Superstruct countdown

The world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game, Superstruct, goes live in less than two weeks, and it's time for futures oriented folks to get involved!

In the first week of October, players from around the world will take on the ultimate role -- themselves, in the world of a decade from now. From the game scenario, set in 02019:

The human species has a long history of overcoming tremendous obstacles, often coming out stronger than before. Indeed, some anthropologists argue that human intelligence emerged as the consequence of the last major ice age, a period of enormous environmental stress demanding flexibility, foresight and creativity on the part of the small numbers of early Homo sapiens. Historically, those who have prophesied doom for human civilization have been proven wrong, time and again, by the capacity of our species to both adapt to and transform our conditions.

It is in this context that the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS) offers its forecast of the likely extinction of humankind within the next quarter-century.
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Running for nearly 50 days, the first WorldRun simulation offered a likely human extinction date sometime in the early 2040s. Subsequent modeling and confirmation tests have narrowed that likely extinction date to 2042 --just 23 years from now.

...GEAS does not argue or believe that this future is unavoidable. This is perhaps the most important element of our forecast. This is not fate. If we act now--and act with intelligence, flexibility, foresight and creativity--we can avoid the final threat. We may even come out of this period far stronger than we were before.
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GEAS has identified five superthreats and given them memorable names as a way of encouraging discussion and awareness:

* Quarantine covers the global response to declining health and pandemic disease, including the current Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ReDS) crisis.

* Ravenous focuses on the imminent collapse of the global food system, as well as debates over industrial vs. ecological agricultural models, and basic issues of access, energy, and carbon.

* Power Struggle tracks the results of energy resource peaks and the shifts in international power as nations fight for energy supremacy and the world searches for alternative energy solutions.

* Outlaw Planet embodies the volatile mix of new forms of surveillance, transparency, civil rights, and access to information as people work out new rules for human security.

* Generation Exile follows the massive "diaspora of diasporas" underway globally, as the number of refugees and migrants skyrockets in the face of climate change, economic disruption, and war.

At the top of this post is one of five videos released this week, in advance of the 6 October start date, profiling the quintet of Superthreats looming for humanity in the year 02019. Check out the rest of the videos, and start thinking about where you might find yourself a decade from today.

The game is free, open to everyone, and promises to be not only fun, but also a landmark in participatory futures work.

You'll be in good company; the number of people already signed up is in the thousands, I'm a Game Master on Superstruct, and HRCFS alumnus Jake Dunagan has just started working at Palo Alto's Institute for the Future, which is running the game, led by Jane McGonigal and Jamais Cascio.

Let's get started! Humanity has only 23 years (and 12 days) on the clock...

Dator on Slow Food

Over the Labor Day weekend (29 August-1 September), San Francisco hosted Slow Food Nation, a large event dedicated to "celebrat[ing] the birth of a broad and inclusive food movement to build a better American food system", and attended by over 60,000 people, according to the organisers.

Slow Food is a global movement supporting a range of culinary causes including the preservation and appreciation of local cuisines, organic farming, and ethical buying.

HRCFS director Jim Dator was approached for his views on the trend for a San Francisco Chronicle feature about Slow Food Nation, and the current Honolulu Weekly (17 September), following up on the event, quotes him at length [p. 5, print edition]:

I am among a growing (but still tiny) number of people in Hawaii becoming hysterical about the future viability of this place given what I call the "unholy trinity plus one" facing us: Peak Oil, environmental challenges, global economic collapse, plus the inability of governments, especially the U.S. national government, to do anything about it. It is absolutely essential that Hawaii learn how to become largely self-sufficient to survive and thrive under the impact of those forces. We are 90% dependent on oil. We could not sustain ourselves for a month if/when planes stop [flying] and the ships stop shipping. Within that context, slow food is essential for our survival. It is not an optional cultural preference.

The "unholy trinity plus one" is explained further in this previous post.

The Unholy Trinity, Plus One

Over the last six months or so, HRCFS Director Jim Dator has spoken with a variety of community organisations around Hawaii about a series of major issues that threaten serious disruption to business-as-usual in the near future. His talk, which has varied somewhat from audience to audience, but with the same underlying message, is called "The Unholy Trinity, Plus One: On Governing the End of the World as We Know It".

On the most recent occasion Dator was invited to address the Kokua Council, one of Hawaii's oldest advocacy groups. A recording of his August 25 presentation is now available for download [mp3, 25.4 Mb] courtesy of the Council, whose President Larry Geller summarises the speech at the Kokua Council blog:

For years, I have been asking people in Hawaii to consider one of four "alternative futures" that I have constructed for them. Interestingly, the one that most people here tell me they like… Hawaii as a community frozen in time when things were about as good as they could be for most people living here -- the late 1950s and early '60s.

How is it possible since all dominant forces are pushing for endlessly more of everything -- tourists, hotels, big box stores, McMansions, and economic "growth" in general?

The answer may lie in what I call "The unholy trinity, plus one." I use the phrase to capture the combined influence of three processes that are often considered separately. Someone focusing on one is unlikely to pay attention to the other two. Indeed, solutions to the one are often expected from the other two. But, all three are in crisis together and must be viewed together -- along with something else: the "plus one" in my title.

The unholy three are:

--"Peak Oil" -- that we may in essence "run out" of oil before equally abundant and cheap energy sources come on line. And Hawaii is almost totally dependent on cheap oil for everything it does now.

--"Climate change" and all the other many environmental problems we have been neglecting, and making worse, for so long.

--And "global economic collapse" of the debt-driven Ponzi scheme we call an "economy."

Many of us expect the federal government to help solve these problems -- by sending everyone $300 so we will go shopping and keep the economy going, or by investing in energy R&D. Yet, our Government can't help because of 20 years of bad-mouthing (neo-conservatism has convinced us that all government is bad), downsizing, privatizing, outsourcing, and debt, each of which were intended to drive nails into the coffin of effective government. Massive debt is the final nail. Our huge national debt was incurred on purpose. It is not an unfortunate consequence of policies. It is the intent of those policies to destroy effective government so as to leave everything up to private and not public forces -- of such profiteers as Blackwater, Battelle, Halliburton, et al.

Conclusion: It is far too late to prevent the consequences of the Unholy Trinity, Plus One. We can only deal with them, and thus look forward eagerly to Hawaii being the best little backwater on the planet. Many people say they want such a Hawaii. Now is our chance. We all must learn how to live with grace and purpose with far less energy and consumer goods.

A Hawaiian future for San Francisco

What if an energy crisis prompted Hawai'i to closed its doors to visitors?

That's the premise of an exhibition currently showing at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts (part of the California College of the Arts, or CCA) in San Francisco.

Initiated by MA student Sally Szwed in the CCA's Curatorial Practice program, September is Hawai'i's turn in a multi-year exhibition, planned to run until 02012, called "Americana". Each month the display at the Wattis takes up a different American state, and is curated by a different student. Sally drew Hawai'i at random, and her research took her to Jim Dator's "Best Little Backwater" scenario (pdf, 01999), which led her to get in touch with us at HRCFS. As she explains in her notes to the show:

The state of Hawaii has the distinction of being the most remote population center on the planet; a vast distance of 2390 miles separates the islands from California, the nearest populace. While the mainland United States covers a seemingly endless expanse of land, Hawaii is acutely defined by its modest physical boundaries. It is far more vulnerable than the rest of the country to the shifts of agricultural industry, technological development, military needs, and tourism.
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This imagined future for Hawaii provides the starting point for the research of two of Dator's PhD students, Jake Dunagan and Stuart Candy, whose work is featured in this exhibition. Exploring the idea of Hawaii one hundred years into the future and after 70 years of complete isolation from the outside world, their work takes a narrative form, as well as representing their ideas through the production of images and artifacts.

As you look at the display, imagine you are three generations into the future and outsiders have not been able to visit the Hawaiian Islands for decades. The land of luxury resorts and tiki-torches that one might now associate with the state has disintegrated and Hawaii has become an independent nation. The objects that are on display are artifacts from this future. They tell the story of one man's experiences and discoveries while living on the islands during this time of seclusion, drastic transition, and cultural rebirth.

The show runs through 20 September 02008.

Artifact credits:
[1] Hybrid cell phone: design by FoundFutures (Jake Dunagan and Stuart Candy), executed by Dan Phelan
[2] Hubcap-wok: design by FoundFutures, executed by Sally Szwed
[3] Military shirt: design by FoundFutures, executed by Haruko Moberg
[4] Ration card: design by Yumi Vong, from an earlier piece for FoundFutures by Steve Kiyabu
[5] Journal: design and execution by Yumi Vong, text by Jake Dunagan
[6] Ceremonial bowl: design by FoundFutures, executed by Sally Szwed
[7] Flag: design by FoundFutures, executed by Cameron Kelley and Sally Szwed

Images: the sceptical futuryst