If you are reading this guide, it is very likely that you and your collaborators are involved in the important task of thinking about what communities in the future will need to thrive.
Today, we navigate cultural environments that incentivize—and capitalize—our short-term thinking abilities. In our daily lives, we may experience this as distraction driven by digital devices, an accelerated sense of time, and/or messaging that feeds a sense of uncertainty about the future 1. Yet, people (we) have been making wise choices for a very long time and this guide explores why long-term thinking matters and how to sharpen this skill in our current context.
No. Practicing long-term thinking is not about predicting the future. In fact, three fundamental things to know about the future are that it is (1) not predetermined, (2) not predictable, and (3) can be influenced by our choices in the present 2.
When we cultivate long-term thinking skills, we prepare to make wise choices in the present for the benefit of future generations.
For instance, the Seventh Generation philosophy, embraced by many indigenous cultures worldwide, guides decision-makers to consider how present actions will affect seven generations into the future 3. This philosophy affirms the interconnectedness of all forms of life, and calls on present generations to take care of the places and ecosystems that will sustain people in the future.
Cultivating long-term thinking requires three key actions: caring, imagining, and planning for the future 4.
When key assumptions are left unexamined, even the most experienced long-term thinkers can become disoriented. We highlight three common challenges:
Fortunately, a variety of tools are available to navigate long-term thinking challenges and embed resilience:
Considering long-term, large-scale transformation in our communities requires particular thinking abilities. We can make wise decisions that benefit everyone, now and in the future, by taking care of the places that hold meaning and the ecosystems that sustain us. Thank you for cultivating long term perspectives and taking part in efforts that will help our communities thrive into our shared futures!
References
[1] The six drivers of short-termism are identified by public philosopher Roman Krznaric. Krznaric, R. The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking (2020). The Experiment (p 12-13) ↩
[2] Voros, J. A Primer on Futures Studies, foresight and the use of scenarios (2022) Available at: https://thevoroscope.com/publications/foresight-primer/ ↩
[3] Loew, P. Seventh Generation Earth Ethics, Native Voices of Wisconsin (2014) Wisconsin Historical Society Press: p XV ↩
[4] Six ways to think long (Krznaric, R., p. 12-13) ↩
[5] Shared values for a new worldview are proposed by author and sustainability leader Jeremy Lent: Lent, J. The Patterning Instinct, A Cultural History of Humanity's Search for Meaning (2017) Prometheus Book: p 434-436 ↩
[6] Discounting is a practice from finance and accounting that has migrated to policy-making, giving benefits in the future a lesser value that present ones (Krznaric, R., p. 73-77) ↩
[7] The S-curve or sigmoid function is a mathematical function. Many natural processes “exhibit a progression from small beginning that accelerates and approaches a climax over time”. Wikipedia (accessed 2023). Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function ↩
[8] Martin Scheffer, Critical Transitions in Nature and Society (2009) Princeton University Press, p 11-12. ↩
[9] Metcalfe's law describes many of the network effects of communication technologies and networks such as the Internet, social networking and the world wide web. Wikipedia (accesses 2023). Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law ↩
[10] The futures cone also referred to as the cone of possibility or cone of uncertainty identifies preferable, probable, preferable and projected futures. Voros, J. A Futures Cone, use and history (2017) Available at: https://thevoroscope.com/2017/02/24/the-futures-cone-use-and-history/ ↩