"The new needs friends," says food critic Anton Ego in the Disney movie Ratatouille. Arena magazine doesn't just echo that sentiment—it emblazons it on the cover of its inaugural issue. "Misunderstandings and misinterpretations of new things are used to make the public fear innovation, and to hate innovators," writes editor and publisher Maxwell Meyer in a "manifesto for the future" at the start ofthe Texas-based publication's first issue, released in summer 2024. "Our mainstream media is hell-bent on tearing down the future before we can get too good a glimpse."
For someone eternally frustrated by the doomerism, tech panic, and casual anti-market sentiment permeating both mainstream and avant-garde media, reading Arena was refreshing. The magazine delivers a hefty dose of optimism and excitement not in spite of the current state of capitalism and innovation but because of it—an unapologetic insistence that the present is worth celebrating, the future bright, and some past "failures" worth reevaluating. For instance, a story on supersonic flight frames it not as an obvious flop but as an idea that could have succeeded (and may yet succeed) if regulators would get out of the way.
There are some misses here, including a pretty standard-issue essay complaining about social media (phone addiction "is a public health problem"). But there's plenty of good stuff to atone for such missteps, including a Judge Glock article panning the Federal Trade Commission's "data minimization" crusade and a Brian Chau essay on AI and how "monopoly fatalism can be a self-fulfilling prophecy."
With only one issue so far, it's too soon to declare Arena a future must-read. But it's off to a promising start. Consider me a friend.
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