Alvin Toffler, 'Future Shock' Author Who Predicted Disconnection of Modern World, Dies at 87

NBC News ^ | JUN 29 2016 | Alex Johnson

[Wilhelm Tell]

The future isn’t what it used to be.

[ifinnegan]

“Toffler wasn’t a fool - he was evil. His whole life was a psyop dedicated to teaching people to accept the contrived destruction of Western culture as natural and inevitable. Good riddance to the bastard.”

Interesting comment.

How much was he predicting vs working toward?

[Pontiac]

Toffler — who is also credited with having coined the term "information overload" to describe people's struggle to keep up with exponentially expanding data

I have found the generally it is ignored.

I have noted that the company I work for collects huge amounts of data files it away and ignores it.

Much of this is regulatory requirements. The government required tons of records to be kept that are of no use to the company. So the data is collected filed and kept for the required period and then destroyed. It is promptly destroyed so that it can’t be used against the company if a lawsuit is filed.

[quantumman]

He and Ehrlich who made a living constantly predicting the end of the world with his Malthusian theories. Cassandra’s always do well with the glitterati media crowd which feeds into the hate America themes of the left.

[Captain7seas]

“Dear old ALVIN was a NUTCASE! “

And Dear old Newt advocated his ideas like “ The Third Way”.

[ManHunter]

The Army paid some attention to Toffler’s book “War and Anti-War” when it was published near the end of my career and he was asked to speak to officers and senior NCOs at my post. I was his escort and spent the better part of a day with him. All I can say is that the guy was a complete flake with no real grasp of the nature of warfare - especially unconventional warfare; a PhD with a lot of purely theoretical concepts, but no grasp of reality.

[chemicalman]

Ooops.

[j.argese]

Could you please provide one example of his “predictions” from “Future Shock” which had NOT come to pass within 50 years of it’s publication?

[wardaddy]

Nesbit I think

[Pelham]

John Naisbitt

http://www.amazon.com/John-Naisbitt/e/B000AP8Q5G/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1

[pilipo]

McLuhan was an interesting character. Difficult for most people to understand (with any depth) as his mercurial abstract form required unusual focus. He is most definitely not everyone’s cup of tea.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[avenir]

Thanks.

[avenir]

I had a paperback of his, THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE (excerpt above). It was very late sixties with hip photo-typography (lots of Helvetica!). I clicked with his weird sensibility easily then (20's).

Actually, seeing this excerpt makes me want to find that book!

[nopardons]

I’ve known THAT since he FIRST said that and condemned Newtie for doing so, as I had read all three books in that series, since they came out originally. :-)

[nopardons]

Please allow me to do so....

One of the ones that has always stuck in my mind, was that people, especially women, would be wearing paper clothes and instead of having to wash or having an item of clothing dry cleaned, we would just throw it all away and wear brand new clothes the next time.

[CutePuppy]

And Dear old Newt advocated his ideas like "The Third Way".

You keep getting it incorrectly — "Third Wave" is not "Third Way" — which is entirely different, political concept of public-private economic integration, which was promoted by the Clintons and Tony Blair. **

** Ref: Donna Shalala to head Clinton Foundation [long history with Hillary] - FR, post #38 by CutePuppy, 2015 March 08

• To: Captain7seas; Cincinatus' Wife

  If I remember correctly, back when Newt first was Speaker he held a press conf. on CSPAN where he advocated reading Alvin and Heidi Tofflers book which was about advancing the Third Way.

  You remember incorrectly. Alvin Toffler's book Third Wave (1980) was a sequel to Future Shock (1970), which later was followed by Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (1990). However, in 2006, an updated theme of Third Wave was published in a much expanded book Revolutionary Wealth (2006), which I would highly recommend - particularly because many of the things described there as "the future" have already happened, and some are happening with lightening speed... whether we like it or not, it helps to know what to expect so we could either be ready for them, help advance some of them or lead the fight against some of them.

  Third Wave in Tofflers' terminology is the Information Age, contrasted with the Second Wave which was the Industrial Age, assigning the First Wave to the Agrarian Age **. It has nothing to do with the Third Way which is a euphemism for a fascist socialist tight public-private economic integration, which was promoted by the Clintons and Tony Blair, among others. ***

[CutePuppy]

I found an old copy of Future shock a few years ago and read it expecting it to have been wrong, like most of the prediction books. But it was not. It was pretty darn accurate. .....

How much was he predicting vs working toward? .....

Could you please provide one example of his "predictions" from "Future Shock" which had NOT come to pass within 50 years of it's publication? .....

Futurists are not — nor do they claim to be — clairvoyants, mediums or psychics, so "prediction" is not an accurate way to describe or evaluate the content.

Futurism, not unlike good [technological] science fiction, is not about hard "predictions" — rather it's a vision of one or more possibilities or paths the civilization or [some] societies may take based on the state and trends of current technology and political or population shifts.

It's not necessarily what they personally want to happen or are afraid that would happen, rather these are things or paths that they see that have a good chance and high probability of happening and how they might evolve and affect people in different societies.

Often, even if the technology comes true, it may not be either economically viable at that period of time for society as a whole or there may be other new technology that, while not necessarily better may be cheaper or better promoted and catches the people's fancy or will be imposed on them by the industry or the governments. There are too many variables so exactly which paths the society will take is impossible to "predict" but getting some of the minor future developments "wrong" shouldn't detract from the overall value of the content — it's an opportunity to escape the daily news cycle and learn about things we don't necessarily know, understand or think about and look a little further ahead.

Alvin and Heidi Toffler's book Third Wave (1980) was a sequel to Future Shock (1970), which later was followed by Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century (1990). However, in 2006, an updated theme of Third Wave was published in a much expanded book Revolutionary Wealth (2006), which I would highly recommend — particularly because many of the things described there as "the future" have already happened, and some are happening with lightening speed... whether we like it or not, it helps to know what to expect so we could either be ready for them, help advance some of them or lead the fight against some of them.

[nickcarraway]

I find it interesting, his supporters keep saying things, like, "name one prediction that Toffler made that didn't come true."

Why phrase it that way. Shouldn't you be enumerating the things he predicted that DID come true. Especially, if there are so many of them.

I'd be interested in hearing them, Especially if they aren't so vague that there was no way they wouldn't come true.