Ezra Klein

You don't think too much about the global picture and you're just pissed at those condescending or richer than you people over there. And it's bit by bit. And your idea of yourself is in relationship to the people you think have already wronged you or the ways in which you feel your life has been unfair.

You don't think too much about the global picture and you're just pissed at those condescending or richer than you people over there. And it's bit by bit. And your idea of yourself is in relationship to the people you think have already wronged you or the ways in which you feel your life has been unfair.

And I mean, where it all ends up going, of course, with Nazi Germany and I'm Jewish, it is what it is. But what was so chilling about that book was how many political movements the incentives of these just ordinary members of the party could describe.

And I mean, where it all ends up going, of course, with Nazi Germany and I'm Jewish, it is what it is. But what was so chilling about that book was how many political movements the incentives of these just ordinary members of the party could describe.

You've written over the years a lot of very vivid dystopias. Why not utopias?

You've written over the years a lot of very vivid dystopias. Why not utopias?

Have you ever constructed a utopia, even just for yourself, that you find convincing?

Have you ever constructed a utopia, even just for yourself, that you find convincing?

And it also seemed to me there, before we got into the planning for how it might be different, that a principle you were at least implying is that we're likely in a better society trying to avoid dystopias than create utopias. Maybe utopias create too much potential for moral blackmail or something.

And it also seemed to me there, before we got into the planning for how it might be different, that a principle you were at least implying is that we're likely in a better society trying to avoid dystopias than create utopias. Maybe utopias create too much potential for moral blackmail or something.

I figure what stories do in utopia is realize there's never such thing as utopia.

I figure what stories do in utopia is realize there's never such thing as utopia.

One reason I ask this is that something that I worry about sometimes is that what the right has for its side is an inspiring vision of the past, and the left has lost an inspiring vision of the future. And I know some, I should say, I know there are sci-fi writers working with Utopias now. I know Becky Chambers just wrote a book, which I just read actually on that theme.

One reason I ask this is that something that I worry about sometimes is that what the right has for its side is an inspiring vision of the past, and the left has lost an inspiring vision of the future. And I know some, I should say, I know there are sci-fi writers working with Utopias now. I know Becky Chambers just wrote a book, which I just read actually on that theme.

But I think there's something to that nevertheless. Sometimes I worry that the left has become about preventing disaster but doesn't quite have a vision of what it is trying to create.

But I think there's something to that nevertheless. Sometimes I worry that the left has become about preventing disaster but doesn't quite have a vision of what it is trying to create.

Plus it'll be fun is, I think, an often missed piece.

Plus it'll be fun is, I think, an often missed piece.

One of the questions I always wonder about for myself, as somebody who works in news in a particular period of human history, Is what are the things that when this era is looked back on, the question would be, why did people not take that more seriously?

One of the questions I always wonder about for myself, as somebody who works in news in a particular period of human history, Is what are the things that when this era is looked back on, the question would be, why did people not take that more seriously?