> We obsess over Nth-derivative Disney films Pop culture is pop culture and only really gets interesting in brief flashes. > where is Ursula Le Guin? We've g

> We obsess over Nth-derivative Disney films Pop culture is pop culture and only really gets interesting in brief flashes. > where is Ursula Le Guin? We've got a whole lot of great speculative fiction these days, but there's no one dominant. It's a curse and benefit of the long tail. > there is an almost total lack of vision right now I think the big thing we're missing is some shared set of optimism and an idea of what kinds of things we should want for ourselves. We're divided; we're feeling ennui from being at a bit of a local maximum in a whole lot of ways; looming doom of various kinds (climate, geopolitical, economic) suppresses us. > innovation has been gutted by worn as a skin suit by Wall St. That whole financial, administrative, and managerial class has to shrink. Look, finance is a superpower and a key export of the West and it would be a mistake to gut it, but to continue to allow it to grow without bound is an equally big mistake.