[Script Info]
Title: 
[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:00.00,0:00:04.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I read Heart of Darkness, an amazing book
Dialogue: 0,0:00:04.61,0:00:08.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and one passage in particular just lept out and smacked me between the eyes
Dialogue: 0,0:00:08.19,0:00:11.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and I can't remember it all by myself so I'll just read it to you
Dialogue: 0,0:00:11.27,0:00:16.27,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"It is impossible to convey the life sensation of any given epoch of one's existence.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:16.27,0:00:21.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,That which makes its truth, its meaning, its subtle and penetrating essence.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:21.75,0:00:27.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It is impossible. We live as we dream: alone."
Dialogue: 0,0:00:27.47,0:00:30.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And that's haunted me since the age of 18.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:30.74,0:00:35.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I don't know what it was in my 18-year-old mind that resonated with that passage,
Dialogue: 0,0:00:35.30,0:00:38.69,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,but I think you know perhaps it's just the resonance of any
Dialogue: 0,0:00:38.69,0:00:44.24,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,strongly articulated existentialist loneliness.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:44.24,0:00:50.70,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I wondered, you know, Can we really be that alone? All of us? Together?
Dialogue: 0,0:00:50.70,0:00:53.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It didn't make sense. We'll come back to that.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:53.18,0:00:56.75,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, on the plane on the way here, I was listening to an audio book
Dialogue: 0,0:00:56.75,0:00:59.49,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of Arthur C. Clarke's: Childhoods' End.
Dialogue: 0,0:00:59.49,0:01:03.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's the first Arthur C. Clarke's book I have actually read.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:03.82,0:01:06.51,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's an amazing work, but of course I don't need to labour this point with this audience,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:06.51,0:01:11.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that there's nothing so characteristic of an age's thinking as its science fiction
Dialogue: 0,0:01:11.32,0:01:17.46,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and, I mean, of all the science fiction writers, Clarke is remarkable
Dialogue: 0,0:01:17.46,0:01:22.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,for the extent to which his imagination was able to sort of achieve an escape velocity
Dialogue: 0,0:01:22.19,0:01:27.05,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from the culture of is time, to really think way ahead into different times and places
Dialogue: 0,0:01:27.05,0:01:28.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and to take us there.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:28.80,0:01:33.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But I it got me thinking about the fact of imagination
Dialogue: 0,0:01:33.02,0:01:38.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and that our brains are, our brains are not [temporaly bound?]
Dialogue: 0,0:01:38.94,0:01:41.93,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,It's what we scaffold them with that limits us.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:41.93,0:01:45.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,In other words, to the extent that we are able to imagine the present that we live in,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:45.61,0:01:50.32,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which Clarke and others of his age couldn't foresee,
Dialogue: 0,0:01:50.32,0:01:54.36,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we are capable of imagining entirely different worlds in the future
Dialogue: 0,0:01:54.36,0:01:56.29,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that we just don't at the moment.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:56.29,0:01:58.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I find that an interesting contradiction.
Dialogue: 0,0:01:58.12,0:02:00.73,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So what's the relevance of all that for governance futures?
Dialogue: 0,0:02:00.73,0:02:05.83,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Well, the relevance is that basically I think this is a massively missing piece
Dialogue: 0,0:02:05.83,0:02:07.79,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,from our public culture,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:07.79,0:02:12.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that there is essentially no public culture of imagination.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:12.88,0:02:15.80,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Yes, there's Dick Tracy, and there's Star Trek, and there's Arthur C. Clarke,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:15.80,0:02:18.67,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and there's plenty of stuff since all of that.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:18.67,0:02:21.84,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But our conversations about the future, and about the future of governance,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:21.84,0:02:23.95,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and about the worlds we could be choosing among,
Dialogue: 0,0:02:23.95,0:02:26.88,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,we do not have a culture of imagining those in any concrete way
Dialogue: 0,0:02:26.88,0:02:29.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and then choosing among them wisely.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:29.03,0:02:31.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,We agonize over procedural details like
Dialogue: 0,0:02:31.38,0:02:34.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,deliberation (the weighing of alternatives)
Dialogue: 0,0:02:34.96,0:02:38.02,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and decision (which is the killing of alternatives)
Dialogue: 0,0:02:38.02,0:02:39.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,when we make a choice.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:39.89,0:02:44.54,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But where in that, I mean, that essentially becomes meaningless
Dialogue: 0,0:02:44.54,0:02:48.38,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or close to meaningless, when the alternatives are underimagined
Dialogue: 0,0:02:48.38,0:02:54.10,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or drab or cliched or simply absent from the picture overall.
Dialogue: 0,0:02:54.10,0:02:58.50,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so my friend Natalie German Janko, who is an engineer and an artist
Dialogue: 0,0:02:58.50,0:03:02.55,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,has a wonderful phrase which I learned from her a couple of years ago:
Dialogue: 0,0:03:02.55,0:03:04.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,"structures of participation".
Dialogue: 0,0:03:04.19,0:03:07.15,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,[Her] art is about creating structures of participation for people.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:07.15,0:03:09.78,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And I love this frace because I think it summarizes to me
Dialogue: 0,0:03:09.78,0:03:14.94,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,what good futures' work does: create structure of participation for co-imagining.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:14.94,0:03:18.62,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And so, as I see it, governance (at least the design side of it) is about
Dialogue: 0,0:03:18.62,0:03:24.18,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,designing structures of participation for collectively shaping the common good.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:24.18,0:03:27.74,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And that can look like the design of an event like this one,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:27.74,0:03:30.19,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or the design of a system like the United States of America,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:30.19,0:03:34.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,or the design of an intervention like the one that I'm about to describe.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:34.89,0:03:40.30,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,Because my favorite experiential futures intervention is a perfect instance
Dialogue: 0,0:03:40.30,0:03:44.64,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,of the kind of collective imagination that I'm describing,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:44.64,0:03:46.47,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and it comes from the Arab Spring.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:46.47,0:03:49.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, in January 2011, Tunisia ousted its dictator
Dialogue: 0,0:03:49.96,0:03:53.45,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,somebody [rather] Ben Ali.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:53.45,0:03:54.91,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And the economy started tanking.
Dialogue: 0,0:03:54.91,0:03:56.89,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,The revolutionaries hadn't expected to succeed,
Dialogue: 0,0:03:56.89,0:04:01.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they didn't know what was gonna succeed [as in "go after"] the overthrow.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:01.77,0:04:06.37,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And what may ensued could have been actually much worse
Dialogue: 0,0:04:06.37,0:04:08.03,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,than what had been there before.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:08.03,0:04:10.99,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,You know in these kinds of political vacuums anything can happen.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:10.99,0:04:15.82,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,But a month later, on the 16th of February 2011, for a day,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:15.82,0:04:20.12,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,on newspapers, television and radio,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:20.12,0:04:24.44,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,they reported from the 14th June 2014: 3 years and 3 months into the future.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:24.44,0:04:28.77,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,By the end of the day that was the number one hashtag, [something in French]
Dialogue: 0,0:04:28.77,0:04:30.96,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,in Twitter was beginning to trend in France,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:30.96,0:04:35.34,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,and it began to change the public conversation to make a future for Tunisia imaginable,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:35.34,0:04:40.07,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,which catalysed an actual change and a recovery in the wake of that revolution.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:40.07,0:04:44.43,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,So, to bring it back to our starting point,
Dialogue: 0,0:04:44.43,0:04:49.66,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I'm I no longer believe that we are condemned to dream alone.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:49.66,0:04:53.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,I think that we can dream together.
Dialogue: 0,0:04:53.00,0:04:55.61,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,And to the extent the 21st century government succeeds
Dialogue: 0,0:04:55.61,0:04:59.00,Default,,0000,0000,0000,,that's what we'll be doing on a regular basis.