When the news moves faster than we can process it, how do we grasp what any of it actually means for our lives? Strategic futurist Jason Tester has pioneered an answer: "speculative journalism"—rigorous, researched reporting on high-probability high-stakes futures before they materialize. The goal? Making the inconceivable feel inevitable before it's too late to change course. 

His project, One Big Beautiful Aftermath: Dispatches from Near-Future America, translates the sprawling "One Big Beautiful Bill" into visceral, human stories, revealing its plausible impacts on everyday Americans in the coming years. His other groundbreaking scenario, Insurrection: An American Future, has proved disturbingly prescient—published in January 2025, months before federal forces were deployed to Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, and Memphis, it depicts a military occupation of San Francisco's streets. 

This work isn't just about sounding the alarm. We need more voices creating these futures—both the ones we fear and the ones we hope for. Join Jason in conversation with Michelle Meow to explore how speculative journalism can strengthen democracy, the role generative AI plays in democratizing who gets to tell these stories, and why bringing tomorrow's realities into today's conversation might be our most powerful tool for shaping what comes next..

About the Speaker

Jason Tester is a strategic futurist and speculative designer whose work explores the human consequences of political, technological and social transformation. For more than two decades, he has used visual and immersive storytelling to make future possibilities more understandable and resonant for numerous companies, nonprofit organizations, and governments around the world. A former research director at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, Tester is a leading figure in the field of speculative design and a fierce advocate for democratizing futurism. Based in San Francisco for more than two decades and deeply rooted in the city's LGBTQ+ community, his work has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, and on MSNBC and CNN.