Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Predictions inspire lively discussion about the future, and help stakeholders prepare for adjustments associated with technological change. Those who think about the future are best poised to influence it. The visionary 20th century engineer, mathematician and architect R. Buckminster Fuller argued that, “We are called to be architects of the future, not its victims.” One […]
Prediction and Reactions Prediction: In 2020, networked communications have leveled the world into one big political, social, and economic space in which people everywhere can meet and have verbal and visual exchanges regularly, face-to-face, over the internet. English will be so indispensable in communicating that it displaces some languages. An extended collection hundreds of written […]
Washington, D.C. For much of the 20th century, social scientists and policymakers argued that democratization and modernity would render religion insignificant and irrelevant. They were wrong, says Timothy Shah, senior Pew Forum fellow in religion and world affairs, who contends religion is booming in many countries and democracy has given religious leaders a growing political […]
Prediction and Reactions Prediction: By 2020, intelligent agents and distributed control will cut direct human input so completely out of some key activities such as surveillance, security and tracking systems that technology beyond our control will generate dangers and dependencies that will not be recognized until it is impossible to reverse them. We will be […]
Setting Priorities: Question and Responses Respondents were asked the following: If you were in charge of setting priorities about where to spend the available funds for developing information and communications technologies (predominantly the internet) to improve the world, how would you rank order the following international concerns? Please number these from 1 to 4, with […]
Bethesda, Maryland A native of Pakistan who served as his country’s high commissioner to Great Britain, Akbar Ahmed offers the unique perspective of an anthropologist who has lived in and studied both Islamic and Western cultures. The BBC has described him as “the world’s leading authority on contemporary Islam.” He is the principal investigator for […]
by Gregory A. Smith, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and Peyton M. Craighill, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press In the immediate aftermath of George W. Bush’s 2004 victory over John Kerry, many journalists and other political observers declared the election to have been decided, in large part, on the […]