Sci-Fi Economics (with Kim Stanley Robinson)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 17 January 2023

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We can’t tear down the existing economic framework and replace it with a better one without first telling a persuasive story about how the economy actually works. And few people in the world are more compelling storytellers than science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson. In his speculative near-future novel The Ministry for the Future, Stan explains complicated economic theories better than most economists. He joins Nick and Goldy for a fascinating conversation about the role of economics in both climate change fiction and climate change reality. Kim Stanley Robinson is a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus awards. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestselling Mars trilogy and the critically acclaimed New York 2140 and The Ministry for the Future. Facebook: Kim Stanley Robinson The Ministry for the Future https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/kim-stanley-robinson/the-ministry-for-the-future/9780316300148 Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	I have never read a work of fiction that has included such an accessible description of some
0:11.3	very complicated economic concepts.
0:14.0	The Ministry for the Future is just the last of a long series of projects where economics
0:18.8	takes center stage because it's crucial.
0:21.1	Economics is the operating system of the world.
0:23.6	Yeah. And if it's a crappy operating system, you get a crappy result.
0:30.8	From the home offices of civic ventures in downtown Seattle, this is Pitch Fork Economics,
0:37.8	with Nick Hanauer, the best place to get the truth about who gets what and why.
0:48.8	I'm Nick Hanauer, founder of Civic Ventures.
0:52.1	I'm David Goldstein, senior fellow at Civic Ventures.
1:00.9	One of the things I hadn't accounted for, Nick, when I first started working with you,
1:05.7	back in 2014, was how many goddamn books I'd have to read.
1:11.5	I know. Oh my god, it's started with your two little books.
1:15.6	I know. I left that out of the job description.
1:18.2	Yeah, true patriot and gardens of democracy.
1:21.6	But you did tell me I had to read Piketty's book.
1:24.4	And that's actually when I first signed up for my audible account,
1:27.8	because I just, it was too thick.
1:30.0	Yeah. I had to, I had to listen to it to get, to get through the whole damn thing.
1:34.8	And of course, one of the things that meant is that I've read so many books about economics
1:41.5	and evolutionary psychology and anthropology and entropy and network theory, game theory,
1:52.4	you name it, all the different fields that have fed into our evolving understand of the economy.
	...

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