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Brought to you by Toyota. Let's

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go places. Welcome

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to Forward Thinking. Hey

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there, and welcome to Forward Thinking,

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of the podcast that looks the future and

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says it's gonna be the future soon.

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I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren, and

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I'm Joe McCormick. And today we

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thought we would participate in a quintessential

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forward Thinking exercise, which

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is analysis of the prediction

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of the future. Yeah, we've done a couple

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of episodes where we've talked about projections

0:38

that current futurists have about the future.

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We've even talked about really lousy

0:43

predictions that happened in the past. Lauren

0:45

and I did an episode when you were out once,

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Joe and I remember when you came back you were sad to find

0:49

out that you didn't get to participate, where we talked

0:52

about really off

0:54

the mark predictions from the past where

0:56

people were just thinking all sorts of

0:58

crazy things we're gonna happen by now. So

1:01

we wanted to talk about some of our favorites, whether

1:03

they were completely off

1:05

track way back when, or if it's

1:07

a current prediction about what the future will

1:09

be and what our thoughts are and so what kind

1:11

of all gout some notes about

1:13

the sore of stuff that we want to talk about. My first

1:15

one is actually about a series of drawings

1:18

postcards really from France,

1:20

from one

1:23

in nineteen ten. You know, I'd seen

1:25

these things before, and these are great,

1:28

beautiful they're like full color beauties

1:32

that are I don't know that they're not actually

1:34

as cartoonish as one might imagine.

1:37

Some of them have some interesting detail in

1:40

them. Yeah, there's a lot of different,

1:42

um well,

1:45

different aspects of what they thought the future would

1:47

be like. Uh, and it's all sort of

1:49

fantastical. Some of them actually are

1:52

are pretty prescient. Uh. They were

1:54

essentially thinking about what is the world going to

1:56

be like in the year two thousand. Yeah,

1:58

So one of them, I know, it's got like a

2:01

barber shop where people are getting

2:03

some gentlemen are leaning

2:05

back in very cushy looking chairs getting

2:08

their necks shaved by robots

2:10

with razors going all over the place, crazy

2:13

robot arms off of off of big they

2:16

look like kind of like pneumatic polls that come

2:18

up in in intervals out of the floor. Yeah,

2:21

essentially like kind of like a column but with some

2:23

sort of pneumatic element to it. So that the

2:25

arms that are bolted onto the pneumatic

2:27

part could be raised or lowered. When

2:30

I watched those darker robotics

2:32

challenge fails. The main thing I think

2:35

is I want one of these things shaving me with

2:37

a straight razor. Well, and and

2:39

let's let's also point out that in this particular

2:42

illustration, there is a gentleman uh

2:44

well quoft which would not normally

2:46

happen if you happen to be the barber. If you always

2:49

know the barber in the town, he's the one with the worst hair

2:51

do. Oh

2:53

I guess, yeah, but he

2:55

this guy has a great hair do because it's all done

2:58

with these robot arms, although he is currently

3:00

operating a

3:02

system, well at least a giant lever, so

3:05

perhaps there is at least some human power

3:08

in this in this system,

3:10

even if it's just to turn it on or off.

3:12

I think what I like less than the idea of

3:15

robot arms shaving me um

3:17

is uh robot arms

3:19

controlled by a person who's not looking

3:21

at me. That's true, that is,

3:24

to the customers. I think these are

3:26

not autonomous shaving robots.

3:28

These these are in fact just like multiple

3:31

extensions. You know you've got those machines

3:33

where you press one button

3:35

and it does like five things at once. I

3:37

think that's what's going on here. The barber is

3:39

operating a machine and the machine translates

3:42

all his actions into

3:44

actions on five different customers

3:46

at the same time. Yeah, it's more. It's a

3:49

more sophisticated version of that old This

3:51

might actually be too old for you guys. But for

3:53

for chalkboards, there there were

3:55

occasionally these things. It was like just a little board

3:57

with little wire holders that you talking about

4:00

multiple pieces of chalking. Yeah,

4:02

it was the way of cheating. If the teacher

4:04

told you to stay after school, right,

4:07

I will not spit in my neighbor's milk, you

4:09

know times right. So so it's

4:11

it's like that where it's really the

4:13

idea is to to make it easier for one

4:16

person to do the work of like

4:18

five all at the same

4:20

time. Another image has

4:22

an arrow cab station. I love

4:24

this this picture. This is actually something that's

4:27

kind of interesting because, uh, right

4:29

now, as we record this, there's

4:31

talk of Uber looking

4:33

into creating vt O

4:36

L vehicles for taxi

4:38

cabs. We talked about this. I think

4:40

that's a publicity stunt.

4:42

No, I don't think

4:44

it's a publicity stunt. I think it's I think it's

4:46

a company that is used to making

4:49

grandiose proclamations

4:52

and then not quite

4:54

realizing what the consequences are ahead

4:56

of time. I don't think that. I don't think it's so much

4:58

a publicity stunt as an is them rushing

5:01

into an area that's not quite

5:03

mature. Well, I mean, like when Uber says,

5:05

oh, we want to have driver less supercars,

5:08

I can see that being a feasible

5:10

thing not too far in the future. When

5:12

they say we want to v t o L. Uh

5:15

flying taxi cap you're flying ubers?

5:18

Yeah? Yeah, whatever? Yeah. Well

5:20

the picture, the picture from these postcards shows

5:23

uh tiny caps that have wings

5:25

that apparently can extend or or can

5:28

tilt upward so they can doc

5:30

with a landing station,

5:33

and then they have propellers on the front that allow them

5:35

to fly. Obviously

5:37

that would not be the case with the the Uber

5:39

approach. They're looking at vto L and we talked

5:41

about this when we said what would it take to have

5:44

flying cars, and I think we all agreed vo

5:46

v t o L would be absolutely necessary just

5:49

from a space issue, and that autonomous

5:52

operation would be necessary. Because we don't think any

5:54

human being should ever operate a flying

5:56

cars unless they are like a

5:59

very accomplished by islet, especially

6:01

if you're talking about within a dense urban

6:04

setting, right. Yeah, if it's out in

6:06

the open and there's there's plenty of space,

6:08

maybe you could have like some exhibitions

6:11

or whatever. But if you're talking about

6:14

mundane day to day operations, we

6:16

want autonomy in that. Yeah.

6:19

I I never want the day when, uh, when

6:21

a car crash results in like in

6:24

like fiery parts raining

6:26

from the sky. That's a that's not

6:28

good news. Uh.

6:30

I just want those people operating a multi

6:33

ton lethal weapon they can drive around on the

6:35

ground at seventy miles. I've

6:37

been saying this whole time that I can't

6:39

wait for driverless cars. I mean, I'm just

6:41

I want to make that clear. Uh.

6:43

No, I want to point something out because I've looked at a

6:45

bunch of these postcards, these French postcards

6:48

you're referring to, and a whole

6:50

lot of them involve flight. Many

6:53

of them do, I would say from my memory,

6:55

just more than half of them involved flying

6:58

humans of one type or another. Well, and

7:00

that's the thing, it's always humans, Like the concept

7:02

of flying robotics I don't think had occurred

7:04

to to anyone doing this postcard

7:07

series, particularly like like one of the

7:09

other images that you that you added to our show notes

7:11

here has a fireman with

7:14

these like kind of bat looking wings

7:17

that are that are putting out of fire. It's essentially

7:19

like they're all wearing jet packs, except instead

7:21

of jets, they are flapping wings. Yeah.

7:24

Yeah uh. And and there are several

7:26

in the series that are similar to that. I only

7:28

included the fireman one because it was such

7:30

a beautiful picture of these

7:33

people who are are are

7:35

flying through the air using water

7:37

hoses to fight fires and to

7:40

their you know, flying up to rescue a baby.

7:42

And can I point out that in this picture

7:44

if I'm understanding what the artists meant

7:46

correctly, so the firefighters have these bat

7:49

type wings, and I believe the wings

7:51

are secured to their ankles

7:53

via some kind of connecting strap.

7:56

So it looks like what the artist had in mind

7:58

is that the firefly or is

8:01

held aloft in the air by flapping

8:03

wings that are powered by

8:05

the firefighter's own leg movements.

8:08

They could also be pneumatic. It's

8:11

hard to say that particular image

8:13

it's very difficult to say, but you see,

8:17

I haven't noticed that before. But yeah, that's that's very

8:20

well. If you if you look at some of the other ones from the

8:22

series, there's another one where there's a police

8:24

officer who's pulling over an aviator

8:27

who has clearly done something

8:29

naughty, and so the police officers wearing

8:32

wings that are that extend

8:34

out from his back, but has a tail

8:36

as well, presumably to provide stability.

8:39

I mean, we're not crazy and

8:41

uh that, but the tail is attached

8:43

to his ankles, So he's got he's

8:45

got these tethers that essentially go from the tail

8:47

to his ankles, and he's in

8:50

an upright position with

8:53

respect to the airplane that he's trying to pull

8:55

over. Not entirely certain how

8:57

he's maintaining altitude well

9:00

in a vertical position with winks,

9:03

you would think that would pretty much cause you to plummet.

9:06

But in the future, physics will

9:08

no longer apply. Uh well, I and I

9:10

did. I did want to mention that you know, we're we are

9:13

this year we've been fighting fires

9:15

with drones. Yeah, no, yeah,

9:17

we're starting to see and we've also seen issues

9:20

with drones getting in the way of firefighters. But it's

9:22

nice to see them being used in the

9:24

in scoping out the

9:26

the um like how big a

9:28

fire is, like how far does it stretch? And

9:31

also to get a good look at places

9:33

that would obviously be dangerous to send

9:35

a person into without first checking

9:37

out what's going on. But we don't attach

9:40

a drone to a person and send a person in because

9:43

that's crazy, because that's obviously terrible. Yeah,

9:45

that would be not so good. Also,

9:48

there's another element in some of these

9:50

and you know, I didn't include all of them. I

9:53

included you know a few, but if

9:55

you go to there's a website the public Domain

9:57

review dot org who has the entire collection

9:59

as since Lee of all the ones that have survived,

10:02

then they're gorgeous. There's a collection

10:04

of them. Also where another big

10:07

theme was underwater activities.

10:10

Yeah, there were there people riding

10:13

on seahorse, giant seahorse.

10:16

In the future there will be giant sea horse. There's

10:18

giant sea horses. There's one where they're there,

10:20

uh, doing the

10:22

equivalent of a horse race, except they're all riding

10:25

very long eel like fish.

10:28

Uh. There's another one where they are

10:30

fishing for seagulls. So

10:32

they're throwing hooked lines up

10:35

through the surface of the water. Seagulls

10:37

grabbed them, and then they dragged the seagulls

10:39

underwater, presumably to

10:41

their deaths. Uh. I don't know

10:43

why you would want to do it, drowning birds

10:45

for fun. I guess that's no more horrifying

10:48

than pulling fish, which breathe underwater

10:51

out into our atmosphere. Maybe

10:53

I think it's a little more. And

10:55

I like fish better than I like birds, so

10:59

I'm sort of okay with it. All right, Well,

11:01

Lauren the seagull murderer, Sorry, I'll

11:03

know that. Speaking of disturbing

11:06

uses of birds, there's another one of

11:08

these images that is just titled

11:11

intensive breeding, and

11:14

it is a picture of a woman who

11:16

I think is working on an egg farm

11:19

with a basket full of eggs and she's attending

11:21

this big refrigerator sized machine

11:24

that has lots of little yellow chicks

11:26

coming out of it on a slide. Yeah.

11:29

Yeah, you put the eggs in the

11:31

top and chicks come out. They get

11:33

to write a slide. What's what's

11:35

so sinister about that? I don't

11:37

know what is this machine supposed to be doing.

11:39

I think it just hatches eggs faster than a

11:42

than a chicken could. Apparently I don't

11:44

buy magic and technology. There's

11:47

one that I think is actually kind of kind

11:49

of interesting. There's the electric scrubbing

11:52

one, where it's a showing

11:54

a machine that is used to brush

11:57

and scrub the floor. This again

11:59

is being operated by somebody a maid

12:01

at this point off to the side, so it's

12:04

not fully autonomous. Who in the year two thousand

12:06

is still wearing something that looks strikingly like

12:09

like Edwardian made attire. That's

12:11

something that we wanted to mention too, is that,

12:14

Joe, You brought this up earlier today when I

12:16

was telling you this was going to be something I was going to talk

12:18

about. So while the

12:20

technology uh seems

12:22

to be kind of an advanced version of

12:24

what they had available to themselves in these

12:26

visions, when it comes to things

12:28

like costume and

12:31

uh and and hairstyles,

12:34

everything remains exactly

12:36

of that era. They can imagine the technology

12:39

changing, but they can't imagine the culture changing

12:41

exactly. Yeah, you don't see

12:43

any representation of other ethnicities

12:46

either, Yeah, well,

12:48

and and in and in these cases, I mean, it's it's certainly

12:51

not as though other other work from about

12:53

the same time period didn't portray like

12:55

like futuristic in big honking

12:57

quote marks um quote marks, Yeah,

13:00

but I like them, um

13:03

uh a future futuristic

13:05

fashioned um in another another

13:08

science fiction and science presumptuous

13:12

materials um but

13:14

but yeah in this particular case, it's it's

13:16

part of its charm. But but yeah, so so this so this cleaning

13:18

device is essentially a very large,

13:20

manually operated room by yeah,

13:23

yeah exactly, and and it's kind of

13:25

this also kind of plays into

13:27

something else I want to talk about, just in general

13:29

when it comes to make predicting the future.

13:32

Two things. One was that that idea that

13:35

we find it very difficult to imagine

13:38

how people change along

13:41

with technology. Right We we sit there and we look

13:43

at the technology, say well, here's what the technology is

13:45

going to be like in another fifty years, but

13:47

it's hard for us to imagine what people

13:49

will be like at that time. Can I offer

13:52

a possible reason for that? Sure? I

13:54

would think that that might have something to do with the

13:56

fact that technology

13:58

changes along

14:01

a predictable path, in that you

14:03

don't know exactly what solutions

14:05

technology will will represent,

14:08

what it will come up with, but you sort of know

14:10

what problems it will be trying to solve,

14:13

unless you're imagining a very far future

14:15

where there are new problems that haven't even emerged

14:17

yet. But all these problems are things

14:19

that people understood at the

14:22

time and were things that people actually

14:24

wanted done. They wanted robots to make

14:26

work easier, they wanted

14:28

the power of flight, they wanted

14:31

faster transportation, they wanted

14:33

automation. All these things are

14:35

real obvious concerns when

14:38

you're trying to predict the future of culture,

14:41

like what how clothes

14:43

will look different? You don't have that same

14:46

prompt you You can't say, like, I

14:48

know what problems future fashion

14:50

you know fashion designers will be trying to solve.

14:53

It's just not something you can predict. It's

14:55

not a linear change pattern. You could

14:57

probably predict that whatever the fashion

15:00

is of that particular era, it would

15:02

be some sort of take on the fashion

15:04

from twenty years previous. Yes,

15:07

that's usually a pretty good rule. And furthermore,

15:09

it's really difficult to predict how

15:12

technologies like that could change us,

15:15

like like what like how those technologies

15:17

would be changing the culture that would lead to

15:20

those kind of differences in appearance and

15:22

uh, and day to day life

15:24

all of that sort of thing, like like you can sit there and

15:26

imagine that they like, yes, there's going to be

15:28

this this cleaning robot,

15:30

but you're still hiring a maid to

15:33

operate it, right, Yeah, And I'm

15:35

not I don't really want to call out

15:37

the artists of that time

15:39

period for being particularly silly

15:41

or whatever. This is true for every era, right

15:43

yeah, yeah, like it just beautiful examples

15:46

example. Yeah, and I would I would also

15:48

say these things are probably made with some sense of

15:51

humor about them. Sure, I'm just

15:53

saying I can't imagine, say, being in the

15:55

nineteen eighties and being able to

15:57

anticipate like the man Bun. It

16:00

just wouldn't have occurred to me. Never would

16:02

have never would have thought that that would become

16:04

a thing. This isn't even me judging.

16:06

I'm just saying that in the eighties I never would have huh

16:09

that that would have been a big deal. Like it

16:11

would have been one of those deals

16:13

where someone had shown me a picture and I'm like, well, what,

16:16

why is what's the he where did you get

16:18

this? What if in the nineteen eighties somebody

16:20

told you people will be making multimillion

16:22

dollar live action transformers

16:25

movies. I mean I would have at

16:27

the time thought that that would have been brilliant,

16:30

because it would have been before Michael Bay

16:32

got a chance to do that. Wait,

16:34

how would you even imagine that the nineteen eighties

16:36

live action transformers that didn't

16:38

even make sense. I be able to imagine

16:41

it in the nineteen eighties. I was a kid. I could imagine

16:43

that I was a giraffe. Okay,

16:46

come on, I mean as an adult it's a lot

16:48

harder, but as a kid limitless.

16:51

So also I wanted to mention

16:53

that that the other issue, because I said

16:55

there were two. The other issue with predicting

16:57

the future, especially when it comes to technology, is that

17:00

we typically look at what is

17:03

available today, we look at the things

17:05

that we are currently trying to develop right

17:08

now, and then we just sort of project based

17:10

upon that. Right we sit there and say, okay, let's extend

17:13

outward from where we are now and

17:15

where we look like we're headed. But

17:17

that means we we can't and by definition,

17:19

we cannot anticipate any

17:22

innovations that come out of left field that

17:24

changed the game entirely, which

17:27

means that by the time we get to that future

17:29

and maybe that certain things we thought were promising

17:31

turned out to be dead ends, other things we

17:33

hadn't even considered might be the norm.

17:35

A great example of this would be back in the nineteen

17:38

fifties when everyone was building electronics

17:41

with vacuum tubes. No one at the point

17:43

that point in the early fifties was really anticipating

17:46

the that transistors were going to one

17:48

become small enough to really become

17:50

an important electronic component and to replace

17:53

vacuum tubes. And that's why you get these predictions

17:55

about giant computers in the future, right

17:58

because back then, if you were using vacuum

18:00

tubes, they take up a lot more space than transistors

18:02

do, and it would mean that if you want a really powerful

18:04

computer, you'd have to have a lot more vacuum tube.

18:07

So it's the reason that a very very

18:09

powerful computer would be enormous the size

18:11

of a building are bigger. So because

18:14

of that, we find

18:16

it amusing to see some of these

18:18

predictions. But we have to keep in mind that we're doing

18:20

the same thing, right, We're making predictions

18:23

based upon where we are right now. Uh

18:25

And by again, by definition, we cannot

18:27

anticipate something that comes out of

18:29

seemingly nowhere. Uh. So

18:32

I don't want to heap too much uh

18:36

jovial uh disdain

18:39

or anything like that towards people who have made

18:41

these predictions. I prefer we heap saturnine

18:44

disdain other than all

18:46

the time. Yes, of course. Well, the

18:48

other one I wanted to talk about, which is

18:51

a little less less whimsical,

18:54

I would say, is the driverless

18:56

car predictions, because

18:58

I mentioned us a few minutes ago.

19:01

I love the idea of

19:03

a society that has driverless

19:06

cars, especially if driverless cars are the primary

19:08

vehicles on the road. Yeah. I try

19:11

not to be overly sanguine about

19:14

naive, optimistic future

19:16

predictions, but I feel like this is

19:18

one I've always been pretty

19:20

optimistic about and remain

19:22

pretty optimistic about, even though even

19:24

though we've now seen some tragic accidents

19:26

with driverless cars. I think, I

19:29

don't know, I I'm I'm pretty bullish on

19:31

this one. Yeah, I think I think it's completely possible,

19:33

just there are so many kinks to work out before

19:36

it's practical. I think

19:38

the kinks are mainly on the political side

19:40

and social side as well, and not so much on the

19:42

technological side there. So yeah, yeah, exactly.

19:44

No, I mean because because mostly like like we we technically

19:47

have the technology to to have all of these

19:49

devices talking to each other. We just need a

19:52

the rules and regulations in place that will

19:54

make companies make their products talk

19:56

to each other and and beh

20:00

uh build it.

20:03

Yeah. Well, well we also need

20:05

to get people on board

20:08

literally and figuratively with the

20:10

idea of driverless cars. Yeah, I mean you've

20:12

got you've got an expectations problem in

20:15

that people. Essentially,

20:17

it's like, you're not gonna hold driverless

20:20

cars to the same standard that you would hold

20:22

cars with human drivers who can take

20:24

personal responsibility to drive.

20:27

Human drivers are already so bad at

20:30

driving driverless cars. I don't

20:32

think you're gonna have a problem of being worse

20:34

than human drivers. But the problem is

20:36

it's not okay for them to just be better

20:38

than human drivers. They essentially need

20:40

to be perfect well, and when

20:43

it comes to driverless cars. So I would say

20:45

that that the truly,

20:49

the truly autonomous cars

20:51

that are out there, not

20:53

not like Tesla's autopilot, but the

20:55

truly autonomous cars out there have demonstrated

20:58

that they based upon the number of my as they've

21:00

driven without any uh

21:02

major accidents, that they are

21:06

by far better than human drivers

21:08

if you look at them, you know, for a

21:10

million miles and how many accidents are

21:12

are represented. Um, it's pretty

21:16

cut and dry that they're superior.

21:19

Uh. When you get to autopilot,

21:21

then that's not supposed to be

21:23

an autonomous system that's not intended

21:25

to be. People treated as if it is,

21:28

and that's a that's a problem. We're talking

21:30

about public opinion. It's all about perceptions,

21:33

right, and and also there's this public opinion.

21:35

So so the Verge ran a piece recently in

21:37

which they referenced a poll where

21:40

people were asked US drivers were asked

21:42

about their opinions on self driving

21:44

cars. One of the questions they were asked was that, um,

21:48

they were given choices between different levels of autonomy.

21:51

So a level five autonomous car would be

21:53

one that's fully autonomous and has no

21:56

no control system for a human. Level

21:58

four would will have control systems

22:01

that humans could use. And everyone's like,

22:03

I don't want level five. Not everyone like

22:05

I don't want level five, I want level four. Like

22:07

I absolutely want to be able

22:10

to rest control from the system

22:12

if I need to. I think they're they're

22:14

anticipating a scenario where they really

22:16

want to be able to run somebody over with their

22:18

car on maybe maybe, But the

22:21

immediately I realized that that's

22:23

a terrible problem for people

22:25

to say, I want to still be able to take over a control

22:27

of this car. I get it that if you

22:30

find driving enjoyable and

22:32

you still want to have that experience occasionally,

22:34

I get it. But if you're talking about taking

22:36

over control of the car after it's under autonomous

22:39

control, what you're really talking about when

22:41

you boil it down is two drivers struggling

22:44

for control of the same vehicle at the same time.

22:46

Even if you have an autonomous vehicle that can very

22:48

quickly figure out that a human

22:50

is trying to take over and switch

22:53

over to manual control, it's it's

22:55

still kind of like if I were to reach over while Lauren's

22:57

driving and just grab the steering wheel and give it a nice

22:59

sharp tug to the right, that's not

23:02

good. That's bad.

23:05

For some reason I had stopped paying attention. Was

23:08

driving us off a cliff. That would be good.

23:10

And I think that's the kind of scenario

23:12

that people people are thinking

23:14

about. Yeah, I guess they're imagining

23:17

like that. They're thinking this car is

23:19

going to have problems or at least early generations

23:22

are and I'm going to need to find it. I'm going

23:24

to need to have manual override to get around

23:26

those problems, Like there's going to be a life or death situation

23:28

that it's going to come up that that I am going to

23:30

need to be able to stop the car in case. Yeah,

23:33

that's that's what they're imagining, and I think it's

23:35

um my opinion is

23:37

that they are are largely wrong, or

23:39

maybe they're mistaken, and they think that the total

23:42

control means that the car is also going to tell

23:44

them what they have to listen to on the radio. Yeah,

23:47

well, I mean they

23:50

would have issues with that too, especially that radio

23:53

or like or like tell them which like coffee

23:55

shop to go to, and right, we

23:57

I should also point out that I won't take

23:59

you there. Apparently,

24:01

this pole also had people saying the

24:04

responded saying that they don't want the car that

24:06

they owned to be autonomous, and I

24:08

think that presupposes the idea that they would own

24:10

a car. Um As

24:13

we've talked about a lot of the models

24:15

that would have autonomous cars on the road suggest

24:17

that these would not be personal vehicles. You would not

24:19

own an autonomous car. It

24:21

wouldn't make sense. It would make more sense

24:24

to have a company operating fleets

24:26

of autonomous cars and it's all

24:29

on demand. And the reason why it makes sense is that

24:31

if your car is sitting idle more than nine

24:34

percent of the time you own it,

24:36

doesn't it make more sense for that car to go out

24:38

and do work rather than just sit there.

24:40

And if it were doing that, then you could

24:43

end up freeing up space that would otherwise

24:45

be used for things like parking spots

24:47

or garages. Uh, anyone

24:50

who has a garage would have essentially an extra

24:52

room now for storage or whatever you

24:54

wanted. Um, you wouldn't You would be able to

24:56

free up space on streets where you wouldn't have

24:58

people parking all up and down streets. My

25:00

street, you would actually be able to drive down because

25:03

people park on both sides of the street to the

25:05

point where if your car is wide enough,

25:07

you're gonna reconsider going down that way.

25:10

Um. So, I mean, I

25:13

think the most realistic vision

25:15

of driverless cars remains this

25:17

idea of a fleet that it's

25:19

like an uber or a lift where you call

25:21

a ride when you need to. And now, obviously that

25:24

means that the best use case

25:26

for This would be in dense urban environments.

25:28

If you're out in a rural area, it

25:30

makes more sense to have a personally operated

25:33

vehicle because you're not going to

25:35

have enough density of vehicles

25:38

in those rural spots to have a

25:40

reasonable UM response time.

25:42

If you need to have a ride, well, I

25:44

mean, you know you could. You could say that it would be

25:46

something like a like a Netflix subscription and

25:48

and having different subscriptions

25:50

for different needs. Like if you're in a city, Uh,

25:53

then you call a car up whenever you need

25:55

one. If you're in the country, maybe you

25:57

have a you have a car that you essentially

26:00

like lease out. Maybe it is autonomous that

26:02

that that you hang out with for a certain

26:04

period of time. I could see that possibly

26:06

being the case. Uh, you know,

26:09

there are obviously there's a lot of opportunities

26:11

for different UM business strategy.

26:13

So just as I was saying earlier where we were,

26:16

you know, taking today and then projecting outward,

26:18

I was just doing that right now

26:20

when let's talking about driverless cars, and you

26:22

brought up in a situation

26:25

Lauren that I had not really thought

26:27

about, but it totally makes sense

26:29

that could completely be someone's business

26:31

plan moving forward. So UM

26:34

I also think the autonomous cars, they're gonna

26:36

be a thing, whether they become the thing

26:39

and replace uh personally

26:41

like manually operated vehicles. I

26:44

don't know what timeline we'd be looking

26:46

at for something like that. I'm guessing a

26:48

couple of decades at the earliest to

26:51

to really get to a point where you've

26:53

got enough of the population saying yeah, I

26:56

don't care about driving a car. I just

26:58

want to have a way of getting to or I

27:00

need to go, and then not worry about

27:02

it. Again. Um, they may

27:04

take like a generation or two to get through. Well,

27:07

we keep hearing stories about how more

27:09

younger people have less

27:11

of a desire to own a car for

27:13

for a variety of reasons, largely economic,

27:16

but not only economic. And

27:18

I imagine if those trends continue, then

27:21

we'll see people much more receptive to this

27:23

idea. But that

27:25

that again presupposes that a trend

27:27

continues and doesn't change. That's

27:29

still a possibility. Anyway, those were

27:31

the two I really wanted to talk about. One that was more

27:33

whimsical and one that was more grounded

27:36

in reality. Um,

27:38

but it's the kind of stuff that, you know, it's

27:40

hard for me to pick just a couple of predictions

27:43

about the future that I really love, but uh,

27:45

I decided to to

27:48

to just commit to those. So I

27:50

want to hear what you guys picked.

27:53

Well. I wanted to think about

27:56

predictions about the social impact

27:58

of telecommunications. Who

28:02

uses their phone nows?

28:05

Well, no, I would say the Internet counts as teleki

28:09

and so does the telegraphy. That's

28:13

also emoji. Emoji,

28:15

Yeah, if you're sending them across

28:17

an Internet or text message. You know, we

28:19

have never done a full episode about emoji

28:21

before. Go

28:25

ahead, Joe cry

28:29

laughing. It would be amazing

28:31

if we came up with never mind. Okay,

28:34

So, yeah, I wanted to talk about something

28:36

that I've actually mentioned. I know I mentioned

28:39

once on a Text Stuff

28:41

episode that I guessed it on with you,

28:43

Jonathan. Which is

28:46

an article from nineteen twelve

28:49

from Technical World magazine.

28:51

I didn't check to see if this magazine still exists.

28:54

I wonder if it does. Probably not, but

28:56

the article is by one Ivan Narodney,

28:59

and it's a profile of Giglielmo

29:03

Marconi. Marconi build in

29:05

this article as the inventor of

29:07

the wireless telegraph, but a

29:09

well known inventor at the time. Sometimes

29:11

also credited with the radio right right

29:14

Tesla fans hate that. Yes,

29:16

he often is. So the article

29:18

is called Marconi's Plans for the World,

29:21

and it's got a bunch of long quotes from

29:23

from Marconi, and this is one of the

29:25

things he says. Quote. I am

29:27

not personally a socialist. I have small

29:30

faith in any political propaganda.

29:32

But I do believe that the progress of invention

29:35

will create a state which will realize

29:37

most of the present dreams of the socialists.

29:40

The coming of the wireless era will

29:42

make war impossible, because

29:45

it will make war ridiculous.

29:48

The inventor is the greatest revolutionist

29:50

in the world, if

29:52

only it's such a nice thought. Now, I

29:54

think there is a certain grain of truth

29:57

to this, because I've read arguments and I think

29:59

they're kind of can vincing that a lot of

30:01

social changes you see throughout history

30:04

that you would see attributed

30:06

to changes in ideology or

30:08

political movements and stuff like that,

30:11

is actually better understood as a direct

30:14

result of technological change

30:16

rather than ideological or political

30:18

change. I think in a lot of cases that is

30:20

sort of true. So his comment about the the

30:23

inventor being the greatest revolutionist,

30:26

I think there might be something to that. But

30:29

on the other hand, he says, the wireless

30:32

era is going to make war impossible,

30:34

because it will make war ridiculous. This

30:36

was right before the

30:39

the First Great War, and

30:42

then of course we got a few

30:44

more after that. It was the War to end all wars,

30:46

and then the one after that one. Yeah, another

30:49

funny thing. Later in the same article, the author

30:51

summarizes more of Marconi's comments

30:53

by saying, quote, a step further

30:55

in the progress of wireless stands

30:57

wireless lighting, heating, and transmit

31:00

shon of motor power. Each of these

31:02

systems is based on the same principle as

31:04

wireless tell the wireless telegraph,

31:06

only the transmitting and receiving

31:08

instruments are different in the vibrations

31:11

of the etheric waves have a

31:13

different nature, intensity, and length.

31:15

This is also very Tesla issue etheric

31:17

waves. That's great, um, and we

31:20

we have done episodes on on like

31:22

wireless lighting. Yeah, we

31:25

talked about about things like using

31:27

inductive coupling and that's right stuff. Yeah.

31:29

But he's thinking at the grand scale,

31:31

so he envisions like he

31:33

talks about a Niagara Falls power

31:36

plant that would generate hydro power

31:38

and then wirelessly transmit a hundred

31:41

and fifty million horsepower

31:44

across New York State and that sell

31:46

it to other states. It's very, very similar

31:48

to the Tesla UH

31:51

approach. Are the Tesla beliefs of the time

31:53

to UH wildly impractical?

31:56

As it turns out, right, this this thing about

31:58

power transmission is sort of to the But

32:00

I did want to mention that because two

32:02

main principles come up in this article, the wireless

32:05

telecommunications, the wireless

32:07

telegraph, and then wireless

32:09

power transmission. Of course, now one

32:11

is a reality and one the other is

32:13

not, at least not at the large scale. And

32:16

I guess mar Coney could have been referring

32:18

to either or both when he predicted

32:20

that these conditions would bring about the end of

32:23

war. But I tend to think more

32:25

likely that he's referring to to

32:27

the prospect of universal instantaneous

32:30

wireless communication as

32:32

that set of conditions that he thinks is going to make

32:34

war ridiculous and bring it to an end.

32:37

And I think this because it fits in

32:39

with a perennial strain of utopian

32:41

thinking about the implications of

32:44

new telecommunications technology.

32:46

Yeah, well, I mean I can I can see that the

32:49

merit in that kind of thought

32:51

process. It's it's tempting to believe

32:54

that if people are able to communicate

32:56

quickly with each other um, then

32:58

then they'll be able to reach a better understanding

33:01

of each other's motivations and and therefore

33:03

not have as much stuff to fight about. Yeah,

33:05

it's essentially a grander scale

33:08

version of telling children

33:11

just talk it out, will be

33:13

fine, very much, And there are people

33:15

who very very much bought into

33:17

this ideology and have throughout

33:19

history, or at least throughout the past couple

33:22

hundred years. So I want to read you a quote

33:24

from a couple of authors named Charles F. Briggs

33:27

and Augustus Maverick from

33:29

eighteen fifty eight, and this is what

33:31

they wrote. It has been the result

33:34

of the great discoveries of the past century

33:36

to affect a revolution in political

33:38

and social life by establishing

33:40

a more intimate connection between

33:43

nations with race and race.

33:45

It has been found that the old system

33:47

of exclusion and insulation, or

33:49

stagnation and death national

33:52

health can only be maintained by the

33:55

free and unobstructed interchange

33:57

of each withal. How potent

33:59

a power in is the telegraph

34:01

destined to become in the civilization

34:03

of the world. This binds

34:05

together by a vital cord all

34:08

the nations of the Earth. It is impossible

34:11

that old prejudices and hostilities

34:13

should longer exist while such

34:15

an instrument has been created for an

34:17

exchange of thought between all

34:19

the nations of the Earth. So

34:22

this seems like sort of along the lines of the

34:24

Marconi strain of thinking. Right, you get

34:26

people connected to each other through instantaneous

34:29

telecommunication and they

34:31

just sort of like become one very harmonious

34:34

mind. And there

34:36

was an American communication theorist I was reading

34:38

about named James W. Kerry, who

34:41

wrote a book called Communication

34:44

as Culture. This was in the

34:46

nineteen eighties, I think, in

34:48

which there is a chapter about the

34:50

impact of the original telegraph. Now this

34:52

was the wired telegraph, not the wireless

34:54

one, but I think the same principle applies

34:56

to how people were thinking about

34:58

them and carry points out that this

35:00

was you know, it's the first major invention

35:03

to separate the concepts of communication

35:06

and transportation. Really, it's the

35:08

first example of telecommunication communication

35:10

without the transport of mass

35:12

basically. And I want to read a passage

35:15

where Kerry summarizes

35:17

this historical attitude. He says,

35:19

quote, there were dissenters, of

35:21

course, but the general uniformity

35:23

of reaction to the telegraph demonstrated

35:26

how it was able to fuse the opposite

35:28

polls of the electrical sublime,

35:30

the desire for peace, harmony,

35:32

and self sufficiency with the wish

35:35

for power, profit and productivity.

35:38

The presumed annihilation of

35:40

time and space heralded by the telegraph

35:43

promised to bind the country together, just

35:45

as the portance of the Civil War, we're

35:47

threatening to tear it apart. And

35:49

he goes on to quote a horrible

35:52

poem from eight seventy

35:54

five by somebody named Martin F.

35:57

Tipper. Never read about that guy in my poetry

35:59

age occasion. But

36:02

I've got to read this selection from this poem

36:04

too, And then I'll try to stop with all the quotes.

36:06

But this is just too good. Yes,

36:09

this electric chain from east to west,

36:12

more than mere metal, more than mammon,

36:15

can binds us together, Kinsman,

36:17

and the best as most affectionate

36:20

and frankist Bond brethren

36:22

as one and looking far beyond

36:25

the world in an electric union

36:27

blessed. I don't know what

36:29

you're saying, man, that's awesome. That's

36:32

some darn fine poetry. Do you hear the alliteration

36:35

there. That guy could have written an old English

36:37

Okay, okay, so he maybe he's technically

36:40

competent that this is a poem about the

36:42

telegraph, the electric Union. They

36:45

all have to be about clouds and feelings.

36:47

Joe but Carry has

36:49

a name for this mode of talk, which he claims

36:52

he coined in conjunction with somebody named

36:54

John Quirk, which is a game. And

36:57

the name for this this whole style of talking

36:59

is the rhetoric of the electrical

37:01

sublime. I loved that.

37:04

Yeah. Actually, come to think of it, I

37:06

like at like a great deal of poetry

37:08

that I saw in my poetry

37:10

classes, and like the early two thousand's in college

37:13

would have fallen under that kind of category.

37:16

It's like people celebrating how technology

37:18

is going to save us all or or not. Not not

37:20

like how it will save us all, but like, oh man,

37:22

this is magic. Check out this magic.

37:26

It relates to feelings. Okay,

37:28

okay, I'll see that all

37:31

poetic elitist is anyway

37:35

to bring us up to today.

37:37

I would say that the Internet is the

37:39

essentially the ultimate extension of the telecommunications

37:42

principle. It's all of the telecommunications

37:44

principles switches just flipped onto

37:47

full And I

37:49

think the rhetoric of the electrical sublime

37:51

absolutely extended to those

37:54

beautiful, innocent, naive

37:56

early days of the Internet, not

37:58

even the earliest days into the

38:00

nineteen nineties. Well, to be fair though, the

38:02

nine nineties that's where you get the

38:05

public u understanding

38:07

of the Internet, because before that it was essentially

38:10

the domain of researchers and students

38:12

and mega nerds. Well, but yeah,

38:14

there's those first few people who were on a

38:16

Prodigy or a o L We're

38:19

all like, oh, man, like I can talk

38:21

to my grandmother or if

38:23

she had a computer, understood

38:25

how it worked. It's something like, I mean, you know, the

38:27

guys, there were some savvy there were some savvy grandmas

38:30

out there on l uh and

38:32

and we hadn't we hadn't seen like the

38:35

other side of that connectivity yet, which

38:37

is, you know, just like more opportunities

38:40

to argue about terrible stuff. Well,

38:42

at the time when the the Internet was young,

38:44

in the early nineteen nineties, when the Web in particular

38:46

was young, because that didn't really become a thing till

38:49

two right, so when and that

38:51

was the easiest way to access the Internet.

38:53

Otherwise you were accessing elements of the Internet

38:56

like email, which you would just realize

38:58

as like, okay, well, this is just a super or fast

39:00

version of mail. I mean, someone's going to get it

39:02

as soon as I hit send. But other than that, it's

39:04

not it's not as transformative

39:06

as some of the other implementations

39:09

of the Internet. Once you get the Web there, everyone

39:12

saw that this was a thing of a

39:14

seemingly limitless possibility,

39:16

and because it was just such a big

39:19

opportunity, it was really

39:21

hard to get an idea of how would it actually

39:23

be used, right, because if you

39:25

have every option open to you,

39:27

you don't know what pathway you're going to walk

39:29

down. It may be that you've been walking for a while

39:32

before you realize which path you took. Yeah,

39:34

And so not to say that there wasn't plenty

39:36

of paranoia and dystopian thinking about

39:38

the Net back then, too, given

39:41

things like the movie The Net starring

39:43

Sandra Bullock that was phenomenal and it

39:45

predicted being able to order pizza online

39:48

within the first five minutes of the movie. I might have

39:50

man that movie. Rachel and I

39:52

watched that not too long. It was

39:54

hilarious. It's so good, right stands

39:56

up as being completely terrible. I covered

39:59

it on a episode of Tech Stuff about

40:01

hacking in Hollywood. I love

40:03

it. It's great. But anyway,

40:06

it's those pictures from the nineties where

40:08

people didn't realize what computers could

40:10

and couldn't control yet, so they'd

40:12

have you know, like you get into your office,

40:15

uh, and you sit down at your computer and you can

40:17

control like the fire alarms in the

40:19

building you're in. Yeah,

40:21

okay, but yeah, anyway,

40:24

so I'm sure you'll remember this

40:26

strain of techno utopianism

40:28

from the nineties about the about the internet.

40:31

The Internet is going to be a global village, right,

40:33

this Marshal mccluan concept, uh,

40:36

the information super Highway. There's

40:38

the idea that there's just sort of like all

40:40

learning, all sharing, all the world

40:43

and a kind of mutually informative benign

40:46

communion where people around

40:48

the world connect, do you remember that word connect

40:50

all the time, and they collaborate

40:52

and learn to understand one another. And

40:56

I think that's funny now, not because I

40:58

would say the Internet has turned out to be

41:00

a bad thing, which I certainly

41:02

don't think, because if you did, then you'd

41:04

be like get filled with self loathing. No,

41:07

I don't think that at all. But I do think it's turned

41:09

out to be a thing so ubiquitous

41:11

and so invisible as a substrate

41:13

for day to day behavior that

41:16

it goes beyond categorization is good

41:18

or bad? Like saying whether the Internet

41:20

is good or bad is kind of like saying society

41:23

is good or bad. Sure, I mean, you know,

41:25

on the one hand, you could say, look at look

41:28

at vine, our forums where people

41:30

are sharing innovative

41:32

ideas and collaborating in our real

41:35

sense and trying very hard to work

41:38

through challenges. It's it's very inspiring.

41:40

Or look at YouTube comments. Yeah,

41:43

and so I wonder is there anything

41:46

we could say so obviously Marconi

41:48

was wrong, Uh, in the

41:50

specific example of wireless communication

41:53

and in the broader idea of

41:55

just telecommunications more

41:57

people connecting instantaneously

41:59

a cross distances that that would

42:02

solve social ills and in wars

42:04

and stuff. Is there is there any grain of

42:06

truth to that? I mean, is there any way of saying,

42:08

well, maybe maybe in some way the Internet or

42:11

or other forms of telecommunications

42:13

around the world have in some way caused

42:15

social change for the better. Well,

42:18

they've clearly caused social change, And

42:21

I would argue for the better in many cases.

42:23

But I would say that it wasn't uh

42:26

in the way that Marconi was necessarily

42:29

anticipating. So, for example, the Arab

42:31

Spring being able to use

42:33

the Internet in order to organize

42:36

protests and to inform people as

42:38

to what was going on beyond

42:40

the boundaries of a country

42:43

became incredibly powerful or and and even

42:45

within the boundaries of a country wherein these people

42:47

were not allowed to to organize

42:50

in other ways. Right and then if you want

42:52

to look at right now, the the

42:54

Black Lives Matter movement, I would argue,

42:57

without the various

42:59

tools that we have connected to the Internet, including

43:01

things like live streaming video, what

43:04

what has been a problem for a very

43:06

long time in the United States is

43:09

just now getting the attention that it

43:11

deserves because the tools

43:14

to distribute that information are

43:16

now in the hands of the people that have been

43:18

UH suffering from this problem

43:21

for decades. Really,

43:23

it's not like this is a new problem. It seems

43:25

new to people who were not part of that community

43:28

because it wasn't something

43:30

them. Yeah, similar in

43:32

the way to it. How when when television

43:34

became a thing that people had in their homes in the

43:36

nineteen sixties, suddenly or

43:39

in the ninete sixties early nineteen seventies, UM,

43:42

the the Vietnam War

43:44

suddenly was thrown into very harsh relief

43:46

because when you started getting images from that thing,

43:49

it wasn't just like, oh, yeah, let's go. Oh this

43:51

is terrible like being able

43:53

to actually see the results,

43:55

as opposed to you get uh an

43:58

article in the paper that gives you very

44:00

relevant information, but it distances

44:02

you from the actual results. Yeah.

44:04

I think I think it's you can't argue

44:07

that it hasn't caused some social

44:10

good, or at least, uh, it has facilitated

44:13

some social good. It hasn't been smooth,

44:16

It's never going to be, because we're human beings

44:19

ultimately, and human beings were messy,

44:21

right, But it has opened

44:24

up opportunities that previously

44:27

weren't there. Do you think though,

44:30

that expanding the power

44:32

of telecommunications always just

44:34

sort of like it causes

44:37

a change in human behavior too for

44:39

the people who have access to this technology,

44:41

and then sort of settles into an

44:43

equilibrium that was similar to

44:45

how things were beforehand, except now you

44:48

just have some new tools. Or does

44:50

it lead to lasting changes?

44:52

I think again, I don't know that it

44:54

leads anywhere. I think What it does is facilitates.

44:58

Just like I said earlier, I think that the

45:01

actual leading to change is dependent upon

45:03

whatever force is trying to

45:05

enact that change, and they're using the telecommunications

45:08

tools as one of

45:10

the methods to enact

45:13

that change. Well, I guess to be more specific

45:15

that the change I'm thinking about is is general

45:18

uh, general increases in harmony,

45:21

right what what Marc had? And I think

45:23

I don't think that it is magically making

45:26

people more harmonious. I think that that was

45:28

a naive kind of prediction. Yeah,

45:30

I think it'll it lets more people

45:33

hear stories, and

45:35

that can ultimately lead

45:38

to change. But it's not. It's not as

45:40

simple, just as it wasn't when you say, hey,

45:42

you kids, sit down and have a talk and everything

45:45

will be fine. It's rarely

45:47

that simple. I think that you can change

45:49

minds with with telecommunication

45:52

missives. I mean, I would hope

45:54

that you can, because otherwise we've been spending

45:57

a whole lot of time sitting in the studio over the past few

45:59

years for your friend a thing. If we're just talking to

46:01

people who would already agree with us. Uh.

46:03

And I have seen in in common threads

46:06

on on YouTube and Facebook people

46:08

say, oh, I didn't know that before, thank

46:10

you, thank you for telling me about it, like, you

46:12

know, like like I would have been ignorant and I would have

46:15

kept on going doing what turns

46:17

out to be this harmful behavior if I had not known about

46:19

this thing. Um. And also

46:22

uh, on a on on

46:25

again a personal person to person kind of

46:27

basis. Um, the Internet has allowed

46:30

uh, people who would not have a support group

46:32

in their local area to have a support

46:35

group for um, you know,

46:37

if if they if they're gay, and they're in a in

46:39

a very anti homosexual, homophobic

46:41

kind of kind of town, then then they

46:43

have that support and maybe they get

46:45

to continue living their lives and live happier and

46:48

get out of there. Yeah, on a

46:50

on a much um

46:53

less uh impactful

46:55

scale. I mean, the thing that I think of is

46:58

what it was like. See, I I grew

47:00

up in the eighties, and uh, the

47:02

stuff I was interested in, None of my friends

47:05

were really particularly interested in the same

47:07

sort of things I was interested in, and so I didn't

47:09

really have people to chat about chat

47:11

with about the things that I was really passionate

47:14

about. Uh. And then I would end up

47:16

going to conventions with my dad,

47:18

you know, my science fiction author dad

47:20

and run into people groups eventually,

47:23

But I'm talking about the early eighties, so you

47:26

gotta you gotta walk before you can run.

47:29

Um running there

47:32

it was compared to what was happening before. So

47:36

but but the point being that that the

47:38

conventions gave me a chance to chat with people who

47:40

were like minded, who enjoyed the same things I

47:42

enjoyed. And then eventually the Internet

47:44

allowed that on a much grander scale

47:47

where I could see like, oh, they're all these people who share

47:49

the same interests I have, but I never

47:51

had an opportunity to chat with them because they don't

47:54

happen to be near me and same thing

47:56

with them, they have the same experience. Uh.

47:59

And obviously, again that's that's

48:01

tiny on the scale. Is something like someone dealing

48:03

with uh, you

48:05

know, intense homophobia or racism

48:08

or whatever it may be, like some sort

48:10

of prejudice against them for whatever

48:12

reason. It's very different, but

48:15

um, it makes it makes

48:17

a difference in a person's self

48:21

image. They stop asking

48:23

themselves like am I am I weird?

48:25

Am I alone? Am I terrible? And that

48:29

I think is huge. I

48:31

mean it's huge on an individual to individual basis,

48:33

but collectively you have to say, like, that's

48:36

fantastic to take away

48:39

that burden that some people feel

48:41

because they don't fit whatever their community

48:43

has identified as the norm.

48:46

On the flip side, I it

48:48

can. I mean, there are still people who

48:50

are jerks, and they can also congregate on the

48:52

internet and and kind of enter into

48:54

a positive feedback loop where where

48:56

they they are told that

48:59

that that that racism or whatever

49:01

it is is okay and is accepted by their

49:04

peer group. Yeah, that is not so good.

49:06

That's very not good. But yeah, I mean

49:09

I'm thinking about so

49:11

in the broader sense of creating global

49:14

harmony. I do think there is

49:16

some of what I don't know, the

49:18

the you know, the people who spoke

49:20

the rhetoric of the electrical sublime, what

49:22

these people had in mind, connecting brother

49:25

with brother across the world. Uh,

49:27

people people forming bonds

49:29

they would not have formed in physical space.

49:32

I think that's certainly true. But I also think that there

49:35

is global antagonism

49:38

that would not have existed otherwise.

49:40

And so I wonder if essentially,

49:42

I guess what I'm trying to say is is

49:45

there any way to figure out if there has been a

49:47

net change or have we

49:49

just sort of like settled into a

49:51

new wider equilibrium that's

49:54

about the same as it was before. Well,

49:56

I think the thing is is that, I mean, technology

49:58

certainly changes us, but it isn't It

50:00

doesn't change very basic

50:03

parts or no technology that we've had yet

50:05

has been big enough to change extremely

50:08

broad parts of the human experience

50:11

of human nature, like the fundamental elements

50:13

of being humans. Yeah, and and unfortunately,

50:15

like being a jerk is kind of one of those, it's

50:18

on the list. I would also argue that your

50:20

question is impossible to answer, and the reason why

50:23

it's impossible to answer is because we don't have

50:25

a separate pathway that we could judge

50:27

against. Right if we had,

50:29

If we if we could peer into a parallel

50:32

universe where telecommunications were never developed,

50:34

but but human race continued on to

50:36

their tween, and we would

50:38

compare their twenty sixteen to our sixteen,

50:41

maybe then we could draw at least some conclusions,

50:44

knowing that there's still thousands,

50:46

millions of other variables at play.

50:48

But without that, it's impossible, right

50:51

because we live in the world that

50:53

we forged, and so we can't

50:55

really say what it would be like if we had gone a different

50:57

route. Uh, that being said, it

50:59

is a fascinate anything to think about. I mean, I

51:03

also, like you guys, believe in

51:05

the power of telecommunications. If I didn't, I

51:07

would not work here. I would be doing

51:09

something else. But I very much believe

51:12

in the power to do good with it. I

51:14

know, and without denying the fact that you can also

51:16

do evil things with it, absolutely

51:19

you can. But it's such

51:21

a powerful tool that if enough

51:23

people choose to do good with it, I think

51:25

you can't help but enact a positive

51:27

change in the world. And that's what I strive

51:29

for. And uh, I

51:32

guess to sum it up, as Shakespeare would

51:34

say, nothing is good or bad, but

51:36

thinking makes it so. Okay,

51:39

Yeah, I like your I like your southern

51:42

Southern hey, to be fair, And in Shakespeare's

51:44

time, the accent was closer to Appalachian

51:46

English than any other accent. Wow.

51:49

Yeah, Well, you know that we've

51:52

been talking a lot already. We

51:54

still have a ton more that we want to cover in

51:56

this, uh, in this this whole topic,

51:59

but we're super chatty, so

52:01

we're going to end up. No, So

52:04

we've got another one from Joe, and then we have

52:06

Lauren's favorite kind

52:08

of futuristic predictions to to talk about, and

52:10

we're gonna save that for our next episode. Guys,

52:13

if you have any suggestions you would like to

52:15

give us for future episodes, you

52:18

can write us our email addresses FW

52:20

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52:22

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52:32

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52:35

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