Jamais Cascio

Jamais Cascio is a Senior Fellow of the IEET.

Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2009, Cascio writes about the intersection of emerging technologies, environmental dilemmas, and cultural transformation, specializing in the design and creation of plausible scenarios of the future. His work focuses on the importance of long-term, systemic thinking, emphasizing the power of openness, transparency and flexibility as catalysts for building a more resilient society.

Cascio’s work appears in publications as diverse as Metropolis, the Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Policy. He was featured in National Geographic Television’s SIX DEGREES, its 2008 documentary on the effects of global warming, and on History Channel’s SCIENCE IMPOSSIBLE, its 2009 series on emerging technologies. Cascio has spoken about future possibilities around the world, at venues including South by Southwest Interactive in Austin, Texas, Mobile Monday in Amsterdam, the Singularity Summit in San Francisco, and the TED 2006 conference, “The Future We Will Create,” in Monterey, California.

Cascio has worked in the field of scenario development for over a decade, and is currently a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future. After several years as technology specialist at scenario planning pioneer Global Business Network, he went on to craft a wide array of scenarios on topics including energy (for an industry think tank), nuclear proliferation (for a political research non-profit), and sustainable development (for a multi-client project). He also serves as the Director of Impacts Analysis for the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.

In 2003, Cascio co-founded WorldChanging.com, the award-winning website dedicated to finding and calling attention to models, tools and ideas for building a “bright green” future. In his time at WorldChanging, he wrote the plurality of the site’s content, covering topics including urban design, climate science, renewable energy, open source models, emerging technologies, social networks, “leapfrog” global development, and much more. In March, 2006, he started Open the Future as his online home.

Cascio has also applied his scenario development skills in the entertainment industry, advising multiple television and film projects, and designing several well-received science fiction game settings, including Transhuman Space: Broken Dreams (speculating on the future of the developing world) and Transhuman Space: Toxic Memes (examining future popular culture and political movements).

Cascio lives outside of San Francisco, California, with his wife, two cats, four Macs, and the inevitable hybrid cars.

Home Page | Twitter

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Blog

Open The Future

The Future Isn't What It Used to Be (TL;DR version)

The Future Isn't What It Used to Be

Our tools don’t make us who we are. We make tools because of who we are.

The Future is a Virus (my Swedish Twitter University "talk")

Swedish Twitter University

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Books

Hacking the Earth by Jamais Cascio (2009)

Transhuman Space: Broken Dreams by Jamais Cascio (2003)

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Articles

"The Future Isn’t What It Used to Be"   Open The Future  Jan 29, 2012

"The Future is a Virus"   Open the Future  Dec 16, 2011

"“To Prevail”"   Open the Future  Dec 5, 2011

"Pantheon"   Open the Future  Nov 28, 2011

"The Foresight Paradox"   Open the Future  Oct 1, 2011

"Rise of the Teratocracy"   Open the Future  Sep 10, 2011

"Living Inside a Scenario"   Open the Future  Aug 31, 2011

"Not Giving Up"   Open the Future  Jul 1, 2011

"Listening to Foresight"   Open the Future  Apr 28, 2011

"Evolution"   Open the Future  Apr 2, 2011

"Homesteading a Society of Mind"   Open the Future  Mar 1, 2011

"Speculative Gaming"   Open the Future  Feb 24, 2011

"#5: Give My Creation… Life!"   Ethical Technology  Dec 29, 2010

"Open the Future"   Open the Future  Dec 24, 2010

"World, Changed."   Open the Future  Dec 23, 2010

"Neodicy"   Open the Future  Dec 17, 2010

"Eschatological Taxonomy Poster"   Open the Future  Nov 30, 2010

"Terraforming the Earth, Taken Seriously"   Open the Future  Oct 18, 2010

"Filtering the Flashy from the Transformative"   Open the Future  Sep 16, 2010

"Opening the Future"   Open the Future  Jun 8, 2010

"Give My Creation… Life!"   Open the Future  May 24, 2010

"Your Posthumanism is Boring Me"   io9  May 12, 2010

"Rogue Geoengineering Project Underway?"   Open the Future  May 7, 2010

"Building a Resilient Tomorrow"   International Relations and Security Network  May 1, 2010

"Futures Thinking: A Bibliography"   Fast Company  Apr 28, 2010

"Imagining Earth Day, 2020"   Fast Company  Apr 26, 2010

"Engineering the Physical and Political Future"   The Futurist  Apr 21, 2010

"World Water: Three projects that are changing the future"   Fast Company  Mar 26, 2010

"Getting It Right"   Open the Future  Mar 23, 2010

"A Survival Guide to Geoengineering"   momentum  Mar 22, 2010

"Countdown"   Open the Future  Mar 21, 2010

"Fifteen Minutes into the Future"   Open the Future  Mar 11, 2010

"Pushing Back Against the Methane Tipping Point"   Open the Future  Mar 10, 2010

"Augmented (Fashion) Reality"   Fast Company  Mar 5, 2010

"Futures Thinking: Writing Scenarios"   Fast Company  Feb 27, 2010

"A Cold War Over Warming"   Open the Future  Dec 11, 2009

"Futures Thinking: Scanning the World"   Fast Company  Dec 1, 2009

"I Can Has Singularity?"   Fast Company  Nov 20, 2009

"Is the atmosphere simpler than we thought?"   Fast Company  Nov 10, 2009

"350"   Fast Company  Oct 31, 2009

"Futures Thinking: Asking the Question"   Fast Company  Oct 22, 2009

"Filtering Reality"   The Atlantic  Oct 16, 2009

"Singularity Scenarios"   Fast Company  Oct 13, 2009

"The Singularity and Society"   Fast Company  Sep 30, 2009

"Futures Thinking: The Basics"   Fast Company  Sep 19, 2009

"Application Progamming Interfaces Are Not a Substitute for Ethics"   Fast Company  Sep 11, 2009

"Awareness Is Everything"   Fast Company  Sep 8, 2009

"Social Transition Stress Disorder"   Open the Future  Sep 2, 2009

"Three Possible Economic Models (Part II)"   Fast Company  Aug 27, 2009

"Three Possible Economic Models (Part 1)"   Fast Company  Aug 25, 2009

"Paranoia is a Pre-Existing Condition"   Open the Future  Aug 24, 2009

"New Rules for the Photoshop Era"   Fast Company  Aug 12, 2009

"The “End of Politics” Delusion"   Open the Future  Aug 6, 2009

"How America Will End"   Open the Future  Aug 4, 2009

"Autonomy Without Intelligence?"   Fast Company  Aug 1, 2009

"The Desktop Manufacturing Revolution"   Fast Company  Jul 15, 2009

"Hacking the Earth"   The Futurist  Jun 29, 2009

"The Dark Side of Twittering a Revolution"   Fast Company  Jun 20, 2009

"Get Smarter"   The Atlantic Monthly  Jun 19, 2009

"It’s Time to Cool the Planet"   Wall Street Journal  Jun 15, 2009

"The Transparency Dilemma"   Fast Company  May 28, 2009

"Should Creative Workers Use Cognitive-Enhancing Drugs?"   Fast Company  May 8, 2009

"The Next Big Thing: Resilience"   Foreign Policy  Apr 21, 2009

"Social Networking and the Brain: Continuous Partial Empathy?"   Fast Company  Apr 18, 2009

"Machine Ethics"   Fast Company  Apr 9, 2009

"Toy Hacks, Starships and Pumas"   Open The Future  Apr 9, 2009

"Resilience in the Face of Crisis: Why the Future will be Flexible"   Fast Company  Apr 3, 2009

"One Model for a New World Economy"   Open The Future  Mar 31, 2009

"The New World"   Open The Future  Mar 30, 2009

"When ‘Mad Men’ Meets Augmented Reality"   Fast Company  Mar 25, 2009

"Geoengineering: New Problems, Old Politics"   Open The Future  Mar 19, 2009

"Geoengineering’s Drawbacks"   Open The Future  Mar 16, 2009

"Participatory Panopticon’s Bumpy Road"   Ethical Technology  Mar 16, 2009

"Geoengineering Earth, Mars and the Galaxy"   Open The Future  Mar 10, 2009

"The End of Long-Term Thinking"   Open The Future  Mar 7, 2009

"John Henry was an Audiobook-Readin’ Man"   Open The Future  Feb 28, 2009

"Scaffolding, Redux"   Open The Future  Feb 24, 2009

"Flunking Out"   Open the Future  Feb 6, 2009

"New Geoengineering Study: Can We Fix the Planet?"   Open The Future  Jan 28, 2009

"Boosting Your Brain for Fun and Profit"   Open The Future  Jan 24, 2009

"Cloud computing: Threat or Menace?"   Open The Future  Jan 19, 2009

"Aspirational Futurism, Uncertainty and Resilience"   Open The Future  Jan 3, 2009

"Cycles of History"   Open the Future  Dec 19, 2008

"Value Ecologies"   Open the Future  Dec 16, 2008

"Nanopolitics"   Open the Future  Dec 12, 2008

"Legacy Futures"   Open The Future  Dec 9, 2008

"Global Climate and Global Power"   Open The Future  Dec 5, 2008

"Resilience and the Next Disaster"   Open the Future  Oct 16, 2008

"All distant problems are not created equally"   Open the Future  Oct 7, 2008

"Tomorrow Matters"   Open the Future  Sep 23, 2008

"Massively-Multiplayer Decepticon"   Open the Future  Sep 17, 2008

"This Changes Everything"   Open the Future  Sep 12, 2008

"Making the Visible Invisible"   Open the Future  Aug 19, 2008

"Wakefulness, Storms and Urban Agriculture"   Open the Future  Jul 24, 2008

"The Big Picture: Collapse, Transcendence, or Muddling Through"   Open the Future  Jul 16, 2008

"Singular Sensations"   Open the Future  Jul 5, 2008

"Singularities Enough, and Time"   Open the Future  Jun 30, 2008

"The Griefer Future"   Open the Future  Jun 27, 2008

"SimFuture(s)"   Open the Future  Jun 1, 2008

"Who Decides the Ideal Climate?"   Open the Future  May 28, 2008