Futurists: 35 Years after Sandbox Syndrome
Sam Ghandchi
http://www.ghandchi.com/1988-futurists-sandbox-english.htm

آینده نگرها: 35 سال بعد از سندرم جعبه شن بازی
http://www.ghandchi.com/1988-futurists-sandbox.htm

Related Articles: 1     2

Modern Futurism was basically formed after World War II in three forms of Analytic, Visionary and Participatory Futurism (1).  In 1983, Michael Marien published a paper entitled "The Transformation as Sandbox Syndrome" (2) which was discussed in details thirteen years ago (3). Today, what Michael Marien referred to as Sandbox Syndrome or false hopes, meaning New Age Movement, has ended, or like Scientology, has become a full fledged religion. But the futurist movement in the United States is not a sandbox anymore. Analytic futurism is basically pursued as a scientific discipline in academic, government and corporate institutions. In the realm of visionary futurism, still the leading-edge can be found in Ray Kurzweil's Singularity discussions (4). In the realm of participatory futurism, the futurists are either active in the existing political parties such as Democratic, Republican, Green and other parties, or like Ray Kurzweil basically have their hopes in the technological development itself to reach the human ideals (5).

But Iranian futurists are divided into two groups. A group are like those criticized by Michael Marien who are bound in a sandbox, meaning that their attention is focused on repeating the discussion of developments that were harbingers of future a half century ago, such as digitalization, which today in the area of analytic futurism, are not considered as new trends and are actually representation of history of past half century; even artificial intelligence was the subject of analytic futurism 33 years ago (6). In the realm of visionary futurism there is not much differentiation between the Iranian futurists and those from other countries which is logical. And finally in the area of participatory futurism, unfortunately the Iranian futurist circles have not gone much beyond the leftist or Islamist Reformist analysis and programs. Of course, there is another group of Iranian futurists who are active in the Iranian Secular Democracy Movement (7), who for some time have started political parties based on futurist platforms and are already playing an active role in building the future of Iran in 21st Century (8).

Hoping for a democratic and secular futurist republic in Iran,

Sam Ghandchi
IRANSCOPE.COM

http://www.ghandchi.com/index2.html 
March 26, 2018

Footnote:

1. Modern Futurism
http://www.ghandchi.com/347-FuturismEng.htm

آینده نگری مدرن
http://www.ghandchi.com/347-Futurism.htm

2. Michael Marien:The Transformation as Sandbox Syndrome
http://www.ghandchi.com/iranscope/Anthology/mm/sandbox.htm

3. Futurism, Sandbox, and Political Potency
http://www.ghandchi.com/403-FuturismSandboxEng.htm

آینده نگری، جعبه شن بازی، و توانمندی سیاسی
http://www.ghandchi.com/403-FuturismSandbox.htm

4. Ray Kurzweil, Singularity is Near
http://singularity.com
New Variant to Meet Human Needs-An Electronic Book
http://www.ghandchi.com/human-variant-book-english.htm

واریانت جدید برای تأمین نیازهای بشر- کتاب الکترونیک
http://www.ghandchi.com/human-variant-book.htm

5. Ray Kurzweil's Response about Impact of Law of Accelerating Returns on Housing, Clothing and Food
http://www.ghandchi.com/1970-kurzweil-scarcity-english.htm

پاسخ ری کرزوایل درباره قانون بازگشت پرشتاب در عرصه مسکن، پوشاک و خوراک
http://www.ghandchi.com/1970-kurzweil-scarcity.htm

6. Intelligent Tools: The Cornerstone of a New Civilization-Second Edition
http://www.ghandchi.com/353-IntelligentToolsEng.htm

ابزار هوشمند: شالوده تمدنی نوین
http://www.ghandchi.com/353-IntelligentTools.htm

7. Iran's Secular Democratic Movement

جنبش سکولار دموکراسی ایران

http://isdmovement.com

8. Futurist Party Platform Planning Site

سایت تدارک پلاتفرمی برای حزبی آینده نگر
https://sites.google.com/site/futuristparty

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