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”

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