Great observations Stephen.
I’ve been contemplating joining STN, just a bit too overwhelmed with current projects at present. May I ask the cost? Re your points:
1. Yes, a common trap. I’ve noticed that a number of journals offer an “opinion” section, usually reserved for more senior practitioners, for them to say whatever they want in a journalistic style. They also accept book reviews on relevant new books, which allows essentially the same thing. Having these seem like great ideas for an Open Access Futures Journal. Magazines (which are editor-reviewed) are also the standard way for journalistic material to get to the public, and I think our Pre-Print Community should steer futurists to publish extensively in futures related magazines, with open access archiving of their articles, as Melanie stresses.
2. We may presently have a difference of opinion in this regard. I half-agree with your assessment. If the WFS is not printing possible/scenario futures they are definitely missing half the picture, which is unfortunate. Yet I believe a number of long range processes are predictable, and a few are well established as precisely, quantitatively predictable (eg., celestial mechanics, etc.). A number of human social, economic, and technological processes are statistically predictable and have been over long timescales (relative to human lives), while others (some would say most) appear intrinsically unpredictable (random within constraints). I think the best futures approach tries to include both possibility and probability, and differentiate the two where possible.
3. Great point. Perhaps this can be addressed for journals by having an appropriately broad-based and global set of peer reviewers, with majority voting on the selection. As Bucky Fuller says, there is no unbiased education or jury, but a multibiased one, with majority vote for acceptance, may get you a globally relevant set of outputs.
Best,
Joh

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