The New Atlantis

Today, as we continue Season 6, I have as our guest the journalist and author, Charles C. Mann, to talk about the nature of progress and the public systems of food, electricity, water, and health that sustain our modern civilization.

A contributing editor at Wired and The Atlantic, Mr. Mann is the author of many books, including... 1491 and 1493, two histories of the Americas before and after Columbus's landing, The Wizard and the Prophet, from which was adapted a 2025 essay series and one lavishly illustrated for the New Atlantis called How the System Works, that will serve as the basis for our discussion.

Mr. Mann, welcome to Madison's Notes.

I'm delighted to be here.

Those are the reasons that you can go to New York City, which has got 8 million people, all whom excrete and waste water and so forth, and that you can walk and not be overwhelmed by the smell.

That is an example, perfect example, I think, of how we don't, I mean, who You know, it could have made a greater contribution to human health, not many, than those three guys, Fowler, Ardan, and Lockett.

These names, I remember it was Francis Bacon and the New Atlantis, after which the magazine that published your essays was named, had this line where he wanted statues made to those who invented, who made useful inventions for the benefit of society.

And Bacon's whole point was, which is the ethos of science and technology, the relief of man's estate, the relief people of suffering.

Like, I think, like...

The New Atlantis.

Even though they come from things from a religious point of view.

Do they? Yeah, the New Atlantis.

Okay.

You don't think so?

Catholic or something.

You know what I'm saying? It's very, very soft, I think.

... that was the title of the article, like, "LGBTQ is for, like, lower class people." And it seems like, you know, when with this, uh, New Atlantic article that went viral a few months ago of like, you know, diner goth, diner America, that all these-

It, it was, it was The New Atlantis.

The New Atlantis.

That all these sorts of, like, alternative sexuality seem to be, uh-

Falling out of favor among the striver class.