Books, beer, and the future is a conversation about life.
Now I know you’re thinking “This pompous ass. “A conversation about life”? Let me guess, you’re reading War and Peace, while drinking a local-brew IPA, after riding home on your fixie? Freakin’ Hipster….” Well you sir and/or madam would be wrong about all of those things.
War and Peace sucks. IPAs taste like my front lawn. Fixed gear bicycles are wildly impractical given modern urban sprawl. I am NOT a hipster. In many ways, I’m a dead-ass average American. White, mid-20’s, median-income, girlfriend, cat, dog.
In other ways though, I do think I’m special. I read a lot of books in an age where some people can’t imagine reading more than 140 characters at a time. More than that, I read non-fiction books (the horror!) in an age when Google will answer any question you might have in a matter of seconds. I drink beer, but I’ll be honest, it’s mostly average beer. Nothing goes better with a biography than an ice cold Miller Lite. The beer is here mostly for the alliteration in the title.
But The Future. That’s where I do think I’m special. Not because I think I’m going to make some sort of grand contribution, or “the future needs me!” sort of thing. No I just think about it a lot. In a time when so many people are concerned more with bringing back imagined glories of the past, I still cling to the idea that tomorrow will be different, and that different will be good. That science and technology will not only save us, but that it’ll be really freakin’ cool too.
The main inspiration for this blog is a chapter from Zero to One by PayPal co-founder and venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Without getting too much into right now (it’ll be the subject of a whole post in a few days/weeks), Thiel flat out rejects the idea that success is based on luck, or random chance. He lays out four views of the future: indefinite pessimism and indefinite optimism, and definite pessimism and definite optimism.
It’s the optimistic views that Books, Beer, and The Future is mainly concerned with. Thiel argues that Americans by and large are indefinite optimists. To quote- “An indefinite optimist believes the future will be better, but he doesn’t know how, so he won’t make any specific plans.”
Screw. These. People.
The Future (capital F) doesn’t just happen. Someone has to make it happen. Someone has to work, and plan, and most importantly dream, to make it happen. That’s what a definite optimist is. And definite optimists change the world.
So that’s what this blog is mostly about. Reading books that inspire us with the passion, and enable us with the knowledge, to build a better tomorrow. It’s a place to discuss not only the cool scientific discoveries and tech inventions that will take us there, but how we might use them, what’s stopping us, and how we can change that. All while having a few cold ones.
Books, Beer, and The Future is a conversation about life. Not as it is. As it should be.
And yes, of course we’re going to be talking about Elon Musk. A lot.
Books, Beer, and the Future 