Word: scenarios
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...that forecasting itself is suspect in turbulent times. There are many important uncertainties, none of the forecasters has been endowed with a crystal ball, and the resulting forecasts disguise rather than illuminate the critical uncertainties. Facing such circumstances, Royal Dutch/Shell has scrapped the notion of forecasting in favor of scenarios as a basis for evaluating the future. And unlike most other large firms which tried scenario planning, Shell has made it work successfully. I would like to borrow from their scheme to consider the prospects for the second term of the Reagan Administration...
...this stage, a Las Vegas gambler with a high technology crystal ball and the latest software might be forgiven for giving about 2 to I odds in favor of the stalemate scenario. But then, a Wall Street analyst convinced that the market was due to rise all but one year the superbow I has correctly foretold the course of the market for the year...
Robert Reich, Lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School and author of The Next American Frontier should keep a whole think tank of elves busy this year. His request: "A rosy scenario or upbeat projection." For anything in particular? No, the renowned expert on industrial policy just wants a rosy scenario in general...
...capacity approach can be only part of the solution. The issue of organ transplant distinguishes itself from other pressing medical controversies, like abortion, because it creates a competition that entails the somewhat morbid prospect of the buying and selling of organs, and thus lives, for profit. The "limited capacity" scenario allows for "retrospective review," i.e. hindsight, because it slows down transplant technology. However, this slowdown could actually limit the possibility of resolving the competition by removing the constraints--by developing the technology so that organs are plentiful, and the operation is cheaper. By legislating organ transplants out of its funding...
REWORKING OR at least reassessing the relationship between rapid technological change and social conditions means stepping in on a juggling act. It is possible to strike a balance between the "limited capacity" scenario and allowing technology to solve its own problems. What the new powers of medicine should not be is a call to take extreme sides; any scientific advance has a problem on its flip side, and by concentrating on the extreme alternatives the public confuses its dilemma. Scientific change and social change often run as two trains on independent tracks at different speeds. We tend to leap from...