Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host
Speaker 1: job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and I love all things tech and it is
Speaker 1: time for a tech Stuff classic episode. This episode originally
Speaker 1: published back in September of two thousand, fourteen September to
Speaker 1: be precise. It is titled five Technologies to End All
Speaker 1: Wars that Didn't And I think the title pretty much
Speaker 1: sets it all up. Let's dive in. People who are
Speaker 1: are real innovators, really uh forward thinkers, for lack of
Speaker 1: a better word, often get kind of idealistic and optimistic,
Speaker 1: sometimes perhaps unrealistically so. Right, and so we have some
Speaker 1: examples here of people who very confidently at the time
Speaker 1: proclaimed that the technology either they invented or that they
Speaker 1: were an advocate for would be the end of war
Speaker 1: for one reason or another. And they fall into different
Speaker 1: kinds of categories. So we're gonna talk about all of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So there are several different ways I guess you could
Speaker 1: imagine that war between humans could end. And on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to imagine that because it's just
Speaker 1: such a fundamental part of human nature and human history,
Speaker 1: and obviously it would be a fantastic thing for us
Speaker 1: to not violently kill each other in great numbers at
Speaker 1: intervals of time. But there are a few ways you
Speaker 1: could look at how this might happen. So one would
Speaker 1: be to sort of make war too risky, so that
Speaker 1: it's just not in your self interest to pursue it, gotcha.
Speaker 1: So the idea of being that even if you feel
Speaker 1: you have an advanced military that to wage war of
Speaker 1: any type would would incurage such losses as to nullify
Speaker 1: any positive effect that that war might have, So it
Speaker 1: just cannot be of a net advantage to you. The
Speaker 1: only way to win is not to play. I guess
Speaker 1: another way, though this is kind of harder to imagine
Speaker 1: how it would be done, would be to say that
Speaker 1: you would make war completely impracticable or physically impossible. So
Speaker 1: it's just you somehow create a technology that makes it
Speaker 1: so that people cannot actually do it. You want to
Speaker 1: shoot somebody, but your gun doesn't work. It's just filled
Speaker 1: with crayons. Yeah, that would be a more difficult kind
Speaker 1: of technology to imagine, but some people have sort of
Speaker 1: gone down that road, and it will blur together with
Speaker 1: the category I just mentioned. Um, another way would probably
Speaker 1: be to sort of make war irrelevant, like to eliminate
Speaker 1: the motivations that would drive people to war. So you
Speaker 1: imagine that you might come up with a list of
Speaker 1: different reasons people would declare war on one another, and
Speaker 1: if you can eliminate all of those reasons for people
Speaker 1: wanting to go, hypothetically they won't go. Gotcha. So this
Speaker 1: would be kind of the Star Trek future where you
Speaker 1: have created a world where where you've eliminated need. Therefore
Speaker 1: war is a thing of the past. Yeah, got you.
Speaker 1: The other one would be to sort of change us,
Speaker 1: to to change our outlook or to change our nature,
Speaker 1: or at least give us some kind of perspective that
Speaker 1: would make war ridiculous to where we just realize it's
Speaker 1: no good and we don't want to do it. And
Speaker 1: we've got some some actual examples that fall into these
Speaker 1: various categories in more than one well, and they're One
Speaker 1: of the funny things is you don't have to go
Speaker 1: digging into the annals of crank history to find people
Speaker 1: who thought world peace would come about by one of
Speaker 1: one of these methods. In fact, you can find really
Speaker 1: smart famous, powerful, influential people who thought technology could get
Speaker 1: us down one of these roads to world peace. And
Speaker 1: I think the first one we should talk about is
Speaker 1: a guy who's very Internet famous these days, Nicola Tesla.
Speaker 1: Although you did say, you know, you don't have to
Speaker 1: look at cranks, Well, oh, you're you're getting on your
Speaker 1: anti Tesla. Look, I just electrical Horse. The episode that
Speaker 1: just published was a rerun about our episode on Tesla
Speaker 1: where I talked about advocating for Tesla and the Tesla
Speaker 1: versus Edison debate. Well, I mean, it's it's not that
Speaker 1: I'm against Tesla, but it's pretty true that he had
Speaker 1: some mental health issues. But at any rate, let's talk
Speaker 1: about this idea, this idea of a of an invention
Speaker 1: that negates war. Right, Tesla thought that you could build
Speaker 1: something that would make war impossible. What was that thing? Well,
Speaker 1: it's Tesla's famous death ray, which immediately as soon as
Speaker 1: you hear the name, you think, yeah, that that sounds peaceful.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he actually called it death ray.
Speaker 1: I don't think those were The New York Times called
Speaker 1: it a death ray. Yeah, so we've got a quote
Speaker 1: from Gla Tesla. This is from an article from nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven called a Machine to End War, which featured
Speaker 1: an extended interview with Nikola Tesla, where he gives the
Speaker 1: following quote. We cannot abolish war by outlawing it. We
Speaker 1: cannot end it by disarming the strong. War can be
Speaker 1: stopped not by making the strong week, but by making
Speaker 1: every nation weak or strong, able to defend itself. Hitherto,
Speaker 1: all devices that could be used for defense could also
Speaker 1: be utilized to serve for aggression. This nullified the value
Speaker 1: of the improvement for purposes of peace. But I was
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to evolve a new idea and too perfect
Speaker 1: means which can be used chiefly for defense. If it
Speaker 1: is adopted, it will revolutionize the relations between nations. It
Speaker 1: will make any country, large or small, impregnable against armies, airplanes,
Speaker 1: and other means for attack. My invention requires a large plant,
Speaker 1: but once it is established, it will be possible to
Speaker 1: destroy anything men or machines approaching within a radius of
Speaker 1: two hundred miles. It will, so to speak, provide a
Speaker 1: wall of power, offering an insuperable obstacle against any effective aggression.
Speaker 1: So when he says plant, he of course means power plant.
Speaker 1: He does not rout. Yeah, not yet, not an enormous
Speaker 1: redwood or something. So this death ray, as as was
Speaker 1: referred to in the article, I was never actually fleshed out.
Speaker 1: As far as we know. Tesla, first of all, was
Speaker 1: famous for not writing a lot of stuff down. He
Speaker 1: or at least that's why he claimed. He claimed he
Speaker 1: could envision inventions completely fully formed in his head and
Speaker 1: even take them apart virtually in his head and examined
Speaker 1: them to see how they worked, and then eventually build
Speaker 1: the things, and they worked exactly the way they were
Speaker 1: supposed to. Uh, that's part of the Tesla story. Whether
Speaker 1: or not that's true, I don't know. But at any rate,
Speaker 1: we don't have any evidence that Tesla had anything remotely
Speaker 1: resembling a ray or what the actual mechanism would have been. Well,
Speaker 1: and he says, my apparatus projects particles which may be
Speaker 1: relatively large or of microscopic dimensions, enabling us to convey
Speaker 1: to a small area at a great distance trillions of
Speaker 1: times more energy than it's possible with rays of any kind,
Speaker 1: which doesn't really sound like it means anything. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, Uh, during this time of Tesla's life, he
Speaker 1: was in his seventies, and this was when he was
Speaker 1: really kind of mentally it appeared he was breaking down.
Speaker 1: He had already shown some signs of obsessive compulsive behaviors,
Speaker 1: possibly even some paranoid schizophrenia, because it was around this
Speaker 1: time also when he claimed that he had received transmissions
Speaker 1: from people, either from Venus or Mars, So you know,
Speaker 1: it's things were a little rough for Tesla. He was
Speaker 1: also in the process of moving from one hotel to
Speaker 1: the other because he would get evicted due to incurring
Speaker 1: enormous debts. But because he had such a rock star
Speaker 1: status as a physicist and uh an electrical engineer, he
Speaker 1: would be invited to go live in another hotel until
Speaker 1: he had run up the debts there. So he may
Speaker 1: very well have just been trying to earn as much
Speaker 1: money as he possibly could selling this idea. Uh And
Speaker 1: you know, not necessarily. I don't mean that he didn't
Speaker 1: think it was real. He may very well believe that
Speaker 1: he could in fact produce this device, but he didn't.
Speaker 1: So uh. But this definitely falls into the realm of
Speaker 1: let's make war impossible to happen by creating something that
Speaker 1: would prevent the very act of aggression. From reaching the
Speaker 1: intended target. Once another country knows that you have this
Speaker 1: capability to stop any incoming attack, there's no reason they
Speaker 1: would ever attack you because it wouldn't work, right, of course,
Speaker 1: I mean that's the that's the logic behind it, and
Speaker 1: the idea actually, Now, whether you're talking about array or
Speaker 1: a thing that he does don't want to call array
Speaker 1: but is instead projecting particles or whatever it is, this
Speaker 1: idea has not necessarily died, the basic idea of creating
Speaker 1: a technological infrastructure that would repel automatically all incoming attacks
Speaker 1: and make them pointless. How about the Star Wars initiative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the Strategic Defense initiative in the nineteen eighties often
Speaker 1: referred to as the Star Wars program derisively. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: really wanted to do a full episode about this, to
Speaker 1: really explain what the concept was, what the motivations were,
Speaker 1: because this is this ends up being a very political, uh,
Speaker 1: a very political story, not just a technology story. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's more political than technological in many ways. The whole
Speaker 1: Strategic Defense initiative was fueled by the Cold War between
Speaker 1: the United States and the then Soviet Union, and the
Speaker 1: idea was that if you have a system in place
Speaker 1: that can block any incoming missile attack, then your country
Speaker 1: is going to be at an advantage and be safe
Speaker 1: from aggression. Uh. This was during an era that we'll
Speaker 1: talk about very shortly, the whole idea of mutually assured destruction,
Speaker 1: but we'll get to that in a little bit. So
Speaker 1: very similar idea. Yeah, there's another idea that's a lot
Speaker 1: like this, which is actually in use today, Israel's Iron
Speaker 1: Dome system. Have you read about this has been in
Speaker 1: the news lately. Yeah, it went into effect in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eleven. This is an anti rocket defense system.
Speaker 1: So it's meant to intercept rockets that are fired from
Speaker 1: outside of Israel into Israel, and it does this by
Speaker 1: firing off interceptor missiles. They're called Tamure surface to air missiles.
Speaker 1: And you've got a radar system that first to texts
Speaker 1: an incoming rocket, and then you have computers running predictive
Speaker 1: software that will look at the pathway of the rocket,
Speaker 1: predict which way it's going, and then send an interceptor
Speaker 1: missile to destroy that rocket before it reaches its intended target.
Speaker 1: It's even supposed to only focus on rockets that are
Speaker 1: aimed at populated areas, So if a rocket were to
Speaker 1: be aimed at an open area where there's not likely
Speaker 1: anyone to be harmed, it won't target that rocket. The
Speaker 1: reason being that interceptor missiles are expensive. We're talking like
Speaker 1: just shy of a hundred thousand dollars a pop. So
Speaker 1: also I'm imagining that the system at large must just
Speaker 1: be incredibly expensive and complicated, because if it's actually able
Speaker 1: to calculate the trajectory of an incoming rocket to figure
Speaker 1: out whether it needs to intercept or not, I mean wow.
Speaker 1: And there's been some criticism of the system. One is
Speaker 1: based on just a skepticism that it's really effective. The
Speaker 1: idea being that it's possible that in a display of
Speaker 1: its effectiveness when because just recently there was a news
Speaker 1: story where the system was able to shoot down fifty
Speaker 1: different incoming rockets that were fired simultaneously. Uh, and that
Speaker 1: that's really impressive. But there's some critics who suggest it's
Speaker 1: kind of in a conspiracy theory way, that it could
Speaker 1: just be the is the Israeli government firing off the
Speaker 1: interceptor missiles and then having them detonate because you can't
Speaker 1: see these rockets with the naked eye. When they're flying
Speaker 1: through the air, they're they're too small for you to notice,
Speaker 1: and they fly too high for you to notice. So
Speaker 1: it's possible that you could detonate interceptor missiles then uh,
Speaker 1: and then say, oh, that's a successful interception. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go so far as to say that that
Speaker 1: conspiracy theory holds merit. I more inclined to believe that
Speaker 1: this is in fact an actual demonstration of it working. Um.
Speaker 1: But there are also critics who say it gives any
Speaker 1: system that's like this, whether it's the Strategic Defense Initiative
Speaker 1: or the Iron Dome initiative, it can create an unhealthy
Speaker 1: political environment, meaning that if you have this kind of
Speaker 1: technology that you're disposal, you may feel that you are
Speaker 1: to some degree invulnerable. It's weird to say to some degree,
Speaker 1: but at any rate that you are largely invulnerable to
Speaker 1: incoming attack, which some argue means that you have less
Speaker 1: of of an incentive to pursue peace. Well. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: we want to transition to the next item on our
Speaker 1: list here, some people might say that it's very important
Speaker 1: that we all feel vulnerable in order to maintain peace. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is where we get into the idea of mutually
Speaker 1: assured destruction. So this is uh, it doesn't have a
Speaker 1: very friendly name, but believe it or not, for the
Speaker 1: past century, there have been a lot of people who
Speaker 1: thought that this was one of the best technological routes
Speaker 1: to world peace. Yeah, And in fact, this is this
Speaker 1: is kind of piggybacked onto Tesla's idea, right, the idea
Speaker 1: that if you are in possession of enough firepower of
Speaker 1: whatever sort, that that's enough to to deter people or
Speaker 1: other countries from attacking you. This ends up being repeated
Speaker 1: over and over a in up and up through the
Speaker 1: Cold War and before the Cold War, the Cold War.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, Hiron Maxim, who invented the machine gun, said
Speaker 1: this device is going to end all war because it's
Speaker 1: so dangerous that no one would dare attack. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that ended up being very much wrong, especially in the
Speaker 1: whole story of World War One and World War Two.
Speaker 1: Certainly proves that Orville right believe that the airplane would
Speaker 1: end war. The airplane would be such an incredibly superior
Speaker 1: vehicle that there'd be no reason to ever declare war
Speaker 1: for fear of what would rain down upon you. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that became a very important tool in war. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think there are some people who would look at
Speaker 1: those two examples you just cited and say that those
Speaker 1: might have been some of the leading causes of World
Speaker 1: War One obvious at least the leading tools. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean causes in the sense that obviously there was a
Speaker 1: lot of international political tension. I mean, does anybody really
Speaker 1: know what caused World War One? I think a lot
Speaker 1: of confusion, But certainly an opinion that I've heard before
Speaker 1: and I don't know enough to dismiss it out of hand,
Speaker 1: is to say that a major factor in what led
Speaker 1: to World War One was the acquiring of new warmaking
Speaker 1: technology and people building up their military stockpiles and basically
Speaker 1: looking for a way to test this new stuff out. Well,
Speaker 1: that's part of it. I mean, during the late nineteenth
Speaker 1: and early twentieth centuries, you had all these different countries
Speaker 1: in Europe, including Germany, which had just formed as an
Speaker 1: actual country. I mean a lot of people forget that
Speaker 1: Germany as a unified country didn't really exist until the
Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century, Uh, you know it, since it had
Speaker 1: previously been part of of various empires. Before we talk
Speaker 1: about some more technologies that were supposed to end wars,
Speaker 1: but didn't. Let's take a quick break. These different countries
Speaker 1: were all trying to make sure they cemented their city,
Speaker 1: that they made sure they were safe from other nations,
Speaker 1: which meant investing in militaries. For Germany and for the
Speaker 1: United Kingdom that was largely naval. They were investing heavily
Speaker 1: in their navies. Um. But what it What it also
Speaker 1: meant was that you had these these incredibly powerful armies
Speaker 1: around Europe that were ready to go at any moment
Speaker 1: with no particular opponent. But you also have these incredibly
Speaker 1: complex treaties between countries, so when there would be a
Speaker 1: precipitating event, it wasn't in at least in hindsight, it
Speaker 1: wasn't a huge surprise to see it kind of escalate
Speaker 1: into the major conflict. It became that historical onion headline
Speaker 1: about World War One. I think it's something like war
Speaker 1: declared by All. It's a that's fairly accurate. I mean,
Speaker 1: it certainly didn't all happen simultaneously, but it it's again,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, you can totally see how it happened. But
Speaker 1: at the time I'm sure people just thought it was
Speaker 1: it was unimaginable but that that philosophy continued beyond World
Speaker 1: War One. Yeah. Well, so it's quite obvious that machine
Speaker 1: guns and airplanes have not made war obsolete. But there's
Speaker 1: a more questionable proposal, which is that, um, maybe nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons have. Yeah. Alright, so you've heard of the the
Speaker 1: scientist Edward Teller is born in Hungary and uh immigrated
Speaker 1: to the United States. And he had this to say
Speaker 1: about scientists in general, which was, the scientist is not
Speaker 1: responsible for the laws of nature. It is his job
Speaker 1: to find out how these laws operate. Is the scientist's
Speaker 1: job to find the ways in which these laws can
Speaker 1: serve the human will. However, it is not the scientists
Speaker 1: job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb should be constructed,
Speaker 1: whether it should be used, or how it should be used. Now,
Speaker 1: the reason he said that was that he worked on
Speaker 1: the Manhattan Project, all right. He was one of the
Speaker 1: science In fact, he was one of the three scientists
Speaker 1: who convinced Albert Einstein that he should tell the president
Speaker 1: about the powers of nuclear fission, which then of the
Speaker 1: United States. The President United States yes, in order to
Speaker 1: precipitate the development of the atomic bomb. And then there
Speaker 1: became another discussion within the same group of the Manhattan
Speaker 1: Project about the development of what they were calling a superbomb,
Speaker 1: a thermonuclear weapon, and tell her was very much on
Speaker 1: the side of we should make this thing. This this
Speaker 1: is something we should invest in. Uh. And then there
Speaker 1: were other scientists like Oppenheimer who said this is a
Speaker 1: bad idea, we should not do this thing. And there
Speaker 1: was a lot of disagreement, which led to some pretty
Speaker 1: controversial stuff down the line. But at any rate, you
Speaker 1: had tell her advocating for this. Now, why did he
Speaker 1: advocate for this? Well, he grew up in Europe during
Speaker 1: a very tumultuous time and developed a distinct dislike for
Speaker 1: fascism and communism before leaving to come to America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he saw Europe being torn apart. I mean it was
Speaker 1: already uh, it had already gone through World War One
Speaker 1: and was entering World War two or was about to
Speaker 1: enter World War two by the time he was leaving,
Speaker 1: and things just got worse from there. So in his mind,
Speaker 1: one of the worst things in the world was the
Speaker 1: formation of the Soviet Union. He saw communism as being
Speaker 1: probably the greatest danger to the human race, and his
Speaker 1: argument was that if we don't pursue this sort of
Speaker 1: weapons program, this arms race. The Soviet Union certainly will,
Speaker 1: so if we don't do it, we're gonna be left
Speaker 1: behind and we'll be vulnerable. The only way to ensure
Speaker 1: that we're safe is to also engage in an arms
Speaker 1: race to develop these incredibly destructive weapons and thus be
Speaker 1: a big a threat where the Soviet Union would never
Speaker 1: attack us. I mean, we would surely never attack anyone
Speaker 1: else unprovoked. So this is just for us to make
Speaker 1: sure that they don't attack us. That was the That
Speaker 1: was the general philosophy. So build up your arms to
Speaker 1: the point where you would be such a destructive force
Speaker 1: that it would be crazy to attack you, which is
Speaker 1: again very similar to what we've already talked about. Right,
Speaker 1: So now we have gigantic nuclear stockpiles on Earth as
Speaker 1: a result of this doctrine. But this is this is
Speaker 1: interesting because I feel like, while on one hand, it's
Speaker 1: not a very friendly sounding doctrine, some people might still
Speaker 1: argue for the wisdom of mad Well it's there. I mean,
Speaker 1: there would be a lot of people. I think it
Speaker 1: is completely wrong to say that it would make war obsolete.
Speaker 1: I mean, there have been tons of war since nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons were invented, you know, involving nuclear powers. But it's
Speaker 1: some people I think might still say that, well, maybe
Speaker 1: the presidence of all these nuclear weapons did prevent all
Speaker 1: out war between say the United States and the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: We just have to keep in mind that there have
Speaker 1: been tons of proxy wars throughout the years, fought by
Speaker 1: these powers sort of through other countries and sure so,
Speaker 1: so essentially what you're saying is the existence of thermonuclear
Speaker 1: weapons has prevented a thermonuclear war. That without the existence
Speaker 1: of these thermonuclear weapons in one or other of the parties,
Speaker 1: the possibility of thermonuclear war rises. But because you have
Speaker 1: this this balance where you have people, you know, who
Speaker 1: realized what the implications of starting such a war would be,
Speaker 1: it hasn't happened. Yea. Even if you were to agree
Speaker 1: with this this idea, you might not necessarily think it's
Speaker 1: good for the world as a whole. It might be
Speaker 1: better for the people living in the United States and
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union and not so much for their allies. Uh.
Speaker 1: But I'm not even saying I agree with this. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say, well, this is one that we
Speaker 1: can't put it in the totally ridiculous camp, because I
Speaker 1: think there are still people who think that mutually assured
Speaker 1: destruction had some kind of effectiveness. Now, this has also
Speaker 1: led to the very popular trope of creating a doomsday
Speaker 1: device that is so dangerous that that's what protects you
Speaker 1: from attack, right right. The idea of a fail deadly
Speaker 1: device as depicted in the movie Doctor Strange Love, which
Speaker 1: how how would something like a fail deadly device work? Well,
Speaker 1: Doctor Strange Love. The way it works is that it's
Speaker 1: a device that, once initiated, cannot be canceled, and and
Speaker 1: and Dr Strangelove, it's it's the Soviet Union has built
Speaker 1: a device that will automatically activate if any sort of
Speaker 1: oncoming attack, bombing attack were to target the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: and once it detects such an attack, it then initiates
Speaker 1: this device, which is you can't turn it off, and
Speaker 1: and it's designed to kill essentially everything. It's automatic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And because you can't turn it off, then the idea
Speaker 1: is that's the perfect deterrent, because you just tell everyone, hey,
Speaker 1: if you attack us, this thing goes on, it kills everybody,
Speaker 1: and we can't stop it. We even if we want to,
Speaker 1: we cannot stop this thing. And uh, the the main
Speaker 1: character or the title character of the movie, Dr Strangelove,
Speaker 1: He's not the main character, but he is the title
Speaker 1: character points out that this particular kind of device is
Speaker 1: only useful if the world knows about it, if it's secret,
Speaker 1: as it is in the movie. But then it turns
Speaker 1: out like the Russian Uh, and the Russian ambassador was like, well,
Speaker 1: we're going to have a big event next week. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: you jumped the gotten type of thing. And uh, supposedly
Speaker 1: Doctor Strangelove himself was based off of Teller. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the that's the rumor. Although whether or not that's true,
Speaker 1: I do not know, but it's um, it's certainly interesting
Speaker 1: that uh, you know this, this kind of idea has
Speaker 1: filtered into the fiction as well as into reality. This
Speaker 1: is also what fed into that Star Wars program we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, the idea that, well, if the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union also has these major, massive weapons, and we have
Speaker 1: these massive weapons, do we really feel comfortable that just
Speaker 1: the presence of those weapons is enough to deter a
Speaker 1: thermonuclear war? What if we could end up creating a
Speaker 1: system that would shoot down enemy weapons so that we
Speaker 1: remained safe and that was what really led to this,
Speaker 1: that strategic defense initiative, and tell her was a major
Speaker 1: opponent for that. He he really wanted to see this enacted. Uh. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: that technology did not prove to be very reliable and
Speaker 1: it didn't really seem like it would actually do what
Speaker 1: it was supposed to do. Um at the time, we
Speaker 1: probably could develop much better technology now, but it's a
Speaker 1: very different world now because the Cold War is over. Sure.
Speaker 1: So even if we accept that, Okay, what if we
Speaker 1: believe that mutually shared destruction prevented all out nuclear war
Speaker 1: between the United States and the Soviet Union, it still
Speaker 1: didn't prevent all kinds of other smaller wars during that
Speaker 1: time period. And we can't say that it will necessarily
Speaker 1: always work in the future. I mean, it's something that
Speaker 1: depends on everybody being sort of rational and self interested,
Speaker 1: and on your technology being reliable and not breaking and
Speaker 1: not just there are a lot of contingencies that go
Speaker 1: into this being a good strategy for avoiding major warfare, right,
Speaker 1: not mistaking a flock of geese for incoming missile attack
Speaker 1: that yeah, um yeah, I mean you could argue that
Speaker 1: saying mutually a shared destruction is the reason we haven't
Speaker 1: had a nuclear war is equivalent to saying, hey, I've
Speaker 1: got this magic rock that keeps tigers away. Do you
Speaker 1: see any tigers here that proves it works? Right? I
Speaker 1: think that's pretty apt. Yeah, so we don't want to
Speaker 1: just be doom and gloom here. I mean, no, let's
Speaker 1: stop talking about weapons and look at other ways technology
Speaker 1: could in fact prevent all war in the future and
Speaker 1: lead to a happy, peaceful flower time. Yeah. This is
Speaker 1: more of the idealistic version of people who came up
Speaker 1: with technologies and and the their reasoning behind why they
Speaker 1: thought the technology they had either developed or advocated for
Speaker 1: would end war. And one of them goes back to
Speaker 1: uh a fellow named Marconi. You know he didn't just
Speaker 1: play the momba. No, he did not listen to the radio. Uh.
Speaker 1: He did listen to the radio. He made the radio
Speaker 1: make noise. Uh. So Marconi often credited as the inventor
Speaker 1: of the radio. Can you pronounce his first name? Can I?
Speaker 1: I could try Googli Elmo, Googli Googlielmo. Yeah, I would say,
Speaker 1: but my my, sorry, I imagine Elmo from Sesame Street,
Speaker 1: but with googly eyes. My my Italian is worse than
Speaker 1: any of the other foreign languages I don't speak. It's
Speaker 1: probably the worst out of all of them. Well, the
Speaker 1: Greek is maybe worse. Please enjoy our ignorance at any rate. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Marconi, who is credited as the inventor of the radio.
Speaker 1: I know the Tesla fans out there are up in arms,
Speaker 1: and I agree. Marconi used a lot of Tesla's patents,
Speaker 1: according to Tesla's like, he's a good fellow. He's using
Speaker 1: seventeen of my patents. But but he is the first
Speaker 1: person to transmit a an encoded letter in Morse code
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic, and that's why he is often referred
Speaker 1: to as the inventor of the radio. So he's into
Speaker 1: wireless very much. So he believed that we were going
Speaker 1: to enter a wireless age where we wouldn't just have
Speaker 1: wireless communication, we'd have wireless power, which goes back to
Speaker 1: what Tesla believed to He was very much an advocate
Speaker 1: for that as well. But he also thought we'd have
Speaker 1: wireless commerce and wireless fertilization. I don't know what that means,
Speaker 1: but yeah. There was an article where a reporter had
Speaker 1: interviewed Marconi's in a technical World magazine in October nineteen twelve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this way back in nineteen twelve and and Marconi
Speaker 1: was kind of just thinking out loud about the possibilities
Speaker 1: of the future. I mean, think about this. This is
Speaker 1: an era where we just had really mastered the the
Speaker 1: harnessing of electromagnetic radiation for the purposes of communication. It
Speaker 1: seemed to at this point like anything could potentially be possible. Well,
Speaker 1: and let's go right ahead and say it. I believe
Speaker 1: radio certainly did change the world absolutely. I mean it
Speaker 1: changed the world even you would say changed the world
Speaker 1: almost definitely for the better in lots and lots of ways.
Speaker 1: But when he says, quote, the coming of the wireless
Speaker 1: era will make war impossible because it will make war ridiculous, yeah,
Speaker 1: it turned out a little bit wrong. Yeah. Now, I
Speaker 1: greatly admire the reason behind what he said, you know,
Speaker 1: because it now grant it assumes that people will try
Speaker 1: to comport themselves with compassion and rationality and also let
Speaker 1: go of things that are culturally ingrained for generations, sometimes
Speaker 1: millennia in some areas, and that is a lot to
Speaker 1: ask for. But his idea was that this wireless era
Speaker 1: would result in a world where we are able to
Speaker 1: understand one another and communicate with one another so freely
Speaker 1: that we would end up resolving disagreements before it would
Speaker 1: ever get to a point where warfare would even be
Speaker 1: a consideration. I mean, I don't want to say this
Speaker 1: about someone who's obviously a brilliant man, much smarter than me.
Speaker 1: But that's so naive, it is. It's but it's so
Speaker 1: sweet you want it to be true. Yeah, the the
Speaker 1: idea that, well, maybe we're just having lack of communication,
Speaker 1: we're not getting through to each other, but if we
Speaker 1: have wireless radio going from every country to every other country,
Speaker 1: we can just talk it out. Now. The truly ironic
Speaker 1: part of this is that radio would play an instrumental
Speaker 1: role in warfare, everything from communication to radar and all
Speaker 1: sorts of other applications. I mean, not to mention just
Speaker 1: stoking anger around the world with talk radio hosts. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: propaganda is a huge part of it. I mean, and
Speaker 1: in fact, propaganda, you could argue, would be the opposite
Speaker 1: of what Marconi was envisioning, instead of it being this
Speaker 1: kind of nationalistic approach where you know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: very simple US versus them story where you make us
Speaker 1: as as noble as possible, and them as evil and
Speaker 1: wicked as possible. In your in your narrative, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's hell, that's that's probably. It seems to me exactly
Speaker 1: the opposite of what Marconi's idealistic vision of the future
Speaker 1: would have been. He also thought with this wireless age
Speaker 1: that we would probably have more access to resources than
Speaker 1: we do now, which would help alleviate the reasons for
Speaker 1: going to war in the first place, not just communication
Speaker 1: but resources. Well, he's not the only person in history.
Speaker 1: In fact, he's not the only famous, brilliant person in
Speaker 1: history to have predicted that changes in access to resources
Speaker 1: would be able to obviate the need for war. I mean,
Speaker 1: there is an idea that, Okay, at least a large
Speaker 1: number of the struggles that we experience in our lives
Speaker 1: are over resources. We need food, we need water, we
Speaker 1: need space and shelter, and so we are. I mean,
Speaker 1: life is a struggle. We are competing for things that
Speaker 1: we need. I wonder how much you can really chalk
Speaker 1: war up to this, But let's take a look at
Speaker 1: somebody who thought that you basically could. So you're talking
Speaker 1: about the chemist Pierre Yogene Masselein. Berto, Yeah, Bertello import chemist,
Speaker 1: very important chemist, brilliant man, absolutely brilliant man. And uh
Speaker 1: he had some pretty pretty amazing things, some amazing predictions
Speaker 1: that he made. He was also interviewed for a magazine article.
Speaker 1: This was in McClure's magazine in September eight and the
Speaker 1: article was titled Foods in the year two thousand Professor
Speaker 1: Bernelow's theory that chemistry will displace agriculture. Now, some of
Speaker 1: his predictions in here, while they haven't exactly come true,
Speaker 1: are kind of perceptive of some of the food innovations
Speaker 1: we might see coming down the road. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: not by the year two thousand, but still on the way,
Speaker 1: and not not not solely through chemistry, which was his
Speaker 1: his vision. He was we do now have lab grown beef.
Speaker 1: Absolutely yes. So he was looking at the world through
Speaker 1: the eyes of a chemist, and this is right of
Speaker 1: the era where synthesizing chemicals was starting to really become, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, an amazing industree. And he foresaw an era
Speaker 1: where we'd be able to synthesize organic compounds as easily
Speaker 1: as anything else, to the point where we could synthesize
Speaker 1: in the lab anything. We could synthesize meat, we could
Speaker 1: synthesize vegetables, we could synthesize alcohol and tobacco. And his
Speaker 1: idea was that once we get to this world, which
Speaker 1: he thought would be around the year two thousand, I've
Speaker 1: got more of his quote in a second that um
Speaker 1: will Will really kind of pull in his idea of
Speaker 1: why this would change the world. He was sure that
Speaker 1: this kind of development would mean that one you would
Speaker 1: end up eliminating a lot of the problems of the
Speaker 1: world because you would have a surplus of resources, no
Speaker 1: longer scarcity, which would be a good thing on its own,
Speaker 1: of course. And keep in mind this is late nineteenth
Speaker 1: century Europe, a time when there were some serious famines
Speaker 1: going on around Europe that we're leading to lots of
Speaker 1: of strife, and so hunger was definitely one of the
Speaker 1: big motivators, and he thought, well, if you can eliminate hunger,
Speaker 1: you've eliminated a large reason why countries go to war.
Speaker 1: Take care of that resources problem. He also thought that
Speaker 1: we would develop food that is so delicious and nutritious
Speaker 1: and edifying that it would improve the moral nature of
Speaker 1: mankind itself. So in other words, you would eat this
Speaker 1: food and you would become a better person. And that
Speaker 1: would also help lead to the end divorce. So not
Speaker 1: only would we have a surplus of resources, but we'd
Speaker 1: be better people and therefore we would not go to
Speaker 1: war because we would have compassion for our fellow men,
Speaker 1: which is again an interesting concept. Uh, the idea that
Speaker 1: you know, make sure you get your your fruits and
Speaker 1: vegim otherwise you'll go to war with Spain. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's kind of well. There were a lot of weird
Speaker 1: ideas floating around at the time about how nutrition like
Speaker 1: created the personality of a nation and stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they thought weird stuff in Europe in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: This is true. Here is one of his longer quotes,
Speaker 1: and I think it's absolutely charming. Again, you probably would
Speaker 1: have to chalk this up as being naive, but still
Speaker 1: very charming. Man should grow in sweetness and nobility because
Speaker 1: he will have done with war with existence based upon
Speaker 1: the slaughter of beasts. Perhaps this is only a dream. Remember,
Speaker 1: synthetic chemistry, or something that we might call spiritual chemistry,
Speaker 1: will develop means to as profoundly alter man's moral nature
Speaker 1: as material chemistry will change the conditions of his environment.
Speaker 1: There is no fear that art, beauty, and the charm
Speaker 1: of human existence are destined to disappear. If the surface
Speaker 1: of the earth ceases to be divided and I may
Speaker 1: say disfigured by the geometrical devices of agriculture, it will
Speaker 1: regain its natural verdure of woods and flowers. Man becoming
Speaker 1: familiar with the principles and responsibilities of self government will
Speaker 1: be more easily governed. The favored portions of the earth
Speaker 1: will become vast gardens in which the human race will
Speaker 1: dwell amid a peace, a luxury, and an abundance, recalling
Speaker 1: the golden age of legendary lore. These are dreams, of course,
Speaker 1: but science may surely be permitted to dreams. Sometimes. If
Speaker 1: it were not for our dreams, where would it be
Speaker 1: our impulse to progress, which I think is a beautiful thought. Yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: I I wish it had turned out that way. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean this is like Tesla's case. This is one
Speaker 1: where we haven't actually achieved the technological advance that he
Speaker 1: says is required to bring about this future. So unlike
Speaker 1: mutually assured destruction or unlike wireless radio, it's not one
Speaker 1: we can look at and say, well, the technology is here.
Speaker 1: In your prediction fell flat. The technology is just not
Speaker 1: here yet, and maybe it never will be. So well, yeah,
Speaker 1: and even if it does get here, and even if
Speaker 1: we get to a point where it's incredibly neutri shift,
Speaker 1: I think this, this moral improvement is probably based upon
Speaker 1: more nineteenth century philosophy than than our current understanding. Also,
Speaker 1: you know, unless you just take it off the menu,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna stop me from eating some of the horrible,
Speaker 1: horrible food I love. The other thing I would say
Speaker 1: about this is, obviously, at the ground level, the struggle
Speaker 1: over resources does matter very much. But we're talking about
Speaker 1: war here. I mean we're talking about nations mobilizing vast
Speaker 1: organized forces and superior weaponry. I mean, at that level,
Speaker 1: how many wars are started by people who aren't getting
Speaker 1: enough to eat? Yeah, a lot of those. A lot
Speaker 1: of reasons for war are outside of resources. Resources often
Speaker 1: play a very important part. Oh sure, sure, but there
Speaker 1: they might be resources beyond what we need to survive
Speaker 1: and be healthy. You know, we might. I can see
Speaker 1: a world where everybody has complete access to nutritious pills
Speaker 1: that are delicious and fill you with happiness. And butterflies
Speaker 1: and all that, and and that would be a great
Speaker 1: thing in itself, but I still can see in that
Speaker 1: world people going to war over other things, over boundaries
Speaker 1: of national territory, over ideologies, certainly whether religious or or
Speaker 1: over ethnic division, and just hatred. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: lots of reasons that people do the horrible thing we
Speaker 1: call war, and not all of them have to do
Speaker 1: with competing for resources, right, There are a lot of
Speaker 1: other fundamental issues that would have to be addressed, and
Speaker 1: this particular approach would not necessarily address us. So how
Speaker 1: do we get to a point where we're able to
Speaker 1: get a different perspective, be able to to expand our
Speaker 1: minds and and see what's really important? I mean, what
Speaker 1: does it take. It's time for another break, but we
Speaker 1: will be right back to talk about technologies that were
Speaker 1: intended in war just didn't turn out that way. Maybe
Speaker 1: once we call anized space, does this Sidmyer civilization? Is
Speaker 1: that what we're doing now? No? No, I want to
Speaker 1: tap into one more idea here. And this isn't so
Speaker 1: much a specific prediction of one person, but there's a
Speaker 1: general idea that's been propagated by several people, including some
Speaker 1: former astronauts known as the overview effect. Now, that was
Speaker 1: coined by Frank White, right, that particular term, Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Uh So. The idea is when astronauts go up into
Speaker 1: say the International Space Station, or to a space capsule
Speaker 1: or orbiting the Earth, y're traveling to the moon, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, and they look back down on the Earth.
Speaker 1: It's striking that many astronauts have independently reported this feeling
Speaker 1: of euphoria and connectedness and togetherness with all of humanity,
Speaker 1: where national boundaries seem to fade away, right, and the
Speaker 1: idea of human strife suddenly seems very ridiculous and pointless
Speaker 1: because we're all in it together, right. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: when you're from that distance and you see that everybody,
Speaker 1: every single human being that is alive, with the exception
Speaker 1: of less than a dozen people, are in your field
Speaker 1: of view right then, because they're all on that planet,
Speaker 1: it's hard to say that, you know, why are why
Speaker 1: are their divisions? I mean, why aren't they're more? Why
Speaker 1: isn't there more of a connectiveness? Were clearly all in
Speaker 1: the same place. We're all on this one planet. This
Speaker 1: is also where you get this idea that a lot
Speaker 1: of astronauts report feeling that the world is is ultimately
Speaker 1: a fragile place. It's this tiny blue spec the tiny
Speaker 1: blue dot that you know, you heard Carl Sagan talk
Speaker 1: about another phrase you often here, hanging in space. I
Speaker 1: mean it is it. It's it's floating out there, just
Speaker 1: vulnerable to the universe, and this is where we all
Speaker 1: have to live, and that this results in this cognitive shift.
Speaker 1: That that is a phrase that's come up, cognitive shift
Speaker 1: because it's not just reported as a sort of momentary
Speaker 1: feeling of euphoria revelation, but something that stays with astronauts
Speaker 1: after they return to Earth. And so if it really
Speaker 1: does happen to to everybody. Now, obviously not all astronauts
Speaker 1: have talked about this, but not all astronauts have been
Speaker 1: asked about it. So it may very well be that
Speaker 1: this is a universal or near universal experience, but some
Speaker 1: have chosen to talk about and some may not have
Speaker 1: right now, sure, yeah, so we don't know yet, but
Speaker 1: the fact that so many of experience this does make
Speaker 1: someone wonder, well, if we become a space faring species
Speaker 1: and everybody can have that profound moment of looking back
Speaker 1: at the Earth and realizing the togetherness that we really
Speaker 1: must feel in the face of the vast universe that
Speaker 1: wants to kill us all right, then maybe it would
Speaker 1: become widespread enough in humanity that war just couldn't happen anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a tough solution, right, Ye. Getting a lot of people,
Speaker 1: I mean we're talking. I like the idea of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you if you narrow it down to say,
Speaker 1: let's get the people who would be the ones responsible
Speaker 1: for waging war in the first place, like the ones
Speaker 1: who would be the ones to initiate war, take all
Speaker 1: the executives in generals and everybody up into space, then
Speaker 1: maybe that's a little more magable than say everybody. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is one of the things where I don't doubt
Speaker 1: that there is a truly profound moment that a person
Speaker 1: experiences when they are able to look back on the
Speaker 1: Earth and see it as this hanging globe in space.
Speaker 1: I don't doubt it at all. I wish I could
Speaker 1: experience it. It's one of those things that I think
Speaker 1: would really mean a lot to me personally. But because
Speaker 1: I seriously doubt that this is ever going to become
Speaker 1: something within the near future, anyway that the average person
Speaker 1: or even the quote unquote important people would be able
Speaker 1: to do. It's it's one that I fear is moot
Speaker 1: in this discussion, at least for you know, the the
Speaker 1: near future, like the next twenty to fifty years. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe I'm wrong, which would be the best to be
Speaker 1: the best mistake I ever made. I would love to
Speaker 1: be wrong about that. Well. I mean, as with what
Speaker 1: we were just talking about with Berna Low having widespread
Speaker 1: nutritious food, this is something that would be would in
Speaker 1: its own right, and we can see reasons that it
Speaker 1: would be great to get lots of people into space
Speaker 1: for exploration and scientific discovery, even if it didn't cause
Speaker 1: this show. I mean, if this is a side effect
Speaker 1: of something that would be good anyway, that that's a
Speaker 1: sort of double plus, unlike something like mutually assured destruction,
Speaker 1: where you're just hoping it works out and it's not
Speaker 1: a side effect of something that's nice. Yeah, So Joe,
Speaker 1: what if, Um, what if during this era of space exploration,
Speaker 1: the astronauts go up, they look back on Earth, they
Speaker 1: have this profound moment, they go to Mars and then
Speaker 1: declare war on each other because they're like this is Mars.
Speaker 1: It's totally different from Well, and it's Mars, the planet
Speaker 1: of war. Yeah, it's it's it's it's a named Mars, Mars.
Speaker 1: I think it was the Mars bar Candy Company, if
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken. You know, I have the need to
Speaker 1: renew their contract with NASA or it's gonna expire and
Speaker 1: become the Snickers planet. Yeah, I haven't. I haven't researched that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know Disney Nickers owned by More. I
Speaker 1: don't know Disney name Pluto, so um yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I have to they did not. Okay, look, this is stopsformation.
Speaker 1: This isn't stuff to blow your mind. I don't know science. No, no, obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just having a little goofy fun here. But
Speaker 1: this is really like, On one hand, you could say
Speaker 1: we're kind of bumming everybody out because we're talking about
Speaker 1: these technologies that were meant to end war but have
Speaker 1: it and at least in a couple of cases the
Speaker 1: jury could still be out. But I like to think
Speaker 1: of it as there's no reason why we can't truly
Speaker 1: examine the the concept of war and really work towards
Speaker 1: eliminating it. Whether technologically or otherwise. I think probably otherwise,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the technological solutions pretty much end
Speaker 1: up with, well, we won't have war because we'll wipe
Speaker 1: everybody out. Yeah, I mean, they're all so plenty of
Speaker 1: doomsday science fiction scenarios about that. Right, You create the
Speaker 1: perfect artificial intelligence that's super smart, it's super humanly smart,
Speaker 1: and you asked the computer, you say, I want you
Speaker 1: to end all war on Earth, and the computer then
Speaker 1: runs through all the various scenarios and says that the
Speaker 1: most realistic one is to wipe out all of humanity.
Speaker 1: Therefore you cannot have war anymore. And then the humans go, whoops,
Speaker 1: that's not a great it's not a great outcome. So
Speaker 1: but you know I am, I am a peaceful kind
Speaker 1: of person myself. I really hope that that we continue.
Speaker 1: I like the optimism and the idealism, even if it
Speaker 1: does border on the naive. It appeals to me that
Speaker 1: people who are really sincere in that and who really
Speaker 1: uh pursue that are also these folks who are far
Speaker 1: more intelligent than I am. I mean, not one of
Speaker 1: these people is a dummy. No, they're all like absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 1: I mean they're their discoveries, their contribution to science. You know,
Speaker 1: I talk about Teller and his he's often called the
Speaker 1: father the hydrogen bomb. He made so many different contributions
Speaker 1: to science that have nothing to do with war, but
Speaker 1: that's what he's known for. But all of these people
Speaker 1: had made amazing contributions to the world knowledge and too
Speaker 1: technology and science. And so I certainly hope that we
Speaker 1: see more idealistic innovators out there. Uh, Like I feel
Speaker 1: that that. Uh. In some ways, Musk comes across as
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk. He's certainly also an entrepreneur, but he
Speaker 1: does seem to genuinely believe in a lot of the
Speaker 1: idealistic things he talks. Well, he's one of those big thinkers,
Speaker 1: is he's certainly he's certainly more intelligent than I am
Speaker 1: as well. I have no problems. Don't mean like he
Speaker 1: has a big brain. I mean like he has big projects.
Speaker 1: He's he's willing to take on things that might seem
Speaker 1: ridiculous at first glance. And I think it's good to
Speaker 1: have people like that, absolutely because even let we say this,
Speaker 1: on forward thinking all the time, even if you fail
Speaker 1: in your efforts along the way, you learn, and by
Speaker 1: learning probably going to be useful to That wraps up
Speaker 1: this classic episode. One of the things I love about
Speaker 1: technology is how it inspires optimism. But one of the
Speaker 1: issues I have with unfettered optimism is that it ignores
Speaker 1: other aspects of reality that you really should take into
Speaker 1: account before you start proclaiming this is going to end
Speaker 1: all war or it will conflict will no longer be
Speaker 1: a thing after this happens. I feel like optimism tinged
Speaker 1: with realism is important because it means that you know
Speaker 1: you're you're working toward a worthy goal, but you're also
Speaker 1: acknowledging that they're going to be challenges in the way,
Speaker 1: and I think that if you do that, you have
Speaker 1: a better chance of success. That's just my general full
Speaker 1: a soophy. However, I consider myself an optimist. I just
Speaker 1: consider my pragmatic optimist. If you have suggestions for topics
Speaker 1: I should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, let
Speaker 1: me know. The best way to do that is over
Speaker 1: on Twitter. The handle for the show is text stuff
Speaker 1: H s W and I'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Tex Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
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