Dear Marc,
interesting work. The potential risk of an essay centred on education is one of sounding a bit obvious, but I think you have sufficiently avoided this problem, by providing some non-trivial arguments, justifications, and implementation details for your proposal. The prose and the logic is fluent, and makes up for a pleasurable, effortless reading.
I certainly agree that education is likely to be more effective, in steering our future, than some global institutional efforts, whose results `are often disappointing`.
Some criticism now. There are at least a couple of points in which the text, in my opinion, suffers from the `do the right thing` syndrome (in other words, is excessively generic), i.e. TOPICS 12 and 13 of your futurocentric curriculum. They sound to me too generic and obvious to capture a concrete implementation, and invite a (perhaps equally obvious) reaction that I am pretty sure you would agree with: the devil is in the details! Who can tell to really understand `the way the world works`? Which world? First, second, third? One thing is trying to come up with a futurocentric curriculum by having a `discussion` within, say, the United States. Another thing would be to involve (also) Europe, with its more marked diversity among countries. And yet another thing is to extend it to Middle East, Far East, Africa, etc. There are many worlds; and even it there were only one, it would still be a complex system endlessly open to unpredictable evolution steps (I`m being quick and generic too, but I guess you get the point).
You very correctly point out that inventions such as the cell phone have contributed to steering humanity (at least in life styles) beyond `the prognostications of professional futurists`, and, I would add, beyond the control and capacity of global `political` institutions. Who can predict what the next revolutionary invention would be, and what effects it will induce? These factors, largely unpredictable and un-steerable, are likely to play a stronger role than any other.
About the implementation of your plan, I appreciated your experienced concern for motivating high-school students to work on the topics of the envisaged curriculum. One may wonder, however, whether perspectives on the medium-long-term collective future of humanity would be more effective, in motivating high-school students, than the perspective of their short-term, individual, professional future. In this respect I find the essay by Hossenfelder as more realistic, when it assesses the laziness of human beings: we are not so good in interacting with scenarios that are far in space and time. (I guess that your proposal could nicely borrow some of her original ideas.)
Finally, a closing, semi-serious remark. I think your final quote of the Millenium Institute:
`These great conversations will be better informed if we realize that the world is improving better than most pessimists know and that future dangers are worse than most optimists indicate.`
is a good example of the weakness and genericity of these global endeavours. To me the quote is perfectly tautological: it directly follows from the definition of optimistic and pessimistic person!
Best regards
Tommaso