Tomamso,
Thank you for taking the time to read my essay, and for your very insightful comments.
I agree that my topic 12, "a future-literate citizen needs to be aware of the different factors that translate into a fulfilling life, and of the importance of taking into account the social, psychological, spiritual, artistic and cultural aspects of the lives of the citizens of the world", covers a lot of ground and is very generic. Being a physicist, I was much more explicit in other topics more related to the "hard sciences", but I wanted to emphasize that a futurocentric curriculum can be enriched by contributions from all aspects of life, including the artistic, the spiritual, etc. Obviously, this single topic needs to be expanded to be more detailed and specific.
My topic 13, "a future literate-citizen needs to have a wide and deep enough understanding of the way the world works so as to be able to evaluate the plausibility of a claim about the future in the news, or of a futuristic scenario in a work of fiction" has some kind of special status: it calls for the integration of knowledge about the other topics, as to acquire some sort of "gut feeling" about the plausibility or the implausibility of a claim about some future scenario or technology. For instance, a future literate citizen should be able to realize that injecting an adult organism with new DNA, no matter how advanced the technique, could never transform that organism into a new type of organism (like a human being into a man-animal chimera) in a few minutes or hours. Why is this important? I think some of the knee-jerk reactions that people have against some technologies (like genetic engineering) are influenced by what they see in science fiction stories (even though they are aware it is science fiction). I love science fiction, even when it is not realistic. But I think it is educational (and fun) to pick apart some science fiction scenarios in order to advance our understanding of how the real world works, and what is realistically feasible in the near future.
In the next part of your criticism, you write:
"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 think you have nicely summarized the most difficult challenges that has to overcome any concrete proposition about "steering the future". I think it is only natural (and practical) to start by having local conversations about what should be on a futurocentric curriculum, before going "worldwide". It will certainly be very challenging to have a worldwide conversation about steering the future, because "the future is not evenly distributed" (in the words of William Gibson).
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