Kim Stanley Robinson & Stephen Heintz
A Logic For The Future
Stephen Heintz and Kim Stanley Robinson say we live in an “Age of Turbulence.”
Looking around our geopolitical situation, it’s easy to see what they mean. Faced with the ever-growing threat of climate change, the looming potential breakdown of the post-01945 international order, and the ambiguous prospects of rapid technological changes in fields like AI, biotechnology, and geoengineering, it is clear that we need new answers to new challenges.
Stephen Heintz, a Public policy expert and president of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF), and Kim Stanley Robinson, one of the most acclaimed science fiction authors writing today, work in very different fields. But each of them in his own way has sketched out a vision of what we must do to face down the intersecting crises of our time: While their methods may differ, they align on their conclusions.
In their Long Now Talk, Heintz and Robinson propose what they refer to as A Logic For The Future — a new path for international relations in the face of the chaos of our current age. Over the course of their conversation, Stephen and Stan drew on a wide variety of historical examples to contextualize our seemingly unprecedented geopolitical moment. In all of these case studies — from the writing of the Atlantic Charter in the darkest days of World War II to the fraught deal-making and relationship-building that allowed for the signing of the Iran Nuclear deal in 02015 — the two focused on the power of human-driven, almost utopian visions of the future as tools for building a better world.
Now, in a moment of geopolitical uncertainty and internal democratic crisis, Stephen and Stan see space for the kinds of utopian imagination and creativity that were so solely missed in prior moments of flux and chaos. Long-term thinking is key to this kind utopian thinking. In Stan’s words, the “optimistic” possibilities of long-term thinking are not just useful in dreaming up a better future. They’re “reinvigorating in how we address the problems we face on a day-to-day basis.”
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primer
Public policy expert Stephen Heintz and science fiction author Kim Stanley Robinson work in very different fields. But each, in his own way, has sketched out a vision of what we must do to face down the intersecting crises of our time: the ever-growing threat of climate change, the looming potential breakdown of the post-01945 international order, the ambiguous prospects of rapid technological changes in fields like AI, biotechnology, and geoengineering. While their methods may differ, they align on their conclusions.
We need a new logic for the future — not just a cosmetic change or amelioration of current conditions but a complete and coherent worldview as adapted to our present moment as the post-01945 international order was for its own.
Heintz and Robinson’s approach is multifaceted, intentionally avoiding the temptations of simple answers to complex questions. In Heintz’ words, this logic is “an amalgam of the ancient, modern, and new.”
Why This Talk Matters Now
Even as we confront the new and returning challenges of this geopolitical moment, we also face a certain meta-challenge: the outdated assumptions, decades or even centuries old, informing our systems of international relations. The status quo — national sovereignty, neo-liberal economics, and zero-sum thinking above all — cannot be maintained in the face of shifting planetary conditions. What that status quo threatens to backslide into — imperialism, great power competition, and unfettered slaughter — is even less pleasant to countenance. Without a cohesive, intellectually rigorous effort to create new assumptions underpinning international relations, planetary thriving is itself at risk.
Three core shifts inform Heintz and Robinson’s thinking, cutting across ecological, political, and economic lines. First, they emphasize the need to recenter the value of all life, rather than the narrow-minded anthropocentrism of so much conventional moral accounting. Next, they propose a shift from national sovereignty to more collaborative modes of governance, taking the nation-state not as an essential unit of international relations but just one model among many on the planetary stage. Finally, they call on all of us to develop regenerative economic systems that can turn the tide on the regime of extractive economics that has become the dominant form of social exchange under contemporary capitalism.
The Long View
Expanding our frames of thinking about the world has always been core to Long Now’s mission. “The Big Here & The Long Now,” Brian Eno’s foundational essay on the power of expanding our empathy through space and time, has set the tone for our work of building long-term thinking and planetary wisdom. More recently, Long Now Talks and Ideas interviews from Kate Raworth & Roman Krznaric and Jonathan Blake & Nils Gilman have showcased the brilliant possibilities of regenerative doughnut economics and inclusive planetary governance.
Where To Go Next
- READ Stephen Heintz’s 02025 essay, “A Logic For the Future”
- WATCH Kim Stanley Robinson’s 02022 Long Now Talk, “Climate Futures: Beyond 02022.”
- READ Forrest Brown’s 02023 Pace Layers essay, “In "The Ministry for the Future," New Ideas From Ancient Wisdom.”