Governments and big business simply cannot manage without these thinkers for the future. Governments have to decide on their military plans far in advance; big businesses have to calculate their investments for decades ahead. Futurology will have to plan the development of capital cities for a hundred or more years ahead.
Equipped with present-day knowledge, it would not be difficult to estimate, say, the development of Mexico for the next fifty years. In making such a forecast, every conceivable fact would be taken into account, such as the existing technology, means of communication and transport, political currents and Mexico's potential opponents. If this forecast is possible today, unknown intelligences could certainly have made such a forecast for the planet Earth 10,000 years ago.
Mankind has a compulsive urge to think out in advance and investigate the future with all the potentialities at its command. Without this study of the future, we should probably have no chance of unravelling our past. For who knows whether important clues for the unravelling of our past do not lie around the archaeological sites, whether we do not trample them heedlessly under foot, because we do not know what to make of them.
That is the very reason why I advocated a 'Utopian archaeological year'. In the same way that I am unable to 'believe' in the wisdom of the old patterns of thought, I do not ask others to 'believe' my hypothesis. Nevertheless, I expect and hope that the time will soon be ripe to attack the riddle of the past without prejudice—making full use of all the refinements of technology.
It is not our fault that there are millions of other planets in the universe.
It is not our fault that the Japanese statue of Tokomai, which is many thousands of years old, has modern fastenings and eye apertures on its helmet.
It is not our fault that the stone relief from Palenque exists.
It is not our fault that Admiral Piri Reis did not burn his ancient maps.
It is not our fault that the old books and traditions of human history exhibit so many absurdities.
But it is our fault if we know all this, but disregard it and refuse to take it seriously.
Man has a magnificent future ahead of him, a future which will far surpass his magnificent past. We need space research and research into the future and the courage to tackle projects that now seem impossible. For example, the project of concerted research into the past which can bring us valuable memories of the future. Memories which will then be proved and which will illuminate the history of mankind—for the blessing of future generations.