Futurism and the "Bahala Na" Culture | Guillermo Santos | TEDxLyceumPhilippinesUniversity

I want to start from here because I am the present, the old. I think I'm the oldest in this room. I'm going to start by pleading guilty to being 86 years old and I'm going to talk about the future, but as you listen to our last speaker, you know there's something that really stood out to me. I'm an optimist, so I said, if you have Alzheimer's, you have an advantage over all the other people every second, even though there are only two in the room, you have a new friend that you have to look up to. things are very positive, but the other side of things is that he is saying that a lot of people are going to suffer from Alzheimer's in the next year, he didn't say when, but in the next 2050, in the next 50 years, we will really have a lot of that disease around why because by then the total population of the world will be 10 billion 10 billion so think about the old China, which has 1.4 billion now has a one child policy, but they are becoming old Japan is the oldest country so you'll find out there will be some good things about the future after listening to all of our presenters this morning.

Today I am going to ask you if it is really possible to see the future. What is your answer? Yes or no. It is possible, yes, but. It requires a lot from the person, now some people practice it in the corporate world, they call it the corporate planner, for example, they isolate themselves for three or four days in a row and plan how they are going to make the company much more productive, profitable and above all they are going to have all the benefits for their shareholders that's not bad that's not bad that's not that bad but they also think about what they call corporate social responsibility and this is what makes the corporation useful legal citizens of the world now however before we were talking during the break and at the round table and the people around me what we are saying there is something wrong with pharmaceuticals there is something wrong now with doctors doctors are leaving their good manners next to patients and they are always in a hurry you know that patients are now becoming more demanding and so on, but what happens then?

How is the entire medical business affected? This is another thing that you say to consider and when we look at medicine we are also looking at artificial intelligence, the advent of artificial intelligence now let me go to school, school is called Futurists in them like curriculum planning, Every year they get together again, isolate themselves, and look for any avenue that can increase enrollment, increase profitability, increase utility to the community. and above all to the development of the nation, which every nation there diplomats and soldiers call this strategic intelligence gathering, is the main and vital factor and the difference between war, losses and war and victory, government leaders Nationally they call it a performance budget. presentation Congress reviews the budget recommendations of the executive department or the prime ministers and looks at the goals, what are the government's objectives so that the company, the country, can progress economically, do not forget that in this In the 21st century, the race between governments is to gain access to excel economically speaking, and when there is economic progress, necessarily due to geopolitical requirements, these governments enter into an arms race, this is exactly what is seen now in the Asia-Pacific region with North Korea. and South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Iran, do not forget that there is another factor, Israel, but that is something very complicated.

I'm not going to discuss it here. I just mentioned it to give you an idea of ​​how broad the scope of the future is. Architects and engineers called this master planning, they draw up the plan, then follow it to the letter and have a schedule of when they are going to finish the construction, as in any architecture or engineering project, they stick to the time limits . change managers in any organization, I don't care if it's non-governmental or non-profit, what they do is call it risk management, mitigation, the only different terms now, when the circus comes to town, you have another type of futuristic people, these are the ball look at the crystal ball look and they will give you what you want to hear what is your future if you are going to travel if you are going to get sick if you will have a new love or a broken broken family life whatever, but There is actually nothing mysterious about predicting the future in simple terms, let me put it this way, we have this slide, this is the future, it is the sum total of the understanding of our national history, what does that mean? chapter of national history so that you understand why and what you are today by understanding that you will know and you will be equipping yourself, enabling yourself to be accurately and current informed about national, regional and international developments, so that you can stitch them all together. together, all events in the world, regional, international or even national have links, you cannot avoid this, it is just a matter of knowing where they are, then you can cross it, then you can use it to your advantage, both for your personal and for national objectives, then we can determine local trends and changes, what is going to happen.

Our last speaker just told us that Alzheimer's is going to be here for a long time, so from that project, he can easily do it and so after having all that, he can now set the different ones. or likely possible scenarios that arise from those situations if this condition is followed through to what is going to happen. The very simple example that I would like to use all the time is that you look out the window when you wake up in the morning and you see dark clouds. What does that mean? In the short term future.

In the very near future. In the next minute it will probably rain. So, what are you going to do? Because determining the future or looking into the future, looking into the possible future, gives you the weapons to make the decision. the best option is for you in this case you see that it is going to rain what is the best option I will probably take a raincoat or an umbrella or go for a walk with someone if I don't have a car or I won't go out at all. I'm going to write something here at home, you know, and so you can have your coffee and eat and you can even play with your pets if you want, depending on what you have, in other words, play fair.

It is the art of using current, true and accurate information to promote your own national interests or to further advance your goal in life. Let me share with you some real stories that I have experienced. I've seen the Vietnam War before. I've covered the Korean War before I watched World War II as a gorilla kid I shot my first Japanese soldier when I was 11 I threw my first hand grenade when I was 12 in an ambush on a Japanese troop convoy Japanese in Iloilo in Penang. My father was the intelligence officer for the Peralta gorillas in Pnai at the time and one of my jobs was to observe on the Olivia breakwater between the aluminum Arras island how low or how high the Japanese transport was in the water .

Boats arriving if they were high in the water that means they were not fully loaded or they are empty meaning they will probably take some of the video out to get somewhere, if they are very low in the water that means they are delivering weapons, armor, weaponry, bullets or whatever they brought and I didn't know that was my job, I was just telling my father about this and my father got where I was wrapping vinegar and whiskey to be sent to the city of Macau, which It was more than 25 kilometers from Villa Villa and I was one of those children who drank those who brought that whiskey or whatever, strong drinks for the people of Macau who now know. that at night General MacArthur's forces were entering submarines in a submarine commanded by the admiral at that time he was captain captain cheek Parsons who had a hardware store here in Manila that's how we got through all that Now the Allies won the axis due to futuristic practice.

Remember in our story that the Baron of Africa's forces were defeated by the British because they did not know that there was going to be some type of severe weather in the form of a sand storm. they didn't know that and so it was the intelligence gathering of the allies and the British the British directed it and that's how they wiped out the Nazis in the Sahara desert. Then you have this case, remember the Israeli six days. war in 1967 due to intelligence or information or futuristic planning strategic planning the Israelis barely six million people surrounded by more than 60 million Arab states precisely by Syria, by Jordan and by Egypt Israel annihilated the entire Egyptian Air Force in less than four hours they combined strike capability with their own intelligence network again Futurists then occupied the West Bank they got the Sinai Desert and even got the Bekaa Valley in Syria then in 1981 this is a real experience mental experience now in 1981 there was martial law in the Philippines under Marcos and the businessman didn't know where Mark was going he was leading the country he was leading the country no one else so what did they do?

They formed what they called the Philippine Futuristic Society to determine the trends to determine the forecasts of business, the economy, politics, even the environment, and that is what we worked on at that time, we transformed it into what we call the Center for Futuristic Studies of the Philippines on 19, 2007, so now we include students and early students. our members are from this University, they are now members of the futuristic society that China is also doing Futurists, how they have copied what the Americans and the allies have done immediately after the war at the height of the Cold War, in fact, and Now they are getting into what they call the Asian Infrastructure Investment Fund and that is connecting everyone through railways, that is an area that they can use to avoid being blocked in the South China Sea, although they are claiming and in relationship with the South China Sea, you have to understand how that started.

It was not started by Mao Zedong in 1949, no, it was started in 1950 by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who had to flee to Taiwan because Multitone defeated him and was supported by the Americans. Remember the Americans, the British, the French and the Russians. and the Chinese then originally under Sun Yat-sen under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek expelled the Chinese Emperor's Qin dynasty and yet lost too much to gain a strategic position in the region they claimed. at 12 my claim of 12 lines in the South China Sea when the Chinese communists finally took over China in 1958 in the United Nations, then the Chinese communists thought about how to do it, how to get their own strategic position in the China Sea Southern, which is a vision of the future. that's futurists and that's what they're doing right now, they don't care that no one condemns them for seizing the South China Sea or militarizing the South China Sea, because they know very well that there is no law enforcement agency of the United States.

Nations that are not going to control them at all, so again, this is a foresight of the Chinese and we must give them the credit. I'm here to tell you the importance of futuristic things, not to support Chinese communists. Party, now we come to the question: if you are so helpful with

futurism

, why has this country steadily deteriorated immediately after the war? The Philippines was the second-largest economy after Japan in Asia when I went as Associated Press bureau chief to Bangkok. In 1962, for God's sake, everyone looked at the Philippines as the training ground, everyone said the weight is so good, you know?

But now, what happens? Of the ten member countries, we are number six, we are no longer number two in Asia and we are no longer. number one Singapore has a better place it has a better view of the future they copied what was here before which was the cane export processing zone and now they have the Jurong complex. I covered it when they launched the Jurong resort and what it is now. Singapore. the head of the ASEAN Ten again

futurism

now, what stops Filipinos from practicing futurism? Some of these people in the audience are my students and they know what they want, that's why they are there, they are enrolled in the Faculty of International Relations some are in journalism they know what they want but if you go to the province of the Philippines you ask them how you want to be when you are twenty-five you know what they say Baja Lana ho Maharana Kong started to settle juice oh Everything that God gives us we must welcome, we must not reject it, we must feel lucky and this is the religiosity of the Filipino that keeps him firm, it is an anchor for the economic progress of the Philippines, so what I am saying here is that it should be like that. reviewed the mentalities, the mentality must be reviewed, but what did you do, what do we do, what do you have to have to review the mentality that you see?

Checking or changing the mind means that you are trying to change people's thinking and that will require a minimum, a minimum. fifty years in some cases could even require a centurybloody, you know? Can we afford it? You have no way to do it any other way because as a futurist man you have to be realistic, you have to work with what is possible, what is probable, then set your options, what is best for you, that is what you have to do. , because when you see that what is coming is not favorable for you, then you must act now, act now, not wait later.

You know you have to have that sense of urgency. Time the Filipino to enlarge does not do it. I have that type of mentality in Ballina Havana, I remember the Buca phenomena, so that type of mentality is really debilitating and is holding back economic progress now where I come from. If you talk a lot, now you get fired if you can't write. what you have to say on a page on a page, you're fired too, that's the kind of writing international news services require, so I'm not going to go much further. I am going to put here what are the qualities of A futuristic man, in addition to being optimistic, he must have maturity, maturity in age and experience to be able to make stable and emotion-free decisions and judgments on topics, especially if it is about yourself, number Two, you must have an analytical and critical mind.

Don't stop asking how and why it is easy to know what, who and where that is easy, you don't have to ask that, but you have to ask how it started, why there was such a development, there must be a reason to cause it. is against me, is against my country, is against our group, yes, those are the ones you have to ask, so you have to have a complete training and this is the most difficult part, you must have a training and a complete experience. in politics, in economics, in social sciences, cultural sciences, behavioral sciences, in technology and in the environment, if you ask for too much, right?, you become a jack of all trades and a master of none, but you will help number four.

You must be an effective communicator. Do not do it. ever use the same word that you are defining don't say the art of listening is actually the art of listening when someone stops the power then again you have to be able to deal with reality because reality is what you have to deal with and what you can't escape. that is, your geography, your country, your politics, your religion, whatever it is, so that now you can work in harmony with your environment because you can't get anywhere, you can't leave this planet and, above all, you think globally and you act locally.

Thank you so much.