1
00:00:05,320 --> 00:00:08,360
Speaker 1: On this episode of newts World. America was once the

2
00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:13,280
Speaker 1: world's dream factory. We turned imagination into reality, from curing

3
00:00:13,320 --> 00:00:16,959
Speaker 1: polio to landing on the Moon to creating the Internet,

4
00:00:17,600 --> 00:00:20,280
Speaker 1: and we were confident that more wonders lay just over

5
00:00:20,320 --> 00:00:24,200
Speaker 1: the horizon. Clean and infinite energy, a cure for cancer,

6
00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:30,320
Speaker 1: humanoid robots, radical life extension, and space colonies. Also, of course,

7
00:00:30,560 --> 00:00:35,400
Speaker 1: flying cars. Science fiction would become fact. But as we

8
00:00:35,440 --> 00:00:38,880
Speaker 1: moved into the late twentieth century, we grew cautious, even

9
00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:42,320
Speaker 1: cynical about what the future held and our ability to

10
00:00:42,320 --> 00:00:47,360
Speaker 1: shape it. America became a down wing society. In his

11
00:00:47,479 --> 00:00:52,040
Speaker 1: new book, The Conservative Futurists, How to Create the sci

12
00:00:52,040 --> 00:00:57,720
Speaker 1: Fied World we were promised, James Batacucus presents groundbreaking ideas,

13
00:00:58,120 --> 00:01:02,120
Speaker 1: sharp analysis, and provide DD's a detailed roadmap to a

14
00:01:02,160 --> 00:01:07,120
Speaker 1: fantastic future filled with incredible progress and prosperity that is

15
00:01:07,160 --> 00:01:13,319
Speaker 1: both optimistic and realistic. The Conservative Futurist invites us to

16
00:01:13,360 --> 00:01:16,039
Speaker 1: invent the future we want to live in and fight

17
00:01:16,160 --> 00:01:19,360
Speaker 1: for a better tomorrow. Here to talk about his new book,

18
00:01:19,840 --> 00:01:23,920
Speaker 1: I am really pleased to welcome my guest, James Beethacucas

19
00:01:24,280 --> 00:01:27,720
Speaker 1: he is a policy analyst and the DeWitt Wallace Fellow

20
00:01:28,040 --> 00:01:31,560
Speaker 1: at the American Enterprise Institute, where he also writes and

21
00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:36,800
Speaker 1: edits the AI Ideas blog and writes the Faster Please newsletter.

22
00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:52,600
Speaker 1: He also is a contributor on CNBC. James, welcome and

23
00:01:52,720 --> 00:01:53,800
Speaker 1: thank you for joining me.

24
00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:56,000
Speaker 2: A Newsworld newt Thanks so much having me on. I

25
00:01:56,000 --> 00:01:56,600
Speaker 2: appreciate it.

26
00:01:56,920 --> 00:01:59,120
Speaker 1: This is great. I think a generation ago, I was

27
00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:02,480
Speaker 1: a future I used to work with Alvin Toffler and

28
00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:05,840
Speaker 1: one sort of book called Window of Opportunity, talking about

29
00:02:05,920 --> 00:02:09,160
Speaker 1: what we could accomplish. So I was very attracted when

30
00:02:09,200 --> 00:02:11,840
Speaker 1: I saw your book and realized that you'd gone down

31
00:02:12,160 --> 00:02:14,840
Speaker 1: the same optimistic path of a better future. But I

32
00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:17,359
Speaker 1: want to start though with the premise what you mean

33
00:02:17,400 --> 00:02:22,040
Speaker 1: by America either being a down wing or an upwing society.

34
00:02:22,680 --> 00:02:25,040
Speaker 2: Well, I'm a conservative. I work at a center right

35
00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:27,799
Speaker 2: think tank, so you know truth and labeling there. I'm

36
00:02:27,800 --> 00:02:31,359
Speaker 2: a conservative. I think I'm also something else. I think

37
00:02:31,360 --> 00:02:33,680
Speaker 2: we call myself an upwing conservative. I think you can

38
00:02:33,960 --> 00:02:38,000
Speaker 2: be an upwing liberal. But it's simply the belief that

39
00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:42,000
Speaker 2: we have it in our power to create the tools

40
00:02:42,560 --> 00:02:46,560
Speaker 2: that will help us create a healthier world. A wealthier

41
00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:49,520
Speaker 2: world and solve big problems, that we can do that,

42
00:02:50,200 --> 00:02:53,840
Speaker 2: and that we have the wisdom and agency to do that,

43
00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:57,239
Speaker 2: and we should do that, versus I think what I

44
00:02:57,280 --> 00:02:59,400
Speaker 2: would call it down wing, which is people who say,

45
00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:02,959
Speaker 2: you know what, better safe than sorry, we shouldn't take

46
00:03:03,080 --> 00:03:06,720
Speaker 2: risks will probably only mess it up, and those tools

47
00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:09,959
Speaker 2: will probably end up causing problems, whether it's AI or

48
00:03:10,120 --> 00:03:14,000
Speaker 2: nuclear power. So I think that fundamental belief just about

49
00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:18,560
Speaker 2: creating utopia, but creating a better world. It seems obvious

50
00:03:18,600 --> 00:03:21,320
Speaker 2: that people would believe that's possible. It is possible, but

51
00:03:21,400 --> 00:03:22,959
Speaker 2: some people don't think it's possible.

52
00:03:23,200 --> 00:03:26,080
Speaker 1: If you make the point that if you go back, oh,

53
00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:30,680
Speaker 1: four hundred years, people thought progress was not possible. They

54
00:03:30,720 --> 00:03:37,120
Speaker 1: assumed the life in Thomas Hobbs' description would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,

55
00:03:37,160 --> 00:03:40,839
Speaker 1: and short. And yet in those four hundred years we've

56
00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:46,440
Speaker 1: seen astonishing improvements in health, astonishing improvements in agricultural productivity,

57
00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:52,200
Speaker 1: remarkable changes in both transportation and communication. And in a way,

58
00:03:52,240 --> 00:03:54,280
Speaker 1: we ought to look at the last couple hundred years

59
00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:57,280
Speaker 1: as a validation of your concept. Why do you think

60
00:03:57,280 --> 00:04:00,920
Speaker 1: it's so hard to get people to understand that, in fact,

61
00:04:01,400 --> 00:04:04,040
Speaker 1: we're in an upwing as a long term culture, and

62
00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:06,000
Speaker 1: things ought to be getting continuously better.

63
00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:09,440
Speaker 2: There's a quota used in the book, and the paraphrase it,

64
00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:13,600
Speaker 2: how can it be that we here in modern society

65
00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:18,240
Speaker 2: see nothing but progress behind us, yet we anticipate nothing

66
00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:21,840
Speaker 2: but disaster ahead of us. You know, you could forgive

67
00:04:21,880 --> 00:04:25,479
Speaker 2: people four hundred years ago for thinking that they had

68
00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:27,880
Speaker 2: no control over the future, that the future would be

69
00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:30,480
Speaker 2: just like the present and the past. They didn't have

70
00:04:30,560 --> 00:04:36,240
Speaker 2: the example of this tremendous increase in human prosperity that

71
00:04:36,279 --> 00:04:39,120
Speaker 2: we've seen over the past quarter millennium. But we do

72
00:04:39,200 --> 00:04:42,960
Speaker 2: have that example, and not just over the past quarter millennium,

73
00:04:43,160 --> 00:04:45,600
Speaker 2: but look at the United States, a country which went

74
00:04:45,640 --> 00:04:48,160
Speaker 2: from a few million people huddled on the North Atlantic

75
00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:51,919
Speaker 2: coast to a superpower. How did it happen that we

76
00:04:51,960 --> 00:04:54,880
Speaker 2: stopped believing that. I think part of it is sort

77
00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:57,440
Speaker 2: of hardwired into us, that we have sort of a

78
00:04:57,560 --> 00:05:00,720
Speaker 2: natural caution and that we feel losses more than gains.

79
00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:04,760
Speaker 2: I think the environmental movement in the United States, which

80
00:05:05,839 --> 00:05:09,240
Speaker 2: really turned into an anti progress movement, I think we

81
00:05:09,279 --> 00:05:12,200
Speaker 2: were always going to have an environmental movement as countries

82
00:05:12,240 --> 00:05:14,160
Speaker 2: get richer, they begin to think a lot more about

83
00:05:14,160 --> 00:05:17,320
Speaker 2: the downsides to growth. That's fine, but I don't think

84
00:05:17,360 --> 00:05:20,039
Speaker 2: we had to have that version, and I think that's

85
00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:23,119
Speaker 2: played a big role. The kind of pessimism we've seen

86
00:05:23,640 --> 00:05:28,240
Speaker 2: from the environmental movement, which turned into regulations helping kill

87
00:05:28,320 --> 00:05:32,279
Speaker 2: nuclear power, has I think infected the culture, including Hollywood,

88
00:05:32,720 --> 00:05:35,760
Speaker 2: so that kids today, if they're concerned about climate change,

89
00:05:35,800 --> 00:05:38,280
Speaker 2: they assume, well, there's nothing we can do about it,

90
00:05:38,320 --> 00:05:40,640
Speaker 2: and we probably have to give up the notion of

91
00:05:40,640 --> 00:05:42,880
Speaker 2: an abundant future. We probably have to live worse than

92
00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:45,560
Speaker 2: our parents. I mean, that's just one example. And you

93
00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:48,760
Speaker 2: mentioned the culture. Part of this isn't just different policies,

94
00:05:48,960 --> 00:05:53,680
Speaker 2: but a different culture that embraces tomorrow as tomorrow of possibility,

95
00:05:54,120 --> 00:05:55,080
Speaker 2: not utter doom.

96
00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:58,000
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, you talk about possibilities, and I agree

97
00:05:58,000 --> 00:06:00,600
Speaker 1: with you entirely. But I'm fascinating because one of the

98
00:06:00,640 --> 00:06:04,440
Speaker 1: people that you use as an example of a conservative

99
00:06:04,440 --> 00:06:08,320
Speaker 1: futurist is Walt Disney, who was truly remarkable. I remember

100
00:06:08,320 --> 00:06:11,159
Speaker 1: once there was a Reader's Digest piece about Disney right

101
00:06:11,200 --> 00:06:14,480
Speaker 1: after he'd opened Disneyland, and he said, I must be

102
00:06:14,480 --> 00:06:18,880
Speaker 1: pretty successful. I'm now seven million dollars in debt. That

103
00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:21,279
Speaker 1: was back when seven million was big money. But why

104
00:06:21,320 --> 00:06:23,800
Speaker 1: do you pick Disney and what do you draw out

105
00:06:23,839 --> 00:06:24,560
Speaker 1: of his career.

106
00:06:25,279 --> 00:06:28,640
Speaker 2: Well, the first conservative futurist I mentioned is indeed Walt Disney,

107
00:06:28,920 --> 00:06:32,000
Speaker 2: who certainly was an optimist. I mean starting the full

108
00:06:32,080 --> 00:06:36,080
Speaker 2: length cartoon films and amusement parks. His brother Roy advised

109
00:06:36,160 --> 00:06:38,479
Speaker 2: him against doing both saw them as going to be

110
00:06:38,560 --> 00:06:41,880
Speaker 2: utter financial catastrophes. So he certainly was an optimist. He

111
00:06:41,920 --> 00:06:45,920
Speaker 2: was a capitalist. He was also an optimist about that's

112
00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:49,560
Speaker 2: just his future, but humanity's future. He thought that the

113
00:06:49,600 --> 00:06:53,080
Speaker 2: tomorrow Land theme Land and Disneyland, that he had to

114
00:06:53,120 --> 00:06:55,760
Speaker 2: get that right. That was almost the most important part

115
00:06:56,200 --> 00:06:59,239
Speaker 2: of Disneyland. He had these plans to create a city

116
00:06:59,240 --> 00:07:01,839
Speaker 2: of the future at Florida, which is now there called

117
00:07:01,839 --> 00:07:04,400
Speaker 2: Epcot Center. But his vision was really like a real

118
00:07:04,720 --> 00:07:08,560
Speaker 2: functioning city using the latest technology. It would be under

119
00:07:08,560 --> 00:07:12,280
Speaker 2: a bubble. He was a conservative capitalist, a voter for

120
00:07:12,400 --> 00:07:16,280
Speaker 2: very Goldwater, certainly a futurist. But in the end, as

121
00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:18,920
Speaker 2: my true model, I picked a different futurist, which was

122
00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:22,880
Speaker 2: Herman Kahn, who is a nuclear war theorist. In the sixties,

123
00:07:22,920 --> 00:07:26,360
Speaker 2: but became by the seventies a real sunny purveyor of

124
00:07:26,400 --> 00:07:30,280
Speaker 2: the power of techno capitalism to make a better world.

125
00:07:30,880 --> 00:07:35,280
Speaker 2: He would maybe one of the last like upwing optimistic futurists,

126
00:07:35,320 --> 00:07:39,000
Speaker 2: because then the environmentalist took over the futurist profession and

127
00:07:39,080 --> 00:07:41,880
Speaker 2: it became rather than these futurists giving us a vision

128
00:07:41,880 --> 00:07:44,880
Speaker 2: of what was possible, they began giving us visions, you know,

129
00:07:44,920 --> 00:07:48,640
Speaker 2: really nightmares, visions of climate change and overpopulation and so forth.

130
00:07:49,080 --> 00:07:50,840
Speaker 1: I happened to be involved. I taught in the Second

131
00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:53,240
Speaker 1: Earth Day, and I was the coordinator of environmental studies

132
00:07:53,280 --> 00:07:55,800
Speaker 1: at one point at West Georgia College. When you go

133
00:07:55,880 --> 00:07:59,120
Speaker 1: back and you look at all the great dire catastrophic warnings,

134
00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:02,040
Speaker 1: not a angle one of them was accurate. Now one.

135
00:08:02,680 --> 00:08:04,280
Speaker 1: I mean, you go back and you read the famous

136
00:08:04,400 --> 00:08:08,280
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five book on the Population time Bomb, in

137
00:08:08,320 --> 00:08:12,360
Speaker 1: which the Stanford professor suggested that Britain would be starving

138
00:08:12,440 --> 00:08:16,520
Speaker 1: by two thousand. Totally false. But of course he's tenured

139
00:08:16,800 --> 00:08:19,320
Speaker 1: and revered on the left. Nobody has actually thought about

140
00:08:19,360 --> 00:08:21,720
Speaker 1: the fact that it didn't happen. You look at al

141
00:08:21,760 --> 00:08:26,400
Speaker 1: Gore's warnings about new York drowning as the glaciers melt.

142
00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:30,040
Speaker 1: And while New York has problems, drowning isn't one of them,

143
00:08:30,400 --> 00:08:33,600
Speaker 1: but it doesn't count. Again and again, this left wing

144
00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:36,679
Speaker 1: catastrophism turns out not to be true.

145
00:08:37,240 --> 00:08:38,199
Speaker 2: No accountability.

146
00:08:38,440 --> 00:08:42,079
Speaker 1: Well, it seems to have a deep, almost religious overtone

147
00:08:42,720 --> 00:08:47,880
Speaker 1: that belief matters more than fact, and that sincerity matters

148
00:08:47,920 --> 00:08:50,960
Speaker 1: more than reality. As long as your heart is in

149
00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:53,720
Speaker 1: the right left wing place, the fact that your head

150
00:08:53,760 --> 00:08:57,800
Speaker 1: makes no sense doesn't matter. I mean, it's very strange.

151
00:08:58,520 --> 00:09:03,240
Speaker 2: There's an imperviousness to reality that pervades. And I didn't

152
00:09:03,280 --> 00:09:06,240
Speaker 2: really go into this book, you know, wanting to, you know,

153
00:09:06,880 --> 00:09:10,000
Speaker 2: make it about how environmentals are bad, because certainly we

154
00:09:10,040 --> 00:09:12,160
Speaker 2: needed cleaner air and we need to get let out

155
00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:17,240
Speaker 2: of gasoline. But there's been an unwillingness to update their beliefs.

156
00:09:17,640 --> 00:09:21,840
Speaker 2: That's the catastrophe. Those predictions have failed catastrophically. There was

157
00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:26,160
Speaker 2: just on Apple TV plus a huge, big budget mini series,

158
00:09:26,200 --> 00:09:29,400
Speaker 2: you know, Meryl Streep all the big stars about climate

159
00:09:29,480 --> 00:09:32,400
Speaker 2: change and how it's going to get worse every decade.

160
00:09:32,960 --> 00:09:36,160
Speaker 2: There was nothing in all these episodes, with all the

161
00:09:36,160 --> 00:09:39,800
Speaker 2: big budget about the possibility maybe what we really have

162
00:09:39,960 --> 00:09:42,679
Speaker 2: is a clean energy problem, and maybe nuclear would be

163
00:09:42,679 --> 00:09:46,280
Speaker 2: part of that solution. Nuclear was never even mentioned for them.

164
00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:50,400
Speaker 2: It's always nineteen seventy three, or it's always nineteen seventy

165
00:09:50,480 --> 00:09:53,720
Speaker 2: nine when we had Three Mile Island and where nobody died,

166
00:09:53,960 --> 00:09:57,840
Speaker 2: but yet switching from nuclear to dirtier forms of energy

167
00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:01,600
Speaker 2: in that region actually did hurt children and infants and

168
00:10:01,640 --> 00:10:04,480
Speaker 2: their studies that back that up. There's no updating. There's

169
00:10:04,480 --> 00:10:07,200
Speaker 2: no updating of those catastrophic belats. And Paul Aerlick you

170
00:10:07,240 --> 00:10:09,440
Speaker 2: just mentioned, he has a new book out. They did

171
00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:12,200
Speaker 2: a big thing on him on sixty minutes Total Kid

172
00:10:12,200 --> 00:10:12,880
Speaker 2: Glove Treatment.

173
00:10:13,160 --> 00:10:16,439
Speaker 1: To go to a more fun part of this. After Disney,

174
00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:20,400
Speaker 1: you pick up on a nineteen sixty two cartoon series,

175
00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:25,000
Speaker 1: The Jetsons, which I remember fondly, and you suggest that

176
00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:29,160
Speaker 1: it's the most influential futurist work of the twentieth century.

177
00:10:29,320 --> 00:10:31,640
Speaker 1: Why did you pick the Jensens and why do you

178
00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:34,120
Speaker 1: think the Jetsons were so influential.

179
00:10:34,760 --> 00:10:38,040
Speaker 2: It's a cartoon series that was only on for one season,

180
00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:41,120
Speaker 2: yet that is sort of the go to sort of

181
00:10:41,280 --> 00:10:45,440
Speaker 2: media analogy for optimism, and it was a world of

182
00:10:45,480 --> 00:10:49,880
Speaker 2: flying cars and robots doing all the drudgery and super

183
00:10:49,960 --> 00:10:53,040
Speaker 2: high skyscrapers. And what was interesting is the people who

184
00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:56,359
Speaker 2: made that television show did not think they were engaging

185
00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:02,080
Speaker 2: in pure science fantasy. They thought like that legitimately a

186
00:11:02,280 --> 00:11:05,360
Speaker 2: version of that was what we would have by now

187
00:11:05,679 --> 00:11:09,520
Speaker 2: that that's what scientists and technologists were telling them. And

188
00:11:09,559 --> 00:11:12,480
Speaker 2: to this day, who took my flying car? It remains

189
00:11:12,559 --> 00:11:16,160
Speaker 2: like a catchphrase. And that wasn't the show of fantasy.

190
00:11:16,600 --> 00:11:20,160
Speaker 2: We should already have computers and AI doing more of

191
00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:25,360
Speaker 2: our work. We already really could have radically different transportation systems.

192
00:11:25,840 --> 00:11:29,760
Speaker 2: And if you would do that show right now today,

193
00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:33,400
Speaker 2: it would be a show about problems about how technology

194
00:11:33,440 --> 00:11:36,319
Speaker 2: makes life worse. The robot would probably end up killing

195
00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:39,319
Speaker 2: the family or something. It would be a complete disaster.

196
00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:41,599
Speaker 2: You probably couldn't do that today. And that's part of

197
00:11:41,640 --> 00:11:45,439
Speaker 2: the problem is that if you cannot imagine a better future,

198
00:11:45,679 --> 00:11:48,600
Speaker 2: then you're not going to as a society accept the

199
00:11:48,679 --> 00:12:00,440
Speaker 2: disruption that is part of economic growth and technological progress.

200
00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:07,840
Speaker 1: Hi this is newt. In my new book March the Majority,

201
00:12:07,920 --> 00:12:11,400
Speaker 1: The Real Story of the Republican Revolution, I offer strategies

202
00:12:11,400 --> 00:12:15,120
Speaker 1: and insights for everyday citizens and for season politicians. It's

203
00:12:15,160 --> 00:12:18,199
Speaker 1: both a guide for political success and for winning back

204
00:12:18,240 --> 00:12:21,480
Speaker 1: the Majority in twenty twenty four, March to the Majority

205
00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:25,520
Speaker 1: outlines the sixteen year campaign to write the Contract with America.

206
00:12:25,960 --> 00:12:29,400
Speaker 1: Explains how we elected the first Republican House majority in

207
00:12:29,559 --> 00:12:33,000
Speaker 1: forty years in how we worked with President Bill Clinton

208
00:12:33,280 --> 00:12:38,520
Speaker 1: to pass major reforms, including four consecutive balance budgets. March

209
00:12:38,559 --> 00:12:41,560
Speaker 1: to the Majority tells the behind the scenes story of

210
00:12:41,640 --> 00:12:44,240
Speaker 1: how we got it done. Here's a special offer for

211
00:12:44,320 --> 00:12:48,160
Speaker 1: my podcast listeners. You can order March the Majority right

212
00:12:48,200 --> 00:12:51,679
Speaker 1: now at gingrishtree sixty dot com slash book and it'll

213
00:12:51,720 --> 00:12:54,280
Speaker 1: be shipped directly to you. Don't miss out on a

214
00:12:54,320 --> 00:12:57,800
Speaker 1: special offer. Go to gingishtree sixty dot com slash book

215
00:12:58,080 --> 00:13:02,120
Speaker 1: and order your copy now today at gingishree sixty dot

216
00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:18,560
Speaker 1: com slash book. I used to say that we'd lived

217
00:13:18,559 --> 00:13:22,480
Speaker 1: in a cycle where if Thomas Edison invented the electric light,

218
00:13:23,000 --> 00:13:25,440
Speaker 1: it would have been reported in the news as the

219
00:13:25,440 --> 00:13:29,400
Speaker 1: candle making industry was threatened. Today everything has to be

220
00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:32,960
Speaker 1: described in the negative. You do have this alternative fantasy

221
00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:38,319
Speaker 1: where I became president. I once introduced the Northwest Ordnance

222
00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:41,160
Speaker 1: for the Moon because I took the principle that eventually

223
00:13:41,200 --> 00:13:43,520
Speaker 1: there will be enough Americans on the Moon that we

224
00:13:43,559 --> 00:13:45,559
Speaker 1: ought to have a governing mechanism. People thought I was

225
00:13:45,640 --> 00:13:48,600
Speaker 1: nuts at the time. Luckily Elon Musk thought it actually

226
00:13:48,600 --> 00:13:51,480
Speaker 1: makes sense, and he's trying to develop rockets cheap enough

227
00:13:51,880 --> 00:13:54,560
Speaker 1: that I suspect within a decade we will be on

228
00:13:54,600 --> 00:13:57,880
Speaker 1: the Moon in significant numbers, and within another decade we'll

229
00:13:57,920 --> 00:14:00,560
Speaker 1: be on Mars and significant numbers. Talk a little bit

230
00:14:00,559 --> 00:14:03,000
Speaker 1: about this whole notion of what it would have been

231
00:14:03,160 --> 00:14:06,600
Speaker 1: like to have had a conservative future, not new ginglish,

232
00:14:06,600 --> 00:14:12,680
Speaker 1: but a conservative future, reformist who reasserted the enormous opportunities

233
00:14:12,720 --> 00:14:14,120
Speaker 1: the technology are creating.

234
00:14:14,840 --> 00:14:17,559
Speaker 2: I think had we had that attitude fifty years ago,

235
00:14:17,760 --> 00:14:21,280
Speaker 2: I think if we had an opportunity to once again

236
00:14:21,400 --> 00:14:25,240
Speaker 2: embrace that attitude in the nineteen nineties during periods of

237
00:14:25,320 --> 00:14:28,080
Speaker 2: rapid economic growth, I think we would have looked around

238
00:14:28,200 --> 00:14:34,800
Speaker 2: and said, what are the barriers preventing us from rapid progress?

239
00:14:34,800 --> 00:14:37,840
Speaker 2: The kind of progress that at a minimum will make

240
00:14:37,920 --> 00:14:40,920
Speaker 2: us richer as a society, both individually and as a

241
00:14:40,960 --> 00:14:43,560
Speaker 2: country that can do more things. What are the barriers

242
00:14:43,760 --> 00:14:48,360
Speaker 2: that prevent us from becoming a multiplanetary civilization, which not

243
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:50,520
Speaker 2: only will help make sure of case something bad happens

244
00:14:50,520 --> 00:14:53,400
Speaker 2: to the Earth, but there are tremendous resources out there

245
00:14:53,480 --> 00:14:55,560
Speaker 2: that we can use. We also don't know what kinds

246
00:14:55,560 --> 00:14:58,880
Speaker 2: of medicines you could create zero gravity, for instance. We

247
00:14:58,920 --> 00:15:01,400
Speaker 2: would look around and we for the barriers. We'd see,

248
00:15:01,440 --> 00:15:06,040
Speaker 2: are there environmental regulations that are making it super hard

249
00:15:06,320 --> 00:15:08,360
Speaker 2: to build in the real world, whether it's a reactor

250
00:15:08,440 --> 00:15:10,480
Speaker 2: or a high speed rail or either a highway or

251
00:15:10,520 --> 00:15:13,400
Speaker 2: even a bridge. We would look for those regulations. We

252
00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:17,160
Speaker 2: would think, are we spending enough as a country on

253
00:15:17,280 --> 00:15:22,080
Speaker 2: basic science research something across the spectrum people agree on.

254
00:15:22,200 --> 00:15:24,360
Speaker 2: I would like to spend like we did during the

255
00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:27,440
Speaker 2: space Age at those kinds of levels again on the

256
00:15:27,480 --> 00:15:31,960
Speaker 2: science research that drives technology, that drives economic growth. And

257
00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:35,520
Speaker 2: so rather than only right now do we see the

258
00:15:35,560 --> 00:15:41,240
Speaker 2: beginnings of genetic cures for cancer or Alzheimer's or AI

259
00:15:41,440 --> 00:15:44,600
Speaker 2: that can help accelerate progress or be able to get

260
00:15:44,600 --> 00:15:49,200
Speaker 2: to orbit very quickly and cheaply through SpaceX, We've already

261
00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:51,040
Speaker 2: had that, and we would be on the next stage

262
00:15:51,160 --> 00:15:53,840
Speaker 2: of using those technologies to create a better world.

263
00:15:54,240 --> 00:15:57,360
Speaker 1: One of the things that Elon Musk has done project

264
00:15:57,400 --> 00:16:00,760
Speaker 1: which Congressman Bob Walker and I launched in the late

265
00:16:00,800 --> 00:16:05,400
Speaker 1: eighties when we actually passed additional four hundred million dollars

266
00:16:05,440 --> 00:16:08,920
Speaker 1: for NASA to try to develop a reusable rocket, which

267
00:16:08,960 --> 00:16:11,720
Speaker 1: they did with Lockheed Martin, which failed totally and it

268
00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:14,400
Speaker 1: took another twenty years for Musk to come along and

269
00:16:14,520 --> 00:16:18,560
Speaker 1: invent the reusable rocket. But he's actually lowering the cost

270
00:16:18,640 --> 00:16:21,480
Speaker 1: I think by a factor of ten in terms of

271
00:16:21,480 --> 00:16:24,120
Speaker 1: being able to put things into space. And I think

272
00:16:24,160 --> 00:16:27,000
Speaker 1: with the development of Starship when it finally works, which

273
00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:29,520
Speaker 1: I suspect will take another year or so, the fact

274
00:16:29,560 --> 00:16:32,800
Speaker 1: that this is I think thirty six rockets combined into

275
00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:36,040
Speaker 1: one vehicle, that largest heavy lift vehicle in history, that

276
00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:40,240
Speaker 1: will be reusable and will reduce the cost of heavy

277
00:16:40,280 --> 00:16:43,880
Speaker 1: lift and of taking hundreds of people into space in

278
00:16:43,920 --> 00:16:47,200
Speaker 1: a way that will revolutionize, just as in a sense

279
00:16:47,280 --> 00:16:49,960
Speaker 1: the cell phone and the Internet and the laptop have

280
00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:53,760
Speaker 1: revolutionized information flow. I think Musk is on the edge

281
00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:59,640
Speaker 1: of revolutionizing our ability to move physically. Presently, somebody will

282
00:16:59,640 --> 00:17:02,280
Speaker 1: figure out out that you can actually take that rocket,

283
00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:04,920
Speaker 1: put it up into a low Earth orbit, come back

284
00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:08,399
Speaker 1: down and get from say New York to Tokyo in

285
00:17:08,440 --> 00:17:12,200
Speaker 1: about twenty five minutes, and that will be a different revolution.

286
00:17:12,960 --> 00:17:15,959
Speaker 2: I think. If there's one like sort of emerging technology

287
00:17:16,000 --> 00:17:19,119
Speaker 2: that people I think is kind of sneaking up on people,

288
00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:24,200
Speaker 2: it's really the decline in space costs thanks to the SpaceX,

289
00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:27,080
Speaker 2: partially through just a more efficient way of building rockets,

290
00:17:27,119 --> 00:17:30,639
Speaker 2: and then the reusability factor right, not only will make

291
00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:34,760
Speaker 2: it far easier cheaper to get big payloads into orbit

292
00:17:35,240 --> 00:17:38,040
Speaker 2: and to the Moon, but really holds a promise for

293
00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:43,600
Speaker 2: very rapid intercontinental travel where again, which is what people

294
00:17:43,600 --> 00:17:45,679
Speaker 2: were talking about, you know, back to the Jetsons, and

295
00:17:45,680 --> 00:17:48,520
Speaker 2: the Jetsons you could get across the world in ninety minutes.

296
00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:52,200
Speaker 2: Like finally a half a century later, that might actually

297
00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:55,120
Speaker 2: be possible. And I would assume that over the next

298
00:17:55,160 --> 00:17:59,480
Speaker 2: decade there will be multiple space platforms again, a real revolution.

299
00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:03,000
Speaker 2: And that time back in twenty twelve when you were

300
00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:05,600
Speaker 2: talking about you know, the moon and making it a colony,

301
00:18:05,640 --> 00:18:08,240
Speaker 2: and people were raising an eyebrow, they shouldn't have been,

302
00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:11,840
Speaker 2: because the foundations for that kind of future were already

303
00:18:12,119 --> 00:18:14,720
Speaker 2: in motion, and we're finally seeing the fruition now here

304
00:18:14,760 --> 00:18:15,960
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three, you know.

305
00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:17,439
Speaker 1: It was interesting to me at the time. I was

306
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:23,040
Speaker 1: surprised the reaction of my competitors. I think what you

307
00:18:23,040 --> 00:18:25,680
Speaker 1: would call down wing. They ridiculed the.

308
00:18:25,640 --> 00:18:28,240
Speaker 2: Idea of space and snarky, right.

309
00:18:28,359 --> 00:18:31,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I look back on it and as part

310
00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:33,520
Speaker 1: of that whole emotion. But I want to go to

311
00:18:33,520 --> 00:18:35,800
Speaker 1: this because I think it's interesting that this use of

312
00:18:35,880 --> 00:18:39,280
Speaker 1: upwing and down wing, and you cite I think down

313
00:18:39,320 --> 00:18:42,880
Speaker 1: wing maybe in fact your own introduction, but that upwing

314
00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:48,399
Speaker 1: actually comes from an intellectual development a generation earlier in

315
00:18:48,440 --> 00:18:53,479
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies by a futurist FMS Fondieri, who is

316
00:18:53,520 --> 00:18:57,399
Speaker 1: considered the godfather of modern transhumanism, which is a movement

317
00:18:57,440 --> 00:19:02,040
Speaker 1: that tries to you science and technology transcend biological limitations.

318
00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:05,879
Speaker 1: I guess at one level, since I have artificial retinas

319
00:19:05,880 --> 00:19:08,560
Speaker 1: that were put in when I had cataracts, I'm sort

320
00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:11,920
Speaker 1: of a modest example of that kind of behavior. How

321
00:19:11,920 --> 00:19:14,920
Speaker 1: do you come up with upwing and down wing, which

322
00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:18,520
Speaker 1: I think is actually very helpful and broader than ideology.

323
00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:21,639
Speaker 2: I didn't invent those terms, but I've certainly sort of

324
00:19:21,680 --> 00:19:24,960
Speaker 2: repurposed them. My goal here is not to reach a

325
00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:28,240
Speaker 2: point where I have infinite life and I upload my

326
00:19:28,320 --> 00:19:31,720
Speaker 2: brain to a computer. My goals are far more modest.

327
00:19:31,800 --> 00:19:36,000
Speaker 2: My goals are living longer and healthier and being able

328
00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:40,119
Speaker 2: to solve big problems and making humanity more resilient. But

329
00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:45,160
Speaker 2: it became clear to me that that notion of solving

330
00:19:45,359 --> 00:19:49,600
Speaker 2: problems and using our ingenuity to innovate and solve problems,

331
00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:52,880
Speaker 2: that there were folks about the left and the right

332
00:19:53,840 --> 00:19:57,119
Speaker 2: who saw that as a way to approach policy. And

333
00:19:57,160 --> 00:19:58,960
Speaker 2: there are certainly people on the left and the right

334
00:19:59,359 --> 00:20:03,120
Speaker 2: who don't view that, who only see the downsides, who

335
00:20:03,760 --> 00:20:07,280
Speaker 2: don't like Silicon Valley, either because they're too weird or

336
00:20:07,280 --> 00:20:09,800
Speaker 2: they're too rich and are just against them. And that

337
00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:12,840
Speaker 2: is not how we got here. We got here by

338
00:20:12,880 --> 00:20:17,159
Speaker 2: being a country that took risks, that embraced challenges, and

339
00:20:17,200 --> 00:20:19,280
Speaker 2: we knew there might be some downside to it, but

340
00:20:19,320 --> 00:20:23,440
Speaker 2: we kept moving forward and then kind of stopped doing it.

341
00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:27,160
Speaker 2: And my fear is that if there's another nuclear accident,

342
00:20:27,680 --> 00:20:29,879
Speaker 2: or even if it's really minor, because they have been

343
00:20:29,960 --> 00:20:32,679
Speaker 2: minor for the most part, or if a starship rocket

344
00:20:32,720 --> 00:20:35,199
Speaker 2: blows up and someone's hurt, the downwingers will come out

345
00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:38,840
Speaker 2: and say, no more SpaceX, no more nuclear power. I

346
00:20:38,880 --> 00:20:42,160
Speaker 2: hope that we've learned enough about the need for energy

347
00:20:42,359 --> 00:20:45,520
Speaker 2: and the upside of going into space that won't happen,

348
00:20:45,560 --> 00:20:46,520
Speaker 2: but I always fear it might.

349
00:20:46,800 --> 00:20:48,880
Speaker 1: You make a very important point which has always been

350
00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:53,199
Speaker 1: one of the amazing transitions in American life, which is

351
00:20:53,359 --> 00:20:56,040
Speaker 1: coming out of World War Two, when we were about

352
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:58,399
Speaker 1: fifty percent of the world economy because all of our

353
00:20:58,440 --> 00:21:02,080
Speaker 1: competitors have been bombed. There was such an overhang of

354
00:21:02,200 --> 00:21:06,000
Speaker 1: memory from the Great Depression that many of the most

355
00:21:06,040 --> 00:21:10,240
Speaker 1: senior economists expected us to collapse back into a second depression.

356
00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:13,040
Speaker 1: You have a quote from Paul Samuelson, who, by the way,

357
00:21:13,119 --> 00:21:16,199
Speaker 1: was totally wrong about the Soviet economy and maintained that

358
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:19,160
Speaker 1: in his textbooks for the entire history of the Civic Union.

359
00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:21,800
Speaker 1: But he speculated at the time that we could be

360
00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:27,040
Speaker 1: entering quote, the greatest period of unemployment and industrial dislocation

361
00:21:27,520 --> 00:21:30,840
Speaker 1: which any economy has ever faced. And that was their

362
00:21:30,880 --> 00:21:35,679
Speaker 1: reaction to shifting from a government controlled, planned wartime economy

363
00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:38,800
Speaker 1: back to a free market. And of course precisely the

364
00:21:38,840 --> 00:21:42,080
Speaker 1: opposite happened, with nobody on the left learning anything from it.

365
00:21:42,600 --> 00:21:45,320
Speaker 1: But doesn't it surprise you looking back that in nineteen

366
00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:49,600
Speaker 1: forty five. The Great Fear was a second depression, and

367
00:21:49,720 --> 00:21:52,440
Speaker 1: yet what came out of it was a very long

368
00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:57,760
Speaker 1: cycle of innovation, development, prosperity, people getting better, having better incomes,

369
00:21:57,800 --> 00:22:01,520
Speaker 1: better houses, better kitchen chensils, you name it. When you

370
00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:03,080
Speaker 1: look by I mean, isn't that sort of an almost

371
00:22:03,080 --> 00:22:04,800
Speaker 1: an odd cultural phenomenon.

372
00:22:05,600 --> 00:22:09,680
Speaker 2: It is a phenomenon that we actually then saw repeated

373
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:12,879
Speaker 2: in the early nineties. That people think of the nineties,

374
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:15,119
Speaker 2: they think of, you know, the boom, and it's the

375
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:18,600
Speaker 2: last great decade in you know, American history, and wages

376
00:22:18,640 --> 00:22:23,480
Speaker 2: were rising, unemployments low, brand new technologies, America at its peak.

377
00:22:23,960 --> 00:22:27,600
Speaker 2: But in the early nineties there was just the exact opposite,

378
00:22:27,600 --> 00:22:30,199
Speaker 2: because there was a recession in the early nineties, and

379
00:22:30,280 --> 00:22:34,760
Speaker 2: there was plenty of pessimism from Washington Wall Street, you know,

380
00:22:34,880 --> 00:22:38,919
Speaker 2: economists that maybe the Reagan Revolution didn't really work, and

381
00:22:38,920 --> 00:22:42,119
Speaker 2: we've had this recession and we need to accept a

382
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:46,119
Speaker 2: period of slow growth. And the exact point where they

383
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:52,320
Speaker 2: had that feeling, technology started popping again and productivity started

384
00:22:52,400 --> 00:22:55,439
Speaker 2: booming again. And here we are right now. You know,

385
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:57,359
Speaker 2: there's still a lot of pessimism, and you have folks

386
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,199
Speaker 2: on the left talk about late capitalism, that the are

387
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:03,720
Speaker 2: the final days of capitalism before we transfer to something else,

388
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:09,000
Speaker 2: probably socialism. And I think to me, science is again popping,

389
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 2: and technology is popping, and we could be at a

390
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:16,159
Speaker 2: period of acceleration of economic growth if we let it happen,

391
00:23:16,520 --> 00:23:18,920
Speaker 2: if the government does what it's supposed to do, which

392
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:22,000
Speaker 2: is not squash it, and also does the kind of

393
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:25,800
Speaker 2: basic research, and if we let these amazing new companies

394
00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:30,480
Speaker 2: do their thing to embrace caution. At this point when

395
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:33,160
Speaker 2: I think we really could be at a transformational moment,

396
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 2: to me, the losses are incalculable.

397
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:56,960
Speaker 1: You make the point that had we simply accelerated our

398
00:23:57,000 --> 00:24:02,840
Speaker 1: technological productivity, opportunities today be worth maybe five times with

399
00:24:02,960 --> 00:24:05,080
Speaker 1: the current economy, in which case you could have handled

400
00:24:05,119 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 1: social Security, you could have handled Medicare. People would have

401
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 1: been amazingly better off, and places like China would be

402
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:14,720
Speaker 1: irrelevant because the fact is we would simply be so

403
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:18,119
Speaker 1: gigantic by comparison. I want to ask this. One of

404
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:21,399
Speaker 1: the great advantages I had when I became Speaker was

405
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 1: we were going through one of these great upswings we

406
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:26,600
Speaker 1: got elected in ninety four, were the first House Republican

407
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:29,920
Speaker 1: majority in forty years. We got re elected in ninety six.

408
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:32,960
Speaker 1: We were the first re elected House majority since nineteen

409
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:36,879
Speaker 1: twenty eight. But we were also riding the technological wave,

410
00:24:37,560 --> 00:24:40,360
Speaker 1: so we were able to balance the federal budget for

411
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:44,480
Speaker 1: four straight years because if you reformed welfare, controlled spending,

412
00:24:44,960 --> 00:24:49,560
Speaker 1: reformed the bureaucracies, cut taxes and cut regulations, and accelerated

413
00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:52,840
Speaker 1: economic growth, you were getting a lot more money without

414
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 1: a tax increase because people were earning a lot more,

415
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 1: and you really had this wave effect, and then somehow

416
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,679
Speaker 1: it got dissipated again. It's always puzzled me. By the

417
00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:04,400
Speaker 1: time we get to two thousand and eight or so,

418
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:08,360
Speaker 1: the mismanagement so bad that we create an artificial financial

419
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:09,880
Speaker 1: crisis that should never have occurred.

420
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:12,840
Speaker 2: I like going back to the nineties, not just because

421
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:15,520
Speaker 2: like I personally remember that as a boom time, but

422
00:25:15,560 --> 00:25:17,960
Speaker 2: I think it provides a lot of examples because for

423
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:20,280
Speaker 2: most people it might be of a certain age, it

424
00:25:20,359 --> 00:25:23,320
Speaker 2: might be the last time where they really think about

425
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 2: the economy absolutely firing on all cylinders. No, what happened

426
00:25:28,160 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 2: during the nineties was also a period of rising inequality.

427
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 2: Supposedly the great plague of modern society. But back then,

428
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:40,680
Speaker 2: I don't remember people talking about late capitalism or Occupy

429
00:25:40,800 --> 00:25:42,880
Speaker 2: Wall Street or any of that stuff, because even though

430
00:25:42,880 --> 00:25:46,000
Speaker 2: we had more inequality in the nineties, all the boats

431
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:50,359
Speaker 2: were rising because growth was so rapid across income classes

432
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:53,199
Speaker 2: that no one really cared if that person over there

433
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 2: maybe their income was rising faster because that prosperity was

434
00:25:57,560 --> 00:26:01,760
Speaker 2: palpable in their lives. When people tell me, well, all

435
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 2: this faster growth will just increase inequality, one I tend

436
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 2: to think that's not going to happen. But if everybody

437
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:11,440
Speaker 2: is doing better, that's what people will focus on. And

438
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 2: that's the kind of economy we need, one of rapid growth,

439
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:19,800
Speaker 2: because again, I think history strongly suggests that all boats

440
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:22,119
Speaker 2: will rise as not just an old metaphor, but is

441
00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,040
Speaker 2: a real description of what happens during a period of

442
00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:27,640
Speaker 2: acceleration and just deep prosperity.

443
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 1: It's fascinating because Kennedy's phrase, you have a rising tide

444
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:35,160
Speaker 1: raising all boats. Since all of them are going up,

445
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:39,440
Speaker 1: you have dramatically less tension because everybody feels like they're

446
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 1: doing better. And you make a point which I think

447
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 1: is really underestimated. It was one of our great contributions

448
00:26:45,080 --> 00:26:48,760
Speaker 1: in the nineties, which is that regulation in many ways

449
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: is even more destructive than tax increases. And you cite

450
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:57,200
Speaker 1: a Congressional Budget Office study that said that the regulatory

451
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: explosion starting in the seventies was a major impediment to growth,

452
00:27:01,320 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 1: And you suggest that if regulations had remained at the

453
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 1: nineteen forty nine level, we would have an economy today

454
00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: four times bigger than the economy we actually have. So

455
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: the cost of federal bureaucracy and the cost of regulation

456
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 1: and the cost of compliance really does cripple the economy

457
00:27:21,200 --> 00:27:24,400
Speaker 1: at least as much as high taxes. I think that's

458
00:27:24,400 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: one of the things that's really underestimated by the American

459
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: people and by the political class.

460
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:34,159
Speaker 2: It was underestimated back then. Maybe we could forgive people

461
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:38,720
Speaker 2: back then to now half decade later to still not

462
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 2: realize it and only look at regulation for what it's

463
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:44,600
Speaker 2: supposed to do directly, and not the way that it

464
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 2: suppresses growth. And I think importantly even makes innovations impossible.

465
00:27:50,960 --> 00:27:55,160
Speaker 2: If you cannot build a reactor or SpaceX, those benefits

466
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 2: are completely cut off. So I think as a conservative,

467
00:27:58,320 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I focus a lot on tap

468
00:28:00,320 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 2: over the years we got the tax code at a

469
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 2: better shape under President Trump. President Biden's trying to reverse

470
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,119
Speaker 2: some of that. But I would urge people on the

471
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 2: left and right to think hard about how innovation is

472
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,920
Speaker 2: squashed by regulation. And I have a lot of great

473
00:28:15,960 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 2: studies in the book. And again the lost economic potential.

474
00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:23,159
Speaker 2: I can't even imagine an economy five times as big

475
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:25,679
Speaker 2: what that would be like. But as you mentioned, a

476
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:28,199
Speaker 2: lot of the current fiscal problems would be long in

477
00:28:28,200 --> 00:28:28,639
Speaker 2: the past.

478
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:33,400
Speaker 1: So you talk about artificial intelligence as an example, and

479
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 1: you basically don't believe that in the end artificial intelligence

480
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:40,480
Speaker 1: will be a net job killer, because all of our

481
00:28:40,520 --> 00:28:44,160
Speaker 1: history has been that technologies create new opportunities and so forth.

482
00:28:44,200 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 1: Could you walk through just a little bit of that,

483
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: because I think your logic here is entirely correct.

484
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:52,239
Speaker 2: I think as a baseline, a baseline should be that

485
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 2: a new technology, while it may be disruptive and that

486
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:59,560
Speaker 2: it will make some jobs obsolete and change even what

487
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:04,120
Speaker 2: people doing their existing jobs, the baseline should be that

488
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 2: the net gain will be more jobs, because that has

489
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,920
Speaker 2: been the history for two hundred and fifty years. So

490
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 2: to immediately jump to saying that this time is different

491
00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 2: is wrong, and you have to sort of break down

492
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 2: what people mean by it's going to change jobs. It

493
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 2: will automate some things we do, other things we do,

494
00:29:24,440 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 2: it will allow us to do them more efficiently, and

495
00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:32,720
Speaker 2: it will create new jobs. And it's always extremely difficult

496
00:29:32,920 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 2: to predict what the new jobs will be. I'll tell

497
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 2: you one of my favorite examples is the ATM machine.

498
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:40,880
Speaker 2: So we don't have to go back two hundred years.

499
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 2: When they introduce the automatic teller machine, the prediction was

500
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:46,280
Speaker 2: bank tellers are all going to be out of jobs

501
00:29:46,320 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 2: in six months. That didn't happen. There's more bank tellers today.

502
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:52,200
Speaker 2: Their jobs changed, they did more kind of hands on

503
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 2: work helping promote different services of the bank, or maybe

504
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:59,080
Speaker 2: kind of financial consultants. Their jobs changed. But we have

505
00:29:59,240 --> 00:30:03,160
Speaker 2: more bank tellers today than we did when the ATM

506
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 2: was introduced. So to start to ignore those examples, and

507
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:09,360
Speaker 2: one of the things that makes me super excited is

508
00:30:09,400 --> 00:30:15,200
Speaker 2: that AI can also that just boost productivity, boost scientific productivity,

509
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 2: to really help us create these next great breakthroughs to

510
00:30:19,920 --> 00:30:24,120
Speaker 2: drive the economy and make our lives hopefully again healthier

511
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:27,320
Speaker 2: and wealthier. And to squash that now in the early days,

512
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 2: as some would do. That would be a catastrophic mistake.

513
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: I had silver relatives who actually worked for the telephone

514
00:30:34,160 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 1: company as operators, and that the rise of automated telephones,

515
00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: you would have thought would have led to massive unemployment,

516
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:44,800
Speaker 1: But they all ended up getting better jobs doing other things.

517
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: There wasn't some radical increase in unemployment because the efficiency

518
00:30:50,360 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 1: of the effectiveness of the whole economy was transformed by

519
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:56,440
Speaker 1: the rise of automated telephone systems.

520
00:30:56,880 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 2: It's the same story over and over. That is a

521
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 2: great example. Another good one when they first started using

522
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:07,000
Speaker 2: computer graphics in movies for special effects, the prediction was

523
00:31:07,040 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 2: all the people who did special effects sort of the

524
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,360
Speaker 2: physical way, making small models, they would all be out

525
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:14,800
Speaker 2: of a job. Well, guess what. We have more people

526
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,800
Speaker 2: in the special effects business now than we did when

527
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,480
Speaker 2: they started entering into movies in the late nineteen eighties.

528
00:31:21,520 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 2: Because people learn new skills, new jobs were created, and

529
00:31:25,920 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 2: this is really important. It became cheaper to do special effects,

530
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 2: so more movies use them. There's a demand component that

531
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 2: if a service becomes cheaper, more people can take advantage

532
00:31:36,680 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 2: of it. And with AI every business, very soon we'll

533
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 2: be able to make very fancy and sophisticated looking computer

534
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 2: generated advertisements for their companies. At the high end, Nike

535
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 2: will still do it themselves and use pros, but even

536
00:31:51,560 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 2: very small businesses will be able to do it. The

537
00:31:54,080 --> 00:31:56,480
Speaker 2: fact that we continue to not look at the potential

538
00:31:56,600 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 2: upside is just astounding, and we have to learn not

539
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 2: to do that have a little more confidence in what

540
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 2: tomorrow can bring.

541
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 1: Well. That's why I think your book is so important.

542
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:09,160
Speaker 1: I think you create both a historic framework for optimism

543
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: and a way of thinking that could in fact liberate

544
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: the American economy and move us to a whole new

545
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:21,680
Speaker 1: conversation about how to accelerate and improving and growing and

546
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:25,480
Speaker 1: larger American system, rather than how to sit around worrying

547
00:32:26,040 --> 00:32:29,320
Speaker 1: and expecting the decay. I really have to tell you

548
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:32,600
Speaker 1: somebody who wrote Window of Opportunity way back in nineteen

549
00:32:32,680 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: eighty four arguing a similar belief that you could do

550
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: dramatically better things than we were doing. I'm really glad

551
00:32:39,840 --> 00:32:42,800
Speaker 1: that you've reopened the conversation, and I want to thank

552
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 1: you for joining me. I think your new book is great.

553
00:32:45,760 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: I want to encourage all of our listeners to get

554
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 1: a copy of The Conservative Futurists and I think we

555
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: do need to believe in progress and taking chances to

556
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:55,200
Speaker 1: create a better future, not just for you and me,

557
00:32:55,720 --> 00:32:58,640
Speaker 1: but for our children and grandchildren and the generations that

558
00:32:58,720 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: come after. So James, thank you for bringing us this positive,

559
00:33:02,480 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 1: optimistic vision of the future.

560
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 2: It has been a pleasure and honor. Thanks for having

561
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 2: me on.

562
00:33:11,760 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 1: Thank you to my guest, James Beethacucus. You get a

563
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 1: link to buy his new book, The Conservative Futurist How

564
00:33:18,680 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 1: to Create the Sci Fi World we were promised on

565
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: our show page at newtsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced

566
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: by Gingerish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is

567
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:34,200
Speaker 1: Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for

568
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 1: the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to

569
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: the team at Gingrish three sixty. If you've been enjoying Nutsworld,

570
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:44,840
Speaker 1: I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate

571
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 1: us with five stars and give us a review so

572
00:33:48,040 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 1: others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners

573
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: of Newtsworld can sign up for my three free weekly

574
00:33:54,760 --> 00:33:59,280
Speaker 1: columns at Gingrish three sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm

575
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:01,400
Speaker 1: Newt Gingrich, This is new chalk