You never know. I’m always drawn to what I’m interested in at the moment. I do have a very soft spot in my heart for science fiction, and I would like to do another optimistic science fiction piece. I would like to do something about the future where things did work out, it’s a good future, we solved a lot of problems, and now go tell an adventure story or tell some big scary epic in that setting. I am drawn to that as a writer to do it. So, yes, I would like to go there.

The Nobel laureate economist Edmund Phelps has a great book, “Mass Flourishing.” But his concern is that we are not creating generations of kids with a creative, venturesome spirit — that when he was young, all the kids read Jack London and Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle and now we’re missing that. If you want an optimistic, aspirational future, you need to have people who have those characteristics, and obviously the culture matters here.

Do you have any ideas on how to make a society more like that in any way other than trying to create fiction that generates those kinds of feelings?

Moore: I think the biggest thing is what we give to our children. I think, as parents, that’s our biggest contribution to this question. Show them those optimistic stories. Show them those great adventure tales. The things that you loved as a kid that are meaningful to you, that inspired you, that gave you a thrill and a chill, share those with your kids.

I was always astonished when my kids were young. They’re college age now, but when my kids were little, there were other parents in our group that would not show them certain of those things because, “Oh, they’re old, they’re black and white,” or, “They’re not going to want to read this kind of book because they want something of today.” I think that’s all a load of crap. I think that’s just stupid. Kids love good stories, and kids want to be inspired, and kids want to look up to things, and kids want to go on adventures and be starry-eyed. That’s when their hopes and their dreams are at their purest.

I think the biggest thing we can do as a society is to inspire our children. At the end of the day, we’ll grow up and the culture changes. Those of us who work in entertainment can do certain things, and, yes, I think we should try to produce those things as best we can. But nothing is as powerful as the culture that we personally, as parents, pass down to our children in terms of shows that we’ve showed to them, the films we take them to, the games we give them to play, and the stories that we just share with them. Which is not to say that they can’t watch “Walking Dead” when they get to a certain age. But it’s giving them a bigger diet than that and showing them something that’ll make them go, “Wow, oh my god.”

I remember when my son got to first grade, and he wanted to see “Star Wars” because all the other kids were running around the playground playing Luke Skywalker. He said, “I want to see ‘Star Wars,’” and I said no, I said, “You got to wait. ‘Star Wars’ is a special series, and you have to be a little bit older to understand it.” Because I knew that if you go watch “Star Wars” in first grade, it’s just a lot of noise and running around and things. You got to understand: What’s an empire? What’s a rebellion? What are some of these concepts that sound really simple but are somewhat complex?

So I made him wait until he was eight years old. I said, “On your eighth birthday, I’ll show you ‘Star Wars.’” And on his eighth birthday, I showed him the original “Star Wars.” Then I said, “And on your ninth birthday, I’ll show you ‘Empire Strikes Back.’” And then I showed him every movie in the Star Wars original canon on his birthday, and it made him a fanatic to this day. He’s the biggest Star Wars fan you could possibly imagine. But it also just lit that little spark of heroism, of romance, and of grand adventure that he carries around with him to this day. I think, as parents, you can give that to your children, and you can change the world if you do it.

That’s outstanding parenting. And finally, what sort of president does America need right now: a Gaius Baltar, a William Adama, or a Laura Roslin?

Oh, Laura Roslin, no question.

So say we all.

Laura is the one we need. So say we all.

My guest today has been Ronald D. Moore. Ron, thanks for coming on the podcast.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

This article first appeared on AEIdeas, a publication of the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.