LA Future Salon (LAFS) at UCLA
Improving the Way We Look at the Future.

About LAFS at UCLA is a group of students and nonstudents that brings interesting speakers, resources, and demos to the UCLA campus each month. Our mission is to explore fascinating, useful, and profitable topics in Science, Technology, Business, and Social Change, for the purpose of Education, Discussion, and Networking with other change-oriented and future-interested people. Your voice is very important to the process. Join us! Want discussion with local futurists?          Join LA Future Salon - Talk. Want to talk with folks in our entire U.S. Salon Network (15 salons)?          Join North American Future Salon Network - Talk. Looking for More Social Groups?          Other LA Groups We Recommend

For Meeting Notifications Go to LAFS - Events or click below: Click to join LAFS - Events 630 online members, 20-40 attending each month. See you at our next meeting!

Upcoming Salon Schedule: Not Currently Active. We Need a New Moderator!
Jun 10, 2007 (1pm-4pm), Kerckhoff 131/133, Jim Dewar, Director, RAND Pardee Ctr. for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition; Author, Assumption-Based Planning. The Challenge of Long-Term Policy Analysis.
After June, John Smart and Iveta Brigis move to the SF Bay Area.

LA Future Salon Moderator position is presently open!
Please email John if you'd like to run this LA based futures and foresight community.
We have over 600 folks, mostly from the West Side (Santa Monica area) who would love to go to a monthly discussion salon on futures-related topics in science, technology, business, and social change!

Want to help pick speakers, suggest topics, or help run the salon? Join our Salon Moderators list!

Our Next/Last Salon (2007)

Hi Friends and Futurists!

Join us Sunday, June 10th, 2007, UCLA, Kerckhoff, 131/133, 1pm-4pm for a great futurist presentation!

Insight, Article, and Resource Sharing
Discover anything cool since our last meeting? Bring your latest insights, articles, books, magazines, DVD's, art, tools, tips, resources, gadgets, ideas, etc. to share (1pm-2pm)

The Challenge of Long-Term Policy Analysis
Jim Dewar, RAND Pardee Center for Long Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition (2pm-4pm)
See Directions and Parking to get to Kerckhoff Hall (the building just east/uphill from Ackerman Student Union).

Abstract: Public policy is famously driven by short-term agendas. But many issues high on national and international agendas have enormous potential long-term consequences, and it is indeed because people realize their long-term importance that these issues are so salient. To name a few:

• Policies regarding the environment and the management of renewable and nonrenewable resources.
• Climate change.
• Education.
• International security, including basic strategic decisions about missions and capabilities.
• Large-scale physical infrastructure such as transportation.
• Energy policies.
• Investments in research and development.
• Institutional reforms such as social security and the design of tax systems.

The challenge is to bring longer-term considerations into short-term agendas. The canonical policy analysis paradigm (set the context, generate policy alternatives, project alternatives into the future, value the outcomes, choose the best policy) is ill-suited both for projecting alternative courses of action into the long-term future and for valuing outcomes where they can be reasonably projected. Long-Term Policy Analysis is the name given to an attempt to shore up the weaknesses in the shorter-term policy analysis paradigm in order to bring longer-term considerations into today's decisions. This talk develops a framework for Long-Term Policy Analysis and its tools.

Bio: Prof. Dewar is director of the RAND Frederick S. Pardee Center for Longer Range Global Policy and the Future Human Condition and the Frederick S. Pardee Professor of Long-Term Policy Analysis at the RAND Graduate School. He has been a pioneer in the development of Assumption-Based Planning (ABP), a widely used strategic planning methodology, and the author of Assumption-Based Planning: A Tool For Reducing Avoidable Surprises, 2002. He has helped clients including large corporations, institutions of higher education, and the Department of Defense. Prof. Dewar received his B.S. from Harvey Mudd College and an M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in mathematics.

See You There
Come catch up with your fellow futurists on a sunny Sunday afternoon at UCLA. Parking on campus is $8. You can also finagle free parking at Best Buy/Ralphs in the Village (Le Conte & Tiverton, be sure to buy something at Ralph's), or on the streets south of Wilshire. See Directions and Parking.

Here's what's open in the Student Union on Sunday:

On Ground Level is the UCLA Store, Computer Store, and BookZone (over 75,000 titles) (Noon-5pm)
Above that is A-Level, with Jamba Juice (9am-4pm).
Above that is First Floor Ackerman, with Rubio’s, Panda Express, Sbarro’s, and Wetzel’s (11am-5pm).
Above that is Second Floor Ackerman, with Meeting Rooms.
Just north of us is the Kerckhoff Coffee House (8am-6pm).

The nice thing about meeting Sunday afternoon is that we can eat on campus, go to the bookstore, and get coffee either before or after the Salon. We can also walk to the Village for dinner or a movie afterward.

We hope to see you at our next Salon!

See Past Salons Archive for a list of past LAFS speakers and topics.
See LA Future Salon Network page for links to other Future Salons (now in 15 cities).

Lending Library
Veteran salongoers (as well as newcomers who contribute to our collection) can check out DVDs, audiobooks, and software from our growing LAFS Lending Library. Come check it out!

Salon Audio Archive
Go to our Audio Archive page to download select MP3's of past Salon Speakers. Listen at home or on the go!

Wiki
Speaker, theme, or salon improvement suggestions? Would you like to blog speaker presentations for the benefit of our community? Use the Los Angeles section of our Future Salons Wiki. Salon attendees only, please.

About
LA Future Salon (LAFS) is a future-oriented monthly speaker, discussion, and social group open to students and nonstudents alike. Twenty to forty of us meet every month for information sharing, presentations, debate, and discussion about our accelerating world. Many of us walk to a restaurant to eat and socialize before and afterward.

LAFS is a place where people with an interest in the future get together for fun and challenging talks, debate, and dialogue on key trends and innovations in science, technology, business, and society.

What changes will come to humanity in the 21st century?
How do we maintain balance and foresight in a world of accelerating change?

We probe such questions with new speakers, demos, and book and article reviews each month. Bring a web printout, book, tip, or friend to share, to educate your peers on the surprising new events that happen between each meeting.

See also ASF's Future Salons Network for a list of salons in other cities and the online virtual world Second Life. For more on the nonprofit behind the salons, visit Accelerating.org

Technology will play an increasingly important role in global society in coming decades. Many of our machines are becoming increasingly human-independent ("autonomous"), and some futurists predict a "self-evolved" intelligence before the end of this century. Many processes of technological change, but not human cultural change, go faster every year. How do we best adapt to this challenge?

Perhaps the first step is to cultivate a community of positive, practical, skeptical, yet acceleration-aware multidisciplinary change leaders. Together we can help each other take advantage of the extraordinary opportunities of our rapidly changing world, while managing the risks, downsides, and disruptions of continuous change in a more enlightened manner. See you there!

Looking for more cool creative, techie, future-aware, and dynamic groups in the LA area? Want more interesting events around the great metropolis for your calendar? Here are some recommendated browsing sites, from our members. Many of these have email/events lists. One fine day we'll be able to subscribe to event feeds on each these sites and have them all stream into one single online calendar! With meeting directions sent to our car nav systems, alarms SMS texted to our wearable cellphones, and one click e-commerce signup. No more email overload! OK, tech entrepreneurs, who's going to invent that for us?!

ACM (Association for Computing Machinery). LA Area Student Chapters: (CSULA, UCR).
ACM LA Area Professional Chapters:
    Los Angeles Chapter, 1st Wednesdays each month. Free. Loyola Marymount University. General interest in computers.
    Los Angeles SIGGRAPH, 1st or 2nd Tuesdays each mo. $35/yr. In-depth on the latest in computer graphics. Great Group.
    Orange County ACM SIGCHI. Yahoo Group. How humans interact with computer technology.
APCUG (Assn of Personal Computer User Groups) in California. Oldskool monthly social networks for IT learning.
BarCamp Los Angeles. Everyone is a presenter, learning together. Also laid back Geek Dinners. Highly recommended.
Enigma. UCLA Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Gaming Club. Great group of creative thinkers.
Cafe Inquiry. Monthly science and freethinker presentations and discussion at CFI West. Free. Hollywood.
Calendar Live. Reviews, events and things to do in Southern California, from the Los Angeles Times.
Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum. Encouraging the growth and success of tech-based ventures in Southern CA. Great network.
Craigs List LA Events. Massive list of events posted daily. Hard to navigate, and lots of spam, but some gems.
DJ Wolfie. Wolfie's (best LA-Area DJ) great list for local warehouse and underground parties. Lots of cool, creative folk.
Dorkbot SoCal. New media and tinkering group. "People doing strange things with electricity."
Entretec (Pasadena). High tech industry association for Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley. Interesting meetings.
Executive Networking & Technology Group (ExecTec) of LA. For tech and entertainment execs. $25/mtg. Joel Ordesky.
Flavorpill LA. Nice weekly email of a hand-picked selection of local cultural events. Recommended.
Fool's Guild. Renaissance Faire folk who love foolish fun. April Fools, New Year, & Halloween Parties. Michael Kember.
Gemini Manor. Fantabulous house in east Hollywood. Alexander Lehr. Burning Man crowd. Great Halloween party.
Hike the Geek LA. Weekly LA area hikes then dining with a great group of intellectual, geeky types. Recommended.
Hollywood Hill. Great monthly salons on digital media and social activism. $120/year + $10/event. Hollywood and West LA.
Instant Films. Fun and inspiring community that makes and shows films made by small teams in just two days..
Investors Business Daily Meetup Groups (South Bay, Santa Monica). Investment support and education community.
Kifune. Extropian/ Longevity/ Singularity / Futurist dinner-discussion group in Marina del Rey. Peter Voss. Recommended.
LA Burners Tribe. Los Angeles area Burning Man crowd. LA Decom, October of every year. Super cool, creative folks.
LA Burning Man Regional Network. Also LA Burners Tribe. Throw the LA Decom, Oct every year. Super cool, creative folks.
LA Drum Circle Meetup. Hand drumming get togethers in the LA area (Beaches, etc.). Fun!
LAFS (Los Angeles Future Salon). The coolest monthly futures group. UCLA/Westwood. You know you want to join!
LA Report. News, views, and social/entertainment/art events for LA. By Don Rose, LAFS member.
LARTA (LA Regional Technology Alliance). Regular events for technology and business entrepreneurs and investors.
LA Tech Meetup. Monthly show and tell ("nerds, creatives, entrepeneurs, investors, etc.").
LAVA (Los Angeles Venture Association). Development and financing of emerging growth companies. Great events.
Long Beach Book Club Meetup. They read and discuss a variety of books.
Long Beach Cashflow Meetup. Play the investment and entrepreneur training game Cashflow. "Get out of the Rat Race."
LASFS (Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society). Weekly Thursday evening meetings. Lending library. North Hollywood.
Meetup.com, LA Area Meetups. Huge selection of great meetups, by specialty.
Philosophy in LA. In-depth discussion of philosophical questions. 3rd Sundays in the Santa Monica/ West LA area.
Reading Physics in LA. Monthly science/physics reading group meetup.
Skeptics Society. Monthly science and skeptical inquiry meetings at Cal Tech, Pasadena. Highly recommended.
Technology Council of Southern California. Excellent LA events for technology execs and investors. Highly recommended.
Time Out - A Southern California social group. A variety of cool, alternative social events. Angie Marie.
Tribe.net, LA Area Tribes. Moderate selection of interesting local tribes.
Venice/Santa Monica Book Club Meetup. Read and discuss a new book every month. A variety of genres.

Know others we need to list here? Email us!

Would you like to make future-oriented friends in the United States and Canada? Talk with other fascinating folks about the latest advances? Join the North American Future Salon Network - Talk list. It's easy. Meet participants from all 15 North American salons. Grow your national network!