Humans may have just twenty-three years to go.
Miss A. sent me a link the other day about SuperStruct, the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game. Gamers help to chronicle how we will live in 2019 and how we might solve the problems we have to face sooner or later. The game is played on forums, blogs, videos, wikis, and other familiar online spaces and although I’m just researching myself into it, not spending serious time with it, this looks progressive, challenging and smart. (And is backed by the Ten-Year Forecast team at the Institute for the Future, a not-for-profit think tank based in Palo Alto, California.)
To play the game, you first need to invent a future self, then familiarize yourself with one of the five superthreats – Quarantine, Ravenous, PowerStruggle, Outlaw Planet and Generation Exile -, then adopt one, base a story around, search for team members (allies) and then design the future around your story. Bad public PR: The Ten Year Forecast team at the Institute for the Future will analyze the player-created game content. We’ll prepare an official Superstruct Report featuring our top collective insights about the year 2019, and the best tactics for superstructing society. No more, no less. (superstruct wiki, superstruct facebook group, community outpost)