Advances in, and the marriage of, television, computers, telephones, visualization, dematerialization, and related technologies are rapidly leading to the emergence of what is being called “virtual reality,” making it possible for individuals and groups, perhaps widely separated in time and space, to create and experience together realities beyond anything Mother Nature ever invented.
Predictor: Dator, Jim
Prediction, in context:In a 1993 article for Future Research Quarterly, futurist Jim Dator makes the following statement: ”Marshall McLuhan put it well: ‘We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.’ Unfortunately, ‘we’ are much better at ‘shaping our tools’ than in trying to anticipate how they might ‘shape us.’ Thus, to this extent, we have marched into the future while staring into a rearview mirror and have had to deal with the social and environmental impacts of our technologies well after the fact. Some of the present and future probable impacts of electronic technologies have already been mentioned: namely, almost complete automation of all aspects of production, distribution, and even intelligent decision making. But there are others lying immediately ahead which are changing the meaning and experience of reality. Advances in, and the marriage of, television, computers, telephones, visualization, dematerialization, and related technologies are rapidly leading to the emergence of what is being called ‘virtual reality,’ making it possible for individuals and groups, perhaps widely separated in time and space, to create and experience together realities beyond anything Mother Nature ever invented.”
Biography:Jim Dator was a futurist who is credited with founding the first Future Studies program in 1971. He has been director of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies at the University of Hawaii. (Futurist/Consultant.)
Date of prediction:
Topic of prediction: General, Overarching Remarks
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: Future Research Quarterly
Title, headline, chapter name: American State Courts, Five Tsunamis, & Four Alternative Futures
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.futures.hawaii.edu/dator/courts/tsunamis.pdf
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Chick, Jason