I like this, and it’s simultaneously exciting and bewildering to take seriously the prospect of punting difficult things.
It could be worth emphasising more clearly that this is about (futurist) strategy, which is about as cognitive as things get. Other types of preparation and problem-solving have other critical inputs, and may face ~inherent delays. For those, ‘punting’ can look risky, especially if you expect later phases to move quite fast. This has bearing on strategy: it’s worth attempting to foretell the kinds of lead-time-constrained preparation that might be needed to face upcoming challenges.
(A concrete example that stands out to me is bio monitoring and defenses. But in general I’d love to see more and richer work on characterising emerging threats, especially technological. Not necessarily from Forethought! Other kinds of lead-time-constrained activities might involve coalition building and spreading well-informed takes about important topics.)
I like this, and it’s simultaneously exciting and bewildering to take seriously the prospect of punting difficult things.
It could be worth emphasising more clearly that this is about (futurist) strategy, which is about as cognitive as things get. Other types of preparation and problem-solving have other critical inputs, and may face ~inherent delays. For those, ‘punting’ can look risky, especially if you expect later phases to move quite fast. This has bearing on strategy: it’s worth attempting to foretell the kinds of lead-time-constrained preparation that might be needed to face upcoming challenges.
(A concrete example that stands out to me is bio monitoring and defenses. But in general I’d love to see more and richer work on characterising emerging threats, especially technological. Not necessarily from Forethought! Other kinds of lead-time-constrained activities might involve coalition building and spreading well-informed takes about important topics.)