Dude, Where’s My Flying Car?

The moon is a great place to put a fusion reactor.

Published January 11, 2023

For no particular reason, the Remnant returns to an in-person format today, as Jonah drops by the AEI offices to chat about what the future holds for humans and technology with James “Jimmy P” Pethokoukis. Together, they explore why we still haven’t achieved some of the major advancements that wonks were predicting in the ‘70s, occasionally stopping to ponder the merits of popular sci-fi television shows. AI, fusion power, and space elevators are all discussed, but by the end of it all, an important question still hasn’t received enough attention: Will highly intelligent, taxi-driving super-apes eventually overthrow mankind?

Show Notes:

– Jim’s Substack, Faster, Please!

– Ezra Klein: “The Dystopia We Fear Is Keeping Us From the Utopia We Deserve”

– Jim: “Who taught us to fear Dystopia? Who taught us we didn’t deserve Utopia?”

– Jim: “Paul Ehrlich interview on ’60 Minutes’ shows the need to finally defeat degrowth environmentalism”

– Our World in Data

– Jonah’s review of The Reactionary Mind

– Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock

– Arthur C. Clarke’s Profiles of the Future

– Scientific American: “Space Elevators Are Less Sci-Fi Than You Think”

– Jonah: “Two Cheers for Techno-Marxism”

– Jim: “Billionaires, space, and the Blade Runner Fallacy”

Listen on your player of choice

Jonah Goldberg

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Dispatch, based in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, enormous lizards roamed the Earth. More immediately prior to that, Jonah spent two decades at National Review, where he was a senior editor, among other things. He is also a bestselling author, longtime columnist for the Los Angeles Times, commentator for CNN, and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. When he is not writing the G-File or hosting The Remnant podcast, he finds real joy in family time, attending to his dogs and cat, and blaming Steve Hayes for various things.

Please note that we at The Dispatch hold ourselves, our work, and our commenters to a higher standard than other places on the internet. We welcome comments that foster genuine debate or discussion—including comments critical of us or our work—but responses that include ad hominem attacks on fellow Dispatch members or are intended to stoke fear and anger may be moderated.