A good scenario doesn't make a good science fiction story - but it's a setting within which a good science fiction story might be told. Jamais Cascio More Quotes by Jamais Cascio More Quotes From Jamais Cascio Nobody'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 Cascio innovationcommunityworking-together Resilience is all about being able to overcome the unexpected. Sustainability is about survival. The goal of resilience is to thrive. Jamais Cascio resiliencesurvivalgoal By ignoring tomorrow, we undermine today. Jamais Cascio tomorrowtoday Preventing global warming from becoming a planetary catastrophe may take something even more drastic than renewable energy, superefficient urban design, and global carbon taxes. Jamais Cascio designenergymay To be clear, geoengineering won't solve global warming. It's not a 'techno-fix.' It would be enormously risky and almost certainly lead to troubling unforeseen consequences. Jamais Cascio geoengineeringglobal-warmingwould-be Everything 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 Cascio agriculturewaterthinking Trying 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 Cascio winninglittlestrying Fluid intelligence doesn't look much like the capacity to memorise and recite facts, the skills that people have traditionally associated with brainpower. Jamais Cascio skillspeoplelooks It's a pretty widely-accepted notion that the atmosphere is a ridiculously complex system, and the best we can do with our models is a rough approximation. Jamais Cascio atmosphereroughaccepted Participatory complexity may well be the key descriptor of the 21st century - in our economies, in our politics, and in our everyday lives. Jamais Cascio everydaykeysmay When 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 Cascio radiospacememories Many 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 Cascio focus-and-concentrationdrugcreative Intelligence augmentation decreases the need for specialization and increases participatory complexity. Jamais Cascio decreaseincreaseneeds Is there a better example of natural selection in action than 'Project Runway?' Jamais Cascio examplenaturalaction As our various electronic devices gain more and more sensory awareness, we open up the potential for entirely new forms of interaction. Not just new interfaces - tapping and shaking and whatnot - but a shift in presence. Jamais Cascio gainsformawareness The 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 Cascio futurework-outideas The 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 Cascio differencestechnologywork Nearly every communication method we invent eventually conveys unwanted commercial messages. Jamais Cascio methodcommunicationmessages But 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 Cascio decisionrunningpeople In a Photoshopped world, only the skeptical eye prevails. Jamais Cascio skepticaleyeworld
