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 |

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Blogs

Open The Future

Countdown

Cool Project #3: Social Business Edge

Cool Project #2: UC Santa Cruz Intellectual Forum

Cool Project #1: LAUNCH

Pushing Back Against the Methane Tipping Point

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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

"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 15, 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

"How Many Earths?"   Open the Future  May 19, 2008

"Pondering Fermi"   Open the Future  May 6, 2008

"Remaking the Athlete, Remaking the Culture"   Open the Future  May 2, 2008

"Feedback, Tipping Points, and Hard Choices"   Open the Future  Apr 29, 2008

"The Earth Will Be Just Fine, Thank You"   Open the Future  Apr 23, 2008

"Roll +3 vs the Future"   Open the Future  Apr 20, 2008

"The Big Picture: Resource Collapse"   Open the Future  Apr 8, 2008

"Peak Oil vs. Global Warming"   Open the Future  Mar 25, 2008

"Super-Empowered Hopeful Individuals"   Nanotechnology Now  Mar 24, 2008

"It’s the Business of the Future to be Dangerous"   Open the Future  Mar 18, 2008

"The Renewable Proliferation Treaty"   Open the Future  Feb 17, 2008

"The Big Picture: Climate Chaos"   Open the Future  Feb 4, 2008

"The Big Future"   Open the Future  Jan 31, 2008

"Battlefield Earth"   Foreign Policy  Jan 29, 2008

"“Techno-Doping” and the New Olympics"   Open the Future  Jan 14, 2008

"Malware for Materials"   Open the Future  Dec 30, 2007

"Prototyping the Participatory Panopticon"   Open the Future  Dec 19, 2007

"Green Tomorrows: the Scenarios"   Open the Future  Nov 25, 2007

"I Spy With My Orbital Eye…"   Open the Future  Nov 17, 2007

"The Second Uncanny Valley"   Open the Future  Oct 28, 2007

"The Politics of Geoengineering"   Open the Future  Oct 26, 2007

"Solving the Climate Crisis"   Open the Future  Oct 14, 2007

"Paper Batteries, 200mpg Cars, and Biobricks"   Open the Future  Oct 10, 2007

"Could universal health insurance be an engine for entrepreneurial innovation?"   Open the Future  Sep 25, 2007

"Futurism as Civilizational Therapy"   Open the Future  Sep 17, 2007

"The Metaverse and an Open Source Singularity"   Open the Future  Sep 9, 2007

"Econo-brain, Chip Fabs and CyberWar"   Open the Future  Aug 12, 2007

"Technology as Political Catalyst"   Open the Future  Jul 18, 2007

"An Insufficient Present"   Open the Future  Jul 1, 2007

"Metaverse Roadmap Report"   Open the Future  Jun 27, 2007

"F in Citizenship"   Open the Future  Jun 23, 2007