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You're talking about predicting the future correctly and making the right tradeoffs. Being future oriented means trading off short term goals for long term ones

You're talking about predicting the future correctly and making the right tradeoffs. Being future oriented means trading off short term goals for long term ones; preparing for the future says nothing about whether we are prepared in hindsight. You can use "future oriented" to mean being prescient or omniscient, but I think that's a useless way to define the word, because it's not a thing that exists. The US invasion of Iraq was a drastic pivot of the US towards a more future oriented foreign policy, and I assume we would agree it was a huge mistake, right? WeWork was a tremendously future oriented company, that wanted to be everything to everyone, but it wasn't, and won't be, the next Amazon. It would be bad for society for similar projects to suck up all the resources in preference to short term needs. "it is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future" - Mark Twain

chriswarbo 6y ago
> The US invasion of Iraq was a drastic pivot of the US towards a more future oriented foreign policy Which aspects of the invasion of Iraq were future oriented? Thinking it was "mission accomplished" in 2003? Having no exit strategy? Creating a power vaccum, which was eventually filled by Islamic State? Aquiring oil, in a world which is trying to divest from it, and which is being damaged by its use?
- perl4ever 6y ago
  >Which aspects of the invasion of Iraq were future oriented? The planning of it, which, you know, happened before "mission accomplished" and all the things that went wrong. It has been widely reported and asserted that the planning started considerably before 9/11, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...
  - chriswarbo 6y ago
    > Formation 1997 That's 6 years before the invasion, so slightly longer than a single election cycle, and significantly shorter than the duration of the war itself. I wouldn't exactly call that 'future oriented', especially since 3 of those years were spent under the Clinton administration; Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld pulled the trigger pretty quickly once in power. It's also incredibly short-term compared to its contemporaries, like Russia's "Foundations of Geopolitics" or China's "Peaceful Rise".
    - perl4ever 6y ago
      I don't see the term "future oriented" as having any firm meaning in a vacuum, as a somehow absolute judgment; it's meaningful in a relative sense and that's how I used it. After 9/11, most Americans became more future oriented than immediately before; both advocating for the invasion and addressing "root causes" in different ways are different forms of that. Either was more focused on the future than maintaining sanctions and occasional airstrikes.
      - chriswarbo 6y ago
        > After 9/11, most Americans became more future oriented than immediately before I really can't tell if you're trolling at this point. Declaring war against an intangible form of political violence, as a knee-jerk reaction to a specific incident, which ends up perpetuating that form of violence, is a classic example of short-term thinking.
  - hindsightbias 6y ago
    We have plans to invade everywhere, buildings full of plans. “Future” oriented thinking would be Phase IV Occupation plans. That filing cabinet was empty (by design) and “It’s the UNs problem now” is not very future-oriented strategery.

chriswarbo 6y ago

> The US invasion of Iraq was a drastic pivot of the US towards a more future oriented foreign policy Which aspects of the invasion of Iraq were future oriented? Thinking it was "mission accomplished" in 2003? Having no exit strategy? Creating a power vaccum, which was eventually filled by Islamic State? Aquiring oil, in a world which is trying to divest from it, and which is being damaged by its use?

perl4ever 6y ago
>Which aspects of the invasion of Iraq were future oriented? The planning of it, which, you know, happened before "mission accomplished" and all the things that went wrong. It has been widely reported and asserted that the planning started considerably before 9/11, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_C...
- chriswarbo 6y ago
  > Formation 1997 That's 6 years before the invasion, so slightly longer than a single election cycle, and significantly shorter than the duration of the war itself. I wouldn't exactly call that 'future oriented', especially since 3 of those years were spent under the Clinton administration; Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld pulled the trigger pretty quickly once in power. It's also incredibly short-term compared to its contemporaries, like Russia's "Foundations of Geopolitics" or China's "Peaceful Rise".
  - perl4ever 6y ago
    I don't see the term "future oriented" as having any firm meaning in a vacuum, as a somehow absolute judgment; it's meaningful in a relative sense and that's how I used it. After 9/11, most Americans became more future oriented than immediately before; both advocating for the invasion and addressing "root causes" in different ways are different forms of that. Either was more focused on the future than maintaining sanctions and occasional airstrikes.
    - chriswarbo 6y ago
      > After 9/11, most Americans became more future oriented than immediately before I really can't tell if you're trolling at this point. Declaring war against an intangible form of political violence, as a knee-jerk reaction to a specific incident, which ends up perpetuating that form of violence, is a classic example of short-term thinking.
- hindsightbias 6y ago
  We have plans to invade everywhere, buildings full of plans. “Future” oriented thinking would be Phase IV Occupation plans. That filing cabinet was empty (by design) and “It’s the UNs problem now” is not very future-oriented strategery.