Coronavirus, building, and the future @3QD [Andreessen, Disney, and others]

Take me to the future

My most recent piece in 3 Quarks Daily: Can the pandemic serve America as the cradle for a rebirth of civil society?

As I was lying in bed the other night that piece finally came together. The core idea seems to be something like this: In the absence of further information, by default I read Marc Andreesen’s plea for building as being inscribed in Walt Disney’s worldview. Andressen, as you may know, is a venture capitalist who played an important role in the early days of the web as co-founder of Netscape. Disney is cofounder (with his brother, Roy) of one of the most important companies of the 20th century. His worldview, as far as I can tell, is based on a social contract that has fallen apart, in part for reasons discussed by Ezra Klein (which I cite). We need a new social contract, which will be negotiated in a reconstituted civil society, which I recognize with some words from Sean O’Sullivan, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist.

On the whole I think this Disney video as central to that post:

That video, especially the material starting at 5:13 (and then 9:30), manifests Disney optimistic and tech-driven worldview. It’s not at all clear to me that, e.g., Silicon Valley has moved beyond that. That is, in a history of America’s ideas about the future, Disney is a central figure and that video is a good example his ideas and attitude. We need to reimagine the future.

Recent posts on this general theme:

• Walt Disney, technology, and the future [a documentary film]
• Kim Stanley Robinson on the corona virus and the future [...into a new structure of feeling]
• War Boys in Tomorrowland, or: Mad Max Meets Disney
• The American dream, by Andreessen and Disney – a precursor to my 3QD post

An earlier 3QD post inspired by the pandemic: Photos for a Time of Fever.

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Someone in Tyler Cowen's Progress Studies needs to do a history of (American) ideas of progress. Walt Disney should be a central figure in that history because (perhaps) more than any other individual, he promulgated ideas about progress widely throughout the population – though his TV show, but also his theme parks and other activities, such as the exhibits he did for the 1964 World's Fair.

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Here's a panel discussion about whether or not EPCOT would have worked:

Interesting use is made of the distinction between modernism and postmodernism. EPCOT was conceived as a modernist project in a modernist world, but we're now living in a postmodernist world.