Latest / Ridiculous History / Weird 21st Century Predictions from Ages Past, Part 1: Tesla, Square Tomatoes and Pseudosteak

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Weird 21st Century Predictions from Ages Past, Part 1: Tesla, Square Tomatoes and Pseudosteak · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank you so
0:31
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. We are on the precipice of one,
0:37
Speaker 1: and as this is our first time recording in the
0:41
Speaker 1: new year, how long do you think we can call
0:44
Speaker 1: it the new year? Noal to like just January or
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Speaker 1: I think all year? I think until until there's another
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Speaker 1: new year, right, I don't know, Ben, This is at
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Speaker 1: least this is a very heavy question, and we're gonna
0:56
Speaker 1: be asking a lot of heavy questions today. We're gonna
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Speaker 1: be doing a lot of waxing philosophical I totally stole
1:03
Speaker 1: that from an article that we're using here, but it's
1:05
Speaker 1: a phrase that I really love about the future, because
1:09
Speaker 1: you know, one, if ever there was a more futuristic
1:11
Speaker 1: sounding year than it was one my friend, and twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty was a garbage year. So let's forget about that
1:18
Speaker 1: and let's move on to the real future, which starts
1:20
Speaker 1: right now. And in today's first part of a two
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Speaker 1: part episode, Hey Hey we are, we are partnering with
1:29
Speaker 1: our Ride or Die superproducer Casey Pegram to share some predictions.
1:36
Speaker 1: Now you know, No, I was thinking about this. Our
1:39
Speaker 1: pal slash nemesis, Jonathan STRICKLANDK the Quister, has historically done
1:44
Speaker 1: a lot of prediction episodes on his show Tech Stuff.
1:47
Speaker 1: That's right. It always seemed like such a gamble to me.
1:50
Speaker 1: I don't like the idea of making predictions unless you
1:53
Speaker 1: have to. But we being a show that is both
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Speaker 1: ridiculous and about history foul, so just bonkers amazing predictions
2:03
Speaker 1: about the twenty one century, not from people alive today,
2:08
Speaker 1: but from the great minds of years before. Yeah, preemptively,
2:13
Speaker 1: from the great beyond, uh in our preemptive two partner.
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Speaker 1: And not only are they dead, they were, in fact
2:19
Speaker 1: some great minds, some real kind of like neo futurists,
2:24
Speaker 1: you know before that was really as much of a
2:26
Speaker 1: thing as we think of today. Um, we're talking about
2:28
Speaker 1: writers of science fiction, we're talking about inventors, We're talking
2:31
Speaker 1: about just a lot of great forward thinking intellects of
2:37
Speaker 1: our time. Yes, so we know that predictions are big business, right.
2:42
Speaker 1: You find predictions in the stock market, you find them
2:46
Speaker 1: in the world of tech, you find them in the
2:48
Speaker 1: world of politics, economics, and ecology. Some predictions have already
2:54
Speaker 1: come to pass, you know, the idea that the world's
2:59
Speaker 1: human population would rise over time. That seems to be true.
3:03
Speaker 1: The fact that technology would disrupt numerous industries and parts
3:07
Speaker 1: of people's daily lives, that's true. But those are very
3:11
Speaker 1: broad things. What we're bringing you here today are some
3:15
Speaker 1: uh specifics. And with this, who better to start our
3:20
Speaker 1: story than the one, the only. Yeah, Noah, you love him,
3:24
Speaker 1: Nicola Tesla. It turns out, in addition to inventing, he
3:28
Speaker 1: made a lot of predictions. Yeah, Tesla indeed, and he not.
3:31
Speaker 1: He wasn't a science fiction writer. He was basically a
3:34
Speaker 1: creator of real life science fiction. Well, I guess science fact.
3:38
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to the Griffith Park Observatory in
3:40
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, Ben, Yes, yes I have. You may recall
3:44
Speaker 1: then that there is a Tesla coil there that always
3:47
Speaker 1: strikes me as something right out of science fiction, probably
3:49
Speaker 1: because it's used so frequently in like, you know, mad
3:52
Speaker 1: scientists laboratory scenes, and in fact, the one that is
3:56
Speaker 1: in the Griffith Park Observatory was featured in the kind
4:00
Speaker 1: of classic universal School of monster movies. Um, so that's
4:03
Speaker 1: a fun thing to go see, but yeah, it's He
4:06
Speaker 1: was very much someone that was very functional and practical
4:10
Speaker 1: in the way he was able to kind of take
4:12
Speaker 1: these ideas that he had and convert them into real
4:14
Speaker 1: life inventions. But he also made a lot of very,
4:18
Speaker 1: let's just say, kind of bold predictions about the future,
4:23
Speaker 1: some of which were a little more on point than others.
4:27
Speaker 1: He has thought of even still today as one of
4:30
Speaker 1: the great thinkers of the modern age. But some of
4:33
Speaker 1: his predictions were super weird and niche. For example, he
4:37
Speaker 1: truly believed with his heart of hearts, uh that in
4:41
Speaker 1: the twenty one century, which is the thing they would
4:43
Speaker 1: have referred to at the time, the twenty first century, um,
4:46
Speaker 1: this mystical future time where everything will you know, be
4:49
Speaker 1: vastly different. Um, people wouldn't drink coffee anymore. He thought
4:54
Speaker 1: coffee was like gonna be super ghost because he looked
4:58
Speaker 1: at it as a means of poisoning oneself. Um. Any
5:03
Speaker 1: kind of stimulants like nicotine or caffeine. Um. He seemed
5:09
Speaker 1: like he had a personal grudge against, But he was
5:11
Speaker 1: trying to kind of read the tea leaves of like
5:13
Speaker 1: what popular society or civilized decide rather would would accept,
5:17
Speaker 1: And he believed in the future these things would be
5:19
Speaker 1: considered super passe. Uh, and then no one would drink
5:22
Speaker 1: them anymore or you know, um ingest nicotine. It's true. Yeah,
5:28
Speaker 1: and uh just cheers to everybody listening along like me
5:32
Speaker 1: and maybe like you Nolan enjoyed a nice cup of
5:35
Speaker 1: coffee here. It turns out, Uh, as as much as
5:39
Speaker 1: I love you, Mr Tesla, you were dead wrong about this.
5:42
Speaker 1: Would we are still swigging jugs and java as though
5:46
Speaker 1: our lives depend on it. He was partially right about nicotine.
5:49
Speaker 1: Smoking rates have continued time over time to decline, but
5:54
Speaker 1: he was He was also super super super confident about
5:58
Speaker 1: these predictions. All of the ones we're telling you. There
6:01
Speaker 1: were none that he said, I don't know. I give
6:03
Speaker 1: it like a thirty seventy chance. Uh. He did. He
6:07
Speaker 1: did make one correct call about beverages in general. He
6:11
Speaker 1: said booze would still be around. He didn't think it
6:14
Speaker 1: was the same thing as like coffee. He in fact
6:17
Speaker 1: loved it, he called it and a lick sir of life. Yeah,
6:20
Speaker 1: spoken like a true lush. Um. Yeah, it's true. It's
6:24
Speaker 1: funny toupn you talk about You're right obviously, you know, uh,
6:28
Speaker 1: smoking actual combustible cigarettes is super on the decline. But um,
6:34
Speaker 1: there's all kinds of other, you know, delivery mechanisms for
6:37
Speaker 1: people's precious nicotine, whether it's gum or whether it's you know,
6:40
Speaker 1: the weirdly neo futuristic vape mechanisms, which still kind of
6:45
Speaker 1: weirds me out in a lot of ways. To me,
6:47
Speaker 1: that's one of the most futuri looking things that that
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Speaker 1: is around today is vaping. Maybe that's just I don't
6:52
Speaker 1: know why I think that. I like the ones that
6:54
Speaker 1: look like walkie talkies, and if I see somebody, you
6:57
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about, with a little stubby stay
7:00
Speaker 1: and the handheld thing about the size of your palm.
7:02
Speaker 1: I love that because when I see somebody with one,
7:04
Speaker 1: I always like to pretend there are a spy from
7:08
Speaker 1: you know, the eighties or nineties before they had earbuds,
7:11
Speaker 1: or it's like they're smoking out of one of those
7:13
Speaker 1: super clunky, like early nineties cell phones, you know, the
7:18
Speaker 1: car phones, the ones with like the big fat receivers
7:21
Speaker 1: and the giant antent on top um. But yeah, Tesla
7:24
Speaker 1: was was dead wrong about the coffee, and slightly less
7:28
Speaker 1: dead wrong but still wrong about the nicotine, and dead
7:31
Speaker 1: right about alcohol. People love a good drink every now
7:34
Speaker 1: and then. Um. And he also it was a really
7:39
Speaker 1: big proponent of nutrition. Um. Despite being clearly a bit
7:43
Speaker 1: of a booze hound, he uh was. It was a
7:46
Speaker 1: huge He wasn't a vegan exactly, but he was a
7:48
Speaker 1: big fan of like not eating too much meat, and
7:52
Speaker 1: he really liked things like milk and honey and wheat,
7:56
Speaker 1: which were ingredients shown by a gentleman by the name
8:00
Speaker 1: of Bernard McFadden to be usable in creating kind of
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Speaker 1: food stuffs that were a little more sustainable and a
8:10
Speaker 1: little more natural and would create a population that would
8:16
Speaker 1: live longer in theory. Yeah. Yeah, And this is an
8:18
Speaker 1: idea that a lot of other people shared, and a
8:22
Speaker 1: lot of people share today. Uh. You know, one one
8:27
Speaker 1: that always stuck out to me was Robert Heinlan, who
8:32
Speaker 1: you know, the famous sci fi writer h He had
8:34
Speaker 1: written things like Stranger in a Strange Land and so
8:37
Speaker 1: I as far back as the early nineteen fifties. Heinland
8:42
Speaker 1: was saying, beef is not gonna last at the levels
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Speaker 1: of consumption it's at now. Eventually, in his mind, fish
8:50
Speaker 1: and yeast would become the main sources of protein. Asimov
8:55
Speaker 1: took this even further in uh nineteen sixty four, he
8:59
Speaker 1: said at the World's Fair would feature algae bars uh
9:05
Speaker 1: and pseudo steak sort of like Uh, I guess the
9:09
Speaker 1: most extreme version of that would be like sort of
9:11
Speaker 1: like those bars they're served on the film's snow Crash.
9:15
Speaker 1: No spoilers, watch it. It's worth it. Uh. And it
9:19
Speaker 1: looks like, if you think about it in a very vague,
9:22
Speaker 1: well somewhat vague way, these guys were predicting the rise
9:26
Speaker 1: of things like impossible burgers or alternatives to meet what
9:31
Speaker 1: are those? What is it? Is it? Morning stars? That
9:34
Speaker 1: the brand? Yeah, they like the fake chicken nuggets and
9:36
Speaker 1: all that, and there's like things like corn like chicken nuggets.
9:40
Speaker 1: Man of corn with a que. It's gotta have a que.
9:43
Speaker 1: Let's how you know it's it's it's on the cutting edge. Um.
9:45
Speaker 1: There's a really huge billboard off of the interstate near
9:48
Speaker 1: near where I live that says nut milk is not milk.
9:52
Speaker 1: And if you look at it from far enough away,
9:54
Speaker 1: it just looks like it says nut milk is nut milk.
9:57
Speaker 1: But it's a big bone of contention with the milk lobby. Uh.
10:01
Speaker 1: This idea that using the word milk is a no, no,
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Speaker 1: when it comes to nut milk, because it's really not
10:08
Speaker 1: actual milk. And I got into conversation with a friend
10:11
Speaker 1: of mine about this, and she brought up the fact
10:13
Speaker 1: that it's super weird that we drink the milk of
10:17
Speaker 1: other animals, and that that's very unusual in in in life,
10:22
Speaker 1: and it's something that we, I think Ben you've mentioned
10:23
Speaker 1: before on the show. It's something we had to adapt to,
10:26
Speaker 1: like our bodies, like you know, over time, have adapted
10:28
Speaker 1: to drinking cow's milk, except for those poor souls that
10:32
Speaker 1: are lactose intolerant, right, Yeah, Yeah, it's a it's a
10:35
Speaker 1: mutation that has not hit the entirety of the human species.
10:40
Speaker 1: It's actually it's incredibly unusual for any animal, any mammal,
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Speaker 1: to drink milk of its own species or of course
10:50
Speaker 1: another species into adulthood. It's kind of a juvenile characteristic
10:54
Speaker 1: that some parts of the population have adapted to keep
10:58
Speaker 1: into adults. It so milk is always kind of a
11:01
Speaker 1: weird thing. We've got an episode coming up on stuff
11:04
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know, another show that we
11:06
Speaker 1: do about dairy and livestock in general, So do check
11:10
Speaker 1: it out if you'd like. To learn more. So if
11:13
Speaker 1: we're keeping if you're keeping a checklist at home here, folks.
11:16
Speaker 1: Nikola Tesla was kind of right about tobacco, but to
11:20
Speaker 1: Knowl's point, he did not anticipate the differing delivery methods.
11:24
Speaker 1: He was totally wrong about coffee. He was right about alcohol.
11:29
Speaker 1: And the sci fi writers so far are what would
11:34
Speaker 1: you say, I would say, they're kind of right, pretty
11:36
Speaker 1: close alternatives. Yeah, I mean we're I mean, look they're
11:39
Speaker 1: they're like you said, Ben, a lot of these predictions
11:42
Speaker 1: are said with a sort of extreme authority that is
11:47
Speaker 1: hard to give full credit to. You know, they're basically
11:50
Speaker 1: saying like society is going to completely pivot to this
11:53
Speaker 1: means of sustenance, and as we know, you know, people
11:56
Speaker 1: like all kinds of different things. I have to say
11:58
Speaker 1: I think we buried the lead slightly. I love the
12:01
Speaker 1: term pseudo steak. I wish that would have taken off um.
12:04
Speaker 1: Instead we just call it what sitan Sitan I think
12:07
Speaker 1: is the closest thing to pseudo steak and mock turkey,
12:11
Speaker 1: which I guess would be something like to fur key.
12:13
Speaker 1: But I'm a big fan of the impossible burgers, not
12:16
Speaker 1: because I'm like anti meat. I just think they taste
12:19
Speaker 1: really good. And the fact that they bleed quote unquote,
12:22
Speaker 1: which is sold as a feature, not a book. I
12:25
Speaker 1: think it is very strange. Um, but that's not that's
12:28
Speaker 1: not what makes me like it. But I think we
12:31
Speaker 1: have gotten to a place where you have a lot
12:33
Speaker 1: more options now. But it's certainly not one of the
12:35
Speaker 1: society as a whole has gravitated towards and like, you know,
12:38
Speaker 1: dumped everything right, dumped everything else right. Yeah, it's sort
12:42
Speaker 1: of like, you know, the rise of the e book
12:45
Speaker 1: or the kindle did not kill the physical book and
12:48
Speaker 1: probably won't for a very long long time. I these
12:53
Speaker 1: things can exist without being mutually exclusive. The real question
12:56
Speaker 1: is one of price, and in parts of the world,
12:59
Speaker 1: for a very long time, beef was itself a luxury.
13:02
Speaker 1: It's still a luxury, you know, many parts of the planet.
13:05
Speaker 1: So the alternative meat stuff is interesting. I love it. Um.
13:09
Speaker 1: Some listeners know, I was a vegetarian for a long time,
13:12
Speaker 1: a number of years ago. I have I have no
13:15
Speaker 1: longer vegetarian. I'm omnivorous. But yeah, man, get down on
13:20
Speaker 1: an impossible burger if you haven't tried one. They're pretty
13:23
Speaker 1: they're pretty solid. I would say they taste good, but
13:26
Speaker 1: being burgers tastes good too. I had one just a
13:29
Speaker 1: few weeks ago. And I think Ben, both of us
13:36
Speaker 1: being fans of home cooking, and we can both attest
13:39
Speaker 1: to like it's sort of a misnomer that like, oh,
13:41
Speaker 1: if you're vegetarian food, then it's like flavorless or bland
13:44
Speaker 1: or something. That's only if you like don't know how
13:46
Speaker 1: to cook or don't know, you know, don't have a
13:48
Speaker 1: good recipe. Because everything that when you're when you're cooking,
13:51
Speaker 1: it's all about how you season it. It's all about
13:52
Speaker 1: the ingredients you use. You can make vegetarian food taste incredible,
13:56
Speaker 1: just so much flavor possibility and vegetarian food, which leads
14:00
Speaker 1: to our next point that they, many of these forward
14:04
Speaker 1: thinking minds of the time believed that fruits and vegetables
14:08
Speaker 1: would be a big deal, would be absolutely huge. Uh
14:11
Speaker 1: let's call it in the twenty one century. Um, you
14:14
Speaker 1: know for a lot of reasons. Ay, they're sustainable, you
14:17
Speaker 1: can grow them yourselves, and you can keep you know,
14:20
Speaker 1: tend to them, and you don't have to put all
14:22
Speaker 1: these creeds. I mean obviously there's water consumption issues to
14:25
Speaker 1: think about. But in general, it seems like a little
14:27
Speaker 1: bit more of a long game that we as a
14:30
Speaker 1: human species could sustain, much more so than the beef problem,
14:33
Speaker 1: which we know has all kinds of issues beyond just
14:36
Speaker 1: humanitarian but just about the methane that's produced and all
14:40
Speaker 1: of the you know, conditions in farms, and you know,
14:44
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have to get into all that stuff like
14:45
Speaker 1: the Upton Sinclair meat packing industry stuff, but there's it
14:49
Speaker 1: is rife with potential problems. Whereas fruits and vegetables none
14:52
Speaker 1: of that ick factor really comes into play. So you
14:56
Speaker 1: had someone named John Elferth Watkins Junr. Who wrote in
15:01
Speaker 1: a uh the Ladies home Journal that we would be
15:05
Speaker 1: eating strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries quote as large as apples
15:11
Speaker 1: and peas, and beans would be as big as beats.
15:14
Speaker 1: He says, yeah. Now, okay, let's pause for a second
15:18
Speaker 1: because we have to understand the concerns about what are
15:22
Speaker 1: called GMOs short for genetically modified organisms, didn't really exist
15:28
Speaker 1: in the nineteen hundred's, a century ago. That wasn't something
15:32
Speaker 1: that people were super concerned about. I also have to
15:35
Speaker 1: point out whenever GMOs come up, things that we eat.
15:39
Speaker 1: Before the concern of GMOs like corn, they were already
15:42
Speaker 1: genetically modified through breeding, so it's it's a weird term.
15:46
Speaker 1: They weren't worried about this. They did predict, as you said,
15:50
Speaker 1: an extreme version of a trend that is occurring. It's
15:54
Speaker 1: not hard to find really really big fruits. We know
15:58
Speaker 1: that because there's a lot of pretty solid science put
16:02
Speaker 1: into creating strains and things like seedless fruits, right, or
16:06
Speaker 1: things that are larger than the fruit you would find
16:10
Speaker 1: in the wild. But some folks even went further and
16:13
Speaker 1: they brought the atomic age into the mix. Gotta love
16:16
Speaker 1: a good atomic age prediction, UM, and I love that
16:20
Speaker 1: they do this without batting an eyelash considering that maybe
16:22
Speaker 1: you shouldn't eat those basketball sized tomatoes that were caused
16:26
Speaker 1: to be that way because of fallout left behind by
16:30
Speaker 1: the hydrogen bomb. UM. That just that there's really no
16:34
Speaker 1: cautionary kind of spirit in any of these predictions. UM.
16:38
Speaker 1: There was a an article in nineteen six from the
16:42
Speaker 1: Independent Press Telegrams magazine called Southland UM, where a gentleman
16:48
Speaker 1: by the name of George Service comes up with this
16:51
Speaker 1: whole notion of a farm from the year two thousand
16:54
Speaker 1: in the year two thousand and uh, when hydrogen bombs
17:00
Speaker 1: would cause the soil to produce three ft long carrots,
17:03
Speaker 1: four foot wide turnups, and the aforementioned basketball sized tomatoes. Ah,
17:09
Speaker 1: and what if those tomatoes weren't just basketball size, but
17:13
Speaker 1: what if they were also square? Former agricultural Secretary Orville
17:19
Speaker 1: Freeman believe that the mechanization of agriculture would lead to
17:26
Speaker 1: more efficient production, and that a knock on effect of
17:29
Speaker 1: this would be the creation of square fruits. No square tomatoes. Rather,
17:34
Speaker 1: Now he's not He's not totally wrong. He just got
17:38
Speaker 1: the wrong plants. Because you can today or when they're
17:41
Speaker 1: in season, you can buy square watermelons and square melons
17:45
Speaker 1: of several different types in places like Japan. Uh. This,
17:49
Speaker 1: this is true. They are more expensive. But I love
17:52
Speaker 1: his I love one of the arguments for the square
17:55
Speaker 1: produced folks, and it's this. They said they will be better,
18:01
Speaker 1: There'll be better on sandwiches. Yeah, because I just I
18:04
Speaker 1: just know nothing I hate more than a round tomato
18:07
Speaker 1: on a square sandwich. I need the edge is to
18:10
Speaker 1: perfectly align so that every bite gives me a perfect
18:14
Speaker 1: you know, combination of the ingredients. We already have round
18:17
Speaker 1: bread yeah, you can. I mean, but god, round bread
18:20
Speaker 1: just seems wrong, Ben, It just seems wrong. Ben. I
18:22
Speaker 1: gotta back up two clicks. How they do those square melons? Man?
18:26
Speaker 1: Do they grow them in a box or something like?
18:28
Speaker 1: You really? Okay? Yeah, it's it's pretty low level technology.
18:33
Speaker 1: It's clever though. I'll send you the link they have.
18:36
Speaker 1: They grow them into those frames, into those shapes, but
18:39
Speaker 1: they're purely ornamental and they're often like the equivalent of
18:45
Speaker 1: a hundred dollars or so. People pay out the news
18:48
Speaker 1: for melons. Do you guys case you might ask you first,
18:51
Speaker 1: you haven't shined in this episode yet. Do you remember
18:54
Speaker 1: the early internet meme hoax thing by the name of
18:58
Speaker 1: Bonsai kitten? Oh? Absolutely, I remember the bonds I can
19:01
Speaker 1: tell us about bonds I kitten. And I actually was
19:04
Speaker 1: not aware that this was like a hoax, So I'm
19:06
Speaker 1: glad because that was like kitten cruelty. It was basically
19:09
Speaker 1: a kitten that had been stuffed into kind of like
19:10
Speaker 1: a square glass container, right, and um, yes, that's pretty
19:15
Speaker 1: much all there is to it. Yes, you grow your
19:17
Speaker 1: kitty in a in a square clear glass container and
19:21
Speaker 1: it molds around so it becomes a perfectly cubed kitten,
19:25
Speaker 1: all for the kauaii of it all. So back to
19:29
Speaker 1: these predictions. Luckily, yes sponsa kitten for now. One familiar
19:33
Speaker 1: is a hoax. I've gotta I've gotta check in here, Casey.
19:38
Speaker 1: How what's your take on the alternative meat field or
19:42
Speaker 1: on the alternative protein field in general? Um, I think
19:45
Speaker 1: it's a worthwhile feel to study. Um. I've had like
19:49
Speaker 1: some impossible burgers that kind of thing. They're fine. Um.
19:53
Speaker 1: I mean I am a meat eater, but I also
19:55
Speaker 1: enjoy kind of trying the new stuff. So yeah, I
19:58
Speaker 1: don't know. I mean the meat substitutes. They seems like
20:01
Speaker 1: a reasonable thing to me. Would you eat insects? No?
20:04
Speaker 1: Probably not? Um? Does this has become like an internet meme, right,
20:08
Speaker 1: like eat the bugs stay in the pod. I don't
20:10
Speaker 1: know about this. I would definitely eat the bug if
20:12
Speaker 1: it was one of those crunchy little cricket boys. Yeah,
20:14
Speaker 1: I could. I could see like a deep fried, chocolate
20:16
Speaker 1: dipped kind of thing. Maybe, um, to just like mask
20:19
Speaker 1: the taste so you don't really even notice. I would
20:21
Speaker 1: do that on a lark, but not as like a
20:23
Speaker 1: steady part of my diet. What if you knew a
20:25
Speaker 1: false burger. I say false, a false burger patty was
20:29
Speaker 1: made up of ground up locusts or something, but it
20:32
Speaker 1: wasn't buggy in texture. Would you be okay with that? Um? Yeah,
20:36
Speaker 1: why not. I would try it anyway. I just read
20:39
Speaker 1: the ingredients after dinner exactly. Yes, yes, So Nol, what
20:44
Speaker 1: about you? Just a second ago, you said you were
20:46
Speaker 1: you were down with eating our insect toyed friends big time,
20:49
Speaker 1: And like I said, like I just said, especially, I
20:51
Speaker 1: think I know there are ways where you can grind
20:53
Speaker 1: them up to make uh, you know, different textures in
20:58
Speaker 1: you know, meat, substitute prod And I think that would
21:01
Speaker 1: be an interesting use of insects. And I know they
21:03
Speaker 1: had a lot of protein and they have a lot
21:04
Speaker 1: kind of a nutty flavor. And I know that sounds
21:07
Speaker 1: gross to say that bugs have a nutty flavor, but
21:09
Speaker 1: I'm okay with it. I'm on board. I have never
21:10
Speaker 1: had opportunity, though, to eat a cricket, but I would
21:13
Speaker 1: do it. So you guys might remember me and uh
21:18
Speaker 1: friend of the show, Lauren Vogel Bomb, We've eaten several
21:20
Speaker 1: insects on our old show snack stuff, including crickets and
21:24
Speaker 1: three different flavors. Ate some locusts. Oh, I've had some
21:27
Speaker 1: beetles before. I ate uh not not maggots, grubs from Korea,
21:35
Speaker 1: and they tasted the way that tire smell on a
21:39
Speaker 1: hot day, which is a very sinesthetic way to describe those.
21:44
Speaker 1: But I bring this up because the u N predicted
21:49
Speaker 1: that people will start eating bugs as part of their
21:53
Speaker 1: standard diet helps save the planet or save the ecosystem.
21:58
Speaker 1: The thing is a lot of people aren't catching on,
22:00
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, understandably, I think that squeaks people out.
22:05
Speaker 1: But maybe kelp, maybe seaweed is a more acceptable substitute.
22:10
Speaker 1: What do you think, well, as as a big sushi eater,
22:13
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely fine with seaweed. Really, like a good seaweed salad.
22:17
Speaker 1: Kelp is a little bit earlier, I think than just
22:20
Speaker 1: regular old seaweed, I'm not mistaken. Like it's a little thicker,
22:23
Speaker 1: and like it's the kind of stuff where if you're
22:25
Speaker 1: waiting out of the ocean and you get it caught
22:26
Speaker 1: on your feet and it has like these weird little
22:28
Speaker 1: kind of like booy things that hang off the side
22:31
Speaker 1: sort of look like octopus tentacles. That stuff does squig
22:34
Speaker 1: me out a little bit, but apparently quite sustainable and
22:37
Speaker 1: uh pretty good in a salad. And there were predictions
22:41
Speaker 1: that by the Rand Corporation that in nine six UM,
22:47
Speaker 1: in an effort to promote eating more kelp, they predicted
22:51
Speaker 1: that in the future, uh, massive underwater fields of kelp
22:56
Speaker 1: and other varieties of seaweed would be kept by um
23:00
Speaker 1: underwater farmers um a k a. Frogman one of our
23:05
Speaker 1: favorite terms from stuff that I wants you to know.
23:08
Speaker 1: You often hear about spies, Russian spies wearing scuba gear
23:11
Speaker 1: being referred to as frogman. I always think of the
23:14
Speaker 1: opening to Johnny Quests where you see the particularly froggy
23:17
Speaker 1: looking frogman wearing the green scuba suits. Um. But yeah,
23:21
Speaker 1: this notion that you could take this kelp, which is
23:24
Speaker 1: very rich in protein, uh and make it taste like
23:27
Speaker 1: anything you want, like Willy Wonka style. Yeah, it's it's
23:30
Speaker 1: almost a uh. So it was the gob stopper, uh,
23:35
Speaker 1: the schnausberries taste of schnawsberries. Uh. But don't worry, this
23:40
Speaker 1: prediction is still coming to pass. And like you said, no,
23:44
Speaker 1: you can find protein rich kelp in a couple of
23:48
Speaker 1: different applications. Now, maybe not as extreme as the Rand
23:51
Speaker 1: Corps once machine in nineteen sixty six. But we assure you, folks,
23:56
Speaker 1: we've looked into it, and eating kelp is not gonna
23:59
Speaker 1: lead you down some sort of terrible Veruca Salt. Oh no, wait,
24:04
Speaker 1: it wasn't Veruca Salt. What was her name? She was
24:06
Speaker 1: always chewing gum. Violet Beauregard. Violet Beauregard will not lead
24:10
Speaker 1: you down a Violet Beauregard path. You won't be rolled
24:13
Speaker 1: out blueberry sized, or you won't turn into an enormous
24:16
Speaker 1: piece of kelp. Quickly back to the frogman. Though this
24:19
Speaker 1: prediction Um, which didn't come to pass, I would love
24:21
Speaker 1: to see this happen. With this notion of an underwater
24:24
Speaker 1: farm maintained by these scuba men, and that they would
24:28
Speaker 1: live in these like underwater bunkers um for like weeks
24:32
Speaker 1: out of the year while they tended to their crop.
24:34
Speaker 1: That prediction kind of kept going, this idea of living
24:38
Speaker 1: subterraneanly like either underground or underwater. Isaac Asimov, another fantastic thinker, UM,
24:46
Speaker 1: thought that in order to conquer I guess what he
24:50
Speaker 1: would maybe see as like the inevitable annihilation of the
24:55
Speaker 1: above ground planet and the atmosphere and such. Perhaps we
24:59
Speaker 1: do a better job of setting up underground cities very
25:03
Speaker 1: post apocalyptic stuff, um, using advanced light technology that could
25:08
Speaker 1: create the same quality of light as you'd have outdoors. Um,
25:12
Speaker 1: and then just use the earth surface for agriculture and grazing,
25:16
Speaker 1: ground and parks. Not quite as bleak and as I
25:19
Speaker 1: was getting at. But um, he definitely didn't quite land
25:23
Speaker 1: that one um on the bull's eye, did he? Well not,
25:26
Speaker 1: maybe not yet. There are underground facilities that are the
25:30
Speaker 1: size of small towns, but they are almost entirely like
25:34
Speaker 1: bunkers for some above ground disaster. They're not fun places. Yet.
25:39
Speaker 1: There are a couple of things that are temporary. They're
25:44
Speaker 1: they're like tangentially related. There are some fantastic undersea hotels
25:49
Speaker 1: you can go to in Singapore, Dubai, the Caribbean that
25:53
Speaker 1: let you get a get the feel of living life
25:57
Speaker 1: beneath the waves. And I believe there's a there's a
26:01
Speaker 1: plan in New York to create an underground park called
26:05
Speaker 1: the low Line, sort of an alternative to the High Line, right, Yeah,
26:09
Speaker 1: the Highline is like that kind of mixed use kind
26:11
Speaker 1: of area in New York that's part park, part like
26:15
Speaker 1: shopping district and it's all made I'm not mistaken out
26:18
Speaker 1: of like disused railway lines, sort of like the belt
26:21
Speaker 1: Line is here in Atlanta. Um. But yeah, they have
26:24
Speaker 1: sort of a subterranean alternative to it that I have
26:26
Speaker 1: not heard much about. I don't believe it's a debut yet.
26:29
Speaker 1: But it's called the Low Line, and it would be
26:31
Speaker 1: like kind of kind of like a similar like underground
26:34
Speaker 1: kind of mixed use shopping and dwelling kind of situation.
26:38
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a mole person or a
26:40
Speaker 1: frogman to apply. Another urban prediction that I thought was
26:50
Speaker 1: really interesting, and it's Asimov is one person who predicted this,
26:55
Speaker 1: but many other people, not just in the realm of
26:57
Speaker 1: science fiction, have predicted this. It's the merchants of the
27:00
Speaker 1: mega city, the megapolis, right. He thought that he was
27:05
Speaker 1: looking at the growth of Boston and Washington and d C.
27:08
Speaker 1: And he said, you know, eventually these things are going
27:12
Speaker 1: to run into each other. They're going to be one huge,
27:15
Speaker 1: just city that doesn't stop. And I think we're well
27:19
Speaker 1: on the way to that. I guess so. But my
27:21
Speaker 1: question is sort of like to what end, Like is
27:23
Speaker 1: it is it out of? Um? Oh? I guess efficiency,
27:27
Speaker 1: So you just have one government, like it gets to
27:30
Speaker 1: a point where if it becomes big enough and it's
27:32
Speaker 1: all just much together, then there is is there even
27:34
Speaker 1: a need for local government versus like federal government. So
27:37
Speaker 1: like the whole point of like you know, the United
27:39
Speaker 1: States and that we've got different cities and states obviously
27:42
Speaker 1: that have that are kind of governed independently, and if
27:45
Speaker 1: he starts kind of mashing them all together, you sort
27:47
Speaker 1: of lose some of that individuality. I just wonder what
27:49
Speaker 1: was he thinking as to how what benefit this would have?
27:52
Speaker 1: You know, it may not have been a question so
27:55
Speaker 1: much for him of benefits is one of inevitability that
27:58
Speaker 1: the suburbs and excerbs they keep expanding or continually just
28:04
Speaker 1: eventually blur. And that's I mean, that's sort of happening.
28:08
Speaker 1: And if the trends continue, it may well be that
28:12
Speaker 1: the distinction between Boston and d C becomes increasingly a
28:17
Speaker 1: matter of tradition. I don't know. I think people will.
28:21
Speaker 1: I think locals will tend to want to keep their
28:24
Speaker 1: governments though they there might be something that exists that's
28:28
Speaker 1: like the uh, the Great Eastern Seaboard conglomeration, or something
28:32
Speaker 1: like that. But they'll still want, you know, the mayor
28:35
Speaker 1: of Boston is still gonna want to be the mayor
28:37
Speaker 1: of Boston, you know. And and you know, as much
28:39
Speaker 1: as people maybe like rag on their local politicians, at
28:42
Speaker 1: least they feel like they have some agency, you know,
28:44
Speaker 1: and there and there's somehow different from people that live
28:47
Speaker 1: in other cities. And then they have their own like
28:49
Speaker 1: unique kind of personality and like culture. I think that's
28:52
Speaker 1: really important. So I'm not I'm not a fan of
28:54
Speaker 1: this prediction. Uh and I hope it's not as inevitable
28:57
Speaker 1: as as an off thought. I am a big fan
28:59
Speaker 1: of this next one. I want to speak a little
29:01
Speaker 1: bit or talk a little bit about the presumed kind
29:05
Speaker 1: of science behind it this idea. Of course, it was
29:08
Speaker 1: Robert A. Heimlin who wrote, uh, oh, what did he writes?
29:12
Speaker 1: The one about Mars. He had like a series of
29:15
Speaker 1: of books about traveling to Mars and setting up colonies
29:17
Speaker 1: on Mars. And I know it has Mars in the name,
29:20
Speaker 1: and I am forgetting the name entirely, but you guys
29:23
Speaker 1: can look it up google that. But he believed that
29:27
Speaker 1: there would should and would be nursing homes on the
29:31
Speaker 1: moon and that was because he thought that living on
29:35
Speaker 1: the Moon, where gravity is just sevent of the gravity
29:38
Speaker 1: fell on Earth, would actually slow down the aging process. Um.
29:42
Speaker 1: He thought that, like you know, older bodies that were deteriorating,
29:46
Speaker 1: having frail joints, Uh, they would they would feel less pain. Um,
29:50
Speaker 1: their weak hearts wouldn't have to work so hard. And
29:52
Speaker 1: I guess you know people always say gravity is your
29:54
Speaker 1: worst enemy. Uh, and in terms of aging, because everything
29:57
Speaker 1: goes down, you know, everything SAgs and all of that stuff,
30:00
Speaker 1: and like you, you're constantly being pulled towards the center
30:03
Speaker 1: of gravity. Um. What do you think, Ben, does that
30:05
Speaker 1: hold true? Or or does this sound like some science
30:08
Speaker 1: fiction any thinking? Uh, my repressed, my repressed childhood astronauts
30:14
Speaker 1: is coming out here. At first, I think you are
30:16
Speaker 1: you talking about red planet by planet exactly correct? Yeah, yeah,
30:21
Speaker 1: he also wrote Starship Troopers. It's right, dude, But but yeah,
30:24
Speaker 1: it's your your point, man. It's a nice idea, and
30:28
Speaker 1: it's it's a laudable one. And I think it's cool
30:30
Speaker 1: that he is keeping older patients or members of the
30:36
Speaker 1: human species in his thoughts. But it doesn't consider radiation,
30:41
Speaker 1: It doesn't consider the inevitable degradation of the musculature. If
30:46
Speaker 1: we keep people on the Moon in low gravity environments
30:50
Speaker 1: for such a long time, it would be a one
30:53
Speaker 1: way ticket if they live there for a long time. Um,
30:56
Speaker 1: and maybe we can create the technology that would allow
31:00
Speaker 1: people to live in space for an extended period. But
31:03
Speaker 1: interestingly enough to bring this part one of our two
31:07
Speaker 1: part series back around just a bit, uh, the best
31:11
Speaker 1: chance for people to live long term on the Moon
31:13
Speaker 1: is still going to be living under the surface because
31:17
Speaker 1: that lunar rock will shield them from the radiation of
31:21
Speaker 1: the cosmos. Well, Ben, we also haven't talked about how
31:23
Speaker 1: your your childhood uh internal astronaut might bring up this
31:27
Speaker 1: point to you gotta be in tip top peak shape
31:30
Speaker 1: to even make that voyage to the Moon, you know,
31:33
Speaker 1: So what would that be like to to send some
31:35
Speaker 1: elderly folks that are frail in the first place, and
31:38
Speaker 1: how what impacts that have on their bodies just to
31:40
Speaker 1: even get there? Would it would it maybe set them back?
31:44
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Like, I see your point
31:45
Speaker 1: about the radiation, Like there's all these other mitigating factors
31:48
Speaker 1: that maybe would work against this, like miracle cure of
31:51
Speaker 1: living in like lower gravity and and if not, can
31:54
Speaker 1: we recreate low gravity conditions here on Earth? Yes? Yes
31:59
Speaker 1: we can. Can we create the wow you like? I'm
32:02
Speaker 1: such a propagandist for this, Yes we can right now?
32:07
Speaker 1: Are trouble? Like trouble would be recreating those conditions for
32:12
Speaker 1: a long period, for years and years and years. That
32:16
Speaker 1: is a little bit more difficult for us, But I
32:21
Speaker 1: think I think it's worthwhile. I just, ah, man, how
32:25
Speaker 1: cool would it be? How cool would it be if
32:28
Speaker 1: a few decades from now we could get together and
32:31
Speaker 1: just instead of saying, hey, let's let's all go on
32:34
Speaker 1: a road trip, or hey let's all go visit Japan
32:36
Speaker 1: or something, we could say, hey, let's go visit the
32:39
Speaker 1: lunar base. Um. Another thing I think needs to be
32:43
Speaker 1: considered in this equation is think of the Think of
32:47
Speaker 1: your loved ones, Think of the folks in your life
32:49
Speaker 1: who might potentially benefit from living on the Moon. It
32:53
Speaker 1: would be very far away, and it would be tough
32:55
Speaker 1: for you to see them. You know, you would be
32:58
Speaker 1: on lunar zoom calls. It might not work for everyone,
33:01
Speaker 1: but gosh, man, I don't know. Would you do it?
33:05
Speaker 1: Would you guys do it? Would you go to the moon.
33:07
Speaker 1: Let's say you were in like you're you're in your
33:09
Speaker 1: mid eighties. Uh, you're in pretty good condition, but age
33:13
Speaker 1: is catching up with you. Would you go to the
33:15
Speaker 1: moon and live there if it meant you could live
33:18
Speaker 1: to a d T? Yeah? Why not? I guess this
33:24
Speaker 1: is the same thing we talked about Ben, this idea
33:26
Speaker 1: of making a new Year's resolution or thinking about your
33:28
Speaker 1: future self. My present self gives my future self, you know,
33:32
Speaker 1: all the support that I can muster to go to
33:34
Speaker 1: the moon. But my future self might not feel the
33:36
Speaker 1: same way. But we'll see, we'll see, we'll see if
33:39
Speaker 1: I even get to my mid eighties to even make
33:40
Speaker 1: that call. And who knows, by the time we're in
33:42
Speaker 1: our mid eighties, maybe this will be an option. Um,
33:45
Speaker 1: maybe a lot of these things will have come to
33:47
Speaker 1: pass that we are now pooh pooing as like, you know,
33:49
Speaker 1: because what is a great forward thinking, you know, predictive
33:53
Speaker 1: mind if not someone that is constantly being told, oh
33:56
Speaker 1: you missed the mark on that one, only to like
33:58
Speaker 1: ten years later. Things do go that way. So I
34:02
Speaker 1: don't know, a lot left to be written about some
34:04
Speaker 1: of these predictions. Um, maybe underwater help farming, Um, we're
34:09
Speaker 1: gonna get into some really fun underwater stuff in the
34:11
Speaker 1: next episode that we're not gonna spoil right now, involving
34:14
Speaker 1: water sports and modes of transportation. That's correct, And speaking
34:20
Speaker 1: of our future selves, let's put some more pressure on
34:23
Speaker 1: those guys. Look, folks, the future host of ridiculous history
34:27
Speaker 1: of this next episode that you're gonna hear uh in
34:30
Speaker 1: just a little while, they're gonna tell they're gonna do
34:34
Speaker 1: a bang up job. It's gonna be amazing. You're gonna
34:36
Speaker 1: leave feeling like you went on that ride at Epcot.
34:40
Speaker 1: I think it was Epcot where you go through these
34:42
Speaker 1: different versions of the future. Does that Spaceship Earth? No,
34:45
Speaker 1: maybe it was. Remember I just remember at the very end,
34:48
Speaker 1: you could check someone right in and let us know
34:50
Speaker 1: what this is. At the very end of this ride,
34:54
Speaker 1: you could choose how to how to end the ride.
34:57
Speaker 1: You could fly underwater through space or the hazard or
35:00
Speaker 1: something like that. Uh, let us know. We want to
35:03
Speaker 1: know what you think of these predictions. We want to
35:06
Speaker 1: know your other favorite predictions from yesteryear about the twenty
35:10
Speaker 1: one century. And if you're feeling uh frogmany, then take
35:16
Speaker 1: a leap and let us know your predictions for the future.
35:20
Speaker 1: I want to tell you, guys these things you say
35:22
Speaker 1: shouting into the void, waving your fist in the air,
35:25
Speaker 1: but I don't know how to get in contact with you. Well,
35:28
Speaker 1: we can fix that right now. Yeah, first of all,
35:31
Speaker 1: stop shouting and and and and lower your fists. This
35:34
Speaker 1: is this is a safe space. You can reach us
35:37
Speaker 1: on the internet very easily, um, no void shouting necessary.
35:40
Speaker 1: You can find us on our Facebook group, it's called
35:43
Speaker 1: the Ridiculous Historians. All you have to do is name
35:45
Speaker 1: and name my name to producer Casey Pegram's name, Ben
35:48
Speaker 1: Boland's name, anyone associated with the show that we list
35:50
Speaker 1: in those ubiquitous credits that we do the end of
35:52
Speaker 1: every episode. A topic, anything that lets us know that
35:55
Speaker 1: you're an actual human person who's a fan of the show,
35:57
Speaker 1: and you're in lots of great memes, sharing lots of
35:59
Speaker 1: good conversation sans maybe some some other predictions. I would
36:02
Speaker 1: love to see that. You can also find us on
36:04
Speaker 1: the various social media outlets of your choosing. We're on
36:08
Speaker 1: Facebook as just like a page. We're on Instagram. We're
36:11
Speaker 1: also available as individual human people. You can find me
36:15
Speaker 1: on Instagram at how now Noel Brown. Send your weird
36:19
Speaker 1: predictions or weird retro futurism stuff to me directly on
36:24
Speaker 1: Twitter or on Instagram. I'm at Ben Bullin on Instagram.
36:28
Speaker 1: I'm at Ben bolan hs W on Twitter. As always,
36:33
Speaker 1: thanks to our super producer, the Man of the Hour,
36:36
Speaker 1: the Man of the Future, dare I say casey Pegram.
36:39
Speaker 1: Thanks to Alex Williams who composed this banging track. Thanks
36:42
Speaker 1: to our own Nicola Tesla, the One, the Only Gay Luisier,
36:47
Speaker 1: Christopher Hastiots here in spirit uh Eves Jeff Coats. Check
36:50
Speaker 1: out her new show that she's executive producing, Jay dot
36:53
Speaker 1: Il the podcast featuring the one and Only Jill Scott.
36:56
Speaker 1: Also a daily show that he's does called This Day
37:00
Speaker 1: in History Class. Jonathan Strickland the quizter. I believe he's
37:03
Speaker 1: due for a New Year's appearance any day now. Um
37:07
Speaker 1: no spoilers, but I just have a feeling we always
37:09
Speaker 1: did that, but we mean it because we do, We
37:11
Speaker 1: do really mean it, um it. Thanks to you, Ben.
37:14
Speaker 1: Happy New Year, my friend. It's good to be back
37:16
Speaker 1: on the Zoom with you again, and happy New Year
37:18
Speaker 1: to you. Well, here's to many more episodes and New
37:21
Speaker 1: Year's in the future. We'll see you next time, folks.
37:33
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
37:36
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
37:38
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.