Long term policy transformation. While some are more policy-oriented than others, almost all believe that the
work of futurism is to shape public policy, so it consciously and explicitly takes into account the long term.
6. Part of the process of creating alternative futures and of influencing public (corporate, or international) policy is
internal transformation. At international meetings, structural and individual factors are considered equally
important.
7. Complexity. Futurists believe that a simple one-dimensional or single-discipline orientation is not satisfactory.
Trans-disciplinary approaches that take complexity seriously are necessary. Systems thinking, particularly in its
evolutionary dimension, is also crucial.
8. Futurists are motivated by change. They are not content merely to describe or forecast. They desire an active role
in world transformation.
9. They are hopeful for a better future as a "strange attractor".
10. Most believe they are pragmatists in this world, even as they imagine and work for another. Futurists have a
long term perspective.
11. Sustainable futures, understood as making decisions that do not reduce future options, that include policies on
nature, gender and other accepted paradigms. This applies to corporate futurists and the NGO. Environmental
sustainability is reconciled with the technological, spiritual and post-structural ideals. Sustainability is not a "back
to nature" ideal, but rather inclusive of technology and culture