Futures Cone
- Possible futures These include the kinds of futures that "might happen" - all the kinds we can imagine (the "warp drive" of Star Trek is a good example), these might also involve transgressions of currently-accepted physical laws or principles.
- Plausible futures These cover those futures which "could happen" according to our current knowledge of how things work. They stem from our current understanding of physical laws, processes, causation, systems of human interaction, etc.
- Probably futures These contain those which are considered "likely to happen". It is a simple linear extension of the present and often called "business-as-usual".
- Preferable futures By contrast, these are concerned with what we "want to" happen; in other words, these futures are largely emotional rather than cognitive, and derive from value judgements. Because values differ between people, this class of futures is quite varied.