Chasing Black Swans through Science Fiction: Surprising Future Events in the Stories of a Finnish Writing Competition

10.6531/JFS.2015.20(2).A47

Toni Ahlqvist；Tuomo Uotila；Olli Hietanen

black swan ； science fiction ； surprising events ； futures

Journal of Futures Studies

20卷2期（2015 / 12 / 01）

47 - 65

英文

In the paper we analyse the notion of 'black swan' as popularised by Taleb (2007). We propose that in the context of the futures' imagination, a black swan can be defined as hybrid that integrates local knowledge with multiple temporal scales, combining past, present and future tenses. As empirical material, we analyse the short stories from a writing contest held by the Finnish Parliament’s Committee for the Future. The material contains 132 short stories. The analysis gives intriguing insights into how Finnish people-from different locales, of different ages and with differing educational and professional backgrounds-imagine different futures.