Technological Stagnation and Science Fiction

The following two videos pair well together.  In the first, Tyler Cowen argues (in a TEDx talk) that we are in a period of technological stagnation.  In the second,  Neal Stephenson (in an interview at MIT) suggests that a new more utopian type of science fiction might help to shake us out of this malaise.

Tyler Cowen  - The Great Stagnation

Neal Stephenson -- The Hieroglyph Project

Interview at M.I.T.