A 90-minute flight from SF to LA still eats half your day. Flying cars could fix that. So why don’t we have them yet? According to J. Storrs Hall, the barriers aren’t technological at all, but cultural and political. He goes deeper into it in his book “Where is my flying car?”, while also exploring why progress has stagnated, and painting a very ambitious picture of a technological future: nuclear-powered everything, atomically precise manufacturing, and yes, flying cars. You can grab a copy at the link in the reply.

We see elections as the foundation of our democracy, but Aristotle thought they create an oligarchy. In ancient Athens, democracy worked by choosing leaders among ordinary citizens by lottery. How could we revive this idea to improve today’s democratic systems? In this episode, we speak with @JeremyRLent, tech CEO turned author, about the idea behind his new book Ecocivilization: how we can redesign our economy, democracy and technology so everyone can thrive. Links in the reply! 0:00 Cold open 1:00 How an internet CEO became an eco-civilization author 4:14 Is our civilization broken? 6:38 Has global capitalism really made life better for everyone? 9:11 What is ecocivilization? 13:52 Doughnut economics and citizens’ assemblies: rethinking the economy and democracy 20:24 How can technology help democracy? The Taiwan example 22:24 Is green growth possible? Planetary boundaries and Jevons paradox 30:03 Why is it so hard to change civilization? Lock-in and backcasting 37:01 How can we escape the AI race and multipolar traps? 42:43 How AI can be used to build a better world 49:45 What can young people do to make a difference? 51:34 Book and organization recommendations 53:35 The best advice Jeremy has ever received

Less than 3 weeks left to win $10,000 for a hopeful meme. Make something short and shareable that shows a positive, scientifically grounded future. It could be a meme image, a video under 2 minutes, a thread, or even an infographic. Need inspiration? See the thread for some ideas, plus submission link in the last reply ↓

If you like being proactive about building a positive future, you'll enjoy Hopamine. It's an online community of 800+ eco-tech builders and organizers. You can share projects you're working on, discover other projects and the people behind them, join them, or find events to attend. Link in the reply!

Right now, it can feel like the future of AI is just going to happen to us: like the path we're on is the only one there is, and there's nothing we can do to change it. But that's not true. How AI gets built and what role it plays in our lives is up to us, and we can still choose differently, if enough of us decide to. We explored some of these choices in AI Pathways, our podcast series about the futures we could build instead, and the people thinking seriously about how we get there. You can now watch the full series at the link in the reply.

There’s less than a month left to enter our $10,000 Meme Prize! Some of the submissions we got so far in the thread ↓ Do you think you can do better? Submit your meme or short-form media by November 1st. existentialhope.com/existent…