Future Tense: Neal Stephenson and Tim Wu talk future, sf and tech


Slate, the New America Foundation and Arizona State University have kicked off a new podcast called "Future Tense," hosted by Internet scholar Tim Wu. The inaugural episode is an interview with Neal Stephenson wherein Neal and Tim talk about where the future has gone — why we no longer seem to dream of jetpacks and instead focus on fiddly mobile phones. Stephenson gets some very good points in on the lack of predictivity in science fiction, and what sf really contributes to the future.

There are six installments in all — coming episodes include conversations with Margaret Atwood and me!


Stranger Than Fiction, Neal Stephenson Edition

MP3 link

(Thanks, Tim!)

(Image: Neal Stephenson Answers Questions, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from jmpk's photostream)