Category: culture

• Malka Older on the future of democracy

  The best science fiction writers can bring down the most powerful of institutions with a single sentence, and erect new ones in a paragraph. In her debut science fiction thriller Infomocracy, Malka Older mines her extensive experience in governance research to craft not only a nuanced vision for the future of democracy, but a globe-trotting…

• Kim Stanley Robinson on how to spark hope in a future ravaged by climate change

  Maria Popova says that critical thinking without hope is cynicism and hope without critical thinking is naïveté. Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York 2140 finds the golden mean between the two. He challenges us to reevaluate our own assumptions and priorities with a vision of the future that is at once hopeful and pragmatic. The novel follows…

• America at its best

  In 2017, my wife and I hosted a Ugandan refugee for nine months as he began the profoundly difficult process of building a new life. Today, he has his own apartment, works a full-time job in which he takes immense pride, and just got his Green Card. He is America at its best. Complement with…

• Renovating the American Dream

  Visiting Europe in 2019 reveals that the US is a failed state where physical and social infrastructure has been steadily degrading since the 1970s. America needs to rediscover what it means to invest in a better future for everyone. Complement with io9 on economic inequality in Cumulus, this La Soga interview, and the America I…

• Podcast interview about how technology shapes society

  I went on the Future Fossils podcast to discuss what the future extrapolated in the Analog Novels can teach us about the present: http://shows.pippa.io/futurefossils/episodes/115 “We haven’t figured out the new societies we want to build, given the new realities we’ve already invented.” “If you start thinking about the entire internet as an AI, then Google…

• Richard MacManus on how to build a career as a professional creator

  In 2003, Richard MacManus founded the popular tech blog ReadWriteWeb. Now, he’s back with Cybercultural, a newsletter covering how technology is changing cultural industries (books, movies, music, podcasts, etc.). Richard lives at the cutting edge of new media models and he was kind enough to answer a few questions about how to build a career…

• Fellow Travelers

  In which I talk to my favorite authors about craft, big ideas, and lessons learned. Culture is a single extended conversation about the meaning of life, and we wander its forking paths in search of insight, however fleeting. Follow the links below to read the full interviews and subscribe to my newsletter to find out when new…

• What is a story?

  A story is anything that makes you want to find out what happens next. A good story doesn’t leave you feeling cheated at the end. A great story changes your life and becomes part of who you are. Complement with a brief anatomy of story, three tips for building a writing career, and Eva Hashberg…

• Glimpse of a future San Francisco Bay Area ravaged by inequality

  “The hill below his apartment building descended straight into downtown San Francisco, where towering skyscrapers were packed together like travelers in a Tokyo subway. Lights were just starting to flicker to life. The last rays of the setting sun made the Bay Bridge appear to glow from within. On the other side of the water,…

• Blogs will rise again

  Prediction: As people burn out on social media, blogs will rise again. This time around, readers will subscribe via email instead of RSS. Blogs = shareable evergreen newsletter archives. Complement with how to build an organic fanbase, how we made an internet public art project, and this interview about media diets. Get new posts delivered…