Text 1. Thinking about the future
To speculate about the future is one of the most basic qualities of man. It involves two aspects: one is to forecast what the future development will be and the other is to determine in what approximate period of time it is going to take place. To make such a prognosis means to learn from the past experience and to extrapolate the knowledge into the future. Recently, however, the rate of change has been so great as to make it difficult to learn from experience, at least as far as the time factor is concerned. To take but one example, a prediction of man's possible landing on the Moon around the turn of the century was made as late as 1961, only 8 years before the actual event! So, to be on the safe side, we had better leave time to take care of itself, and concentrate our attention on what the future may be like.
There is yet another problem involved: are we to accept submissively any possible course of events, or are we to work for a future most suited for most people? The choice is to be made, at different levels, by every individual and by every society.