[Boonton New Jersey, circa 1960])reddit.com/r/TheWayW…)
On the 50 Things That Made the Modern Economy podcast: Pornography: Examining claims that pornography helped develop the Internet, and every other form of new media for several centuries. (Photography was so expensive in the 19th Century that a pornographic image cost more than time with an actual prostitute.) The Internet initially made it possible for pornographers to make money, but now it’s making it more difficult. (I almost said “making it harder” there.)
On the Our Opinions Are Correct podcast: Science Fiction Explains Our Messed Up Economy. Economist Noah Smith discusses how different theories of economics show up in science fiction, and how economics is itself an exercise in speculative worldbuilding. Also, the economic theory of “rational actors” pervades classic midcentury space opera, and everybody’s obsessed with game theory. And discussion of the most influential science fiction writer of the past century: Ayn Rand.