ABSTRACT
This chapter stresses the point that the future is man-made. We can have the future we choose to have, and forecasting is useful in telling us what are the futures we can choose among. The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented. It was man's ability to invent which has made human society what it is. In social development, "costs" and "benefits" are not adequately measured by such manageable criteria as dollars or units of output. Hopefully, a better social knowledge will further social development at least in two ways: to identify things we are now doing which upon awareness we decide we ought to stop doing in order to survive, or to have lives worth living; and to help think through some of the things we may want to consider doing and to assess in advance the likely consequences of pursuing one or another course of action.
