Category talk:Futurology
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[edit] Futurology: a re-think of the category structure and taxonomies.
I would like to open the discussion by noting that "futurology" has two origins: the formal academic etymology, and popular culture usage. With regard to the former, Ossip Flechtheim coined the term in the 1940s (see his essay on the subject, handily available online here: [1]); members of the emerging academic field discussed adopting the term, but the emergent consensus in the 70s went with "futures studies" instead; the term "futurology" still gets airplay in Europe, although primarily among journalists and people who aren't actually tracking the futures studies literature. As for the "popular culture" usage, I'm referring to the tendency in colloquial English to "-ologize" anything informally. So, "thinking about the future" = "futurology."
However, when you look at the subcategories listed on this page, you will see that they are all broadly human activities relating to the future. So this category is really, "Thinking about the Future". Or maybe, even more inclusively, just "Future," with a disambiguation link to "Futures."
Other suggestions to fix the "Futurology" inaccuracy? wendyif 09:20, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
