Virginia Postrel & Jim Pethokoukis: How To Get a Great Future

A conversation about economics, progress, science fiction—and kitchen gadgets.

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Virginia Postrel & Jim Pethokoukis: How To Get a Great Future

This is a bonus episode, hosted by Reason Features Editor Peter Suderman. A few weeks back, at our Washington, D.C. HQ, he moderated a discussion with former Reason Editor in Chief Virginia Postrel (Reason archive here)and American Enterprise Institute Fellow James Pethokoukis about the future—why it matters, why it's misunderstood, and how we might get a better one.

Both have written extensively on the topic. Postrel is the author of many books, including The Future and Its Enemies. Pethokoukis is the author of the just-released The Conservative Futurist—How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised. 

It's a great conversation about economics, progress, science fiction—and kitchen gadgets.

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Comments

[Chumby]

How to get a great future?

Avoid public schools.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

The Conservative Futurist—How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised.

Well, our Cyberpunk future is definitely becoming our Cyberpunk present.

[JeremyR]

We're basically in a cyberpunk dystopia except there's very little cyber and all the punks are in favor of the government/megacorps

[Nardz]

https://twitter.com/iamyesyouareno/status/1730659488451920338?t=_JYV4ymMW0HAIfJxH3N1NA&s=19

POV: You won WWII.

[Pic]

[JeremyR]

Get a job with a think tank or foundation so you will never have to do real work, interact with the real world, and still make a good living. And maybe appear on TV and other media.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

And for the love of God, make sure it's headquartered in DC.

[Vernon Depner]

Don't be told what you want, you want
And don't be told what you want to need
There's no future, no future
No future for you

[CE]

Get the government out of the way.
Let individual human beings decide what they want to buy and how much they are willing to pay for it.
The aggregate of billions of individual human decisions will produce an outcome that is closer to optimal than trying to force everyone to comply with control by supposed experts.
And as a bonus, those who help individuals meet their revealed preferences will accumulate greater profits, enabling them to meet individual human needs at an accelerating rate (as compared to centralized government control, where the profits are diminished, and accrue to those who are adept at gaining political control.)

[TheReEncogitationer]

I’m going to listen to see if it’s anything like this:

Monty Python–How to Do It
https://dai.ly/x35wqq5
🙂
😉

[TheReEncogitationer]

Basically, yep.

All well and good to point out that Eco-Wacko-ism and NIMBY-ism* are part of the problem, but as always, no even open-ended plan on how we can get there.

*(Also, how NIMBY-ism has causation from "urban renewal", as Ms. Postrel asserted, is a mystery to me. The only common denominator I see is they are both Government-driven and implemented.)