Malthus and Wells—and now Joy—are, indeed, critical parts ofthese complex loops. Each knew when and how to sound the alarm.But each thought little about how to respond to that alarm.

The challenge forfuturology (and for all of us) is to see beyond the hype and past the over-simplifications to the full import of these new sociotechnical formations.

While many powerful national corporations have grown insignifi-cant, some have transformed into more powerful transnational firms.While some forms of community may be dying, others, bolstered bytechnology, are growing stronger.

One of the lessons of Joy’s article, then, is that the path to the futurecan look simple (and sometimes downright terrifying) if you look at itthrough what we call “6-D lenses.” We coined this phrase having sooften in our research hit up against upon such “de-” or “di-” words asdemassification, decentralization, disintermediation, despacialization,disaggregation and demarketization in the canon of futurology.If you take any one of these words in isolation, it’s easy to followtheir relentless logic to its evident conclusion.

Why does the threat of a cunning, replicating robot society look soclose from one perspective, yet so distant from another? The differencelies in the well-known tendency of futurologists to count “1, 2, 3 . . . amillion.” That is, once the first step on a path is taken, it’s very easy toassume that all subsequent steps are trivial.

Having ignored social concerns, however, proponents havemade the people they need to educate profoundly suspicious and hostile.

But, on the otherhand, social systems—in the form of governments, the courts, formaland informal organizations, social movements, professional networks,local communities, market institutions and so forth—shape, moderateand redirect the raw power of technologies.

In Joy’s vision, as in the nuclear one, there’s a recognizable tunnelvision that leaves people out of the picture and focuses on technologyin splendid isolation.

Similar social forces are at work on technologies today. But becausethe digerati, like technoenthusiasts before them, look to the future withtechnological tunnel vision, they too have trouble bringing other forcesinto view.

Like the nuclearprognosticators, Joy can see the juggernaut clearly. What he can’t see—which is precisely what makes his vision so scary—are any controls.

Sowhen his article describes a technological juggernaut thundering towardsociety—bringing with it mutant genes, molecular-level nanotechnologymachines and superintelligent robots—all need to listen.