Latest / The Kevin Stone Podcast / Episode #28 "What Would You Put in a Time Capsule?"

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Episode #28 "What Would You Put in a Time Capsule?" · The Kevin Stone Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question. Somebody walks up to
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: you tomorrow and hands you a box. They say, Kevin,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: we're sealing this thing up. Nobody's going to open it
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: for 100 years. You can put whatever you want to inside.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: What are you putting in there? And don't say money,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: because if I put $ 20 in there today, by the
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: time somebody opens it in 2126, it'll probably be enough
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to buy a fun-sized snicker, maybe, depending on inflation. But seriously,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: what would you put in there? Because a friend of
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: mine suggested this topic, and at first I thought, yeah,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: that's interesting. Then I started thinking about it. And unfortunately,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: once I start thinking about something, Charlie has to start
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: doing research. That's how this operation works. I have a thought.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Charlie loses his afternoon. What exactly are we trying to say?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: When you think about a time capsule, the obvious stuff
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: comes to mind. Newspapers, coins, photographs, maybe something that's popular
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: right now. But I think there's a problem with that.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: If somebody opened a time capsule from 1926 today, would
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: you really want it filled entirely with official documents and
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: pictures of politicians? Probably not. I'd want to know what
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: regular people were doing. What did their kitchen look like?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: What did groceries cost? What did they complain about? What
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: did they do on Saturday afternoon? What was considered expensive?
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: What made them laugh? What were they worried about? What
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: did somebody's neighborhood look like? I think ordinary things would
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: become extraordinary after 100 years. So if I were putting
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: together a time capsule from 2026, I'd want some ordinary stuff.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: A grocery receipt, a restaurant menu, pictures of the town.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Pictures of regular houses and cars. Maybe a Walmart receipt. Actually,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: definitely a Walmart receipt. Because somebody in 2126 needs to
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: know that we could walk into one building and buy milk,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: motor oil, underwear, a television, and a fishing pole. Future
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: historians need this information. I'd probably put a smartphone in there.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Not necessarily because the phone itself is important. It's because
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: that little rectangle explains a lot about us. Our pictures
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: are on it. Our music is on it. Our conversations
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: are on it. Our maps are on it. Our news
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: is on it. Our entertainment is on it. Our banking
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: information is on it. We use it to order food.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: We use it to find directions. And occasionally, we even
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: use it as a telephone. Imagine explaining that to somebody
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: from 1926. This device gives you nearly instant access to
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a huge portion of human knowledge. Wow. What do you
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: use it for? Mostly watching videos of cats knocking things
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: off of tables. Humanity was given incredible power. We did
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: what we could do with it. But there's another problem.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: If somebody finds that phone in 2126, will they even
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: be able to turn it on? Will they have the charger?
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Will they know what USB-C was? So maybe I put
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: a charger in there too. I'm not an animal. Here's
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: where this gets more interesting. Because if you're creating a
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: time capsule representing our generation, do you only put the
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: things that make us look good, or do you tell
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the truth? I'd say tell the truth. We're capable of
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: some amazing things. We've built spacecraft. We've created incredible medicine.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: We can communicate around the world almost instantly. We've built
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: machines that can look deep into the universe. We've accomplished
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: things that would have sounded like science fiction to people
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: only a few generations ago, and yet we can get
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: into a screaming argument with a complete stranger because he
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: disagreed with us about something on Facebook. That's humanity. We're complicated.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: So if the time capsule is supposed to represent us,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I think you have to include some evidence of the
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: things we got wrong, too. Wars, political division, social media arguments,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: maybe some headlines showing what we fought about. Not because
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to make our generation look bad, but because
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: history shouldn't be advertising. If we're going to leave something
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: behind saying, this is who we were, then it ought
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to be honest. Charlie found the ultimate time capsule, because
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: humanity has already created something very similar to what we're
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: talking about. Except we didn't bury it. We launched it
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: into space. Twice. In 1977, NASA launched Voyager 1 and
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: Voyager 2. And attached to each spacecraft is something called
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: the Golden Record. It's a 12-inch gold-plated copper phonograph record,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: and NASA actually describes it as kind of a time capsule.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: But think about the audience for this particular time capsule.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: It wasn't designed for somebody digging around behind City Hall
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: 100 years from now. It was designed with the possibility
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: that someday, somebody, or something, might find it out there, somewhere.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: And if they figured out how to play it, they're
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: going to get an introduction to planet Earth. No pressure there.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: You're basically being asked, okay, humanity, you got one record.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Explain yourself. So what did we send? This is the
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: part I love. NASA had a committee chaired by astronomer
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Carl Sagan choose the contents. They put 115 images on
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the record. They included sounds from Earth, surf, wind, thunder, birds, whales,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: and other animals. They included greetings spoken in 55 languages.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: They included music from different cultures and different periods of
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: human history. Bach is on there. Beethoven is on there.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Music from places including Java, Senegal, Japan, Peru, China, India,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: and Australia is represented. And America contributed Chuck Berry's Johnny B. Goode,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: which means somewhere out there in interstellar space is a
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: spacecraft carrying Chuck Berry. I approve. They also included pictures
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: showing human beings, animals, landscapes, buildings, transportation, science, and ordinary life.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: There's even an image of a supermarket. Think about that.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Somebody involved in this project understood exactly what we were
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: talking about earlier. If you're trying to explain humanity, don't
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: just show monuments. Show everyday life. And then we gave
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: them instructions. Now here's another part that fascinates me. The
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Golden Record has a protective cover with diagrams intended to
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: explain how to play it. Because apparently NASA understood that
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: sending a phonograph record to extraterrestrials without instructions would just
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: be rude. The cover includes information intended to communicate where
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the spacecraft came from and how the record works. Imagine
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: being the person assigned that job. Alright Bob, we need
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you to write instructions. Okay, what language? None. Who's reading them?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: We don't know. Do they have eyes? Don't know. Do
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: they understand mathematics? Hopefully. When's lunch? That's a rough Monday morning.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: But think about the optimism behind the whole thing. We're
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: sending something into this enormous universe, essentially saying, we were here.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: This is what our world sounded like. This is what
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: our world looked like. This is some of the music
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: we made. These are some of the languages we spoke.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: This was Earth. There's something almost beautiful about that. What
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: would the 2026 Golden Record look like? This is when
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I started wondering. Suppose NASA called tomorrow, and for reasons
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: that should concern everybody, they put Charlie and me in
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: charge of creating Golden Record 2.0. What represents humanity in 2026?
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: That's harder than it sounds. What music do we choose?
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: What photographs? What sounds? What technology? What parts of everyday life?
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I definitely include photographs of regular families, cities, towns, farms, schools, hospitals,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: ball games, restaurants, people sitting around a table, kids playing,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: people working, mountains, oceans, wildlife, a thunderstorm. Maybe the sound
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: of somebody laughing, because laughter doesn't really need translation. I'd
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: include music from all over the world again. I'd include
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the sounds of modern technology. Maybe the sound of a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: rocket launch. And yes, I'd include the smartphone. Although we'd
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: better include some kind of intergalactic charger. What do we
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: not send? Here's the fun part. There are also a
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: few things I'd deliberately leave off. The comment section. Nobody
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: needs to see that. If extraterrestrial life discovers Voyager 80,000
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: years from now, I'd rather their first impression of humanity
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: not be first, followed by 600 people arguing underneath it.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe we don't need to send our social media feeds
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: or political campaign commercials. Think about this. Alien civilization finds
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: our record. They learn how to play it. They hear Beethoven.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: They hear whales. They see mountains. They see families. They
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: hear children. They hear Chuck Berry. And they think, these
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: creatures seem interesting. Then somebody accidentally finds our social media archives.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Turn the ship around. And honestly, I couldn't blame them.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: But that raises a bigger question. The more I thought
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: about this, the less this episode became about stuff. Because
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a time capsule isn't really about objects. It's about memories.
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  Speaker 1: You're deciding what somebody who never knew you will know
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: about you. And that's a strange thing to think about.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Most of us are never going to have our names
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: in history books. We're not presidents. We're not famous inventors.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: We're not commanding spacecraft. We're regular people. But regular people
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: are history too. The person buying groceries today is part
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: of 2026. The family sitting around the dinner table tonight
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: is part of 2026. The guy mowing his yard and
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: secretly checking whether his neighbor's grass looks better than his... Apparently,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: that's part of 2026 too. And suddenly, a grocery receipt
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't seem quite so meaningless. A photograph doesn't seem meaningless.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: A handwritten letter certainly doesn't. Because 100 years from now,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: those ordinary things might be the things somebody treasures the most.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: What would I actually put in mine? So after all that,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: what would I put in my own time capsule? I
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: think I'd put photographs in there. Not just perfect photographs.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Real ones. People I cared about. Places that mattered. Ordinary moments.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: I'd put some music in there somehow. I'd put a
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: local newspaper in there. A grocery receipt. Maybe a restaurant menu.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Something showing what technology looked like. And I'd write a letter.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: That actually might be the most important thing. Not some
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: grand speech. Just a letter to whoever opened it. I'd
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: tell them what life was like. What people worried about.
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  Speaker 1: What we laughed about. What we hoped would happen. I'd
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: tell them that despite everything they might read about our time,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: most people weren't spending every waking moment fighting about politics.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Most people were trying to pay their bills, take care
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: of their families, figure out what they were having for supper,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: trying to get through a hard week, laughing whenever they could,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and hopefully leaving things a little better than they found them.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Because I'd tell them, we weren't perfect, not even close.
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  Speaker 1: We did some incredibly smart things. We also did some
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: unbelievably stupid things, sometimes on the same day. But we
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: were here. We lived. We loved. We lost. We worried.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: We laughed. We dreamed about the future. And strangely enough,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: you were that future. And maybe that's why the Voyager
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: golden record fascinates me so much. Those two spacecrafts are
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: carrying little pieces of humanity away from us. The sounds
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of waves, birds, human voices, music, pictures, a little snapshot
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: saying this was us. NASA's paid about the Golden Record
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: includes a thought from Carl Sagan comparing Voyager to a
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: bottle launched into the cosmic ocean. I like that. Because
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: whether we're talking about a spacecraft traveling between the stars
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: or a metal box buried in the ground, we're doing
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: essentially the same thing. We're sending a message to somebody
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: we will probably never meet. Remember us. So I'll leave
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: you with the question that started all of this. If
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: somebody handed you a time capsule today, what would you
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: put inside of it? But after thinking about it, I've
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: got another question. Maybe the best one. What do you
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: hope the people who open it someday will think about us?
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Because whether we realize it or not, we're making tomorrow's
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: history right now. I'm Kevin Stone. This has been the
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Kevin Stone Podcast. I'll talk to you next time.