0:00:01.111,0:00:03.643
So in the winter of 2012,

0:00:03.667,0:00:05.684
I went to visit my grandmother's house

0:00:05.708,0:00:07.351
in South India,

0:00:07.375,0:00:08.684
a place, by the way,

0:00:08.708,0:00:12.393
where the mosquitos have a special taste[br]for the blood of the American-born.

0:00:12.417,0:00:13.518
(Laughter)

0:00:13.542,0:00:14.792
No joke.

0:00:15.375,0:00:18.708
When I was there,[br]I got an unexpected gift.

0:00:19.583,0:00:22.101
It was this antique instrument

0:00:22.125,0:00:24.059
made more than a century ago,

0:00:24.083,0:00:26.726
hand-carved from a rare wood,

0:00:26.750,0:00:28.101
inlaid with pearls

0:00:28.125,0:00:30.458
and with dozens of metal strings.

0:00:31.958,0:00:34.059
It's a family heirloom,

0:00:34.083,0:00:36.184
a link between my past,

0:00:36.208,0:00:38.434
the country where my parents were born,

0:00:38.458,0:00:40.059
and the future,

0:00:40.083,0:00:41.792
the unknown places I'll take it.

0:00:43.125,0:00:46.059
I didn't actually realize it[br]at the time I got it,

0:00:46.083,0:00:50.125
but it would later become[br]a powerful metaphor for my work.

0:00:50.917,0:00:52.684
We all know the saying,

0:00:52.708,0:00:55.042
"There's no time like the present."

0:00:56.167,0:01:00.000
But nowadays, it can feel[br]like there's no time but the present.

0:01:01.000,0:01:05.726
What's immediate and ephemeral[br]seems to dominate our lives,

0:01:05.750,0:01:08.250
our economy and our politics.

0:01:09.821,0:01:14.272
It's so easy to get caught up[br]in the number of steps we took today

0:01:14.297,0:01:17.106
or the latest tweet[br]from a high-profile figure.

0:01:18.518,0:01:23.256
It's easy for businesses to get caught up[br]in making immediate profits

0:01:23.914,0:01:26.414
and neglect what's good[br]for future invention.

0:01:28.247,0:01:31.913
And it's far too easy[br]for governments to stand by

0:01:32.294,0:01:34.936
while fisheries and farmland are depleted

0:01:35.532,0:01:38.397
instead of conserved[br]to feed future generations.

0:01:40.428,0:01:42.428
I have a feeling that, at this rate,

0:01:42.649,0:01:47.514
it's going to be hard for our generation[br]to be remembered as good ancestors.

0:01:48.777,0:01:52.837
If you think about it,[br]our species evolved to think ahead,

0:01:52.861,0:01:55.045
to chart the stars,

0:01:55.069,0:01:57.212
dream of the afterlife,

0:01:57.236,0:01:59.277
sow seeds for later harvest.

0:02:00.569,0:02:05.587
Some scientists call this superpower[br]that we have "mental time travel,"

0:02:05.611,0:02:09.878
and it's responsible for pretty much[br]everything we call human civilization,

0:02:09.902,0:02:12.462
from farming to the Magna Carta

0:02:12.486,0:02:14.170
to the internet --

0:02:14.194,0:02:16.777
all first conjured in the minds of humans.

0:02:18.361,0:02:19.628
But let's get real:

0:02:19.652,0:02:22.253
if we look around us today,

0:02:22.277,0:02:26.402
we don't exactly seem to be[br]using this superpower quite enough,

0:02:28.069,0:02:30.236
and that begs the question: Why not?

0:02:32.569,0:02:37.795
What's wrong is how our communities,[br]businesses and institutions are designed.

0:02:37.819,0:02:40.944
They're designed in a way[br]that's impairing our foresight.

0:02:42.444,0:02:45.045
I want to talk to you[br]about the three key mistakes

0:02:45.069,0:02:46.402
that I think we're making.

0:02:47.569,0:02:49.777
The first mistake is what we measure.

0:02:51.569,0:02:54.962
When we look at the quarterly[br]profits of a company

0:02:54.986,0:02:57.503
or its near-term stock price,

0:02:57.527,0:02:59.295
that's often not a great measure

0:02:59.319,0:03:02.045
of whether that company[br]is going to grow its market share

0:03:02.069,0:03:04.337
or be inventive in the long run.

0:03:04.361,0:03:09.462
When we glue ourselves to the test scores[br]that kids bring back from school,

0:03:09.486,0:03:12.462
that's not necessarily[br]what's great for those kids' learning

0:03:12.486,0:03:14.444
and curiosity in the long run.

0:03:15.402,0:03:18.027
We're not measuring[br]what really matters in the future.

0:03:19.861,0:03:22.920
The second mistake we're making[br]that impairs our foresight

0:03:22.944,0:03:24.527
is what we reward.

0:03:25.652,0:03:28.795
When we celebrate a political leader[br]or a business leader

0:03:28.819,0:03:32.045
for the disaster she just cleaned up

0:03:32.069,0:03:34.587
or the announcement she just made,

0:03:34.611,0:03:36.170
we're not motivating that leader

0:03:36.194,0:03:40.170
to invest in preventing[br]those disasters in the first place,

0:03:40.194,0:03:44.878
or to put down payments on the future[br]by protecting communities from floods

0:03:44.902,0:03:46.670
or fighting inequality

0:03:46.694,0:03:49.194
or investing in research and education.

0:03:50.861,0:03:54.837
The third mistake[br]that impairs our foresight

0:03:54.861,0:03:56.777
is what we fail to imagine.

0:03:58.402,0:04:00.295
Now, when we do think about the future,

0:04:00.319,0:04:03.087
we tend to focus[br]on predicting exactly what's next,

0:04:03.111,0:04:06.361
whether we're using horoscopes[br]or algorithms to do that.

0:04:07.569,0:04:12.611
But we spend a lot less time imagining[br]all the possibilities the future holds.

0:04:14.319,0:04:19.295
When the Ebola outbreak[br]emerged in 2014 in West Africa,

0:04:19.319,0:04:22.962
public health officials around the world[br]had early warning signs

0:04:22.986,0:04:25.212
and predictive tools

0:04:25.236,0:04:28.253
that showed how[br]that outbreak might spread,

0:04:28.277,0:04:32.212
but they failed to fathom that it would,

0:04:32.236,0:04:34.378
and they failed to act[br]in time to intervene,

0:04:34.402,0:04:37.361
and the epidemic grew[br]to kill more than 11,000 people.

0:04:38.611,0:04:41.920
When people with lots of resources[br]and good forecasts

0:04:41.944,0:04:44.753
don't prepare for deadly hurricanes,

0:04:44.777,0:04:48.944
they're often failing to imagine[br]how dangerous they can be.

0:04:51.152,0:04:53.503
Now, none of these mistakes[br]that I've described,

0:04:53.527,0:04:55.878
as dismal as they might sound,

0:04:55.902,0:04:57.836
are inevitable.

0:04:57.860,0:04:59.860
In fact, they're all avoidable.

0:05:01.402,0:05:03.962
What we need to make[br]better decisions about the future

0:05:03.986,0:05:05.795
are tools that can aid our foresight,

0:05:05.819,0:05:08.170
tools that can help us think ahead.

0:05:08.194,0:05:10.628
Think of these as something[br]like the telescopes

0:05:10.652,0:05:14.795
that ship captains of yore used[br]when they scanned the horizon.

0:05:14.819,0:05:19.170
Only instead of for looking[br]across distance and the ocean,

0:05:19.194,0:05:22.444
these tools are for looking[br]across time to the future.

0:05:23.986,0:05:26.045
I want to share with you a[br]few of the tools

0:05:26.069,0:05:28.087
that I've found in my research

0:05:28.111,0:05:30.069
that I think can help us with foresight.

0:05:31.736,0:05:33.837
The first tool I want to share with you

0:05:33.861,0:05:37.420
I think of as making[br]the long game pay now.

0:05:37.444,0:05:41.420
This is Wes Jackson, a farmer[br]I spent some time with in Kansas.

0:05:41.444,0:05:42.878
And Jackson knows

0:05:42.902,0:05:46.712
that the way that most crops[br]are grown around the world today

0:05:46.736,0:05:49.503
is stripping the earth[br]of the fertile topsoil

0:05:49.527,0:05:51.527
we need to feed future generations.

0:05:52.569,0:05:54.878
He got together[br]with a group of scientists,

0:05:54.902,0:05:59.045
and they bred perennial grain crops[br]which have deep roots

0:05:59.069,0:06:01.420
that anchor the fertile topsoil of a farm,

0:06:01.444,0:06:04.111
preventing erosion[br]and protecting future harvests.

0:06:05.277,0:06:06.920
But they also knew

0:06:06.944,0:06:10.878
that in order to get farmers[br]to grow these crops in the short run,

0:06:10.902,0:06:13.795
they needed to boost[br]the annual yields of the crops

0:06:13.819,0:06:18.212
and find companies willing[br]to make cereal and beer using the grains

0:06:18.236,0:06:22.319
so that farmers could reap profits today[br]by doing what's good for tomorrow.

0:06:23.402,0:06:25.462
And this is a tried-and-true strategy.

0:06:25.486,0:06:28.295
In fact, it was used[br]by George Washington Carver

0:06:28.319,0:06:31.795
in the South of the United States[br]after the Civil War

0:06:31.819,0:06:33.837
in the early 20th century.

0:06:33.861,0:06:38.962
A lot of people have probably heard[br]of Carver's 300 uses for the peanut,

0:06:38.986,0:06:41.837
the products and recipes[br]that he came up with

0:06:41.861,0:06:43.569
that made the peanut so popular.

0:06:44.402,0:06:47.069
But not everyone knows[br]why Carver did that.

0:06:47.986,0:06:50.753
He was trying to help[br]poor Alabama sharecroppers

0:06:50.777,0:06:53.003
whose cotton yields were declining,

0:06:53.027,0:06:55.628
and he knew that planting[br]peanuts in their fields

0:06:55.652,0:06:57.003
would replenish those soils

0:06:57.027,0:07:00.045
so that their cotton yields[br]would be better a few years later.

0:07:00.069,0:07:03.308
But he also knew it needed[br]to be lucrative for them in the short run.

0:07:04.277,0:07:07.069
Alright, so let's talk[br]about another tool for foresight.

0:07:07.944,0:07:12.170
This one I like to think of[br]as keeping the memory of the past alive

0:07:12.194,0:07:14.277
to help us imagine the future.

0:07:15.069,0:07:17.128
So I went to Fukushima, Japan

0:07:17.152,0:07:20.253
on the sixth anniversary[br]of the nuclear reactor disaster there

0:07:20.277,0:07:24.236
that followed the Tohoku earthquake[br]and tsunami of 2011.

0:07:25.319,0:07:29.712
When I was there, I learned[br]about the Onagawa Nuclear Power Station,

0:07:29.736,0:07:32.545
which was even closer[br]to the epicenter of that earthquake

0:07:32.569,0:07:35.444
than the infamous Fukushima Daiichi[br]that we all know about.

0:07:36.319,0:07:41.378
In Onagawa, people in the city[br]actually fled to the nuclear power plant

0:07:41.402,0:07:43.378
as a place of refuge.

0:07:43.402,0:07:45.253
It was that safe.

0:07:45.277,0:07:47.027
It was spared by the tsunamis.

0:07:48.111,0:07:50.628
It was the foresight of just one engineer,

0:07:50.652,0:07:52.628
Yanosuke Hirai,

0:07:52.652,0:07:53.902
that made that happen.

0:07:54.986,0:07:58.753
In the 1960s, he fought[br]to build that power plant

0:07:58.777,0:08:00.462
farther back from the coast

0:08:00.486,0:08:03.277
at higher elevation[br]and with a higher sea wall.

0:08:04.402,0:08:08.045
He knew the story of his hometown shrine,

0:08:08.069,0:08:11.694
which had flooded[br]in the year 869 after a tsunami.

0:08:12.694,0:08:16.462
It was his knowledge of history[br]that allowed him to imagine

0:08:16.486,0:08:17.986
what others could not.

0:08:19.986,0:08:21.861
OK, one more tool of foresight.

0:08:22.777,0:08:26.795
This one I think of[br]as creating shared heirlooms.

0:08:26.819,0:08:29.670
These are lobster fishermen[br]on the Pacific coast of Mexico,

0:08:29.694,0:08:32.128
and they're the ones who taught me this.

0:08:32.152,0:08:34.878
They have protected[br]their lobster harvest there

0:08:34.902,0:08:37.045
for nearly a century,

0:08:37.069,0:08:40.503
and they've done that[br]by treating it as a shared resource

0:08:40.527,0:08:43.920
that they're passing on to their collected[br]children and grandchildren.

0:08:43.944,0:08:46.337
They carefully measure what they catch

0:08:46.361,0:08:49.444
so that they're not taking[br]the breeding lobster out of the ocean.

0:08:50.569,0:08:53.503
Across North America,[br]there are more than 30 fisheries

0:08:53.527,0:08:56.545
that are doing something[br]vaguely similar to this.

0:08:56.569,0:09:01.128
They're creating long-term stakes[br]in the fisheries known as catch shares

0:09:01.152,0:09:03.378
which get fishermen to be motivated

0:09:03.402,0:09:07.045
not just in taking whatever they can[br]from the ocean today

0:09:07.069,0:09:09.152
but in its long-term survival.

0:09:11.027,0:09:13.712
Now there are many,[br]many more tools of foresight

0:09:13.736,0:09:15.252
I would love to share with you,

0:09:15.276,0:09:17.170
and they come from all kinds of places:

0:09:17.194,0:09:20.587
investment firms that look[br]beyond near-term stock prices,

0:09:20.611,0:09:22.587
states that have freed their elections

0:09:22.611,0:09:25.569
from the immediate interests[br]of campaign financiers.

0:09:27.111,0:09:31.045
And we're going to need to marshal[br]as many of these tools as we can

0:09:31.069,0:09:33.503
if we want to rethink what we measure,

0:09:33.527,0:09:35.462
change what we reward

0:09:35.486,0:09:38.277
and be brave enough[br]to imagine what lies ahead.

0:09:40.402,0:09:44.111
Not all this is going to be easy,[br]as you can imagine.

0:09:45.111,0:09:48.378
Some of these tools[br]we can pick up in our own lives,

0:09:48.402,0:09:52.611
some we're going to need to do[br]in businesses or in communities,

0:09:53.319,0:09:55.652
and some we need to do as a society.

0:09:57.569,0:09:59.861
The future is worth this effort.

0:10:03.194,0:10:07.753
My own inspiration to keep up this effort[br]is the instrument I shared with you.

0:10:07.777,0:10:09.277
It's called a dilruba,

0:10:10.027,0:10:13.712
and it was custom-made[br]for my great-grandfather.

0:10:13.736,0:10:16.503
He was a well-known[br]music and art critic in India

0:10:16.527,0:10:18.069
in the early 20th century.

0:10:20.319,0:10:24.527
My great-grandfather had the foresight[br]to protect this instrument

0:10:25.736,0:10:29.878
at a time when my great-grandmother[br]was pawning off all their belongings,

0:10:29.902,0:10:31.152
but that's another story.

0:10:33.652,0:10:36.670
He protected it by giving it[br]to the next generation,

0:10:36.694,0:10:38.378
by giving it to my grandmother,

0:10:38.402,0:10:40.402
and she gave it to me.

0:10:42.777,0:10:45.670
When I first heard[br]the sound of this instrument,

0:10:45.694,0:10:46.944
it haunted me.

0:10:47.944,0:10:51.902
It felt like hearing a wanderer[br]in the Himalayan fog.

0:10:53.361,0:10:55.861
It felt like hearing[br]a voice from the past.

0:10:56.986,0:11:00.777
(Music)

0:11:32.902,0:11:34.152
(Music ends)

0:11:37.069,0:11:40.069
That's my friend Simran Singh[br]playing the dilruba.

0:11:41.027,0:11:44.253
When I play it, it sounds[br]like a cat's dying somewhere,

0:11:44.277,0:11:45.545
so you're welcome.

0:11:45.569,0:11:48.212
(Laughter)

0:11:48.236,0:11:51.212
This instrument is in my home today,

0:11:51.236,0:11:53.277
but it doesn't actually belong to me.

0:11:54.777,0:11:57.277
It's my role to shepherd it in time,

0:11:58.444,0:12:01.861
and that feels more meaningful to me[br]than just owning it for today.

0:12:03.986,0:12:09.611
This instrument positions me[br]as both a descendant and an ancestor.

0:12:11.236,0:12:14.527
It makes me feel part of a story[br]bigger than my own.

0:12:16.652,0:12:18.128
And this, I believe,

0:12:18.152,0:12:22.194
is the single most powerful way[br]we can reclaim foresight:

0:12:23.861,0:12:27.777
by seeing ourselves[br]as the good ancestors we long to be,

0:12:29.527,0:12:32.111
ancestors not just to our own children

0:12:33.569,0:12:35.444
but to all humanity.

0:12:36.944,0:12:38.861
Whatever your heirloom is,

0:12:40.111,0:12:42.111
however big or small,

0:12:43.736,0:12:44.986
protect it

0:12:46.527,0:12:49.902
and know that its music[br]can resonate for generations.

0:12:50.569,0:12:51.837
Thank you.

0:12:51.861,0:12:57.402
(Applause)