256. Imagining the Future with Reality Game Designer and Futurist Jane McGonigal
The Michael Shermer Show
Michael Shermer
4.4 • 921 Ratings
🗓️ 22 March 2022
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Shermer speaks with world-renowned future forecaster and game designer, Jane McGonigal, about her book Imaginable in which she draws on the latest scientific research in psychology and neuroscience to show us how to train our minds to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable by inviting us to play with provocative thought experiments and future simulations.
Shermer and McGonigal discuss: what a futurist is and what they do; counterfactuals: predicting the past; how could the present moment be different?; how can you imagine the unimaginable, or think the unthinkable?; how to envision what our lives will look like ten years from now; how to to solve problems creatively; how to make decisions that will help shape the future we desire; how to simulate any future you want; simulations as thought experiments as counterfactual causality tests; gaming as simulation of problem solving; the 10,000-hour rule for success; your present self vs. your future self and why most of us discount the future too much.
Transcript
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| 0:14.0 | You're listening to the Michaelmer Show. Welcome to the Michael Schurmer Show. I'm your host Michael Schurmer. |
| 0:17.0 | My guest today is Jane McGonigal. |
| 0:20.0 | Here is her new book. It's called |
| 0:26.2 | Imaginable How to See the Future Coming and feel ready for anything. Even things that seem impossible today. |
| 0:31.0 | Well, I can think of half a dozen of those before breakfast. |
| 0:35.4 | Jane McGonigal is a future forecaster and designer of reality games |
| 0:40.3 | created to improve real lives and solve real problems. |
| 0:44.0 | She's also the author of two New York Times best-selling books, |
| 0:47.0 | Reality is Broken. |
| 0:49.0 | Why Games Make Us Better and how they can change the world and super better the power of living |
| 0:55.8 | gamefully and her two TED talks on how gaming can improve our lives have over 15 million views. She's a professional |
| 1:04.4 | game designer and she also works for this Institute for the Future at |
| 1:10.1 | Stanford University and she teaches a course there on how to think like a futurist. |
| 1:16.0 | And she also has a course on Corsera if you want to check it out. |
| 1:18.6 | I'd start with the TED Talks after you listen to this podcast. |
| 1:23.4 | Anyway, we discuss what's a futurist |
| 1:25.9 | and when does the future begin? |
| 1:28.2 | I mean, technically, now is about three seconds. |
| 1:31.8 | So I guess the future would be anytime four seconds from now |
| 1:34.9 | into the future and off it goes and how do you think long term 10 days 10 years |
| 1:39.9 | a hundred years whatever and so so we discuss some of that. The word unimaginable, by definition, |
| 1:49.6 | means you can't imagine it. So I press her on, what does it even mean to imagine the |
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