Latest / Ridiculous History / Weird 21st Century Predictions from Ages Past, Part 2: Your Personal Plane, A World Without Disaster and Retiring on the Moon

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Weird 21st Century Predictions from Ages Past, Part 2: Your Personal Plane, A World Without Disaster and Retiring on the Moon · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. This is part two of
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: our Weird Predictions of Yesteryear episode. I'm Ben, and you
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: know what, I already need to correct myself. No, well,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think all of those predictions were all that weird.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Some of them were pretty accurate. What do you say,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Some of them were pretty accurate, Bend. Some of them
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: were pretty you know, cogent in terms of like within
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the realm of possibility. Um, we kind of reserved some
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of the more bizarro ones for this episode. I would
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: say Episode one was mainly concerned with farming and sustenance
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and food trends and and maybe you know again, a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: lot of these people that are making these predictions, they're
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: big brainiact types, and so they like to speak with authority.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: There's nothing less attractive than like hedging on a future prediction,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: because you have to say it with utter authority, or
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: else you might as well just not say it at all. Um.
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  Speaker 1: So I would say everything that was in episode one,
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  Speaker 1: even if it hasn't come to pass, like the underwater
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  Speaker 1: helped Fields you know, I could see that a world
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  Speaker 1: where maybe there's something like that are certainly there are
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: like tanks, you know that, uh, where you grow like
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  Speaker 1: hydroponically and things like that. So there's versions of a
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  Speaker 1: lot of those things. Today we're getting into like weird
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: wild stuff is Johnny Carson would say, and we're gonna
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  Speaker 1: start in the underwater realm um. And but but mainly
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: focusing on transportation. We're gonna stick stick with underwater for
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a while. Uh. First off, in the twenty one century,
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  Speaker 1: it was predicted by the French artists Jean Marc coute
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  Speaker 1: quote case cote ah Casey on the case French artist,
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  Speaker 1: I would argue surrealist artists. Based on what you're about
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: to hear, Jean Marc cote H and many of his
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  Speaker 1: contemporaries um in the art world produced over a hundred
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  Speaker 1: of these illustrations of what the year two thousand. In
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the year two thousand, apparently we will ride on giant
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  Speaker 1: sea horses. Yeah and uh yeah, I love the idea.
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  Speaker 1: I love arts, I love futurism. Giant sea horses would
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  Speaker 1: have to be genetically created. They don't exist at this time. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: By the way, that's superproducer Casey Pagram, who was our
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Casey on the case there. Uh, they didn't stop there.
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  Speaker 1: They had something that might even be a little little
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  Speaker 1: bit a little bit more plausible, which is the idea
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  Speaker 1: of a whale pulling an entire kind of underwater bus
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  Speaker 1: of people through the sea. And whales do exist. Whales
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  Speaker 1: are quite intelligent, so maybe we could convince some whales
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  Speaker 1: to help people. Uh. There there's another shot where there's
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  Speaker 1: like a fish race picture a horse race, but instead
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  Speaker 1: of horses, the jockeys are these scuba divers on these
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: enormous fish. Uh. There are enormous fish, we just don't
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  Speaker 1: know of any that are super down with being ridden
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  Speaker 1: like race animals. There's also a super weird one. It's
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: almost like reverse fishing, where there are these like underwater
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  Speaker 1: like helmet frogman type figures, uh, fishing for seagulls. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: They are underwater already and they have like presumably fish
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  Speaker 1: bait or some sort of seagull bait. I guess in
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  Speaker 1: this scenario on strings that they're bobbing up to the
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  Speaker 1: top of the water. Then when the seagulls dive in
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  Speaker 1: to get it, they like jerk the seagulls underwater. What
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  Speaker 1: would you want with a seagull? It's bad luck to
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  Speaker 1: kill a seabird. Everybody knows that, who's seen the lighthouse.
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  Speaker 1: But also they're notoriously gamy and stringy and gross to eat. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's more of like a flex or revenge thing, I think,
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  Speaker 1: because seagulls are some of the most cantankerous of birds
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  Speaker 1: up there with the shoe bill. Uh, they're some of
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  Speaker 1: the only birds I don't particularly care for. Well, you
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  Speaker 1: know my position, But Ben, you are a friend of
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  Speaker 1: of of birds in general, and you're right. I think
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  Speaker 1: I've mentioned that the seagull might actually be the origin
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  Speaker 1: of my fear of birds as a small child. I
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  Speaker 1: believe I was dive bond by them. But then you
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: get into some more like kind of some of these
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  Speaker 1: I think are like they're really styling. I do want
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  Speaker 1: to point out these all come from Uh what I
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: was gonna say is these all come from the public
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: domain review. I think this is an excellent resource. If
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: you're on Twitter or something like that, follow them. They
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: have the greatest stories all the time. But now you're
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: going to describe some of these arcs pieces here absolutely
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and you can find this specifically at public domain review
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: dot org. Slash collections slash all separated by dashes. A
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  Speaker 1: nineteenth century vision of the year two thousand and numbers
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: separated by dashes. When you start doing show notes for
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: the show, maybe we can um talk about that new year,
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: new year, new new way of doing things. But um,
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  Speaker 1: some of these I think are kind of styling where
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  Speaker 1: they're like, I don't know that these artists necessarily believe
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: that in the future would be riding on giant sea
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  Speaker 1: horses underwater. Um. I think it might have been just
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  Speaker 1: kind of like artistic license for like, oh, what would
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  Speaker 1: be the craziest thing that could happen in the year
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  Speaker 1: two thousands. Some of them are more functional, though. You've
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: got one where it's like a gentleman running an entire
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: farm remotely from like what looks sort of like a
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  Speaker 1: railway switching panel or like an old school elevator, where
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: he's got like a kind of like lever, and then
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  Speaker 1: like a series of buttons on this panel all connected
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  Speaker 1: to these like power line looking things that are connected
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  Speaker 1: to threshers that are are running on these lines that
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: are using them to like guide their path to like
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: cut the wheat there are like wheats kind of bales,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: or maybe it's honeycomb or something. But the idea is
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  Speaker 1: I think that these lines are remotely running all these threshers,
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  Speaker 1: and that one man can do all this work himself.
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  Speaker 1: Uh and he got then he got ben. I think
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  Speaker 1: something that's the most prevalent here is lots of depictions
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  Speaker 1: of flying machines. Yes, I do want to I do
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  Speaker 1: want to pause though before we go on there. There's
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  Speaker 1: one that really stood out to me. It's a classroom scene.
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  Speaker 1: You can see it here on the side. I know
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  Speaker 1: you can see it in tune Old, where there's someone
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  Speaker 1: who looks like an older schoolmaster who's feeding books into
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  Speaker 1: what looks to be a crank operated shredder, and then
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: these electric these electric wires lead to these headphones and
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  Speaker 1: spool caps and their students just sitting there with their
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  Speaker 1: hands folded on their desk. That technology, symbolically, I would argue,
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  Speaker 1: is already around in the form of audio books and
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  Speaker 1: dare we say it, podcast So I I feel like
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  Speaker 1: that one's accurate. But through the lens of arts, what
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  Speaker 1: happens to the books though bad? It will do you
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  Speaker 1: lose the books? It looks like the books would be
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: like shredded into pulp and then converted into some kind
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  Speaker 1: of electronic signal that can then shoot through these wires.
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  Speaker 1: It's a very interesting image with this one poor little
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  Speaker 1: boy cranking the crank while the schoolmaster just shoves the
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  Speaker 1: books into this uh kind of like feeder. He's a
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  Speaker 1: human turnspit dog exactly. So. Yes, so this art is
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  Speaker 1: well worth your time if you're a fan of this
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: kind of fanciful view of the future stuff. But you're
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: right now. People are fascinated with air travel at this time.
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  Speaker 1: We have to remember that the first flight of the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: Right Brothers took place December seventeenth, nineteen o three. And
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: during this time and leading up to this, people were
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  Speaker 1: obsessed with the idea that we would one day take
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  Speaker 1: to the air. I think it was nineteen thirteen the
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  Speaker 1: first commercial flight occurs from Florida to Tampa. It carries
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  Speaker 1: one person. It was like the level of uh. It
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  Speaker 1: was the level of flex that you would associate with
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: billionaires traveling to the outer reaches of gravity just for
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  Speaker 1: like a few seconds nowadays. That's exactly right, Ben, And
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  Speaker 1: the thing that's so remarkable about some of these so
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  Speaker 1: many of these images, all of these in this collection,
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  Speaker 1: is that they just have that kind of Jules Verne,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: you know, like like steampunk. I don't know if that's right,
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  Speaker 1: but it's kind of this retro futuristic quality to them,
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  Speaker 1: where there's a lot of like flying suits where there'll
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: be a man kind of in like a winged suit,
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  Speaker 1: you know, up there soaring right next to the to
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  Speaker 1: the zeppelin or or like you know biplane situation. But
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  Speaker 1: most of them are odd kind of styles on that.
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  Speaker 1: Like there's one that looks sort of like like a
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  Speaker 1: hot air balloon basket that has like a helicopter propeller
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  Speaker 1: on the top and sort of this like arrow looking
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: ballast thing on either side. Um, then you have people
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  Speaker 1: in wings suits flying up to an eagle's nest, presumably
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  Speaker 1: robbing them of their eggs or poaching them or something
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  Speaker 1: like that. It's a little weird, uh. And then you've
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  Speaker 1: got like ones that we've seen in movies like Sky
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  Speaker 1: Captain in the World of Tomorrow, this like image of
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  Speaker 1: the future with a lot of these machines that logistically
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  Speaker 1: don't really make any sense, Like there's one where the
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  Speaker 1: wings on the flying machine actually flap and and have
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: and has a tail. I don't think that would work.
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  Speaker 1: I don't think that's the way aerodynamics quite functions. But
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  Speaker 1: so you've got a lot of like dubious science and
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of style over function here um, and then
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  Speaker 1: you've got like a blimp situation. We know, the fascination
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  Speaker 1: of about blimps and Zeppelin's you know when it comes
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  Speaker 1: to thinking about the future, and a lot of these
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  Speaker 1: illustrations remind me of well, I think they possibly inspired
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  Speaker 1: one of my favorite books, The Kodaks Sarah Finanius, which
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  Speaker 1: is an illustrated encyclopedia of an imaginary world. I think, uh, casey, no,
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  Speaker 1: you guys might have seen it the last time you
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: were over at my house. Did I ever show you
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: guys that one? If not, I'll bring it in. It's
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: it's nuts, just check it out. The reason I mentioned
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  Speaker 1: it is because of the fanciful illustrations. But these illustrations, he's,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: oh gosh, I'm gonna do it. These flights of fancy
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: don't come from yeah, don't come for thin air, because
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: we know that, like you said, no, there was this
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: rich cultural soil from which they sprang in the zeitgeist
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: people were honestly predicting that we would by this time
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: in human history, that we would all have personal airplanes.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: And full disclosure, folks, some people do have personal airplanes. Uh,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: your faithful, ridiculous historians here, however, we do not. I
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: think le Bush may have maybe a small prop plane
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: somewhere in France. But Casey, that's that's more for uh,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: you're off the grid work stuff, right, that's true. I
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: was just going to jump in to say, I it
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: took me a second to uh to recall the book.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: But the Codex is really really worth investigating. It's a
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: really really cool book. The illustrations are amazing, and um,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: it's just one of those one of the kind bizarre
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: objects in the world. It's really really cool. It makes
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: no sense either, you know, it's a it's all. It's
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: from one. But I think he was inspired by a
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: lot of the art that we're discussing in the opening
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  Speaker 1: of today's episode. And it's funny, you know. The stuff
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: about personal airplanes, uh dates back to what No. Nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty Frederick Edwin Smith published this book called the World
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: in twenty thirty a d. And he said, everybody's going
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to own a small airplane. It's gonna be perfect for
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: weekend trips. You know, you can go to Greenland and
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: ski and then you can come back and yeah, so
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I will say this, I mean, you know, I think
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: the closest thing we have to like personal crafts like
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: that would be the helicopter, which is obviously you know,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: still within only within the realm of like you know,
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  Speaker 1: super super high level wealth. Um. Because we were talking
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: off air, it would be very difficult to to like
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: logistically deal with like the traffic of like everyone having
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: an airplane, and just like air traffic as as difficult
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: as already is for commercial flights, can you imagine like
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: having everyone like have an aircraft and then how would
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: you deal with that? You'd have to communicate with some
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: sort of air traffic control or like have really really
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: good radar. I don't know what do you guys think?
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: What would be What would life be like? I feel
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: like there would be just crashes, like just wreckage falling
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: out of the sky left and right on the daily.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: This is a longstanding uh. I won't call it an argument,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: We'll call it a healthy conversation I had with my
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: my my old rider Die Scott Benjamin on our show
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: car stuff. Flying cars are one of those things that
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: are always eternally just on the horizon. The only way
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: they could happen safely is if they are autonomous vehicles
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: controlled by a grid. That's the only way it can happen. Otherwise,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: flying cars are still one of those things where it's
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: a matter of um, how's the best way to say it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: It's amazing if I have a flying car, says one person,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: and no one else does. But it's a blood bath
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: if everybody has a flying car. It just we don't
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: have the skills as human operators to live in a
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: world of personal flight machines in a safe way unless
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: we have a huge jump in technology, or unless they're autonomous.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: Im and I say that as someone who does think
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the idea is really cool. But even if you gave
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: everybody on the planet their own personal bicycle, who still
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: see tons of accidents, we're just not ready for individual
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: flying cars unless they're robot controlled. That's right. You made
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: the really good point off air, Ben. We were talking
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: about autonomous cars and how that's sort of becoming less
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: of a priority. I think when we say uber is out. Yeah,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: and you made the really great point that autonomous vehicles
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: only works if it's a hundred percent opt in. Like
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: when you have any level of human error involved in
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the equation, it screws up the whole algorithm and makes
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the whole thing dangerous. So it's kind of an all
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: or nothing situation, right, Yeah, that's true. Like, imagine a
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: line of dominoes or whatever pattern dominoes you want to imagine,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: and each of those dominoes is an autonomous vehicle except
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: for one, and the one domino is uh not controlled
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: by the falling of the other dominoes. So when it
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: is supposed to move with the system, it just doesn't.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: The system automatically breaks because of that one domino. That's
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: a very lazy way to put it. But we're working
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: live here, knowl or work and live. Also unrelated to anything.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Did you see that meme? I didn't realize this, but
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: the original map max takes place this year. Oh no,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: where we're getting there, we're not too too off. Um yeah,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: it was really interesting stuff. And um, you know, I
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: think one thing that we have seen over time, we
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: know this to be true. We always talk about how
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: life expectancy back in the you know, olden days of
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: life on the prairies or you know, in the medieval times,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: life expectancy was not good. And that was because you know,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: there were plagues and there was really bad ideas when
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: it came to medicine and treating illnesses and things that
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: would actually make you get sicker and very uh, you know,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: poor conditions when it came to childbirth, thing and your
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: chances of living through bearing children were super low. Um. So,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: as we've seen technology progress and you know, humanity move forward,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: people's life expectancies that have seemed to jump. Um. But
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: one thing that was predicted because of technology and the
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: very thing in the twenty first century was that we
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: would live to be old, like really old, like really
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: really old. People have been thinking about this for centuries.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Franklin, the One and Only Benny f had even
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: written about this as far back as the late seventeen
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: hundreds and sev who wrote a letter to Reverend John
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Lathrop where he said, you know, within a few years,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: we're gonna live as long as those people from the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Old Testament from the Book of Genesis. We're gonna be
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: like Noah will be nine fifty years old. Who is
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that super old one Methuselah. That's the one. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: nine hundred and sixty nine years old. I think Methuselah
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: made it. And we can go into where that comes from,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: maybe on stuff they don't want you to know. Check
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: out that show. But the weird thing is just like
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: the pattern we established in part one of our Predictions episode.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: The weird thing here is that it's an extreme claim,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: an extreme addiction, but it appears to have some degree
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: of accuracy. People are living longer, people are healthier for
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: longer in many parts of the world, And if you
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: look at the science on the horizon, the medical research
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: on the horizon, then we may be able to extend
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: people's lives. Currently, we can't extend someone's organic life to
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: almost a thousand years, but we may be able to
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: an independs. We're waxing philosophical. We can get to this part,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: but we may be able to extend someone's life uh
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: indefinitely by making a copy of their mind on a
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: on a digital platform like right, like turning their mind
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: into code, and then keeping that mind on a hard
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: drive somewhere or in a cloud. That's that will probably
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: happen before we can get to years old and still
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: be hail and hardy. But you know, I've always I've
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: always been interested in this. This is a question for
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: you guys. Given the option, would you want to live
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: for nine hundred plus years? Let's say, let's not make
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: it a monkey spawl situation. Would you want to live
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: for nine hundred plus years if you knew you would
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: be relatively healthy until say, like the last five years.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: It's a hard one, man, because you know, you might
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: say it when you're young with then realize that you
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: just get bored and you just don't know. Maybe it's
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: like the mind is a monkey's pat situation, or it's, uh,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: you know, a devil's bargain. You think of like the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: like interview with the Vampire and all these characters that
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: kind of live to see all their friends die, and like,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe if I knew that everyone that
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I loved was also going to live that long, then
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I'd be cool with it. But I wouldn't want to
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: like outlive everybody in my life and then be sad
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and alone living in some sort of like virtual reality
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: brain cloud machine. Yeah, what if you could do it physically?
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'll tell you, I would immediately go to space,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: and I would be like, all right, I got nine
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty years, but just spend the first two
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: fifty traveling out somewhere. I'm just gonna turn around and
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: come back. It sort of makes me think of the
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: concept behind this really cool Philip K. Dick book called
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: yubick UK. Maybe it's the idea where people are able
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: to actually die uh and through this corporation um, their
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: bodies are kept in cryo state uh and their minds
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: are like put into this cloud type scenario, so they're
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: able to kind of like their souls are able to
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: live on even if their bodies of actually or their
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: brains have died. I'm not remembering it very precisely, but
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: it is. Again a lot of these ideas, it makes
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: sense that they're coming from these science fiction writers or
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: people like that, because so much of science fiction is
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: just like thought experiments about like what if, like we
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: progressed as a society, just this one little thing a
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: little further than is when they aren't grasp right now,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: how would that change our inner actions with each other
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: and with society in general. And I think that's why
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: people still love science fiction. To this day. Yeah, yeah,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and also allowing that vein. If you enjoy the Philip K.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Dick story that we'll just recommended, I think you'll also
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: enjoy Fall or Dodge in Hell by Neil Stevenson, which
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: has a very similar kind of thing. The only catches
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: and this isn't a spoiler, but the only catches. The
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: virtual world in Fall or Dodge in Hell is uh,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: for some reason, a medieval fantasy world. So if you
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: like Neil Stevenson, he's weird. If you like Neil Stevenson,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: you haven't read him yet. Check that up. I read
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: one of his an audiobook form that I can't remember
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: the name it's about. It was about like a lot
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: of things. Um. It was about like a a like
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: gold farming in dungeons and dragons in like, um, what's
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: that game that online game World of Warcraft where you
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: can literally like gold, like farm for gold and then
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: sell it for real money m D. Yeah, it's about
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: like a like some sort of worm, um what do
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: you call it, Like an invasive piece of malware? Um,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: And like a heist, like an online highest of all this,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: like you know, farmed gold and espionage. And he's just
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: he's really all over the place and really really interesting.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: And I believe he wrote snow Crash as well, if
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken. Yeah, he wrote snow Crash. He wrote Anathema,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: which is a book I I dearly love. But yes,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Neil Stevenson is another iteration or his work is another
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: iteration of this larger pattern that you just outlined all
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: of science fiction through thought experimentation exploring the possibilities of
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the future world. And now that we're talking sci fi,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: we can go to another very sensitive topic. Uh spoiler alert.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: You don't have to be a fan of history to
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: realize this. People, since people existed, have always has been
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: talking about the weather. We used to have entire like
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: religious things built along the passage of the seasons and
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the weather, and we still do a degree do. One
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: of the things that people predicted back in the early
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds is that one day, perhaps in the coming century,
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: we would be able to control the weather, specifically to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: make rain. On January six, Iowa's Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: came came out with this article that said, yes, we
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: were one day going to be able to control rain
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: in the twenty one century. They said we will be
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the um masters of moisture. I just made that up.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: They would have much better, a much better phrase. But
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: that turned out to actually be sort of true, which
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: is amazing. Well, I mean we've talked about this before
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and whether we can call it actually whether control or
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: not is maybe debatable. But the idea of cloud seating,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: like you can pump stuff up into clouds using what
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: is it? Like, Oh, I am so some kind of
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: like chemical that you can use um and you can
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: make it rain. But that doesn't mean that you can
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: make it not rain, you know what I mean, Like,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: you can't really control it if you can only work
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: it one way. But but you also, do you really
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: see that used during drought? I mean, we still obviously
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: have terrible droughts. We haven't cracked the code on how
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: to like not have droughts, so obviously this cloud seeding
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: thing will only get you so far, right. Yeah, See,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: that's the problem. The concept of cloud seeding has been
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: around for a for a while now. It wasn't around
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: nineteen ten, but it came It's been around for decades
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: at this point, as silver iodide particles are injected into clouds. Yeah,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and the problem is it's a drink your milkshake situation
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: to a degree, because that cloud seeding does not create water.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: It gathers water to these clouds, and then that water
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: becomes rain. So you're taking that water from somewhere. The
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: government of China just a few weeks ago in December,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: they announced that they're going to expand their weather modification
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: program to get this cover two point one million square miles.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: That's more than one and a half times the size
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: of India. So where's that water coming from. They're they're
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: using it to combat drought. But but I love your point.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: I think you make a fantastic point. We know how
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: to start the process, but it's it's maybe a little
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: optimistic to say we know how to control it. Right,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: that's right, Ben. Didn't China use cloud seating as like
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a kind of special effect during the Olympics to like
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: do some kind of crazy display during the opening ceremonies. Yeah, yeah,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: I think you're correct. I think you're correct. No, Um,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I didn't personally see it, but it's definitely a flex
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: that is within their uh weather wheelhouse wheelhouse of weather,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: oh will House of weather w o W like World
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: of Warcraft. Wow, indeed. Yeah, the headline from Business Insider
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: from sixteen is China spent millions on a shady project
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: to control the weather ahead of the Beijing Olympics, and
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: and that millions is thirty million dollars and their version
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: of it involved shooting quote salt and mineral filled bullets
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: into the sky in order to make it rain, uh,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: for the you know, for entertainment purposes. So yeah, we're like, like,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: we're sort of there. I don't know that this is
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: something that like, surely some there's some research going into it,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: but it's not something we hear about a lot, and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: it certainly doesn't seem to have solved drought or wildfires
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: or like any of the like things that the weather
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: does that totally screw us over as human beings. So
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I would say this is a no that we have
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: not figured out how to control the weather wheeled it
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: to our our own purposes. Yet Yeah, I am unfortunately
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: tempted to agree, man, because we also see other predictions
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: about whether that are incredibly optimistic, because the weather has
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: kind of gone down hill over the past a few centuries.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: There are people who predicted that hurricanes would one day
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: be a thing of the past nine popular mechanics. A
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: fellow named Waldemore camp Ferret said that hurricanes are going
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: to be a non issue by the year two thousand
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: and his he said there would be a non issue,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: not because we would prevent them from forming, but because
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: once we saw one over the ocean, we would start
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: a large oil fire across the water, drawing air from
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the region and and and somehow ending the hurricane. He
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: also thought we'd be able to divert storms, etcetera. He
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: was incredibly wrong on multiple accounts, but you know he
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: was doing his best. I guess. By the way, Tesla
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: also was incorrect with his uh, his predictions about weather.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: I think he said we would end a forestation and
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: prevent forest fires smoking the bear would be disappointed. Um,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: but it still is up to you to prevent forest
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: fires because we haven't figured it out like as a collective,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: so each individual has to do their part. Um. But yeah,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: So like another funny weather related one. And this is
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: sort of like in the the stuff kind of category, right,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: like what will what will our stuff be like in
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: the future. Well, according to Valdemar camp Fare, in the future,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: everything in our homes will be waterproof. Another one of
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: these like underwater dwelling kind of future scenarios. Um. He
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: believed that everything in the future, including the drapes, uh,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: you know, rugs, upholstery on couches, anything, anything you can
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: put your hands on, would be made of waterproof plastic.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Remember when plastic was like the wave of the future.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: You know that this seems to be from that kind
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: of mentality that everything should be made of plastic. Is
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: it's the wonder material. If only they knew about nanoplastics
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: and you know, gives this all cancer um topic for
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: another day. And that our homes would have like built
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: in drainage systems, like in the floor so after you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: we would literally be able to hose down everything in
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: our house to clean it off, and then the water
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: would just you know, bloop bloop down the drain and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: then they like car wash style, there'd be a blast
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: of heated air that would try everything off. This is uh,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: this one is absurd. I have to say maybe maybe
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the most we've got. You know, we have a thing
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: like this in bathrooms in restrooms in different parts of
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: the world. Like you'll go to a hotel or a
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: hostel maybe and you'll see that the the entire restroom
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: is the shower area. Have you ever seen those? They've
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: got like the the Fawcett hooks to uley into the
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: sink and there's a drain just in the middle of
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: the floor. The commode is still there. It's just when
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: you want to shower, you just hit a switch on
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: the sink and then you take the shower head off
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: the rack. Yeah. Also great, uh for like a murder room,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: you know, if you need if you need such, because
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: then everything just drains down the drain and you can
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: rinse it all off and you got a fresh start.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: But yeah, this is this is true, Bend that we
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: do have something like this, but they're all kind of
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: more in the realm of bathrooms. Or possibly you might
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: have a drain in a garage situation for car wash maybe,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: or you know, something like that, like a foot rinsing
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: station if you live by the beach. Yeah. I like
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: that you mentioned I like that you mentioned kill rooms.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Though that's gonna sound weird out of context. We're going
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: somewhere with it because I immediately thought of of the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: show Dexter. You remember Dexter, of course, of course, so
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Dexter had this this pretty consistent depiction of a kill
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: room on television. And people will argue all sorts of
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: things about television and the things depicted upon it, But
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: there were a lot of predictions about the future of
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: television in the twenty one century. Imagine so like, according
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: to some of these futurists, by this point in history,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: we should be able to watch a show like Dexter,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: or let's take another example, watch a show like Hannibal
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: and smell uh the food cooking or feel the texture
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: of of different different things depicted on the show. Nicholas Negroponte,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: who was a former director of m I T S
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Media Lab, said that we'll have full color, large scale
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: holographic television with force feedback and old factory output by
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: the twenty one century, meaning that you could see stuff
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: on television and you would feel it and you would
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: smell it. Uh. Here's the thing, man, I don't know
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: if I want that. Hmm No. And honestly, I think
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: attempts to do stuff like this it which is still around.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I I think I think three d uh cinema is
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: a gimmick and it hurts my eyeballs and it makes
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: me kind of want to Recoil and horror. I don't
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: really care for it. And I went and saw a
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: movie with my daughter and her friends. It was an anime.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: And there's this like, I don't know, they call it
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: four D theater at the fancy movie theater pre pre
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: COVID times, where the seats actually move around. They kind
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: of jerk you around, and they're a little spritzer's on
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: the side of the seats that like shoot puffs of
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: air at you, and there's like air stuff happening, and
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: even moisture and uh, possibly smells. I don't recall. There
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: were no smells in this one. But um. Also at
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: the the Lego Land at one of our malls here,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: they have a four D cinema that does involve smells. Um,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: and it's just so gimmicky and I just don't see.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: It doesn't really integrate into like the experience of it,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Like I get what it is, but it doesn't really
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: add anything to it other than like, oh, this is cute,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I don't know. I
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: know that there have been some companies doing research into
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: how to create a smell machine, but I, yeah, I'm
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: with you, man, I don't I don't know if I
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: really want to I want to smell what I'm watching,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: or if I necessarily want that tactile feedback all the time.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: And I agree with you. I think a lot of
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: us in the audience today can remember how television manufacturers
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: had this ill fated push to create three D at
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: home television's and it was a top down push and
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of people didn't like it. So it's not
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: just a question whether the technology exists, it's also a
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: question of whether there's a demand for it. So let
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: us know if you're a fan of smell a vision
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: and why. There's another question here. I think it's it's
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: one that we'd be remiss if we didn't mention. It's
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the world of medicine. We know that predictions of future
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: miraculous cures are a tail as old as time. Back
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: in there was a Swiss doctor named Francois Odi who
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: said that by this time, in this century, by the
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: twenty one century, all the victories that were the pride
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: of brilliant surgeons will be forgotten, replaced by the discovery
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: of quote, a substance which, in the form of a capsule,
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: will capture the sources of energy that will bring recovery
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: within hours. So it's just like one miracle pill for everything.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: What a world that would be amazing, right if Yeah,
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: I mean it would be amazing you sure, But is
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: that not that's like not how medicine works, right, There's
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: no one pill to cure them all, like Lord of
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the Ring style. I mean, there's like nuances and each
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: individual patient's individual malady. This is very like utopian, future
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: sci fi type stuff way outside of the realm, just
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: like a pill that is like your meal of sustenance.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: This I don't know that there's any scenario where this
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: would make any kind of sense unless it was like
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: may of like nano beings or something that could then
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: just like zoom around inside your body and find the
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: particular part that it was ailing you and then fix
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: you up. Yeah. Yeah. The quest for a panacea is
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: a long quest, and it's one that hasn't hasn't reached
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: an endpoint yet. I think you're right, you know, if
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: there's something that would be analogous to a pill of
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: this sort, it would have to be some kind of
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: nanotechnology that would be able to diagnose and immediately treat
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: your your body and everything that ails it and then
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: at that point you would just need to take it
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: as soon as possible, take it before your six so
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: it could apply preventative treatment. So far has Odie's prediction
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: has not come to pass, but we still have several
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: years left in the twenty one century. To say the least.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: One of my favorites, this is so weird. One of
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: my favorite concepts. I had not heard of this before
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: is the concept of the grouch pill. Yeah. I mean,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: let's let's be real. I mean, we'd certainly have something
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: approaching this, uh in terms of antidepressants, but they wouldn't
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: have thought of it quite as high mindedly back in
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six. Uh. They were. This was back when
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: KELP was really big again, the kind of the health
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: food driven economy um, and they were thinking about how
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: can we improve relations between married couples when one of
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: them is in a particularly nasty mood. Um, and the
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Rand Corporation, you'll recall, who are the ones that sort
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: of set forth this whole idea of the underwater fields
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: of KELP and as far as the eye can see,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: tended by frog mem um. They described a world where
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: you could pop down to the corner drug store, buy
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: some anti grouch pills and slip them into their coffee.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: That's basically, ah, you know, a UM encouraging you to
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: drug your partner, essentially, But we can leave that aside
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: for now. But of course this is another kind of
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: like very simplified version of what antidepressants are. They take,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: they work differently on different people, they take quite a
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: long time to actually kick in. It's not something you
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: can just dose somebody with and then magically they're happy.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, sure there are drugs like that, but those
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: are called like hard drugs like heroin or cocaine that
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: may make you happy instantly, but then long term effects
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: of those are addiction and extra grouchiness or worse. Yeah. Absolutely,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: so again we see there's some real world things that
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: could be called grouch pills. But the problem is, as
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: you said, no, uh, I think the problem is in
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: the specifics of that prediction. I don't think you should
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: unknowingly drug your partner. Is that is that a hot take?
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: I hope not. I feel like if you have a
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: romantic relationship with someone should be founded on trust rather
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: than surreptitiously drugging them, And in that way, I would
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: I would deem this a less than optimistic prediction about
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: the twenty one century. Now, so far, folks, so far,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: dear ridiculous historians. We have been pretty uh, pretty honest,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: but pretty optimistic as well with our predictions. We've been
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: talking about people saying nice things. People weren't always saying
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: nice things. In fact, there were a few less than optimistic,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: somewhat strange predictions about the twenty first century. Uh No,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: you know, the weirdest one to me is the future
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: humans one. This is where things get pretty interesting. This
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: is like sort of in the realm of like body
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: modification or like, you know what we evolve to be
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: a certain way. I mean, yeah, there's this idea that
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: seems really strange in dystopian that in the future humans
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: will only need one eye. We'll all be cyclops ees.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: This was put forth by Dr Thomas Hall Shostad in
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: article uh called the Face of the Future, and he
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: says the future I will be in the center of
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: the face, below a very high forehead where the bridge
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: of the nose once rested. We won't need in the
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: where we're going, we won't need noses. That was back
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: to the future reference. The doctor said that the human
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: eye originally had evolved to see into the distance. But
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: we don't need that anymore because we're not like hunters,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: you know. We we we get our food served to
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: us in pill form. All we need to be able
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: to do is read and write and uh repair watches.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: He says, also cut gems. These are all very you know,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: modern things. Uh, and look at pictures and so forth. Um.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: And he says the cyclopean I would evolve to accommodate
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: all these close strange tasks and and pastimes. Wow, jeez,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: that is that's a lot. That's a lot. That guy's
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: a doctor, too, has a very low opinion of us.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know how serious that prediction is, but it
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: seems like he's being he's being sincere, you know. Um.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: And then, of course there's a lot of cantankerous stuff
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: about the way new technologies will affect future humans. One
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Time article from ninety one said that people are becoming
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: less literate due to the rise of television and said
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: that eventually people in the age of television would not
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: be able to read. Uh. Specifically, this writer said, by
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: the twenty first century, our people doubtless will be squint
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: eyed hunch backed and fond of the dark. But why
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: am I carrying on like this? Chances are that the
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: grandchildren of the television age won't know how to read this.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: Tut tut, What a weird what a weird diss So
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: hopefully that's a little bit of satire. We know that
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: people are encountering literature in different ways, but it's not
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: like literature no longer exist. I know a lot of
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: people who read books. I would say, I would say
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: maybe this writer from the nineteen fifties should consider directing
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: their fire at the rise of the calculator. How many
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: people can easily do somethings. When's the last time you
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: had to do some long division, for instance, without tech assistance?
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: A million percent? And we've talked about this so often
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: where it's like do our brains how do they change
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: based on the information that we no longer need them
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: for like, uh, you know, remembering phone numbers or whatever,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Like do they fill that space up with other stuff
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: or do we just kind of lose it? Is like
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I use it or lose this situation. I know that
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: you know, the mind and is very elastic and has
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: a has a way of adapting to things. Like that.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: But it is an interesting thought, especially when you think
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: about the extreme kind of evolution that he's describing here,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: which would presumably take like millions of years right to
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: evolve into having a single eye. That's that's not the
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: kind of thing that would happen like in anyone's lifetime. True, true.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: And I think the evolution of humanity is now a
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: conversation with technology. But I don't I don't think television
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: is going to render people a literate Uh, maybe it
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: just changes the way we encounter literature. So let's bring
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: it all the way back around to the very beginning
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: of part one of our Predictions episode. Nicola Tesla. He
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: had some really really nice, optimistic predictions to um and
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I don't want to say they're wrong, because I also
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: strive to be optimistic, But I will say we have
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: what we have, like eighty eighty years to work on
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: these alright, Well, what what what are some of your favorites? Man? Well,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, there's a lot. There's so
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: much that we've covered, so many weird ones, like pretty
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: close to accurate ones, ones that were seeing little shades
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: of in our day to day lives. A couple I
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: want to end on on Mr Tesla because he did
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: make a couple of fun ones that actually have come
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: to pass in very, very real and meaningful ways, one
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: being the whole notion the concept of a smartphone, or
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: let's just call it a cell phone. Um. He said
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: in a nineteen o nine interview with The New York
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Times that was published in Popular Mechanics. Quote, h it
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: will soon be possible, for instance, for a businessman in
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: New York to dictate instructions and have them appear in type.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: In London or elsewhere. He will be able to call
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: from his desk and talk with any telephone subscriber, even
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: uses the word subscriber in the world. It will only
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: be necessary to carry an expensive instrument no bigger than
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: a watch, which will enable its bearer to hear anywhere
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: on sea or land for distances of thousands of miles,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: one may listen to or transmit speech or song to
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: the uttermost parts of the world. Wow. Amazing, Yeah he was.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: He was spot on with this one, which gives us
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: a little hope that maybe he'll be He'll one day
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: be right with his prediction that news headlines won't focus
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: on crime and politics in nine and Liberty magazine. He said,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: today the most civilized countries of the world spend a
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: maximum of their income on war and a minimum on education.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: The twenty one century will reverse this order. It will
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: on the field of battle. How amazing would that be? Nick,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: If you're listening, I hope you're right. I guess he's
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: not familiar with the expression. If it bleeds, it leads.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: I still seem to operate rarely under that principle. UM,
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: So I would say that's a big no, but would
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: love to see that happen. It's going to require a
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: whole lot of consensus and a lot of just changing
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: of attitudes, you know, um, and who knows? I mean,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: was a rough year, um moving into one. It's it's
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: it would be foolish to think that all of a
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: sudden things are going to change for the better overnight.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: But it does feel like the discourses maybe moving towards
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: something more representing a consensus or a little bit more
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: do they what is the word? Uh? Lowering the temperature
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: of of of discourse and of rhetoric and all of that.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: So we'll see UM again like you said, Ben, I
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: too like to be optimistic. Uh. One thing that Tesla
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: absolutely got right more than a dred years ago. That
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: isn't a particularly I don't know, it's it's not net unpositive.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: They're certainly positive uses for these things. But the idea
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: of unmanned aerial vehicles are what we love to talk about,
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: you know, on stuff that I want you to know,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: UM drones, idea of drone warfare um and Nicola. Tesla
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: actually had a pretty optimistic view of what these devices
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: would accomplish. He uh said, he actually has a patent
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: for something resembling a drone. Uh. It was it's a
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: like a sub whatever, like a ship, like a drone ship.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: But he believed that radio waves would be able to
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: use be used as communication technology that would transmit messages
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: between like a master and and and a host in
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: this drone UM and be able to use them to
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: carry out warfare operations. But he referred to them as
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: drone peacekeeping. Yeah. Yeah, and he was right. He called
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: it century ago. He predicted the path we would take. Uh.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: And as you said, Noel, it is a is a
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: path fraught with complications. It could be seen as a
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: net positive. It certainly was seen. Is that positive by Tesla?
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: But so he was right about cell phones, he was
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: right about drones. We're hoping he's right about the emphasis
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: on science over war. And we're also hoping he's right
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: on one of his most optimistic predictions, the idea that
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: a Department of hygiene would eliminate pollution and world hunger.
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: He said, by the year five, there would be enough
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: wheat and wheat products because remember from our earlier episode,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: the guy loved honey milk and wheat, health food nut,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: health food nut. He said, there will be enough of
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: this stuff to feed the entire world, including parts of
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: the world that have been chronically on the verge of
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: starvation or experienced food insecurity. And he said, long before
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: the next century dawns, systematic reforest station and the scientific
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: management of natural resources will have made an end of
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: all devastating droughts, forest fires, and floods. Oh and he
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: also predicted, uh that we would be done with the
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: necessity burning fuel and it would be doing such thing
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: as unsafe drinking water. Tesla, we're trying our best, man,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: We're let's just say we're running a little late with
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, we sure are. I want to circle
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: back to drones just really quickly, because again I sort
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: of briefly mentioned that he thought of these as a
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: method of keeping the peace, and the reason is he
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: felt that his patent for a drone, these unmanned vehicles
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: would quote this is from a tweet from Matt Schreyer,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: um would bring about world peace through mutually assured destruction
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: in the same way that like the H bomb did.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: But unfortunately, there's a really good quote from John Oliver
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: from last week tonight where he says, uh that drones
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: didn't have that same effect because so much of what
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: drones do happen in secret, and you don't have that
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: same spectacle and that same theater and that same shock
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and awe as you do with a singular event like
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: dropping an H bomb and seeing an associated mushroom cloud
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: that everyone can like oh and ah over and experience
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: the fear of God. Right, yeah, right, that's the problem.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: Technology always outpaces legislation, and we are now in a
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: world where, um, it's difficult to make solid predictions about
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: so much of the future. One thing we can predict, though, hopefully,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: is that you have enjoyed this two part episode and
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: we predict I think we can safely predict that we
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: are gonna be making more of these episodes in the future,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: so long as our super producer, Casey Pegram sticks with us,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: as long as we don't get on your nerves too much,
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: right Casey, I'm here for the long haul, guys. Thanks man,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: We appreciate it, and we're here for you for the
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: long haul and for you ridiculous historians. So and you
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: could be there for us or for each other, and
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: in whatever form you see fit, as long as it
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: involves you know, the Internet. You can find us on Facebook,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: on Instagram, on Twitter, where we're Ridiculous History. If you
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: would like, you can join our Facebook group Ridiculous Historians,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: where you can participate in conversations and engage with your
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: fellow ridiculous historians. And you can also find us as individuals.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: You can talk to me directly. I'm on Instagram at
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: Ben Bullin. You can also find me on Twitter at
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: Ben Bullin hs W HUE. Thanks to super producer Casey Pegram,
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: as always Alex Williams, who composed this theme. Christopher hasciotis
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: here in spirit our wonderful research associate Gabe Lousier. Thanks
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: to you, Gabe, Thanks also to our own mad Scientists
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. Thanks to Eve's Jeff co our pure podcaster,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: uh friend of the show. Do check out her fantastic
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: podcast This Day in History Class. Yes please do. Um.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: And you know, I hope your new year is treating
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: you well. Let us know what the cut off for
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: calling it a new year is. I would love to know.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: Why don't we just call it the new year until
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: like September? You know what. I'm cool with that. Wait
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: weigh in though. We'll see you next time Fox. For
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
• 50:16
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• 50:19
  Speaker 1: favorite shows.