What Does the Future Hold for Humanity? November 16, 2010

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Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2010/10/16/Long_Conversation_with_Peter_Schwartz_and_Danese_Cooper

Futurist Peter Schwartz talks with Wikipedia CTO Danese Cooper about whether or not there's hope for humanity's future. Cooper relates the story of a technologist who drives a Hummer because he views humanity as a lost cause, while Schwartz counters that a look back at history proves that "the pessimists have got it wrong; the optimists keep getting it right."

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Long Conversation, an epic relay of one-to-one conversations among some of the Bay Area's most interesting minds, took place over six hours in San Francisco on Saturday, October 16, 02010. Interpreting the Long Conversation in real time was a data visualization performance by Sosolimited; an art and technology studio out of M.I.T.

Long Conversation was presented with a live performance of 1,000 minutes of composer Jem Finer's Longplayer.

Peter Schwartz is cofounder and chairman of Global Business Network (GBN), a unique membership organization and worldwide network of strategists, business executives, scientists, and artists based in Emeryville, California. Established in 01988, GBN specializes in corporate scenario planning and research on the future of the business environment. From 01982 to 01986, Schwartz headed scenario planning for the Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Companies in London. His team conducted comprehensive analyses of the global business and political environment and worked with senior management to create successful strategies.

Danese Cooper is a programmer, computer scientist, and advocate of open source software. Known as the "Open Source Diva" after stints as an open source community builder at Sun Microsystems, Intel, and REvolution Computing, she is currently Treasurer on the board of the Open Source Initiative. Since February, 2010, she is the Chief Technical Officer of the Wikimedia Foundation.