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My esteemed blogfriend of longstanding, Sir Younghusband of Coming Anarchy, took issue with my remarks in the previous post and commented ( seconded by ubiwar):

“Historians and futurists use complementary methodologies …”In my experience futurists and historians are at one another’s throats over methodology. I would like to compare these methodologies in more detail. Can you elaborate on what you mean?

There is a clash of professional cultures and perspectives between academic historians and futurists, no argument. That’s why I used the term “complementary” in the previous post – the respective methodologies are divergent enough to remediate the weaknesses of the other for those thinkers open to broadening their analytical horizons. Not everyone has the comfort zone demonstratedby Niall Ferguson and Peter Schwartz; methodologically conservative “old school” historians who disdain the skill-sets of even cognate social science fields and highly speculative futurists are quite likely to talk past one another. A shame, in my view.

To begin, it’s an epistemological error to confuse either field with physics. Futurism has strongly imaginative, insight-generative and generally “fuzzy” aspects even when rarefied computer modeling, prediction markets or mathematically advanced techniques for making probabilistic estimates are being employed  (none of which I am qualified to comment upon in depth) and as a field, it is still in the pioneering stage.  History has a longer intellectual pedigree, stretching back to Herodotus and Thucydides with the advent of modern historical techniques beginning with Leopold von Ranke and the professionalization of academia by the German university system that became the model for the Western world, particularly the noveau-riche United States of the late 19th century. Historical methodology is accepted by historians as a yardstick to measure one another’s work and is the basis for much of the nitpicking “gotcha” nature of historiagrahical criticism. Alternative methods are viewed with suspicion; it took decades for academic historians to begin giving any credence whatsoever to oral history, for example.

Ideally, historians approach a question with skepticism and attempt to fnd an explain causation within an accurate context by working backwards toward the point of origin. “Primary source” documents are privileged as evidence by which they mean certain kinds of documents, preferably government records and memoranda, alongside private papers, scrutinized with great care. These are supplemented by authoritative secondary material that helps the historian understand the primary sources within the accurate context of the time rather than anachronistically. These discrete facts and clues are then reinterpreted by the historian in the form of a comprehensible narrative that does not deviate from the evidentiary trail. History is a craft, not a science.

Naturally, historical methodology, which seeks to demonstrate the verifiable, is an approach with the potential for generating enormous lacunae. Government officials do not always put their most sensitive discussions or actions on paper or destroy such documents after the fact (ex.- both Beria and Khrushchev ransacked Stalin’s private archive after the dictator’s death). Even when such papers exist, they are seldom readily accessible or are written in euphemistic, elusive, terminology or bureaucratic jargon. The unofficial, personal, relationships upon which many decisions hinge are often entirely absent from the “official” paper record as are often the human circumstances of the “deciders”. It takes superhuman detective work to fill in these kinds of blanks and a tolerance for sources of uncertain reliability ( this is a job for…a biographer! See Ron Chernow, Robert Caro etc.).

Futurists, as the term implies, look forward, rather than back. They begin with intuitive assumptions and engage in a variety of means of extrapolation ranging from ( among many)  logical-philosophical thought experiments mapped out as decision trees to the construction of imaginative but complex scenarios for “free play” exercises to building models of great mathematical rigor. Futurists scan widely for potential variables and patterns. Imagination and synthesis play a significant role in framing the initial starting point for analytical extrapolation. Futurists are t panoramic vision to the historian’s telescope ( or at times, microscope).

The problem with futurists is that their predictions are all too frequently in error, generally suffering from a bias toward dystopian outcomes, overestimation of the linear downstream effect of favored variables relative to the effects of the variable’s interaction with all other variables along with overestimating of the synchronicity of all variables (most variables are asynchronous – otherwise the human race would be in a near-constant state of catastrophe. The “perfect storm” rarely comes together). Their scenarios, in other  words,  lack the level of “friction” present in historical case studies, much less that of real life.

Futurists can inject a far greater range of possibilities to consider for causation for historians while historians can help bring greater realism to futurist scenarios. The two fields, both of which must deal with uncertainty, are ready-made for collaboration

ubiwar points to an excellent post at The Long Now summarizing a debate-discussion between historian Niall Ferguson and futurist Peter Schwartz:

….Ferguson ended with a critique of Schwartz’s book on scenario planning, THE ART OF THE LONG VIEW, which he thought showed signs of “heuristic bias.” When Schwartz asked Ferguson to expand on that idea, Ferguson pointed out there was a whole chapter in the book about “The Global Teenager,” which seemed spurious. It merely reflected Schwartz’s personal experience: “You were a teenager when teenagers mattered. “

Historians also have heuristic biases, Ferguson added, such as their expectation that “great events should have great causes.” Historians have much to learn from complexity theory and evolution, he said. His own work with “counter-factual history” helps expose critical moments in history and provides a way to “think about what didn’t happen.” The counter-factual technique is an application of scenario thinking to the past.

In Schwartz’s opening remarks, he said that his plans to write a book titled THE CASE FOR OPTIMISM were derailed by reading Ferguson’s WAR OF THE WORLD. He’s been grappling with the issues Ferguson raised for 18 months. “You do alternative pasts, I do alternative futures. Where historians commune with the dead, futurists have imaginary friends.”

Historians and futurists use complementary methodologies that can enrich and inspire each other’s work.

Historians, accustomed to analytical searches for causation, are excellent at vetting the plausibility of imagineered, hypothetical scenarios and can inform through historical analogies. Futurists, in turn, are analytically attuned to alternatives and points of divergence and can help unearth what Nassim Nicholas Taleb calls “silent evidence” lurking in the often excessively linear and simplified causation explanations of historical narratives.

I’ve come to greatly appreciate the intellectual depth and range of Charles Cameron ever since having been “introduced” to him (in the online sense) by my seagoing friend, Web 2.0 visioneer Critt Jarvis. Today, Charles pointed me to a veritable archive of writings by Michael Wilson, a futurist, scholar and former member of the IC. Some of the ideas and conclusions that I have been working toward on this blog these past few years were literally being advocated by Wilson well over a decade ago.

I’ve only just begun to look at these and I’m posting them here for those readers whose interests gravitate toward issues of intel analysis and futurism:

7Pillars Partners – Papers by Michael Wilson

Continual & Complete Intelligence: A 21st Century Approach

Addendum:

Charles Cameron is cordially invited to expand on the subject of Mr. Wilson and I will happily publish such remarks here.

New (at least to me) e-magazine focused on creativity, innovation, business, collaboration and organizational culture. Brainwaves seems to have a good roster of “thought leader” contributer/consultants, sort of akin to  CORANTE.

Worth a look.

An extremely intriguing post by Steve DeAngelis today:

The Importance of Willpower

….Aamodt and Wang assert that personal willpower (the ability to overcome the tension created between desire and common sense) is a zero sum game — use it and you lose it. That is, people who demonstrate willpower in one area have less of it to use in another.

“The brain’s store of willpower is depleted when people control their thoughts, feelings or impulses, or when they modify their behavior in pursuit of goals. Psychologist Roy Baumeister and others have found that people who successfully accomplish one task requiring self-control are less persistent on a second, seemingly unrelated task. In one pioneering study, some people were asked to eat radishes while others received freshly baked chocolate chip cookies before trying to solve an impossible puzzle. The radish-eaters abandoned the puzzle in eight minutes on average, working less than half as long as people who got cookies or those who were excused from eating radishes. Similarly, people who were asked to circle every ‘e’ on a page of text then showed less persistence in watching a video of an unchanging table and wall. Other activities that deplete willpower include resisting food or drink, suppressing emotional responses, restraining aggressive or sexual impulses, taking exams and trying to impress someone. Task persistence is also reduced when people are stressed or tired from exertion or lack of sleep.”

During the Second World War, the United States faced in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, enemies whose leadership placed an unusual stock in the advantages of superior will.  While roundly cursed posthumously by his generals at the time, historians now tend to give Hitler considerable credit for preventing a potential disaster in the face of the Red Army counterattack in 1942 with his fanatical insistence that the Wehrmacht stand and fight for every inch of ground, ultimately stabilizing the German lines and permitting a regrouping for further offensives. Noted historian, John Lukacs, has written of Adolf Hitler ” His mind and willpower were extraordinary….”.

Hitler held his regime together to the very end with his word being regarded as law througout the Third Reich, even when Soviet tanks were two hundred meters from his Fuhrerbunker. He dismissed from office his most powerful paladins, Goering and Himmler with a word, even when he was mere hours from his own suicide. The strain of such indomitible determination, in the face of apocalyptic stress, however, made a physical and mental wreck of Der Fuhrer. Hitler’s marked physical degeneration after 1941 was aggravated by the gross quackery of his physician Theodore Morell, an unhealthy lifestyle and injuries sustained in the 1944 bomb plot, but close associates like Speer had noted personality changes in Hitler as early as the latter’s fiftieth birthday when Hitler began to rigidly and monomaniacally focus on the war. Shuffling, beset by Parkinsonian symptoms, frequent rages and chronic insomnia, possibly addicted to stimulant drugs, Hitler’s sickly, grayish appearance often startled high Nazi officials who were granted increasingly rare audiences in Hitler’s final years.