#76 — Jim Pethokoukis — Building an Up-Wing Culture

Jim Pethokoukis and host Cameron Wiese trace how twentieth‑century futurism — the image of a nuclear‑powered, spacefaring world with “atomic everything” — became the cultural benchmark for a desirable future. Pethokoukis says similar optimism resurfaced in the late 1990s when the economy and early internet technologies prompted grand forecasts, but that momentum stalled after the 2000s financial crisis and subsequent slow growth. He believes we are again at a hinge point because of converging technologies — AI, advances in energy, biology, and sharply lower launch costs for space — and cautions that policy or cultural choices could either enable a sustained leap forward or replicate the mistake of sidelining transformative tech (he compares current AI skepticism to historical opposition to nuclear power). Pethokoukis stresses that the stakes are practical: abundant clean energy is a general‑purpose technology, and without it the poorest countries will be denied development; similarly, planetary defensive measures against comets, asteroids, or solar storms should be prioritized now rather than after catastrophe.

The conversation centers on the upwing/downwing cultural framework Pethokoukis lays out: upwing faith in problem‑solving, growth and innovation versus downwing caution, zero‑sum thinking, and preference for retrenchment. Both speakers argue this cleavage increasingly transcends left/right politics and is shaped heavily by storytelling. They critique modern media that fixates on dystopia (Contagion, Don't Look Up) for demoralizing audiences, and instead point to pro‑future or problem‑solving narratives (The Martian, Interstellar, For All Mankind, SpaceX’s Mars videos) and historical spectacles (1933/1964 Futurama, World’s Fairs, 2012 Olympics industrial tableau) as powerful tools to acculturate people to new technologies. Concrete policy and cultural asks emerge: boost basic science and launch programs, reduce regulatory friction that makes large projects expensive or impossible, promote clean‑energy options (fission/fusion/geothermal/space solar), and invest in planetary defense. Pethokoukis closes with a practical credo drawn from Herman Kahn: make fewer dumb decisions and a few more smart ones now — and use positive, tangible storytelling to get people and politicians willing to act.