77-24-B8
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Herman Kahn, Futurist
TranscriptThe headline on his magazine interview said, "Good News From Mr. Bad News" and that tells the story of how thinker Herman Kahn sees our future. I'll be right back. The lot of the futurist is not an easy one. It has been physicist Herman Kahn's profession for many years, but when he was at the Rand Corporation in California studying the consequences of a possible thermonuclear war he made a lot of people uneasy. No wonder this was the sort of thing no one wanted to think about. A few years later in 1961, Kahn was a co-founder of the Hudson Institute in New York, a think tank that survived the sixties and today concentrates on developing a clear view of what's in store for mankind for many decades to come. Today it's fair to say Herman Kahn is bullish on tomorrow. His latest book titled, "The Next Two Hundred Years" is full of hope for civilization and it is squarely at odds with the so-called limits to growth people. Kahn's wide-ranging mind covers everything from solving the world food crisis to the possible melting of the Arctic Ocean ice pack. He even has some hints for future investors in post-industrial America-stocks in hotels, communications, entertainment, spices and flavors, recreational equipment and real estate companies with holdings in the southwestern United States will flourish in those next 200 years according to Kahn. We're going to be faced with some tough personal, social and political choices. Parents may be able to select the sex of each child. Hibernation may become possible for future dropouts. Genetic engineering may mean that parents can select traits for their children such as IQ level, height, physique and so forth. As Kahn says, "Can society tolerate a generation of children with IQs over 200?" By 1985, he says plastic surgery will be so sophisticated that it could completely alter appearances. "Can persons be allowed to assume the appearances of other persons?" he asks. This is just a sampling of the dilemmas Kahn raises for the future American. He talks about the possible uses of many kinds of energy forms including nuclear fission, windmills, bioconversions, solar radiation, ocean thermal power, geothermal energy, fusion, flywheels and something called photovoltaic power. Step by step Kahn refutes those pessimists who insist that our resources are running out, that the world's population will outstrip those resources and the food supply. Kahn puts his rebuttal this way when he explains his theory of a growing pie in the world economy. "No one knows accurately what the earth holds or can produce or what new uses may be made of new or old materials." The growing pie is a good metaphor for the currently localized increases in productivity, wealth and affluence will encourage similar increases almost everywhere. There's plenty to think about in the next 200 years, about a lifetime's worth I'd say. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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