Scenarios - just the end of the beginning

About uncertainties and learning

Switching between different perspectives, and unlocking possibilities

Horizon Scanning - finding things out today and imagining how things might play out 5 or even 10 years later.

• iPhone, 2007

• Youtube, 2005

• Facebook, 2004

• Google, 1996

• Tesla, 2008

All have had really long gestation periods - hard to tell!

What's happening today that are not covered, but might have big impacts?

Get plugged into Operations - find a way to work with them!

Or be a Red Team that tackles what-ifs

Ways to overcome resistance.

Science fiction might be a way to explore possible futures.

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Building the scenarios

• economic axes

  • market ideologies?

  • state-society partnership (the Mazzucato stuff)

• Environment

  • How much change?

  • environmental consciousness?

Look out for things with impact and uncertainty

• ideologies often fall into this category

Create Axes

• look for things with impact and uncertainty

• Impact need not be quantitative - can be qualitative

Use tweets or newspaper headlines to make the scenarios come alive

Have the facilitator game going to guide people through the process

Another way to construct scenarios is to use Dator's Four Futures

• Business As Usual

• Collapse

• Discipline

• Transformation

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Music: Cutting Edge by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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I talk through the highlights of the Global Trends 2040: A More Contested World

How it differs from previous GTs - 5 scenarios! and regional forecasts focused on climate.

Renaissance of democracies - US and democratic allies thrive and solve problems

A World Adrift - Sluggish growth for everyone and problems are unaddressed - and China tries to expand influence

Separate Silos - 'Spheres of Influence' -type, and problems are also unaddressed

Competitive Coexistence - US and China learn to work together and solve problems, although they also compete

Tragedy and Mobilization - EU, China and other international orgs come to together to solve problems.

I talk about the wonderful concept diagrams - pg 69 on societal dynamics; 79, on national dynamics and demands on governance, and 91, on the global order of the report.

The main findings here: https://www.dni.gov/index.php/global-trends-home

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Music: Cutting Edge by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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How to incorporate technology issues as axes:

• About adoption and industry size

• Several examples of how that has happened:

  • Browsers

  • Aerospace industries

  • Carmakers

• It's not clear whether something is abandoned or not

  • Neural nets, deep learning

  • Nintendo Wii interface

  • Foldable phones

  • Extended Reality

  • Autonomous Vehicles

• Somethings things just need a really long time

  • Nuclear fusion?

• Decarbonisation - a new area of technological development

A portfolio approach looking at multiple technologies at the same time might be helpful - keeping tabs on them and then making further decisions when required.

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Music: Cutting Edge by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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The last in the series of the STEEP buckets.

I discuss:

• As a shorthand, I look at technology through digital, engineering and bio/health

• Quantum computers for simulations and materials science

• AI as contributing to inequality

• Extended Reality as the next area of computing platform

• Looking at cancers as an annoyance

• Management of chronic conditions

• Future treatment of dementias

• The varios -omics - genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomes, proteomics...

• Nuclear fusion as part of the energy system

• DARPA - as contributing to innovations in the past - GPS, the Internet, and more recently, driverless cars, mRNA vaccines, Boston Dynamics' robots.

• Marianna Mazzucato - the state as the lead player in creating innovations.

I would have loved to cover synthetic biology, but maybe next time.

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Music: Cutting Edge by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Covering social and demographics - as STEEP bucket and how to use it in scenarios

Demographics:

• Foundation of a country

• Age structure and economic growth

• Application for geopolitics:

  • China is ageing and needs resources to care, might become difficult to grow quickly

  • US can depend on immigration, but not always - with the Trump Admin interruption

  • EU is tricky - immigration is now weaponised

• China-boosters claiming rapid growth looks like a really tall order

  • Needs to change culture and society radically

• Demographics is an example of a pre-determined trend

Uncertainty and Impactful

• Social ideologies are impact but highly uncertain

• Analysts must avoid judge-y language

  • Avoid 'good' or 'bad' and avoid leaning to one side

  • Present both sides with tradeoffs

  • Present information and someone representative of the identity to express opinions

• Fanaticism seems connected with modernity

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I talk about what counts in the Economics bucket.

This is the FOURTH thing in the STEEP category, not the THIRD one as I mentioned.

I discussed:

• economic ideologies - free market ideology, privatisation.

• inequality, with reference to Thomas Pikkety's books, both Capital and Capital and Ideology.

• antitrust, and how the big court fights with technology companies might be happening.

• consumption and individualism

• trade and development - free market vs state-capitalism

• demographics and consumption ability

• entrepreneurship

• supply chains - an efficiency and resilience tradeoff?

As usual, if you enjoyed this, see if you contribute at the Patreon or Buy Me A Coffee!

Music: Cutting Edge by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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There was a fighter jet flying overhead, so pardon the sound when you hear it.

In futures thinking, I look at politics at two levels: the global geopolitics, and also domestic politics. This one focuses on global geopolitics.

I go through the basics - how countries seek security, and try to find offshore balancers as a way to bargain with other powers.

How China's Belt and Road Initiative - viewed simplistically, is a way to get round being surrounded by pro-American neighbours. Central Asia-Middle East route as a way to get past the US Navy dominated Indian Ocean and Malacca Straits.

How countries in Southeast Asia find a balance between US and China.

How EU is a global player though less so on security matters.

How middle powers such as Japan, India, Russia, the UK also play a role.

The domestic angle is also important - parties can have different foreign policy interests sometimes. (Actually in authoritarian governments too, depending on who specifically is in power and what their interests might be.)

Companies also have to play these rules - such as placating to political demands, or having to abide by multiple standards in data and technology and industry.

Cyberweapons are changing the strategic balance and still an open question how they might play in warfare.

And one last bit on "overstretch" - when powers have commitments beyond what their country can sustain.

As usual, if you enjoyed this, see if you contribute at the Patreon or Buy Me A Coffee!

Music: Cutting Edge by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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First off - thanks for bearing with me. Juggling work and this hobby, so bear with me when there are delays.

In this episode, I cover, "what is futures thinking?"

Its really just thinking about the future in a systematic way - thinking through trends and assumptions.

Trends - what's happening today and how it came to be?

Assumptions - the thinking behind how we think.

Futures thinking IS NOT ABOUT PREDICTIONS. NOT ABOUT PREDICTIONS.

I give a history - from the Cold War, to Shell - to Adam Kahane in South Africa, to Shell to the US intelligence community Global Trends.

Then I walk through how a scenario exercise might look like, and my very quick thoughts about them.

For more scenarios, check out the Instagram.

As usual, if you enjoyed this, see if you contribute at the Patreon or Buy Me A Coffee!

Music: Cutting Edge by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

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Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/

I describe the four pillars of decarbonisation:

1. electricity generation

2. transportation

3. heavy industries

4. plastics and pharmaceuticals.

I also describe Singapore's readiness

• renewable energy disadvantaged - might burn hydrogen?

• need to wait for the rest of industries to decarbonise

Wanted to say - we might import electricity from say, solar panel from Australia

If you are a chemical engineer: industries will undergo this long shift from thermodynamic to biological process? but all of these will take time.

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