How to Future Proof your Life with Jane McGonigal
Jane McGonigal was featured in a VOX interview on her new book Imaginable. Imaginable explains how anybody can get better at forecasting the future. Sigal Samuel talked to her about how we can train ourselves to become better futurists, why making better forecasters out of the public can lead to better policy, and how simulations are processed in the brain.
An excerpt from the interview:
"Future forces are large-scale drivers of change. They’re like the winds of change, the hurricanes of change — you see them coming from very far off. For example, we know that extreme heat is one of the big future forces that we’re going to be grappling with for the next few decades. Not all future forces are bad — some are good. Universal basic income is one that I’m really excited about.
You can know what the future forces are; there are reports and publications that do a really good job of conveying this. Make it a habit every year to go read the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report that comes out in January. It’s 500 to 1,000 experts saying what keeps them up at night and how likely they think the different risks are. You don’t have to make it your job to do something about it. Just put it in your brain so you’re primed to pay attention when signals of change emerge.
Signals of change are specific events, news stories, or breakthroughs that are happening now. They’re clues to what the future might be like.
Wuhan was a signal. And then Italy was a signal. And then New York City was a signal. The problem for most people is that they look at one instance of change and they see it as isolated; they don’t understand the pattern it’s a part of. If you make it a habit to look for signals of change, you just get better at spotting these growing risks faster."
To read the interview, please visit here!