Ezra Klein

Ezra Klein is a columnist and podcast host at The New York Times and the author of Why We’re Polarized (02020).

Derek Thompson

Derek Thompson is a staff writer at The Atlantic, host of the podcast Plain English and a news analyst with NPR. He is author of Hit Makers: How to Succeed in an Age of Distraction (02018).

Michael Pollan

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where the human and natural worlds intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. Pollan is the author of eight books, six of which have been New York Times bestsellers.

Presented in partnership with Manny's and City Arts & Lectures

As they look upon the United States of America in 02025, Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson see a country wrought by a half-century of failed governance. They see states and cities theoretically committed to progressive futures instead bogged down in labyrinthine mires of process and deliberation — a society stuck in low gear. Yet they also see opportunity to turn those failures on their heads, and to build a better society based around more responsive, efficient governance.

This is the vision that animates Abundance, Klein and Thompson’s new book and the focus of their Long Now Talk, hosted by Michael Pollan and co-sponsored with Manny’s and City Arts & Lectures. Despite Long Now’s focus on long-term thinking — of counterbalancing civilization’s pathologically short attention span — there was much to appreciate in Klein and Thompson’s call for American governance to “rediscover speed as a progressive value.” In their wide-ranging discussion, the two authors made the case for a vision of liberalism that builds, both for its own sake and as a bulwark against reactionary right-wing movements that have capitalized on the shortcomings of contemporary progressive politics.

Episode Notes: https://longnow.org/ideas/abundance

We've moved our talks to a virtual format, and to share them with a wider audience, the live streams are now public on the Long Now Live Stream page and YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

We continue to release media from all of our talks and you can follow the series by subscribing to the podcasts, watching the videos and highlights and connecting with Long Now on our social channels.

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