In a Photoshopped world, only the skeptical eye prevails. Jamais Cascio More Quotes by Jamais Cascio More Quotes From Jamais Cascio Human 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 Cascio urbanization wind civilization Even if we were to stop putting out greenhouse gases right now, we'd still face decades of warming. Jamais Cascio greenhouse-gases greenhouses faces Futures thinking is hard work. Fortunately, you do get better at it with practice. It's worth the effort. Jamais Cascio hard-work practice thinking As useful as websites and journals are, there's real value in books, too. Jamais Cascio website real book I have to admit it: I'm not a huge fan of the cloud computing concept. Jamais Cascio cloud-computing fans clouds Don't expect to be able to upload your cat's brain into your Roomba any time soon. Jamais Cascio cat able brain Future forecasting is all about testing strategies - it's like a wind tunnel. Jamais Cascio strategy tunnels wind Crackdowns on Internet content make clear the need for an anonymized Web. Now, someone just needs to implement it. Jamais Cascio clear internet needs Being connected to the Internet means being vulnerable to coordinated actions that can knock down walls of secrecy and shatter mechanisms of control. Jamais Cascio wall action mean Cloud 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 Cascio data cutting clouds Foresight turns out to be a critical adaptive strategy for times of great stress. Jamais Cascio strategy turns stress It's remarkably easy to dig up enormous amounts of information about individuals, without their consent. Jamais Cascio individual information easy My own suspicion is that a stand-alone artificial mind will be more a tool of narrow utility than something especially apocalyptic. Jamais Cascio stand-alone tools mind Blended-reality technology could play in a limited, walled-garden world, but history suggests that it won't really take off until it offers broad freedom of use. Jamais Cascio technology garden reality Greed, accident, or malice may have harmful results, but, barring something truly apocalyptic, a resilient system can absorb such results without its overall health being threatened. Jamais Cascio resilient greed may The highest compliment I can give a science fiction book is that it's 'plausibly surreal' - it manages to feel like a relentless extrapolation from today even as it overwhelms with unexpected consequences of that extrapolation. Jamais Cascio giving book fiction Sustainability is a seemingly laudable goal - it tells us we need to live within our means, whether economic, ecological, or political - but it's insufficient for uncertain times. How can we live within our means when those very means can change, swiftly and unexpectedly, beneath us? Jamais Cascio political goal mean The biggest potential and actual crises of the 21st century all have a strong, long, slow aspect with a significant lag between cause and effect. We have to train ourselves to be thinking in terms of longer-term results. Jamais Cascio strong long thinking Computer programmers, biotechnologists, environmental scientists, neuroscientists, nanotech engineers - all of these fields, and more, should have at least a course in ethics as part of their degree requirements. Jamais Cascio environmental degrees should-have Many futurists use a checklist approach to make sure they're covering a sufficiently wide set of topics in terms of both research and brainstorming during a foresight exercise. Jamais Cascio covering use exercise
