00:10:16.220And yet when I did run into science fiction, it was the new way. So science fiction from about 1965 to 1975 was simply explosive. New wave was really the 60s as expressed in science fiction.
00:10:31.560And the 60s was a kind of a science fictional decade in many, many ways.
00:10:36.920Technology and history were accelerating wildly with the great end of the anti-colonial revolutions.
00:10:45.160And the world, it seemed to be changing so fast that you couldn't really predict the future.
00:10:50.340So the new wave was very clearly about the present.
00:11:00.300It's the best way of describing the United States of America and the modern world that currently exists in literature.
00:11:06.860All the rest of it was old hat, dusty, essentially formally fixed in the 1920s with the great modernists and just repeating itself ever since.
00:18:13.840The must trap is to pick one science fiction story, read it simplistically, and then take
00:18:19.460it as a blueprint for plans in the present.
00:18:21.820If you were going to do that, which many people do, and it's not his mistake alone, it's a
00:18:29.660category error that many people make the thing to do would it would take the story of us the
00:18:36.280utopian story of us solving climate change and making a decent society that where there's
00:18:42.660equality and sufficiency for all that's the story that you the science fiction story that you get
00:18:48.760caught up in and say oh we got to we got to make that one real that would be the sensible move to
00:18:53.680make. Okay, before I move on, I can't resist. Quantum entanglement is one of the main subjects
00:19:00.040of my first book, actually, What is Real. It's a fascinating phenomenon and incredibly fertile
00:19:06.480for science fiction stories, but you can prove that you can't use it for communication, much
00:19:11.620less transportation. Going back to that optimistic science fiction story, I mean, you wrote a version
00:19:17.100of that in The Ministry for the Future. It's a fascinating book because on the one hand,
00:19:23.980it opens with one of the most, and I mean this as praise, I hope you take it as praise,
00:19:31.480it opens with one of the most brutal scenes that I've ever seen in literature,
00:19:35.220and yet it ends up being a very optimistic book. Why did you make that choice?
00:19:42.400Well, I had been writing utopian fiction not throughout my career, but since for sure the late 80s with Pacific Edge, and I kept coming back to it time after time, but they were often displaced or partial, pocket utopias or utopias set on Mars or in an alternative history where things changed back in the 1400s.
00:20:09.400always somewhere else and not in our immediate future.
00:20:37.320that's a utopian story now because we're in such a dangerous position so i decided to do that and
00:20:44.060i wanted to emphasize the danger i had read an article about wet bulb 35 temperatures so
00:20:50.920essentially a heat index that combines heat and humidity and when you have very high heat and
00:20:56.360very high humidity in combination which is going to happen more and more then that becomes fatal
00:21:01.820for human beings who aren't protected by air conditioning and of course the air conditioning
00:21:05.940usually relies on electricity so if the grid goes down in one of these events people are in in danger
00:21:12.380of dying in mass that's true and that is a rather terrifying possibility for us all right now and i
00:21:20.240wanted us to contemplate that as a a worst case scenario and then from that build a 30-year
00:21:28.900history starting from right now that was a best case scenario so not all problems are solved at
00:21:36.920the end of ministry for the future not even close but there had been a bending of the curve back
00:21:42.860towards biosphere health and and i wanted it to seem realistic like every single point along the
00:21:48.320way the events that happened which included a lot of violence chaos disorder there is no plan that
00:21:54.240gets people there it's it's a whole lot of people doing the best they can following various lines
00:22:00.580of planning that don't always cohere that that nevertheless we could get to a good place which i
00:22:08.260think people very much appreciated the book has been uh important to a whole lot of people who
00:22:16.180have then oriented their careers etc and their mindsets to um the story that ministry for the
00:22:23.360future tells so i mean it came out in 2020 we've had a a bizarre and catastrophic five years
00:22:30.700since it came out and yet the book still fits because it portrays a bizarre and chaotic history
00:22:38.740and yet the good outcome still exists both in the book and and in our real world right now the good
00:22:45.220outcome still exists as a possibility we would have to do some different things than we're doing
00:22:50.780in March of 2026, but there were many really good projects underway and going full steam right now.
00:23:00.160So despite the surface chop of ridiculousness, you know, from our U.S. administration,
00:23:06.540underneath the surface chop, the tide in some ways is going quite well. And that's hard to
00:23:13.140keep in mind in the current news cycle, you know, the five-minute news cycle. It's not as reported
00:23:18.300on as it should be, but it's not over and we're not doomed at this point. We could indeed make
00:23:27.540a decent society still. So while that is still the case, then Ministry for the Future still looks
00:23:34.560pretty accurate, pretty good, pretty helpful. What are some of those developments that are
00:23:40.700keeping you hopeful about the direction we're heading in? There's a couple that are obvious
00:23:45.320and everybody knows about these first the clean energy transition that um clean renewable energy
00:23:51.380is cheaper to install now than um trying to create more fossil fuel opportunities and this is a
00:23:58.740massive civilizational technological transition it's going to take a while and of course there's
00:24:05.140fossil fuel advocates including our president that are fighting it tooth and nail but the
00:24:09.820economics of it are such that and also the physics of it the climate change physics of it are such
00:24:17.180that the clean energy transition is something to hang your hat on and say look good things are
00:24:22.840happening at a level where you don't have to be a saint you don't have to pay a green premium
00:24:27.700you can do the cheapest thing and it turns out to be the best thing well this is new this wasn't
00:24:33.200true even uh 10 years ago and now it's true and it's going to go faster as people need more energy
00:24:40.500for for adequate lives and also need to not torch the planet that is feeding them
00:24:46.680so the combined needs are such that clean energy will go like gangbusters from now on0.99
00:24:53.020and even faster as soon as we get idiots out of control in the soap opera in the states0.99
00:24:58.200The other thing is biosphere protection. You know, in Ministry for the Future, I talk about E.O. Wilson's Half-Earth. He was a great scientist and a great public intellectual like Ben Franklin or William James. E.O. Wilson will be remembered like that.1.00
00:25:13.900And his Half-Earth Plan, when I read it, which is maybe only 15 or 20 years ago that it came out, I laughed.
00:25:19.200I thought, this is the most utopian science fiction story I've ever heard.
00:25:22.940And now we've got 30 by 30 plans and treaties all over this earth, including the oceans.
00:25:29.640The COP that the Chinese ran in Montreal right after the pandemic declared 30 by 30 that every country should protect 30% of their land surface from human interference by the year 2030.
00:25:42.800and many people in that movement talk about 50 by 50 um and then the international maritime
00:25:49.100organization declared the same thing for the oceans that 30 percent of the ocean should be
00:25:53.400left entirely alone and essentially not fished and of course we're heating it we're polluting it
00:25:59.040but to not fish it would be tremendous for the the life in the oceans and again these these are
00:26:06.820underreported and and not fully understood to be gigantic improvements in our relationship to the
00:26:13.900planet now admittedly like all of the stuff at the cops and in international treaties these are
00:26:19.380promises only and they promises that get broken all the time so promises can be broken but promises
00:26:25.440are indicative of a kind of what you might call common sense or the general intellect of what
00:26:31.820people that internationally in all countries agree is what we ought to be doing. So even making a
00:26:40.680statement that we ought to be doing something in such formal terms as an international agreement
00:26:45.380is significant. And then promise breaking, nobody likes that. It looks bad. It's obvious that you're
00:26:52.260doing the wrong thing when you break these promises. It makes it easier to report on it
00:26:57.560If there was a promise made and then broken, you can say they're not doing this thing that
00:27:02.620they said they were going to do, as opposed to they're not doing this thing that they
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00:29:58.620I mean, this is a big question and maybe an unfair question, but do you think we're going to make it through the 21st century without a mass extinction event?
00:30:07.140well this is the impossible and so this is where as a science fiction writer i have to clarify the
00:30:14.200game but also as a science fiction writer and i and and i want to add to that that nobody can do
00:30:21.000this so in other words if somebody has on their business card futurologist or futurist they might
00:30:27.160as well be putting scam artist in red letters on their forehead yeah because everybody's a futurist
00:30:33.680of equal standing and ability. All well-educated humans are excellent futurists, and all humans
00:30:41.600are always thinking about their futures and analyzing as best as can be done. To go on from
00:30:47.880that, speaking strictly as a novelist who sets stories in the future, it's obvious to everybody
00:30:55.600what I'm going to say. From this moment, we can go into a mass extinction event that will hammer
00:31:00.820human civilization drastically badly, or we can move into a rather prosperous future where all
00:31:10.000the living creatures on the planet are doing well. And so this is what's disorienting. It's almost a
00:31:16.620180, right? So you're standing, say you're standing looking towards the east, and the east is the
00:31:23.820future. Well, all the way off to the north is catastrophe, all the way off to the south, it's
00:31:29.280like 180 degree spread that is possible from where we are right now so how do you call it what kind
00:31:36.060of trajectories are there and you can begin to look at human population you can begin to look
00:31:42.840at the populations of all the other big mammals and all the other species on the planet how are
00:31:49.000they doing what kind of trajectory are they on are there less than there were before are there more
00:31:53.540and you can create almost like weather predictions.
00:32:17.400supply and demand changes and fluctuations.
00:32:20.620So they're all curving off into different ways.
00:32:22.900And then they're all interfering with each other in ways that are either obvious or unobvious to the point where the future, especially right now, the human's future and the Earth's future are indeterminate.
00:32:37.520We have some trajectories towards mass extinction event.
00:32:41.040They seem to be lessening, partly because of us paying attention and taking care of the wild animals and trying to stop extinctions, especially of the species that we like or know about.
00:32:51.520and that's a general trend that has to do with land use and what we do with habitat in general
00:32:58.580and how it changes in agriculture all these things combined together such that the
00:33:04.020you can imagine success of the year 2100 of us having done quite well in the 2020s just being
00:33:12.920like the previous 20s in the 1920s, a time of incredible instability and chaos because certain
00:33:23.020fundamental issues haven't been resolved. And so we could either trend into a kind of a catastrophic
00:33:29.320World War II and aftermath, but history doesn't repeat like that. Ours will be a different kind
00:33:34.800of catastrophe set if we don't cope with the things that are happening. But if we do, the
00:33:40.700the powers that we have gathered in material sciences and in our understanding in general
00:33:46.960of how the world works, that's knowledge we could put to use. And then also the drive towards
00:33:55.060equality. There's a general sense in the world that everybody's equally valuable. Every single
00:34:01.000human is equally valuable. So there's 8 billion of us that should be at a rough equality with
00:34:06.280all the other eight billion it's not true now um financial and physical inequality amongst humans
00:34:12.500is is extreme and so solving that is one problem to solve and it would be really good for the
00:34:20.920biosphere if we didn't have such insane human inequality as well so all these things combined
00:34:27.500you know that's all you all you've got is a big a big mess that you cannot make predictions out
00:34:34.720Oh, but still, there are a lot of people out there. I mean, I go around giving talks about my book, my new book. One of the most common responses I get from people is despair. You know, they like I'll talk with them about the the, you know, these terrible ideas that tech billionaires have about the future and what the future should be and like, why they're taking sort of the wrong kind of inspiration from science fiction and reading science fiction very badly.
00:35:04.720And, uh, and especially last year, and maybe this is itself a sort of sign of optimism last year in particular, when I was doing this, I got a lot of people saying, okay, but what can we do? It's hopeless. They won. I will say lately, there's been less of that. People are feeling a little bit more hopeful now than they did a year ago.
00:35:24.960And I think I can understand that with the shock of the 2024 election a little bit farther behind us and some more hopeful things that have happened since then, along with some horrible things.
00:35:34.540But I know a lot of people who are going to be very surprised and pleased to hear that you think we're not doomed.
00:35:45.360Well, yeah, but this is a good chance to talk about your book, which I loved.
00:36:47.420this is uh yeah i was about to say heineland was all about this yeah yes yes this is his vision
00:36:54.480and it's a silly vision in some ways but on the other hand um you know national service that
00:36:59.860everybody should put in a year of working for their nation between high school and college
00:37:03.760this is not uncommon on this planet and several countries in the eu have plans that are somewhat
00:37:10.220like that it might be a good place a mixer where everybody in the country gets to know each other
00:37:15.240this is sort of like the draft, but for everybody. It's not a terrible notion if it's transformed
00:37:22.320into good works and emergency rescue. But then also the question of inequality, that there's
00:37:28.100the great man theory of history, and it usually is men. So the bad science fiction is there,
00:37:34.680and then the bad readings of it is there. Like, let's make this a blueprint, because
00:37:38.720the science fiction community had a phrase, fans are slans. And this refers to a novel slan by A.E.
00:37:46.820Van Vogt, where an ordinary guy turned out to be a salvationary figure from a different universe or
00:37:53.900whatever, who was going to save humanity by doing great things, but always under the radar and
00:37:59.180always pursued by the authorities so that he had to be a rebel without a cause, except it was a0.90
00:38:04.740because he was a slant and then fans science fiction fans outcasts from ordinary society0.75
00:38:11.340geeks nerds before nerddom had become popular and conquered the world in terms of silicon valley and0.82
00:38:19.020tech well they this was an under a feeling of being an oppressed minority it was entirely
00:38:26.480cultural but often these were misfits who couldn't get along in their ordinary society they would go
00:38:31.960to a science fiction convention and all of their friends were there and everybody there was like
00:38:36.340them and the science fiction community was very intensely low uh loyal to itself and enjoying
00:38:43.000itself and anytime a science fiction writer wrote a story like slan and one could bring up an
00:38:51.300example and from the 80s like enders game there's another example from more recently that i'm not
00:38:57.160even going to mention these are immensely popular amongst fans because fans yeah i grew up reading
00:39:03.460well there you go so if a novel tells you you although you are despised at your local junior
00:39:09.580high school are actually a secret master of the universe and if you're jesus try not to turn into
00:39:15.380hitler along the way and this becomes fascinating because it reinforces this sense that even though
00:39:21.840you are uh an outcast in your own little town you're a hero on the galactic state yeah well
00:39:29.360there's a lot of bad science fiction and and in essence these are power yeah and they're power
00:39:35.860fantasies that appeal in particular to young men and and now in our current society more and more
00:39:42.060also to young women who are just coming into their adulthoods wondering well what kind of
00:39:47.340person am i and how can i exert myself how can i be a full person and you can dodge into a science
00:39:53.800fiction universe and your book describes this very very well and imagine yourself to be one of these
00:40:00.440secret heroes and it helps you psychologically unless it deceives you in certain fundamental
00:40:08.340ways which it can uh ender's game is such an interesting choice because i know so many people
00:40:14.440my age who read it as a kid and loved it and i've gone back and looked at it and it's really
00:40:20.680pretty awful in terms of like the message that it's sending and uh you know i i feel like i hope
00:40:29.060i escaped that you know relatively unscathed but yeah i mean these tech billionaires i mean the
00:40:36.220the current crop tech billionaires i think are a bit too old to have grown up reading ender's game
00:40:40.800but um with with the possible exception of someone like sam altman but um but you know it's it's the
00:40:50.160kind of story that i think really appeals to them even now yes this great man theory that you're
00:40:55.860persecuted i mean you take a look at mark andreessen and that unhinged techno optimist
00:41:01.980manifesto of his and it's dripping with resentment he's trying to set himself up as uh i mean like i
00:41:08.060say in my in my book he's trying to set himself up as like a david against the goliath of the
00:41:13.000world when he is you know by any reasonable measure a goliath yeah well um there's a couple
00:41:19.040things to say there ender's game was popular with young people right up to the moment that the movie
00:41:24.460of it came out which kind of popped its balloon by showing how absurd it was and at that point
00:41:30.660that that book's influence was was dead a movie can kill a book and it often has happened and
00:41:37.260that's what happened with ender's game but it was at least 20 years and maybe a little more
00:41:42.420of insolence that it had over over teenage minds um and then the other thing to say though is let's
00:41:50.100not make too much of a type or a stereotype out of tech billionaires because that on the one hand
00:41:57.700being a billionaire is a curse that changes you because you have too much money and it's what i
00:42:03.500call the Midas touch everything you touch turns to gold and you can't trust that people are being
00:42:09.760real with you do they like me are they pretending that they like me because I have so much money
00:42:14.280are they even giving me the time of day because everybody gives the time of day to a billionaire
00:42:20.020yeah one time I accidentally insulted a billionaire in in their own space and told
00:42:25.120them to shut up when I didn't know who they were and afterwards everybody was looking at me like
00:42:29.040stand you didn't um you were you were real mean to mr x there and i said who's mr x and they all
00:42:35.160fell on the floor laughing because they knew and i knew later that if i had known who he was i would
00:42:40.560have been more polite sure that happens and so they can't trust anybody really and they have to
00:42:46.300find their friends so they're isolated and isolation is maddening yeah and what i'm saying
00:42:51.640is they're under enormous pressure to towards a bad result but some of them have resisted it
00:42:58.420Some of them have a sense of judgment such that they realize they became billionaires somewhat by accident, by luck, by the current laws, by making up something that everybody wanted at the right time in the right place with the right backers.
00:43:13.460And they realize that and they don't think of themselves as geniuses, but simply as lucky people.
00:43:19.180so now you have to make differentiations this group rather small almost entirely male under
00:43:27.340stupendous psychological pressure many of them are going to crack and go megalomaniac and believe1.00
00:43:33.780they're geniuses and that's why they're rich a lot of them are going to say well this is stupid0.99
00:43:38.620and i'm going to have to work hard to stay to live a good life and stay normal and have people i0.98
00:43:44.080trust. And they still have good judgment enough to withhold the incredible pressure of having
00:43:50.520too much money. Now, as for the doomerism thing that you started with, that you got and talked
00:43:54.700to people, well, it's time to stiffen your spine a little bit in this sense. It's not over till
00:44:01.500it's over and it's never going to be over. So doomerism is simply a cynicism. It's a giving
00:44:07.280upness. It's a weakness of character. You got to have courage. You got to have courage even when
00:44:12.620the shells are falling around you. Otherwise, it's useless. And you got to realize we're in a wicked
00:44:17.500political fight that's going to last us for the rest of our lives, for even the youngest of your
00:44:21.960listeners. The rest of their lives are going to be in this wicked political fight. And so that's
00:44:26.160not a time to give up. And this is what doomerism is. Oh, I give up. You know, we're doomed already.
00:44:31.120But the scientists will tell us that in biosphere terms, we're not yet doomed to a runaway
00:44:37.940greenhouse effect um we're not doomed to apocalypse ever it's a case of better or worse
00:44:43.680but we're not yet over the edge on these various tipping points that means that there's nothing we
00:44:48.940can do now um we're close we're we're we're all too close but as far as the scientists studying
00:44:56.520this very issue can tell we still have what would you say a couple decades to try to pull ourselves
00:45:03.820together on the biospheric front. And then on the human front, it's always available to pass
00:45:10.060legislation that simply taxes billionaires out of existence. And this is something that I wonder
00:45:16.000if you run, because you talk to these tech people probably more than I do, should always have a
00:45:20.960workshop moment. What's the minimum amount of money that you would need to have to make you
00:45:28.400feel like you're okay financially and that would include the social security of your kids you know
00:45:34.620presumably if you have kids what's that what's the minimum and here's what i've found many and
00:45:41.640many a billionaire will refuse to play that game yeah that it's too spooky and they said well i
00:45:47.460mean i've got billions and i'm making such good use of them better use than the government making
00:45:51.820them so why shouldn't i be a billionaire because i'm a philanthropist and that's a obvious answer
00:46:01.720What if you're not trying to be a philanthropist and be an individual, a government at the same time, which is, of course, a bad fate in several different ways.
00:46:11.800What if it was just you and your family?