Throughout its history, gaming has had strong ties to both the past and the future. Games reflect and anticipate our dreams, fears, and aspirations. It is noted that games can inspire progress that shapes the future. When viewed with foresight, games are essential for delving into our future aspirations. They provide a platform for testing new ideas, upcoming technologies, cultural beliefs, and societal standards, serving as a gateway to tomorrow's possibilities.
In the course of this year, I had the opportunity to engage in conversations about gaming and futures studies at both the World in 2050 Lecture Series held by the UNESCO Chair in Interdisciplinary Anticipation and Global-Local Transformation at the Center for Advanced Studies of Eurac Research, and the 1st Red Latino Americano de Futuro Summit arranged by the Latin American Futures Network.
During the 2024 Asia Pacific Futures Network event at the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, we conducted a Dreams and Disruptions Game session with the Futurist Circle. This gave us the opportunity to trial the Mandarin Version of the game, which is scheduled for release in China in December of this year.
Participating in this global event on futures studies enabled me to investigate the influence of games and their capacity to mold the future of foresight in both theoretical and practical terms.
Initially, the creation of the Dreams and Disruptions Game was guided by three main assumptions:
Randomness
The importance of randomness in shaping future outcomes cannot be overstated. This principle acknowledges that, despite our capacity to foresee certain trends, the future often veers off course due to random occurrences.
In the game, randomness reflects these unpredictable influences, prompting players to move beyond simple cause-and-effect relationships and embrace uncertainty as a key element in molding the future.
Imagine if a game could simulate—or at least imitate—randomness by employing a system of pseudo-randomness, similar to card games. Pseudo-randomness in Dreams and Disruptions is a semi-structured approach that simulates unpredictability while being governed by underlying rules. This approach allows the game to introduce random elements that disrupt conventional thinking without completely removing the framework that guides players through the foresight process.
Through various rounds of iterations and gameplay, I learned that foresight doesn't always need to be strictly structured, following a predefined approach like selecting specific forces of change, which typically guides the reasoning behind scenario construction. It doesn't necessarily have to adhere to a rigidly logical progression, particularly when the goal is to reveal and understand unforeseeable or emerging futures.
Now try envisioning a futures approach where randomness is ingrained and incorporated into our approach to foresight? Try reflecting on these questions:
What if the forces of change are indeterminate?
What if we do not get to choose them?
In what manner can randomness and unpredictability be included in scenarios, whether short-term or long-term?
The Dreams and Disruptions Game utilizes random card draws representing different interconnected and independent forces or occurrences. Through the use of pseudo-randomness, players are given the ability to navigate through unpredictable and unstructured futures. The game's layout allows participants to engage with foresight in a way that is intuitive and imaginative, rather than purely rational.
Randomness would later profoundly influence my understanding of the
future and thus futures studies and foresight practice:
Randomness is a force that disrupts linear and deterministic thinking, influenced by different situations, circumstances, and stages of life. Randomness like the future is beyond our full comprehension or complete understanding.
Randomness is not disorderly, capricious, or meaningless. Random occurrences are manifestations of transformation, meant for us to interpret. They arise or are presented to demonstrate that reality, and consequently, the future, is not set but fluid, flexible and untamed.
Randomness embodies inaction or effortless action. It is not imposed but rather arises naturally and effortlessly. We believe that through randomness, we can uncover and unveil the unknowable future, leading us to contemplate its significance.
Randomness suggests a view that the future, ontologically, is untamed.
The significance of randomness lies in its crucial role in pushing us to test our limits against complex adaptive systems. Ecosystems, economies, and our bodies all rely on randomness and challenges to uphold their resilience and ability to adapt. Being exposed to diverse conditions helps us and the systems that we operate in cultivate the necessary flexibility to endure unforeseen changes or disturbances. Without this exposure, they and us, become inflexible and fragile.
I believe this principle holds true in futures studies and strategic foresight. Without these stressors, systems might weaken and our capacity to imagine emergence might stagnate. Lacking the necessary experience to manage more significant disruptions.
By embedding pseudo-randomness, the game reflects the complexity of the real world, where outcomes are influenced by many variables that cannot always be predicted. This encourages players to develop flexible mindsets and strategies, preparing them to navigate complex and uncertain futures. It fosters emergent thinking and the freedom to explore less likely futures.
See Leonard Milodinow's The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives and Nassem Nicolas Taleb Fooled by Randomness.
Collective Social Psychology
Additionally, collective social psychology and leadership archetypes are not often embedded in the way we approach foresight. Reflect on this:
How do you think your scenarios would evolve if they reached the domain of the military, utilized by a venture capitalist, interpreted by labor leader, or inspires for example an unconventional scientist?
Introducing scenarios to different domains or considering them from specific leadership perspectives reveals how the collective social psychology of each domain significantly shapes the evolution of these scenarios. For instance, the military may apply foresight to strategic planning and risk anticipation, the venture capitalists to hunt opportunities, labor leaders to assess worker impacts, and unconventional scientists to drive innovation boundaries.
Recognizing these diverse mental propensities or social psychology archetypes is essential for strategic foresight. It enables us to anticipate potential reactions or actions from diverse stakeholders to perceived or imagined future developments.
By incorporating the collective social psychology of each domain, we enhance the foresight process, making it more flexible and reflective of intricate societal dynamics.
See PR Sarkar's Theory of Social Cycle in Joseph Voros and Peter Hayward's brilliant piece on Creating the Experience of Social Change and Sohail Inayatullah's book Understanding Sarkar: The Indian episteme, macrohistory and transformative knowledge.
Considering the perspective of a specific leadership archetype or collective social psychology, power dynamics, or historical framework, how might our future scenarios develop or shift? Alternatively, how might they be viewed through the lens of a newly emerging class - the Sadvipra?
Existential Risks and Threats
Existential risks are crucial in the field of futures studies and scenario development, as they are potential occurrences that have the capacity to significantly transform or even terminate human civilization.
Dealing with these low-probability, high-impact risks necessitates distinctive approaches in futures thinking, which affect the creation, analysis, and utilization of scenarios.
They can expand the range of potential futures.
They allow for the integration of high levels of uncertainty and complex systems.
Existential risks prolong the time horizon of scenario thinking and planning, demanding a forward-looking perspective that takes into account the implications for future generations.
The examination of existential risks also involves grappling with intricate moral and ethical dilemmas, such as the boundaries of science, innovation, and strategy.
Interdisciplinary perspectives are required because of the complex nature of existential threats, promoting a mindset of carefulness and wisdom. This concept is effectively captured in the Filipino term 'Siyasip,' which signifies mindful imagination and thoughtful anticipation.
Existential risks exert a profound impact on futures studies and scenario development, broadening the scope of foresight, introducing elements of heightened uncertainty, and necessitating ethical and long-term reflections.
Within the Dreams and Disruptions Game, players have the opportunity to explore how a planetary stressor could affect the scenarios they create. This segment delves into the potential opportunities and innovations needed to flourish during a crisis.
When I served as the Chair of the Association of Professional Futurists, I organized a session on Existential Risks together with The Millennium Project, The World Futures Studies Federation, the Asia Pacific Futures Network and the OECD
Are we opting out from reality to play games?
Gaming and the future are deeply interconnected. This entanglement means that as we continue to advance, gaming will remain a significant part of how we envision and build the future.
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