A futurist is somebody who tries to predict what the future will be like, or at least that’s what I assume they do. A futurist of today might say something like, “the most important invention of the next 100 years will probably be nanotechnology.”

A historian is someone who looks back and tries to analyze what really happened in the past. A historian in the future might look back at what a futurist from today has predicted and say, “actually, the most important invention of the last 100 years was the machine that allows you to scream for hours and hours without having to stop, because in 2028 earth’s orbit passed through the Haunted Nebula and for almost forty years life was a waking nightmare of uninterrupted demonic hallucinations.”

The futurist and the historian serve opposite but in many ways complementary roles, the work of one aiding in the work of the other.