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"Arthur C Clarke and the end of upbeat futurology

At this time of year we invariably look ahead: divining the runes, tracking the currents, calculating and extrapolating in an attempt to map out likely eventualities. And this year, of course, is also the beginning of a new decade: chronological circumstances that almost demand we make daring forecasts, grand leaps of faith. The coming years and decades are, to paraphrase JG Ballard, a vast untouched continent of predictive possibility stretching out before us.

Arthur C Clarke is possibly the greatest of all futurologists; almost certainly the most famous and oft-quoted. Lately I've been rereading his Profiles of the Future (An Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible), first published in 1962 – just five years after Sputnik II carried Laika the dog into orbit. The sky really did seem the limit back then. Within a dozen years humans were playing golf on the moon, nonchalantly asserting our mastery over the universe. "

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