A key part of the mission of the Houston Foresight, and my personal mission, is to introduce as many people as possible …
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Fully Automated Luxury Communism
Author Aaron Bastani boldly uses the “C” word – communism – as part of his vision for an after capitalism future – Fully …
30 Years as a Futurist
Yikes! Futurist has been my only professional job. I finished the Foresight (then Future Studies) program in 1990 and …
When did it start? Origins of the foresight field
I think we futurists need to do a better job of telling our story. Almost daily it seems (probably more like weekly), I …
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Images and decision-making in foresight
I had a nice conversation with some colleagues on a private listserve on the role of futurists. One camp suggested that …
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The State of Foresight
For our Spring Gathering last year at Houston Foresight, we explored the topic of “Introducing the Future, that is, how …
Let’s explore the future of AI in education
One of the cool things about being a journal editor is not only do you get to see what aspiring authors are interested, …
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Art or Science in Foresight
Of course it's not an either-or. But do the scales tip one way or another in foresight? It depends on the practitioner …
Transition Scenarios via Backcasting
I had an opportunity to do some work on backcasting with my colleagues Johann Schutte and Maria Romero, and with the …
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Sci Fi Futures
Our Annual Spring Gathering is an opportunity for our extended futures family to come together and socialize, and dig a …
Finding the Fringe Takes Time
Last time we talked about snowball scanning as a way to find the fringe in horizon scanning. As I thought more about, I …
Snowball scanning
We have been doing a lot of thinking and work on horizon scanning at Houston Foresight. We revised our process several …
Capitalism in Context
And [finally] some thoughts on Volume 3, The Perspective of the World from Braudel’s Civilization and Capitalism series …
Progress Report on Virtual Classes
Last semester we took the bold step of doing away with the physical classroom and conducting all classes virtually via …
Measurement, Trust, and Meatbots
Reliance on measurement from lack of trust in our own intuition is turning us into meatbots. The desire to measure is …
A Futurist Journey to Thailand
I’m about to finish up a wonderful month-long visit to Bangkok on a Fulbright Specialist Grant. The Thai Office of …
Futurists doing Foresight: My take on the name game
If I could wave the magic wand and settle the name game, I would say that we are futurists doing foresight. That is, the …
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Walking Away from Capitalism
How will we get to “After Capitalism?” Perhaps we’ll simply walk away? That’s the idea of Cory Doctorow’s excellent and …
Capitalism coming full circle?
Some thoughts on Volume 2, The Wheels of Commerce from Braudel’s Civilization and Capitalism series (post on Volume 1) …
Ten things we could do if we did not have to work
It’s great to see my piece “Getting Ready for a Post-Work Future” published in Foresight and STI Governance. I blogged …
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Jobs as income is a distribution problem
In our series on a post-work future, last time we looked at how jobs providing structure to daily life would be a …
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Jobs provide structure to daily life
In our series looking at the possibility of a post-work future, last time we looked at how the centrality of work to our …
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Work is central to our identity
When you are introduced to someone, how long is it before you let them know what you do for work? And how soon do you …
A Post-Work Future May Take Longer Than We Think
The After Capitalism research has identified three categories of visions of a world in which capitalism is no longer the …
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The Non-Tragedy of the Commons
Most of us have dutifully learned the Tragedy of the Commons, how unchecked individual interested overwhelms the group …
Saying goodbye to the physical classroom
The Houston Foresight graduate program is running an experiment this semester: there will be no physical classroom for …
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Visions, images, and utopias
I’m working on the explanation of what’s to come for After Capitalism. As regular readers are aware by now, three …
Integral Futures Questions
It was great to dive back into some Integral Futures in Alternative Perspectives class this semester. The all-too-rare …
Pre-capitalism and post-capitalism
Braudel’s Civilization and Capitalism three-volume series has been in my “to-read” pile for many years. I’d heard many …
Reasonable futures timeframes
What’s an appropriate timeframe for foresight work? It’s a question we futurists often get. It’s usually coming from a …