Right? So these are our distillation of the kinds of mistakes that past futurists have made. And one of the futurism fallacies is that we tend to overestimate short-term progress but then underestimate long-term progress. So like everything we've been talking about, early on, we thought, oh, we would have fusion already.
about where they lead. Another way to do futurism is to imagine disruptive technologies-- self-driving cars, blockchains-- and try to imagine the details of those technologies. But a third way of doing futurism is to take one of those disruptive technologies and ask, what are the consequences?
And so inside, all of those incredible images are loaded with all kinds of iconography, all kinds of-- whether it's Black futurism , whether it's, you know, bits of history, just dynamic cultural undertones. That was what we wanted to infuse in all of these moments.
who are interested could order the first part and if they liked it they could order the other they could pre-order the paying attention to in in in futurism
Another way to do futurism is to imagine disruptive technologies-- self-driving cars, blockchains-- and try to imagine the details of those technologies. But a third way of doing futurism is to take one of those disruptive technologies and ask, what are the consequences? What follows as a result?
And so doing a deep dive on what we thought were the most interesting topics was just tremendous fun. We start the book with a look at futurism itself because this is "The Skeptics' Guide to the Future." We're not just riffing. We wanted to say, how well did futurists of the past do in their predictions of the future.
are people who are looking at ways to increase Cloud albo to reflect more heat out uh big GE geoengineering projects it's futurism but there is a practical real world value gain to the the predictive work they're doing
And then Reggie and I talked about it a lot, too. Everybody who I know who's super into futurism type stuff was sending me articles, like every article that was coming out. But it's kind of-- now it feels obvious, right, where it's going?
Yeah. And we just never cracked that nut. And so now-- and here's the other-- We may never-- --other futurism fallacy-- --never will, maybe. --yeah, is that you can't think of one technology.
foresight uh explain that a little bit bit more because I I have have read the book I don't know if everyone else has so explain what you mean by this foresight when when I say foresight I basically mean futurism but a lot of people who do this professionally will talk in terms of foresight strategy um because it's not just trying
Yeah, absolutely. Then as soon as you forget about it, it'll be like, all right, here's your self-driving car. But yeah, in the book, in the early part, we talk about futurism fallacies. Right? So these are our distillation of the kinds of mistakes that past futurists have made.
And so now-- and here's the other-- We may never-- --other futurism fallacy-- --never will, maybe. But cars, I think they've already lost because it's not always about the technology, which is another futurism fallacy.
And so I mentioned it to a friend of mine and she said, "Jenny, my twelve-year old just did a presentation in school in PowerPoint last week." I mean, this has already happened. And I said "Oh, OK. I won't get credit for futurism on that one." But yes. She keeps her journal in slides and this makes her mother very uncomfortable so Sasha, my main character, because she keeps saying, "Why aren't you writing? What's all that white space? Where does the writing come in?" So, it becomes an object of mother/daughter tension, too.
We start the book with a look at futurism itself because this is "The Skeptics' Guide to the Future." We're not just riffing. We wanted to say, how well did futurists of the past do in their predictions of the future. Obviously-- Not very well at all-- Not very well.
But yeah, in the book, in the early part, we talk about futurism fallacies. Right? So these are our distillation of the kinds of mistakes that past futurists have made. And one of the futurism fallacies is that we tend to overestimate short-term progress but then underestimate long-term progress.