A U.S. Department of the Future Is a Really Bad Idea: New at Reason
Shooting down Kurt Vonnegut's proposal for a Secretary of the Future

"I'll tell you…one thing that no Cabinet has ever had is a Secretary of the Future, and there are no plans at all for my grandchildren and my great grandchildren," the novelist Kurt Vonnegut groused in 2005. Vonnegut's comment came up on the public radio show Marketplace this month, when the program asked, "What if we had a Secretary of the Future?" My quick answer: It's a really stupid idea. Human beings are terrible at foresight, and it would be especially terrible to try marry our purblind premonitions to government power. Reviewing the history of wannabe Secretaries of the Future shows that federal government bureaucrats trying to exercise foresight have recommended and made terrible policy decisions. Given ineluctable human fallibility, the best thing we can do is to let our children and grandchildren make their own plans for the future.
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?