Nearly 30 years after publishing “The Diversity Myth,” Peter Thiel sits down with Mike Solana to unpack what the book got right and wrong. Thiel argues that social distractions have stunted scientific progress, slowed economic growth and weakened our geopolitical standing. How did anti-Western rhetoric popularized on college campuses in the 90s morph into the culture wars that divide our country today? How can we move past this pessimistic, hyper-political moment and continue building the future?



Read Mike Solana's intro piece for Pirate Wires here:
https://www.piratewires.com/p/peter-thiel-the-diversity-myth-a

Peter Thiel // The Diversity Myth, 30 Years Later

In Episode 1.1, we investigate and debunk popular fears surrounding nuclear technology, and highlight promising innovations in the field.

Anatomy of Next

[Archive: UTOPIA #1]

If it’s probable intelligent alien life exists, where’s the evidence? In our season two teaser – Episode 2.0 – we discuss Fermi’s paradox. This episode also introduces the topic of our second season: humanity building its first new world on Mars.

TEASER: Fermi's Paradox

Before we can approach the task of building humanity’s second home on Mars, we need to get there. In Episode 2.1, we explore the most likely shape of our first mission to the Red Planet.

NEW WORLD #1 — New World

Why is Mars important? In Episode 2.2, we explore the philosophies that dominate our thinking on the subject of Mars — humanism and anti-humanism. Then, how do you build something with a time horizon of 100 years? Optimism is useful, but determinate thinking is essential.

NEW WORLD #2 — Malthus was Wrong

In Episode 2.3, we look at “strange” rockets: nuclear, antimatter, and ion thrust. The tremendous amount of time it takes to move through space has isolated humanity from the cosmos. But burning rocket fuel is not the only way to travel the stars.

NEW WORLD #3 — Strange Rockets

Martian colonization is one of the most dangerous goals humanity has ever undertaken, and there are no shortage of ways to die in space. From radiation exposure to literally going crazy, let’s troubleshoot a couple of our greatest risks, and work out a heuristic for tackling the rest.

NEW WORLD #4 — How to Die in Outer Space

Mars is a frozen, irradiated desert world with almost no hope for life…but it doesn’t have to be. In this episode, we explore the mechanics of building a Martian atmosphere, warming the planet, thawing the ice caps, jump-starting a new hydrologic cycle, and bringing back the Martian oceans.

NEW WORLD #5 — Let's Build an Ocean

Let’s talk about the ethics of terraforming. Dr. Chris McKay is a Senior Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center’s Planetary Systems Branch and is actively involved in the planning of future Mars missions. If we encounter alien life on another world, what is our moral responsibility to that life, and how do we balance this responsibility with exploration and colonization?

Chris McKay // What if there’s life on Mars?

Dr. George Church leads Synthetic Biology at Harvard’s Wyss Institute. Author of Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves, he is one of the foremost thinkers in biological self-determination. Could we take control of our genome, and direct its evolution? Should we? In our conversation we explored genetic engineering broadly, as “the nanotechnology that works,” the morality of this technology, and the future of the field.

George Church // Genetically modified everything

What happens when the most intelligent being on earth is smarter than the average human by an order of magnitude? Dr. Nick Bostrom is Director of the University of Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute and author of Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies. We talked about the dramatic amplification of human, or machine intelligence – what that hypothetical superintelligence would look like, how we might build it, and what it could mean for the human race.

Nick Bostrom // Superbrains and simulated worlds

Invention proceeds from ideation, but where do ideas come from? Jamie Hyneman is best known for his work on the Discovery Channel TV show Mythbusters, which he hosted for 14 and a half years. Prior to that he ran a special effects shop in San Francisco for decades, inventing work on over 800 commercials and dozens of feature films. He’s made a career of building new things. We talked about how.

Jamie Hyneman // Eureka deconstructed

Anatomy of Next returns, and we design the Martian forests and fields. We've built an atmosphere on Mars, warmed the planet, and jumpstarted it's hydrologic cycle — from a frozen, irradiated desert to thunderstorms on a warm equator. Now, what about life? How do you grow crops on sterile, toxic soil with limited carbon and nitrogen? We talk to experts in microbiology and genetic engineering, and we start our work on ecohacking the once red — now blue — Planet Mars.

NEW WORLD #6 — Alien Ecology

What if instead of changing the Martian environment to better suit human life... we changed the human being — genetically? In conversation with Josiah Zayner, George Church, and Paul Dabrowski, we take a look at redesigning the human being into a species capable of thriving on an alien world. Then, what are the ethical concerns of biological self-determination, and why are people so afraid of genetic engineering?

NEW WORLD # 7 — Make Man Martian

What if we had to rebuild human civilization from scratch — on Earth? Could you build a power plant with your own hands and some raw material? Let's start smaller: what about the printing press? We sat down with Lewis Dartnell, author of the Knowledge, to talk about our world of cascading, interrelated invention, how one might go about rebuilding it in a worst case scenario, and how to keep ours safe.

Lewis Dartnell // The Knowledge

Founders Fund recently hosted a panel on defense: a conversation at the intersection of the U.S. government and the technology industry, or D.C. vs. Silicon Valley. Moderated by Dan Primack, and featuring Chris Lynch, Heather Podesta, and Trae Stephens. 

Technology has changed the nature of the threats our society is facing, but the defense industry is still generally approaching these questions with a twentieth century mindset. Before we can make meaningful progress in the space, we need to reconceptualize our approach to the question. 

But before we dig any further into the specifics of the technology, and developments we’re starting to see on that front, it’s worth talking about the government — our current relationship, and how we might improve the way we work together.

Technology and Defense at Founders Fund HQ

Technology has changed the nature of the threats our society is facing, but the defense industry is still mostly approaching these questions with a twentieth century mindset. Before we can make meaningful progress, we have to change our approach to the question. We sat down with Palmer Luckey to talk about his new company, Anduril, and the application of innovative thinking native to the technology industry to the problem of securing human civilization.

Palmer Luckey // A New Defense

Dan Widmaier is the founder and CEO of Bolt Threads. They make materials from nature that are high performance, but hard to extract, and develop technology that makes the scaling of production on these materials possible. Today, they're making spider silk affordable to the average consumer. We're designing a new world, and to build our new world we'll necessarily be developing new materials. But before we start inventing, let’s take a close look at what already exists in nature, and develop technologies capable of making the most of these resources.

Dan Widmaier // Material Advance, Part One

Augmented and virtual realities are introducing a digital layering to the human experience that will dramatically impact every city of the future. In “Multiplanar Humanity” we explore the complications and potential of a multi-layered world, starting with one of the more practical applications of augmented reality technology — construction, and a look at how the first city on Mars will be built. Then, we complicate the story, and take a peak inside that next, totally virtual layer of human civilization. From communication and leisure to education and love, this is the future of reality.

NEW WORLD # 9 — Multiplanar Humanity

Sex, reproduction, and marriage have been linked for most of human history, but today that paradigm is evolving. This season of Anatomy of Next we've looked at every aspect of turning Mars into a habitable world. Now what about the changes in biology that are going to alter the way we populate our world? From artificial gametes derived from skin cells and genetically-modified embryos to babies in bags, polyamory, and the heteroflexible astronaut – let's talk about sex.

NEW WORLD #10 — Sex in Space, Part One

In our last episode, we looked at the technologies that are fundamentally changing biological reproduction. Now, we conclude that conversation with a look at the human relationship. What is a healthy relationship on Earth, and what might it look like in space? Or Mars? We explore the problems we're currently facing in love, and we imagine a healthy path forward: new paradigms for navigating conflict, an exploration of monogamy in the context of polyamory, and let's go ahead and talk about the heteroflexible astronaut. This is the future of sex.

NEW WORLD #10 — Sex in Space, Part Two

This season we've talked a lot about different ways of doing things. Now let's talk about a country that IS doing things differently — at least... differently than the United States. We sat down with Kai-Fu Lee, author of AI Superpowers, to talk about artificial intelligence, China, and what the Chinese technology strategy means for America and Europe.

Kai-Fu Lee // China

SEASON TWO FINALE: and we enter the galaxy. From an atmosphere and an ocean to genetically-modified flora, new AR construction paradigms, and the directed evolution of our second branch of human civilization, we’ve created a new world on Mars. But what comes next for humanity? Let’s take a look at the mechanics of interstellar travel in antimatter propulsion, hibernation technology, and time dilation. Then, why are we doing this? In our concluding episode we talk about the shape of the universe, we push back against the heat death of reality, and let’s just go ahead and ask the question: what is the meaning of life?

NEW WORLD #11 — Interstellar

This season on Anatomy of Next we return to Earth, and we take a look around the neighborhood. How do our cities work, where do they need work, and what do we build next? 

We open in our hometown. San Francisco should be the greatest city in the world. What went wrong, and how do we fix it?

ASYLUM #1 — Boomtown, USA

Overcomplicated bureaucracy has been a plague on human productivity, with a disproportionately adverse affect on the poor and poorly connected, for hundreds of years, and with each year that passes it gets worse. Enter: your personal army of robotic lawyers. 

I sat down with Joshua Browder to talk about his company DoNotPay, and his mission to empower everyday citizens caught in some manner of bureaucratic nightmare with no friends in local politics to help them out of it. 

How do we fight back against a thoughtless system? Why is our legal framework so confusing that we need a lawyer in the first place? And how do we build something that makes sense?

Joshua Browder // An Army of Robotic Lawyers

The housing crisis is the root of almost every serious challenge San Francisco faces. From property to construction to regulation, when it’s possible to build at all it’s too expensive to meaningfully increase supply. Because it’s too expensive to build here, most people can’t afford to live here. So let’s get into it: why does the housing crisis exist, in what ways is it unique to the Bay Area, and how do we fix this? How do we finally start building again? 

Featuring: Keith Rabois (Founders Fund), Trisha Thadani (San Francisco Chronicle), River Davis (Wall Street Journal), and Kim-Mai Cutler (Initialized Capital)

ASYLUM #2 — Legalize Housing

Separate from our government's anti-housing policies, a big piece of our crisis in affordability comes down to the way we think about new homes. In Japan, for example, where housing is significantly more affordable, newer homes are far more popular than older homes, and this has galvanized both construction and prefabrication. At scale, this reduces cost. 

I interviewed Alexis Rivas about his company, Cover, and the prefabrication market in our own country. We talked about what exactly prefab homes are, the history of prefabs in America, how technology is improving the prefab process, and how this kind of thing could dramatically reduce housing costs in the United States.

Alexis Rivas // House Factory

Consider the computer mouse. It takes a massive, sprawling, global system, and thousands of parts and people from all over the world, many months, or even years after conceptualization, and design, to get that product to your desk. But what if you could do it all in a "factory" the size of your one-bedroom apartment… in a building down the street? 

I sat down with Matthew Putman and talked about the future of manufacturing. In the first place, everything is getting smaller. 

We talked about his company’s journey from the microscope, his grand ambition with the work, the future of nanotechnology, the factory that lives inside your bedroom, and what this all means for the future of our city. 

It’s distributed, decentralized manufacturing. Welcome to the nano-factory.

Matthew Putman // Nano City

Who owns our streets? Our bus and train stops? Our public walls and public parks? If public property truly belongs to the public, can members of the public (which is to say: us) do with our property whatever we want? And on the absolute ground floor, can we not just... make it all look a little bit nicer? 

Fnnch is an artist based in San Francisco, and the man behind the famous honey bear, which locals have seen... pretty much everywhere. Here, the bear is more than a cute apparition, it's a symbol of a 21st century philosophy of art, and a controversial way of thinking about public space. 

Among many things, Fnnch talked with host Mike Solana about art, the nature of art, celebrity, modernity, the tragedy of the commons, Burning Man (an actual city of art), and the nature of public property.

Fnnch // Brand New Paint Job

There's almost nothing more terrifying than losing communication in the heat of a blazing wildfire. In recent months, California has been brought to its knees by natural disaster. Now more than ever we need the help of our firefighters, and to keep them safe. An entirely centralized communication infrastructure is a single point of failure we just can't risk. 

Daniela Perdomo is the founder and CEO of goTenna, the future of decentralized communication. Today, her work, inspired by the communication blackouts of Hurricane Sandy and a passion for fixing this critical problem, keeps everyone from soldiers and FEMA operators to wildland firefighters in communication while they work to save lives. And beyond disaster? There are no shortage of applications for this technology. 

Daniela and I talked about decentralized communication, the origins of her work, communication infrastructure and public infrastructure more broadly, and what exactly does a city fully reconceived for the 21st Century look like?

Daniela Perdomo // A New Signal

In San Francisco, how does government work? Who is in charge, what can they do — structurally, what are they actually capable of? — and most importantly: what are they focused on? A look at our Board of Supervisors, its apparent war on growth (and possibly tech), and an argument for moving forward (spoiler alert: you just have to vote (sorry))

Featuring: Trisha Thadani (San Francisco Chronicle), Teddy Schleifer (Recode)

ASYLUM #3 — Trivial Pursuit

Flock Safety is building a national network of security cameras monitoring neighborhood traffic. In some cities, their work has been instrumental in reducing property crime by as much as 70 percent. 

In this episode of Anatomy of Next, Mike Solana sits down with Garrett Langley, the CEO and founder of Flock. They talk about the network — where it came from, and how it works — its impact, how Flock is approaching privacy, the tradeoffs between privacy and security, and the end of non-violent crime.

Garrett Langley // Standing Guard

Why is the traffic so bad? And why is so hard to build new transportation infrastructure? 

Robert Poole is the co-founder and director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation, and the author of Rethinking America’s Highways. We talked about congestion, variable pricing, light rail, tunnel boring machines, and why they don’t seem to work in our cities — or rather, why we won’t let them work — and the infrastructure policy our politicians craft and pass that seems to be crippling us.

Robert Poole // Gridlock

What if we just... left? 

The challenges facing our cities are enormous. Our problems could take years to correct, or decades. The purpose of this season is to explore new ways to reinvigorate our cities, but it's worth entertaining the alternative. What if we built something new, from the foundation up? I sat down with Patri Friedman, founder of both the Seasteading Institute and Pronomos Capital, to entertain a wild idea: Charter Cities. What are they, how do they work, and how do we start over?

Asylum

Patri Friedman // Starting Over

In the second season of Anatomy of Next, explore every aspect of going to Mars, transforming it into a habitable world, and building a new branch of human civilization. How do we bring a cold, dead planet back to life? Can we build an atmosphere on Mars, thaw the frozen plains, and build an ocean? How do we seed a barren land with life, and make a red Mars green? Then, it’s everything from politics and education to money, music, and architecture. What does it mean to be human on an alien world?

Anatomy of Next

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