Faster, Please! — The Podcast
Episodes
🪐 NASA and beyond: My chat with space policy analyst Casey Dreier
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers in America and around the world:NASA is attempting the difficult task of juggling highly ambitious ...
✨🔬 Acceleration though AI-automated R&D: My chat (+transcript) with economist Tom Davidson
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers in America and around the world:What really gets AI optimists excited isn’t the prospect of autom...
🚀 The trillion-dollar space race: My chat (+transcript) with journalist Christian Davenport
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,China’s spacefaring ambitions pose tough competition for America. With a focused, centralized pro...
🤖 Thoughts of a (rare) free-market AI doomer: My chat (+transcript) with economist James Miller
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,Some Faster, Please! readers have told me I spend too little time on the downsides of AI. If you’...
🛑 Why progress stops : My chat (+transcript) with economist Carl Benedikt Frey
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,For most of history, stagnation — not growth — was the rule. To explain why prosperity so ofte...
🤖 AI risks and rewards: My chat (+transcript) with AI researcher Miles Brundage
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,Artificial intelligence may prove to be one of the most transformative technologies in history, but...
🛩️ Human aspiration and the legacy of 'To Fly!': My chat (+transcript) with filmmaker Greg MacGillivray
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,In 1976, America celebrated 200 years of independence, democracy, and progress. Part of that celebr...
👶 Bracing for depopulation: My chat (+transcript) with 'After the Spike' coauthor Dean Spears
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,Global population growth is slowing, and it’s not showing any signs of recovery. To the environme...
⚛️ Our fission-powered future: My chat (+transcript) with nuclear scientist and author Tim Gregory
12 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,Nuclear fission is a safe, powerful, and reliable means of generating nearly limitless clean energy...
✨ AI and the future of R&D: My chat (+transcript) with McKinsey's Michael Chui
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,The innovation landscape is facing a difficult paradox: Even as R&D investment has increased, produ...
📊 The US economy at midyear: My chat (+transcript) with economic analyst Joey Politano
25 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,With tariff and immigration policies uncertain, and the emerging AI revolution continuing to emerge...
🎇 An age of transformation: My chat (+transcript) with techno-futurist Peter Leyden
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,The 1990s and the dawn of the internet were a pivotal time for America and the wider world. The his...
✨ 🧬 When AI meets biotechnology: My chat (+transcript) with techno-futurist Jamie Metzl
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,Once-science-fiction advancements like AI, gene editing, and advanced biotechnology have finally ar...
🚀 NASA and the New Space Age: My chat (+transcript) with James Meigs
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,America is embarking upon a New Space Age, with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin ready to part...
🤖 Superintelligence and national security: My chat (+transcript) with AI expert Dan Hendrycks
08 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,As we seemingly grow closer to achieving artificial general intelligence — machines that are smar...
🗽 America's immigration edge: My chat (+transcript) with policy expert Alex Nowrasteh
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,With the rise of American populist nationalism has come the rise of nativism: a belief in the conce...
🌾 Land of plenty: My chat (+transcript) with science journalist Charles C. Mann on the agricultural history you never learned
17 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1960s, a deep anxiety set in as one thing became seemingly clear: We were headed toward population catastrophe. Paul Ehrlich’s “The Populat...
🚀 Mars or bust! My chat (+transcript) with aerospace engineer Robert Zubrin
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In his famous 1962 address to Rice University, President Kennedy declared,We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not beca...
📈 Back to the Nineties? My chat (+transcript) with economist Skanda Amarnath on the 2020s productivity outlook
14 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The American economy is growing, and, in many ways, it’s looking a lot like the 1990s. Upward trends in productivity growth and employment paired wi...
🚀 My chat (+transcript) with economist Matt Weinzierl on the growing business of space
06 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The space business landscape is changing. Companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are moving at breakneck speed toward goals Americans have dreamed of s...
🌍 My chat (+transcript) with researcher Toby Ord on existential risk
31 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The 2020s have so far been marked by pandemic, war, and startling technological breakthroughs. Conversations around climate disaster, great-power conf...
🤖 My chat (+transcript) with journalist Nicole Kobie on why the future of tech still hasn’t arrived
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
My 2023 book, The Conservative Futurist, is based on the idea that we, as a society, are failing to meet our potential: Inefficiency, overregulation, ...
⚡ My chat (+transcript) with Virginia Postrel on promoting a culture of dynamism
16 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Big changes are happening: space; energy; and, of course, artificial intelligence. The difference between sustainable, pro-growth change, versus a ret...
🌐 My chat (+transcript) with chaos theorist Doyne Farmer on our interconnected economy
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Farmer is the Baillie Gifford Professor of Complex Systems at Oxford's Institute for New Economic Thinking. Before joining Oxford in 2012, he worked a...
🎨 My chat (+transcript) with innovation expert Duncan Wardle on practical tips for corporate creativity
13 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The future will be built on the big ideas we dare to conjure up today. We know that the most groundbreaking ideas often seemed ludicrous or simply imp...
✨ My chat (+transcript) with tech policy expert Neil Chilson on regulating GenAI
26 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Washington’s initial thinking about AI regulation has evolved from a knee-jerk fear response to a more nuanced appreciation of its capabilities and ...
🏘️ My chat (+transcript) with economist Bryan Caplan on density and housing deregulation
15 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Housing in the United States has come to be known as a panacea problem. Gone are the days when tossing the graduation cap meant picking up the keys to...
✨⏩ My chat (+transcript) with ... economist Robin Hanson on AI, innovation, and economic reality
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I talk with economist Robin Hanson about a) how much technological change our society will undergo...
🚀 My chat (+transcript) with space journalist Eric Berger on SpaceX and America's New Space Age
23 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On October 13, SpaceX and Elon Musk successfully launched their Starship rocket into low-Earth orbit. Then, in a milestone moment for space technology...
💥 My chat (+transcript) with economist Eli Dourado on creating a fantastic future
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Eli Dourado is on a mission to end the Great Stagnation, that half-century period of economic and technological disappointment that began in the 1970s...
☀️ My chat (+transcript) with economist Noah Smith on technological progress
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Some signs of tech progress are obvious: the moon landing, the internet, the smartphone, and now generative AI. For most of us who live in rich countr...
📖 My chat (+transcript) with Mentava founder Niels Hoven on accelerating kids’ education
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to sports, everybody is basically aligned that the goal here is helping every kid reach their potential. We celebrate talent, we give at...
⚡ My chat (+transcript) with venture capitalist Katherine Boyle on 'American Dynamism'
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
American global leadership is due in great part to its innovators — visionaries who drive society beyond the preconceived limits. Historically, gove...
⚠ My chat (+transcript) with BCG economist Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak on dealing with macroeconomic risk
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In our highly globalized economy, exogenous shocks and unsettling headlines are everywhere. It makes sense that market forecasters should be biting th...
🤖🧠 My chat (+transcript) with Google DeepMind's Séb Krier on AGI and public policy
09 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a world of Artificial General Intelligence, machines would be able to match, and even exceed, human cognitive abilities. AGI might still be science...
⤵ My chat (+transcript) with investor Ruchir Sharma on where capitalist economies went wrong
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
✈ A quick note: I will be traveling through the middle of the month and will be posting a bit less than usual and perhaps a bit shorter than usual.T...
⚛ My chat (+transcript) with the US Energy Department's Mike Goff on powering the US with more nuclear energy
11 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
✈ A quick note: I will be traveling through the middle of the month and will be posting a bit less than usual and perhaps a bit shorter than usual.A...
🤖 My chat (+transcript) with Google economist Guy Ben-Ishai on seizing the historic AI moment
28 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence may revolutionize the American economy, but whether we see that potential actualized depends on a few key factors: whether gen...
🏙 My chat (+transcript) with ... economist Jason Barr on the skyscrapers of tomorrow
14 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The image of the skyscraper is the hallmark of the modern city. Futuristic depictions of urban landscapes nearly always feature towering structures hi...
🤖🌈 My chat (+transcript) with Nick Bostrom on life in an AI utopia
06 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The media is full of dystopian depictions of artificial intelligence, such as The Terminator and The Matrix, yet few have dared to dream up the image ...
🤖 My chat (+transcript) with tech policy analyst Adam Thierer on regulating AI
30 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
While AI doomers proselytize their catastrophic message, many politicians are recognizing that the loss of America’s competitive edge poses a much m...
🚀 My chat (+transcript) with Charles Murray on Project Apollo
03 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Project Apollo was a feat of human achievement akin to, and arguably greater than, the discovery of the New World. From 1962 to 1972, NASA conducted 1...
🦁 My chat (+transcript) with investment strategist Ed Yardeni on his optimism for a Roaring 2020s
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As I often remind subscribers to Faster, Please!, predictions are hard, especially about the future. The economic boom of the 1990s came as a surprise...
⚡⚛ My chat (+transcript) with Steve Obenschain of LaserFusionX on laser fusion
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As private and government interest in nuclear fusion technology grows, an array of startups have arisen to take on the challenge, each with their own ...
☢ My chat (+transcript) with Spencer Weart on the history of nuclear energy fear
28 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In a world facing climate change and clean energy challenges, it’s starting to look like a nuclear energy renaissance is starting to happen. That is...
🌐 My chat (+transcript) with John Bailey on the potential for AI in education
07 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Education was among the first victims of AI panic. Concerns over cheating quickly made the news. But AI optimists like John Bailey are taking a whole ...
🌐 My chat (+transcript) with James Walker of microreactor startup NANO Nuclear Energy
01 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Readers and listeners of Faster, Please! know how incredible the untapped potential of nuclear power truly is. As our society (hopefully) begins to wa...
🌐 My chat (+transcript) with defense policy analyst Todd Harrison on the US Space Force
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The US Space Force, the newest branch of the American military, takes national defense to a new frontier. Here on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I s...
⚛ My chat (+transcript) with TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer on the future of fusion
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What if there were a way to generate massive amounts of affordable, carbon-free energy with minimal environmental or safety risk? Sounds too good to b...
🌐 My chat (+transcript) with Andrew McAfee on how to upgrade any company like a geek
01 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Science. Ownership. Speed. Openness.These are the four pillars of Andrew McAfee’s observed structure for successful companies. It is the “geeks,”...
🌞 My chat with Marc Andreessen on the need for techno-optimism
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re looking for a smart and punchy companion piece to my new book, The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised,...
🌐 My chat (+transcript) with Johan Norberg on the case for capitalism — and the myth of Swedish socialism
26 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Johan Norberg’s work revolves primarily around economic and intellictual history and attempting to learn lessons from past financial systems. In thi...
🌎 My chat (+transcript) with political scientist Francis Fukuyama on technological change and liberal democracy. Some sci-fi, too!
28 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
More than 20 years ago, the political scientist Francis Fukuyama characterized the Information Technology revolution as "benign" but cautioned that "t...
🌎 My chat (+transcript) with climate scientist Zeke Hausfather
14 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Is climate change an impending existential threat, or a serious but manageable problem we can tackle with innovation and human ingenuity? Zeke Hausfat...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #35
01 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As the cost to launch a rocket into orbit has come down over the past decade, a slew of startups have joined the emerging space economy. But is there ...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #34
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rapid progress in artificial intelligence, especially large language models such as ChatGPT, has rekindled an old debate about the feasibility of top-...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #33
27 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past 15 years, the cost to launch a rocket into orbit has declined dramatically thanks to SpaceX. Today, we're witnessing the launch of a new...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #32
21 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I've interviewed guests on exciting new technologies like artificial intelligence, fusion energy, and reusable roc...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #31
14 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"The promise of eternal life has conventionally been the dangled carrot of religion. It is now the holy grail of Silicon Valley," writes novelist Lion...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #30
30 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nuclear fusion holds the potential to provide the world with cheap, clean, virtually inexhaustible energy for the future. For decades, the technology ...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #29
26 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Many countries around the world have below-replacement fertility rates. And today’s today's guest says it's happening faster than we think, with wor...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #28
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Does technological progress automatically translate into higher wages, better standards of living, and widely shared prosperity? Or is it necessary to...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #27
20 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
I have many times written about the importance of the story we tell ourselves about the future, especially in big-budget science fiction films. But do...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #26
13 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The conventional narrative about the economic history of World War II says that new learning from wartime mobilization jumpstarted a postwar golden ...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #25
07 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to Up Wing thinking, there's no better litmus test than nuclear power. Setting aside the regulatory barriers we've imposed on ourselves,...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #24
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As space enthusiasts and entrepreneurs look to expand human civilization to the Moon, Mars, and beyond, few stop to examine the geopolitical risks of ...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #23
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to SpaceX, it’s getting cheaper and cheaper to launch stuff into orbit. But just imagine if instead of using rockets, we could send cargo an...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #22
24 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics," said Nobel laureate economic Robert Solow in 1987. A decade later, the '...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #21
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It was only three decades ago that astronomers first discovered planets outside our solar system. Since then, astrophysicists have found more of these...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #20
03 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On previous episodes of Faster, Please! — The Podcast and in my newsletter essays, I've argued for the importance of optimistic science fiction. But...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #19
27 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
If humanity is to become a multi-planetary species, we can't forever remain dependent on Earth's resources. That's where space resource extraction com...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #18
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It's been more than 50 years since humans last set foot on the lunar surface. But the recent success of NASA's Artemis I mission has put the US back ...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #17
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Skeptics joke that nuclear fusion is the energy source of the future … and always will be. But when the Biden White House made a big announcement ab...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #16
16 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
I often write about the need for Up Wing thinking. Despite the political drama that unfolds on cable news and social media, the key divide in America ...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #15
09 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This month, December 2022, marks the 50-year anniversary of when man last stood on the Moon. NASA's Apollo missions were an awe-inspiring triumph of h...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #14
12 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
➡ Reminder: I will be writing much less frequently and much shorter in November — and November only. So for this month, I have paused payment from...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #13
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
➡ Reminder: I will be writing much less frequently and much shorter in November — and November only. So for this month, I have paused payment from...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #12
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve all heard the stories and statistics about the supposed death of American manufacturing. But America's industrial sector never truly went awa...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #11
20 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Japan suffered an earthquake and tsunami in 2011, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant melted down, resulting in one of the worst nuclear a...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #10
14 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to part two of my conversation with Michael Mandel, vice president and chief economist at the Progressive Policy Institute. In the last epis...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #9
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Technology and e-commerce companies have a reputation for being drivers of creative destruction, sometimes at great cost to local communities. Economi...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #8
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When does economic policy become industrial policy, and has the Biden administration crossed that line? In this episode of Faster, Please! — The Pod...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #7
26 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I'm continuing last week's discussion with Robin Hanson, professor of economics at George Mason Un...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #6
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Few economists think more creatively and also more rigorously about the future than Robin Hanson, my guest on this episode of Faster, Please! — The ...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #5
12 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Almost 50 years ago, in December 1972, the Apollo 17 astronauts splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, marking the end of the Apollo program. In the half...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #3
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What if the Roman Empire had experienced an Industrial Revolution? That's the compelling hook of Helen Dale's two-part novel, Kingdom of the Wicked: R...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #2
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What is progress and how do we get more of it? It's a core question here at Faster, Please! and something Jason Crawford thinks a lot about. Jason is...
🚀 Faster, Please! — The Podcast #1
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ali Hajimiri is the Bren Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He is also co-director...