Sally Kohn: What is the skill that i want every one to have as we move into these really uncertain times? It's not playing with simulations, it's designing your own future scenarios. She says she wants young people to be able to make more vivid and believable and actionable the worlds they want to wake up in. The book just as is inspiring in that way throughout, I did want to take it back to slightly more negative sid of things, but this doesn't have to be so alarming, right?Kohn: Humans have always been a migratory species. We have an opportunity to maybe rethink, re invent, re imagine what forms of movement do we want to make
Future forecaster and game designer Jane McGonigal ran a social simulation game in 2008 that had players dealing with the effects of a respiratory pandemic set to happen in the next decade. She wasn’t literally predicting the 2020 pandemic—but she got eerily close. Her game, set in 2019, featured scenarios we're now familiar with (like masking and social distancing), and participant reactions gave her a sense of what the world could—and eventually, did—look like. How did she do it? And what can we learn from this experiment to predict—and prepare for—the future ourselves? In this episode, Jane teaches us how to be futurists, and talks about the role of imagination—and gaming—in shaping a future that we’re truly excited about. Jane’s new book, Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything―Even Things That Seem Impossible Today is available now.
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