So, everything useful, valuable passes from the past to the present. And in this way the past greatly influences the progress of the modern society. It is a difficult and not solved problem what moment should be considered the beginning of present time. It is more difficult to distinguish the beginning of present time for the whole society. There are different points of view on this problem.
Future time is more complicated and more difficult for understanding.
There is no future society in our time but separate elements of it. But practice, material and spiritual demands show the necessity of its cognition and prevision. Knowledge of the future becomes less concrete and more general while getting further from the present. From the point of view of more exactness, the mankind is more interested in the immediate future. For example, demographers say that there will be 6 billion of people on Earth in 2000, and 10 billions - by the 30s of the XXI century.