It’s One Of Those Magic Mirrors
Lifted from the comments, another feat of progressive self-admiration:
Jean-Luc Picard remains the single most compelling vision of progressive politics I am familiar with — secular, rational, compassionate, egalitarian; a believer in progress & abundance but also duty, hard work, and a constant battle for self-improvement and improving the world. https://t.co/PQyh0qnouD
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 30, 2026
It’s curious that Mr Yglesias should pick a fictional character from a fictional world where commonplace human motivations have been done away with, simply written out of existence – a world with no discernible economic costs or constraints, and in which, as said character puts it, “money doesn’t exist.”
And as others note in the replies, it’s something of a stretch to imagine the modern progressive as somehow being driven by hard work and duty, or being defined by rationality. It’s almost funny.
Update, via the comments:
Dicentra adds, somewhat pointedly,
It’s hard not to trip over the vanity, the sheer indulgence of it.
Mr Yglesias’ chosen epitome of progressivism – which is to say, the epitome of his own politics – is a made-up world, the economics of which do not make sense, even according to its own writers, and in which 700-metre starships, equipped with Impossibility Engines, are built, one assumes joyfully, in great numbers, at no cost, by people who don’t get paid.
Mr Yglesias’ adventures in fantasy have been noted here before.
Not all of the writers “ate their own dogfood,” as it were.
Wherein I expound.
Heh. It’s hard not to trip over the vanity, the sheer indulgence of it.
His chosen epitome of progressivism – which is to say, the epitome of his own politics – is a made-up world, the economics of which do not make sense, even according to its own writers, and in which 700-metre starships, equipped with Impossibility Engines, are built, one assumes joyfully, in great numbers, at no cost, by people who don’t get paid.
[ Post updated. ]
Madrigal of note.
Dude, they had Heisenberg compensators.