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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 10, 1980)
As a child, N!ai traveled freely across the African countryside with a small band of hunter-gatherers. As a woman, she now lives with 800people on a government set tlement. From film spanning 28 years with the IKung bushmen, filmmaker John Mar shall has created “N!ai, the Story of a !Kung Woman, ” to air Sunday, April 13, at 7 p.m. on Channel 15. United Press International Fiction The Bourne Identity — Robert Ludlum Princess Daisy -Judith Krantz The Devil’s Alternative — Frederick Forsythe Portraits — Cynthia Freeman The Bleeding Heart — Marilyn French Memories of Another Day — Harold Robbins The Dead Zone — Stephen King The Lion of Ireland — Mor gan Llywelyn The Paladin — Brian Gar field Smiley’s People — John Le Carre 0861. ‘01. judyy ‘9 exit? IT'S Nonfiction All You Need to Know Ab out the IRS — Paul Strassels How to Become Financial ly Independent in Real Estate — Albert L. Lowery The Third Wave — Alvin Toffler Donahue — Phil Donahue Free to Choose — Milton Friedman How to Invest Your Money and Profit From Inflation — Morton Schulman The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court—Bob Wood ward and Scott Armstrong The Book of Lists No. 2 — Irving Wallace et al They Call Me Assassin — Jack Tatum Nothing Down — Robert Allen Records KTAM — 1240 AM Popular Hits 1. Born Again — Preston/ Syreeta 2. Lady — Ray, Goodman & Brown 3. Another Brick — Pink Floyd 4. I Can’t Tell You Why — Eagles 5. You May Be Right — Billy Joel 6. Ride... — Christopher Cross 7. Lost In Love — Air Supply 8. Sexy Eyes — Dr. Hook 9. Do Right — Paul Davis 10. Call Me — Blondie KORA — 98 FM Country Singles 1. Women I’ve Never Had — Hank Williams, Jr. 2. A Lesson In Leavin’ — Dot- tie West 3. My Home’s In Alabama — Alabama 4. Two Story House — Jones/ Wynette 5. Beneath Still Waters — Emmylou Harris 6. When Two Worlds Collide — Jerry Lee Lewis 7. The Cowgirl & The Dandy— Brenda Lee 8. It’s Like We Never Said Goodbye — Crystal Gayle 9. Are You On Road to Lovin Me— Debby Boone 10. Gone Too Far—Eddie Rab- bitt Futurists don’t look into crystal balls by Uschi Michel-Howell Battalion Reporter Eva X. is a sales director of a world-wide computer firm. She works three days a week, has a doctorate in computing science and lives in Old York, a sub-community of a metropolis. Marc P., hand grenade in one hand, pistol in the other, breathes through a gas mask and awaits his death. He is the last survivor in the war that will destroy the entire earth popula tion. Fiction or truth, both situations can be im agined by futurists, people who try to predict the future by looking at statistics and current trends. “Futurists don’t look into crystal balls,” said Dr. John R. Hoyle, a futurist and professor at Texas A&M University. Futurism is developing into a science that studies cultural changes, demography and technology. Consulting experts and setting up scenarios of future societies is how futurists try to predict how the planet earth will develop, Hoyle said. In the Delphi method of predictions team of experts meets several times, making predic tions of the future and trying to reach a consen sus on the most probable events that could happen in the future. Whether a person makes an optimistic or a pessimistic prediction depends on his outlook, Hoyle said. As a member of the World Future Society, a 40,000-member organization, Hoyle studies the future and works on possible solutions to the world’s most urgent problems. Hoyle, 45, who teaches the only futurism class at Texas A&M, has a mixed outlook for the future. In the year 2000, the Aggie graduate of ’57 predicts the world population will be older — one of five will be over 55 — and seven billion people will inhabit the earth. The industrialized nations will be increas ingly computerized, using home computers for banking, learning and other things, Hoyle said. “If there is creative management, we will get other work arrangements,” Hoyle said. “Short work weeks will be introduced and people will share the same job, working it alternatingly.” Hoyle, who teaches graduate students how to assess the future, said that short work weeks will be necessary, because the number of potential employees is increasing, following the post-World War II baby boom. “Otherwise young people will not get a chance to advance to middle or higher man agement positions held by the older genera tion,” Hoyle said. Hoyle, a futurist since 1971, believes in the importance of the environment and that all people need more education and awareness, he said. “People are not careful with our environ ment. Oil spills are examples of that,” he said. “We live in a post-industrial society. Tech nology has peaked and we need to learn how to apply it wisely. “Before we take any actions, we should de velop goals. We are on a spaceship earth and it can have a good or a bad future,” Hoyle said. Futuristics involves imagining and exploring desirable futures in hopes of discovering new ideas, alternatives and goals to shoot for, according to a book catalogue of the World Future Society, which also publishes a maga zine. Futurism is important for all disciplines, Hoyle said, although he believes that educa tion is the field that is most important for the future. “Through education and communication there is a possibility for a common future," he said. “The peoples of the world don’t share a common past, but a common future. We have got to realize that we’re interconnected,” he said. Experts of the World Future Society get together in meetings and try to carry common goals back to their home countries, Hoyle said. The International Partnership Coordinating Committee, for example, works for improving global education, he said. Futurists also influence government policy in the United States, Hoyle said. The president of the futuristic Hudson Institute in Washing ton, Herman Kahn, testifies regularly before Congress, Hoyle said. The “future” professor predicted the follow ing for Texas A&M: More minorities will come to get the neces sary education for more demanding jobs that will open up for minorities. Corps membership will increase due to pre sent unsettled political conditions. Hoyle’s personal future will include world travel, some writing and the hope to be in volved in establishing an international network of education.