Futures thinking is hard work. Fortunately, you do get better at it with practice. It's worth the effort.
Jamais CascioResilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive.
Jamais CascioEven if we were to stop putting out greenhouse gases right now, we'd still face decades of warming.
Jamais CascioBeing connected to the Internet means being vulnerable to coordinated actions that can knock down walls of secrecy and shatter mechanisms of control.
Jamais CascioNobody's going to fix the world for us, but working together, making use of technological innovations and human communities alike, we might just be able to fix it ourselves.
Jamais CascioMy own suspicion is that a stand-alone artificial mind will be more a tool of narrow utility than something especially apocalyptic.
Jamais CascioWhen we developed written language, we significantly increased our functional memory and our ability to share insights and knowledge across time and space. The same thing happened with the invention of the printing press, the telegraph, and the radio.
Jamais CascioIt's remarkably easy to dig up enormous amounts of information about individuals, without their consent.
Jamais CascioIntelligence augmentation decreases the need for specialization and increases participatory complexity.
Jamais CascioMany of the cognitive enhancement drugs serve to increase focus and concentration. But 'letting your mind wander' is very often an important part of the creative process.
Jamais CascioCloud computing offers individuals access to data and applications from nearly any point of access to the Internet, offers businesses a whole new way to cut costs for technical infrastructure, and offers big computer companies a potentially giant market for hardware and services.
Jamais CascioThe idea of sustainability can imply there is one perfect, unchanging future, if only we could work out how to get there. Resilience might be more useful, in that it assumes a dynamic environment and that perfection is impossible. You need to design systems to accommodate failure rather than eliminate it. By trying to be perfect, many visions of sustainability are quite brittle
Jamais CascioEverything we think about regarding sustainability - from energy to agriculture to manufacturing to population - has a water footprint. Almost all of the water on Earth is salt water, and the remaining freshwater supplies are split between agricultural use and human use - as well as maintaining the existing natural environment.
Jamais CascioNearly every communication method we invent eventually conveys unwanted commercial messages.
Jamais CascioThe difference between e-mail and regular mail is that computers handle e-mail, and computers never decide to come to work one day and shoot all the other computers.
Jamais CascioBut here's the ugly truth: nature doesn't care about democracy, or who's right, or what's fair. And because of the slow-change aspect of climate, we can't wait until the worst effects are upon us to make a decision -- by then, it would be far, far too late. The scenario we may be faced with is one where doing something for the wrong reasons, run by the wrong people, may still save more lives than holding out for a more appealing option.
Jamais CascioTrying to do what your competitors are doing but basically a little bit better is probably not going to be the winning strategy. The problem is finding what your competitors wouldnt even consider doing.
Jamais CascioHuman civilization has been changing the Earths environment for millennia, often to our detriment. Dams, deforestation and urbanization can alter water cycles and wind patterns, occasionally triggering droughts or even creating deserts.
Jamais CascioCrackdowns on Internet content make clear the need for an anonymized Web. Now, someone just needs to implement it.
Jamais Cascio