THE BALLROOM is rich with gilt and crystal and murals a la Versailles, avant le deluge. High above me, eager swains and tender maidens dally in the gardens of a doomed empire. I look up and wonder: will we do any better than they did at predicting the revolutions that will shake our lives?

On a steaming July weekend, I am at the annual conclave of the World Future Society, sitting in the audience in the magnificent Grand Ballroom of the Chicago Hilton. I am taking notes with ink and paper, the same technology that the royal secretary used when Marie Antoinette commanded, “Fifi, take a memo: ‘Let ’em eat cake.'”