept of a pioneer origins from the military vocabulary, but Oxford English
Dictionary defines it as “a person who is among the first to research and develop a
new area of knowledge or activity; or develop or be the first to use or apply (a new
method, area of knowledge, or activity)”. A pioneer is a determined explorer of new
innovation or possibilities. An often synonymously used term to a pioneer is a
forerunner, a “person or thing that precedes the coming or development of someone
or something else”. Characterising one as a forerunner is a more static definition, as
such actors might not be aware of being a forerunner in something. A pioneer is
determinately looking for an opportunity for change.
In historical narratives, the humankind has hailed explorers as pioneers for
inspiration, innovation, and perseverance. Inventors and scientists have been con-
ceived to be pioneers, as their discoveries have changed entire scientific disciplines,
and technology (Mayr 1982, Nash et al. 1990, Stewart 2017). Pioneers in history
have transformed entire industries – in arts, music, economy and culture, by shifting
norms and challenging established patterns of doing, thinking and acting. Pioneers
have set new milestones and established novel goalposts against which others are
measured. In economy, entrepreneurs have been conceived as pioneers, applauded
for their ‘heroic’ nature. Pioneering as a tool for transformations is perhaps irreduc-
ible to single qualities such as age, ethnicity, gender, and so forth. Historical studies
have challenged narratives that earlier described pioneering as a manly enterprise.
Irrespective of domain, pioneers are seen to possess entrepreneurial qualities.
In the normal distribution curve, pioneers are outliers whose actions emerge from
the fringes. When it seems that nobody cares, only “freaks” are interested (Boutelier
and Heinzen 2014b). Therefore, pioneers are sometimes frowned upon. With their
actions, they drive novel values, create space for new social practices, demand for
new products in the markets, or promote a novel working culture – necessary for new
ideas to spread. Pioneers’ ideas must surpass a threshold, a “tipping point” (Gladwell
2000), to become broadly accepted (see Sect. 2.2). As there is little certainty of the
reward that meets them in the future, in this sense, we may assume that pioneers are
driven by intrinsic motives. Pioneering is connected with uncertainty also in the
sense that it may require unorthodox or unforeseen combinations of ideas and skills.
Pioneers who conduct activities in the present may (or may not) be merited only
afterwards based on their achievements. Hence, pioneering that connects actions and
ideas has to take place in spite of uncertainty.
5.2.2 Pioneering in Different Fields
Pioneers have interested researchers’ thinking for some decades already across
academic disciplines. There may be several explanations to this. In social sciences,
institutional theories have struggled in explaining what makes change happen and
Fig. 5.1 Innovators and early adopters can both be considered to be pioneers
can break ‘path dependence’. Theorists have often resorted to explaining change
with exogenous shocks rather than actors’ endogenous capabilities. As a social
phenomenon, interest in pioneering can contribute to better understanding human
actions and socio-economic reality. In ecology, the term pioneer is used to describe
species that first colonize new habitats created by disturbance. Pioneers of “primary
succession” must cope with unfavourable conditions for establishment, which limits
their growth and distribution (Dalling 2008).
In the 1950s Beal et al. (1957) studied the diffusion of purchase patterns of hybrid
seed corn by farmers and came to observe a pattern, which Rogers later (1962)
generalised as a “Diffusion of Innovation Model”. This model describes how a new
product or innovation is adopted or accepted by different groups. The adoption
process over time, which has later been broadly accepted in social studies and
marketing, can be illustrated as a classical normal distribution curve. The innovation
diffusion model differentiates the first group of people to use a new product as
innovators. They are followed by early adopters. For analytical purposes, it is
important that both innovators and early adopters can be seen as pioneers. They
are followed by the early majority and late majority. Some of the early majority can
also be pioneers in opening up the way to late majority. The last group to eventually
adopt a product or an innovation are called laggards (See Fig. 5.1). Not all
innovations always get adopted at first place. In similar sense, all innovations
adopted by early adopters do not get accepted by the majority. This can be explained
by various reasons. Rogers (1962) claims that an innovation must be of value in
itself, the communication channels functional, the timing right and the social system
supportive.
Business literature has primarily been interested in those entrepreneurs and

companies that can be conceived as market pioneers (Covin et al. 2000). Entrepre-
neurs are claimed to be pioneers, by being opportunity focussed to create new
processes, innovate new products and services, open new markets or organize new
industries (Brush 2008). When technologies run faster than governments, they seem
to call for new markets and social structures, inviting certain types of pioneers to act
in the technology frontier (Spar 2001). Market pioneers as data producers interpret
uncertainty to gain first mover advantage. Followers can then “free ride” their tracks
(Wagner and Zahler 2015), while many will only enter markets long after the
pioneers (Boutellier and Heinzen 2014a). When emerging markets are conquered,
market pioneering can also be a spatial exercise. Entrepreneurs and companies may
become celebrated as pioneers for their success; overcoming constraints and making
their markets into being. Pioneering has even been ascribed with mythological
characteristics (Durepos et al. 2008; Aggestam 2008). An entrepreneurial spirit has
also been associated with innovation, futures orientation and social needs/objectives
(Elkington et al. 2010; Fuller and Warren 2006; Heinonen and Ruotsalainen 2012;
Drucker 2014). Pioneering resembles innovation activities, as an effort of complex
problem-solving. Innovation emphasizes the possession of creative and inventive
capabilities of both social and technological nature. Both pioneers and innovators are
touching the frontiers of novelty. As pioneers have to overcome multiple problems,
their actions may result in ‘radical innovation’ which can cater for latent needs in an
evocative manner in business models or as transformative social practices. This may
explain why pioneering is generally rather connected with radical innovation instead
of incremental innovation. But, if we assume that pioneering is connected with
innovation, it may be that actors need their capabilities to be first built in order to
then innovative radically.
Transition management scholars have been interested in how pioneers can over-
come hurdles and transform existing, unsustainable regimes (Loorbach and Rotmans
2010). Innovators need innovation space but also support to experiment and scale up
their problem-solving activities. Pioneers may have to go the extra mile in order to
stand out, as their initial impact may be limited. When innovators experiment with
their ideas, they “search” and identify challenges to gain understanding about
contextual factors. Pioneers must be pragmatic to turn challenges into opportunities.
For the pioneers’ talents to be harnessed, transition management scholars emphasize
the relevance of ‘nurturing’, organising support and space for pioneers to innovate.
Niches are ‘protective spaces’ that shield pioneering efforts from mainstream market
selection. At the same time, ‘pioneering’ acts may drive, shape and conceptualise a
niche. Pioneering actors are key actors in a niche, as their actions may strengthen
emergent networks and invite other actors to develop it.
Pioneering is also gaining growing interest in the study of transformations for
sustainability (Wiek and Lang 2016). This is also shown in a growing number of
studies that seek to understand what strategies can be adopted to shape innovation
environments (Mazzucato 2013), and overcome barriers for the adoption of renew-
able energy. Pioneering with renewable energy has been studied by conceiving early
adopters of renewable energy as frontrunners (Nygrén et al. 2015), studying
pioneering communities (Sperling 2017), exploring the role of policy context and
related implications for pioneering efforts (Hills and Michalena 2017), and viewing
renewable energy entrepreneurs as pioneers (Karjalainen et al. 2018). In this sense,
the research interest is closely aligned with the mission of both futures research and
anticipation, seeking to explain future-oriented actions and their implications taking
place in the present.
5.2.3 Pioneer Analysis, Futures Research and Anticipation
Pioneer studies is an emerging area in futures research. Pioneers can be considered as

agents of future creation whose significance can be explained by their potential. In
futures research, it has been argued that more emphasis should be paid on the
constant systematic identification and analysis of ‘weak signals’ (Hiltunen 2008,
2010). In analogy to weak signals, as signs of emerging issues, pioneering acts
resemble the very early signs of change. They may start as something seemingly
small, but if they prosper, they may challenge prevailing norms and institutions, and
overcome path dependence. As a difference, while there are uncountable weak
signals to be observed and interpreted, there are typically only a few pioneers. In
futures research terminology, pioneers can be said to operate between the ‘push’ of
the present and the ‘pull’ of the future, unhindered by the weight of the history
(Inayatullah 2008) (Fig. 5.2).
On the other hand, as Tuomi (2002, 26) points out “social practice is inherently
conservative”. Both pioneers and innovators who are already declined towards new
practice, can face severe opposition. Many innovators have become
excommunicated, beheaded, or bankrupt (Ibid.).
Pioneer studies is interested in research questions such as: How can pioneers be
identified? What makes innovations spread? What role can pioneers have in achiev-
ing preferred futures? According to our view, pioneers are ‘futures conscious’
Fig. 5.2 Pioneering actors operate between the push of the present and the pull of the future
(adapted from Inayatullah 2008)
because they have an intention of creating futures. Pioneers act based on

pre-knowledge of the future. Consequently, pioneering acts can be conceived to
provide early information as potential symptoms of future trajectories. They may
have an ability to use their peripheral vision for the detection of weak signals and
emerging issues, thereby connecting practice and the bigger picture (Day and
Schoemaker 2006). “The future is here, but it is unevenly distributed”, is a quote
attached to a science-fiction writer William Gibson. With regards to pioneering,
Gibson’s quote illustrates how pioneering actors may be “closer” to the future than
other actors. If pioneers are paving the way to futures, this falls in line with one of the
three main principles of futures studies and futures orientation: “the future can be
affected” by Amara (1981). Wendell Bell (1996) even claims propagating a certain
futures image as one of the special purposes of futures studies.
Futures research methodologies create futures knowledge that informs the pre-
sent; anticipation describes the ability of actors’ to make decisions knowing of
futures (Poli 2017a); and forecasting uses past experience. Epistemologically, both
anticipation and futures research assume a systemic view to the world and recognise
its complexity. Understanding life is about acknowledging complexity (Poli 2009).
Anticipation refers to anticipatory behaviour in the present, as a process
(or behaviour) that not only depends on past and present but also on predictions,
expectations, or beliefs about the future, through cognitive or psychological mech-
anisms of looking ahead, and acting accordingly. Anticipation may provide faster
adaptivity in dynamic environments with internal reflection and planning, enhance
the chances of survival, and is also helpful for social interaction (Rosen 1985; Poli
2009; Nadin 2012; Poli 2017b).
5.3 Pioneer Analysis as a Methodological Approach
Within pioneer studies, pioneer analysis is a specific method to study individuals,

communities, organisations, movements, entire industries, or even entire countries
or civilisations as ‘pioneering’ actors. Drawing from Heinonen (2017), pioneer
analysis is interested in signals of emerging phenomena such as technological
innovations and trends that could influence or point to future developments. As a
starting point, pioneer analysis assumes that by observing pioneers and pioneering
cultures, it may be possible to learn about, and possibly anticipate, the dynamics of
techno-economic and socio-cultural change. This research interest aligns with a
broader mission of futures studies: to identify and analyse future possibilities,
probabilities and preferred futures scientifically.
Understanding pioneers can be used as futures knowledge in the same way as
weak signals. Identifying and observing pioneers provides glimpses into a possible
future world and how society might organise. In relation to what was previously
discussed about weak signals, Hiltunen (2013, 65) defines weak signals as “signals
of emerging changes that can become something great – or not.” Analogically,
pioneers launch activities, ideas and projects that today seem of marginal relevance,
but ones that may grow and become ‘mainstream’ in the future. According to our
view, the study of pioneers is relevant for gaining futures knowledge because such
knowledge may be starting something significant and might otherwise go unnoticed.
As Tuomi (2002) reminds us “novelty starts small”.
In the pioneer analysis method (Heinonen 2017), the pioneers of design and
development who are realising the future society are selected as the study subjects.
The ways in which these prime movers apply new information and different tech-
nologies are then examined. By observing and analysing actors that have success-
fully adopted and implemented new technologies, the information gained can be
further applied. The aim is to study pioneers in such a way that new approaches to
policy-making and societal planning can be found. Pioneer analysis is also interested
in anticipating the outcomes that could emerge, if the potential of pioneers’ efforts
are assumed to be realised. Heinonen (ibid.) calls these “positrends” and
“negatrends”. This means the anticipation of the positive and negative impacts of
issues is not well understood in the present. As a whole, the study of pioneers can
enable understanding on-going change more profoundly, and with closer inspection
of its implications. Pioneering activities may also launch trajectories with unintended
negative impacts. For example, pioneers in renewable energy excel in introducing
new technology for solar panels, which becomes a positrend (¼ positive trend) in
shifting the energy mix away from fossil fuel and emissions. It may also become a
negatrend (¼ negative trend) if no attention is being paid to making the technical
infrastructure as consisting of recyclable materials.
The chapter describes next the aims, outputs and observations based on two
methodological experiments where pioneer analysis was applied in a futures
research context to the study of transformations. Both of the studies focused on
the topic of energy transformations and the uptake of renewable energy.
5.3.1 Hybrid Method of Pioneer Analysis and Transformative

Scenarios as a Survey
The aim of the first methodological experiment was to identify pioneers of energy
transformations and learn who are the prime movers innovating or promoting
renewable energy across the world. A hybrid methodology that combined transfor-
mative scenarios with pioneer analysis and a qualitative expert survey was used
(Lang et al. 2016).1 Pioneer analysis was combined with a parallel scenario-building
exercise. Scenarios are a core method in futures research and foresight2 with various
1
In this particular case, the transformation envisioned was a societal one towards a future 100%
renewable energy society, and understanding how it could be realized by different actors in different
countries and regions.
2
There are multiple ways to use scenarios, a discussion too lengthy for the purposes of this text (see
e.g. Bradfield et al. 2005, van Notten et al. 2003)
applications. Scenarios are an art of conversation for strategic dialogue (van der
Heijden 2005). They can also be used as a science-communication tool.
To provide context, four socio-cultural scenarios with a long-term timeframe
(until 2050) had been constructed to provoke and open up futures thinking. All
scenarios had been constructed as transformational (Dator 2009) to avoid being too
cautious or conventional in exploring futures. This means that a transformation
happens in all the scenario narratives. Actors can be added to scenarios multiple
ways (Wangel 2011a, 2011b). In this exercise, pioneering actors were understood to
be catalysts for the actualization of the potential depicted in scenarios. The actors
described in the scenarios have become central actors in society and their activities
mainstream. Many actors that resemble them, already exist to some extent in today’s
societies. Therefore, pioneer analysis was used to gather local views about who
experts across the world see as pioneers, as ‘glocal’ insights.
The actual identification of the pioneers was conducted through an expert survey.
The key idea and hypothesis for a qualitative survey that studies pioneers was that
futures knowledge can be obtained by identifying forerunners and learning from
them proactively. As survey background, the respondents were provided with the
scenario narratives. In the survey, the respondents were asked to name pioneers that
resemble actors in the scenario narratives. In the analysis, all the responses were
categorised and thematically clustered. This formed a basis for understanding the
perceived qualities and motivations of the named actors that the respondents had
identified. It was expected that the responses show who the respondents perceive as
change-makers in the present, which would provide grounds to imagine whom they
could be in the future.
There were several outcomes of the methodological exercise. The research
approach had aimed to provide insights on the various ways that respondents across
the world perceive the role of pioneers and their potential in driving local energy
transformations. It was observed that posing questions to respondents about
pioneering produced meaningful qualitative answers in contexts unknown to the
research team. When the answers were analysed collectively and their elements
combined, they started to provide a more comprehensive outline of a future image
increasingly different from the present day. They also provided overlapping views
about strategies for action and issues that need to be addressed. In terms of trans-
formation, the results of the study did not pinpoint how an individual actor should
change behaviour, but it did imply what kinds of actors might be valued in a future
society. In reality, the different actors may even be dependent on each other. As the
respondents were mainly asked to name pioneers in the present, individual responses
were not necessarily ‘radical’. It also seemed easier for the survey respondents to
identify pioneers of today than those of a faraway future, something to bear in mind
in research methods that stimulate futures thinking.
It is important to emphasize that neither the scenarios, nor the responses gained were
predictions of the future, but rather illustrations for possibly unfolding futures. In conjunc-
tion, this allowed testing the scenarios and providing feedback to them. As further reflection
to the study, when the survey asked about the pioneers with the help of the scenarios, the
scenarios themselves were further contextualised. The transformative scenarios were
interpreted by individuals around the world familiar with local needs, narratives and trends.
Results of the survey were then used to modify and deepen the initial scenarios, so that they
could be contextualised even further. Thus, the survey provided an interactive research
process to discuss social change. It yielded understanding on how different stakeholders and
citizens viewed the plausibility of the scenarios. It also showcased how the transformations
depicted in them were interpreted, and what they perceived as a preferred future for their
own society.
5.3.2 Pioneers in Industries or Sectors in Transition
In a second study, pioneer analysis was used in a slightly different manner

(Karjalainen et al. 2018). As context, the study investigated the role of entrepreneurs
and companies as pioneers in the solar energy industry. In the two countries of the
study, the nascent industry seemed to be undergoing rapid uptake, experiencing
technological convergence, and there was speculation about future impacts. By
looking at the pioneers, the aim of the study was to investigate more carefully the
direction of the transition. As background, the research illustrated the historical
evolution of the niche in the study countries. Studying entrepreneurs as pioneers
was justified by the fact that entrepreneurs drive particular types of futures (Fuller
and Warren 2006) and ‘creative destruction’ (Schumpeter 1934) is expected to
transform industries, sectors and the values underpinning the economy. But there
has been less research of the significance of pioneering entrepreneurs and what their
actions mean against broader ‘ideals’ (O’Neill and Gibbs 2016).
This work aimed to provide futures knowledge of the systemic implications that
stem from the adoption of the innovations and practices proposed by the pioneers.
Drawing from the principles of pioneer analysis (Heinonen 2017), the study used the
analytical lens of ‘pioneering’ and explored the role of innovation capabilities to
describe the sector’s entrepreneurs and companies. The pioneers were identified
from various sources: interviews, snowballing method, grey literature, project and
industry documents, as well as media. These sources of information were pulled
together to describe the niche further and to identify the pioneers. As a methodo-
logical limitation, there was not direct contact with all the actors that could be
considered as pioneers.
The role of pioneers was used to explaining the niche evolution. The approach
aligned closely with Martin Bell and Paulo N. Figueiredo’s (2012) interest in how
firms move along the trajectory of change based on the capabilities that they possess.
This emphasized a dynamic view of a solar PV niche where firms are its key agents,
and pioneers those agents that can transform the industry, and realise the future
society. In this study, pioneering was associated with the radicality of innovations,
and it was argued that pioneers have to possess a range of capabilities for their efforts
to be successful. Different actors were categorized from pioneering to conventional,
based on their innovative capabilities and their business models, adapting a typology
from the field of studies on innovation and global value chains (Ibid.).
Scenario methodology that describes transformations was this time used to

provide reflections of possible future trajectories of the industry in the countries.
This time, only one scenario was used as a reflection point and to be tested. The ‘gap’
between the envisioned scenario narrative and the reality identified in the present
illustrated the transition that would need take place for the scenario to be realised.
The particular scenario was selected because in those countries, there were several
weak signals and emerging issues that already pointed to the possibility of such a
future in these countries. However, it was seen that further examination was
warranted to understand the actual dynamics.
As reflection to the study, pioneering was interpreted to be conducted by those who have
innovative capabilities and emphasized the social nature beyond technological capabilities.
However, it was noteworthy, that in such a study, where companies and an industry were
under study, attention tended to drift to focus on technological achievements, even when
addressing social needs as ‘radical innovations’ better described the qualities of the
pioneering efforts. Advances in the fields of technology, economy and culture can become
expressed in the actions and social motives of pioneering entrepreneurs. It was noted that it
is possible to describe pioneers as actors in a niche based on multiple sources of informa-
tion. However, it could have been interesting to study their skill sets, motivations and
rationale even more deeply.
To sum up the methodological discussion, the above two examples illustrate just
some of the opportunities to approach and investigate the role of pioneers. They also
raise interesting further methodological questions to be investigated. For understand-
ing the contributions of pioneers in shaping the future more specifically, at least the
following are seen to be of relevance:
– Does the analogy of pioneers and weak signals as pointing the way to possible
futures need further justification?
– How to identify, analyse and contextualise pioneers?
– How to analyse their motivations?
– Can they be engaged in anticipation intuitively? Unconsciously? Or through their
entrepreneurial spirit?
– How exactly can the analysis of pioneers help us in our efforts for understanding
how the future evolves?
Understanding such questions more rigorously may enable an enhanced under-
standing about how pioneers harness their skills and play a role in diverse trans-
formations across different settings. This kind of analysis may also yield better
insights on the measures needed to support and nurture beneficial conditions for
pioneers to act.
5.4 Exploring Pioneering Actions for Emancipatory

Transformations
Pioneering actions warrant investigation because of their potential for changes in the
future, opening up knowledge about possible futures. Analysing the efforts of
pioneers can be particularly useful in sectors where transformations are on-going,
expected or aspired to take place. At the same time, it may be interesting to study
pioneers in specifically pursuing preferred futures to understand how they could be
attained. Not any action is a ‘pioneering’ action, and not all pioneering actions are
transformative. Exploring pioneering actions could give insight about diverse trans-
formations and the ‘emancipatory’ (Stirling 2015) role that pioneering actors have,
or have had in making transformations happen.
Interest in transformations also poses a normative question about ethics and
values, and what is considered desirable. This need not lead to relativism, but rather
a recognition of a normative position and the related assumptions that deserve to be
carefully argued and justified. According to Wendell Bell (1996), understanding the
present in order to promote desirable futures is one of the open and ethical goals of
futures research. Interest in transformations derives from the fact that achieving
change is seen as a crucial goal and also one that should be achieved swiftly.
Understanding the assumptions, motivations and goals of different actors could be
of critical importance at a time when it is understood that humanity is in a crossroads
to meeting the goals of sustainability, and there are competing arguments and visions
on how such goals should be reached. Besides, as Gordon (2009) points out, future-
influencing actors typically have a social, political, or environmental agenda. How-
ever, the interests they represent may or may not always be along the broader
interests of society and humanity.
The job of pioneers may be to identify, interpret and act in order for them and
their peer groups to move closer to their transformative visions. This underscores the
significance of socio-technical imaginaries (Jasanoff and Kim 2015), not merely
utopias or dystopias but those that epitomize the objectives of transformative acts.
How people imagine their futures can be argued to be a critical social facet of
transitions, as it plays significantly to the desirability and acceptability of novel
innovations and practices (Sovacool and Brossmann 2013). If emancipating aspects
are ignored, change-seeking may dilute into a technocratic exercise with limited
opportunities of building necessary networks that invite others to embark on the
attempt to transform.
If a pioneering act or innovation is found, in order to self-sustain, an innovation
must be widely accepted and eventually reach the critical mass. (Ibid.) The key issue
with pioneers is that, as Gladwell (2000) points out, in order to create a major
change, you only need a few people to start it. A “tipping point” is the point where
the critical mass adopts an idea /product and it starts to spread like a virus. From a
futures studies’ point of view, the key question is, how to support those pioneers,
whose actions lead into a preferred future and what can be learned from them. The
innovation diffusion model, which contextualises the idea of tipping points, suggests
that you only need a few to start the change and the rest will follow, but only if the
circumstances make it (or are made) possible. Pioneers are one type of keepers of
knowledge, but as de Jouvenel (2004) points out “nobody has a monopoly on the
future”. Pioneers can sometimes even be interpreted to be combinations of futures
experts and laymen.
Transformations are led by people. Pioneers have gained importance in grand
narratives, but they exist in multiple levels. Pioneering is not necessarily an indi-
vidual effort and certain caution can be presented for the ‘heroics’ of pioneering as
context and an enabling environment may be important for pioneering. Pioneers
themselves may be interested in the great story and in the chance to be part of it in
analogy to Tuomi’s (2002) description of innovators. Pioneers seem to offer as an
insight into exploring systemic leverage points (Meadows 2008; Abson et al. 2016)
that can be used as a basis for strategic choices. Pioneers are expected to empower
and democratize, to emancipate and trigger those leverage points. They may nudge
or push a system to a different position, or unleash more fundamental pressures in the
system (Walrave et al. 2018). Pioneers as activists can both de-construct certain
structures or construct novel structures that come into being. Stirling (2015) suggests
that in seeking opportunities, less powerful actors use diverse strategies as ‘political
judo’ to contend incumbency. In anticipating transformations, they should not be
assumed to be linear processes. Pioneers may and will also face unexpected hurdles,
the “unknown unknowns”.
If we want to achieve a preferred future, consisting of different qualities, and
several positrends, that point to a preferred future, it may be assumed that support
has to be given to those pioneering actors who are identified as making that future –
locally and regionally. This re-aligns the research interest: how should they be
supported? As regards the positive or negative outcomes of pioneers’ actions, or
the posi- and negatrend analysis (Heinonen 2017) in connection with identifying
pioneers, several points must be borne in mind. What is considered a positrend or a
negatrend is dependent on the analyser’s point of view, background and cultural
context as well as on timing. A trend or phenomenon that is for someone a positive
issue or expected to provide positive results, may not be so for another observer.
Furthermore, something considered positive in present may change over time and
assume other development trajectories so that it will no longer represent a positive
feature. Moreover, something is a positrend, if its impacts are anticipated to be
positive, even though its manifestation at the current moment were not regarded as
positive. Ideally, pioneers are actors that can strengthen weak signals or topics and
practices that have the strong potential of having positive impacts in the future. A
key challenge in analysing the implications of pioneering is how to identify such
pioneers that have the potential of creating positive futures, support them proac-
tively, and by what means.
5.5 Conclusions
This book chapter has provided a rationale, definition and motivation to enhance our
understanding of pioneers as forerunners, and agency in ‘pushing’ for changes in the
structure, claimed to be a virtue. Pioneers recognise problems, which makes them
interested in the future and hungry for tackling them. But they must interpret the
context, in order to find appropriate strategies of solving problems. Pioneering
activities open up the space for admirers to follow their path. Pioneering is seen as
a quality that can unleash efforts for transitions and transformations. The text has
illustrated how like weak signals, pioneers are identified as paving the way for
emerging futures and opportunities. A study of pioneers can also be a way of
analysing how ‘radical’ are or should be present efforts compared to the trans-
formations we wish to see.
It is in our interest to develop the pioneer analysis methodology further. By
providing two methodological examples, we have barely scratched the surface,
and have not aimed to exhaust the possibilities of pioneer analysis, on the contrary.
This work intends to open up space for further methodological experiments and
applications. A lesson from the first methodological example was that identifying
pioneers acting in the present can provide inspiring insights of overlapping aims and
strategies of the seeds of change in the present. However, merely identifying
pioneers of the present is not enough for building a cohesive or transformative
image of what is preferred, or holistically understanding how lasting change is
achieved. The second methodological example paid attention to the role of pioneers
driving change with their experiments and claimed that pioneers may possess a range
of capabilities, knowingly or unknowingly, when they do so. This exercise show-
cases that it may be useful to consider what qualities make pioneers pioneering,
whether such capabilities are values, personal traits, innovation or technological
capabilities, or ability for foresight. It also raises a critical question: who can become
a pioneer?
We have argued that pioneer analysis is an interesting, emerging research area,
which can be adapted in multiple ways, including to explore ‘radical’ transforma-
tions, to meet the unmet diverse ecological and social objectives that warrant critical
attention in societies. Pioneering pays attention to the fact that technologies alone
cannot be assumed to solve social problems. Entrepreneurial spirit is a mindset
relevant for establishing any novel activity, social movement or organisation seeking
to challenge the status quo, when there are problems to be solved. People, in
different roles and positions across society, will push and nudge society as a complex
web of actors, an innovation ecosystem in its entirety, towards a certain direction. It
is also evident that there is a need to understand further the pioneers themselves:
what motivates them and through what means should their efforts be supported. This
underlines the aspect of “future shaping” which is one of the basic foundations of
futures research (Amara 1981), with related ethical repercussions. By identifying
and understanding pioneers, the aim is to anticipate and prepare for unfolding futures
and to unleash their positive potential.
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Chapter 6
The Notion of Existential Risk and Its Role
for the Anticipation of Technological
Development’s Long-Term Impact
Roberto Paura
Abstract Existential risk has been defined by Nick Bostrom (J Evol Technol 9
(1):1–31, 2002) as “one where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-
originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential”. In this
article, I will argue that the notion of existential risk should replace the so-called
“precautionary principle” as a guideline for the governance of technoscientific
progress.
In the first part, I analyze the notion of existential risk through a genealogical
approach that is typical of the history of ideas, in order to highlight the historical
trends that favored the emergence of this notion in recent years. The second part
focuses on the different types of existential risks proposed, in particular those related
to the endogenous risks associated with the side effects of technological progress.
The third part summarizes the research activities and directions of the three major
international centers working in the sector of existential risks. In the conclusions,
following the studies cited in the article, I summarize the reasons in favor of the use
of the notion of existential risk to anticipate the long-term impacts of scientific and
technological progress, compared to the more obsolete precautionary principle.
Keywords Existential risks · Precautionary principle · Anticipation · Technological

risks
6.1 Genealogy of an Idea
Although there has always been the possibility for the human species to become
extinct due to a cataclysm or natural phenomena such as glaciations, perception of
this kind of risks only emerged very recently, as the result of three trends:
R. Paura (*)
Italian Institute for the Future, Naples, Italy
University of Perugia, Perugia, Italy
e-mail: r.paura@futureinstitute.it

80 R. Paura
1. The growing awareness of the interdependence between the human species and
the biosphere, as well as the perception of humanity as a planetary species.
2. The emergence of the mass extinction theory and the understanding of extinction
mechanisms.
3. The emergence of a technological civilization and man-made tools that can
compromise the very existence of our civilization.
These three factors reached a convergence point during the second half of the
twentieth century.
6.1.1 The Human Species and Its Vulnerability
The publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) is generally considered to

be the founding moment of modern ecology. The book was an in-depth investigation
on the impact of the indiscriminate use of pesticides, particularly DDT, on the
ecosystem, suggesting a link with the lesser presence of birds in the modern cities,
as the birds were deprived of one of their major food sources – mosquitoes. Silent
Spring blamed about the risks of an unmanageable use of chemicals without a prior
analysis of their consequences not only for human beings, but also for all living
species. The book was a huge success and begun to spread a growing awareness of
the interdependence between Man and Nature, considered as parts of a single
extremely fragile ecosystem, where a seemingly simple action such as DDT release
through a spray can produce devastating consequences on the long term. DDT was
banned in 1972.
In 1966, Stewart Brand, then a young former biology student and one of the
future leaders of the ecological movement, launched a media campaign to convince
NASA to release images of the Earth captured by automatic probes launched in
previous years. He believed that humanity would have gained a new awareness of
the vulnerability of the planet once they saw how small it appears from Space. The
photo was taken by the ATS-3 probe in 1967 and again by the Apollo 8 astronauts in
1968, as the Earth turned over Moon’s horizon. It was in fact a historic moment,
which in 1970 led to the establishment of the Earth Day, the most important event of
the first ecologist movement, which adopted the photo (named “Blue Marble”) as its
symbol (Brand 2009).
In 1969, at a conference on the Earth’s origins in Princeton, British chemist James
Lovelock presented for the first time the so-called “Gaia hypothesis”, later developed
along with biologist Lynn Margulis. The term “Gaia” defined “a complex entity
involving the Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil, the totality constitut-
ing being a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and
chemical environment for life on this planet”. Published for the first time in 1979,
Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth became a best-seller. The Earth was no longer
seen as a mere unchanging background of human activity, but as a self-regulatory
organism able to maintain optimal conditions for the existence of the biosphere.
6 The Notion of Existential Risk and Its Role for the Anticipation of. . . 81
Man’s intervention on it would risk altering and compromising this balance, even-
tually destroying the same human species.
When Gaia came out in the bookstores, there was growing concern over a series
of surveys suggesting a marked and rapid depletion of the ozone layer in the
stratosphere. The ozone layer plays a key role for the protection of Earth’s surface
from cosmic rays, and the “hole” discovered above Antarctica in the mid-1980s
provoked a worldwide dismay. The cause was identified in chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs), gases used in the 1970s for refrigeration and as propellants for aerosol
sprays. The scenario outlined earlier by Rachel Carson was reminiscent of an even
worse scenario: a harmless gesture such as splashing the deodorant could endanger
life on Earth. In the wake of these fears, in 1987 the Montreal Protocol succeeded in
banning CFCs worldwide.
In addition to these concerns, other worries emerged during the 1960s, closely
linked to the dynamics of human population. From 1900 to 1960, the world’s
population actually doubled from 1.5 billion to about 3 billion. The trend appeared
to be growing and the first projections depicted a nightmare scenario with a human
population larger, by far, then the availability of the planet’s natural resources. Paul
R. Ehlrich, a biologist at Stanford University, published a book in 1968, The
Population Bomb, where he resumed Malthus’s thesis forecasting that in the 1970s
hundreds of millions of people would have died due to famines and the struggle for
resources. The so-called Green Revolution has denied these fateful predictions, but
everything in those years seemed to lead toward a real apocalypse produced by an
out-of-control overpopulation. The famous writer Isaac Asimov was committed into
an intense media campaign in favor of birth control, and science fiction films such as
Soylent Green put the Western public (in particular the American one) in the face of
nightmare scenarios.
In this framework, a key-event was the birth of the Club of Rome, in 1968, which
commissioned to a group of experts from MIT the famous Report on the Limits of
Growth (Meadows et al. 1972). All these concerns found, in this Report, their
systematization and re-elaboration in a perspective view. It proved the
unsustainability of a perpetual growth for a planet with limited resources such as
the Earth, and the existential risks posed to human civilization by this exponential
trend. While the report was very criticized at the time of its publication, it played a
decisive role in establishing environmentalism and the awareness of systemic
interdependence: the close and fatal connection between human civilization and
natural resources became clear, along with the awareness that the exhaustion of such
resources would inevitably compromise the future of civilization.
6.1.2 Mass Extinctions
The French naturalist Georges Cuvier was among the early supporters, at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, of “catastrophism”, the theory according to
which the history of the Earth would be periodically shocked by huge catastrophic
82 R. Paura
events that could lead many living species of the past to extinction. This theory did
not enjoy much credit: although during that century several unequivocal evidences
of the extinction of many animal species, including dinosaurs, were collected, the
mainstream idea was that extinctions were mainly the result of a long and gradual
evolution of species (so-called “theory of uniformitarianism”). Moreover, no geo-
logical evidence emerged to corroborate the argument that immense disasters on a
global scale shocked our planet in remote times. Until the 1950s, geologists largely
excluded the idea that the Earth could be hit by asteroids or other celestial bodies.
Even more evident traces such as the Meteor Crater in Arizona were brought back to
ancient volcanic eruptions (Rampino 2011).
During the 1960s, however, a new branch of geology for the study of meteoric
impacts emerged: Eugene Shoemaker of the California Institute of Technology in
Pasadena identified several rare minerals such as coarsite and stishovite at the bottom
of the Meteor Crater. He interpreted them as the product of a violent impact by a
body from outer space, since that type of minerals was unknown in nature and
reproduced at that time only to the enormous temperatures and pressures reachable in
the lab. These minerals were rediscovered by Shoemaker in another crater in
Bavaria, along with several other rocks, resulting in partial melting of materials
(Shoemaker 1963). During the same period, paleontologist Norman Newell from the
Columbia University began to support the existence of fossil evidence of mass
extinctions (Newell 1965).
In 1980 the physicist and Nobel Prize winner Luis Alvarez and his son, geologist
Walter Alvarez, published in Science an article that went down into history, titled
Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction (Alvarez et al. 1980). In
this paper, the two scientists showed the existence of a unique concentration
of iridium – a metal common in the meteorites but extremely rare on the Earth’s
surface – in the geological layers of the K-T boundary, as in jargon is defined the
border between Cretaceous and Tertiary, when the disappearance of dinosaurs, 66 mil-
lion years ago, occurred. Unusual amounts of iridium were found in samples collected
around the world (Italy, Denmark, New Zealand). Their hypothesis was that a huge
meteorite would have hit the Earth at that time, causing scary global upheavals up to
lead most of the living species, including dinosaurs, to extinction. The thesis triggered
a still ongoing debate, but with the subsequent discovery of a giant crater in the Gulf of
Mexico under the Yucatan Peninsula, the smoking gun was finally found. The core
samples showed in that area a layer of glass produced by a rapid melting and cooling
process at the K-T boundary (Alvarez 1997).
Since then mass extinctions have become a central issue of paleontological
research. Today, we know five mass extinctions (“Big Five”), although their causes
are still debated. Recently, explanations involving “extraterrestrial causes” for the
most part if not all of these extinctions have regained broad credit, especially in view
of advances in astrophysical research: the explosion of a close-up supernova could
have caused the Ordovician-Silurian extinction, 450 million years ago; a meteoric
impact would have caused the extinction of the Upper Devonian (about 377 million
years ago), while a gigantic impact whose crater would have been spotted in
Australia or Antarctica would be the cause of extinction of almost 96% of the living
species in the Permian-Triassic boundary (251 million years ago). Extraterrestrial

causes are accompanied by other explanations, mainly the effect of huge volcanic
eruptions, with the consequent cooling effect of the planet, and very long glaciations.
These are, in general, events that escape a unifying cause, an omnipresent theory that
would allow, among other things, to anticipate future extinction events; therefore,
the perception of life’s vulnerability on Earth has been consolidated, as at least in one
case (the Permian-Triassic extinction) live has been very close to the total disap-
pearance (Kolbert 2014).
6.1.3 Nuclear Threat and Technological Risks
The frightening effects of the two nuclear explosions on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
1945 forced the world to become familiar with the idea that there were weapons
capable of destroying entire cities. The arms race reached its peak with the first tests
of the thermonuclear weapons, the so-called H bombs (or hydrogen bombs), in the
early 1950s. Since the earliest atomic tests, the so-called “fallout” effect was known:
it implied the relapse on a very extensive area of the radiation produced by the
detonation; but the real consequences of fallout became known to the scientific
community and the whole world only after the Bravo test in 1954, which caused an
acute radiation syndrome in the crew of the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, a Japanese fishing
boat that crossed over 130 kilometers from the detonation point, the Bikini atoll. The
fallout of that bomb overcome the predictions of scientists, since it was extended on
a much wider scale than the one evacuated. When the Atomic Energy Commission
overlapped the fallout area on a US map, with Washington D.C. as the zero point, it
realized that in addition to the casualties caused by the detonation, nearly half of the
people in the cities of Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia would have been
killed by radiation (Schlosser 2013). Churchill commented: “The hydrogen bomb
has transported us into dimensions previously confined to the realm of the imagina-
tion”. Calculations of the British secret services revealed that ten hydrogen bombs
exploding on the UK would have been enough to cause a fallout on a national scale,
killing one third of the British population almost instantly, but above all making vast
areas of land unusable, forcing survivors to famine and shortage of drinking water
(Schlosser 2013). In the United States, civil protection suggested suburban people to
build underground shelters and store water and food stores in the bunkers. If before
then it was argued that in order to survive a nuclear attack, it was enough to “duck
and cover” during the detonation, now people were facing the long-term conse-
quences of a nuclear war.
While a number of novels and science fiction films began to imagine post-nuclear
scenarios, where a humanity modified by the effects of radiation tried, often in vain,
to rebuild the decayed technological civilization, several scientific reports began to
consider the climatic effects of a nuclear war on a planetary scale. A 1966 RAND
report already claimed that the ashes raised by huge fires triggered by detonations
would cover the sunlight in the stratosphere, with a mechanism similar to that of
84 R. Paura
large volcanic eruptions, whose effects on the cooling of global temperatures in

historical epochs were already known (Batten 1966). The discovery of the ozone
layer depletion also inspired researches that showed how thermonuclear explosions
could result in the disappearance for a few years of the atmospheric ozone layer,
causing a bombardment of ultraviolet radiation to the Earth’s surface, which could
cause irreparable damage to the DNA of living species.
In 1983 an article titled Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple
Nuclear Explosions appeared in Science. The authors were a group of scientists
later known as TTAPS from their initial (Richard Turco, Owen Toon, Thomas
Ackerman, James Pollack, Carl Sagan). Through computer simulations, the authors
showed that a nuclear war on a global scale, such as a one causing the destruction of
about 100 cities, would have resulted in such a release of ashes into the atmosphere
to cover 99% of the sunlight for years, with a fall of summer temperatures within
20–35 C, resulting in loss of world crops and death by hunger for survivors (Turco
et al. 1983). There was a direct link between this scenario and the one published only
a few years earlier by Luis and Walter Alvarez on the extinction at the K-T
boundary: actually, thermonuclear weapons would have produced the same effects
of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. This idea had tremen-
dous resonance: it became clear to everyone that humanity now possessed the ability
to extinguish life on Earth with its own hands, thanks to technological developments.
It was the first time that an invention produced by Man could also cause extinctions.
Since then, concerns about uncontrolled technological development have grown
considerably, while paradoxically the risk of nuclear warfare, since the end of the
Cold War, has been significantly reduced. Bacteriological weapons and nanotech-
nologies have gradually taken the place of the nuclear bomb as a potential tool for
mass extinction of the human species.
Quite recently, a new concern that puts the three categories of risk discussed
above in one single omnipresent framework has emerged: climate change. The
awareness that industrial and technological development has an impact on the
environment so to significantly increase global temperatures, at the same time
distorting natural climatic dynamics and thus jeopardizing not only the existence
of many living species, but also of humanity itself, puts us today facing the dangers
of a “sixth mass extinction”: the first mass extinction caused not by natural phenom-
ena, but by the human civilization. Geologists now debate whether to recognize the
beginning of a new geological era, called “Anthropocene”, from a certain date,
roughly around the middle of the last century: mankind would be able to leave
today a permanent impression on geological layers due to its environmental impact.
This impact can be traced to the unusual level of radiation released during the
decades of the Cold War (due to nuclear tests), plastic overpressure, high levels of
environmental pollution (especially high concentrations of lead and carbon dioxide),
and in the unparalleled rhythm of extinction of living species in recent decades. It is
not a coincidence that the latest updates of the Doomsday Clock, managed by the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of the University of Chicago since 1947, have
approached clock’s hands to the midnight (symbol of the end of the world) due to the
worsening of climate change, while until 2012 all Clock’s updates were related only
to the increase or decrease of the risk of a nuclear war.
6.2 Classification of Existential Risks
6.2.1 Bostrom’s Taxonomies
In a 2013 paper, Nick Bostrom defined four categories of existential risks according
to their outcome:
1. Human extinction: the outcome is a premature extinction of humanity, before
reaching technological maturity.
2. Permanent stagnation: humanity survives but never reaches technological matu-
rity, due to a civilization collapse from which it is unable to recover or to
recurring collapses.
3. Flawed realization: humanity reaches technological maturity but preserves intrin-
sic defects undermining its survival over the long term.
4. Subsequent ruination: after achieving a technological maturity that seems to
secure solid future perspectives, subsequent development causes an irreparable
collapse of humanity.
These four scenarios do not tell us enough about the risks that can arouse such
outcomes, although the benefits of a classification of existential risks based on the
outcomes they may produce are undeniable. Actually, only a few of them have the
ability to threaten the very existence of humanity as a species, while others have a
more limited impact on the collapse of modern technological civilization. According
to Bostrom (2002), existential risks must be global in terms of their scope and
extreme in terms of intensity. Other scholars suggest introducing a third component,
the unpredictability, from which the expressions “X-Risks” or “X-Events” got their
name, as the “X” is for the unpredictable component. A recurring mention in this
regard is the famous sentence by the former US Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld in 2002 on the different types of threats: know knowns, known unknowns,
and things we do not know to do not know, i.e. the famous “unknown unknowns”.
Though Rumsfeld referred with these effective expressions to the presence of
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (being largely criticized and ridiculed for his
cryptic and evasive response, whose consequences are today well known), this
classification is nevertheless very useful for a definition of existential risk, as the
most dangerous of them are exactly the ones we do not know today and that could
emerge from an improper use of technologies, such as nuclear weapons, DDT
or CFCs.
Another classification proposed again by Bostrom (2002) distinguishes the exis-
tential risks yet on the basis of the outcomes, but focusing mainly on the risk that a
posthumanity – i.e. a future stage of civilization in which technologically enhanced
humans should acquire a full and mature control over their evolution – could not be
established. Possibly inspired by the famous verses of T.S. Eliot from The Hollow
Men (“This is the way the world ends/Not with a bang, but with a whimper”),
Bostrom model four categories:
1. Bangs: “Earth-originating intelligent life goes extinct in relatively sudden disaster
resulting from either an accident or a deliberate act of destruction”, e.g. an
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improper use of nanotechnologies, a nuclear holocaust, discovering we live in a

simulation that is then deactivated, a lack of superintelligent artificial control due
to improper programming, the spread of genetically engineered biological agents,
disaster caused by extreme physics experiments, extremely contagious pan-
demics, out of control global warming.
2. Crunches: “the potential of mankind to develop into posthumanity is permanently
thwarted although human life continues in some form”, e.g. resource depletion,
ecological destruction, the rise of a tyrannical world government or a social
system that blocks technological development, “dysgenic pressure” (that is, the
reduction in number of intellectually endowed people on the planet because the
latter have a tendency to have few children), technological freeze.
3. Shrieks: “some form of posthumanity is attained but it is an extremely narrow
band of what is possible and desirable”. In this scenario there are risks related to
the hegemony of a human or artificial superintelligence out of control, the
establishment of a totalitarian regime, but above all those risks that are
unpredictable, since posthumanity is beyond the so-called “technological singu-
larity”, i.e. a point after which technological evolution goes beyond our foresight
capabilities.
4. Whimpers: “a posthuman civilization arises but evolves in a direction that leads
gradually but irrevocably to either the complete disappearance of the things we
value or to a state where those things are realized to only a minuscule degree of
what could have been achieved”. Apart from the unlikely possibility of being
destroyed or enslaved by an extraterrestrial civilization, Bostrom primarily takes
into account here the philosophical hypothesis that the evolution towards the
posthumanity implies the erosion and subsequent dissolution of the main human
values, for example because of the evolutionary need of colonizing the galaxy,
which would require the development of an aggressive and authoritarian
civilization.
6.2.2 Endogenous Existential Risks
The large number of existential risks identified in recent years by the experts can be
divided into two macro categories: endogenous or “anthropogenic” risks, that is,
risks produced by human civilization during its development, and exogenous risks,
independent of our will, arising from both terrestrial and extraterrestrial natural
phenomena.
Martin Rees lists in his Our Final Century (2003) the following existential
anthropogenic risks:
1. Nuclear war or cases of nuclear “megaterrorism”.
2. Biohazards: diffusion of pathogenic agents into the environment, particularly
high-risk viruses such as smallpox or plague for which no quicker countermea-
sures exist, or genetically engineered viruses with an artificial increased capacity
of contagion and mortality.
3. Laboratory errors: accidents occurring in nanotechnology laboratories, with sce-

narios such as the “gray goo”, where nanotechnological agents reproduce them-
selves in a short time up to occupy the entire mass of the Earth by sweeping away
other forms of life, or accidents during high energies physics experiments, such as
the production of black holes, quantum voids, “strange matter” capable of
destroying all ordinary matter.
4. Anthropogenic impacts on the environment: risks associated with the destruction
of the ecosystem by man, in particular extinction of living species, overpopula-
tion, resources depletion, climate change, greenhouse effect.
In his X-Events (2012), John Casti addresses a series of scenarios involving some
risks that are not able to threaten the very existence of the human species, but
certainly that of our technological civilization. Excluding those risks already
discussed by Rees, one can mention:
1. A major and widespread Internet interruption, either for intrinsic instability and
vulnerability of the Web-based infrastructure or intentional hacker attacks.
2. An interruption in the global food supply system due to pathogenic agents that
destroy crops (as in John Christopher’s novel The Death of Grass), bee’s great
death toll, soil erosion, extreme weather events, unsustainable population growth,
water scarcity: scenarios that are all linked to the growth of technological
civilization and not merely natural.
3. The deactivation of all electronic equipment due to an electromagnetic impulse
(EMP) produced by atomic bomb detonation or other devices capable of gener-
ating large amounts of gamma rays, ionizing the atmosphere by generating a
powerful electromagnetic field which, coming in contact with the Earth’s surface,
produces a crash of all electronic infrastructures and prevents electric power
conduction.
4. The collapse of globalization, so to arouse a new global disorder that would
prevent the presently highly interconnected civilization from functioning; such a
collapse would be due to the instability of the current process of globalization
and/or centrifugal forces such as reviving nationalisms.
5. Depletion of fossil fuels, with the explosion of new conflicts in resource alloca-
tion and the collapse of civilization up to a stage prior to the first industrial
revolution.
6. Disruption of the electricity and drinking water networks due to blackouts caused
by the collapse of the energy and drinking water supply infrastructure, which is
increasingly vulnerable because of the growing systemic complexity.
7. Global deflation and collapse of world financial markets, as a result of the
increasing complexity of financial instruments, which cannot be managed any
more in all their consequences by human beings; the financial crisis of 2007–2008
would be an anticipation of this scenario.
In recent times, the research of existential risk experts focused on two technolo-
gies that are still under development, but of which is already possible to foresight the
risks they pose to society. The first, which falls within the biohazards category, is the
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new genome editing technique CRISPR, which put in genetic engineering’s hands
an extraordinarily easy and effective tool for modifying the genome of living
species. The debate in the scientific community has focused in particular on the
need to prevent the editing of the human germline, that is that part of the genome that
is inherited by the offspring, so to avoid unexpected side effects compromising the
existence of future generations. Recently, experts asked for an international mora-
torium to prevent such experiments, at least until the consequences of genetic
modifications produced by this technique will be clearer.
The second technology is artificial intelligence, on which personalities such as
Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and Bill Gates (all coming from the
world of scientific research and technological development) have expressed deep
concerns. At the base of these concerns there are once again Bostrom’s consider-
ations expressed in his book Superintelligence (2014), which deals with the scenario
of artificial intelligences so advanced to overcome humanity and substitute it as the
dominant form of life on Earth. Actually, Bostrom and other thinkers argue that a
superintelligence would foster its own goals, probably different from the goals of its
programmers, going as far as to destroy the human species, either because it
perceives humans as a threat or a hindrance to its existence, or as a result of its
own achievements (for example, following the conversion of all Earth’s matter into
computronium, i.e. matter to make calculations). About 7% of artificial intelligence
experts interviewed by Bostrom and Cirkovic (2011) see a scenario in which future
artificial intelligence will escape human control quite likely.
6.2.3 Exogenous Existential Risks
Until the development of nuclear weapons, existential risks to life on Earth have
always been of exogenous nature, namely the result of natural phenomena. We can
distinguish them between terrestrial and extraterrestrial risks. In the first case, one
can claim that almost all the dangers that our planet poses to the existence of the
human species are known today, having a fairly complete understanding of the
geological history of the planet. From this it emerges that the only natural phenom-
enon that can assume the rank of existential risk is the eruption of a supervolcano.
We know that 70,000 years ago a scary eruption in the north of the island of Sumatra
occurred, from which Lake Toba originated. Beyond the damage caused on regional
scale by the tsunami and the re-entry of pyroclastic material, ashes projected into the
atmosphere would have blocked the sunlight for over a year. According to a theory
that is becoming more and more popular among scholars, Toba’s eruption would
have pushed the human species to the brink of extinction, reducing it to a few
thousand individuals and causing a genetic bottle neck (Ambrose 1998). At present,
at least two active supervolcanos whose eruption could produce a scenario similar to
the one of Toba are known: Yellowstone, in the United States, and to a lesser extent
(since the last eruption is very recent in geological terms) the Phlegrean Fields in
Italy.
Much less known are existential risks of an extraterrestrial nature. As we have

seen (see Sect. 6.1.2), the link between astronomical impacts and mass extinctions
emerged since the end of the 1970s only, and scientists are beginning to understand
the risks to life on Earth produced by extreme astrophysical phenomena only much
more recently. Astrophysicists have begun to consider the risks posed by
supernovae, the last life stage of very massive stars (larger than at least 1.4 our
Sun’s mass) whose fuel needed to feed the nuclear fusion processes ends toward the
end of their life-span, so that the star expels its own outer layers in a violent way,
releasing in a matter of seconds an energy that can be equivalent to that of 1027
thermonuclear bombs. In a classic text about existential risks, A Choice of Catas-
trophes (1979), Isaac Asimov warned of the effects of a supernova explosion within
a 100 light-years radius from Earth, quoting an estimation made by astrophysicist
Carl Sagan that such an event would happen on average every 750 million years.
This estimation has led many scholars to investigate the possible connection between
supernovae and mass extinctions in the past. In 1995, physicists John Ellis and
David Schramm first addressed this question in a study in which they reviewed
Sagan’s evaluation based on new insights about the galaxy’s star population, arguing
that supernovae with potential impacts on Earth would explode on average every
70–240 million years. The effects on the biosphere would consist in the destruction
of the atmospheric ozone layer, resulting in the exposure of living species to cosmic
and ultraviolet rays, and in particular to the destruction of marine phytoplankton,
forcing to extinction in the long term the living species based on this nourishment,
with a domino effect on the whole food chain (Ellis and Schramm 1995). In an article
in 1999, Ellis and astronomer Brian Fields claimed to have discovered footprints of a
recent close-up supernova in ocean sediments, where a significant amount of iron-60
isotope has been found: this isotope is produced in the stars’ cores during the instants
immediately preceding the interruption of the nuclear fusion process. The two
scientists linked this discovery to a minor extinction occurred during the Pliocene,
about 3 million years ago, connected to geological and biological evidences showing
a sharp reduction in zooplankton and phytoplankton (Fields and Ellis 1999). Scien-
tists today agree that a supernova in a range of 50 light-years from Earth would
trigger mass extinctions, although no candidates within this range are known at the
moment. However, supernovae in a sort of “yellow zone” reaching at least 200 light-
years are still enough dangerous to cause significant damage to the Earth’s bio-
sphere. Larger hazards, though far less likely, are related to a phenomenon whose
discovery only dates back to the late 1960s: gamma-ray bursts, produced by the fall
of massive celestial bodies – white stars or neutron stars – inside black holes.
Recently, physicist Adrian Melott and his NASA Goddard research team linked
the late Ordovician extinction (the second largest mass extinction in Earth history),
about 440 million years ago, with a gamma-ray burst emitted by a source just 6000
light-years from Earth. The gamma-ray burst energy is enormously higher than that
of the supernovae, so the “red zone” – the range in which the effects of a gamma-ray
burst would cause lethal effects on our biosphere – is estimated between 6500 and
10,000 light-years from Earth (Melott et al. 2004).
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6.3 Current Research on Existential Risks
6.3.1 The Future of Humanity Institute
Since its formal definition, the notion of existential risk has begun to assume a
growing importance in academic research. The foundation in 2005 of the Future of
Humanity Institute (FHI) at Oxford University has undoubtedly provided an impor-
tant stimulus. FHI was founded by Nick Bostrom within the Oxford Martin School,
then James Martin twenty-first Century School (established thanks to a generous
donation by James Martin, author of influential books about the information society
and the challenges of the new century, to deal with research on “the most pressing
global challenges and opportunities of the twenty-first century”). Over the years, FHI
carried out an active role in engaging civil society to raise awareness of existential
risks related to new technologies. Between 2008 and 2010, FHI published 22 papers
in scientific journals and 34 chapters in collective books, held 95 talks as invited
lecturers, over one hundred media appearances, and consulting activities for influ-
ential institutions such as the World Economic Forum, the UK Cabinet Office, the
European Parliament (FHI 2011). In 2011 Bostrom and his colleague Milan
M. Ćirković edited the volume Global Catastrophic Risks, published by Oxford
University Press, which summarizes the research carried out by FHI and provides a
new definition of existential risk, using the adjective “global” instead of “existen-
tial”: global catastrophic risks (GCRs) are events causing at least 10 million deaths
or $ 10 trillion in damage. In the volume 13 GCRs are listed and explained in
separate chapters, divided into three categories: “risks from nature”, “risks from
unintended consequences”, “risks from hostile acts”.
In addition to identifying GCRs, in the first stage of its research activity FHI
focused on developing a macrostrategy to deal with them. The development of this
macrostrategy includes a detailed analysis of the potential impacts of future tech-
nologies, the assessment of existential risks, ethical issues (related, for example, to
the issues of human enhancement, one of Bostrom’s first research themes, as he is a
leading transhumanist theorist), game theory. An important contribution to the
elaboration of this macrostrategy is the work of Ord et al. (2010), which takes into
consideration the risk assessment of the LHC particle collider at CERN in Geneva as
a test case. During its construction, LHC raised concerns about the possibility (as far
as unlikely) that high-energy particle collisions could form mini-black holes with
potentially catastrophic consequences. The authors point out that even if the chance
for a catastrophic outcome of such an event is far less than one to a billion, the risk
posed to human civilization requires a new weighting of its probability. In that sense,
the LHC risk assessment would initially underestimate such a possibility, based on
the belief that these black holes would evaporate almost instantly, as predicted by the
most accredited physical theories. Only later, a new risk assessment conducted in
2008 considered more variables, also accepting the possibility that such black holes
would not evaporate and would finish to interact with ordinary matter; estimates
made in that analysis showed, however, that such a possibility would not pose a risk
to our civilization, since even in the worst case scenario the swallowing rate of
Earth’s matter from a black hole created in LHC would be less than the estimated life
expectancy of our planet (over 4 billion years). Authors believe that this kind of risk
analysis is more appropriate for the assessment of existential risks, because it takes
into consideration a broad set of possible variables and scenarios without relying
solely on a probabilistic estimate. The lesson learned in this case study, according to
the authors, is that it is possible to “reduce the possibility of unconscious bias in risk
assessment through the simple expedient of splitting the assessment into a ‘blue’
team of experts attempting to make an objective risk assessment and a ‘red’ team of
devil’s advocates attempting to demonstrate a risk, followed by repeated turns of
mutual criticism and updates of the models and estimates” (Ord et al. 2010).
In the second and current stage of FHI’s life, the prevailing research direction has
shifted toward the risks related to the development of a superintelligence, a stronger
version of an artificial general intelligence (AGI). This new direction conveyed the
success of Nick Bostrom’s book Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies
(2014), in which FHI’s founder and director argues that AI of this kind would
sooner or later replace human beings as the main life form on Earth, thus
representing for human civilization an extinction level risk. Hence, Bostrom’s
address to discuss the ways in which this “superintelligence” should be compatible
with the aims and purposes of human civilization, so that it does not acquire its own
and autonomous goals different from ours. The influence of this text inside the
Silicon Valley and in general within the most advanced digital business environ-
ments has been enormous. One of the consequences was a grant to FHI from the
Future of Life Institute (see Sect. 6.3.3), thanks to a donation by SpaceX and Tesla
CEO Elon Musk, for the establishment of a Strategic Artificial Intelligence Research
Center in 2015.
The center’s research agenda is divided into two areas: on a technical level, the
goal is to solve the technological challenges for programming safe and reliable AGI
systems; on a strategic level, the objective is to understand in which direction the
long-term research and development of AGI will evolve, to intervene in advance
when technological development threatens to pose a serious risk to the safety of
human civilization. An example of the first approach is the study by Orseau and
Armstrong (2016) on how an AGI can be programmed so that it does not learn how
to disable security systems designed to prevent potentially lethal actions for human
workers and the environment. It is not enough, say the authors, to provide for a “big
red button” that the human operator can press when the AGI starts an unexpected and
dangerous sequence of actions: AGI might learn to disable the red button, i.e. to
prevent the human operator from taking countermeasures that disable the action,
thanks to the reinforcement learning at the base of its own programming. In this
study, the authors consider possible algorithms that can be included in the AGI
programming to avoid such scenarios. An example on the second approach is
provided by Bostrom’s analysis (2017) on the desirability of a global openness in
AGI development processes that overcome the traditional proprietary approach. In
particular, an opening of source codes, data, technologies, and scientific approaches
could probably slow the run to AGI, but this would not necessarily be a bad thing: a
more “democratic” openness would allow civil society to take part in the debate on
the security of AGI and neutralize the risks of a sort of “arms race” that would push
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some groups to move too quickly toward a superintelligence without taking the
related risks in due consideration.
6.3.2 The Center for the Study of Existential Risk
Established in 2013 at the University of Cambridge, the Center for the Study of
Existential Risk (CSER) was co-founded by Huw Price, well-known philosopher of
science, Bertrand Russell Professor at the University of Cambridge; Lord Martin
Rees, currently professor emeritus of Cosmology and Astrophysics in the same
university; and Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn. Tallinn’s role as a financier of
CSER is symptomatic of the fascination that the notion of existential risk exerts on
those entrepreneurs operating at the edge of technological and digital innovation,
who are concerned mainly by the possibility that ICT innovation can produce sooner
or later an AGI able to escape human control. The issue of artificial intelligence is not
for nothing one of the most important among CSER’s topics, along with biohazards,
climate change and ecological risks, and the risks associated with systemic fragility.
However, CSER is mainly focused on developing a general methodology for
managing what it defines “extreme technological risks” (ETRs), a definition appli-
cable not only to the priority areas identified by the center, but which can serve as a
tool for the management of future unknown unknows, those risks that we cannot
currently foresee but may emerge in future developments in scientific and techno-
logical research. It is therefore necessary to develop “methods and protocols specif-
ically designed for the identification, evaluation and mitigation of this class of risks”.
In doing so, CSER starts from the finding that traditional cost/benefit analysis
approaches have obvious limits when applied to ETRs, because insofar as the
benefits of a technology might be beneficial, the cost associated with the risk can
pose an existential threat to the whole civilization. One of the methodologies CSER
most commonly uses is horizon scanning, typical of anticipation studies: identifying
potential ETRs well before their occurrence would allow a more systematic study to
take timely measures to mitigate or even prevent them from occurring. For example,
if during the Manhattan project there would been enough time and mental lucidity to
understand the existential risks associated with the development of nuclear weapons,
in a context other than that of the time (in full World War II), the scientific
community would have perhaps decided for an international moratorium on military
nuclear research and development. On a more philosophical level, CSER focuses on
studying the limits of the traditional precautionary principle and the benefits of
applying the concept of “responsible research and innovation” (coined by the
European Commission in recent years as a guideline for European research pro-
grams), in order to actively engage public opinion in the debate on the social impact
of technological research so to promote greater awareness of risks and social
responsibility without disturbing innovation processes.
For instance, Price and Ó hÉigeartaigh (2014) considered the case of
geoengineering as a possible radical solution to the mitigation of climate change.
Although some of the proposed technologies are already available – for example,
“pumping sulphate aerosols into the high atmosphere” or “seeding suitable ocean
areas with comparatively small amounts of iron [so to] increase plankton growth
sufficiently to sequester significant quantities of atmospheric carbon dioxide” – there
are currently no studies on their long-term consequences. Only a wider and more
systematic use of foresight and anticipation tools could allow experts to have a
clearer picture of the long-term consequences of such technologies, whose side
effects may otherwise have a global impact that is difficult to estimate.
6.3.3 The Future of Life Institute
Strongly influenced by Bostrom’s thesis in Superintelligence, the Future of Life

Institute (FLI) was established in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2014. Co-founders
are Jaan Tallinn, former co-founder of CSER; Max Tegmark, a professor of Cos-
mology at MIT, who worked with Bostrom for some time (the two signed in 2005 a
Nature article entitled Is a doomsday catastrophe likely?); his wife Meia Chita-
Tegmark, Ph.D. candidate in Developmental Sciences at Boston University;
Viktorya Krakovna, researcher at DeepMind; and Anthony Aguirre, professor of
Physics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, co-founder of the Foundational
Questions Institute along with Tegmark. In January 2015, FLI organized in Puerto
Rico its first conference on the future of AI, involving some of the leading experts
worldwide and discussing with them on the economic, ethical and legal issues of AI
development. Following this conference, FLI published an open letter on AI safety,
signed by more than 7000 experts, including physicist Stephen Hawking and
entrepreneur Elon Musk, who decided to finance FLI with $ 10 million to carry
out an AI safety research program.
In their list of FLI research’s priorities, Russell et al. (2015) divide them into short
and long-term priorities. One of the first concerns is the need to optimize the
economic impact of AI, in particular anticipating labor market effects (i.e. the
growing automation and the related “technological unemployment”) as well as
phenomena of market disruption, with the disappearance of entire production sec-
tors, as happened in the past on the wave of digital innovation; this should require
more intensive policy action to foster training for highly qualified professional
sectors, less vulnerable to automation risk over the next decades, and to adopt new
welfare policies. Among the short-term priorities, the authors also mention those
related to the law and ethical aspects of AI, in particular the rules for the raising
driverless cars market (e.g. liability for damages), privacy issues and the possibility
of banning so-called “autonomous weapons”, that is AI-equipped war systems
capable of acting independently of the human operator. Among the long-term
priorities, given the difficulty of forecasting AI evolution, authors suggest working
on more general issues such as the validation of AI safety systems’ “robustness”.
Since it is conceivable that, over the coming decades, AI will reach more human-like
capacity in certain fields, it is imperative to work immediately in designing reliable
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systems in the same sense of what the Future of Humanity Institute had already
proposed in its previous activities (see Sect. 6.3.1). The authors are persuaded that in
the coming years research on AI will provide humanity with technologies that will
represent a giant leap forward in terms of benefits and opportunities, but underline
the need to take measures to maximize these benefits and minimize the possible
negative impacts of AI both on short and long term.
In this direction two initiatives have been launched by FLI recently: the July 2015
open letter for an international moratorium on autonomous weapons, first stage
toward their ban according to an international treaty under the auspices of the United
Nations; and the Beneficial AI Conference held in January 2017 in Asilomar, a
symbolic place because there in 1975 the famous conference on recombinant DNA
technology was held, during which the scientific community voluntarily adopted a
set of guidelines for pursuing research in this delicate field whose long-term conse-
quences were not predictable on the basis of the precautionary principle. Asilomar
experts in 2017 adopted a list of 23 guiding principles on research policy, ethical
issues, values and long-term aspects of AI research. Principle 21, closely related to
the issue of existential risks, states that the catastrophic and existential risks posed by
AI must be subject to planning and mitigation efforts commensurate with their
possible impact. This is, to date, the most complete operational concept of existential
risk mitigation, undoubtedly aimed at steering the debate on governance of long-
term scientific and technological progress.
6.4 Conclusions: From Precautionary Principle

to Existential Risk
In his famous 1979 essay The Imperative of Responsibility: In Search of Ethics for
the Technological Age, German philosopher Hans Jonas argued that the ecological
crisis humanity was beginning to face (at a time when climate change was not yet a
topic) was to be attributed to an unrestrained scientific and technological develop-
ment occurring without an updated ethical framework to serve as a guide. In a time
when mankind’s technological power was beginning to threat the natural balance,
Jonas argued that human responsibility spreads beyond interhuman relations to the
biosphere and should incorporate long-term effects in any forecast. Humanity should
be responsible towards the future generations and the world they will inherit (Jonas
1984). Nevertheless, there are clear limits to the application of the imperative of
responsibility, in particular what Seth Baum, executive director of the Global
Catastrophic Risk Institute, calls “the far future argument”, according which “people
should care about human civilization into the far future, and thus, to achieve far
future benefits, should seek to confront these catastrophic threats” (Baum 2015).
There is a structural reticence of our species to worry about the distant future, says
Baum. It is demonstrated, for instance, that people prefer to spend more money and
time to help close friends and family than distant acquaintances; they presumably
would spend even less for members of far future generations. Current electoral
systems also favor short-term decisions, which are inadequate to address threats
posed by existential risks; and the rise of decentralized capitalist/democratic political
economies and the fall of authoritarian political economies has diminished major
long-term planning, according to Baum.
Jonas’s book is considered today a cornerstone of the thought that led to the
formalization of the well-known “precautionary principle”, whose systematic defi-
nition is traced back to the 1992 Rio Declaration during the first Earth Summit: “In
order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied
by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or
irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason
for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation”. The
trouble with the precautionary principle lies in the fact that in a society that is not
stimulated to project itself over the long term and does not nurture real responsibility
towards future generations, its application can have harmful consequences for
technological progress. A glaring example is given by European legislation on
genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The European Union, which has incorpo-
rated the precautionary principle in its legislation, has for a long time hampered the
introduction into European countries of seeds and other GMO products; only
recently it decided to allow their import and commercialization in those Member
States who are in favor, upon a rigorous scientific risk assessment for each product,
including the long-term effects on the biosphere, the ecosystem and human health.
One may think that this legislation reflects the same recommendations of the
existential risk’s advocates, but this is not the case: as the scientific community all
over the world has reached a more or less unanimous consensus since long time on
the absence of dangers posed by GMOs, insisting on such a precautionary approach
has no effects but hindering research and development in this area.
Riccardo Campa, professor of Sociology of Science at the Jagellonian University
in Krakow, has shown that the aversion to GMOs suffers from a “Garden of Eden
syndrome” affecting the environmental movements, where the precautionary prin-
ciple emerged: according to their arguments, each human intervention on Nature
should be considered deleterious and risky in itself (Campa 2016). On the contrary,
proposers of the notion of existential risk are well-known pro-science and
pro-technology personalities, so that the same creator of this notion, Bostrom, was
among the pioneers of the Transhumanist movement, which supports the right of
human species to improve itself with biomedical innovations to better adapt to the
environment and its transformations. In addition, research centers working in the
field of existential risks make extensive use of foresight tools and approaches
emerged in the field of futures studies, necessary to anticipate the possible deleteri-
ous consequences of scientific and technological innovation and to intervene in time
to avoid or minimize this type of risk. Existential risk assessment is an anticipatory
activity because it acts far in advance of the development of potentially dangerous
innovation, and not after its development and/or its introduction on the marketplace.
In conclusion, the replacement of the precautionary principle, which today shows all
its limitations, with the notion of existential risk as a guiding principle for the
96 R. Paura
governance of technological and scientific progress, can be of utmost utility and

effectiveness in safeguarding the future generations without compromising the
scientific development, so that human civilization should be able to keep up with
its changes in an interconnected society that demands new solutions to new
problems.
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Chapter 7
Anticipations of Digital Sustainability:
Self-Delusions, Disappointments
and Expectations
Carlos Alvarez-Pereira
Most of the necessary knowledge is now available but we do

not use it.
Rachel Carson, “Silent Spring” (1962)
Abstract The strong momentum of information and communication technologies

(ICTs) in the last decades has been associated with mostly positive anticipations of
their impact as drivers of human progress, especially as a key element of response to
the challenges posed by the unsustainability of our current social, economic and
environmental behaviors. A particular perspective is taken on the actual impact of
ICTs to show that, contrary to the mainstream perception, for now their net impact
on overall sustainability is negative. This in turn is suggested to be a result of how
ICTs and innovation in general are presently conceived and framed, in a way that
actually inhibits their potential for human progress in harmony with the environ-
ment. The need is claimed for a more complex anticipatory framework of the
interplay between Science, Technology and Society, in order to reverse the situation
and make digital tech useful for life as a whole.
Keywords Digitalization · Sustainability · Expectations · Reframing
7.1 Anticipation with High Expectations
Although it is widely accepted that the public perception of Science and Technology
(S&T) is multifaceted and includes a strong stream of scepticism and mistrust,
especially in regard of certain applications like nuclear energy, when it comes to
C. Alvarez-Pereira (*)
Innaxis Foundation & Research Institute, Madrid, Spain
e-mail: calvarez@innaxis.org

100 C. Alvarez-Pereira
Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), now called “digital”, their

popularity is pretty obvious. Whether or not we consider them as the drivers of
societal evolution (as the digital industry pretends), their impact cannot be denied
and we devote to them a significant part of our time, attention and resources. Digital
impetus is generally perceived as the best herald of S&T to speed up innovation
through “disruptive” transformations introducing new products, altering processes,
shaking markets, and ultimately changing our lives, in an anticipation of better
worlds.
This concept of disruptive innovation based on technology is generally presented,
and probably perceived by most, as something positive opening the future to new
solutions for many of our problems, if not all, with benefits for everybody and no
negative consequences. It builds on the longstanding success of S&T which has
made feasible many crazy wishes of human imagination and so it feeds our antic-
ipatory dreams by extrapolating past achievements to all the good things that will
happen in the future because of the miraculous progress of technology. And this is
not a new trend or only limited to lay persons: although not naive about the
challenge, John Maynard Keynes himself anticipated a brilliant future as a conse-
quence of technical progress, a time coming around 2030 in which “mankind is
solving its economic problem”, “the love of money as a possession (. . .) will be
recognised for what it is, (. . .a) mental disease” and, finally, we will “live wisely
and agreeably and well” (Keynes 1930).
Such expectations of “disruption for good” are certainly supported by the perva-
siveness acquired by ICTs since the 1980s. From a technical point of view, two
empirical principles have been at the core of the process of digital expansion. The
first is “Moore’s law” (named after the founder of chip-maker Intel) which states that
technical progress in miniaturization makes possible to double the number of
transistors in a dense integrated circuit approximately every 2 years, hence enabling
the computing power of microprocessors to be increased extremely fast without
increasing their cost (or so it seems), so that new digital artifacts and applications can
be created at high pace. The second driver is “Metcalfe’s law” stating that the value
of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users. This
means that a competitive diffusion process over a network can be very fast because
the advantage of the leading player is more than linear, it grows faster and faster with
the number of connections it gets. Software business, telecommunications and the
Internet exhibit such strong network externalities.
These observed characteristics are now used as foundations for a new belief in
“exponential technologies”, to refer to a constantly accelerating increase in capacity
over time, and “exponential innovation” as a process able to disrupt all areas of
human practices for our benefit. Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis are the best
known promoters of this vision of infinite improvements which they interpret as “the
way to a new world of abundance” (Diamandis and Kotler 2012), in which all needs
of the billions of inhabitants of the planet will be met by using fascinating technol-
ogies of water purification, solar energy, medicine, education, and the reuse or
recycling of rare minerals. This is to be brought to us by a small group of brilliant
personalities (most of them based in California) acting as “exponential entrepre-
neurs” in stark contrast with the “linear-thinking executives” of major corporations
7 Anticipations of Digital Sustainability: Self-Delusions. . . 101
all over the world (Diamandis and Kotler 2015). The exponential entrepreneurs will
find solutions to the big problems by exploiting the cycles of “6 D’s”: digitization,
deception (until enough growth is achieved), disruption, demonetization, demateri-
alization and democratization, ultimately leading to the point of “Singularity”
(Kurzweil 2006) where “artificial intelligence” (whatever this means) will surpass
the human one by an infinite expansion of computing power based on Moore’s law.
We are supposed to be at a point where the computing power of a mouse’s brain has
already been surpassed.
In stark contrast with this anticipatory vision, the International Technology
Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) recognizes that Moore’s law may not hold
beyond 2020 or 2025 because of physical limits and the challenge of controlling heat
emissions at microscopic level (Kumar 2015). So, miniaturization of transistors has
no guarantee of continuity and while other ways forward could be explored, the
question is if the huge investments required will be assumable by the few remaining
industrial players in microprocessing. Anticipation of ongoing exponential innova-
tion should probably be humbler after all.
Moreover, expectations about digital development pay little attention to the last
three centuries of knowlegde creation and technological innovation and to the
learnings acquired about how these processes contribute to shape the evolution of
our societies. Science and technology have strongly influenced the path followed by
humanity since the eighteenth century, which means that they have also been often
(still today) effective instruments of mass destruction, environmental degradation
and social exclusion. This obscure role of S&T is generally hidden, either as
unintended consequences to be corrected later or through the argument of “neutral-
ity”, by which new technologies are just tools and their good or bad usage depends
entirely on society, not on the process of innovation itself.
In parallel with the explosion of ICTs, humanity became aware of the many and
intertwined challenges it faces to make life in this planet enjoyable and sustainable in
the long run, a complex set of interrelated issues for which the Club of Rome coined
the term “world problematique” back in the 1970s. The Brundlandt Commission
popularized in 1987 the concept of “sustainable development“almost in sync with
the launch of the first personal computers (IBM PC in 1981, Commodore 64 in 1982
and Macintosh in 1984). But sustainable development (SD) has still to prove it is not
an oxymoron. In the last 30 years the price of moving towards higher levels of
human development has been a great increase in ecological footprint and overall
unsustainability, with several of the most critical planetary boundaries already
crossed and the “Overshoot Day” happening earlier and earlier. So, we still have
to find, now urgently, a pathway to decrease dramatically the negative impacts of
human societies. And the only human way to do so is to greatly raise the standards of
living of most of world population without increasing much their ecological foot-
print, while at the same time developed countries reduce dramatically their footprint
without major damage to their levels of human development.
The size and nature of this transformation is unprecedented. It will require all
types of human capacities to achieve it. And, since S&T play a key role in shaping
our relationship with nature and our aspirations and values, should not the best and
brightest of researchers and innovators make major contributions to address the
challenges of the “problematique”? In particular, should not we use digital technol-

ogies to overcome the dilemmas created by our unsustainable way of life? Is digital
disruption aligned with the goals of sustainable development? If not, how could we
align them for the sake of humanity? Is “digital disruption” not disruptive enough or
not in the right direction?
Surprisingly enough, the first answer to these questions is that we do not have an
answer. Although sustainability has become part of the discourse as well as a real
concern for the ICT industry, digital technologies and sustainability have been rarely
analyzed together in a rigorous manner. The scientific literature about this topic is up
to now worryingly thin and in many aspects we do not even have yet the right
questions, much less the responses. A comprehensive approach to the issue would
need to address the different effects of ICTs, i.e. the “direct effects due to their
physical existence; the indirect effects resulting from the ways in which they are
used; the rebound effects potentially caused by the interaction of direct and indirect
effects; and the long-term, systemic effects caused as aggregated outcomes of large
numbers of people using ICTs during long periods of time” (Vickery 2012). In this
paper we propose a brief but (hopefully) holistic review of this fundamental issue,
although we go beyond it to apprehend the complex dynamics between ICTs and
society.
For three centuries our driving belief has been in the progress of humanity,
notably reinforced by the achievements of S&T which have, to a large extent,
conditioned our anticipatory thinking. And while for generations born before the
1980s changing the world for the better would require also (or primarily) political
and social innovations, now it seems that “disruptive innovation” has displaced
every other source of hope. In a sense, we put it at the core of societal evolution,
and this is why we also think it should rescue us from all disasters, even those
provoked by ourselves. But is it not too much to expect? Beyond a generic claim of
ICTs to contribute to a better and “green” world, the actual lack of mutual recogni-
tion and cooperation between digital tech and sustainable development is very
significant of the effort still to be made to harness the power of innovation for the
progress of humanity.
7.2 Digital Tech and Sustainable Development: A Missed

Opportunity
While being contemporaries, the aspiration to sustainable development (SD) and the
expansion of ICTs have not been aligned, up to now. It could have been otherwise.
The Brundtland Commission did anticipate the potential of ICT developments and
expected them to make a significant contribution to sustainability (IISD 2012a). The
World Summit on the Information Society held from 2003 to 2005 repeatedly
mentioned SD in its “Declaration of Principles” (ITU 2003), claimed “that the
ICT revolution can have a tremendous positive impact as an instrument of sustain-
able development” (ITU 2005), called international agencies to “develop strategies
for the use of ICTs for SD, including sustainable production and consumption
patterns” and listed fields of activity in which ICT applications could facilitate
SD. But by far this has not been enough, and analyzing the dynamics of both camps
is a good way to understand why.
On one part, environmentalists have been pushing their claims and proposals of
solutions to policy-makers in order to convince them of enforcing regulations against
harmful activities and to change the patterns of economic development. Although
formally successful in official declarations on balancing development and sustain-
ability (i.e. the Rio Agenda in 1992), in practical terms policies have remained
focused on economic development (or what we take as such) as became evident even
in the naming when Millennium Development Goals were adopted in 2000. After the
CoP21 conference on climate change and the adoption of the Sustainable Develop-
ment Goals (SDGs) in 2015, sustainability is making a comeback but it remains to be
seen if effective action will be taken. In any case, the unfolding of Sustainable
Development continues to be focused on a top-down approach, although it is
combined with a varying degree of public interest and social activism on specific
topics, such as conservationism and anti-nuclear movements. In that context ICTs
have at best a secondary position. There is no systematic assessment of their role in
“The future we want” resolution adopted as an outcome of Rio þ 20 (UN 2012), nor
is one proposed in its recommendations for the future. ICTs are present in the SDGs
but only in a few number of goals and targets (Souter 2015). As Angela Cropper
noted,
The disconnection between environmental, development and ICT sector professionals and
their thinking is as significant amongst multilateral agencies and within the UN system as it
is elsewhere. (IISD 2012b)
Not everything is negative in this respect, though. The ITU started in 2013 the
10-year review process of WSIS and identified a number of clear challenges. It also
developed methods to assess the impact of ICTs on energy consumption and policy
guidance for developing countries on the application and use of ICTs to combat
climate change and other environmental issues. The OECD has done significant
work on green growth, smart systems, smart grids for power generation and the
effectiveness of eco-labelling and other initiatives, and in 2010 even adopted at
ministerial level a document of “Recommendations on ICTs and the Environment”
that sets out 10 principles as a general framework addressing first, second and third
order effects of ICTs. But will the recommendations be enforced with enough
momentum?
On the other part of the equation, that of the ICT industry, after recognizing the
negative direct effects mentioned earlier, sustainability has become part of the
agenda, due to the costs of energy consumption and waste treatment as well as to
avoid reputational risks. The telecom industry (both operators and manufacturers)
created the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI) which issued in 2008 its SMART
2020 report (GeSI 2008) and the Electronics-Tool for Accountable Supply Chains
(e-TASC) to help measuring the sustainable performance of companies. The aspi-
ration is that ICTs will help the emergence of sustainable development and in general
of a “better world” by promoting:
– A “smart” transformation of economic activities, in particular energy, transport,

logistics and manufacturing, in the direction of more efficiency and dematerial-
ization, hence of less environmental impacts,
– A better and generalized access to education, health and knowledge,
– The empowerment of people and a greater transparency,
– A better monitoring and understanding of sustainability issues,
– And the creation of collective awareness at planetary level, with a greater capacity
to influence public opinions and agendas.
Examples can be found to illustrate all of these aspirational trends. And the ICT
industry is deploying a transformative momentum on all human activities, using its
capacity to develop new products of wide applicability to many different contexts.
Wherever information is relevant (and where is it not?), digital tech can be there to
improve current processes, or so it seems. But to be true, indirect impacts of ICTs
have not been analyzed in detail, and often only from of the point of view of GHG
emissions. And the conclusions of one of the few systematic studies are not very
optimistic:
While the overall impact of ICT on most environmental indicators seems to be weak, the
impact of specific areas or types of ICT applications can be very relevant in either direction.
On an aggregated level, positive and negative impacts tend to cancel each other out. (Hilty
et al. 2006)
ICTs play different roles, on which their net impact depends, and typically present
positive and negative aspects from a qualitative point of view, so that their contri-
bution is at best ambiguous. On one side they are tools used by organizations as well
as individuals to achieve certain purposes, f.i. to simplify and improve the commu-
nication between public administrations and the citizens, and this is a positive
innovation. But of course the purposes depend on the societal logic in which the
organizations are embedded. If profits are required for a business to survive and
regulations do not ensure that sustainability goals contribute to profitability, how
could we expect businesses to behave in an eco-friendly way? Likewise, ICTs can be
disruptive but they, or the transformations they enable, do not necessarily improve
sustainability or promote circularity in the re-use of non-renewable resources. How
would they, if that purpose is not built in their design? Whether higher efficiency or
dematerialization are achieved depends on decisions that are taken by managers
outside the ICT sector, on the basis of commercial viability rather than environmen-
tal sustainability. As a consequence, we have no evidence yet of the order of
magnitude of those sustainability gains, nor if ICT-driven greater efficiencies pro-
voke rebound effects à la Jevons.
On the contrary, we have a strong evidence of how Moore’s growing efficiency of
microprocessing is exploited in a massive rebound effect on the other side of ICTs,
when they fulfill no other purpose than consumption itself, just as devices of
entertainment with very short cycles of usage. The positive effects of ICTs on
sustainability are probably more than offset by the mass consumerism whose
magnitude is such as to become the driving force of this industry: the number of
cell phones is already larger than world population, but the truly astonishing figure is
that the annual shipments have exceeded 1500 million units in 2016!
On one side, well intentioned but ineffective declarations recommending SD as a

new paradigm. On the other, the extraordinary strength of a creative and fully
deployed industry feeding and being fed by our consumerist addictions. It is pretty
clear why, for the time being, the opportunity of encounter between Sustainable
Development and ICTs has been lost.
7.3 Digital Tech Is No Clean Tech
For all the good things we attribute to ICTs and digital technologies, when consid-
ering their direct impacts in terms of sustainability there is no doubt that the first-
order effect is negative. This is not the place to get into much details, but the
evidence is accumulating and has many different faces, as follows.
Critical Resources ICTs as well as other high tech developments for renewable
energy or electric vehicles depend for their production on many mineral resources:
more than 50 different kinds of metals are used in a smart phone. Awareness is now
growing about the criticality of those resources, in terms of physical access and
geopolitics, China being by far the largest provider of the most critical ones. And this
reality has a very ugly side: as a report published in The Guardian put it in 2012, at
the time of the Second Congo War which claimed more than five million lives,
In unsafe mines deep underground in eastern Congo, children are working to extract
minerals essential for the electronics industry. The profits from the minerals finance the
bloodiest conflict since the second world war; the war has lasted nearly 20 years. . . (The
Guardian 2012)
The European Union started in 2010 to assess the criticality of raw materials
based on their economic importance and risk of supply. A list of Critical Raw
Materials (CRMs) is defined and reviewed regularly, and it contains now 20 items,
including indium, germanium, niobium and the group of Rare Earth Elements
(REE), which are key ingredients in everything from cell phones to computers,
optical fibers to headphones and microphones to loudspeakers. The degree of
recycling of such materials is low, at most around 15–20%, and their demand is
high and growing, hence their criticality. In this respect, ICT is not different from
other industries intensive in the use of non-renewable resources of growing scarcity
(European Union 2014).
Production Processes Producing microchips, the basic component of digital tech-

nologies, is not only intensive in critical materials, it is a process whose efficiency is
extremely low as measured by input-output ratio. A single 2-g DRAM chip is
estimated to require 1600 g of fossil fuels and 72 g of chemical inputs (so the
material input-output ratio is more than 800:1), as well as 32,000 g of water and
700 g of gases (mainly nitrogen). As Williams, Ayres and Heller put it,
The production chain yielding silicon wafers from quartz uses 160 times the energy required
for typical silicon, indicating that purification to semiconductor grade materials is energy
intensive. Due to its extremely low-entropy, organized structure, the materials intensity of a
microchip is orders of magnitude higher than that of “traditional” goods. (Williams et al.
2002)
Producing microchips is an extraordinary achievement of human intelligence but

we consume them nowadays as if they were abundant and low-impact commodities,
while they are definitely not.
Waste Although they look very clean, digital devices are a major source of waste in
the consumerist framing which still drives our behavior. Electronic waste (e-waste)
is made of discarded electronic devices and components such as computers, mp3
players, televisions and cell phones which contain hundreds of chemicals, including
lead, mercury, cadmium, brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and polyvinyl chloride
(PVC). Many of these chemicals are known to cause cancer, respiratory illness and
reproductive problems and they are especially dangerous because of their ability to
migrate into the soil, water, and air and accumulate in our bodies and the
environment.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that e-waste is grow-
ing 2 to 3 times faster than any other source of waste, the total amount being over
50 million tons per year, with the USA and China as the largest contributors, while
the % of recycling continues to be low. Although official directives exist on Waste
Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and Restrictions of Hazardous Sub-
stances (RoHS), the dangerous and often illegal deconstruction of e-waste is a
growing business worldwide, estimated to more than 10 billion US dollars annually.
It includes practices such as the massive exports of e-waste from rich countries to the
rest of the world or the exploitation in the USA of prison inmates working without
adequate protection, in poor health and safety conditions (SVTC 2006).
Energy Consumption Of course digital tech are huge consumers of energy. Mild
as it is, a single Google search is equivalent to a standard light bulb operating for
between 15 and 60 min (Rattle 2012). The operation of a smartphone is quite
efficient (4 kWh per year) but the energy used to manufacture it amounts to
280 kWh, while it is meant to last only 2 to 3 years (Pargman 2016). And while
the patterns of consumption are changing due to the evolution of devices from stand-
alones PCs to efficient smartphones and tablets connected to growing cloud infra-
structures, this does not prevent operating consumption from growing: it has stag-
nated around 830 billion kWh per year between 2010 and 2015, with less
consumption in end-user devices but more in data centers, and the prospect is that
it will grow at a 2% annual rate, up to 1020 billion kWh in 2025, without taking into
account energy spent in production (Hintemann and Clausen 2016).
GHG Emissions Last but definitely not least, the ICT sector is the fastest growing
contributor to emissions, currently contributing around 2.25% of total emissions but
with a compound annual growth rate of around 6%! (GeSI 2008). This is due to the
combined growth of networks, number of devices, time of usage and dependency of
organizations on digital tech.
7.4 Changing the World, in What Direction?
Thirty years after the first PCs, many ICT-driven changes have already happened.
We can analyze them from an historical perspective, without anticipating a perfect
future of dreams yet to come, but referring to what has actually happened. In
particular, many of the past promises of ICTs are already applied in leading-edge
companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple and the like. What is prominent in the
history of these three decades from the point of view of societal evolution?
First, military power and security being among the strongest drivers of science
and innovation, ICTs are no exception in this respect. Instead of reducing the
incentives for violent domination of some humans over others, the latest tech have
been used to redefine warfare in a double way: by limiting almost to zero the losses
of tech-savvy armies and by pretending a high precision in killing only the “bad
guys”. With the generalized used of drones, wars are now fought remotely, as if they
were videogames, which is a way to conciliate public opinions in Western countries
and in a sense to relegitimate war after the fiasco of Vietnam. Also, digital tech are
being used for massive and permanent surveillance at a scale never imagined before,
in the streets of our cities as well as in the cyberspace, as revealed by the Snowden
affair. Has this been good for the deterrence of wars and to build up trust among
humans, or is it rather a sure bet for further violence and destabilization?
Second, ICTs have been key for two processes wich have run in parallel and are
fully intertwined, i.e. the globalization and financialization of the economy. This is a
perfect example of how the outcomes of technology depend on its coupling with
political decisions and societal trends, in this case with the policies of deregulation of
finance and international trade heralded by the USA since the 1980s. In this context,
financial markets have been transformed by electronic trading, making access to
them much more open, but also conducive to the dominance of automation and its
extreme variant of High-Frequency Trading (HFT), with software agents executing
algorithms to move in and out of ultra-short-term positions at high volumes and high
speeds to capture an infinitesimal profit on every trade. So, volumes of financial
trading exceed now by many orders of magnitude the physical trading of goods and
services, leading to a more prominent role of finance at the same time that it is more
and more disconnected from physical reality. It is extremely cheap to represent
money as bytes on hard drives and to trade it on the cyberspace, so the virtuality of
finance has been reinforced, as show the tripling in the global ratio of financial assets
to GDP in the last 30 years and the eclosion of a debt-driven economic model,
structurally more inclined to speculation, volatility and systemic risk. Examples of
this abound at all geographical scales.
Third, ICTs coupled with globalization policies connected many countries to
overseas markets, having a strong impact on their development patterns. Leap-
frogging has happened, notably in telecommunications, by making cheap mobile
telephony accessible for most inhabitants of the planet. This has meant a greater
integration and access to economic opportunities in developing countries, where
businesses have been able to use mobile banking to access capital and manage
transactions much more effectively. But the impact has been unequal, much more to
the profit of elites in Western countries and in Asian strong players like Korea and
now China, than to the rest. Still today, Internet access is limited to 10 to 20% of the
population in many African countries and it is difficult to see digital tech as the
vector of prosperity for the least developed countries. Expectations were high of the
contrary, of ICTs as a bet for development in poor countries (the so-called ICT4D
strategy). But, as Souter and MacLean put it:
The grand claims made for ICTs and the Internet by some advocates of ICT4D—for
example, in delivering the Millennium Development Goals—have looked and proved
unrealistic from development professionals’ points of view. Bed nets are obviously more
effective at preventing malaria than ICT devices, and it is hard to see how ICTs can be the
lead technology in improving sanitation. (Souter and MacLean 2012)
On the other hand, digital expansion is deemed as a major contributor to produc-

tivity, growth and entrepreneurship in all countries. Mainstream economists expect
science and technology to deliver “external” shocks in order to produce the growth
needed to keep the economic system running, but is that what really happened in the
last decades? This is a controversial and complex topic. The perception of speed
makes no doubt but against that superficial feeling, hard figures show that the growth
of productivity has significantly slowed down in the USA, from annual rates in the
range of 1.5% to 3% in the 1930s to 1970s to no more than 1% since the 1980s
(Gordon 2016) and even to a negative figure in 2015, for the first time in three
decades. Explanations vary from considering that “today’s innovations are simply
not as transformative as those in the past” or that “there is a growing divide between
“frontier” businesses and the rest of the economy, with some regions and workers
left behind in a low-skill, low-productivity trap”, and that “there is a vicious circle
between rising inequality and slowing productivity” (O’Connor 2016). And counter-
intuitively, the density of start-up businesses has dramatically fallen to half of its
value in the 1970s, whatever the metrics used (Fleming 2016). This is definitely not
the landscape one would expect in the land of promise of digital innovation.
The falling density of start-ups suggests that disruption may not be the whole
story after all. Maybe established players are better than expected at keeping their
advantage and inhibiting new companies to enter the game. The promoters of digital
tech claim a “right to disrupt” any kind of activity, but does it really work? For sure
“digital solutionism” favors the vision that every problem we face (real or imaginary,
and whatever its relevance) has a digital solution (Morozov 2013). But even in this
framing, the improvement of existing processes in a purposeful way seems harder
than trying to replace incumbent businesses by newcomers, and this is in turn harder
than discovering a “blue ocean”, i.e. to create a new activity which did not exist
(or in a limited way) and where no competitors of the old world will be found (Chan
Kim and Mauborgne 2005). This is where Microsoft, Google, Facebook or Twitter
succeeded. Following Metcalfe’s intuition, once a digital company is able to outdo
its competitors in number of clients or users, it will have very good chances of
becoming a private monopoly in the category where its main business is, which is
why utilities used to be publicly regulated or owned. But digital moguls have been
able to dodge regulations and occupy a digital world divided into modern fiefs. This
explains the paradox that digital tech were supposed to have levelling consequences
but produced instead an extraordinary concentration of power and wealth in few
hands, those of cyber-space gatekeepers.
Then, what’s next? It is unclear if “blue oceans” will continue to be discovered
and at what pace but in each of them, a new monopoly is trying to freeze evolution in
order to profit from its dominance. In the meantime, new assailants try to create their
own blue oceans but often by using digital tech to bypass regulations, labour
arrangements and fiscal systems. The purpose is to change the social fabric through
the illusion of “zero marginal costs” while what changes is actually the structure of
prices, i.e. the distribution of power. So f.i. taxi drivers, presented as if they were
abusing of a monopolistic position, are in risk of dispossession by Uber, which
intends to avoid the full costs of transport (including social charges and safety
regulations) in order to create a new monopolistic brand. Uber, Airbnb and others
are labelled as “sharing economy” but if it is a way to new private monopolies, the
metaphor looks like a fraud.
“Industry 4.0” has now emerged as a label to describe the digitization of
manufacturing (Baur and Wee 2015). Supposedly we are on the verge of a new
industrial revolution, based on the rise in data volumes and connectivity; the
emergence of analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI); new forms of human-
machine interaction such as touch interfaces and augmented-reality systems; and
improvements in transferring digital instructions to the physical world, such as
Internet of Things (IoT), advanced robotics and 3D printing. And disruptive per-
spectives are not even limited to ICTs: advanced biotechnologies are also
progressing fast and f.i. the “CRISPR Cas9” technology of genome editing aspires
to be a breakthrough with the potential to disrupt conventional methods of pharma-
ceutical research, and of breeding new crops and perhaps farming animals. Among
these well publicized trends, 3D printing is marketed with the flavour of empowering
citizens, bringing to any of us the capacity of self-production at home with easy
access to new designs inspired by nature and requiring less energy and raw materials
while improving durability, weight and efficiency. All these developments are
impressive, but do they pass the reality check from economic, societal and ecological
points of view? Could 3D printing be more material-efficient than a large-scale
process designed to favor recycling? Does its economic model rely on more than
unpaid labour made acceptable through the “Do It Yourself” motto? Is it not a
modern reinvention of the exploitation of women weaving at home in the initial
stages of textile industry?
Again and again, disruptive innovation is associated with the elimination of jobs,
surely not the least aspect of what we live today. Not only the biggest employers are
traditional organizations (with more than one million employees: the Armies of the
USA, China and India, Walmart, McDonald’s, the National Health Service of UK,
the main oil and electricity companies of China, and the Indian Railways) which
outnumber by far the largest digital companies (Microsoft: 120.000 employees,
Apple: 110.000, Google: 60.000, Facebook: 12.000). Actually, new digital outfits
don’t want to have employees: Uber has shown the utmost interest in the develop-
ment of autopilot driving to deploy its business model without humans.
We foresee then the danger of a general disappearance of jobs, a question widely

discussed in recent years. One of the most quoted synthesis states that 47% of US
jobs have a more than 70% probability of being lost (Frey and Osborne 2013). A
2016 Report by the World Economic Forum (WEF 2016) concludes that about
7.1 million jobs will be lost and 2 million jobs will be created in 15 important
countries over the next 5 years, with a net loss effect of 5.1 million jobs. Newly
industrialized countries with a still underdeveloped technological infrastructure are
likely to be more negatively affected than some of the old and rich industrialized
countries. Labour-intensive industries producing parts for major manufacturers
located in rich countries are more vulnerable than highest tech industries and their
related service departments.
The loss in traditional jobs could be compensated by the creation of new jobs
related to education and care, and especially to activities required by a massive
transition to sustainability. But, as Carlota Pérez puts it,
Just as in the 1930s, there is an enormous technological potential lying dormant because
finance sees all innovation as risky and stays in its own world, building paper castles with
debt, futures, derivatives or bonds, rather than funding the real (riskier) production economy.
(Pérez 2016)
So, this quick overview of the impacts of digital innovation in the last 30 years
cannot be truly optimistic. For sure the world has changed a lot and many of the
technologies we now take for granted are great advancements for humanity. But the
general direction of change is more a concern than a source of hope. In many cases
disruption means less jobs and worse labour relations, of course deunionized and
based on low-cost labour except for small elites; massive tax avoidance, as shown by
the recent EU demand to Apple of 13 billion Euros in due taxes; and life degradation,
since the primary effects of digital tech are basically harmful to the environment.
Could we think that the extension of digital disruption to society as a whole will
solve these non-desirable outcomes and ultimately bring a better world? What we
see is rather a new economic structure being put in place, based on a few leading-
edge companies with monopoly power and the rest in dependent positions. For the
time being, our societal organization does not ensure that innovation is practiced to
give universal access to the benefits of ICTs, nor of S&T at large. It is conceived to
capture enough resources (our money, but especially our attention) to make inno-
vation hugely profitable for just a few. And the great energy of entrepreneurship, of
pioneers willing to try new ideas to improve the world, are for now just being
absorbed into this framing.
7.5 Anticipating “Technolitarian” Futures
ICTs like to be presented as “tools” for achieving human purposes. In sync with
mainstream economics whose models consider innovation as an exogenous factor,
they present themselves as offering to society neutral, general-purpose tools which
are by definition innocent, since their outcomes, good or bad, will depend on the
usage that humans will make of them. To be more precise, they present themselves
as positive achievements whose negative impacts, if any, can only be attributed to a
bad usage, not to the conception of the technologies themselves. This is the point
where we leave the domain of science to enter that of ideology. ICTs are not neutral
nor exogenous to society. Entangled with societal evolution, they derive from human
decisions, including design decisions which create path dependencies and lock-ins
since the networked nature of the digital world facilitates the emergence of monop-
olies. And those decisions are based on a certain modelling of reality and are not free
of economic interests, political intentions and in general values in certain frame-
works of interpretation, specific to times and places, and not truly universal.
If we address ICTs as what they are, certainly an expression of human genius but
truly dependent on the social and political contexts in which they were born and are
developed, we should ask what futures we could build by using them in one way or
another and, more importantly, by designing their next generations in one way or
another. For the time being, high risks are already here which could pave the way to
“technolitarian” futures in which human and environmental purposes would be
secondary to the logic of technological innovation. Those risks (maybe unwanted
by the promoters of digitization, but still real) are related to underlying assumptions
of the digital ideology.
First is the denial of physicality, through the self-illusion of “dematerialization” in
the Singularity jargon. At a time when we have crossed the limits of many planetary
resources, the digital ideology interprets limits as unbearable limitations and declares
their obsolescence (except of those imposed by markets). Dematerialization is used
as a claim to get free from them, as is implicit in terms like “zero cost” or the “cloud”,
while we still are physical beings living in a finite planet with physical costs. A
different, real kind of dematerialization should certainly happen, enabling human
development to be free from the accumulation of material artifacts, but this is not
what the digital industry is proposing right now.
Second, digital innovation is increasingly focused on the disposability of humans,
on replacing them by automated machines, potentially threatening every single job
on Earth, skilled or not, up to that of President of the USA for which a proprietary
software has been proposed (IBM 2016). Even analysts of stock markets are at risk
of being replaced by machines in a self-devouring pirouette of financialization
(Popper 2016). Moreover, in an obssessive quest of tech-based performance, the
Singularity offers to end up human life, replacing ourselves by digital replica
“living” forever in digital networks. Is this a dream or a nightmare? Does it not
sound like a revival of eugenics, the movement for the “improvement” of the species
which won strong recognition in the UK and USA before it was discredited as part of
Nazism?
And, again and again, we see the fantasy of omnipotence. The claim is that more
digitization, connectivity, access to data and algorithms will produce an holistic
Artficial Intelligence (AI), much superior to the human one (while we still ignore
what intelligence is), and that it could understand world’s evolution and make it
predictable, controllable and ready to be optimized for the benefit of all, of course by
taking the right decisions better than humans. In this cult of AI, the assumption is
implicit that all societal problems can be reframed to have technical solutions, and
that only human weaknesses prevent us to do what is better for all. No doubt, this is a
subtle but totalitarian way of hiding that true decisions are not technical but about
political and moral dilemmas, about what we consider values, what we interpret as
good or bad, better or worse.
Digital tech are also credited with facilitating access to knowledge and art, as well
as the free expression of citizens. Is this really happening? Not on the side of content
creation, since artists and journalists have a harder time making a living out of their
creations, except for a handful of them (Lanier 2010). Meanwhile, a few “lords of the
cloud” become the monopolistic owners of our attention, and in the frenziness of
YouTube postings we, the public, get distracted by making our lives available for
open scrutiny in search of worldwide recognition, although mundane and strictly
ephemeral. We enjoy and suffer everyday the arrogance of novelty, the obsession
with instant gratification and the reductionism of life to the limited, database-
oriented nature of online interfaces (Lanier 2010). Through our multiple addictions,
including that of videogames keeping us in eternal adolescence, we are entertained to
death (Postman 2005) and our conformist mass-media culture inhibits the genuine
expression of humanity through artistic creation. Drowned as we are in an endless
deluge of gossip, we get lost in the “trending topics” of the day and thinking in
perspective becomes extremely difficult. Alternative thinking exists and is probably
richer and stronger than ever but we do not pay much attention to it. We have access
to much more information, but since more effort is devoted to improve machines
than to expand the cognitive capacities of humans, it is unclear if we are really
facilitating access to knowledge. We live in a constantly accelerated time (Rosa
2005) and we are not so interested in learning when it is contrarian to the high-speed
mainstream. In a sense we live in a true gridlock of thinking, by which we are also
able to unlearn very fast some wise lessons acquired at high cost in the past.
Moreover, ICTs are especially well suited to create extensive representations of
reality and, in a dangerous twist, to create the illusion of a substitution of reality by
its artificial representation. A self-referential reality is emerging where digital
technologies talk all the time about themselves and try to capture all our attention
to create lives only experienced online, way beyond what commercial TV started to
do decades ago. This tends to reduce the richness and complexity of human life:
algorithms are designed to maximize the audience of their websites, not to enhance
the diversity of life (Morozov 2013) and when shopping online our whole person-
ality is downgraded to a consuming profile. Also, “digital totalism” (Lanier 2010)
achieves a tour de force in making us think that our gadgets are better than us, so we
have to adapt ourselves to them instead of the contrary. If we do not understand how
a new gadget works, it is our fault and never that of a poor design. Learned
helplessness seems to be the generally accepted pattern of behaviour when dealing
with digital technologies.
And scrutiny is constantly growing: the digital ideology legitimates the capture of
every conceivable data, including those of public origin to be used for commercial
purposes, and the representation of everything we do into data able to be captured,
stored, analyzed and exploited. The nightmare of Bentham’s panopticon is enabled

by digitization, and the fantasy of omnipotence comes with a flavor of absolute
control: in every ongoing dicussion about technology and security, the main thread is
about more surveillance and control, rather than asking how technologies could help
in creating more trust among humans. Big Data is in the end so close to a Big Brother
of an ultra-sophisticated corporate kind. For good or bad reasons, affluent cyber-
libertarians at the core of digital discourse distrust governments and existing political
processes (Barlow 1996), which is practical to justify tax avoidance, but they are
definitely friends of big digital corporations whose power is deemed to be innocent
by definition and which require everybody to be transparent while themselves they
are not, in another twist of self-referential blessing (Golumbia 2013).
In the way ICTs are used today, an autistic dynamic seems at work: a performa-
tive capacity is being deployed to create a world dependent on (what is assumed to
be) their underlying logic, overriding the idea that they could be used as benefitial
tools in our relationship with other humans and the environment. All in all, it is very
hard to state that the public sphere and our social bonds are being enriched by
becoming digital, it seems rather the contrary. Of course the way out of this wrong
direction is not the denial of technological innovations but reframing them to address
the pressing challenges of humanity, but how to do that? How to go beyond pure
critique to ensure that digital tech also contribute to the solutions?
7.6 Reframing from the Social Dynamics of Digital

Technologies
The dynamics leading to the existence and development of ICTs are complex, and
this complexity is a big part of their success. Ironically enough, although the digital
world likes to depict itself as a bottom-up movement based on free will and the soft
power of inventive people fighting against the establishment, it actually started at the
core of government, and the most traditional part of it: nor computers neither the
Internet would exist without the driver of military research since the 1930s, espe-
cially in the USA through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA) and its precedents. But over time ICTs integrated other contributions
and it is a stroke of genuine American genius to have mixed many different
ingredients in the digital cocktail we know today. We identify at least six relevant
factors giving to ICTs their momentum:
– The strategic intention of the USA to keep their global dominance in pursuit of
their national interests through a panoply of means not limited to the military,
which includes keeping the leading edge in S&T. This intention also applies f.i. to
the governance of Internet (The Guardian 2014).
– The success of government-driven agendas to foster the advances of basic
research in physics and the great potential of applications of electronics, telecom-
munications, miniaturization, optics and other disciplines.
– The enthusiasm and creative energy of relatively small groups of young “techies”
willing to “change the world” (whatever this could mean), originated in the
Californian “anti-establishment” movements in the 1960s and focused since the
1980s on a disruptive agenda with a mainly libertarian stance.
– A unique capacity of the marketing and advertisement industry to develop
attractive story-tellings in order to convince people of adhering to new gadgets,
get rid of the “old” ones and do it again and again at a very high frequency. This
industry was also created in the USA in the 1950s with the emergence of mass
consumerism, but by using technologies it is now reaching new heights of
excellence in designing the mental frameworks to foster our digital enthusiasm.
– A long-term aspirational trend by people everywhere to acquire, at the same time,
more personal autonomy and more participation and connectedness, to which the
digital world brings a seemingly simple vehicle.
– And, not least, the agility of financial markets to look for “blue oceans” once and
again and to mobilize initial investments, once it became clear that digital tech are
fantastic to keep alive a consumerist model of economic development.
Although there are many contradictions between them, all these elements are still
acting together today and all are critical to the continuing expansion of ICTs. But of
course their alignment with sustainability challenges is far from being granted.
“Disruptive innovation” is now the rallying cry of this complex dynamics. The
term itself was coined more than 20 years ago (Bower and Christensen 1995) to
characterize the process by which new market and value networks are created with
the effect of disrupting existing ones. Christensen actually puts the focus on the
business model as the key element of disruption:
Generally, disruptive innovations were technologically straightforward, consisting of off-
the-shelf components put together in a product architecture that was often simpler than prior
approaches. They offered less of what customers in established markets wanted and so could
rarely be initially employed there. They offered a different package of attributes valued only
in emerging markets remote from, and unimportant to, the mainstream. (Christensen 1997)
This concept resonates with the “creative destruction” analyzed by Joseph

Schumpeter in 1942, which itself can be traced back to early twentieth century
(Sombart 1913) and ultimately to Karl Marx. In Schumpeter’s view, creative
destruction is the “process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes
the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly
creating a new one” (Schumpeter 1942) and as such is a further elaboration of the
Marxist perspective of capitalist dynamics, i.e. that it constantly destroys and
reconfigures previous economic structures, and in doing so devaluates existing
wealth in order to create new one.
For Marx, Sombart and Schumpeter, this process of ceaseless destruction and
creation would ultimately lead to the collapse of capitalism itself. But the concept
was later adopted by mainstream free-market economics with a positive meaning
also shared by Christensen. In this perspective the mass manufacturing of standard-
ized products at low-price points is critical for disruption to happen by opening new
and larger markets, in the same way as the technological prowess of the automobile
did not disrupt the market for transportation until the Ford Model T appeared in
1908. So, the effectiveness and societal consequences of innovation do not derive
only from technological changes, but rather from their framing into institutional
arrangements not necessarily linked to nor disrupted by inventions. In particular, in
its current definition “disruptive innovation” means that everything new has to pass
the market test; an innovative product is only successful if millions of units are sold
once and again, no matter what side effects, positive or negative, this could have; and
innovation becomes a synonym for modern market competition, which explains why
Christensen focuses so much on cost advantage as the critical factor. Conversely, an
innovation which is not successful in markets, whatever its merit from social or
environmental points of view, is left behind or even totally forgotten.
Although its dynamics include many different elements, digital disruption is
actually conceived as a linear path: it starts with publicly-funded, top-down scientific
research, then goes to innovation funded by venture capital and ultimately reaches
commercial monopoly in a handful of cases. At early stages short-term financial
profitability acts as the dominant selection mechanism and the final outcomes are
failure in most of the cases and, in one per category, rentier exploitation of a
one-player-wins-all dominance. This makes innovation as practiced today very
ineffective as far as societal challenges are concerned. It creates an illusion of
(debt-driven) growth which is increasingly uneconomic, adverse to the environment
and socially unequal. Financial profitability is a one-dimensional, reductionistic
metric unable to provide the right incentives to cope with the multi- or infinite
dimensionality of the complex challenges we face.
In previous sections we discussed the many dark sides of digitization. But maybe
the darkest is what could be called the “innovation paradox”: in a world with a very
high degree of ICT-enabled financialization, the worst enemy of true innovation is
precisely its great exposure to short-term financial expectations. Further progress in
innovation is now subject to an endless stream of speculative bubbles (Pérez 2002).
Actually, the perception of accelerated innovation is high because its working
economic model requires it to be widely publicized. The dogmatic perspective of
techno-utopianism has to be widely assumed in order to ensure that vast public and
private resources are invested fast in its spasmodic development. The logic is short-
termist, to cash in now on future and fully uncertain realizations of innovative ideas,
which inflates an already huge amount of fictitious capital and prevents that enough
investments are made at the right pace over enough time to reap the benefits for the
common good. The evolution of ICTs is a consequence of the way they were born,
their historical contingencies and the lock-ins they have produced, but especially of
their current dynamics, which are complex enough to feed their strong momentum,
but not enough to contribute in a proper way to the challenges that humanity is
facing. Their current framing actually inhibits the possibility of addressing the
challenges of “world problematique” in the appropriate time and space scales.
It is worth to recall that this framing of innovation has not been dominant except
in the last decades. Governments have been (and are) the most consistent players in
research and innovation, with a unique capability to mobilize public and private
efforts through the multi-faceted capacities of the State: as n 1 client in any country,
able to drive large-scale innovative demand; as regulator pushing companies to

invest in S&T; and, not least, as entrepreneur able to bear the burden of uncertainty
and long-termism much better than private corporations (Mazzucato 2013). Of
course intervention by governments is not today in the mainstream thinking of
Western elites (although it is, and very effectively, in the practice of non-Western
countries). But on the other hand governments (and not corporations) are developing
an agenda of international agreements on SD. How could we solve this gordian knot
for the sake of humanity? Beyond the critique, how could we reconcile the excite-
ment and wonders of S&T and digital tech with facing the challenges posed by the
“problematique”?
7.7 Room for Hope: Digital for Life
Our relationship to S&T in general and to digital tech in particular can be labelled as
“anticipatory” in the weak sense of having expectations about the good or bad things
that technological innovation will bring, a sentiment which contributes to shape our
attitude about the future. As discussed, in the last decades this influence has been
mostly on the positive side, feeding us with the hope of incredible achievements to
address our societal challenges. But some relevant expectations have not been met
by reality: in what regards sustainable development (SD), a domain in which
humanity faces an existential threat, the positive anticipation of the effects of
investments in ICTs has turned into disappointment. In our view, this could actually
be considered as self-delusion, since not enough efforts were made to build and use
anticipatory frameworks to help in assessing the multiple impacts of the existence
and uses of digital technologies.
This absence of thoughtful anticipation is particularly striking and harmful since
technological innovation is nowadays a key part of how modern societies build their
future, at the very least as a tool to create “fictional expectations” (Beckert 2013).
The hypothesis we make is that explicit anticipatory frameworks should be devel-
oped in order to harness the power of innovation processes. It goes beyond the scope
of this paper to propose such a framework for digital technologies. But we outline
here a number of elements which in our view are critical for further work on the
topic. First, a framework of the kind envisioned goes beyond forecasting and
foresight: it has to build on a variety of disciplines, models and practices (Poli
2017) and recognize the intrinsic complexity of the underlying dynamics. Innovation
is about more than technologies, and technologies are not only digital. Rather than
exogenous and linear, innovation is a complex and recursive process intertwined
with society and depends on technical but also political “choices leading to specific
designs and applications and not to others, which opens the possibility of altering its
current trajectory so that it becomes consistent with sustainable development”
(Mansell 2012).
Recognizing complexity is about putting interactions and interdependencies at
the core of our attention when analyzing the unfolding of innovation processes.
When addressing the multidimensional challenges and unexpected outcomes related

to sustainable development this means involving all stakeholders in the anticipation
of impacts. This requires a radical change of paradigm in S&T towards co-creation,
a concept officially enacted by the European Union, but still to be fully developed as
an enabler of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). And ICTs could help in
this, by being at the same time the object of reflection and the tools facilitating the
active participation of stakeholders to address societal challenges for the common
good in an “innovation democracy” (Stirling 2014). They could (and in some cases
they do) enable the mobilization of citizens, the creation of grassroots alternatives
and the diffusion of knowledge, but we cannot take for granted that this will happen
easily. Awareness is growing about the negative aspects of our development model
and the risks of S&T as they work today, and with it come positive energies to face
the challenges, but a lot has yet to be done to ensure proper involvement in new
designs. As a result of such anticipatory practices if stakeholder involvement is taken
seriously, it would lead to stopping or decelerating some developments with little or
no benefit to society.
Of course, more stakeholder involvement includes a stronger dialog between ICT
and sustainability communities. But among other things this will require changing
the current idea that digital is “zero cost” and that it deserves to be free from
regulations. A concrete example of explicit anticipation is the idea of a tax on bits,
very small but still large enough to generate fiscal revenues of billions of dollars
which could be used to combat negative externalities of ICTs and fund SD designs
(Cordell et al. 1997). On the ICT side, whose leaders are extremely successful and
influential, it is unclear how much time it will take to get to such a shared vision.
Complexity can also be addressed by designing in a way closer to life (which as a
whole is sustainable by design). One option is to get inspiration from nature for a
new conception of fully recyclable industrial products (Pauli 2015), another is to
expand the capacity of nature for regeneration, f.i. by developing artificial photo-
synthesis against all odds that such a venture may not be sufficient to find a peaceful
pathway to SD (Emmott 2013). In a wider view we should start using sustainability
(in all its complexity) as the critical factor of design of new inventions, and such an
endeavour includes practicing exaptation, i.e. anticipating the reuse of existing
designs for purposes other than those for which they were created, one of the
many mechanisms used by biological evolution.
Practicing a complex anticipation of technological innovation also means
substituting financial profitability by positive contribution to societal challenges as
the metric of success. While official R&D agendas declare that innovation has to be
challenge-driven, in practical terms it is market-driven, i.e. mediated by prices which
in absence of appropriate regulations do not reflect true costs of non-renewabilities
and negative externalities. Prices are themselves driven by the distribution of power
in society, which is related to the access to scarce resources but does not integrate the
requirements of life conservation. Instead, sustainability has to be built-in at the
design stage. It would be worth to explore how to use ICTs in a way such that
negative externalities of processes can be anticipated at the design stage. In a sense,
that would be to exchange information against entropy. How much of this could be
done is a basic question to assess the true potential of ICTs for sustainability, but up
to now it remains almost unexplored (A. Valero, Private communication, 2016).
Monitoring negative externalities is left out as an ex-post task, when it is simply too
late, pretty much as recycling only happens when waste has already been produced.
The combination of scientific knowledge and technological sharpness has a
strong generative capacity, which could lead to many different global scenarii, to
old-fashioned accumulation in very few hands and unsustainable ways of life
(as today) as well as to the emergence of vibrant ecosystems for the benefit, diversity
and sustainability of the biosphere. We have to prove, now and urgently, that
sustainable development is not an oxymoron. The role of technological innovation
in that mission is critical but not granted. For now, only seeds are being planted,
initiatives such as “Computing within Limits” (ICT4S 2016a), “Slow Tech” (ICT4S
2016b) or many local projects truly using ICTs to promote sustainability. But
transformation research does not explain yet how to go from local seeds to a global
change, and to a large extent technological innovation is right now captured by short-
term speculation, not driven by societal challenges, focused on “solutionism” rather
than on trans-contextual analysis and produced without an active involvement of
stakeholders (humanity at large as well as the natural environment). So, it is not
helping to drive our course away from socio-ecological disasters.
The lack of explicit anticipatory frameworks seems to us an obstacle for further
analysis and action. Overcoming the present situation requires reclaiming anticipa-
tion as a discipline and learning path for co-creating desirable futures. Some hints
have been given above to establish complex frameworks mobilizing a mix of holistic
vision, strategic intentions, scientific commitment, activist enthusiasm and new
story-tellings in a cocktail strong enough to connect with the deep human aspirations
to autonomy and participation in a more genuine way than what digital tech do
today. Of course financial resources and political will are required to develop the
potential of new inventions for the sake of life on Earth. By far we are not yet there.
The seeds exist but they have to be assembled and fed with social energy. Instead of
a blind faith in digital tech as our savior, time has come to make a proper use of the
knowledge we already have, and of all our anticipatory capabilities.
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Chapter 8
Energy Transition, Anticipation
and Change: A Study on the Anticipatory
Experiences of the Low Carbon Society
Giovanni Caiati, Gabriele Quinti, and Luciano d’Andrea
The future is already here —

it’s just not very evenly distributed
William F. Gibson
Abstract A paradigm shift towards the so-called low carbon society is one of the
main challenges that our societies have to face in the near future. In the framework of
the European Commission’s 7th Framework Program research project
MILESECURE-2050, empirical research was carried out to understand the social
dynamics that may characterize this change in the future. The research involved a
Europe-wide study of the communities that “anticipate”, at local level, some basic
features of a future low carbon society, i.e. Anticipatory Experiences. The research
analysed over 90 Anticipatory Experiences in 19 European countries. Some of the
experiences analysed attempted to change a single aspect of their communities, such
as developing sustainable transport, energy-efficient housing or the generation of
property-level renewable energy. Others wanted to produce a holistic sustainable
community that incorporated a fully functional and independent low energy net-
work. In summary, all the Anticipatory Experiences developed, or are actively
developing, sustainable ways of producing, consuming and transporting energy.
The Anticipatory Experiences were found to be operating at different local scales,
ranging from neighbourhoods and towns to major cities. Their anticipatory character
may be defined as the ability to take decisions and develop practical solutions today,
in order to resolve issues that the society in general, and the local community in
particular, will have to confront in the near future, first of all those involving climate
change and the depletion of “carbon” energy resources. Taking as its starting point
the empirical evidence of the research, the paper investigates how the anticipatory
G. Caiati (*) · G. Quinti · L. d’Andrea

Knowledge and Innovation – K&I, Rome, Italy
e-mail: caiati@knowledge-innovation.org; quinti@knowledge-innovation.org;
dandrea@knowledge-innovation.org

122 G. Caiati et al.
features of these communities resulted in structural changes in both the energy

system and the local social system and in radical changes in individual behaviours.
Keywords Anticipatory Experiences · Anticipatory awareness · Human energy ·

Energy Transition · Sociocultural stress · Low carbon society · Structural change
The paper deals with the results of a research project on the social dynamics of
energy transition carried out in the framework of the EC-funded MILESECURE-
2050 project. The paper is divided into four sections. The first presents the problem
that was the focus of the research, i.e. the role of the human factor in the processes of
energy transition. In short, while the importance of the human factor in changing the
energy system has been acknowledged, the measures adopted so far to promote a
low carbon society did not take into consideration human agency as a constitutive
element of the transformation of energy systems. The second paragraph provides a
description of the research project. In this section, the “Anticipatory Experiences”
approach to the study of the low carbon society will be illustrated. The third and
fourth sections dwell upon the results of the study. In particular, the third section
focuses on the process of transition and its features and provides an insight into how
anticipatory awareness may be a triggering factor for agency and social change. The
fourth section is dedicated to the emerging features of the low carbon society, as they
may be understood by observing the Anticipatory Experiences. In order to shed light
on how technical and social change is intertwined, the human energy approach will
be introduced. Thanks to this concept, three social functions characterizing the
management of low carbon energy systems will be identified. The concluding
remarks will summarize the lessons learned about anticipation from a theoretical,
methodological and practical point of view.
8.1 The Problem of the Human Factor in Energy Transition
8.1.1 A Paradigm Shift in the Consideration of Energy

Systems
Environmental and energy prospects – and their implications on the political,

economic and social spheres – have, for at least 20 years (since the 1992 UNCED
in Rio de Janeiro), been central to the international agenda of the big issues facing
the world. This has resulted in a gradual change in the paradigm underlying the
management of the global energy system. The “old” paradigm that guided energy
policies at different levels (production, distribution and consumption) was based
mainly on three assumptions: (i) the unlimited (or at least very abundant) availability
of energy resources, (ii) the irrelevance (or minor relevance) of the impact on the
8 Energy Transition, Anticipation and Change: A Study on the. . . 123
environment caused by the exploitation of energy resources and (iii) the idea of
decreasing costs of energy resources.
However, what gradually emerged, mainly among the scientific community,
policymakers and CSOs, was a new paradigm, the so-called Sustainability Paradigm
(Burns 2012), produced by the profound changes brought on by the emergence of
new threats and challenges, such as the scarcity of non-renewable energy resources,
the low environmental sustainability of the energy system and increases in energy
costs (especially as regards traditional sources).
Two anticipatory “breaks” with the past that led to a shift from the old to the new
paradigm were:
– At the “cognitive” level, the intellectual concerns voiced by the Club of Rome
about the “Limits to Growth” (Meadows et al. 1972)
– At the “operational” level, the oil crisis in the 1970s, which highlighted, at the
time, the close interactions between the environment, development and energy
security issues
If it’s true that this paradigm shift is just one of the issues related to energy
transition (fuel dependency, costs, risks and resiliency, geopolitical relations, inte-
gration of enlergy system, etc.), it is also true that the change of paradigm described
above is an issue that is closely connected to all the others. In fact, in order to face the
challenges of climate change and energy security, Europe, now more than ever, is
facing the need to review and renew its ways of producing and consuming energy.
Reduced emissions, increased use of renewable energy and energy savings are, in
fact, some of the key objectives that Europe has set in its strategy for 2020 and
beyond (European Commission 2013).
8.1.2 The Problem of the Human Factor
Although there is a broad agreement about the need to implement this change, it
remains unclear what is the most effective way today to achieve it. In this respect,
several projects were funded by DG Research of the European Commission, which
examined the various facets of creating a new energy system compatible with the
new paradigm.1 In this context, one of the issues dealt with was the transition to this
system and various possible scenarios for the future of energy systems that could be
1
The various projects and other research initiatives funded by the EC include, among the others:
PACT (Pathways for Carbon Transitions), PASHMINA (paradigm shifts modelling innovative
approach), SPREAD (Sustainable lifestyles 2050), POLINARES (EU Policy on Natural Resources)
and GILDED (Governance, Infrastructure, Lifestyle). Dynamics and Energy Demand: European
Post-carbon Communities), AUGUR (Challenges for Europe in the world 2030), WEO (World
Energy Outlook), WETO-T (World and European Energy and Environment Transition Outlook
Report), MEDPRO (Mediterranean Prospects), MILESECURE-2050 (EU Low Carbon and Energy
Security), POCACITO (Post-Carbon Cities of Tomorrow)
more or less compatible with the new paradigm. As a whole, these projects highlight,
to a greater or lesser degree, that the human factor is central to the energy system. In
fact, the transition from the old to the new energy management system requires a
redefinition of the dangers to which societies are exposed and a collective commit-
ment on issues of environmental sustainability in order to activate effectively the
energy transition.
Notwithstanding these results, the attempts made so far to take into consideration
societal and human factors in the transition process and policies can be traced to
three main approaches (or combinations thereof):
– Those based on the penetration of new greener and more efficient technologies
into society (technological drive).
– The approaches based on the introduction of new rules or restrictions that citizens
must accept (normative drive).
– The perspective from which new attitudes towards energy consumption (and
savings) must be interiorized by the population (ethical drive or lifestyle drive).
If it is true that each of these approaches is needed to realize energy transition, all
three are based on a vision of change in which both the social and the individual
dimensions are relegated to a function of “acceptance” of decisions that come from
the outside. It is true that these visions of the energy transition recognize the
importance of social and anthropological feedback, but they tend to consider the
human factor as a mere receptor, not an agent of change. What actually is lacking is
the perspective of human agency, as a constitutive element of the transformation of
the energy systems.
8.2 The Study of Anticipatory Experiences (AEs)

of the Low Carbon Society
8.2.1 Aims and Challenges of the Study
In the context described above, research on the social dynamics of energy transition
was carried out as a component of MILESECURE-20502 project (Caiati et al. 2013
and 2014). The project aimed at identifying the main social factors that will be
constitutive of the transition towards a low carbon society in Europe from now
to 2050.
The research activity was designed and developed in order to address two main
challenges. The first was to grasp the intrinsic complexity of the social facts under
observation and modelling their dynamics (see Rohracher 2008; Stirling 2014). In
2
Multidimensional Impact of the Low-carbon European Strategy on Energy Security, and socio-
economic dimension up to 2050 Perspective (MILESECURE-2050) was funded under FP7
programme and was carried out in the period 2013–2015.
this respect, it is worth noting that social facts are often included in the analysis of
energy systems and in future energy transition scenarios mostly as mere input or
output data. Thus, the problem addressed in the research project was neither to
determine how social facts affect energy transition (input) nor to determine how
energy transition affects social facts (output). Rather the problem addressed was how
to insert social facts as constitutive elements of the energy transition itself.3 The
second challenge was to develop an approach capable of anticipating future social
dynamics on the basis of facts already occurring and not of mere hypotheses. In other
words, the attempt was to build an empirical basis that could say something, at least
in probabilistic terms, about the future development of the complex social dynamics
associated with energy transition.
8.2.2 The Anticipatory Experiences (AEs) Approach
In response to these challenges, the research work focused on the analysis of a series
of Anticipatory Experiences (AEs), i.e. local experiences that contain some of the
fundamental characteristics (thus, anticipating them) of a broader transition process
towards environmentally sustainable energy sources, which is obviously expected to
largely affect all European societies. Therefore, a series of initiatives, undertaken in
Europe, aiming to introduce and spread eco-sustainable forms of energy in certain
geographical areas have been selected and analysed in depth.
The main assumption of this approach is that AEs already developed on a local
scale will lead to a new sustainable system of producing, managing and consuming
energy. Thus, selection criteria revolved around the capacity to anticipate the energy
transition process. In this sense, AEs are to be considered as existing “bits” or
“pieces” of a future low carbon society.
The notion of “Anticipatory Experience” (Caiati et al. 2010) is not to be under-
stood generically but refers to the “anticipatory systems” theories developed in
particular by Rosen (1985, 1991) in the biological sphere, by Nadin (2010, 2016),
especially, in the social field and by Poli (2010, 2014, 2017) from a multidisciplinary
perspective. On the basis of scientific evidence, these theories state that living
systems (from individual organisms to collective organizations) have biological or
social mechanisms, albeit in different forms that can “anticipate the changes that
actually happen” (either in micro-environments or broader and more complex areas
of social life). The presence of these “anticipatory systems” allows living systems to
organize themselves and their actions not only in “reactive” terms (i.e. reacting to a
situation that affects them as it occurs) but also in “predictive” terms (anticipating
this situation and adopting an internal organization or plan of action before the
situation occurs, modifying it in advance, at least in part).
3
For an overview of the studies on the complex relationship between science, technology and
society, see d’Andrea and Declich 2014.
In this context, Anticipatory Experiences must be seen as cases in which, through

interaction, different actors anticipate situations and processes that are likely to be
typical of energy transition as a whole. Furthermore, their anticipatory character may
be assimilated to their ability, at the present time, to take decisions and develop
practical solutions to resolve issues that all the societies will have to address in the
near future, first of all those concerning climate change and the depletion of “carbon”
energy resources.
In short, Anticipatory Experiences have been used as a “locus” to investigate the
transition to low carbon society and, therefore, the future potential characteristics of
energy systems. The basic idea was that, despite all the uncertainties of such a
complex matter (and given the enormous limitations intrinsic to any attempt to
forecast the evolution of a society), studying AEs allows to generate new knowledge
about the key social dynamics that will or would characterize future energy transition
processes, or at least, more than other approaches, to gain a deeper understanding of
the transition.
8.2.3 Empirical Basis and Methodology
The research team analysed over 90 projects in 19 European countries. Some of the
experiences analysed attempted to change a single aspect of their communities, such
as more sustainable transport, energy-efficient housing or the generation of property-
level renewable energy. Others wanted to produce a holistic sustainable community
that incorporated a fully functional and independent low energy network. In short, all
AEs developed, or are actively developing, sustainable ways of producing, consum-
ing and transporting energy. The AEs were found to be operating at different local
scales, ranging from neighbourhoods and towns to major cities (see also Quinti et al.
2016) (Fig. 8.1).
The research was organized in three main phases (see Table 8.1).
The first phase was devoted to identifying the Anticipatory Experiences from a
long list of over 1,500 cases. The AEs were identified using different tools in
different steps, ranging from analysis of case studies databases to consultation of
key informants. The experiences were selected for having specific characteristics as
compared to other sustainable energy initiatives (operationality, transparency,
systematicity, etc.).
The second phase was devoted to an overall analysis of the 90 AEs identified
in the first phase. Around 500 documents were analysed, and relevant informa-
tion was selected and stored in a database. Furthermore, the study of the 90 AEs
made it possible to identify a subset of 20 meaningful AEs to be further
investigated.
The third and last phase consisted of an in-depth and retrospective study of the
20 AEs selected in the second phase. For each of the AEs analysed in this phase, a
Fig. 8.1 The map of Anticipatory Experiences of the Low Carbon Society
dossier with the main feature and all the relevant documents was assembled, and
in-depth interviews were carried out with AEs promoters and key informants.
8.3 Social Dynamics of Energy Transition
One of the prominent results of the study was the identification of some of the
emerging features of energy transition, as they can be observed through the lens of
Anticipatory Experiences. Despite being highly heterogeneous, AEs seem to have
two fundamental common characteristics which can be considered as two constitu-
tive aspects of energy transition. The first aspect is what can be referred to as “energy
transition depth”. In fact, all AEs consciously seek to have a profound effect on the
local reality, in technological, organizational and social terms. The second element
that AEs have in common is that, because of the profound changes that they can
trigger, they tend to generate high levels of sociocultural stress, with psychological
implications at the local level.
Table 8.1 Phases of the study

Phase Starting point Activities and tools Output
Identification + 1700 Call for experience 90 Anticipatory Experiences
experiences (stakeholders) (final panel) identified
Consultation of key
informants
Partners’ work
Analysis of case studies
online databasesa
Grid for criteria list
analysis
Data collec- 90 Anticipatory Collection of about 90 AEs analysed and 20 mean-
tion and Experiences 500 documents ingful cases identified (See
analysis Grid of observation Caiati et al. 2013)
Database of 90 AEs
In-depth 20 selected A dossier for each AE 20 AEs in-depth analysed (See
study Anticipatory selected was collected Caiati et al. 2014)
Experiences In-depth interviews with
AE promoters and key
informants
a
Among the database investigated: Concerto, Civitas, ManagEnergy, Energy Cities, Bild up, Eltis,
Intelligent Energy, Sustainable Cities™, Go 100% Renewable Energy, Ecocities Global Survey (UK)
8.3.1 Energy Transition Depth
The depth4 of change and discontinuity in the management of energy systems, as

observed in Anticipatory Experiences, can be described by a set of phenomena that
are frequently observed in AEs, albeit with different nuances and sizes, as shown in
the Table 8.2.
These phenomena may also be considered as steps of an itinerary through which
the agency of local players begins to turn into actual anticipatory behaviours and to
activate and lead the change. The main phenomena characterizing energy transition
depth may be described as follows.
– Anticipatory awareness. Rather than attempting to follow ethical or moral imper-
atives, all the Anticipatory Experiences are compelled by an awareness that dangers
(from climate change to the dynamics of deindustrialization in European cities) of
different types at local or global level can, in future, represent a setback for our
society, determine technical and social unsustainability and affect the lives of
individuals, undermining standards of living.
– Critical attitudes to contemporary society. AEs are characterized by an orientation
that is critical both of “traditional” energy systems and of the way in which
contemporary society is managed and organized. What stands out in AEs is a
4
With regard to the concepts of “depth” and “intensity”, it is possible to refer to the literature of
collective movements. See about: Benford and Snow 2000; Quaranta 1982; Jasper 2008.
Table 8.2 Energy transition depth: phenomena and recurring facts

Phenomena Recurring facts
A deep awareness of social and Dangers linked to global dynamics
environmental dangers Dangers linked to local dynamics
Critical attitude to contemporary Criticism of the way power is exercised
society Changes in aspects related to quality of life in contemporary
societies
Adoption of innovative Recourse to very different professional backgrounds
approaches Holistic approach (work on social, economic, technological
and cultural aspects at the same time)
Participatory approach to transition
Ownership of the means of energy production
Construction of new social Presence of charismatic leadership
configurations Synchronization of all local actors around transition symbols
and myths
Passionate citizen participation
Radical social and cultural change
Profound change even at personal level
Presence of “glory dynamics”
general criticism of the way power is exercised, which is considered as having a

top-down nature and reserved for the few. Moreover, there is disagreement over the
more common ways of conducting everyday life, too oriented towards consump-
tion, not linked to nature, individualistic and too little community oriented.
– Adoption of innovative approaches. AEs are and see themselves as highly
innovative experiences, even, we may say, as a break with the past. Some
innovative aspects promoted by the AEs are, for example, the capacity of bring
together professional backgrounds of very different types; a strong tendency to
adopt a holistic approach that allows them to act on a wide range of aspects of
social, economic, technological and cultural life; focus on encouraging the direct
participation of citizens in the realization of energy transition (in decisions, but
also in the design and practical implementation of interventions); and the promo-
tion of citizen ownership of the means of energy production.
– The construction of new social configurations. Perhaps because of its innovative
character, energy transition seems to reconfigure social space and shared mean-
ings in the different communities involved. With the emergence of new leaders,
the activation of symbols and myths related to the transition and a passionate
participation of citizens in the process of change, energy transition programmes
are pushing for a general synchronization (or coordination) of all local area actors
towards the objectives of energy transition.
All this leads to a radical change in AEs, both at the social and cultural level and
at the personal level. In fact, in many cases the AEs produce a real break between
what came “before” and “after”, by virtue of their innovative nature, to the extent
that they are perceived as “minor revolutions” in the local social life.
Table 8.3 Sociocultural stress: phenomena and recurring facts

Phenomena Recurring facts
Social conflicts (ad extra) Conflicts with builders and professionals
Conflicts with local authorities
Conflicts with environmental movements
Other conflicts at the local level
Dissonance with the surrounding reality Presence of bias
Inadequacy of regulatory frameworks
Tension related to personal resistance to Distrust of innovation
change Difficulties in giving up lifestyles
Resistance from weaker population brackets
Conflicts within the promoter group Conflicts over project management
(ad intra) Conflicts over the management of financial
resources
Conflicts within the public administration
Intergenerational conflicts in project leadership
8.3.2 A Stress Situation
Due to its deep nature, this change does not seem to happen painlessly. Energy
transition can lead to many different forms of opposition and resistance. The
pressure of the deep changes taking place, the transition to a low carbon society
and the effort required for adaptation, in short, seem to generate, in most cases, a
general state of sociocultural stress5, with psychological implications.
In this respect, a set of phenomena and recurring facts have been identified during
the research on Anticipatory Experiences, as shown in the Table 8.3.
The contours of this process are outlined below on the basis of its most charac-
teristic phenomena.
– Social conflicts. The different actors involved in the AEs tend to defend their own
interests, acquired positions, professional routines and their own spaces from the
changes that occur in the transition process. There have been cases of conflict
between the promoters of AEs and, for example, constructors, professionals and
technical staff of municipalities, public administrations, shop owners and even
environmental groups.
– Dissonance with the surrounding reality. There have been cases of bias, hostility
and scepticism towards energy transition, which inevitably involve the promoters
of AEs (sometimes considered radicals or hippies) and the technologies used.
Another element of dissonance concerns the inadequacy of regulatory
5
Social sciences and especially sociology have a long tradition of research on sociocultural stress,
dealt with under different conceptual labels such as anomie, cultural trauma, social crisis or social
stress. Only making reference to general sociology, we can mention, e.g. Durkheim 2014; Merton
1938; Pearlin 1989; Beck 1992; Aneshensel 1992.
frameworks on issues such as the use of advanced technologies and the

experimenting of new solutions at the local level.
– Tensions due to personal resistance to change. A third source of stress found in
the research is due to people’s reluctance to adapt to new solutions offered by
AEs. Not all citizens, in fact, are inclined to adopt more sustainable lifestyles, to
invest their savings (or even to apply for funding) to take measures for energy
efficiency or to accept technological solutions that are more environmentally
friendly, but which, compared to the traditional ones, are less practical or permit
lower levels of comfort, at least from the point of view of users.
– Conflicts within the promoter group. Those promoting innovative projects and
profound change, such as those introduced by Anticipatory Experiences, are
themselves, in fact, subject to significant forms of stress. In this regard, there
have been conflicts that involve, e.g. the acquisition, use and maintenance over
time of financial resources, the management of relationships and intergenerational
relations within the AEs.
8.4 Emerging Features of the Low Carbon Society

8.4.1 The Human Energy Approach
The discovery of the depth of change and of new risks arising within AEs highlights
the weight of the human factor both at the practical and at the experiential level. It is
possible to say, on the basis of what the experiences analysed have “anticipated”,
that in the future the human factor will have a significance that will go far beyond
increased environmental sensitivity. The human factor will turn energy systems in
transition upside-down. This is why the study of the emerging features of the low
carbon society requires us to talk about “human energy”. This concept was used
before, albeit in other and different contexts, by the French philosopher, Teilhard de
Chardin (1962), and the father of the modern alternating current electricity supply,
Nikola Tesla (2008).
Why Human?
One of the most important results of this research is that it makes explicit and visible
the latent role that the human factor exerts in energy systems in transition. In
studying AEs, it is clear that, for the analysis of energy systems in transition, it is
crucial to adopt a broader concept, one which does not just include technological
aspects but also social and personal dynamics (Wolf et al. 2010, Watts 2011).
Human energy is a holistic and all-inclusive understanding, articulated in three
dimensions that show different ways in which the human factor lies behind the
energy system:
a. Social energy is the human capacity to bring together different forms of social
activism that coordinate and orient different social actors towards common goals
and to overcome conflicts and opposition that may represent a waste of energy.
b. Endosomatic energy represents the human capacity of effecting profound

changes at the personal level in one’s daily actions and convictions, in view of
using the body in synergy with the energy system as a whole.
c. Extrasomatic energy is the human capacity to activate and use natural resources
through the adoption of all kinds of equipment, technology or machinery (using
all energy sources, whether carbon or low carbon).
Why Energy?
Energy is the capacity to do work. The research sheds light on how the human factor
may be able to make energy transition work. Human energy is essential both to
trigger energy transition and to manage and overcome risks that energy systems in
transition run. The research analyses this twofold role of human energy by
interpreting each of its three dimensions in terms of a social action conducive to
the success of the transition and constitutive of a possible future low carbon society.
In fact, three social functions can be identified, corresponding to the three dimen-
sions of human energy: the cybernetic function, the repositioning function and the
localization function.
8.4.2 Social Energy: The Cybernetic Function
The social dimension of human energy can be interpreted as an adjustment of human

and social relations that emerge in the context of energy transition as a tendency
towards self-regulation. Such an adjustment – fulfilling what was called the cyber-
netic function – makes the governance of energy transition possible and may be
considered one of the emerging features of the low carbon society. The tension and
conflicts that arise in energy systems in transition are managed through a series of
continuous, coordinated and simultaneous actions, such as:
– The active participation of citizens in decision-making
– The widespread practice of negotiating the resolution of conflicts and disputes
with different social actors in the area
– The ability to maintain continuous and multilateral communication on multiple
levels (from informal to institutional communication)
– The creation of an institutional space for energy transition by including traditional
institutions in the transition, as well as with actions such as setting up new
institutions or transmitting collected experiences to others
8.4.3 Endosomatic Energy: The Repositioning Function
For centuries, the dominant trend has been to minimize physical effort through the
use of machines. It seems that in the context of energy transition, we witness a
reversal, albeit partial, of this trend. In fact, in the low carbon society, individuals
must reposition themselves into a new energy (and social) system in which the
relationship between the human body and the surrounding social reality changes
deeply. Endosomatic (or personal) energy is activated in a low carbon context to
address the challenges associated with the increased use of the body in daily lives.
This action – fulfilling what was called “the repositioning function” – is to be
considered as the continuous work of psychophysical adaptation. Repositioning
function refers to phenomena such as:
– Increased resort to muscular strength and the use of the body, not only in the field
of mobility (walking or cycling) but also in other fields (such as an increased use
of body warmth to adjust to the low temperature heating systems)
– New focus on the practical issues of everyday life, such as food, health and
physical well-being, waste management, etc.
– Spread of a perception of self that is reframed within the energy system (e.g. you
feel “physically” part of the new energy system)
8.4.4 Extrasomatic Energy: The Localization Function
The extrasomatic dimension, which is at the centre of each energy transformation,

must be within the sphere of the everyday actions of human groups and individuals,
phenomenon that we have called localization function. The localization function
regards the way in which the change from carbon energy sources to low carbon and
efficient technologies takes place. In the low carbon energy system, the technologies
and the services for the production, transport and consumption of energy become
more accessible and visible to people, who can then go on to develop direct control
of energy systems, at both the personal and the collective level. Localization
function refers to phenomena such as:
– Localized energy production
– Technical skills that are also spread among the public
– The shared ownership of the means of production and self-production of energy
8.4.5 The Dynamics of the Three Functions of Human

Energy
Finally, the study of Anticipatory Experiences allowed us to identify how the three
functions of human energy are activated at different times with respect to the process
of transitions towards the low carbon society. Energy transition processes seem to be
characterized by a “direction” or rather an order of activation of different forms of
human energy. If the first to be activated is social energy, it is likely that extrasomatic
energy can be activated more easily. When, on the contrary, the latter is the first to be
activated, it is likely to meet with resistance and obstacles from the other two
dimensions of human energy. In this respect, the cybernetic function may be
Table 8.4 The shift from homo comfort to homo responsabilis

Human energy
Homo comfort functions Homo responsabilis
Focused on the self to obtain, manage Cybernetic Group action to control and
and consume energy function address energy transition
Use energy to avoid fatigue and pain Repositioning Activate body to save energy
function
Use services/technologies but not Localization Actively use services/technologies
understand them function with high degrees of agency
considered as a prerequisite or a trigger for the activation of the localization and the
repositioning functions. At the same time, the successful activation of the localiza-
tion and repositioning functions is important to sustain the self-regulation or the
cybernetic function. It is in this dynamic that the three forms of human energy play
their role in the functioning of a low carbon energy system and society.
8.4.6 From Homo Comfort to Homo Responsabilis
Summarizing the results obtained on the emerging features of the low carbon
society, they show that a paradigm shift in human behaviour occurred in the
Anticipatory Experiences of the low carbon society. The change of energy system
should be placed within the wider context of a new sociotechnical configuration in
which profound changes affect all the dimensions of human energy. In this sense, the
transition towards a low carbon society may be seen as connected, as it were, with a
wider transformation which can be referred to as a shift from homo comfort to homo
responsabilis, as it is shown in the Table 8.4.
8.5 Concluding Remarks on Anticipation
Beyond providing information on the dynamics of energy transition, the research

project also says something about anticipation.
We have seen how the theory of anticipation and anticipatory systems was central
in the study of the social dynamics of energy transition. In this respect, at least three
concluding remarks may be formulated.
First, from a theoretical point of view, the project highlighted the pivotal role of
anticipation in the generation of a transformative agency. In particular, we have seen
above (section three) how the triptych “anticipation - agency - change” works in the
case of energy transition. In this respect, it is important to notice the relevance of the
cybernetic function – a continuous adjustment of social relations – which provides
empirical evidence on how feedforward and feedback mechanisms are combined in a
social anticipatory system, such as the AEs identified in the study.
Secondly, from a methodological point of view, the Anticipatory Experiences of

the low carbon society proved to be highly heuristic. This suggests that the same
methodology may be applied in future to verify if the processes identified in the AEs
may transcend the local dimension. This should make it possible to extend the
analysis to Anticipatory Experiences at national and international level. Further-
more, the approach of Anticipatory Experiences should be applied to the study of
other ongoing societal transitions.6 It is, however, important to fine-tune the criteria
so as to distinguish experiences that are anticipatory from those that are not. In the
case of MILESECURE-2050, this process was facilitated by the fact that AEs were
all oriented not simply towards adopting a set of new technologies but to the practice
of a new holistic approach to energy production and consumption, thus creating, as it
were, a local environment (in some cases, an entire village or an island) permeated
with this approach. Therefore, the assessment of the depth of AEs and the stress they
produced was relatively easy. When other kinds of transitional phenomena are
considered (e.g. the transition towards a circular economy or towards a co-creation
approach in the production of scientific knowledge), the process could prove to be
more problematic.
Thirdly, from a practical point of view, the project showed how energy transition
can be tackled only through a widespread anticipatory praxis, that is, in anticipating
today the solutions that can address the problems of the future. This suggests that
investment, in all sectors, is needed to reinforce the anticipatory capacity of the
actors involved, on at least three distinct levels: the scientific level, to strengthen
research and studies on the future7; the political level, to make anticipation a
constitutive component of political culture and practice; and the broader societal
level, to make the management of the future part of the concerns and skills of all
stakeholders, from experts to ordinary citizens. In summary, a “mainstreaming of the
future” in all policies and social domains is and will become even more important for
the management of the big and profound changes affecting contemporary societies.
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Chapter 9
Anticipative Processes in the Regeneration
of Built Environment Through Major
Events
Daniele Fanzini and Irina Rotaru
Abstract This contribution illustrates some possible applications of futures studies

– more specifically of the anticipative processes – in the regeneration of the built
environment, in relation to other contemporary issues like sustainable development,
strategic planning, creativity and major events.
In the built environment field, increased complexity and unpredictability have
encouraged the exploration of possible scenarios, in an attempt to control change and
influence the future. In this context, visioning practices and the extensive participa-
tion of stakeholders emerge as alternatives to traditional planning and design
methods, providing a way to effectively and efficiently manage the transformation
of an area or at least to give direction.
The report on some questions of method (allowing the association of project
practices to those of anticipation, while focusing on the sustainability and resilience
of urban contexts) is followed by a discussion of major events viewed as exercises of
anticipation supporting urban regeneration.
Keywords Urban regeneration · Project anticipation · Major events · Strategic

planning · Sustainable development · Built environment · Urban governance · Active
citizenship · Urban change management · EXPO Milano
9.1 Context
Our society is currently affected by a deep crisis of values and meaning which
corresponds to a slow but radical transformation of production systems and of the
reproduction of society itself, as well as of the role of their management entities. This
D. Fanzini (*)
Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering, Politecnico di
Milano, Milano, Italy
e-mail: daniele.fanzini@polimi.it
I. Rotaru
President Cities on the Move, Bucharest, Romania

138 D. Fanzini and I. Rotaru
crisis also impacts the building sector, where the substantial downsizing determined
by the explosion of the speculative bubble of subprime mortgages still continues
after nearly 10 years.
In 2014, in its 22nd Conjunctural and Forecast Report on the Building Sector,
CRESME1 describes a situation which, though still critical, showed signs of some
significant improvements, which in the short term may have triggered more impor-
tant changes and a renewed perspective of the future. Bellicini (2014) considers that
‘a key to major changes is the competitiveness element, the ability to “draw the
future” and complement the strategic vision (where to go) with the ability to allocate
the scarce resources available’.
A similar opinion is expressed by Rullani (2014), for whom it is not possible to
govern the complexity of the transformations in progress with the tools of the past
(rational computation), but a new paradigm – built around the creation of meaning
for shaping the future – is needed. Again according to Rullani (2014), this capability
corresponds to a quantum leap that advances from the efficiency paradigm (know-
how) to the reaction one (know-why). This shift requires the ability to intervene first
and foremost on the aims as well as on the methods and the capacity to ask the right
questions and, above all, to creatively face the future because, as Rullani (2014)
notes: ‘one does not predict the future, one creates it’.
If, on the one hand, this crisis represents a negative disruption which worries
people to the point of causing tension, stress and mistrust, on the other hand, it could
represent an important evolutionary change at a time when we are capable of turning
it to our advantage. The long-term project and the ability to create perspective
visions which are leading institutions and social and economic players in the present
complexity have become indispensable requirements which determine the integra-
tion of the new dimension of a project on the temporary scale of ideas (Fanzini,
Rotaru 2015). In order to create the future, an ability to imagine it, plan it, explain it
and give it meaning enough to involve others and convince them to follow the same
path is required (Rullani 2014).
The term ‘anticipation’ defines that field of future studies focused on the inten-
tional pursuit of possible future scenarios. As Poli (2012) affirms: ‘acting in an
anticipative manner means changing one’s own present behaviour in order to be able
to face future problems’. Miller et al. (2013) consider individual and collective
explicit anticipation a key element in the decision-making process. It represents a
good viaticum for imagining actions and providing perspective to the knowledge of
possible future events, including those which could have a negative bearing on the
achievement of the desired conditions.
The anticipation associated with a project could therefore lead to exploring
possible futures, at the same time taking into consideration the unpredictability of
possible future events (novelty). By fixing a course, it is possible to check potential
variations and intervene to comply with or correct them. In this sense a project based
on principles of anticipation would be more resilient and therefore better suited to
deal with the complexities of current operating conditions.
1
CRESME - Centro ricerche economiche e sociali del mercato dell’edilizia (Centre of Economic
and Social Research in the Building Sector) http://www.cresme.it/
9 Anticipative Processes in the Regeneration of Built Environment. . . 139
9.1.1 Project, Anticipation and Participation
For urban regeneration, the concept of long-term works not only refers to their
durability over time but also to foreseeable future changes, which may impact their
utility, thus the sense for which they were designed and built (Fanzini & Rotaru,
2015).
Today, foretelling the story of the future is a social and political necessity as much
as a technical one (Bozzuto 2008, p. 9), which Paola Viganò (2008) relates to the
project as knowledge producer and instrument for reading, conceptual innovation
and collecting hypotheses about the future. According to Viganò (2008, p. 10),
scenario building is probably the moment in which the project can be seen more
clearly as a coherent and explicit sequence of hypotheses, an interpretative model of
reality that at some point will clarify the vision or, more precisely, as Poli (2017)
states, will ‘make sense of its environment’.
The word project derives from the Latin ‘projectus’ and identifies the action of
moving forward, that is, the intention of doing something in the future. As described
under the entry ‘project’ in the Einaudi Encyclopaedia (Calvo as cited in Nardi
1998):
In its widest and most comprehensive sense, project means anticipation. Anticipation which
includes in itself the expectation of that which is anticipated. The project, in the sense of
anticipation, obviously implies the reference to a future. It is based therefore on a foretelling
or indication of possibility.
Nardi (1998) refers to this meaning of the term ‘project’ to highlight its inherent
heuristic perspective, concerning the capacity of seeing and anticipating the conse-
quences of choices in the passage from possibility to reality. This may also extend to
the widening of the possible to a field of future possibilities. In this sense, the
heuristic dimension of the project emerges and becomes a pragmatic utopia; in the
positive sense of utopia as ‘good place’ on the ‘not yet’ horizon towards which the
critical, planning and transformative eye must be directed (Colombo 1993, Giofrè
et al. 2014).
In the urban arena, the awareness of the end of the modern city experience and the
emergence of new forms of settlements, economies and lifestyles require new tools.
The visioning process is thus developing as an alternative to zoning, enabling to
govern the territory more effectively. The rise of unconventional operators involved
in the design and management of cities (such as special purpose joint ventures,
promoters, management groups and various kind of authorities) modifies the rela-
tionship between the client and intermediary and end users of urban and territorial
transformation, changing the process apparatus as well as the organisation models
and operational tools, into something different from the past (Rotaru 2013). Terms
such as rebuild, reuse and reactivation recur, as well as vision production (foresight)
used as a methodology to cope with the uncertainty of the future by generating
knowledge through the project method, an alternative to rational calculation (fore-
casting). As stressed by Secchi (cited in Mascarucci 2004, p. 8), the real difficulty for
today’s urban planning is to exist simultaneously between vision and project, where
vision is something less detailed than a plan but a lot more complex, able to delineate
a meaningful framework for the entire community, specifying the strategies for
approaching it.
If the visioning process is the methodology used to creatively tackle the uncer-
tainty of the future, strategic planning appears to be the most appropriate technology
to translate the need to link long-term thinking with a more realistic and effective
approach into practice (Cerreta et al. 2010, p. ix). As Franceschini (2014) effectively
emphasised, through the concept of strategic planning, the plan is structured as a
project when it takes into account the limits of each transformation and develops by
proposing solutions the feasibility of which is yet to be pre-verified. Thus, it is a plan
that:
– Becomes a vision and resolves the ineffectiveness of traditional approaches
through the creativity and intelligence of the project as a tool able to structure
the necessary synthesis between the knowledge of the past and the needs of the
future (Franceschini 2014, p. 9)
– Involves citizens in strategic decisions regarding cities and territories, in defining
values and meanings, and hence the rules for moving from vision to strategy and
from strategy to action
Godet (2011, p. 94) interprets participation as a form of ‘governance’ which by
associating public institutions, social partners and private organisations enables the
development, implementation and control of choices capable of generating active
citizenship. In the most advanced forms of urban governance, participation is
understood as a social innovation tool for the development of integrated policies
and actions through collective co-construction and dialogue between operators. The
2009 US Open Government Directive clarified the forms, models and processes of
this involvement, which have subsequently also spread into Europe and the rest of
the world with implications in all areas of government. As Scaglione (2014)
observes, in the field of built environment, the move from rigid traditional urban
planning towards the more dynamic and participatory apparatus of the new gener-
ation is modifying both the apparatus and the role of planners and designers: a road
needs to be opened to a cultural condition, to a completely new method and
technique.
Schiaffonati (2009) offers an interesting and profound examination of the origins
and developments of the participatory project in architecture. He dates it back to the
1950s, when, having to deal with war damage and the administrative structures’
backwardness but also with the enthusiasm, expectations, instances and instincts of
change, Italy produced that fascinating ‘social pact’ between architects, engineers
and artisans, which besides representing a real form of participation has contributed
to determining the fortune of the Italian design in the world.
Mussinelli today proposes the same model defined by Zanuso as ‘design
re-appropriation’, both as a practice of user sharing and participation in the trans-
formation of the territory and the city and as a way to establish better relations with
the environmental and landscape framework (Mussinelli 2012). This method is also
expressed through anticipation, intended as the ability to prepare for future changes
and thus, in a certain sense, as a form of resilience mediated by the knowledge
generated by design projects.
9.1.2 Project Anticipation in Built Environment
The concept of built environment effectively summarises the broad series of possible
interventions on the environments in which we live, from the more restrictive ones of
restoration and conservation to the more liberal and transformative ones related to
the construction of new edifices (Di Battista 2006). In this sense, the built environ-
ment is simultaneously a system and a process, which, as highlighted by Pacey (1986
as cited in Di Battista 2006 p. 20), cannot be isolated from relationships and time, but
requires, as with all complex phenomena, a great variety of readings together with
hypotheses and predictions (projects) to be regulated by scientific methods.
When carrying out these readings, it is necessary to consider the possibilities
which are present or those which are generated by the system itself and the multiple
purposes present therein (Di Battista 2006). For this reason, building a fruitful
relationship between government bodies and citizens has become a crucial issue
which encourages institutions to experiment with innovative methods in order to
optimise citizens’ input and use this pool of resources for public policymaking.
As pointed out by Gibelli (2007), the conception of territorial projects must be
accompanied not only by simple forecasting but also by a conditioning prefiguration,
with the aim of building agreement on a desirable and shared scenario as well as on
the subsequent strategies and projects to be implemented. In this context, local
authorities assume the role of reference framework makers, able to create visions
and building consensus around them (Cinquegrani 2012), while designers, as pro-
ducers of models, prototypes and propositions, occupy a dialectical space between
the world that is and the world that could be (Margolin 2015).
Through the practice of scenario building, designers may become the link
between expert knowledge and contextual knowledge (Fanfani 2006) and configure
various hypotheses for structuring the relationship between operators, between
public and private interests and between theory and practice. Margolin (2015) pro-
vides an interesting description of the form that this relationship may take depending
on the scale of the built environment project:
– The micro-scale, that of artefacts and individual interventions, is where the
greatest possibilities emerge for the individual creative contribution of designers,
who increasingly associate themselves with new entities, such as new designs
commissioners.
– The mesoscale, that of cities and groups where the individual may still have
influence, is where the mediation of the strategy in its relationship with the public
interest on the one hand and the individual action on the other hand is important.
– The macro-scale, that of the territory and of the policies influencing strategies and
actions, is where government agencies and international organisations take part in
establishing the ethical principles and core values of common action.
In the transition management (governance) model, this same hierarchy, associ-
ated with a short-, medium- and long-term temporal scale, assumes a complete
procedural form that is easily implemented to favour the transition to sustainability,
based on the following principles:
– Favour the widest participation in the forming of the system of values and rules to
be the basis of the administrative action.
– Adopt a medium-/long-term perspective to define visions and scenarios that guide
the action in the present.
– Enhance the possible contribution of private players, also through experimenta-
tion and the development of pilot projects.
– Translate the positive elements of experimentation into strategies and practices
that render the administrative action coherent and functional and facilitate the
retrieval of new resources.
As well as the ecological environmental dimension, the changes we have to deal
with today include the responsibilities and activities of planners offering a service to
growth and employment. The environmental and economic-social dimensions both
intersect in the problem of sustainable development, the principles of which require
planners to think of scenarios of alternative possible developments for a time span
longer than the usual 5, 10 or even 20 years, to ensure that natural assets are
preserved for future generations. In this sense, sustainable development is perhaps
the most evident example of how today’s communities are called upon to adopt a
proactive stance towards the future in order to resolve the problems of the present.
By extending the concept of sustainability, Magnaghi (2006) defines his own
model of concrete utopia based on the relationship between people and territory (the
territorial approach). It is an approach that is expressed at territorial level through the
cocreated project, guided by a future orientation and in this sense is consistent with
the models mentioned previously.
The importance of Magnaghi’s utopia lies in its usefulness for urban planning
because of the fact that it shows the power of imagination, human desire and
everyday actions. It is a utopia aimed at becoming sustainable by regenerating
sense and value for a community (Magnaghi as cited in Rullani 2014, p. 22).
Starting with these and other complementary experiences, we have summarised
in a chart the elements that express the project anticipation exercise at various scales.
This illustrates:
– At the highest level, policies which lay down the ethical and value principles of
shared living and activities.
– At intermediate level, the strategy, a true anticipatory technology that allows the
principles of the long-term vision to be linked to everyday activities.
– At the micro level, by applying visions and strategies, the operational projects
produce innovations and may also impact policies at the highest level.
Without claiming to have definitively resolved the issue of the forms that project
anticipation can take in the built environment field, this chart may be used as a
reference for the analysis of several case studies which see major events as urban
regeneration tools, including the study considered below.
ethical
time
values
strategic
planning
operational
project
micro medio macro

scale
building city region
Process evolution in the framework of space and time scales
9.2 The Ecology of Major Events as Anticipation Practices

Aimed at Urban Regeneration
Major events (principally universal exhibitions and the Olympic Games) are by
definition, by their inherent characteristics, related to the future. They are prepared a
long time in advance and have experimentation, innovation and performance at their
core. Therefore, they may be easily regarded as ‘exercises of anticipation’. At their
inception, they used to have a predominant global value, showcasing and challeng-
ing (thus stimulating) the general state of progress in various fields. Yet, during the
past century, they began to be increasingly viewed as ways to support the develop-
ment of territories, countries and cities, enabling the rehabilitation of the built
environment on different scales and under various forms. Since the early 1990s
(Barcelona’s emblematic experience on the occasion of the Olympic Games it hosted
in 1992), to the initial valences of major events as a more general marketing
instrument (strengthening the international position of cities and countries) and
way to promote technological advancement, it was added the function of urban
regeneration mechanism.
This new approach has been greatly influenced by sustainability concerns. Major
events require a lot of resources, fact resulting in the obvious desire to produce
something relevant on a larger scale and, from multiple perspectives, of long-term
value, not just an ephemeral impressive happening. Therefore, the aspiration to use
major events for ameliorating living conditions through the improvement of the built
environment was a natural progression.
As noted by Andrew Smith (2012), ‘Much of the regenerative power of events
can be explained via reference to their temporal qualities. Events can help focus
attention on the future (not the past), they help to build anticipation and they provide
a pivotal moment around which discourses on change can be organised’.
When analysing the entire process of planning, organisation and exploiting major
events, the conscious or subconscious anticipative endeavours become evident.
More or less formally, the future and, implicitly, anticipation, are always present
in this context.
Major events are putting significant pressure on cities and local communities.
They imply large numbers of visitors needing all kinds of services and facilities as
well as huge investment. Therefore, they represent at the same time a stake and a
risk, raising acceptance issues. Furthermore, people are now more and more aware of
their rights, possibilities and options. They impose stricter monitoring and evaluation
and need to be convinced even to the point of being co-opted as partners. The idea of
participation has also evolved. Intermediary and end users are more often associated
not only in the implementation phase but also in the identification of problems and of
the actual requirements (diagnosis and decision phases).
Being aimed at the promotion of innovation, major events are supposed to
suggest a better version of the world (an improved tomorrow), thus addressing one
of the main difficulties of the present day, namely, the lack of references. More
importantly, symbolic issues (feeding the vision) are particularly relevant in the case
of major events, reinforcing their relationship with anticipation.
The Universal Exhibition that took place in Milan in 2015 explicitly followed the
principles of anticipation, a fact that largely contributed to the long-term success of
the event, even if after EXPO not everything happened as initially planned. It played
the role of a manifesto engendering an important change in the organisation and
management of this kind of initiative, a fact that brought its fame and transformed it
into a reference. It laid the foundations for a new way of ‘doing’ major events,
distinguished by an assiduous concern for sustainability issues.
Plans for EXPO Milano 2015 began in 2005 when the Italian design capital was
wealthy and willing to advance, to win even more popularity not only for the city but
also for the entire country. At that time such a world-renowned event seemed the
perfect choice. Meanwhile, the crisis completely changed the hypothesis, so that
pursuing this project became a real challenge. In a certain sense, these circumstances
represented a chance to reconsider the event from a broader perspective trying hard
to actually transform the EXPO into a sustainable experience and get the most from
it. This situation engendered the most sensible decisions that distinguished this event
from its predecessors, more evidently reinforcing the implementation of the
anticipative approach, namely:
– The organisation of countries not following geographical criteria but, in accor-
dance with the general theme, by food areas. This distribution contributed to the
attraction of important private sponsorship from companies willing to be present
in the area related to their sector.
– The attribution to each group of countries of a common area and representative
building, a so-called cluster, the design of the latter being done by students. Many
universities were invited to take part in a brainstorming process, each one of them
proposing ideas for one of the nine clusters (rice, cereals and tubers, spices, cacao,
coffee, fruit and vegetables, food and agriculture in arid areas, seas and islands,
the bio-Mediterranean ecosystems).
– The opening of the event to NGOs that only had to take care of the arrangement of
their own stands in a common building provided by the organisers without paying
any rent for the allocated space.
– All countries (not only the wealthiest ones) were invited to build their own
pavilions if they wanted to and encouraged to take part somehow, in accordance
with their possibilities and convenience. Consequently, really poor states like
Sudan and Nepal joined the EXPO doing their best to make outstanding repre-
sentations. Moreover, there was the highest number of countries in the history of
universal exhibitions building their own pavilion, 53 compared to the usual 20 up
to the maximum 35 on the occasion of the previous editions to which were added
around 30 corporate pavilions.
– The condition imposed to the participating countries to reuse their pavilions after
the EXPO. Even if many of the accepted recycling proposals were hardly
plausible (for instance, the Czech Republic’s pavilion supposed to be transformed
into a hospital in Senegal) and in the end were not implemented as planned, the
obligation to think about this issue represents a step forward.
– The organisation of evening events with associated discount tickets from 7 pm to
11 pm, while the pavilions were closing at 8 pm.
– The exploitation of this occasion to encourage tourism not only in Milan but also
in the surrounding areas and in the country as a whole.
The general theme of the EXPO, ‘Feeding the Planet, Energy for Life’, helped a
lot all these efforts, being very appropriate to both the times and the specific needs of
the countries. As the national pavilions attempted to explain this idea in various ways
related to their own culture and understanding, many interesting approaches became
evident. For instance, the Swiss pavilion was composed of four big silos filled with
food from Switzerland, every visitor being free to take some, but the total quantity
was estimated so as to be enough for everybody only if each person only took a small
part as the hangars were supplied just 3 times during the EXPO. This was a sharing
and sustainable consumption exercise occasioning sensitive thinking on the use of
limited resources.
Large-scale participation was enabled, along with the classical stakeholders being
extensively involved higher education and research institutions, various associations
and students. Furthermore, weaker categories were supported through free atten-
dance offers and space to present their ideas and propositions for the future (equity
concerns).
Among the different endeavours aimed at supporting sustainable development,
the obligation to reuse the pavilions instead of simply demolishing them got the
general attention of audiences. Yet, this was a first attempt of this kind, and as the
rules were not so strict, important differences between theory (initial understanding
and planning) and practice (result after the event) were noted.
The entire process implied by the organisation of EXPO 2015 seems to have
engendered a general perception and mentality shift with very positive indirect
effects. According to the testimonials of the inhabitants, businessmen and directors
of MADE Eventi Spa interviewed in March 2017, EXPO 2015 significantly

increased the profile of Milan as a quality tourist destination and boosted the
economy supporting the continuation of the vast urban regeneration started along
with its preparation. These statements were indirectly confirmed by the team charged
with the candidacy of Paris for the Olympic Games of 2024 that took Milan’s
experience as a main source of inspiration for their work.
EXPO 2015 aided theoretical and operational advancement as ideas tested there
captured the interest of successive event organisers as well as of other different
entities that tried to capitalise on these innovations in their activities. The principles
and theories applied there served to build the good reputation of EXPO 2015 and
caused it to become a reference model.
Even if major events might be viewed as essentially city-scale operations, given
their international relevance, they have a considerable role in promoting (preparing
for) change, being capable of generating influence at regional and national level, a
phenomenon that should be taken into consideration since the initial stages of the
organisational phase.
9.3 Conclusions
Anticipation has always been applied somehow in the management of major events,
even if until recently not to such a large extent, not in a formalised way and not
coined as such. As with anticipatory processes, world fairs are expected to decipher
strong and weak signals and propose a reference framework around which to build a
consensus, guiding the future towards a desired situation.
The clear adoption of anticipation principles in the management of major events
produces a visible change in the timeframe as well as the scale. The future must now
be viewed beyond a certain event and on a larger scale, considering direct and
indirect implications from multiple points of view (integrated and interdisciplinary
perspectives).
This should be complemented by the involvement of the complete range of
stakeholders.
This approach often engenders a particular state of mind, imposing a different
way of thinking more adapted to present times. It helps to judiciously translate
current concerns into principles and strategies (meso-level) leading to a desired
vision (macro level) implemented through innovative small steps (micro level).
The uncertain future (and sometimes even present) corresponding to the impor-
tant mutations in progress, the flexibility of scales (more easily shifting from one
level to another) and the emancipation of people (who tend to be progressively better
informed and on a larger scale) and ideas favour participatory anticipative
approaches. The latter help to build together sustainable strategic visions and
interpret the actual challenges from the perspective of the evolutions to come. The
resulting shared strategy is then translated into planning tools (various kinds of plans
and associated regulations) as well as into urban or territorial development projects.
People are increasingly more reluctant, sceptical and analytical, ready to oppose
any endeavour judged as inappropriate or posing a risk to their rights. In order to
address this, in the case of Milan Expo, large-scale participation was enabled, along
with the classical stakeholders being extensively involved: higher education and
research institutions, various associations and students. Furthermore, weaker cate-
gories were supported through free attendance and space to present their ideas and
propositions for the future.
Political and strategic issues also play an important part. That is why Paris has
promoted the idea that the Olympic Games 2024 are needed for the entire country as
much as for the host city and surrounding areas. As the rehabilitation of neglected
neighbourhoods is one of France’s national-level priorities, the intention to use the
Olympic Games as a regeneration mechanism has been stated from the outset, with
the added aim of convincing people to support this initiative.
If the organisational models are progressively more complex (with a more
important part corresponding to private and social bodies involved in previously
exclusively public issues), new technology and materials allowed the acceleration of
the built environment operations. Meanwhile, the initial timeframe has been
extended due to increased expected longevity and concerns related to the future.
Interventions seem somehow more powerful, impacting on a larger scale with regard
to time, space and the number of people affected as well as the levels/fields touched,
but there is a noticeable search for more flexibility. The general awareness of
common rights and assets but also of shared responsibilities, duties and obligations
has nurtured a certain pliancy which readily permits testing and shifting from one
form to another and the inclusion of different partners depending on the evolution of
necessities. Applied to the level of built environment, the sum of principles
corresponding to anticipation supports the proposal of a model that enables the
management of today’s complex situations while responding to current trends
(new interpretation of democracy, emancipation of cities, as well as testing and
experimentation needs).
Major events are now distinguishing as mechanisms to promote change by
joining people (mutual ideals, principles, goals and values), with a view to shaping
the future. They are transversal in nature and have a certain versatility, as they impact
various levels of the built environment and allow for transition from one scale to
another. Currently associated with global thinking and a transversal perspective, they
seem a perfect illustration of the anticipation processes model.
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Chapter 10
A Strategic Proposal for the New Society:
Surviving and Flourishing from Chaos
Rodolfo A. Fiorini
Abstract Current social problems are multiscale-order deficiencies, which cannot

be fixed by the traditional hierarchical approach alone, by doing what we do better or
more intensely, but rather by changing the way we do. As the experiences in the past
50 years have shown, unpredictable changes can be very disorienting at enterprise
level. In a continuously changing operational environment, even if operational
parameters cannot be closely pre-defined at system planning and design level, we
need to be able to plan and to design self-organizing, self-regulating, and self-
adapting system quite easily anyway. Attempts to optimize hierarchical systems in
the traditional top-down way only will be less and less effective and cannot be done
in real time. In fact, current human-made application and system can be quite fragile
to unexpected perturbation because statistics by itself can fool you, unfortunately.
What Nassim Taleb has identified and calls “antifragility” is that category of things
not only gain from chaos but need it in order to survive and flourish and proposes
that systems be built in an antifragile manner. The resilient system resists shocks and
stays the same; the antifragile system gets better and better. To face the problem of
social multiscale ontological uncertainty management, we need application resil-
ience and antifragility at system level first, no anticipation, no learning, and no
antifragility. With antifragility system homeodynamic operating equilibria can
emerge from a self-organizing landscape of self-structuring attractor points. The
present contribution offers an innovative and original solution proposal to the
problem of social multiscale ontological uncertainty management. Due to its intrin-
sic self-scaling properties, this system approach can be applied at any system scale:
from single quantum system to full system governance strategic assessment policies
and beyond. The reason for this is the postulate that society is an arbitrary complex
multiscale system of purposive agents and actors within continuous change.
R. A. Fiorini (*)
Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB), Politecnico di Milano
University, Milano, Italy
e-mail: rodolfo.fiorini@polimi.it

150 R. A. Fiorini
Keywords Antifragility · Anticipation · Predicative competence · Decision-

making · Creativity · People-centered education · Incompleteness · Ontology ·
Uncertainty · Complexity · Learning · Organizations
10.1 Introduction
In the early twentieth century, the industrial-technological era was characterized by

the ideal of the perfect machine and “objective knowledge” reduced to an algorithm
for constructing a “theory of everything” (Hilbert’s program), with strict division of
labor within different fields of endeavor. The division of labor reached the level of a
scientifically based management practice with the time and motion studies associ-
ated to Taylorism (Taylor 1911/2003). Procedural rationality, the division of labor
into smaller and smaller tasks, the taxonomic categorization of different species, and
the tendency to view obedience to rules as morally good all played their role in the
society of that time. Later, the beginning of traditional models of systems theory was
intended to completely represent aspects of phenomena and processes, such as the
motion of a pendulum or the operation of an amplifier. They concerned the phe-
nomena in their temporal and spatial completeness. Classically, the possible incom-
pleteness in the modeling was assumed of provisional or practical nature as still
under study and because there was no theoretical reason why the modeling could
have not been complete. In principle, this is a matter of non-complex phenomena, to
be considered using the concepts of first cybernetics (von Bertalanffy 1967, 1974).
Concepts and approaches regarding contexts and processes for which systems
modeling cannot be conceptually exhaustive have been already introduced in the
literature (Bailly et al. 2011). We recall, first of all, fuzzy sets and fuzzy logic for
which, however, completeness has merely a probabilistic nature. It is matter of
classical, estimable probability.
According to Bauman, modernity, in what he later termed its “solid” form, was
involved in the attempt of removing unknowns and uncertainties. Modernity appears
solid because of the rapid centralization of institutional power. It entailed control
over nature, hierarchical bureaucracy, rules and regulations, control, and categori-
zation, all of which in the attempt to remove gradually personal insecurities, making
the chaotic aspects of human life appear well-ordered and familiar (2000). Later in a
number of books, Bauman began to develop the position that such order-making
never manages to achieve the desired results. When life becomes organized into
familiar and manageable categories, he argued, there are always social groups who
cannot be administered and who cannot be separated out and even less controlled
(Bauman 1991).
In the past 60 years, we learned how traditional human-made system can be quite
fragile (Taleb and Douady 2015) to unexpected perturbation, because statistics by
itself can fool you, unfortunately. What Nassim Taleb has identified and calls
“antifragility” is that category of things not only gain from chaos but need it in
order to survive and flourish. He proposes that systems be built in an
10 A Strategic Proposal for the New Society: Surviving and Flourishing from Chaos 151
antifragile manner. The resilient system resists shocks and stays the same; the
antifragile gets better and better (Taleb 2012). Since the turn of the millennium,
global social and economic fragility turned into a sequel of large crisis (Bauman
2017). Bauman has tried to avoid the confusion surrounding the term “postmoder-
nity” by using the metaphors of “liquid” and “solid” modernity. In his books on
modern consumerism, he still writes of the same uncertainties that he portrayed in his
writings on “solid” modernity, but he starts talking of fears becoming more diffuse
and harder to pin down. Indeed, they are, to use the title of one of his books, “liquid
fears” (Bauman 2006).
Furthermore, science discovered that there are phenomena, which must be
modeled taking into consideration their coherence as a crucial systemic theme
with respect to their completeness or comprehensiveness, as considered by logical
openness (Licata 2008; Burgin and Dodig-Crnkovic 2013) and arbitrary multiscale
(AMS) issues (Fiorini 2016a). Therefore, we must consider contexts and processes
for which their systemic modeling is incomplete since related to some properties
only, as well as those for which such modeling is theoretically incomplete as in the
case of processes of emergence and for approaches considered by the second
systemics (Deacon 2011; Fiorini 2016b). As an example, in advanced biomedical
applications (Fiorini 2015a, 2016a), sociology and social cybernetics (Geyer 2002),
to ascertain complex causality in a reliable way is always problematic, because the
usual external observations always reveal superficial reasons only; they cannot
reveal deep, concealed reasons (Fiorini 2016b; Wang et al. 2016). Therefore, the
“liquid age” has abandoned the rigid mechanical model of a monolithic, determin-
istically controlled system based on “the one right way” and “the one absolute truth.”
On the contrary, liquid age has embraced the fact that social cohesion through
pluralism and polycentrism, cultural diversity, self-organization, and contextual
truth is more productive and appropriate for the new epoch. Flexibility and fluidity
have replaced rigidity and conformance, and dynamics have replaced statics. The
effort to determine the eternal unchangeables is superseded by the endeavor to
capture dynamic balances and emergent phenomena (Dodge et al. 2012; Fiorini
2016c). In fact, as far as the second half of the twentieth century is considered, the
most pervasive development of science goes under complexity theory, however
defined. Complexity science offers a way of going beyond the limits of reduction-
ism, because it understands that much of the world is not machine-like and compre-
hensible through a cataloguing of its parts (Morin 2004).
According to Alfonso Montuori in “Edgar Morin: A partial introduction” (2010):
The 6 volume Method is perhaps Morin’s culminating work, a remarkable and seemingly
inexhaustible treasure trove of insights, reflection, and a real manual for those who are
interested in broadening the nature of human inquiry. Drawing on cybernetics, information
theory, systems theory, but also integrating all the work he has done before, from the work
on imagination in his research on movies to his profound reflections on death, Method
integrates Morin’s journey and provides the reader with an alternative to the traditional
assumptions and method of inquiry of our time.
152 R. A. Fiorini
The world consists mostly of organic and holistic systems that are difficult to
comprehend by classic scientific analysis (Lewin 1993; Morin and Weinmann 1994/
2008; Morin and Le Moigne 1999).
The beginning of the twenty-first century has witnessed a virtual efflorescence of
increasingly sophisticated writings on the meta-methodological, epistemological,
and ontological foundations of social science. This renaissance of “foundational”
inquiry has been buoyed by the rise, growth, and institutionalization of a variegated
line of work to move beyond the methodological strictures of classical positivism, by
providing the social sciences with renewed epistemic and ontological foundations.
These foundations are characterized by returning to realism (as opposed to empiri-
cism) moving beyond a correlational view of causation (and toward a concern with
powerful particulars, causal powers, and social mechanisms) and a renewed appre-
ciation for the precedence of ontological considerations over epistemic guidelines or
operational conventions with a burgeoning literature.
For instance, Mario Bunge’s “emergentist systemism,” synthesized by an overall
set of proposals across an intimidating range of writings covering more than
50 years, constitutes an impressive and comprehensive “system” for meta-
methodological inquiry in social science, as any of the other extant programs of
comparable ambition and scope (e.g., analytical sociology or critical realism) (Wan
2011). Bunge’s approach emerges as a powerful alternative to such movements as
analytical sociology, especially in its capacity to retain a place for strong emergence,
multi-level causation, and anti-reductionism, without collapsing into holism and, all
the while, accepting the importance of understanding causation in mechanistic terms.
In that respect, according to sociologist Oscar Lizardo (2013), it is critical realism
that emerges as the contemporary approach most compatible with Bunge’s overall
philosophy of science and the one that would most benefit with a more concerted
effort to seriously engage it. It would be interesting to consider how theoretical
incompleteness and incomplete modeling, i.e., not exhausted by using individual
models of processes and phenomena, should be explored as a conceptual coexistence
of different approaches not so much with the purpose of exhausting but to concep-
tually represent the structural dynamics of becoming (Bunge 2003).
To harness complexity, we must take a generative, evolutive perspective and see
social outcomes as produced by purposive agents and actors responding to personal
anticipation, incentives, information, cultural norms, psychological predispositions,
etc. In other words, as Robert Rosen said, in his book Life Itself, that “The Machine
Metaphor of Descartes is not just a little bit wrong, it is entirely wrong and must be
discarded” (Rosen 1991).
As a matter of fact, purposive agents are centered on their wellbeing, dynamic
equilibrium, or balance that can be affected by life events or challenges continu-
ously. Personal wellbeing state is stable when agent has abundant resources needed
to meet and manage its life’s challenges. Even in mere terminology, avoiding
representation uncertainty and ambiguities is mandatory to achieve and keep high-
quality result and service. The proper use of term and multidimensional conceptual
clarity are fundamental to create and boost outstanding performance. As an example,
for high-quality clinical and telepractice results in health informatics research and
technology, understanding the difference between “well-being” and “wellbeing”
meaning is mandatory (Fiorini et al. 2016). Wellbeing is often simply defined as “the
state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy.” But wellbeing is different from
“happiness.” Happiness can come and go in a moment, whereas wellbeing is a
more stable state of being well and feeling satisfied and contented. As a matter of
fact, one-word wellbeing means a brand new science. In order to move up in the
value chain (or Lancasterian evolution tree or wellbeing of society), it is also
important to build up the knowledge corpus domestically and with domestic
resources first (Kitt 2016).
One of the fundamental preconditions is to speak in the common language. It is
not the problem of cultures only (Leung et al. 2007), but it is also a problem of
scientific communities (Kagan 2009; Snow 1969) and new societal education
(Mulder 2015; UNE 1997). It is important to underline that information processing
technology can be used also to facilitate the application of pragmatic models to
“prescribe” or suggest to participants to improve their attitudes, predicative compe-
tence, education, and creativity.
Multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary are really ways the
society together with scientists and scholars must move on to (Nicolescu 2008).
Transdisciplinary is not, in this view, either a research method or simply a way of
doing research that utilizes a number of different disciplines. The emergence of
transdisciplinary itself offers a wonderful opportunity for inquiry into our own
fundamental assumptions about knowledge and knowledge production, use, and
inquiry. There is an emerging literature arguing for the importance of the transdis-
ciplinary approach, outlining its philosophical roots, and articulating the need for
transdisciplinarity in our present situation. Transdisciplinary education is already
branching out in many different forms and on many different levels, from the highly
theoretical to the more applied (Montuori 2012; Fiorini 2018a).
10.2 Current Implicit Residual Risk-Assessment Thinking

Fallacies
No matter on which level of expertise reasoning is conducted, scientific studies

repeatedly show that even deliberated thoughts supported by statistics often include
substantial errors (Kahneman 2011). Unacceptable risk is often determined in
relation to benefit and cost. The main driver of enterprises developing safety critical
systems, however, is not safety but rather profit. From a business perspective, benefit
is profit and risk translates to cost, such as liability and deficit (degraded marketing)
in response to accidents.
This is a valid problem of risk-based thinking as irrational feelings affect judg-
ment even when evidence of their irrationality is presented. For instance, with
respect to probability, Epstein and Denes-Raj (1994) discovered through experiment
that a majority of subjects preferred a winning chance of 9/100 compared to a chance
of 1/10. The choice of probability representation turns out to be highly important to
avoid unreasonable decisions. This fallacy is known as the “denominator neglect”
154 R. A. Fiorini
(Kahneman 2011), where the vividness a number brings makes humans ignore the
context on which it is based.
Currently the residual risk assessment related to decision-making techniques is
grounded in value-based economical and ethical aspects, which today are implicit,
and should be made visible and a subject of scrutiny. Focused analysis points out the
importance of the development of a robust safety culture with countermeasures to the
common fallacies in risk perception, which are not addressed by contemporary
functional safety standards (Sapienza et al. 2016). Since human reasoning com-
monly is misled by focusing illusions and narrow framing of problems, there is a
need for policies that remind decision-makers of their existence. In fact, human
beings tend to treat problems in isolation, i.e., we think that what we see is all there
is, denoted WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) by Kahneman (2011), and also
overestimate their importance when we think about them. Therefore, besides the
existing requirement for the demonstration of risk prevention in the certification of
safety critical systems, the requirement for justification of residual risks should be
added in order to raise awareness of their existence and increase the probability of
future mitigations.
According to the Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman (2011):
Taleb has changed the way many people think about uncertainty, particularly in the financial
markets. Taleb contends that statisticians can be pseudoscientists when it comes to risks of
rare events and risks of blowups, and mask their incompetence with complicated equations.
The implication is that those tools used in economics that are based on squaring variables
(more technically, the Euclidean, or L2 norm), such as standard deviation, variance, corre-
lation, regression, or value-at-risk, the kind of stuff you find in textbooks, are not valid
scientifically (except in some rare cases where the variable is bounded) (n.o.a.:Statistical
domains assume “Small World” as coin tosses probability and “Large World” as “Real
World”. The error between Small & Large worlds can be captured analytically). The
so-called “p values” you find in studies have no meaning with economic and financial
variables. Even the more sophisticated techniques of stochastic calculus used in mathemat-
ical finance do not work in economics except in selected pockets.
Forcing societies to fit in a box without understanding the deep reasons may lead
to serious consequences, as we witness in many world affairs today.
We argue enterprises should conduct design decisions following the principle of
beneficence, with the highest imperative of increasing safety and not profit
(Beauchamp and Childress 2008). Profit should be a result of a value for the
customer, where safety is a core value that cannot be offered for profit.
The logical answer is to add and use distributed (self-) control, i.e., bottom-up
self-regulating systems. Advanced cybernetics (i.e., extended system theory) and
complexity theory tell us that it is actually feasible to create resilient, social, and
economic order by means of self-organization, self-regulation, and self-governance.
“Governing the Commons” is a major theoretical contribution to the study of
collective action and institutional design. It describes in clear language the problems
arising from common pool resource (CPR) management and presents an uncompro-
mising critique of existing approaches (Ostrom 1990).
In real democracy, holistic governance requires the coproduction of values
between policy-makers and citizens to make visible political and expert guidance
and people’s interests and concerns. Transparency of communications between

citizens and policy-makers is far more than making information available: it is
building up effective co-organizational systems (Jacobs et al. 2018). From this
perspective, next-generation systems need a new key fundamental component: a
subsystem able to face the problem of multiscale ontological uncertainty manage-
ment (OUM) effectively (see Sect. 10.4).
This paper is based on the postulate that society is an arbitrary complex multiscale
(ACM) system of purposive agents and actors within continuous change. Present
social problems are multiscale-order deficiencies, which cannot be fixed by the
traditional hierarchical approach alone, by doing what we do better or more intensely
but rather by changing the way we do. The final aim is to offer an innovative and
original, fundamental solution methodology proposal to the OUM problem.
10.3 A New Renaissance?
Today, in the information and communication technology (ICT) era, there is a trend
toward a humancentrism with the potential for a new renaissance, in which science
and the humanities and arts and engineering can reach a new synthesis, through
modern computing and communication tools used in global virtual societies (Dodig-
Crnkovic 2004, 2014). Obviously, in trying to characterize our present societal
configuration as an information society, some relativism is needed. In fact, our
society can also be characterized as a materialistic, accelerating, hypercomplex,
etc. society. This meeting of different perspectives and cultures is largely occurring
in cyberspace, making issues of cyber security and ethics increasingly important
(DoD 2016). Unfortunately, current ethical attempts to control cyber-systemic
society neglect the image of man, and the cyber-systemic transition of mankind is
driven by dispositions that are predominant in humans and which are used by
techno-economic superstructures for their intrinsic benefits. The result could be a
posthumanistic machine-driven society that consists of humans with integrated ICT
hardware and software. Especially neuro-medicine is a field where new machines are
applied for “healing” neuropsychiatric deficiencies, but they probably change human
personality too, and they facilitate everyday use (e.g., neuroenhancement). This
trend obviously cannot be stopped (Morozov 2013; Heylighen 2015). Nevertheless,
protecting human health and understanding the effects of information society on
humans must implicate reference models of the essentials and “normal” functions of
human beings.
The mental world we live in today is infinitely divided into categories, subjects,
disciplines, topics, and their more and more specialized subdivisions. As a result
American universities now offer more than 1000 specialized subdisciplines, and
European ones are following them accordingly. Specialization is a power of knowl-
edge to uncover the intricate mysteries concealed in the infinitesimal (if it does
exist!). Many of the marvelous things we use and enjoy today are the result of this
minute investigation. But no matter how much we try, our lives cannot be so readily
156 R. A. Fiorini
divided into innumerable airtight compartments. The quest for right knowledge too
often reduces to selecting some aspects of knowledge that fit neatly together into a
conceptual framework and ignoring or rejecting those that do not. This process of
acceptance and rejection may elevate our specialized knowledge of the part, but it is
likely to overlook profound truths about the whole. Thought is the power to link and
relate two or more things together. Knowledge is the capacity to see each thing in
right relationship to everything else.
The discovery of nature, as a reality prior to and in many ways escaping human
purposes, begins from the story even of the sign. The story of the sign is of a piece
within the story of philosophy itself and begins, all unknowingly, where philosophy
itself begins, though not as philosophy. The interested reader to the conception,
abstraction, and evolution of the sign is referred to Fiorini (2018b). If the discovery
of the sign began, as a matter of fact, unconsciously with the discovery of nature,
then the beginning of semiotics was first the beginning of philosophy, for only as
philosophy is the foundation of semiotics possible, even if semiotics is what
philosophy must eventually become. Mankind’s best conceivable worldview is at
most a representation, a partial picture of the real world, and an incomplete sketch
centered on man (Deacon 2011). Potential information in the world is obviously
much richer than what we observe, containing invisible worlds of molecules, atoms
and subatomic phenomena, distant objects, and similar. Our knowledge about this
potential information which reveals with help of scientific instruments continuously
increases with the development of new devices and the new ways of interaction with
the world, through both theoretical and material constructs (Dodig-Crnkovic and
Mueller 2009). We inevitably see the universe from a human point of view and
communicate in terms shaped by the exigencies of human life in a natural unknown,
incomplete, uncertain, and ambiguous environment (Fiorini 2017a). Therefore, since
their birth, human beings are educated and trained to make rational decision in an
environment of imprecision, uncertainty, and incompleteness of information (Longo
2010).
Without any doubt, the idea to use the knowledge from the analysis of physical
complex systems in the analysis of societal problems is tempting. Indeed, the notions
of nonlinearity, interactions, impredicativity, self-organization, stability and chaos,
unpredictability, sensitivity to initial conditions, bifurcation, etc. are phenomena
which also characterize social systems. Today, operational and environmental con-
ditions are continuously changing at an increasing rate. While the processing power
doubles every 1.8 years and the amount of data doubles every 1.2 years, the
complexity of networked systems is growing even faster. Attempts to optimize
hierarchical systems in the traditional top-down way will be less and less effective
and cannot be done in real time.
When uncertainty and ambiguities cannot be avoided, then reliable OUM systems
are needed and become a must (Fiorini 2017b). There are surprising similarities in
many fields of human activities, and much can be learned from these. For instance,
Puu discussed bifurcations that are likely to govern the evolution of culture and
technology. More specifically, by defining culture as art plus science, he discusses
the evolution of social and material products (Puu 2015).
At a more specific level, we, the children of the Anthropocene era, are entering
the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the impact is going to be pervasive and of
greater magnitude compared to the previous industrial revolutions. The Fourth
Industrial Revolution builds on the previous, recent digital revolution, representing
new ways in which technology becomes embedded within societies and even the
human body. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is marked by emerging technology
breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, cyber-physical system
(CPS), artificial intelligence (AI), nanotechnology, biotechnology, IoT (Internet of
Things), 3D printing, autonomous vehicles, etc.
There are three reasons why today’s transformations represent not merely a
prolongation of the Third Industrial Revolution but rather the arrival of a fourth
and distinct one: velocity, scope, and systems impact. The incoming changes,
approaching at an accelerating speed, will be impacting everything and everybody
and blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres; they will
affect the bio-psycho-social dimensions, our narratives, and even what it means to be
human (Pharand 2011). If we are not farsighted and do not plan effectively, the
results could be very problematic for all life forms on Earth.
If we manage the Fourth Industrial Revolution with the same opacity and
blindness and forms of denial with which we managed the previous industrial
revolutions, the negative effects will be exponential (Zucconi 2016). At social
level, inequality and unemployment destroy opportunity freedom. Radical inequality
significantly undermines opportunity freedoms and capacity freedoms and conse-
quently radically undermines human capital as a foundation of community prosper-
ity (Nagan 2016). Because of these uncertainties, industry will create reform on its
own initiative to lead the world. These policy observations are just a starting point
toward the reform of economy and society.
10.4 No Anticipation, No Learning, No Antifragility
Since the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, there has been an appreciation of the
link between anticipation and learning. The basics of Pavlov’s classical conditioning
serve as a historical backdrop for current learning theories (Moore et al. 1978), and
they have been extended to a variety of settings, such as classrooms and learning
environments (Tarpy 1975). Pavlov was one of the first scientists to demonstrate the
relationship between environmental stimuli and behavioral responses. According to
Pavlov, anticipations mediate behavior. Purpose directs attention. Predictions influ-
ence learning. Expectations predispose the mind and body. Desires bias or cause
motivations. Intentions initiate behavior execution. All these aspects of anticipatory
behavior can be combined in a general framework, where the “human” phenomenon
of anticipation can be defined as possibly the only form of authentic anticipation,
interpreted as a teleological act (Scognamiglio 2010). In this framework they are
conceived to forecast, foresight, and anticipate (Poli 2017) personal, interpersonal,
and social relationship outcomes. The dynamic nature of reality thus might provide
the reason why philosophy, as long as it is used as a guide to ultimate truths and
158 R. A. Fiorini
answers, fails to provide us with a good guide to a better future (Röck 2017).
Distinctions need to be drawn between different anticipatory mechanisms, their
applicative timeframes, their influences, and their possible benefits. Time, under-
stood as the conscious time experienced and shared by brains, and not merely as the
unconscious time of individual sentient life, has complexified reality into a new
dimension: the virtual reality of experience mediated by memory, by anticipations,
and by expectations. It is time made conscious through meaningful representations.
Therefore, the brain can be conceived as a virtual reality sharing machine, a narrative
machine, and a harmonization machine. The brain manages the organism’s response
to stimuli, including decisions resulting from the sum and the relative weight of
stimuli, immersed in its own environment. A more elaborate brain anticipates
possible responses, creates immersive scenarios, and models possible realities
depending on the outcome of choices. It also requires, however and most funda-
mentally, a critical perspective on the potential fallacies which accompany narrative
explanations, notably hindsight bias in an evolving scenario.
The transdisciplinary approach to anticipatory behavior allows the gathering and
analysis of different anticipatory phenomena from psychology, sociology, linguis-
tics, or neuroscience. Psychological experiments have shown that behavior is con-
tinuously mediated by current predictions, desires, and intentions. As an example,
the phenomenon of inattentional blindness in psychology suggests that attention
might be even more powerful than previously thought and that especially the
anticipatory component in attention is most crucial for successful processing of
important sensory input (Simons and Chabris 1999).
For instance, Hoffmann (1993, 2003) proposes an anticipatory behavioral control
framework in which the comparison between the predicted and actual (sensory)
input is considered as the crucial factor for learning. Due to the explicit feedback
signal provided by the environment, the hypothesized internal predictive model can
be directly learned and adapted. The evolutionary, evolved learning predispositions
(as imprinted in human genes) apparently exploit previously encountered structures
in the world to enable effective adaptation and learning. Has the world an underlying
structure that can be exploited by smart algorithms? It is clear that most cognitive
processes have an explicit anticipatory component that is shaped and evolved
interacting with the environment and also interacting with itself. The usual benefit
of anticipatory behavior is a more focused, goal-directed behavior mediated by
attention and action decision-making. Conclusions can be drawn toward learning
and consequent education techniques.
We know that it is necessary to understand the underlying structure of the subject
at hand to decide on the appropriate education technique used. Taleb argues that
there are three types of responses people and things can have to stress, disorder, and
change over time: (a) robust (unharmed by reasonable disorder), (b) fragile (dam-
aged by disorder), and (c) antifragile (a new category; someone or something who
actually grows stronger as a result of disorder).
A very simple example of something that is antifragile (gets stronger under
stressors) is the concept of muscle growth. It is only under certain stresses (lifting
weights, throwing your hands up in the air) that your muscles will get stronger.
Intense training (such as heavy weight training) damages muscle, which then
remodels to prevent future injury. Thus, including relatively intense exercise, par-
ticularly resistance training, in your fitness regime is essential, no matter what your
ability or age. Not stressing them will result, in the best case, in a status quo, but in
the worst case, you will wither away. A less simple example of antifragility is indeed
learning. It is less simple apparently, as most teaching seems to be geared to make it
as easy as possible for the audience, an approach no one would think of taking for
muscle growth. This is the main reason; current educative institutions are training us
to be fragile. The best way to make yourself fragile to change is never to
experience it.
As a matter of fact, effective learning is antifragile. The more you vary your
learning and the harder you make it (e.g., by consistently testing yourself), the more
effective your learning efforts will be. Find always a way to test your weaknesses
and improve your strengths by doing and learning things you are not used to. For
instance, if you are completely baffled by technology, the answer is simple: try to
learn how to code. People who have done extraordinary things in history were not
extraordinary people. They simply had the freedom to adapt and thrive with the
positive stress of extraordinary challenges.
All great creations share the iterative and hands-on process we use to learn
everything from walking and feeding ourselves to language and bike riding. All
humans learn these most difficult and significant skills of our lives by just doing
them, even in the most schooled cultures. In order to learn how to properly use our
natural tools, we have to remember how we used our fascination, constant practice,
and burning desire to master walking, talking, swimming, riding a bike, or driving a
car. Once the specific actions for every such activity are repeated sufficiently, they
get stored and can be at any time recalled from memory, to run on autopilot without
the conscious mind thinking about them. What seems tough in the beginning can
become second nature when properly cultivated. Ultimately, building an antifragile
life is about basing our own knowledge and ability on the process of learning. This
may seem fairly intuitive. What is not intuitive is that we have to deschool ourselves
of the habits and mindsets of imposed order that make us fragile first of all. This can
be a long process, and it is not intuitive for many of us that we have to be in charge of
the learning process ourselves. Today, we live in a world that demands daily,
continuous personal creative destruction (Schumpeter 1947). Your future job prob-
ably hasn’t been invented yet. Nevertheless, schooling is still teaching us to mem-
orize facts when access to the accumulated knowledge of the world is only a web
search away. It teaches obedience to patterns and central plans passed down from
people who sometimes do not even know how to use email.
One of the most important things we can do now is to learn how to learn in any
circumstance, at any age, and with or without any structure. If we want to thrive in
this future, we have to make our educations and our careers antifragile. It turns out
that nature loves randomness and chaos, and over time the antifragile organisms
always win out over the fragile. Nature loves chaos and has been using small
corrections and changes to survive as an ecosystem for untold millennia: when
disasters, climate changes, and other occurrences wipe out “fragile” members of a
species, the stronger, more antifragile strains of a species survive and thrive.
160 R. A. Fiorini
Because human beings are antifragile creatures at heart, they actually need chaos,
disruption, and failure in their lives or they will wither and die. By introducing
chaos, challenge, and failure into our lives in a careful way, our bodies become
prepared to handle future, unknown challenges. The idea is not to be able to know
the future better, but instead our aim is to be more prepared for whatever the future
brings. In order to face the problem of social multiscale ontological uncertainty
management, we need application resilience and antifragility at system level first.
No anticipation, no learning, and no antifragility. With antifragility system
homeodynamic operating equilibria can emerge from a self-organizing landscape
of self-structuring attractor points.
We need to reframe uncertainty as problem in the past into the evolutive concept
of uncertainty as resource. The key change performance factor is education,
distinguishing from classic, contemporary education and new one, based on more
reliable control of learning uncertainty, distinguishing building on sand from build-
ing on rock. Education has to be reconceived from the ground up: solid scientific
education, in both the natural biology grounded in anticipation, and the real physics
of the world, is required. This in itself is a high-order endeavor, since schools
continue to indoctrinate new generations in the traditional religion of reductionist,
classical physics, biology, and chemistry.
Following neurophysiological findings by American neuroscientist Joseph
E. LeDoux (LeDoux 1998, 2002), differently from the past, we focus on ontological
uncertainty (Lane and Maxfield 2005) as an emergent phenomenon from complex
system. Therefore, our dynamic ontological perspective can be thought as an
emergent, natural operating point from, at least, a dichotomy of two fundamental,
coupled, irreducible, and complementary ideal asymptotic concepts:
(a) Reliable predictability
(b) Reliable unpredictability
From a top-down (TD) management perspective, the reliable predictability con-
cept can be referred to the traditional system reactive approach (lag subsystem,
closed logic, to learn and prosper) and operative management techniques. The
reliable unpredictability concept can be associated with the system proactive
approach (lead subsystem, open logic, to survive and grow) and strategic manage-
ment techniques. Then, system interaction by internal and external information
aggregation can allow both quick and raw response (open logic response, to survive
and grow) and slow and accurate information for future response strategic organi-
zation (closed logic response, to learn to adapt and prosper) by coherently formatted
operating point information.
To achieve our final goal, the overall system must be provided with a smart
sensing interface which allows reliable real-time interaction with its environment
(chaos as a resource). To behave realistically, the system must guarantee both logical
aperture (to survive and grow) and logical closure (to learn and prosper), both fed by
environmental “noise,” better from what human beings call “noise” (Fiorini 2014). It
is possible to apply our framework to provide any closed logic-based system with a
convenient open logic extension to face unknown situations more effectively.
At brain level, it is possible to refer to the LeDoux circuit (“low road,” logical
aperture) for emotional behavior (i.e., fear, emotional intelligence, etc.) and to the
Papez circuit (“high road,” logical closure) for structured behavior (i.e., rational
thinking, knowledge extraction, etc., (LeDoux 1998, 2002)). Emotional intelligence
(EI) and emotional creativity (EC) (Goleman 1995) coexist at the same time with
rational thinking in the human mind, sharing the same input environment informa-
tion (Gunderson and Holling 2002). Therefore, an operating point can emerge as a
transdisciplinary reality level from the interaction of two complementary irreducible,
asymptotic ideal coupled subsystems with their common environment (OUM
model).
The major added value of present work is provided by the author’s fresh approach
to OUM modeling and by the new idea of system articulated interaction, defined by
inner and outer system information resonance and aggregation. It can allow both
quick and raw system response (to survive and grow) and slow and accurate
information unfolding for future response strategic organization (to learn and pros-
per) by coherently formatted operating point (Fiorini 2015b). Thus, new advanced
systemic information application can successfully and reliably manage a higher
system complexity than at present, with a minimum of design constraints specifica-
tion and less system final operative environment knowledge at design level. The
interested reader to deeper OUM detail is referred to Fiorini (2017b).
In fact, a natural living organism does perturb its environment, but ordinarily only
up to the level, it is perturbed in turn by its own environment both to survive and
grow and no more (Gunderson and Holling 2002). Due to its intrinsic self-scaling
properties, this system approach can be applied at any system scale: from single
quantum system application development to full system governance strategic assess-
ment policies and beyond (Fiorini and Santacroce 2013). It is possible to use the
same nonlinear logic approach to guess a convenient basic architecture for anticipa-
tory learning system (ALS) (Fiorini & Santacroce) to get realistic modeling of
natural behavior to be used in high reliable organization (HRO) application
development.
As an example, the author has shown that traditional data processing and pattern
recognition in a cognitive task application (spoken sentence comprehension), using
traditional electroencephalography (EEG) data and ERP preprocessing, can offer a
shallow interpretation of experimental data. A deeper interpretation can be reached
by the CICT approach and VEDA analysis tool (Fiorini 2015c). In this case,
brainstem function can be much better exploited for system modeling. In fact, the
overall response result emerges from the coherent composition of five different
subsystem outputs, which start to coherently cooperate with one another immedi-
ately upon stimuli onset. CICT coherent representation precision then leads to more
experimental information clarity and conservation. The interested reader to dig
deeper into details is referred to Fiorini (2017a, 2017b).
162 R. A. Fiorini
10.5 Toward Super and Hyper Smart Societies
It will be interesting to keep an eye on what will happen on the eastern side of the
world, to the Japan’s initiatives which fall under “Society 5.0” umbrella name. The
“Society 5.0” program defined in the Japanese Fifth Science and Technology Basic
Plan is different from other initiatives like the “Industry 4.0” of Germany, the
“Industry 4.0” of UE, and the “Advanced Manufacturing Partnership” of the USA,
which focus on the manufacturing side only. Society 5.0 covers various aspects of
Japanese society, including manufacturing and other industries, with the aim of
driving social change. Society 5.0 is a unique approach, in that Japan’s efforts to
solve emerging issues before the rest of the world are geared to Japan’s strengths
(TFoA 2017).
Japan has its own specific challenges, and just as “Industry 4.0” is the European
digital transformation of manufacturing, Japanese “Society 5.0” aims to tackle
several challenges by going far beyond just the digitalization of the economy, toward
the digitalization across all levels of the Japanese society and the (digital) transfor-
mation of society itself. What Japanese aim to build is a nation of “Sanpo-yoshi”
(En. Tr., all right on three sides) where three fundamental factors, that is, economy,
environment, and society, work to improve one another and thereby contribute to
increasing the wellbeing of citizens in a super, hyper smart society.
A super, hyper smart society is characterized as follows: a society where the
various needs of society are finely differentiated and met by providing the necessary
products and services in the required amounts to the people who need them when
they need them and in which all the people can receive high-quality services and live
a comfortable, vigorous life that makes allowances for their various differences such
as age, sex, region, or language. Indeed, the notions of nonlinearity, interactions,
impredicativity, self-organization, stability and chaos, unpredictability, sensitivity to
initial conditions, bifurcation, etc. are phenomena which also characterize social
systems. Therefore, the “Industrial Revolution” (Toth 2016) has to be a reliable
creative thinking transformation process by more and more integration of wellbeing
signatories and ratifiers from different cultures and countries. In order to achieve an
antifragile behavior, next-generation human-made system must have a new funda-
mental component, able to address and to face effectively the problem of multiscale
ontological uncertainty management. Our OUM model architecture is a solution
proposal to this problem, allowing continuous and recursive learning from unex-
pected predictions.
We need a definitive, antifragile solution to the problem of the logical relationship
between human experience and reliable knowledge extraction (Fiorini 2017b,
2017c). Even in mere terminology, minimizing or avoiding representation uncer-
tainty and ambiguities is mandatory to achieve and keep high-quality result and
service. The proper use of term and multidimensional conceptual clarity are funda-
mental to create and boost outstanding performance. One of the fundamental pre-
conditions is to speak in the common language. It is not the problem of cultures only
(Leung et al. 2007), but it is also a problem of scientific communities (Kagan 2009;
Snow 1969) and new societal education (Mulder 2015; UNE 1997). We deeply share
the belief that a better understanding of information is needed to understand anything

and everything, hopefully.
It is important to underline that information processing technology can be used
also to facilitate the application of pragmatic models to “prescribe” or suggest to
participants to improve their attitudes, predicative competence, education, and
creativity. Science does not exist to enlighten people’s minds only. It mainly exists
to show the educated way from quanta to qualia, from numerical to conceptual
understanding. And that way starts from social predicative competence to arrive to
computational competence and to discover that, by a new AI perspective, they are
not so different after all. The interested reader is referred to Fiorini (2017d).
ICT strategies are the pillars of Japan’s growth strategy, and these are formulated
by positioning ICT as an engine of economic growth that will help Japan overcome
its stagnation and boost economic recovery. Japan, with its energy and resource
constraints and demographic pressure, is placed among developed countries on the
front line in seeking new societal models, ensuring sustainable and inclusive growth
and maximizing the wellbeing of its citizens. To take the lead in this endeavor, the
full potential of science, technology, and innovation (STI) should be explored, and in
this perspective, AI is considered to be a priority. One may have concerns about the
quick advancement of AI and its implementation in society. This is why the
“Advisory Board on Artificial Intelligence and Human Society” was set up in May
2016 under the initiative of the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technol-
ogy Policy with the aim to assess different societal issues that could possibly be
raised by the development and deployment of AI and to discuss its implication for
society, ideally with international cooperation (ABAIHS 2017).
Education policy functions according to discussions about how to efficiently
reform the curriculum based on evidence that shows the limitations of technologies.
For example, a deep understanding of semantics, the utilization of experience-based
imagination in novel situations, the ability to identify a problem that should be
solved, the ability to communicate and collaborate, and the ability to explore novel
information actively and to discuss and incorporate the opinions of others are all
abilities that current machine-learning AI technologies seem unable to perform, and
they are expected to become more important in the near future. Enhancing these
abilities differentiates humans from AI technologies and makes humans perform
creative tasks by utilizing AI technologies, which leads to the realization of a
sustainable society with high productivity and less labor.
Education for children is especially urgent because it takes time, and the devel-
opment of AI technologies is so rapid. It is important to consider what abilities
should be still learned by humans for proper brain development even though the
activities enabled by said abilities can be performed instead by AI technologies.
However, like many other tools and technologies, AI technologies’ utilization
cannot be socially enforced. It might be necessary to take into consideration the
need to ensure the freedom to use AI technologies, based on an individual’s faith,
avoiding social conflict between users and nonusers of AI technologies. Recent
acceleration of the advancement of AI technologies makes it difficult for institutional
and social adaptation to keep pace, which leads the Japanese government to address
the question of transition management.
164 R. A. Fiorini
To maximize the benefits from AI technologies, in addition to appropriate

knowledge of the AI technologies themselves, users need digital goods and services
literacy and knowledge of data privacy. However, all people cannot acquire or
maintain this knowledge and literacy, and it might be a causal factor in the
so-called AI divide. For instance, “rideshare,” backed by AI optimization technol-
ogies, could offer a new means of transport at a low cost comparative to taxis;
therefore, it is supportive of socially disadvantaged people. However, access to these
services requires a minimum familiarity with digital devices, so those without
literacy may be excluded from the benefit of rideshare services. Potential discrimi-
nation based on the output of personal profiling by AI technologies must be
prevented.
We consider clarifying the relationship between AI technologies and human
society to be a prerequisite to the realization of a sustainable society, and we believe
that addressing the fundamental question, “What values are shared by humans all
over the world,” is unavoidable. In general, it is not an easy question to answer by
cultural perspective. We need more “conceptual clarity.”
As a simple example, should we use the term “well-being” or “wellbeing”?
Currently, “well-being” and “wellbeing” are used in many different countries to
refer to the same thing apparently (Fiorini et al. 2016). From a daily formal
perspective, the short answer is it is up to you; just be consistent. Currently in
media, while “wellbeing” is becoming more popular, “well-being” is probably used
more, but there is still a lot of confusion about their meaning, respectively. In Italy
the situation is even worse because the closest Italian one-word meaning to
“wellbeing” is “benessere” that is always translated back to English as “wellness”!
Therefore, for the Italian layman, either “wellness” or “wellbeing” can be used
interchangeably! To date, Google search results indicate that “well-being” is more
popular than “wellbeing.” However, Google Trends indicates that since 2004,
searches for “well-being” have been on decline, while searches for “wellbeing”
have significantly increased.
The term “wellbeing” has been around for many years but has traditionally been
associated with “wellness,” “psychological wellness,” “quality of life” (QOL),
“happiness,” etc. But the meaning of “wellbeing” is different from that of “happi-
ness.” Happiness can come and go in a moment, whereas wellbeing is a more stable
state of being well and feeling satisfied and contented. Furthermore, in 2010, the
term “wellbeing” has been introduced specifically as an attempt to de-medicalize
illness (Stratham and Chase 2010). As a matter of fact, today it is recognized as a
complex, multidimensional concept (the unity of body, mind, spirit), and there has
been many attempts to define it but without clear success. Historically phrases
associated with wellbeing include “the ability to fulfil goals,” happiness, “life
satisfaction,” “quality of life,” self-acceptance, “purpose in life,” “environmental
mastery,” “positive growth,” “positive relationships,” and autonomy. These how-
ever are dimensions of wellbeing and are not a definition.
In 2012 Dodge et al. (2012) presented a well-documented review of the many
attempts to research a workable definition for wellbeing. Their article closes by
proposing that it would be appropriate for a definition of wellbeing to center on a
state of equilibrium or balance that can be affected by life events or challenges like
Resources Challenges
Psychological Wellbeing Psychological

Social Values Social
Physical Physical
Fig. 10.1 Graphical representation of wellbeing values as balance between individual resources
and challenges, according to Dodge et al. 2012. (Modified by author)
the following diagram shows (Fig. 10.1), where wellbeing is stable when we have
the resources needed to meet life’s challenges, according to personal wellbeing
values (Dodge et al. 2012, modified by author). They believe this simple, yet precise
nature of the definition can be, universal in application, optimistic and a basis for
measurement. It conveys the multifaceted nature of wellbeing and can help individ-
uals and policy-makers move forward in their understanding of this popular term.
As a matter of fact, purposive agents and actors are centered on their wellbeing
dynamic equilibrium or balance that can be affected by life events or challenges
continuously. Personal wellbeing state is stable when they have abundant resources
needed to meet and manage their life’s challenges. It is a dynamic dance definition
that also reflects the viewpoint of Nic Marks, of the New Economics Foundation
(Marks 2012). However when life’s challenges outweigh resources, wellbeing is
compromised. It is also important to note however that if there are no challenges in
life, then this can lead to stagnation and compromise our sense of equilibrium, which
in turn will affect wellbeing in a different way. They hope that their simple definition
can be applied to all cultures, ages, and genders and could aid the measurement of
national wellbeing and further the understanding of wellbeing as a whole.
As a matter of fact, their simple and operative definition opens up wellbeing as a
new growing area of scientific research. In fact, if their definition has to be universal,
then immediately we have to remember that because we all share this small planet
Earth, we have to learn to live in harmony and peace with each other and with nature.
That is not just a dream, but a necessity, according to Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai
Lama. Furthermore, in a global perspective, from previous discussion, we saw that
the “state of being well,” “happiness,” QOL, and “subjective wellbeing” mean
different things to different people, different languages, different cultures, different
norms, etc. Therefore, one-word “wellbeing” means a brand new science, a new
paradigm, and a new universe to be defined by first comers and international
cooperation, perfectly tuned to the super smart society evolution. For instance,
Health Informatics and Telepractice, by using new specific wellbeing-oriented
instrumentation and tools like EPM, E2PM (De Giacomo et al. 2016); De Giacomo
and Fiorini 2018), etc., can grasp and estimate human being global health level and
biofield much better than in the past. Then, new automated, reliable practices and
telepractices can be developed accordingly quite easily (Fiorini et al. 2016).
166 R. A. Fiorini
10.6 Conclusion
Current social problems are multiscale-order deficiencies, which cannot be fixed by

the traditional hierarchical approach alone, by doing what we do better or more
intensely but rather by changing the way we do. Society is an aggregation of
purposive agents. To harness complexity, we must take a generative perspective
and acknowledge social outcomes as produced by purposive agents and actors
responding to personal anticipation, incentives, information, cultural norms, psy-
chological predispositions, etc. Any traditional modeling attempt will fail to capture
their fundamental properties. Even less, any mathematical optimal approach will be
far away to be able to anticipate any incumbent reality need. In fact, attempts to
optimize hierarchical systems in the traditional top-down way only will be less and
less effective and cannot be done in real time.
Facing such challenges as global warming and the aging population with a low
birthrate squarely, Japan is intentioned to become a “model nation” which over-
comes these challenges before other countries do so and create a virtuous cycle of
creation of demand and strengthening of supply capability. Having experienced the
global economic crisis, countries across the world are going deep into substantial
study on how to realize more fair and sustainable capitalism and growth.
In this process, Japanese will promote research and study on new growth and
wellbeing in collaboration with foreign governments and international organiza-
tions, with a view to developing and upgrading statistics of related indicators.
Through these efforts, they will establish a foundation for promoting measures to
realize new growth, new environmental policy, and a new concept of public service
in an integrated manner. Human reality is multidimensional and integrated. To be
effective, knowledge of that reality must be too. It is always shaped by a multitude of
aspects, perspectives, and forces. The tendency to condense and compress reality
into simplistic formulas is a form of willful ignorance that facilitates quantification,
calculation, and multiple choice examinations. In the process it conditions the mind
to reductionist mode of thinking, blind to the complexity, and integral nature of life,
with enormous, useful information dissipation and loss.
The world is beset with problems that appear insoluble largely because we are
unconscious of the true extent of the social capacity that has been created and the
social potential still waiting to be developed. The limitations of current theory
prevent us from seeing the incredible power society has generated for accomplish-
ment in all fields. A new paradigm in thought can provide the intellectual founda-
tions for achieving a fuller and richer social life for humanity than anything now
imaginable, if only we are willing to discard the self-imposed limitations of out-
moded conceptions, vested interests, and dead conventions.
Modern economies are conscious living systems increasingly fueled by human
and social resources that are not subject to inherent material limits. Material
resources are consumed in the process of utilization. Nonmaterial resources such
as information, knowledge, know-how, skill, and organization multiply in the very
process of being utilized. Human capital and social capital grow in quality, utility,
and value through usage and experience. The argument that subjective factors are too
difficult to measure is increasingly challenged by the development of alternative
measures and justifies much more serious efforts by mainstream economists to
evolve new methods, rather than ignore this essential dimension of reality.
New paradigm thinking in the social sciences can no longer deny the central
importance of the subjective dimension of reality nor seek to reduce it to its chemical
and nervous physiological constituents. The call for new economic theory is based
on the premise that the persistence of poverty together with rising levels of unem-
ployment, inequality, and ecological degradation reflects the limits of the present
conceptual system, rather the practical limits of sustainable human development. A
new paradigm in economic thinking is needed to make conscious and explicit the
underlying concepts that limit humanity’s ability to promote rapid advances in
welfare and wellbeing for all human beings.
The quest of traditional, classic natural science is to discover the immutable
natural laws governing the world around us. The role of the natural scientist is as
impartial, objective observer free from value judgements. A fundamental challenge
in the social sciences is to discover the social processes by which people meet needs,
fulfill aspirations, and achieve goals. Impartial knowledge of what pertains is not
sufficient. It must necessarily be examined in the light of the values and goals
humanity seeks to realize. Economics needs to become value-conscious. It needs
to make explicit the goals, values, and premises on which its knowledge is based.
The objective of WAAS’ New Economic Theory (NET) is to formulate theoret-
ical and practical knowledge required to maximize economic security, human
welfare, and individual wellbeing of all humanity in a manner consistent with
universal human rights, cultural diversity and civilizational values, and what it will
mean to live in harmony with nature (Šlaus and Jacobs 2013). Economic security
ensures minimum material needs. Human welfare encompasses a wider range of
material and social needs related to safety, health, education, social security, and
cybersecurity. Individual wellbeing encompasses higher level social, cultural, psy-
chological, and spiritual aspirations for freedom of choice, respect, free association,
enjoyment, creative self-expression, individual development, and self-realization.
And sustainability means achieving this in ways that restore the natural systems on
which we depend. The objective of economics is not production for its own sake or
economic growth for growth’s sake. The goal is not to discover immutable, univer-
sal, natural laws of economy based on any existing precedent, model, or theory but to
identify the laws and first principles of a social system suitable for promoting global
human welfare and wellbeing.
Values express intention and commitment, but they are not merely utopian ideals
or ethical principles. They represent the highest abstract mental formulations of life
principles with immense power for practical accomplishment. They represent the
quintessence of humanity’s acquired wisdom regarding the necessary foundations
for human survival, growth, development, and evolution. Consciously or uncon-
sciously, the construction of any image of the real world relies on personal beliefs
based on personal predicative and numeric competence. In this paper, we have
brought to light their fundamental components, according to our personal
168 R. A. Fiorini
experience, and formulated the proposal for a new understanding of them, at an

effective scientific and operative level. Therefore, in order to achieve an antifragile
behavior, next-generation human-made system must have a new fundamental com-
ponent, able to address and to face effectively the problem of multiscale ontological
uncertainty management, in an instinctively sustainable way: active wisdom by
design!
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Chapter 11
Managing Emerging Risks in Strategic
Scenarios of Uncertainty and Complexity:
A Theoretical Framework
Liliana Cavatorta and Gianluca Rosso
Abstract In a context of accelerated change and interlinked systems we are facing

the challenge to build a strategic planning that can be resilient in different future
scenarios, in order to be prepared for emerging risks and opportunities. In this work
we study an approach to manage emerging risks and opportunities for strategic
purposes in conditions of uncertainty and complexity.
Frequently a classic risk management approach for assessment cannot be suffi-
cient because probability models could be unsuccessful. It is necessary to recognize
the uncertainty and complexity in emerging risks and to address both with suitable
methodologies that allow a holistic view.
Emerging risks that involve complex systems and entangled cause-and-effect
relationships require adequate methodologies that allow the assessment of the degree
of exposure to risks and a holistic and integrated vision. In order to avoid a
compartmental view and see the global picture, we need to overcome the focus on
single parts. It’s necessary to evolve from bidimensional to tridimensional models
introducing the concept of interconnections between each bidimensional structure.
As we are exposed to risks with insufficient knowledge or imprecise data, a fuzzy
approach can be useful. In our study we explore the combination of fuzzy logic with
other models such as decision trees and artificial neural networks to propose a
possible theoretical framework.
Keywords Risk · Change · Scenario · Emerging risk · Uncertainty · Framework ·

Macrotrends · Future · Complexity · Fuzzy · Opportunities · Decision trees ·
Interconnections · Strategic · Entropy · Entropy index · Holistic · Anticipate ·
Integrated · Multilayer · Futures · Strategic planning · Resilient · Forward-looking ·
Neural networks · Integrated vision
L. Cavatorta (*) · G. Rosso

Reputational and Emerging Risk Observatory, Unipol Gruppo, Bologna, Italy
e-mail: liliana.cavatorta@unipolsai.it; gianluca.rosso@unipolsai.it

174 L. Cavatorta and G. Rosso
11.1 Introduction
We will present our study, that explores the combination of fuzzy logic with other
models such as decision trees, to propose a possible theoretical framework to support
strategic decisions and manage emerging risks and opportunities in a context of
uncertainty and complexity.
In the development of our framework, we started from the consideration that in a
context of accelerated change and interlinked systems we are facing the challenge to
build a strategic planning that can be resilient in different future scenarios, in order to
be prepared for emerging risks and opportunities.
Technology has evolved considerably over the last century. Innovation has
multiplied. After the introduction of microprocessors in personal computers, inno-
vation came faster and faster. The telephone reached one billion users 110 years after
its introduction. The smartphone took only 8 years to reach this number.
However, in addition to technological changes, we observe the existence of other
factors of change: social (cultural, ethical, behavioral,. . .), institutional (political,
regulatory,. . .), and natural (environment, climate,. . .). Different types of change can
have different speeds of evolution. Generally, technology evolves with an acceler-
ated speed, while social and institutional factors struggle to keep up, leaving open
the question of the governance of technological change. Sometimes we can also
observe an acceleration of social and institutional changes. From this contradiction
and the differences in speed originates the delicate balance between risks and
opportunities.
A third element that adds complexity to the environmental context is connection.
Physical connections take a relevant place in human activities. Technology helps to
reduce distance and increases the degree of physical linkage. After the introduction
of the radio, then the telephone, and especially the web, physical connection has
moved to multiplied virtual connections.
Now people can easily interact without needing to move. Online social networks
are changing the way people communicate, work and play, and therefore the
interconnections between different systems have increased exponentially.
We need to be aware that this is just the beginning of a new era of global
interconnectedness that will spread ideas and innovations around the world faster
than ever before.
11.2 The Framework
In this context of rapid change and increasing interdependence, we need a frame-

work that helps us to be prepared to face emerging risks and opportunities. We
consider emerging risk as a double-faced coin in terms of risk and opportunity, that is
placed between risk and uncertainty. According to Mauboussin (2007), risk is when
we don’t know what is going to happen next, but we do know what the distribution
11 Managing Emerging Risks in Strategic Scenarios of Uncertainty and. . . 175
Fig. 11.1 caption
Fig. 11.2 caption
looks like. Uncertainty, instead, is when we don’t know what is going to happen
next, and we do not know what the possible distribution is. So we can define
emerging risk as a fuzzy dimension between risk and uncertainty, considering that
is neither a situation of complete uncertainty nor a situation of classic risk because
it’s a risk with an unknown distribution, and therefore without a defined probability
(Fig. 11.1). In our framework we consider that emerging risk lies on a continuum
between risk and uncertainty and therefore requires a new approach because it
cannot be managed with standard risk management methodologies.
Frequently a traditional risk management approach cannot be sufficient for
emerging risk because probability models could be unsuccessful and it is necessary
to recognize in it the attributes of uncertainty and complexity and to address both
with suitable methodologies. Emerging risks that involve complex systems and
entangled cause-and-effect relationships require adequate models that allow the
assessment of the degree of exposure to risks and an integrated vision to consider
the possible interconnections. As we are exposed to risks with insufficient knowl-
edge or imprecise data, a fuzzy approach can be useful (Fig. 11.2).
Given the above context, what were the issues we tried to give answers to,
through the development of a theoretical framework?
1. The framework must have a holistic view, in order to avoid a compartmental view
and see the global picture, including all factors: social, technological, institutional
and natural.
2. The framework must evolve from bi-dimensional to tri-dimensional view intro-
ducing interconnections between factors.
3. The framework must have a forward-looking approach and adapt itself over the
time horizon for decisions.
11.3 The Theoretical Model
The proposed theoretical model is based on scenario building, where scenarios are
intended as representations of possible futures obtained through the integrated and
combined analysis of the possible future evolutions of the macrotrends. The
macrotrends are defined as a long-term change pattern that are taking place in the
external environment of the organization and that can generate emerging risks and
opportunities. As underlined in the introduction, macrotrends can be originated by
different types of changes that can be classified into four categories: social, techno-
logical, institutional and natural.
We hypothesize a basic and simple case: on the basis of the analysis of
macrotrends and of the scenario building process, four scenarios were identified.
These scenarios represent the space of possible futures and derive from the combi-
nation of two macrotrends identified as uncertainty axes, in terms of higher impact
and higher degree of uncertainty (Fig. 11.3).
The first scenario is characterized by macrotrend A regressive and macrotrend B
progressive, the second scenario by macrotrend A progressive and macrotrend B
Fig. 11.3 caption

progressive, the third scenario by macrotrend A regressive and macrotrend B

regressive, and finally the fourth scenario by macrotrend A progressive and
macrotrend B regressive.
For each possible scenario, we develop the “winning strategy,” intended as the
strategy that allows the organization to win or at least to survive in the scenario. Our
proposal is a model based on decision trees as a tool to anticipate and monitor over
time the scenario that is unfolding in order to adopt the related strategic reply.
The tree is composed by a number of nodes. Each node is a “decisional moment”
because in each node we have a bifurcation. The node is guided by the evolution of
the corresponding macrotrend that can be anticipated by the evolution of the related
drivers, intended as key factors that are able to act as lead indicators and signal the
path of the macrotrend (progressive or regressive). The key is to evaluate whether,
considering the present situation, the evolution of the drivers will move down the
path of progress, or down the path of regression (intended also as “no movement”).
Each driver is an “if,” and the node is the global “if” weighted according to the
relevance of the different drivers (Fig. 11.4).
When we move across periods, we need to monitor the drivers and the track of the
path in order to anticipate any changes in direction. KPIs will be useful to this
purpose. The analysis starts at point n. Each node, after the choice of the path,
generates another node in a different position (more progressive or more regressive)
at a time n + 1. Usually, time follows the rule of “annuity.” At point n the further
scenarios are forward in time, the blurrier and confused they are because further in
distance from the point of analysis, and the more errors are possible (bias). For
example: in Climate Change macrotrend, we can denote progressive positive sce-
narios because in Paris, with Cop21, an important treaty was signed. This document
refers to the next years, so we can anticipate a progressive path for the climate
change management macrotrend. But at point n + 5 our vision is blurry and can
timing DECISION TREE MODEL
#1
PERIODS
#2
#3
#4
#5
Fig. 11.4 caption

Fig. 11.5 caption
Fig. 11.6 caption
become confused, as some States might not live up to the commitments of the
document and in a further away future, halt sustainable action (Fig. 11.5).
As we move down the decision tree and follow a well-defined path, some arms of
the tree may disappear and the path becomes clearer, even as new arms can appear,
generated by surprises, novelties and unexpected events, that must always be taken
into account and intercepted through constant scanning of the external context (Fig.
11.6).
Each layer is a macrotrend. After considering macrotrend A, macrotrend B (2nd
axis) should be considered, thus adding a second layer. Each layer allows to monitor
the evolution of each macrotrend: it is also important to undertake a joint analysis in
order to explore the links of cause and effect, and the possible knock-on effects.
Fig. 11.7 caption
We mentioned above that the Framework must evolve from a bi-dimensional to a

tri-dimensional view with the introduction of interconnections among macrotrends
and related drivers. This is an important point because, as stated in the introduction,
the macrotrends are increasingly interlinked. It is important to consider the inter-
connections to understand the whole picture. In other words, some drivers present in
a node and related to a certain macrotrend are really interconnected with other
drivers related to another macrotrend. Technology can help the macrotrend “New
Mobility” that, in turn, can have a mitigating effect on macrotrend “Climate
Change.” These linkages lead us to design a more complex structure, with
overlapped layers (macrotrends). The path continues to move down the decision
tree specific for the macrotrend, but the linkages with other layers help the nodes to
obtain more information and use it for a better evaluation of the path to follow. This
multilayered structure allows us to introduce a holistic view (Fig. 11.7).
11.4 Let’s Illustrate This Model with a Simple Example
Let the New Mobility macrotrend be the first layer we want to study. We have in the
first node (at point n) three possible drivers: regulatory changes, ethical dilemmas,
and technological infrastructures. The rule is that a node has at least one driver useful
for our assessment. As stated above, we can evaluate, on the basis of a driver,
whether the next move (n + 1) of macrotrend is expected to be progressive or
regressive. In the case where we have more drivers, we can assign a different weight
to each driver according to its relevance.
Fig. 11.8 caption
Fig. 11.9 caption
Quick note about ethical dilemmas: for ethical dilemmas in this context we mean
the dilemmas related to moral decisions that artificial intelligence used in self-
driving cars will have to take, including on human life (deciding who dies and
who survives) and that are addressed by f.i. the MIT Moral Machine1 (Fig. 11.8).
Over time, nodes can evolve. Therefore we have no certainty about the number and
nature of the drivers that we will have to face. For example, infrastructures surely will
have a systemic evolution; therefore the presence of this driver is virtually certain. But
if the regulatory framework concerning the new mobility at a certain point is defined,
the driver related to regulatory changes can be omitted in the following node at time
n + x. The same driver can be reintroduced in the future if requirements change. As a
consequence, a second rule that we can introduce is that drivers can change over time.
A third rule is that each node is a bifurcation with two possible paths: the path of
progress or the path of regression (intended also as “no movement”). This rule is
introduced in order to simplify the model from a formal point of view and make it
more manageable for practical use. However the model could be made more
sophisticated by increasing the number of possible paths in each node.
Another rule states that each path can go back to a virtual “zero point.” A
sequence of nodes could draw a particular path that, over time, can reach a situation
where progress and regression are once again balanced as at the starting point n. This
ideal “zero point” probably (certainly) is similar, but not equal, to a “zero point” at
the beginning of the path at time n. This means that we have reached again a
balanced condition but with different possible outcomes (Fig. 11.9).
1
http://moralmachine.mit.edu/
At this point we can introduce the concept of multilayers and links between
different layers. The links identify pushing effects and “knock-on effects” and the
direction of the links identifies the direction of the push.
Coming back to our simple example, the New Mobility macrotrend is strictly
interlinked with the Sharing Economy macrotrend, through the sharing mobility. At
point n, the prevalent direction of the link is from Sharing Economy macrotrend to the
New Mobility macrotrend, because sharing mobility, which is included in the Sharing
Economy, at this time, is pushing the New Mobility introducing the paradigm change
of ownership to access and fostering the concept of mobility as a service (Fig. 11.10).
The model becomes more interesting if we introduce a third layer: for example the
Internet of Things (IoT) macrotrend. The IoT gives a concrete impulse to the technol-
ogies applied to the New Mobility. So we have a more complex system of linkage.
Therefore we can introduce a new rule: multiple linkages are possible (Fig. 11.11).
Fig. 11.10 caption
Fig. 11.11 caption

At this point of our example, let the node n + 2 be the point we have reached. The
push given by IoT through the creation and application of new sensors (for
example quantum- sensors) helps the New Mobility, for example, with an improved
technology useful for self-driving cars. With reference to the time n, now at time
n + 2, we have more diffusion of self-driving cars, and that is an incentive to
Sharing Mobility. The pushing effect can therefore change over time: we still have
a linkage between New Mobility and Sharing Economy macrotrends, but the linkage
direction has changed.
The model can be made more complex adding new macrotrends and therefore
new layers and new scenarios.
To sum up, we can define our complex structure as shown in Fig. 11.12 (the
number of layers and linkages, type of tree structures, and number of nodes are
simplified for illustrative purposes). Some characteristics of this formal structure are:
– It is multilayer, because each macrotrend is represented by a single layer.
– It is multinodal, because at the end of the path, we cross as many nodes as the
number of periods.
– It is multiperiod, because our scenarios cover a number of years, equivalent to the
time horizon of the strategic plan.
– It is multipath, because each node generates more possible paths.
– It is multilink, because each node can be linked with many other nodes.
We can also formalize the following rules: (Table 11.1 and Fig. 11.13)
Fig. 11.12 caption

Table 11.1 caption

Rule #1 A node has at least one driver
Rule #2 In each node, drivers can change over time
Rule #3 From each node we have two possible paths
Rule #4 Each path can go back to a “virtual zero point”
Rule #5 Each node can be linked with another one in another layer
Rule #6 Each link has a prevalent direction
Rule #7 Multiple linkages are possible
Fig. 11.13 caption
11.5 Possible Mathematical Tool
Within the theoretical model illustrated above, we have designed a possible math-
ematical tool that can be used to provide a quantitative method for decision-making.
We propose this tool because it is simple, practical and it generates data that can be
easily communicated and shared inside the organization.
As aforementioned, in our model every node represents a decision-making
moment. Within the node, possible paths are proposed and evaluated on the basis
of related drivers. In order to simplify the model and make it more useful for
decision-making, we consider two polarized paths that we call “progressive path”
and “regressive path” (also intended as the absence of positive movement).
Depending on how the related drivers evolve (drivers that are either known or
simply hypothesized or hoped for), a possible progressive or regressive path is
generated as we move from the current starting point (now). This path P is assessed
and given a possibility weight p. The adverse path Q will be given a possibility
weight of q ¼ 1-p (Fig. 11.14).
Fig. 11.14 caption
In order to define a unique and standardized value for the chosen direction, it’s
necessary to assess its weight. The weight of the direction, recalculated for each node
of the path and at each level, will allow us to estimate the weight of the path. This
same value can be modified by exchanging information between nodes belonging to
different layers and thus to different macrotrends.
A method we propose in order to weigh the node (t) is to assimilate the entropy
index proposed by Tan, Steinbach, and Kumar (2014) to a system of assessment of
the reliability of the design of the possible scenario.
The proposed index is for all intents and purposes an impurity meter and as such
can be useful for evaluation because it can be considered as a possible measure of the
degree of uncertainty of the emerging risk in light of its fuzzy dimension between
risk and uncertainty.
Xc1
Entropyðt Þ ¼ i¼0
pðijt Þlog2 pðijt Þ ð11:1Þ
A distribution class node (0,1) returns 0, which means that there is no impurity
because the decision-making path is clear. Conversely, a distribution class node
(0.5,0.5) has the highest decision impurity level and returns as a value 1. This is an
index that varies between 0 and 1 (Fig. 11.15).
Let’s suppose that the node generates a progressive scenario P that has a p weight
of 83%. We thus have the weight q of the Q adverse scenario equal to 17%, since
q ¼ 1-p. Therefore
Entropy ðt Þ ¼ ð0:83Þlog2 ð0:83Þ ð0:17Þlog2 ð0:17Þ ¼ 0:65 ð11:2Þ
which expresses a medium-high decision-making impurity.

0.9
Entropy
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
p
Fig. 11.15 caption
Suppose an uncertain trend path, with a series of progressive nodes and an equal
number of regressive nodes. The average path returns to the “zero point.” Actually,
the possibilistic quantities useful to decide the path within the tree may vary
considerably from node to node, and it is likely that with the same path (for example
“progressive”) the possibilistic underlying that allowed the decision itself may vary
significantly between the nodes.
For example (Fig. 11.16), we can simulate a macrotrend that brings back to a
virtual “zero point” after six periods. The possibilistic values are different in each
node, as could be observed in the real world. For each node, the entropy index is
calculated. The first and second nodes are both progressive, but the first node
provides a much lower entropy index than the second node. In fact, it is noted in
the second node that the choice of path is based on very similar values of p and q.
The calculated entropy index is almost equal to 1 (that means that the maximum
error is due to the inability to make a choice).
Following possibilistic evaluations of each node, all entropy indexes are calcu-
lated, with an average of about 0.77 indicating that the return to the “zero point” is
actually “regressive.”
The same path in Fig. 11.17 is not confirmed using the right intensity of
movement as calculated in Table 11.2.
The same entropic indexes of each node can be modified if the node is related to
other nodes belonging to different layers. Reference should be made to what was
said before, given that for borderline evaluations, such as those of the second node in
the example, information coming from the interconnections with other nodes may
change the possibilistic value so much to determine different choices, thereby
changing the path from “progressive” to “regressive” or viceversa (Fig. 11.18).
p q
Progressive 0,83 0,17
#1 Progressive 0,51 0,49
#2 Regressive 0,49 0,51

PERIODS
#3 Progressive 0,67 0,33
Fig. 11.16 caption
Fig. 11.17 caption

Table 11.2 caption

p Log2(p) q Log2(q) Entropy(t)
0,83 0,2689 0,17 2,5564 0,658 Progressive
0,51 0,9714 0,49 1,0291 0,9997 Progressive
0,49 1,0291 0,51 0,9714 0,9997 Regressive
0,67 0,5778 0,33 1,5995 0,91 Progressive
0,05 4,3219 0,95 0,074 0,29 Regressive
0,23 2,1203 0,77 0,3771 0,78 Regressive
Average 0,77
Fig. 11.18 caption
If two nodes, called N1 e N2, are linked to each other, first of all it is important to
determine the direction of “learning,” i.e., if it is N1 that varies depending on the
information provided by N2 or vice versa. Secondly, it is necessary to determine which
driver in the node provides the information I and the weight w of the driver. Conse-
quently, we will have an initial entropy index Etin and a final Etout (Table 11.3 and Fig.
11.19)
E t out ðN 1 ; N 2 ; I w ; E t inÞ ð11:3Þ
We can apply the method to the previously mentioned case of two layers related
to macrotrends New Mobility and Sharing Economy (see Fig. 11.10), adopting
illustrative data (Table 11.4 and Fig. 11.20).
Table 11.3 Caption

New mobility
0,83 0,2689 0,17 2,5564 0,658 Progressive
0,51 0,9714 0,49 1,0291 0,9997 Progressive
0,49 1,0291 0,51 0,9714 0,9997 Regressive
0,67 0,5778 0,33 1,5995 0,91 Progressive
0,05 4,3219 0,95 0,074 0,29 Regressive
0,23 2,1203 0,77 0,3771 0,78 Regressive
Average 0,77
Fig. 11.19 caption
Let us also consider a period characterized by a weight P of progression,

consisting of the weight of three distinct drivers a, b, and c. One of these drivers,
for example, b with a weight of 84%, therefore strongly progressive, has the ability
to influence the direction weight of the other node of the same period (Table 11.5).
There is a function f(x) such that (11.3) is valid, which in the example under
discussion switches the node from regressive to progressive (Table 11.6).
Table 11.4 caption

Sharing economy
0,64 0,6439 0,36 1,4739 0,943 Progressive
0,55 0,8625 0,45 1,152 0,9928 Progressive
0,72 0,4739 0,28 1,8365 0,8554 Progressive
0,66 0,5995 0,34 1,5564 0,92 Progressive
0,53 0,9159 0,47 1,0893 0,997 Progressive
0,44 1,1844 0,56 0,8365 0,990 Regressive
Average 0,95
Fig. 11.20 caption
Table 11.5 Caption

SHARING ECONOMY
p log2(p) q log2(q) entropy(t)
0,64 –0,6439 0,36 –1,4739 0,943 progressive
0,55 –0,8625 0,45 –1,152 0,8928 progressive a 0,55
0,72 –0,4739 0,28 –1,8365 0,8554 progressive b 0,84 strongly propulsive element
0,66 –0,5995 0,34 –1,5564 0,92 progressive c 0,76
0,53 –0,9159 0,47 –1,0893 0,997 progressive 0,72
0,44 –1,1844 0,56 –0,8365 0,990 regressive
average 0,95
Table 11.6 Caption

NEW MOBILITY SHARING ECONOMY
p log2(p) q log2(q) entropy(t) p
0,83 –0,2689 0,17 –2,5564 0,658 progressive 0,64
0,51 –0,9714 0,49 –1,0291 0,9997 progressive 0,55
0,57 –0,811 0,43 –1,2176 0,9858 progressive 0,72
0,67 –0,5778 0,33 –1,5995 0,91 progressive 0,66
0,05 –4,3219 0,95 –0,074 0,29 regressive 0,53
0,23 –2,1203 0,77 –0,3771 0,78 regressive 0,44
11.6 Conclusions
The theoretical model proposed is based on the integrated and combined analysis of
social, technological, institutional and natural macrotrends. When appropriately
assessed and considered in a holistic manner that takes into account interconnec-
tions, this analysis has the ability to anticipate the paths of change. The detailed
explanation and evaluation of the risks and opportunities and the choice of the
winning strategy for each scenario creates added value, and prepares for possible
futures. Awareness of the drivers of future scenarios and knowledge of their intrinsic
value and power of change create a real opportunity for forward - looking decision-
making. By knowing the appropriate triggers that modify the evolution of
macrotrends, it is also possible to adopt the right actions in order to shape the future.
Regular assessment of all macrotrends and drivers within the nodes are therefore a
potentially very valuable resource that makes this model a real decision-making
framework and a leading tool for change.
Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank Roberto Poli for his comments on previous versions
of this paper.
They are also grateful to Sarah Doring for her suggestions and contributions.
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Index
A E
Active citizenship, 140 Emancipation, 146, 147
Aesthetic, 6, 16–20 Emerging risks, 174–190
Agency, 2, 17, 21, 29, 62, 74, 122, 124, 128, Energy transition, 134
134 Entropy, 117
Anticipate, 42, 45, 46, 67, 74, 83, 95, 102, 125, Entropy index, 184, 185, 187
157, 158, 166, 177 Existential risk, 79–96
Anticipation, 1, 12, 53, 62, 87, 100, 138, Expectations, 12, 25, 26, 29, 40, 43, 67,
152 99–118, 139, 140, 157, 158
Anticipatory awareness, 122, 128 EXPO Milano, 144
Anticipatory experiences, 122–135
Antifragility, 150, 159, 160
F
Forward-looking, 176, 190
B Framework, 2, 4, 28, 44, 54, 81, 84, 94, 103,
Best practices, 2, 3, 8 111, 114, 116, 118, 130, 140, 141, 146,
Bourdieu, P., 18, 56, 57 156–158, 160, 190
Built environment, 137–147 Future literacy (FL), 28
Futures, 2, 11, 42, 53, 62, 80, 100, 138, 154, 174
Futures studies, 6, 7, 67, 72
C Fuzzy, 25, 150, 174, 175, 184
Change, 2, 12, 41, 53, 61, 84, 103, 138, 155,
174
Complexity, 2, 12, 20, 22, 28, 31, 41, 67, H
87, 112, 113, 116, 117, 124, 138, Holistic, 102, 111, 118, 126, 129, 131, 135,
151, 152, 154, 156, 161, 166, 152, 154, 176, 179, 190
174–190 Human energy, 122, 131–134
Creativity, 16–20, 28, 140, 153, 163
I
D Incompleteness, 150, 152, 156
Decision-making, 8, 18, 132, 138, 154, 158, Innovation, 2, 62, 100, 139, 174
183, 184, 190 Integrated, 38, 100, 113, 140, 146, 155, 166,
Decision trees, 174, 177–179 175, 176, 190
Digitalization, 162 Interconnections, 174–176, 179, 185, 190

Science 4, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03623-2
194 Index
L Resilient, 138, 151, 154, 174

Learning, 7, 23, 28, 69, 91, 101, 112, 118, Risk, 3, 12, 52, 79, 103, 144, 153, 174
157–162, 187
Low carbon society, 128
S
Scenarios, 1, 4, 14, 16, 20, 23, 29, 30, 54, 56,
M 68–71, 81, 83–88, 90, 91, 123, 125, 138,
Macrotrend, 176–179, 181, 182, 184, 185, 190 139, 141, 142, 158
Major events, 137–147 Self-defeating prophecies, 52–58
Merton, R.K., 54–57 Self-fulfilling prophecies, 53–57
Meta-anticipating, 48 Social action theory, 55, 56
Mindfulness, 16–20 Socio-cultural stress, 127, 130
Multilayer, 38–48, 181, 182 Sociological forecasting, 53, 54
Strategic planning, 1, 62, 69, 73, 91, 113, 118,
138, 140, 146, 147, 150–168, 174
N Strategic scenarios, 174–190
Neural network, 31 Suicidal prophecy, 57
Superforecasters, 21–23, 26
Sustainability, 62, 65, 72, 99–118, 123, 124,
O 141–144, 167
Ontology, 3, 7, 38, 40, 152, 155, 160, 162, 168 Sustainable development (SD), 62, 101, 102,
Opportunities, 30, 62, 63, 65, 71–74, 90, 94, 104, 105, 116, 118, 142, 145
102, 104, 105, 107, 153, 157, 174, 176,
190
Organizations, 2, 7, 13, 16, 18, 26, 28, 40, 56, T
104, 106, 109, 110, 125, 140, 141, 160, Technological risks, 83, 84, 92
161, 166, 176, 177, 183 Thick present, 11–14, 16, 17
Transformations, 28, 61–74, 100, 101, 104,
118, 122, 124, 133, 134, 137, 139, 140,
P 157, 162
Pioneer analysis, 64
Precautionary principle, 92, 94, 95
Predicative competence, 153, 163 U
Predictive markets, 24 Uncertainty, 3, 6, 12, 14, 15, 17, 20, 25, 28, 30,
Present, 2, 11, 43, 53, 63, 88, 103, 138, 153, 63, 65, 116, 126, 139, 150, 152,
174 154–157, 160, 162, 168, 174–190
Project anticipation, 139–143 Urban governance, 140
Urban regeneration, 139, 142–146
Utopias, 1–8, 72, 139, 142
R
Reflexive mechanisms, 53, 54
Reframing, 29, 113 V
Renewable energy, 65, 68, 105, 123, 126 Value creation, 2, 4, 6

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Anticipation Science 4

The series is interested in receiving book proposals that:

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15713

ISSN 2522-039X ISSN 2522-0403 (electronic)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018968526

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

In a world which is moving increasingly fast, constantly on the verge of disruptive

multilayeredness of anticipation and thus generates six important criteria of

Chapter 11 discusses a possible approach to manage emerging risks and oppor-

Trento, Italy Roberto Poli

10 A Strategic Proposal for the New Society: Surviving and

Carlos Alvarez-Pereira Innaxis Foundation & Research Institute, Madrid, Spain

Gianluca Rosso Reputational and Emerging Risk Observatory, Unipol Gruppo,

Keywords Best practice · Evidence-based politics · Innovation · Value creation ·

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 1

1.2 Best Practices

1.3 Evidence-Based Policy

1.4 Innovation and Value Creation

developing win-win strategies, multiple frames enhance the understanding of inno-

As soon as we shift our focus from technological to social innovations, the

1.5 Pragmatic Utopia

Keywords Futures studies · Thick present · Future Literacy · Reframing ·

2.1 Thick Present and Future Unawareness

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 11

2.2 The Role of Present Awareness in Facing Possible

2.3 Mindfulness, Aesthetic and Creativity to Tame Feral

Accordingly, it can help to let go assumptions associated to both predictable and

inadvertently generated, or an active one, when we try to cultivate our imagination

to ﬁnd an appropriate balance, as pure forms of the extremes misrepresent the

The proliﬁc and multidisciplinary scholar seems to describe an epistemic

2.4 Attitudes and Behaviours that May Foster Future

The GJP researchers examined personality traits of the participants through a

Conversely, overreacting to new information can happen especially when we

2.5 Applying the Wisdom of Crowds

2.6 Improving Predictive Accuracy

2.7 Future Literacy

1. Making visible anticipatory assumptions around the problem area, including an

2.8 Some Final Remarks

Strati, A. 1999. Organization and Aesthetics. London: Sage.

Abstract In the paper I argue for the multilayeredness of anticipation. After

Keywords Anticipation · Multilayeredness · Meta-anticipating

3.1 Preliminary Remarks

3.1.1 A Concept Clariﬁcation

Let me start with a quote from Roberto Poli:

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and along the same lines:

3.1.2 Some Antecedents

then Nicolai Hartmann who spoke about

and, ﬁnally, Kazimierz Dąbrowski who claimed that

3.2 Three Axes of Multilayeredness of Anticipation

3.2.1 Short- Versus Long-Term Perspective

In K. Dąbrowski’s autobiographical test (used as one of ﬁve tools in order to qualify

3.2.2 Existence Versus Non-existence

Another axis of multilayeredness of anticipation is vouchsafed in a quote from one of

These words express a sentiment of the multilayeredness or, to be more precise,

3.2.3 First- Versus Second-Order Anticipation

The self-transformation, i.e. transforming one’s own character, is an interrupted

3.3 A Final Conclusion

1. I have pointed to three axes of multilayeredness of anticipation. They concern:

2. I take these distinctions:

3. Yet, to be certain that the claim about multilayeredness is required as a solution to

Aristotle. 1934. Nicomachean Ethics. Transl. H. Rackham. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard

———. 1925. Symposium. Trans. H. N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University