The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

Don’t Fear the Future

Oct 5, 2023

The podcast discusses the ongoing debate between techno pessimists and supporters of growth, challenges central planning and advocates for individual choice, reflects on missed opportunities in the past, explores the need for regulation on the internet, discusses the potential of geothermal energy, and reflects on the conversation with the guest.

01:13:21

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Embracing progress and innovation as a means to overcome challenges and improve society.

A conservative outlook can coexist with a focus on the future and the value of risk-taking.

The significance of decentralized decision-making and market forces in driving progress.

Deep dives

The Importance of Embracing Change and Technology

The podcast episode highlights the necessity for businesses to adapt to fast-evolving technologies and shifting consumer expectations. Leaders from various industries discuss how they harness change to reinvent their companies. The episode emphasizes the opportunities that come with big changes and challenges the unnecessary and pervasive gloom about solving problems using human ingenuity. The goal is to create a future that is desired and to not be afraid of technology, but rather to view it as a tool for improving lives.

Introduction

2min

The Debate between Techno Pessimists and Supporters of Growth

18min

Challenging Central Planning and Advocating for Individual Choice

2min

Preventing a Slowdown in Economic Progress

17min

Regulation on the Internet: Promises, Drawbacks, and Debates

20min

Geothermal Energy: A Promising Source of Clean Energy

8min

Reflections on a Conversation and Upcoming Discussions

4min

The future has a lot of enemies these days, and most of them seem to agree that progress is behind us while nothing but disaster lies ahead. Today, AEI’s Jim Pethokoukis is back on the Remnant to challenge that idea. His new book, The Conservative Futurist, makes the case for a risk-taking, future-oriented American society driven by technological change. But what would such a society look like in practice? How could it come into being? And what makes futurism and conservatism compatible?

Show Notes:

- Jim’s page at AEI

- Jim’s book, The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised

- Jim’s Substack, Faster, Please!

- Jim’s Political Economy podcast

- Jim’s previous Remnant appearance

- Virginia Postrel’s The Future and Its Enemies

- Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future

- Half-Earth Socialism

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