The Gray Area with Sean Illing takes a philosophy-minded look at culture, technology, politics, and the world of ideas. Each week, we invite a guest to explore a question or topic that matters. From the the state of democracy, to the struggle with depression and anxiety, to the nature of identity in the digital age, each episode looks for nuance and honesty in the most important conversations of our time. New episodes drop every Monday.
https://www.vox.com/vox-conversations-podcast
episode 241: Rutger Bregman’s utopias, and mine
Universal basic income. A 15-hour work week. Open borders.
These ideas may strike you as crazy, fantastical, maybe even utopian... but that’s exactly the point.
My guest today is Dutch historian Rutger Bregman, whose book Utopia for Realists is not only about utopian visions but about the importance of utopian thinking. Imagining utopia, he writes, “isn’t an attempt to predict the future. It’s an attempt to unlock the future. To fling open the windows of our minds.”
He’s right. And so this isn’t just a conversation about his utopia, or mine. It’s a conversation about how to think like a utopian, and why doing so matter most when the days feel particularly dystopic.
Citations:
The Lost Boys by Gina Perry
"Socially Useless Jobs" by Robert Dur and Max van Lent
"Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren" by John Maynard Keynes
"I was a fast-food worker. Let me tell you about burnout." by Emily Guendelsberger
Book Recommendations:
Bullshit Jobs and Debt by David Graeber
A Paradise Built in Hell by Rebecca Solnit
The Entrepreneurial State by Mariana Mazzucato
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