Episode description

Marshall Brain (founder of HowStuffWorks.com) is today's featured guest.

Topic: The remarkably GOOD future which we can create for ourselves using the robots which will dominate our economy during the next decade or two. (Last week Marshall explored the bad possibilities, this week he explores the good.)

This is a thorough examination of Marshall Brain's new book: Manna: Two Visions of Humanity's Future. One of his two visions is remarkably bad, and the other is remarkably good.  Both are completely different from any form of civilization we have seen before. Currently we are on track toward the future that is bad. In today's episode we will discuss the remarkably bad future, Next week we will discuss the remarkably good future.

Marshall Brain is best known as the founder of HowStuffWorks.com, which grew into one of the top Web sites in the country, and sold in 2007 to Discovery Communications for $250 million. He hosted the TV show "Factory Floor" which appeared on the National Geographic channel. And he has written a number of books, articles and essays, which -- just like the famous website he created -- explain in a no-nonsense way how stuff works. A perfect example is his article "How to make a million dollars."  Which can be read for free on his website: MarshallBrain.com.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 25, 2011 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 33 minutes] This is the second half of an interview recorded using Skype on April 6, 2012.