Technology
Futurists—who sometimes prefer to be called scenario planners or foresight thinkers—specialize in helping the rest of us understand the big trends and forces that will shape the world of tomorrow. So here’s what I really wanted to ask one: Is a cataclysm like the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 the kind of event we should be able to see coming? If so, then why didn’t we do more to get ready? Why has the federal government’s response to the spread of covid-19 been so inept? And above all, what should we be doing now to get our political and economic institutions back in shape so that they can cope better with the next challenge?This April I had the opportunity to speak about all things coronavirus with my favorite futurist, Jamais Cascio. Jamais is widely known for his work with the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, and he has a bit of a reputation as the “dark futures” futurist—the one who isn’t afraid to dwell on how things could go wrong. It turned out he’d been thinking about many of the same questions, and that he’d been developing a new analytical framework for just such an occasion. It’s called BANI, and it offers new insights into our strange historical moment, when institutions left brittle by years of deliberate neglect now face shattering stresses. In this episode, Jamais and and I tour the BANI concept and discuss how we could come out of pandemic with some new tools for confronting catastrophe.Chapter Guide00:00 Hub & Spoke Sonic ID 00:08Soonish Theme00:22 Futurism in a Time of Pandemic02:03 Introducing Jamais Cascio04:12 Explaining VUCA08:32 Meet BANI10:43 How BANI Fits Our Moment. Part I: Brittleness in the Pandemic13:48 Part II: Anxiety14:17 Part III: Nonlinearity15:10 Part IV: Incomprehensibility16:01 Pandemics as Wild Cards18:48 Planning for Pandemics19:56 The War Against Expertise21:44 Responding to Brittleness and Anxiety23:50 Responding to Nonlinearity26:03 Responding to Incomprehensibility 27:46 Paths Forward: Thinking More Like Futurists30:30 Muddling Through32:36 End Credits, Acknowledgements, and Hub & Spoke Promos