We create myths to make sense of the deep structure of the world.
Foresight scenarios are myths to explain the deep structure of the coming world emerging from the present. We evoke this mythology every time we use the incantation that begins so many written scenarios:
This is a world in which...
Core Concepts
Foresight
Ideas
The Earth's Environment
Politics
Transformative Futures
"When Jamais Cascio speaks, I listen. When he surprises me, I take notes."
- Bruce Sterling, Author, Designer, Visionary in Residence Art Center College of Design
"Jamais' talk was a landmark in our event series. It was absolutely riveting for the audience, who (me included) were literally on the edge of their seats, and a lot of people watched the videos afterwards and talked about the climate issues and big risks that he discussed. It was entertaining, funny, intellectually challenging and flat out terrifying by turns. You could not ask for a better guide to the future's outer reaches."
- Vinay Gupta, Founder of the Hexayurt Project and curator of the "Truth and Beauty" lecture series in London.
"Jamais was an outstanding speaker to kick off our new Ensia LIVE series in Minneapolis, playing to a packed house. He was the perfect speaker -- thought-provoking, engaging, funny and articulate. The audience left the presentation feeling challenged, inspired, and amazed."
- Dr. Jonathan Foley, Executive Director California Academy of Sciences, Former Director Institute on the Environment (IonE), University of Minnesota
"Jamais Cascio's deep voice resonates through a room and penetrates deeply. He speaks with power, yet communicates with humility and self-effacing humor. His foresight is profoundly provocative in ways that spark new insight and new actions for those who engage with him."
- Bob Johansen, Distinguished Fellow, Institute for the Future and Author, Leaders Make the Future
"Jamais Cascio is a magician. Out of his imagination, research, and ruthless curiosity, he conjures visions that have never before existed. He then presents them in stirring ways to audiences that he leaves dazzled. They leave never again thinking as they did before he walked in. He's the best."
- Joel Garreau, Lincoln Professor of Law, Culture and Values, Arizona State University, Author, Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies - And What It Means to Be Human.
"Jamais is a brilliant and engaging speaker, and his involvement in my Future of Work series was one of the high points of a great project. He has a mordant sense of humor, a broad understanding of the challenges of foresight, and the ability to tie societal disruption to the human condition."
- Stowe Boyd, Web Anthropologist, Research Lead Gigaom.com
"For topics ranging from climate and energy to information systems and human augmentations, Jamais has been my go-to thought partner and presenter for our annual Ten-Year Forecast. He has that uncommon ability to match sobering news with humor, frightening futures with optimism and pragmatism. He can think on his feet whether he's delivering trenchant insights or poking fun at the limits of our human minds. I always count on Jamais to make surprising connections and tease out the unexpected.
- Kathi Vian, Distinguished Fellow and Director of the Ten-Year Forecast Program, Institute for the Future
"... our moral guide to the future"
-Foreign Policy magazine
Science, Conservation, and National Parks (contributor)
"Some of the most thoughtful work on the topic of climate change..."
-- The Futurist (July/Aug 2009)
What do we do if our best efforts to limit the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere fall short? According to a growing number of
environmental scientists, we may be forced to try an experiment in global climate management: geoengineering.
Geoengineering would be risky, likely to provoke international tension, and certain to
have unexpected consequences. It may also be inevitable.
Environmental futurist Jamais Cascio explores the implications of geoengineering in
this collection of thought-provoking essays. Is our civilization ready
to take on the task of re-engineering the planet?
The Reputation Society: How Online Opinions Are Reshaping the Offline World (contributor)
Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century (contributor)
Transhuman Space: Broken Dreams and Transhuman Space: Toxic Memes, published by Steve Jackson Games.
Deliberate Conversations, Boulder Ch. 8 TV. Recorded April 2016
Longevity & the Future of Fun with Jamais Cascio from Adam A. Ford on Vimeo.
Jamais Cascio - An Optimists Guide to the Next 10 Years from Adam A. Ford on Vimeo.
Closing Keynote for World Bank Understanding Risk 2016 conference (warning, low audio quality)
TED talk, 2007
TEDx Marin talk, 2013
The Problems with Prediction interview with RJ Eskow.
(audio) April 2014
Everything Will Be Alright* interview for documentary series.
(video) February 2014
Crime and Punishment discussion at Fast Company's Innovation Uncensored
(video) April 2013
Bots, Bacteria, and Carbon talk at the University of Minnesota
(video) March 2013
Visions of a Sustainable Future interview
(text) March 2013
Talking about apocalypse gets dull...all apocalypses are the same, but all successful scenarios are different in their own way.
The Future and You! interview
(video) December 2012
Bad Futurism talk in San Francisco
(video) December 2012
Inc. magazine interview
(text) December 2012
Any real breakthrough in AI is going to come from gaming.
Singularity 1 on 1 interview
(video) November 2012
Momentum Interview
(text) September 2012
One hope for the future: That we get it right.
Doomsday talk in San Francisco
(video) June 2012
Polluting the Data Stream talk in San Francisco
(video) April 2012
Peak Humanity talk at BIL2012 in Long Beach
(video) February 2012
Acceler8or Interview
(text) January 2012
Our tools don't make us who we are. We make tools because of who we are.
Hacking the Earth talk in London
(video) November 2011
Cosmoetica Interview
(text) May 2011
The fears over eugenics come from fears over the abuse of power. And we have seen, time and again, century after century, that such fears are well-placed.
Future of Facebook project interviews
(video) April 2011
Geoengineering and the Future interview for Hearsay Culture
(audio) March 2011
Los Angeles and the Green Future interview for VPRO Backlight
(video) November 2010
Surviving the Future excerpts on CBC
(video) October 2010
Future of Media interview for BNN
(video) September 2010
Hacking the Earth Without Voiding the Warranty talk at NEXT 2010
(video) September 2010
Map of the Future 2010 at Futuro e Sostanabilita 2010 (Part 2, Part 3)
(video) July 2010
We++ talk at Guardian Activate 2010
(video) July 2010
Wired for Anticipation talk at Lift 10
(video) May 2010
Soylent Twitter talk at Social Business Edge 2010
(video) April 2010
Hacking the Earth without Voiding the Warranty talk at State of Green Business Forum 2010
(video) February 2010
Manipulating the Climate interview on "Living on Earth" (public radio)
(audio) January 2010
Bloggingheads.TV interview
(video) January 2010
Homesteading the Uncanny Valley talk at the Biopolitics of Popular Culture conference
(audio) December 2009
Sixth Sense interview for NPR On the Media
(audio) November 2009
If I Can't Dance, I Don't Want to be Part of Your Singularity talk for New York Future Salon
(video) October 2009
Future of Money interview for /Message
(video) October 2009
Cognitive Drugs interview for "Q" on CBC radio
(audio) September 2009
How the World Could (Almost) End interview for Slate
(video) July 2009
Geoengineering interview for Kathleen Dunn Show, Wisconsin Public Radio
(audio) July 2009
Augmented Reality interview at Tactical Transparency podcast
(audio) July 2009
ReMaking Tomorrow talk at Amplify09
(video) June 2009
Mobile Intelligence talk for Mobile Monday
(video) June 2009
Amplify09 Pre-Event Interview for Amplify09 Podcast
(audio) May 2009
How to Prepare for the Unexpected Interview for New Hampshire Public Radio
(audio) April 2009
Cascio's Laws of Robotics presentation for Bay Area AI Meet-Up
(video) March 2009
How We Relate to Robots Interview for CBC "Spark"
(audio) March 2009
Looking Forward Interview for National Public Radio
(audio) March 2009
Future: To Go talk for Art Center Summit
(video) February 2009
Brains, Bots, Bodies, and Bugs Closing Keynote at Singularity Summit Emerging Technologies Workshop (video) November 2008
Building Civilizational Resilience Talk at Global Catastrophic Risks conference
(video) November 2008
Future of Education Talk at Moodle Moot
(video) June 2008
G-Think Interview
(text) May 2008
"In the best scenario, the next ten years for green is the story of its disappearance."
A Greener Tomorrow talk at Bay Area Futures Salon
(video) April 2008
Geoengineering Offensive and Defensive interview, Changesurfer Radio
(audio) March 2008
Wired interview
(text) March 2008
"The road to hell is paved with short-term distractions. "
The Future Is Now interview, "Ryan is Hungry"
(video) March 2008
G'Day World interview
(audio) March 2008
UK Education Drivers commentary
(video) February 2008
Futurism and its Discontents presentation at UC Berkeley School of Information
(audio) February 2008
Opportunity Green talk at Opportunity Green conference
(video) January 2008
Metaverse: Your Life, Live and in 3D talk
(video) December 2007
Singularity Summit Talk
(audio) September 2007
Political Relationships and Technological Futures interview
(video) September 2007
NPR interview
(audio) September 2007
"Science Fiction is a really nice way of uncovering the tacit desires for tomorrow...."
Spark Radio, CBC interview
(audio) August 2007
Spark Radio, part 2 CBC interview
(audio) August 2007
True Mutations Live! roundtable Part 1
(audio) July 2007
True Mutations Live! roundtable Part 2
(audio) July 2007
G'Day World interview
(audio) June 2007
NeoFiles interview
(audio) June 2007
Take-Away Festival talk
(video) May 2007
NeoFiles interview
(audio) May 2007
Changesurfer Radio interview
(audio) April 2007
NeoFiles interview
(audio) July 2006
FutureGrinder: Participatory Panopticon interview
(audio) March 2006
TED 2006 talk
(video) February 2006
Commonwealth Club roundtable on blogging
(audio) February 2006
Personal Memory Assistants Accelerating Change 2005 talk
(audio) October 2005
Participatory Panopticon MeshForum 2005 talk
(audio) May 2005
You may have noticed that Open the Future has taken on a somewhat different design. You may also have noticed that I haven't been blogging lately. These are not unrelated.
I've been doing quite a bit of public speaking, all over the world -- from Sarajevo to Venice to Shenzhen in the last year alone, along with multiple locations here in the U.S. -- and a good amount of work with the Institute for the Future. I've also been doing occasional commentary pieces for New Scientist magazine.
So I've been active, just not active here. But since this is still the first place people go to learn more about me, it's not a good thing for it to appear to be abandoned. I needed OtF to do a better job of presenting me. Working on this redesign has rekindled a desire to do some blogging again, so it won't be completely static, but it will remain more of a highlight reel than an ongoing conversation. For those of you who will miss that, I'm sorry. I'll still be around, though -- I'm not going away, just doing a course-correction.
Time to get to work.
(This is the full text of a talk I gave at the Institute for the Future on 21 October 2015, as part of the "New Body Language" workshop on wearable/"body area network" technologies for the Technology Horizons program.)
Why do we think about the future?
This may seem an odd setting in which to ask this question. We're all here tonight because we're interested in big changes that seem to be thundering ahead in technology, in politics, in the human experience. But there has to be more than "interest" An organization like the Institute for the Future wouldn't be around for nearly a half-century if it was really just the Institute for Idle Curiosity About Tomorrow.
No. We think about the future because we believe two fundamental things: 1), that the future matters; and 2), that we still have a say in the future we get. The shape of tomorrow arises from the choices we make today. Or, to twist that around, we can make better decisions now if we consider the different ways in which those decisions could play out. The scenarios I will present tonight are examples of one tool we can use to undertake that consideration of consequences. Scenarios are stories that offer us a lens through which we might see our lives in a new world.
We're not accustomed to thinking about longer-term futures. We evolved to reach quick, reasonably accurate conclusions about near-term risks and outcomes -- is there a saber-toothed tiger in that cave? Will that plant poison me? There's even some evidence that the part of the brain that lights up when we think about the future is the same part active in ballistics, that is, hitting a moving target with something. So when Wayne Gretzky talked about skating to where the puck will be, he was actually offering up a bit of futurist wisdom.
One important rule for thinking about the future is remembering that what we may imagine as a massively disruptive, distant horizon is an everyday, boring present for those who live there. They aren't entirely different people in an alien environment, they're us, a generation from now. They've gone through -- we've gone through -- all of the upheaval and have adapted. Their lives then may not be the same as our lives now, but they are the descendants of our lives.
It's because of this clarity of connection that I believe it to be important to think about the future in generational terms, not just as a count of years. If, as LP Hartley claims, "the past is a foreign country," so too is the future -- but it's a foreign country that we'll never quite get to. Our vision of the future is a destination, but our lived experience of it is as a journey. We walk an unbroken pathway from today to tomorrow.
Reading the continued, ongoing arguments about gun regulations ("reasonable" or otherwise) is frustrating. Not only for the usual reasons (absolutist positions, inability to recognize multi-causal phenomena, relentless hostility towards different opinions, etc.), but because of how incredibly irrelevant it is becoming. 3D-printable firearms are already here, and becoming increasingly reliable. Every gun control law in the world is obsolete.
With a 3D printer costing a thousand dollars or less, it's possible to produce a usable firearm. The first generation of these printed guns had a tendency to blow up when used, but the newer models can work just fine. Single-shot, magazine-fed, automatic or semi-automatic, there's now a variety of weapon designs available, ready to be downloaded and printed out.
Controlling this won't ever be easy, and is currently impossible. The design files are digital and easily spread around the Internet. 3D printers are general purpose systems, meaning that they can ostensibly be instructed to print out anything possible (given their size and material resource limits). Printers may be programmed to recognize a specific 3D gun file, but aren't smart enough to identify any random file that will produce a weapon. Open sourced 3D printer designs would make it possible to avoid the use of devices programmed with ORM ("object rights management") restrictions. You're not going to arm a militia with one of these, at least not quickly, but it wouldn't be hard to print out a small arsenal for person enjoyment.
Again, this is stuff that's happening now. It's not easy, quick, or cheap at the moment, but it's heading that direction. I'd be surprised if we didn't see someone killed with a 3D printed weapon by the end of the decade. Continuing to fight over gun control laws is painfully close to the music industry continuing to demand "home taping" restrictions and taxes on cassette tapes, even as MP3 files proliferated.
One final caveat: A 3D-printable firearm still needs ammunition, and bullets will be hard to 3D print for awhile yet. It may be another decade or more before it's possible to easily print bullets. If we really want to continue the debate and hostility, we may have a few years left.
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