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It’s So Over, We’re So Back: Doomer Techno-Optimism (2024)
Prophets and their warnings arise in times of peril, and the arrival of the doomer techno-optimist discourse is fortunate. Simply put, we needed the wake-up call. Yet, if the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one, then the second step is actually doing something about it. To that end, what is needed from the next phase of contributions to this discussion are proposals to reboot science and generate breakthroughs, policies to create an environment in which transformative growth is possible, and new economic analyses that more accurately account for the role of technology in growth. In fact, doomer techno-optimists have an opportunity to take their unique blend of harsh reflection on the present and bold vision for a sci-fi future and fuse it with creative and actionable proposals to realize such ambitious dreams. What strategies could the doomer techno-optimists propose? Perhaps the most important approach would be to involve government as a “market maker"...
Surely, there were cultural and spiritual conditions that enabled risk-taking, which Boom documents, but there were also bold visions, brilliant inventors, individual dedication, and long-term personal sacrifice, not to mention company formation, capital allocation, mobilization of broad swaths of the country, and successful government intervention. The final two chapters, which are meant to be the most inspirational, fail by either covering too much ground with disorganized metaphysical, theological, and analytical claims or proposing a list of the next potential bubbles that don’t differ much at all from what many venture capital firms would suggest (i.e., bitcoin, space exploration, longevity, artificial intelligence, and energy). It obscures the numerous other people who contributed to the engine to make it work.” 21 Contrary to what Hollywood, the media, and the VC world would have you believe, true technological progress emerges over time from the unpredictable, turbulent, painstaking roller-coaster journey of self-sacrifice taken by groups of individuals who build, operate, and maintain complex industrial societies.
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