Water Foresight Podcast
Examining the future of water through the lens of strategic foresight--anticipating, framing, and shaping your preferred future.
Water Foresight Podcast
SuperShifts and the Future of Water
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We stand at the threshold of a new age. As the Industrial Era gives way to the Age of Intelligence, we face unprecedented transformation in every aspect of human existence. Steve Fisher, managing partner at Revolution Factory and chief futurist at the Human Frontier Institute, joins us to explore the nine "SuperShifts" reshaping our world.
From his teenage encounter with Alvin Toffler's "Future Shock" to developing his own social theory examining 200-year macro-historical patterns, Fisher offers a unique perspective on our transitional moment. These converging SuperShifts—from Generational Drift to Bionexus—represent massive, irreversible transformations that will redefine what it means to be human.
The Eco-Awakening SuperShift holds particular significance for water professionals. Fisher envisions water transforming from a utility into a strategic asset managed by artificial intelligence, priced by ecosystems, and governed as a shared resource. Smart watersheds, bioreactors, and decentralized infrastructure will revolutionize how we manage this precious resource, while questions about water rights and access take on new urgency.
Fisher's perspective is neither dystopian nor blindly optimistic, but "protopian"—recognizing both challenges and opportunities ahead. While acknowledging risks like cybersecurity threats to water systems and potential water conflicts, he emphasizes humanity's resilience and capacity for positive change. Most importantly, he advocates for foresight as a discipline, moving beyond reactive thinking to anticipate and shape preferred futures.
Ready to navigate this transformative era? Join us as we explore how these SuperShifts will reshape our relationship with water and redefine what it means to be human in the Age of Intelligence. After listening, you'll understand why traditional approaches no longer serve us and how embracing foresight can help build more sustainable, equitable systems for generations to come.
Book Site - www.supershiftsbook.com
Steve’s Site - www.stevenfisher.io
Get the first two chapters - https://tfn.kit.com/bb0223ff53
Think Forward Show - https://thinkforward.buzzsprout.com/
#water #WaterForesight #strategicforesight #foresight #futures @Aqualaurus
Introduction to Steve Fisher and Super Shifts
Speaker 1Aqualaris and co-author of the new book Super Shifts Transforming how we Live, learn and Work in the Age of Intelligence. Steve is the managing partner at the Revolution Factory, chief futurist at the Human Frontier Institute and founder of the Think Forward Network, where he helps leaders navigate disruption through strategic foresight and systems thinking. Steve, welcome to the Water Foresight Podcast. It is a privilege to have you on the podcast with us today. Well, thanks for having me. It's welcome to the Water Foresight Podcast. It is a privilege to have you on the podcast with us today. Well, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2It's great to be here.
Speaker 1Steve, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to be the author of this amazing new book called Super Shifts.
Speaker 2Yeah, my journey starts back when I was 13. So I read a book called Future Shock in the 80s by Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler and it kind of changed my world. Like you know, learn about technology but change of larger paths and what was ahead, and that, along with Third Wave and a few other books, you can be a futurist as a job. But I didn't go that route. My teenage years took me in different directions, like girls and cars and all that stuff, and I studied business and got into technology in the 90s and through that I built a lot of products. I've been in tech for 35 years. I've been building products for about 25.
Speaker 2And for me, I always brought my futurist work and skill set into my my, uh, my daily practice. You know, and over time, you know I've worked with. You know you work with trends, you work with signals, you work a lot of different techniques and tools and over time, uh, looking at the social change of patterns, I came up with a social theory called Ages and Eras which looks at 200-year in macro history, 200-year periods. I went back about a thousand years to look at this kind of repeating pattern and there are four eras in each of those 200-year ages and we're kind of at the end of what we call the Age of engines. You could call it the industrial age, the machine age. There's a lot of different, but we're closing that down. It's the chaos we're in right now and we're going to have things uh, machines, even ourselves, like smarter than than than us, which really kind of resets what we are as as a people. And we saw about nine of these and one of them we'll talk more deeply about in the in the show eco awakening. But we they're like convergences of massive, irreversible, like transformations, and it's in a good way because it's reshaping how we live, learn and work in this new age.
Speaker 2So my co-author, uh, janae duane, dr duane uh, she's a behavioral scientist and we wrote startup equation together a couple years ago and we have a new book coming out next year called Design in the Future, which is a more I would say, more actionable book around super shifts. But you know, people are overwhelmed by change. I think the one thing right now is we viscerally feel it. Usually, change kind of comes and we can prepare it and make the shifts if we want to. But things like AI, climate disruption, social fragmentation there's not a lot of clear tools to respond to it. So rather than kind of predicting the future which what futures don't do? We look at possible futures. We wanted to equip readers to design the future they want. So that meant like blending strategic foresight with real human stories and the things that we do. And then we created a toolkit and a narrative journey so there's a family in there that experiences all these shifts, called the Sinclairs. It's hopefully a way to bring the reader into these changes.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, you're right. Highlighting one statement you made is the notion that professionals in the world of foresight talk about shaping preferred futures or avoiding futures that are not preferred, avoiding those risks and seizing those opportunities. Is that fair?
Speaker 2It's fair, I think a lot of times people mistake. You know I'm protopian. I believe in a positive future. The individuals, you know, we're creature, we're tribal creatures of habit and they're all of our vices, but as a humanity we're pretty resilient, and which gives me a lot of faith for the future for us. You know, I have an eight-year-old son and I want him to grow up in a world that's better than when I leave, when I came to it. I want that for him.
Speaker 2But what's wild about this new age is that with longevity, with changes and advancements in robotics and other types of brain interface, we have the ability to be alive for the entire 200 years. So that's kind of profound when you think about it. You know you've got this in the age of intelligence. You've got biological, artificial and kind of planetary intelligence is going to converge. So it's not just about tech, right, it's, it's redefining what it means to be human, to work, to govern, uh, to live in harmony with the planet.
Speaker 2Because my son is saying if you harm the planet, you harm yourself. Um, you know, it's a wake-up call for us and I think it's a, it's a threshold moment where the old systems they're no longer serving us, but the new ones are not fully emerged yet. So it's it feels. That's why, when you're listening to this, you feel like the chaos around you it's you're not alone, but hopefully we're, you know, helping provide some sort of you know guide through that well, and and when you you you talk about moving from the age of of engines to the age of intelligence.
Speaker 1That's what you mean when you speak of this dawn of a new age. Is that fair, right, okay?
Speaker 2yeah, and I think I think about the, the, the systems in place right now, right, right, if you think about, just let's take education, for example. Education and the school systems now were designed. You know, they came into being around the mid-1800s. They were designed for one thing to get the population literate, get them to the age of 12 or 13,. Till they were a working age and they could read, write, do all the things to be functioning society, but also to manage the farms and work in factories. That's what it was for. College was a rare thing, it was for privilege, it was for elites, it was not, you know, and only after World War II did the GI Bill and a lot of the mass movement to college, in higher education, did that happen. So we have a system that's worked for that. Even if you look at a workplace now, yeah, you may have your sweet cold brew machines and all your kombuchas, but if you look at the desks, everything, if you just swap it out with sewing machines are essentially still in a factory.
Speaker 2So what does it mean to live in this, this new age? I think it's a. There's fusions of different types of uh work that we do. I think there's a. There's going to be a transformation in energy into you know how we decentralize the ownership of that and the use of that. It's going to shift geopolitics, but the work that you do. There's a, I think, a rising consciousness of, like, the planetary limits and but our responsibility in it. It's not just about the politics of global cooling, global warming, climate change. It's about a clean environment, a clean world, you know, a functioning world. So I think there's a, there's a real connection to that and the importance of this. That people just kind of looks like electricity. They just kind of they turn the faucet on. The water is always there, right, yeah, and I think I think people are just becoming more aware of the fragility of it all.
The Age of Intelligence and Nine Super Shifts
Speaker 1So well, I want to come back to what I what a theme that I think you're you're highlighting, which is maybe the term cycles but I'll come back to that when we, when we get a little bit further in um, in your book you talk about nine super shifts yeah tell us real quick what, what are those nine super shifts? And briefly tell us what they are.
Speaker 2Yeah, I'll run through them as quickly as I can. So generational drift is the first one. That's changing lifespans, that's intergenerational dynamics, that means that people living longer. You mentioned cycles. One of the things that I've studied a lot is Strauss and Howe's generational cycles, very western kind. That I've studied a lot is Strauss and Howe's generational cycles, very Western kind of Anglo-American centric, but it looked at 80, 90-year seculums, generations every 20 or so years, but the patterns and the repeated seasons. Well, what happens when you have people living to 150, 120? Or the multiple generations living in a household?
Speaker 2it's, it's, it's really trans and also working transforms yeah then there's intellifusion, which is the merging of kind of human and artificial intelligence. You could look at that as brain computing interfaces. But there's so many other types of aspects to that. Uh, tech acceleration is your kind of. You could call it the standard progression of technology. But there's a runaway pace of technological change we're seeing. I mean, six months in AI is like a generation and then a few years is like a lifetime. So that's going to ripple out as quantum computing becomes available, commercially fusing, and there's a lot. Then there's reality remix that's the number four. That's the fusion of the physical and the digital world. A lot. Then there's reality remix this is number four. That's the fusion of the physical and the digital world. You might be in vr, ar, but the the fluidity in which we'll kind of move from different environments. Right, because you think about computing, for the last 50 years all we've had is a computer and you know, last 20 or 30, like a mouse, we're going to be talking to our computers, we're going to be, you know, sometimes we'll throw on the goggles and do a spatial interaction. It's going to be a complete rethink of even how we interface with, react with the real world, right beyond just the work um.
Speaker 2Fifth is power flow. So power flow is about energy transformation, new geopolitics, decentralization, and each of these I'm just sorry, each of these super shifts have three, three or four shifts that power them. So I can that's a bit, we can get into eco-awakening as an example, but that's the next one. That's like the consciousness of planetary limits and responsibilities. Social quake is number seven. That's the collapse and reformation of institutions and governments. That's a big one because we have to re without completely collapsing everything around. I mean, we do have to have a bit of collapse in order to have the transformation. Yeah, and then number eight is the world mosaic. There's a changing in terms of what we look at as a culture, of how we blend and how we reimagining, how we reimagine belonging.
Speaker 2And then, last is probably one of my favorites is bionexus. It's like the convergence of biology and technology at the cellular and the cognitive level. This can have impacts on, obviously, uh, cognitive, you know, decline with, like, you know, our elders, like having alzheimer's, being able to really reconnect with the, help them, but at the same time, us being able to um work, you know, change our bodies and that we could talk about the kind of change in humanity. That that's the potentials of this when it comes to that. So that is all nine. There are a lot of them that kind of cover, cover the range. It's not just a, you know it's all about, you know ai and tech it's, it's a. Yeah, these are all the, all the lots of.
Speaker 1I mean, we could do an episode on each one on each one absolutely good, literally, yeah, I mean as you were listing things out, I'm, I'm thinking of, you know, going back to, uh, you know, for example, does does one or more of these super shifts take us to a conversation about transhumanism? Oh, absolutely, the changes you know. I think of social quake, as you were talking about that, yeah, would we? Would we agree or disagree that ross perot was a signal of change? Um, on social quake, right yeah, how I mean.
Speaker 2I remember his um presidential campaign. Yeah, are you speaking to that back in the 90s?
Speaker 1Yes, what did that mean? Especially when we see someone like President Trump or other parties, it's things like that. Sometimes we don't see these signals of change.
Speaker 2Or, if I may, just to speak to that for real quick, I mean with Ross, with Perot. You know, for people who don't know him, he started the company EDS. He's a billionaire. He didn't have to do this, he just but he saw a lot of things. He's very much, you know, kind of the first kind of like businessman to politics to kind of fix things. He was definitely the predecessor to what Trump and we'll talk about populism in a sec. But he was also the first one to really put a third party in contention since Teddy Roosevelt and the Bull Moose campaign. But he also created enough of a dent that it got Bill Clinton elected.
Speaker 2So it's like a lot of things that had the impact. With Trump there's been this rise of populism, which is cyclically in a crisis period, and the rise of, you know, and people take nationalism and they think of like the failed Austrian painter, but it's like nationalism is just a pride in the national side. But then there's like communism. There's a lot of people who are, during this time, are more open to different types of political structures. Because there's so much instability they're willing to almost try anything. But it also can be the risk when you have revolutions and you have a lot of other, let's say, bad actors in the system. But yeah, it's a great question.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I mean, we could talk at length about each one. You're bringing back a lot of memories and we could even go back before Ross Perot into say what 1980 and John Anderson.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, Good point.
Speaker 1So let's talk about that eco-awakening super shift because I think it's one of the more relevant ones at bottom for the future of water. Now, I say that, but you and I would probably agree that each one could be used as a lens to talk about the future of water. We just spent a little bit of time talking about some political, social issues that you can't ignore those and how those could. I think some environmental organizations would say, wait a minute, ignore those and how those could. You know. I think some environmental organizations would say, wait a minute. Yeah, keep talking about. You know, ross Perot and Donald Trump and those things, because they have made decisions on environmental, statutory and regulatory and policy issues that impact our environmental advocacy. Right, significantly right. You know people could talk, we could talk about that, that, but you, throughout your book, talk about this um transform model. Tell us what that is, what it means and how does it function yeah, this is, uh, this is a janae's baby.
Speaker 2So janae is more of a systems thinker and what she came up she uses a lot in her, her, her research and the classes she teaches at like it was this kind of framework for navigating disruption. So we talk about like super shifts, these are the things that are happening right. Then you look at transform, like where's the larger framework for navigating it? And then, if you look at some of the things in the later in the book, like spectrum foresight, like these are actionable things to like, you know, navigate it all. So it's a framework for think of as like a kind of a compass for leaders and communities. So it's a framework for think of it as like a kind of a compass for leaders and communities.
Speaker 2So there's a number of things. So there's tensions, which is like kind of taking the stress points and the contradictions in the systems. There's signals, which is scanning for the indicators of change. There's resilience, which is, you know, kind of building the capacity to adapt under pressure and then the opportunities of taking those and then finding the windows of opportunity for innovation and then the reinvention right. It's like reshape the structure strategy because without you know, you could have the idea for the innovation, but you might have to do a lot more, more a deeper level of change.
Speaker 2And then, of course, this is the thing that a lot of people forget is the mindset right. How do you get the the way of thinking? You know you have to change the ways of thinking in order for things to succeed. And if you anybody listening think about projects that have failed, a lot of times it's people who have a mindset that's adversarial and they might have a more of a political power, but culturally, where the the thing comes down, it has to be motivated to everyone, has to be motivated for the change. So it's not a linear process. I mean, it's kind of a dynamic. You know, you think about we drew it in the book like a double-torse ring, but it's about, you know, kind of staying adaptive and you know it just lets people think about the broader set of change.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I remember my systems dynamics class.
Speaker 2We won't relive. We won't relive that yeah, um so.
Eco-Awakening: Our Relationship with Nature
Speaker 1So let's get right into the eco awakening super shift. You know, tell us, tell us about, uh, what that you're you kind of already unpacked it a little bit but tell us about the eco awakening super shift, and and I'll bring back the word cycle to kind of open it up and say you know, when I read this I thought you know what's the difference today? Not that you have time to write an 800-page book, but is this?
Speaker 2Oh, no, no, no, we could have but the Right, the publisher would be the publisher, kind of yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, you know I'm thinking is this 1973, the 1970s all over again, where we have a I'll borrow the word that you use but consciousness? You know we're suddenly aware of environmental contamination. We have the Cuyahoga River catching on fire, we have abandoned drums of toxic waste and you know the drinking water may be unsafe. You know we have all these environmental laws that come about. You know President Nixon creates the US Environmental Protection Agency and a lot of activity, and in the book it made me think back about that. And my question, you know, is kind of maybe two part, but tell us a little bit about what eco-awakening is in your mind in the book. And then two, how does this, you know, is this coming back to some of those issues, but maybe in a different way? And then you know, what does that mean in 2025? And then what does eco-awakening mean for 2035, 2045? Is that fair?
Speaker 2Yeah, it's fair. Okay, so let's kind of start with the what and then the elements, and then we'll get diving some deeper stuff too. Yeah, so eco awakening is about there's a. There's a moment we're experiencing right now when humanities, we realize that the plan and it's coming it's not just here yet, but but it's on its way. The planet's not just a backdrop for the economy or just progress, realizing that it's a living system we're all a part of. Beyond the, let's go to Mars, which we could have a debate on, and I'm a space junkie, but the absurdity of that. But we do need to be a little more fault tolerant of humanity, but right now it's just us on this planet, right? So it's a shift from this kind of extractive thinking which is like pull oil, pull. We need this, we need these things. But it's also about regenerative thinking yeah I think that's.
Speaker 2That's the real change in the mindset. So it's about it's also from going from controlling nature to like collaborating with it. I think you think you'll see that, yeah, this original awakening is kind of the climate stress, the biodiversity loss, but there's emerging planetary-scale tech like AI being applied to climate. There's geoengineering good and bad. There's the bad side of that, or, but there's biosensing systems. There's so much it's going to give us more insight into it.
Speaker 2And when I'm it's not about like the, the, my parents generation I'm gen x but like I feel like there's a lot of mindset of prior generations that needs to kind of disappear. I think the younger generations realize it's kind of here it's the politics of what I'm kind of I think everyone's exhausted of. They used to call it global cooling, and then it was global warming, and then it was climate change, and it's like if something happens, oh, it's too hot, well, it's hot, it's a hot day they blame it on the. It's like it doesn't help the conversation, it's just finger-pointing political bargaining. It's using humanity as a political bargaining pawn. But when you look at eco-awakening, so there's three parts of this that can really kind of help us make this change. So there's the planetary, so AI and data is helping us understand the ecosystems in real time.
Speaker 2That's huge, right, instead of like after the fact? Or what's happening in the floods in Texas? Right, you're going to blame it on God? You're going to blame it on the president. It happened, but it's also. How do we do this in real time? It's just like we can see hurricanes. Think about it Over 60, 70 years ago, a ago hurricane would come. You didn't know where it was. You might have had reports from boats. There's no satellites. Yeah, there's no imagery. There was no like multi-mod. Now there's like multiple models tracking right, it's like none of that existed. It would just come and it would destroy. We know what street it's on right now.
Speaker 2Right, and it's like, even further. It's like you know, how do we understand the real impact of ecosystems in real time? Right, there's. The second part is biotech and biointegration, right. It's like how do we look at biology as infrastructure, right? Bioengineered materials, living living buildings, microbial water systems I mean the things that are really beyond the level of, and again, it's the infrastructure from the age of machines.
Speaker 2We have to do something radically different in terms of not just the, the politics of, of climate and what's happening, but the actual integration of this. And then the, the last, the, the third one we have is, honestly, it's the values that we hold. Right, we have to fundamentally redefine success from this growth at all costs. I mean, I'm a fan of capitalism, but at the same time, we have to have circularity, stewardship, long-term. There has to be an emphasis on long-term resilience, right, and I don't know if it's a. I keep thinking like where's our Rousseau right? Where's our Adam Smith? Wait, who's redefining the? I don't want to say after capitalism, meaning that it's, there's a, there's a new system that's going to emerge, because if ai and once these ais go into like humanoid robots and you can have three people hanging drywall and you don't have. You know, it's like a lot more. They're making fun of it because the people that created the jobs, the one's getting laid off right now and it's getting rid of. You know, a lot of big consulting that I used to work at. Um, not a bad thing, but it's also going to go after.
Speaker 2So what happens to that world? Right, if? If you're a fan of the show, um, I highly recommend if you haven't seen. It is called the expanse. So the expanse is set about 300 years in the future. They obviously had rising seas and they have sea walls and around new york city. But there's one, uh, there's one episode where the martian uh, soldier, she kind of sneaks out and goes and meets a lot of people who are on.
Speaker 2Basically, you know, you ubi, universal basic income. There's 30 billion people on the planet. There's just like this post society where, like, how do you survive? But do we move to a real place of abundance? So it's not just about the going green part, right, it's about reprogramming the things, the systems that underpin society. It's food, water, energy, it's. It's a lot of things, but yeah, it's heady stuff, but it really is a, it is an awakening in a different way I think this generation is definitely a there's a consciousness awakening. So yeah, impliedly and I I'm not putting words in your mouth here, but I think this generation is definitely a there's a consciousness awakening.
Speaker 1so, yeah, impliedly and I I'm not putting words in your mouth here, but I think no, you might suggest it's a it's a maybe a separate and deeper conversation about world views. What do we value? Where do we? You know, where is truth, what is truth, who possesses truth and you know, backing up to your comments about ai and things like that, that's a, a real worry, I think, today by people who have tried to use AI or chat GPT or whatever the right words are today. And can chat GPT be wrong if you type in some questions and try to get answers, things like that? So much to discuss on that point in a separate time, and I have talked to Professor Andy Hines about after capitalism. He's a brilliant, brilliant futurist.
Speaker 2Yeah, he continues to write almost daily, if not weekly, about those things under the title. After Capitalism.
The Future of Water as a Strategic Asset
Speaker 1But with respect to eco-awakening, what do you think that means for the future of water? And typically, water is a very broad domain. We have water utilities. We have wastewater utilities. We have wastewater utilities. We have the people that are in the world of water, whether that be the leaders of these companies, it could be a mayor, a legislator, the head of a not-for-profit group focused on clean water. It could be the people that you mentioned who are developing all this technology. They see an opportunity to make a water system more efficient. They come up with hardware and software to make things better. How do you see eco-awakening linking to the world of water?
Speaker 2That's a great question. Water is the center of eco-awakening Over the next, I would say, two decades. The next two decades 2045,. We're going to see water transform from a utility and we kind of are now but we're going to see it transform into a strategic asset Managed by artificial intelligence. It's going to be priced by ecosystems. It's going to need to be governed as a shared resource.
Speaker 2One of the things that I am concerned with the most is the cyber secure is the security of water. Um, you know, we talk about, um, I, I, I, uh speak a lot in the preparedness community about, like this, you know ai, but also I'm very familiar with, like you know, emps or other types of cyber attacks. It's a big thing, the attacks people try to attack. You want to cripple a population as you do three prongs you attack the infrastructure for the banking system, the power and then their water, right? So, beyond the cybersecurity of it, the resourcing of it as a strategic asset and ownership of it, I think to me, here's just kind of my possible futures. Look, I think you're going to have smart watersheds. I think AI systems are going to look at usage scarcity. They're going to balance human and ecological needs more dynamically.
Speaker 2I worked a lot in Bitcoin, in the blockchain and the digital asset space, so I've done work a lot on decentralizing infrastructure, just from a financial, from the corporate side. But I think what's also going to be happening is we're going to move from these massive treatment plants to more localized adaptive systems. I think the fusion era is very exciting for me Bioreactors, atmospheric water harvesters, closed-loop research there's a ton I could nerd out on that kind of tech forever. But then there's also going to be the rights of the water. What are the policies around the rights? Who has the right to nature? Is there shared ownership? Is it a digital commodity? And then there's the access to it.
Speaker 2Uh, I think it will. Could we have water? More water wars? Could there be, you know, volatile availability? Could there be? You know, I think what you do is is hugely important because, like water, foresight is going to be essential to prevent this type of of uh conflict. Yeah, and you know it, we have to ensure that it that under-resourced communities, they're not left behind. And I think you know this kind of work is so crucial because this is what we do as futurists, where we look at possible futures. We have to navigate it, because the future will become the president eventually, so we have to be able to anticipate and also have people participate in what those futures look like.
Speaker 1So you mentioned water wars and let me connect that. When people just pick up the book and see Eco Awakening, they kind of have a sense of what they're going to be reading. It's kind of an optimistic view of the future. You're a protopian, I think.
Speaker 2Protopian.
Speaker 1I'm not a utope, not ut utopian, but there's way too much.
Speaker 2I've read, I'm sure many people have. You've read to you know. Watch too many dystopian. Um, that's what sells.
Speaker 1Yeah, disaster cells right, right right, but there's a lot of dystopian movies and things like that, and and but let me, let me suggest is is is it possible, is there a possible future where there are people who see eco awakening in a, in a dystopian way, where bad actors say, ah, ah, okay, uh, this is important, let's do bad things with water, and I think you've sort of touched on that. Um, is that a let's do bad things with water, right? A possible, probable? I mean, you mentioned cyber security. I mean, yes, you know, it used to be. Let's be careful about letting people have access to the water plant.
Speaker 1And then it became let's watch out for people who seem to be oddly taking pictures of our dams, right, yes, why would they be doing that? That seems odd, right? Yes, and now it's somebody on the other side of the world is hacking into my SCADA system or my human resource system or whatever, trying to change the chemicals, trying to open a gate, whatever it may be, trying to change the chemicals, trying to open a gate, whatever it may be. And so is it. You know, eco-awakening you have to look at maybe the other side, the dark side of it, that people are are kind of saying, yeah, okay, I understand eco-awakening, but I am a bad actor and it flows into the scenarios that you might discuss as an organization about. Let's not just talk about rainbows and unicorns, the preferred future, but we have to watch out for risks, um, that might be coming our way and plan for those am I. Am I talking correctly about those things?
Speaker 2yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2I think that we, yeah, I think I think you're spot on with that. I I think with things like water wars, I think that people take for granted that the water is going to be clean, it's going to be accessible, right, and most of the world kind of is there, but there's a whole lot of the world that's not. And the minute that something disrupts I think here in the United States, I think the prime examples is when we have like hurricane, right, or I lived in San Francisco for a long time and I had a go bag for like earthquakes the one thing you have to have is water. You have to have, like you know, packaged up, like you know you have cause the access, you might be able to get electricity, but getting clean water is kind of puts it in your face Like what could go wrong, like what could go wrong in the longterm. You know people don't even realize. Like you know, they hear terms like cholera. It's like a far away thing. But yeah, waterborne diseases, malaria, all that can come raging back if we're not careful.
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Speaker 2I use it.
Speaker 1No, it's a great tool, because I'm being facetious.
Speaker 2But yeah, no, no, it's a great tool Because I have a I'm trying to remember the brand, but they Brita. A Brita has a water bottle that has the filter inside of it, but LifeStraw can filter out a majority Because people don't know how to. If you hunt or you you camp a lot, you know how to. You know you're not gonna, you're not gonna haul. Um, I have water, you know, storage down here as a backup, but I have to like you're not gonna carry that with you on your back, right? Yeah, camel pack for the for a day hike, sure but that's a.
Speaker 1That's a good example, though, of how you know you see this possible, maybe even plausible future and you have to back cast into strategies. That's right. You know a go bag with a life straw is is a pretty, you know, basic example of how a person would think about the future and plan accordingly. And you know other folks, you know taking it to a larger scale water utilities. You know environmental advocacy organizations. You know when they, when they contemplate these shifts yeah, yeah, clean water.
Speaker 2You don't want to try and do water catchment from your roof with with asphalt tiles, but you know you can use that. It's non-potable but you could use it for other. You know there's different ways to catch water. Your car is. There's a large parts of the United States that that kind of technology is actually illegal.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2It's crazy but if we and it's also how we treat the surrounding environment. I live in a place that's got a lot of woods, got a lot of conservation land and it's wonderful but it's also there's a constant work to keep, you know, to keep that, you know, in a good place. There we couldn't uh, we would have like a real uh loss of the biodiversity and the species and in the planet. But yeah, I I was curious to get. Your take is like what do you think is the most over the next? Let's just say the next, let's just use a shorter. What's the next 10 years? What's the most pressing issue with water? Do you think?
Speaker 1yeah, well, I'm the host, so I never tip my hand, but I will I will, I will, I will.
Speaker 2I got my own show. I gotta, I gotta do the interview.
Speaker 1Yeah, I gotta ask you the question well, I I will gratuitously say it is this, it is water foresight, it is thinking about the future.
Speaker 1It is anticipating, framing and shaping preferred futures and we may not agree with that preferred future, we may not even capture a signal of change. That is a possible negative future that we need to avoid and try and address that risk, negative future that we need to avoid and try, and you know, address that risk. But it is having these conversations, you know, with people like you that help other people think about. Hmm, you know, I'm really not thinking about this. You know, typically and I will say this, I'm not trying to be pejorative but a lot of people in the world of water are reactive and tactical. They, you know, predictable and consistent. They want, they don't think about the next 5, 10, 20 years.
Speaker 1It is a system that um is intended to be very low risk.
Speaker 1You know, let's not, let's not try something new and new technology, because we have to provide clean, abundant supplies of water 24 7, right, and so, until something happens, they typically don't engage proactively, they will react and that's sort of antithetical to this notion of foresight. And so I think, getting people to better understand how to take advantage of the discipline of foresight, use the tools that are out there, whether it's a futures wheel, scenario planning and everything in between that would be. My answer is that, but you know, let's talk about scenarios. I mean you, at the end of each chapter, you talk about key takeaways, which I kind of interpret as your view on look, here's some strategies that we need to think about. So we can, we can, you know, we've identified some of these, these trends or possibilities, and let's back cast into some strategies or takeaways for each of these super shifts, and so you know, maybe you can highlight one or two that you think are probably the most important key takeaways when it comes to eco-awakening.
Speaker 2Yeah, I think there's a few. One of the things that I think about is the regenerative aspect of this. I think there's one of the scenarios there's a couple of different ones that I've kind of worked with, you know, what I would call the kind of planetary partnership, where there's a bit more crisis, to kind of, I guess you could say, get people off their chair, off their seats, to create some unified action. You know, I think I think past generations, you know, we've come together for great national types of projects or global. You know, this is to be a global project because it is the earth. But we can unite together, especially when there's an imminent crisis, we can really kind of power it out. But there will always be people that try and take advantage of it. But I think that I see like a planetary operating system emerging, something ai powered. That you know this is where you actually have to absolutely have to have ai ethics in place.
Balancing Innovation with Security Concerns
Speaker 2But, you know, cities could have this decentralized, like closed loop systems there. You know, they have bioengineered microbes, they've got all this kind of, but it's like different legal rights are changed. You know. You know the thing is you could, you know, put regulatory things and not, I'm not a big person of regulations, but you could put things just like people are looking at. The carbon thing is. You could put regulatory things in. I'm not a big person of regulations, but you could put things just like people are looking at. The carbon thing is kind of like a bit of a scam, because it's like where's that money really going? Are the offsets? Is it just to make you feel better? But if you actually require corporations regenerating water, measuring, that that is a you know that's kind of circular type, circular economy like that's, that's pal, that's, that's very discernible and very usable, right you're not suggesting.
Speaker 1Uh, I was going to be a bit facetious and suggest. You're not suggesting skynet for water is what no, no, I know.
Speaker 2Well, you know it's funny, I actually have been my. I'm curious, I'm going to put it out there for debate is like kind of like you know, like Asimov's three laws of robotics, we need, like I have these four laws of artificial intelligence, like we need governing laws, that and look, some systems could just keep it out because they don't want to be actors, just keep it out because they don't want to be actors. But if you look at how it values humanity, um, you know, if you've read foundation or if you watch foundation, like you know the the three laws of robotics are in in that. And then there's the zeroth law, where you have this kind of abstract view of humanity and how you make sure that it's, you know, safe from itself. That's where you get into skynet territory, like yeah, yeah, but really is it safer? You know, do we right, in order for the, the water, in order for the water systems? We got to get rid of the humans, right, that's, that's bad. Yeah, that's um, yeah, I would say there's, there's one or two of this. One is like a uh, kind of this is, this, is where it kind of gets a little water warrior, like if things are fractured and like there's a lot of climate migration and happening. This is kind of my um bit of the collapse ones. I'm trying to, like you know, kind of digging up some of the old ones. You know we're talking about this. You know you get these water pipelines that divert flow like you could have ecological backlash. There's competition fault, like there's. There's a lot that could ripple out. That's where you get into like the ai managed governance that could be completely destructive to humanity.
Speaker 2Um, and then my hope would be like kind of like this distributed, like I call it the liquid commons, like you know it's where you have. You know the innovation really kind of explodes. But there's a lot of grassroots movements. There's a move for decentralized infrastructure, kind of open sourcing, the platforms to get communities to take it on. Like it's like own the wall, like instead of this, the treatment system over here, that's kind of in some place it's out of our, our eyesight. You have to manage the. It's kind of a micro utility right. It's like not only like your homeowners association but your actual like community water managing that. And there could be a lot of these. Blockchain for smart contract. You can do smart contracts. You can do a lot of different things to do very hyper-local governance. So I mean, those are a few, but we could scenario plan all day.
Speaker 1But that's taking it in terms of those kind of perspectives that people might be looking at there. Um is is. Maybe I don't know if I'd call it a collapse, but you, you, you briefly touched on it, I think, a bit ago, but today, is there a signal of change when it comes to um, the climate, and is there? I'll I'll use the word or the phrase, you know, climate fatigue. Everything's about climate change or global warming, whatever it is, and are people getting fatigued with everything having to do with climate change? And could that be a backlash that organizations need to be aware of? Are there signals of change when it comes to broadly eco-awakening that organizations of all sorts need to be aware of? That could impact the preferred future they want, where you know, just throw the climate fatigue out there as one possibility. But your thoughts on that, yeah yeah, I mean, let's.
Speaker 2Let's take a couple of examples of it's it's okay for thee, but not for me. Or you know, you know, let's take. Look, I'm a pilot, I don't have a problem with it. It's like if you want to fly your private jet, go for it, but don't lecture me on, like you know, paying carbon credits and lowering my carbon footprint. If you are so concerned with climate change and rising seas, why are you buying beachfront property? Why are you still moving? You know living in Miami. Why aren't you like saying you know what I'm moving to?
Speaker 1Nevada, my words and my actions may not match.
Speaker 2Right, exactly, and I think if the people who are privatized and who have the voice and the power are saying all this but they're not doing the things to be like, yeah, this is a real, this is, I can see the we've we've had a quarter of an inch raise in the last couple like I'm selling my house or like they're moving, if you start to see that their own migrant, their own actions of migratory, I think it would motivate a lot more people. It will also freak people out to sell their beach, their property will be a real estate collapse. But I think that that's, that's a large part of where we are driven. Politics, as Andrew Bytbart says, politics is downstream of culture. If there's a cultural shift and a cultural awareness that there are influencers, those that they look up to, people that business entertainment that are taking this seriously and doing that in their actions, I think you'd see a lot more movement in that way that there would be versus. We have a concert and we donate to something and we feel good about it. That's that doesn't work. But if there's also real scientific data, that has to be deep, is it has to be depoliticized, that there's just the debate is never over science is that the whole goal of science is to hypothesize, prove or disprove. Continue the conversation, continue the work, but at the same time we have to get to a place where we can have a conversation and understand that it's not about left, right, red, blue, purple, whatever. It's about the human race and we all need to survive it.
Speaker 2Then, I think, a lot more people, I think the younger generations, are going to actually be the ones to really tell us, old people, that we're dinosaurs. I'm hopeful for that. I think that most of all, I think that you know, I hope I'm not one of the ones they tell them a dinosaur. But at the same time, I want. I want that kind of like you just aren't listening. This is, you know, not the world. I want my kids you know you're gonna in my, your grand, your grandkids, your great-grand, like you don't want them to grow up in this. So I think there's going to be more active. Revolution is not the right word, but um there's gonna be be more Transformation.
Speaker 2Yeah, I would say activism with outcome. It's like, okay, I have a demonstration and old man screams at sky. Again it's like, okay, but how do I really make change? And that's why I try to put things in the book that are like these are things we could work toward. It's like if I'm local government or state government, I can really try and do this if I'm invested in the systems like how do I innovate? Right, how do I do things that, maybe, maybe the message to the city is to cut costs, right, it's lower like to do this too it, but it will take sometimes more experimental cities, places that are doing something from nothing. Um, that we learn from, but I don't, uh, yeah, that's so many different ways to go well, I hope that, uh, I hope that emma sinclair's future is positive.
Speaker 1Oh, yes, and uh, we'll have to maybe wait for a super shift part two to see what happens when she's in the uh, when she's 120 years old and still working right, uh, in your utopian uh type of world, maybe she lost her job at the water plant to an ai um, an ai uh feature, but uh, anyway, well.
Speaker 2Well, the thing about the sinclair's for those of you haven't read the book yet I hope you do is there's a design fiction piece. So the prologue opens with a family in 2040 who kind of gets this AI anomaly. Could it be? You know, what happens is a singularity. A lot of things could but it change, transforms the world over like weeks and months, because things, systems start learning this is hyper acceleration, even more so and they kind of live in their normal life. This it's just a family.
Key Takeaways and Closing Thoughts
Speaker 2The boy's 10, but he's really into quantum mechanics. The teenage daughter, she's really into history. The grandmother teaches remotely. And then the father he's an eco and he basically has a biome system that he's working on to kind of revitalize, so he's doing eco-awakening himself. And Emma is the main protagonist and she's the mother. She's an AI ethicist. But the thing is we learn through the book, we kind of get an introduction into the super shifts and things that are happening through their eyes as it goes through, and then the prologue actually goes 200 years in the future, so you get to see what happens to them. And 200 years in the future, so you get to see what happens to them and I will not tell you, but I'll, I'll put a link, I'll give you a link to put in the show notes for people so they can get the first. They can get the uh, the prologue and the intro for the book. They can kind of get hooked on the story.
Speaker 1But uh, yeah, thanks for, yeah, thanks for mentioning that's a, it's an important part of the book, yeah, so, well, steve, I want to thank you for being a an amazing and thoughtful guest today on the Water Foresight Podcast. You're welcome. Tell everyone where they can get the book Super Shifts and where they can find you.
Speaker 2It's on Amazon and Barnes Noble. Of course, many of your local bookstores have it in stock, but you can go to supershiftsbookcom I think there's some coupons on there too and things are. We get on the mailing list for that. And then also the my sites Stephen Fisher, f-i-s-h-e-r, dot. I-o is all you can subscribe to stuff there. I also have the show think forward, which is interview futurists like your, your humble host here today. He's and he's gonna be on very soon and there's a number of people you want to, you know, kind of touch the future and we talk to futurists, uh, big thinkers, innovators, uh, and the like. So, and then I'll, like I said, I'll put a link for people can sign up for the first two uh chapters and they can check it out and uh, great thanks for having me. It's a great conversation.
Speaker 1I love the uh we could talk for hours, so um we will, uh.
Speaker 1you're always welcome to come back and we can talk about other aspects of super shifts as as uh as as we move forward. But again, I want to thank you, steve, for being a guest today on the water foresight podcast, and we thank you, the listeners joining us today, and we'll look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Water Force Site podcast. Have a wonderful day. Thank you for listening to the Water Force Site podcast powered by the Aqualaris Group. For more information, please visit us at Aqualariscom or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
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