Jamais Cascio

“Crackdowns on Internet content make clear the need for an anonymized Web. Now, someone just needs to implement it.”

“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.”

“I have to admit it: I'm not a huge fan of the cloud computing concept.”

“With increasing fervor since the 1980s, sustainability has been the watchword of scientists, environmental activists, and indeed all those concerned about the complex, fragile systems on the sphere we inhabit. It has shaped debates about business, design, and our lifestyles.”

“Future forecasting is all about testing strategies - it's like a wind tunnel.”

“Much as Cold War nuclear strategists could argue about winning a nuclear war by having more survivors, advocates of a Global Warming War might see the United States, Western Europe, or Russia as better able to ride out climate disruption and manipulation than, say, China or the countries of the Middle East.”

“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.”

“Is there a better example of natural selection in action than 'Project Runway?'”

“The notion of the Internet as a force of political and social revolution is not a new one. As far back as the early 1990s, in the early days of the World Wide Web, there were technologists and writers arguing forcefully that the Internet was destined to become the most important tool for cultural change in human history.”

“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.”

“The reality is that de-carbonisation is not happening fast enough.”

“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.”

“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 wouldn't even consider doing.”

“Nature stopped being natural decades ago.”

“I understand that most iPhone users want a phone that can do other nifty things, not a general purpose computer that happens to make phone calls. Strict control over apps minimizes the chances that someone will find their phone hacked or virus-laden.”

“Thinking about the future is fundamentally important to dealing with the challenges of today.”

“By ignoring tomorrow, we undermine today.”

“Back in the 1500s, the culture that we had built in the West embraced multigenerational projects quite easily. Notre Dame. Massive cathedrals were not built over the course of a few years, they were built over a few generations. People who started building them knew they wouldn't be finished until their grandson was born.”

“It's remarkably easy to dig up enormous amounts of information about individuals, without their consent.”

“Human civilization has been changing the Earth's 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.”