You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of 'The Ezra Klein Show' at /ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter Guest suggestions? Email us at Ezra Klein Show” is produced by Rogé Karma and Jeff Geld fact-checking by Michelle Harris original music by Isaac Jones mixing by Jeff Geld. 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' by Annie Dillard 'Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise' (movie) 'A Visit from the Goon Squad' by Jennifer Egan 'CivilWarLand in Bad Decline' by George Saunders 'On the Measure of Intelligence' by Francois Chollet It’s worth taking your time with this one. The ideas Chiang offered in this conversation are still ringing in my head, and changing the way I see the world. will do to humans, the way capitalism turns people against technology, and much more. And so we do: We discuss the difference between magic and technology, why superheroes fight crime but ignore injustice, what it would do to the human psyche if we knew the future is fixed, whether free will exists, whether we’d want to know the exact date of our deaths, why Chiang fears what humans will do to artificial intelligence more than what A.I. Chiang doesn’t like to talk about himself. And in this conversation I got to watch it in action. I’ve always wondered about the mind that would create Chiang’s stories.

Chiang’s work is deeply, irrepressibly humane. But unlike a lot of science fiction, they are never cold. He has released two short story collections over 20 years - 2002’s “Stories of Your Life and Others” and 2019’s “Exhalation.” Those stories have won more awards than I can list, and one of them was turned into the film “Arrival.” They are remarkable pieces of work: Each is built around a profound scientific, philosophical or religious idea, and then the story or the story structure is shaped to represent that idea. And as long as that list has existed, Ted Chiang has been atop it.Ĭhiang is a science fiction writer. For years, I’ve kept a list of dream guests for this show.

Chiang arrival