Published on February 4th, 2009
Worldchanging.com co-founder Jamais Cascio works in the field of scenario development. He’s used his skills on all sorts of projects from video game design to building alternative energy scenarios. In his recently published lecture, he talks about specific things we can do to build a better world.
[Creative Commons photo by Andrés Larsen]
Each year, the
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference invites experts from a variety of fields to share their knowledge in 18 minute lectures. Jamais Cascio gave this talk back in February of 2006 discussing solutions for a sustainable future. He talks about the need for optimism and how, “focusing only on negative outcomes can really blind you to the very possibility of success.” He emphasizes staying positive, citing scientific and technological advances that help us better understand our impact on the world around us and how to lower that impact.
He even touches on the power of social networking! The Earth Witness project he describes sounds like a really exciting idea - one that might be doable using a microblogging service like Twitter that allows folks to send texts straight from their cell phones to the web!
Check out the whole video after the jump.
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Published on October 27th, 2008
In a time when stock prices, gas prices and more change dramatically within days, hours and minutes, it’s hard to imagine that anyone five years ago could have had a cogent take on today’s troubles. Until you watch Jared Diamond’s talk on why societies fail, given in February 2003 in Monterey, California.
Diamond, in case you’re not familiar with him, is a professor of geography and physiology at UCLA and author of the eye-opening book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed.
So how right-on was Diamond’s outlook a full five years ago? Check out this quote:
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