In 1992, while presenting at the World Futures Studies Federation course on International Development, I shifted my lecture from the typical rehearsed presentation on factors explaining maldevelopment to a real time unpacking/deconstruction of transportation futures. As I, we, worked through the analysis, alternatives organically emerged. The four levels were: first, the problem or the litany - congestion and pollution. Second the causes: too many cars and desire for more cars, rising incomes, traditional infrastructure that was not car flow friendly, among other factors. Third, the Big City outlook, westernization, and the "Los Angelization" of the planet. And fourth, West is best with cars as freedom, as individuality. We understood that the government would take a technical approach of creating flyovers and not the deeper required to rethink centre-periphery relations - to decentralize - to reimagine Bangkok as a walkable and green city. This led to a discussion on not just infrastructure redesign but stories around rural areas and the symbol of the car as a symbol of Western power. CLA shifted the discussion from conventional strategies on transport toward alternative futures of mobility, identity, and sustainability. After a few more attempts at presenting on communication, on disability, on ways knowing the method was born. Theoretically, of course, I was standing on the works of the greats: P.R. Sarkar, Johan Galtung, William Irwin Thompson, Joseph Campbell and from insights from professors and colleagues such as James Dator, Michael Shapiro, and Richard Slaughter.
In the CLA Reader published in 2004, we compiled articles on the method to gain academic respectability. Doctoral students would email me and say, they wanted to write their thesis on CLA but their professors were suspicious. By 2015, when CLA 2.0 was released, we had documented hundreds of additional case studies. Professor were no longer suspicious, indeed, many enthusiastic. The method by th

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蘇哈爾博士為全球前2%頂尖科學家，目前為教設系之境外訪問研究員。多層次因果分析不僅可以用來解構未來，還可以用來重構未來，為人類面臨的複雜問題創造整體世界觀和敘述性的解決方案。前次本校出版蘇哈爾博士專書為2015年，此次為蘇哈爾博士針對未來學方法做更進階的學理及方法提供，希冀可以由本校出版，對本校未來化工作做貢獻及享譽國際未來學群體。