Peter Coy: “Economists ought to read more science fiction. All that fun, futuristic stuff: phasers, lightsabers, replicants, intergalactic federations, extraterrestrial beings in hovercrafts…One reason economists should read more science fiction is that sci-fi opens the mind to other ways the world could be. That’s valuable in general, but sci-fi is especially useful for economists, because it often delves into topics that occupy them, pushing those ideas to their logical extremes. For example: What if money went away? What if corporations became more powerful than governments? How would we reorganize society if no one needed to work? This isn’t idle speculation. Strange things happen far more often than we like to think. Reading sci-fi sensitizes us to the possibility of radical change…But sci-fi doesn’t just brace people for extreme change; it can also encourage them to bring it about. Science fiction is “a political resource, as it empowers the critic and the radical to see the present as amenable to conscious transformation,” William Davies, a professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, wrote in a 2018 book that he edited, “Economic Science Fictions.””
Anton Howes on writing strategy: “I find that in general getting writing done always comes down to just two things: underlying tensions between research and writing, and editing and writing. In these titanic struggles, research and editing both cannibalise writing. Although they are still necessary to it, they are still ultimately the enemy. And once you know who your enemies are, they get a whole lot easier to fight. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of these enemies, the main overall strategy I have is to just write. Splurge whatever you can on the page and just. keep. writing. Don’t look back over any single line you write or you will be like Orpheus escaping the Underworld with Eurydice — look back even once and it’s game over. Just keep going, writing as though you’re talking to a chatterbox and you’re afraid they might interrupt. When there’s a point you can’t remember just put a placeholder in. Can’t remember a precise year? It was in XXXX. Can’t remember a name? XXXX said it. Can’t remember a statistic? It was X%. Citation here? Don’t pause to insert a footnote or you lose. Just put the surname of the author in square brackets right then and there in the line to come back to and tidy up later, perhaps a page number if you’re afraid you’ll forget, or perhaps a hyperlink if you’ve already got something open and to hand. But you just have to keep going or one of either research or editing will win. Once you’re done and your thoughts are all on the page, the enemy is broken. You can go back over and edit for clarity, and pick up any nonsense or repetition. You can go look up what all those XXXXs were and insert them or correct them or decide to put in something else entirely. But by this stage you’ll have already won the war.”
