{"id":3351,"date":"2010-03-02T18:25:41","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T18:25:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3351"},"modified":"2010-03-02T18:25:41","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T18:25:41","slug":"cascio-on-the-utility-of-futurism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=3351","title":{"rendered":"Cascio on the Utility of Futurism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.openthefuture.com\/\">Jamais Cascio<\/a><\/strong> explains <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.openthefuture.com\/2010\/02\/futures_thinking_mapping_the_p.html\">the cognitive benefits of good futurist methodology<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Foresight exercises that result in a single future story are rarely as useful as they appear, because\u00a0<em>we can&#8217;t predict the future<\/em>. The goal of futures thinking isn&#8217;t to make\u00a0<em>predictions<\/em>; the goal is to look for surprising\u00a0<em>implications<\/em>. By crafting multiple futures (each focused on your<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.responsiblenanotechnology.org\/cascio.PNG\" align=\"right\" height=\"167\" width=\"193\" \/> core dilemma), you can look at your issues from differing perspectives, and try to dig out what happens when critical drivers collide in various ways. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Whatever you come up with, you&#8217;ll be wrong. The future that does eventually emerge will almost certainly not look like the scenarios you construct. However, it&#8217;s possible to be wrong in useful ways&#8211;good scenarios will trigger minor epiphanies (what more traditional consultants usually call &#8220;aha!&#8221; moments), giving you clues about what to keep an eye out for that you otherwise would have missed.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Yes. I would add that such thought experiments also help to improve pattern recognition in analyzing reality. From teasing out logically sound, if fictional, consequences, we become more discerning about recognizing causation and potential second and third order effects of events or policy choices.<\/p>\n<p>Useful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jamais Cascio explains the cognitive benefits of good futurist methodology: Foresight exercises that result in a single future story are rarely as useful as they appear, because\u00a0we can&#8217;t predict the future. The goal of futures thinking isn&#8217;t to make\u00a0predictions; the goal is to look for surprising\u00a0implications. By crafting multiple futures (each focused on your core [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[323,487,24,389,21,401,113,72,37,78,23,336,47,462,436,599,558,381,31,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-black-swans","category-brain","category-cognition","category-counterintuitive","category-creativity","category-fast-company","category-framing","category-freeplay","category-futurism","category-ideas","category-insight","category-intellectuals","category-intelligence","category-metacognition","category-psychology","category-science-fiction","category-social-science","category-society","category-synthesis","category-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3351\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}