This book has been a giant adventure for us. We have gazed in wonder at the marvels of what the future may bring, and recoiled in horror at the threatening visions that have revealed themselves, often from harmless beginnings. We have laughed as we pondered what politicians, salesmen, terrorists, and purveyors of pleasure might dream up for us in years to come, but it has often been a very nervous laughter. Human life is full of feelings - and it will be so into the next millennium.
It is an old saw that prediction is difficult, particularly when it concerns the future. We have found no such difficulty. Many inventions already made and marketed, many chains of events already set in motion will carve broad channels into the future. We do not of course claim to see everything that lies ahead, but we believe we have found some of the significant patterns that will shape tomorrow. We also believe that of the hundred events listed here, around seventy will come to pass in something approaching the form we describe, and within five years of the date we have forecast.
An overall picture of the world does not emerge from one or two events; only through dozens of discrete points can one begin to draw together outlines and colours - particularly if you can view the image from a sufficient distance. Our present surroundings are experienced as a stream of news items, advertisements, discussions, analyses, and stories. And in our view this is the only way to present the future, in order that some aspects of its significance may reveal themselves to us. Trends are composed of small details, and the details are what impact upon mankind, not the trends.
The closest models we have borrowed from in our prediction methods are Jules Verne and Alvin Toffler. They, too, set off from existing inventions and the projection of how they might develop, and they used a good deal of imagination in building entire infrastructures based on speculation. And the futures that they constructed have been astonishingly accurate.
In any assessment of how tomorrow will shape up, boldness and honesty have shown themselves to be of paramount importance. Boldness is needed to recognize and to accept the pace of change. Honesty is required if we are to pare out the fantasies and the other ideas that do not adhere to the accepted norms of science or economics - or for that matter, to those of human nature.
All the same, what boldness we have does not allow us to venture beyond the events of the year 2020. It is more than likely that by that time the world will be directly influenced by many breakthroughs in basic research that are not even a doodle on the researchers' notepad today.
Progress is accelerating. 2020 will be here before we know it. The children who are now starting school will then be in the early stages of working life, and today's high school graduates will be approaching middle age. And yet the changes that will take place in the next two decades will go greatly beyond all the innovations we have seen in the post-war period of roughly half a century. It is even possible that the development over the next twenty years will have greater consequences than all that has come before, dating right back to the Industrial Revolution. And yet, for all the vast extent - and explosive nature - of the development in prospect, it appears that the next twenty or so years will mark only the overture to the great revolution in information technology, biotechnology, and energy management that is coming. What will be critical for the future of our children is the way in which these changes and their knock-on effects can be managed on the planet - and, of course, whether anyone steps up to take on that task.
We are grateful to our illustrious forbears for their work and for their influence as catalysts on our book. We have collected data from the papers of numerous scientists, inventors, and research teams. We have drawn inspiration and imagination from bold visions of the future, from the canon of sci-fi literature, and from ancient universal legends.
We would like here to thank the dozens and hundreds of individuals who have influenced details of this book, but in particular we extend our heartfelt thanks to the following individuals who have donated their time in order to give an added uniformity and logic to the work, and who have made valuable amendments to many points in the text: Heikki Sundqvist, D. Eng.; Timo Simula, M.Sc.; Ritva Alatalo, M.A.; Mauri Kouri, M.D.; Kaija Linturi, CPA, and Anni Linturi.
Needless to say, for the contents and for any errors in our predictions, we alone are responsible.
Helsinki 1.1.1998
Risto Linturi Ilkka Hannula
Hannula I. & Linturi R. 1998: 100 Phenomena.
Yritysmikrot Oy, Helsinki 1998. Copyright notices ISBN 952-9508-18-2