WEBVTT - Steven Johnson: How We Got to Now 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.279 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuffworks 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:13.560 dot com. Hey, wasn't the stuff to blow your mind? 0:00:13.560 --> 0:00:16.479 My name is Robert glam and um Julie Douglas, and 0:00:16.520 --> 0:00:18.520 we have a treat for you here this week because 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.799 we are talking to an expert. We're talking to a 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:25.280 man who definitely knows it was way around innovation, around 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:28.240 the history of innovation and and how we work as 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:32.120 an innovative species. This man, he goes by the name 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.280 of Steven Johnson. He has a book out called How 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:39.199 We Got to Now Six Innovations that made the Modern World. 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:43.360 He has a corresponding PBS series which airs on Wednesdays 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:49.280 from October through November twelve at ten nine Central. So 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.519 we've talked about him before. Stephen Johnson has written a 0:00:52.640 --> 0:00:56.000 bunch of books, and you may be familiar with him 0:00:56.040 --> 0:01:00.320 already with his Ted talk, which is called Where Good 0:01:00.360 --> 0:01:02.760 Ideas Come From, And it is a musty if you 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:05.360 haven't already. This is the coffee house talk for those 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:07.039 of you who just have kind of a an in 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.960 and out familiarity with the various Ted Talks of the past. 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:11.959 This is the one that was like people stopped drinking beer. 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:14.640 They started drinking coffee and hanging out in coffee houses, 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:17.800 and they started getting all these crazy ideas. Their ideas 0:01:17.840 --> 0:01:21.160 started breading with one another and producing hybrid ideas. And 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.479 that this is kind of the soup of innovation. Yeah, 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:26.160 that which kind of took us out of the dark 0:01:26.200 --> 0:01:30.959 ages and into the Enlightenment. And yeah, he weaves together 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.080 all of he's uh sort of what you would think 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:37.680 are disparate topics or areas, and he creates this cohesive 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:41.240 narrative of how things came to be. And and he 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.759 is an excellent storyteller and an excellent science journalist. Yes, 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:47.080 now this book how we got to now six innovations 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.240 that made the modern world. Uh, six six innovations. The 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:55.120 chapter titles are glass, Cold, Sound, Clean, Time, and Light. 0:01:55.760 --> 0:01:58.920 And Uh, what I love about this book is that 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.240 it makes me think of those uh, you know, those 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.600 transparencies you would find in in biology and anatomy textbooks. 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.080 You know where you would be One transparency would be, uh, 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:11.440 the circulatory system of an organism, and then you have 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.800 another transparency that's the digestive system, uh, etcetera. All these 0:02:15.800 --> 0:02:17.800 different layers and your lawyer them on top and on 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.160 top and altogether they give you this kind of complex 0:02:21.280 --> 0:02:24.480 view of the organism itself. Well, I find that books 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:26.800 like this and and this book in particular, it's kind 0:02:26.840 --> 0:02:29.680 of like like each chapter, like the glass chapter, is 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:34.240 kind of one transparency over the body of history, particularly 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.320 the body of of history when seen, uh, in terms 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:41.200 of technological innovation. And each one of those transparencies on 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:43.320 its own is fascinating. You know, you look at the 0:02:43.360 --> 0:02:46.200 circulatory system, you say, well, the human circulatory system is 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:48.799 in and of itself a very fascinating system and well 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:52.200 worthy of study. And so in this book, Johnson is 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:56.079 is basically taking different transparencies from the history of innovation 0:02:56.080 --> 0:02:58.240 and saying, well, just just look at the story. Just 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.600 look at the history of say um, the lightbuhold in 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.800 our quest for Light, and look at how this story 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:10.600 of innovation colors the the overall history of human innovation. Yeah, 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:13.919 And I love that about his ability to reframe our 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:19.440 understanding of these really big meadia topics like light, right 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.400 or even time. In one aspect of it, he talks 0:03:22.440 --> 0:03:25.280 about how time was just all over the place. You know, 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.200 you could go from one city to another and you'd 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.800 be five minutes ahead or ten minutes behind, and so 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.560 on and so forth. And that's how we largely sort 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:38.320 of went along until the eighteen seventies when William Allen 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.080 created standardized time zones, and all of a sudden you 0:03:41.120 --> 0:03:44.480 could sync up not just trains, but all sorts of 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:47.400 innovation sprung from that to the point where we really 0:03:47.440 --> 0:03:53.080 could not disseminate information or share our knowledge um or 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:58.000 you know, air things without um creating this sort of 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:01.160 cohesive understanding or all of us being on the same 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:03.560 page of time. And that's just one tiny little aspect 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:08.320 that he talks about when considering the entire history of 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.400 time and how we've tried to bottle it. Indeed, that's 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:13.480 a great chapter and and and this is overall this 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:15.960 book is a just a great volume, well worth picking up, 0:04:16.440 --> 0:04:20.000 very readable, very much a book for the you know, 0:04:20.040 --> 0:04:22.960 the everyday person who's just interested in how these different 0:04:22.960 --> 0:04:26.880 inventions and how these great ideas have have changed the world, 0:04:27.040 --> 0:04:29.359 and you know, and how sometimes they spring off in 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:33.640 just unforeseen directions. Yeah, and uh, Stephen Johnson will talk 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:35.760 a little bit more about this in the interview that 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.320 we're about to play. We thought you guys would really 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:42.279 like to get a little bit more information about his work, 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.039 his process, and dive into a little bit more of 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:50.240 the book. So, without any further ado, here's our interview 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.720 with Steven Johnson. And remember that his PBS series How 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:58.320 We Got to Now airs on PBS on Wednesdays, and 0:04:58.360 --> 0:05:04.320 that's ten eastern lineis in your book, you write about 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.159 how Manuel de Landa's book were in the age of 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:11.760 intelligent machine form your perspective bending approach to history. Can 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:13.760 you touch on that a little bit? Yeah, Well, we 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:20.200 tend to tell historical stories in terms of you know, 0:05:20.279 --> 0:05:25.280 kind of great leaders, political leaders, spiritual leaders, military leaders. 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:27.120 It's it's you know, it tends to be very kind 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.760 of human centered view of the world. And even when 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.000 we talk about the history of invention, we often talk 0:05:32.080 --> 0:05:35.680 about the great inventors and and the geniuses that they 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.720 were and how they're great ideas changed the world. And 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.479 what the Landa was suggesting in that book that I 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:43.400 read many many years ago as a grad student in 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:48.479 my early twenties. Um, it's taken me twenty three years 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.599 to fully digest what he was saying is that there's 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.400 another way of looking at at the history of human society, 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.680 which is in a sense the kind of machines eye 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.880 view of it all UM, and to look not at 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:07.799 how people change the world, but how these technologies, these machines, 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:13.880 these objects, UM changed us. And he imagined, if you know, 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:15.360 if you somehow in the future and you had a 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:17.479 robot historian, you know, we got to a level of 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.680 artificial intelligence and a robot set out to tell the 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:23.880 history of the last thousand years, that robot would tell 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.760 a very different story, would be all the different strains 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.720 in kind of historical progress that we're leading towards, you know, 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:37.360 intelligent computers, UM, and that certain elements in human history 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:39.960 would loom large and that telling UM that might not 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.560 loom quite as large in in our traditional accounts. So 0:06:43.600 --> 0:06:45.680 that's what how we got to now is in a 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:47.800 sense trying to do it's trying to talk about how 0:06:47.920 --> 0:06:53.720 all these breakthroughs and and objects and technologies changed the 0:06:53.720 --> 0:06:56.599 way we live. What do you see as humanity's biggest 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.520 misunderstanding when it comes to the nature of innovation and 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:04.560 does and this understanding threat I think part of the 0:07:04.720 --> 0:07:07.680 issue that we have when we think about innovation is 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:09.880 that we tend to look at it a very kind 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:13.000 of local way. So you see somebody trying to solve 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:18.520 the specific problem in coming up with some new new solutions, 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.960 some new technology, and and oftentimes you know, people are 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:24.680 very good at doing this. You know, they set out 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:28.119 to figure it a way to um, you know, cool 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:31.600 down and dehumidify a room in the invention of air conditioning, 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:34.880 for instance, and they do an excellent job of that. Um. 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.600 They successfully managed to create these like nice interior temperatures 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.440 that are very livable. But what we don't see and 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:46.440 we don't anticipate are all the crazy, um kind of 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:51.400 peripheral consequences of that invention that gets set in motion 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:53.520 because this new thing is in the world. And so 0:07:53.600 --> 0:07:56.440 with the invention of air conditioning, what that ends up 0:07:56.480 --> 0:08:00.280 triggering is this huge migration of people, uh to you 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:03.960 know kind of very hot places like desert states or 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.960 very you know tropical um junglie places that would normally 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.760 not sustain big population bases. And you know, like the 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.600 entire sun Belt, for instance, is basically a creation of 0:08:15.680 --> 0:08:21.680 air conditioning technology UM. And that itself then creates other 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:24.960 you know, kind of strange consequences where like, for instance, 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:27.760 people living in the desert have you know, need for water. 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.840 UM that maybe we shouldn't really be living, you know, 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:33.920 in cities and five million people in the middle middle 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:35.760 of the desert, that that might actually not be a 0:08:35.840 --> 0:08:38.680 sustainable way to live. But air conditioning kind of made 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.080 that possible for the first time. So we need to 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:45.360 have this ability to kind of look at these secondary effects, um, 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:47.720 and not just look at the kind of direct problem 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:51.480 being solved with each innovation. In your book, you uncover 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:54.160 many of the unsung heroes of history, the people who 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.040 aren't often touted or celebrated for contributing to humanity changing 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:02.000 inventions or innovations. So which one of those heroes are 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:07.000 you most taken with? You know, there's so many. Uh, 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.800 we we really had a lot of fun uncovering these 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:14.200 these folks. I mean, you know, I think the whole 0:09:14.240 --> 0:09:17.440 story about Frederick Tutor and kind of inventing the ice 0:09:17.520 --> 0:09:20.320 trade at the beginning of the nineteenth century is an 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:23.160 amazing one. Tutor himself, it seems like he was a 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:27.599 bit of a jerk, but but his whole process is amazing. So, 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:30.680 you know, he kids fund this idea that um, he 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:35.160 could take large blocks of frozen lake water from New 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.840 England lakes um and ship them ship these big blocks 0:09:39.840 --> 0:09:43.840 of ice down to the American styles to the Caribbean 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:49.280 and then eventually UH to South America and even to India. UM. 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.720 And he and he has this idea like, look, you know, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:57.400 ice is basically free in New England. UM, it's completely 0:09:57.400 --> 0:09:59.480 abundant and has kind of no you can just go 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:03.280 and take it. Um. But it's unbelievably rare. In fact, 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:05.319 it was non existent in the Caribbean. If you grew 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:06.920 up in the Caribbean, you know, in the middle of 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:09.319 the early nineteen hundreds or eighteen hundreds, you would have 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:13.480 never seen ice your entire life. So he thought people 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:15.440 were going to pay a fortune for this, and so 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:18.040 he went to this whole laborate process of figuring out 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:20.480 how to get the blocks of ice to the Caribbean 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:23.120 without his melting, which was interesting in and of itself. 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.520 But the funniest thing is then it got there and 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.440 nobody wanted his ice. And people were like, why, why, 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:32.000 why would we want ice? We have been living here 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.840 for three hundred years about needing any ice, and we've 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:36.880 been fine, and so what would we do with that? 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.120 And so we had to kind of convince them of 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.320 the need price and that it was a really nice 0:10:41.360 --> 0:10:44.320 resource to have to have things that were cold, and 0:10:44.440 --> 0:10:47.480 eventually became, you know, a multi veionaire and ice was 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:51.000 briefly the second biggest export in the United States after 0:10:51.080 --> 0:10:54.839 cop um. So he was ultimately a success. But it's 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.080 just a kind of a crazy story. What was the 0:10:57.120 --> 0:10:59.280 starting point at about that point in which you realize 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:02.800 that you could create cohesive collection of jaw dropping moments 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:07.440 to help reframe our understanding of human innovation. Well, I 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:12.360 had written Where Good Ideas Come From UM, which you know, 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:14.600 is all about, in a way, the history of innovation, 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:19.520 but not organized in terms of individual kind of objects. Uh. 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:21.679 So it was about the kind of patterns and kind 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:26.839 of lessons from innovative people and environments and communities. And 0:11:27.000 --> 0:11:30.120 uh and so I knew and that book had done well, 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.520 and I knew that you know that you could you 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.920 could tell these stories from history and they could be 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:39.000 kind of captivating, um if you figured out the right 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.840 stories to tell on the white way to frame them. 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.720 And then because of that book, uh, I got approached 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:51.079 basically with this idea of turning it into a television show. Um, 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:55.079 a television series and uh and so really was a 0:11:55.160 --> 0:11:58.760 TV series first for PBS and and BBC. And it 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.840 was during the early conversation is about the show that 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:04.440 we came up with the idea of organizing it around 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:07.640 six you know, objects, a clean glass of drinking water, 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.880 a sound recording, you know, artificial light. Um. And then 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:14.840 once you have that kind of clarity, it was clear 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.720 that it was it was that's the that's the episodes, 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:22.280 and then the chapters as I wrote them in the book. Um, 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.200 we're gonna be fun because it just kind of gave 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:26.840 us this structure that I that I hadn't had and 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.280 where good ideas come from. All Right, we're gonna take 0:12:29.320 --> 0:12:31.880 a quick break and when we come back, more questions 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:43.400 with Stephen Johnson. All Right, we're back talking to Stephen Johnson. 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:46.640 A lot of times on the podcast, we'll talk about 0:12:46.720 --> 0:12:49.840 habits or practices that we tried to do, especially in 0:12:49.960 --> 0:12:54.040 terms of creativity. Do you have any specific habits or 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:58.280 practices when you approach your work? Yeah, I have accumulated. 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:01.319 You know, this is my ninth book, so I've I 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.440 think there's a lot of little tricks. Actually I wrote 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:07.000 you can you know, maybe link to it. I wrote 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.679 a kind of serious little essays at at medium um 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.120 called the Writer's Room about some of my little tricks 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.160 that I'd accumulated over the years. But the biggest one 0:13:16.240 --> 0:13:18.280 is this and and it's a big theme of the books. Actually, 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:20.559 you know, I talked in the last two books, I've 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:23.319 talked quite a bit about this idea of the slow hunch, right, 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:27.480 that the anti Eureka moment, instead of moments of sudden clarity, 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:31.959 sudden epiphany, breakthrough moments. Most good ideas come into the 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.960 world very slowly, and they start as hunches, and then 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:37.439 you know, they sometimes take two or three years or 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.679 a decade to turn into something that you can actually 0:13:40.800 --> 0:13:44.200 use in a really actionable way. And so the trick 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.480 is to like preserve all of those hunches and keep 0:13:47.520 --> 0:13:50.400 them alive for as long as you can, because you 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.079 know that idea you had in two thousand eight might 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:54.840 not really make sense in two thousand eight, but it 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:58.160 makes total sense to do Thousen fourteen because something has changed, 0:13:58.240 --> 0:14:00.480 or you've met someone who has another either kind of 0:14:00.520 --> 0:14:03.200 completes it, or the technology has changed in the world 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:04.840 and lets you kind of build on it, or you 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:09.240 understand something differently that you didn't understand before. So I've 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:14.480 I've been keeping this single document for the last uh 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.920 it's almost ten years now actually. Um. It was originally 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:20.200 like a word document and then it became a Google 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:22.160 doc so that I could just get to it. But 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:26.480 it's one one document, and I just in that document, 0:14:26.520 --> 0:14:30.560 I write down every single random idea I have for anything, 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.520 whether it's like a talk or a startup or a 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.320 episode or you know, just like or a entire book 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:41.320 or a magazine article or even I don't know where 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:42.800 it's supposed to go, but it's just an idea that 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.160 popped into my head and I and I write it 0:14:45.160 --> 0:14:47.160 down that same place that don't organize it at all. 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:52.360 It's that file is now about seventy thousand words long. UM. 0:14:52.400 --> 0:14:55.800 So it's longer than all of my books. Um. That 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:57.920 file is longer like the longest book I've written. It's 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:01.560 probably about seventy thousand words. Everything else's short than that. UM. 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:03.160 And what I try and do is I go back 0:15:03.160 --> 0:15:05.440 and reread it every six months or so. It takes 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:07.280 a while. It takes like a book flenks worth of 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.040 time to reread all these things. But I try and 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:12.320 go through and reread it because you know you're constantly 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:15.680 finding things in your past. We're like, oh right, I 0:15:15.760 --> 0:15:17.800 forgot I had that idea. That's such a good one, 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:19.800 and now would makes total sense to do it here, 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.280 you know. So that's one of the key kind of 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.840 techniques that I've had over the years, just to keep 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:29.480 that one. I call it my spark file. Um. And uh, 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.800 it's been incredibly helpful to me. So just looking back 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.920 at that spread to give you any insights into how 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.360 you work or your thought process, yeah, well it really 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:40.920 doesn't mean. The cool thing is sometimes I go back 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:43.120 and I'm rereading it and I'll come across one little 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:45.960 passage and I'll be like, that was the night I 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.920 came up with the idea for invention of air. My book, 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.920 Like the whole book came out of that little nugget 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:55.200 that I had, you know, like that that night, And 0:15:55.200 --> 0:15:56.760 here I am writing it down, you know, for the 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.040 first time. So you can see the idea of starting 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:01.640 to take shape, which is really great, and and it 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.560 just you know, it encourages you. It makes you feel like, Okay, 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:05.680 you know, if I keep doing this, I'm going to 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.920 generate another book idea in here, you know, sooner or later. Um. 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.840 And then sometimes I read, you know, notes that I've 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:15.160 written that I'm like, how many glasses of wine that 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:17.320 I had when I wrote that down? I don't even 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:20.480 know what I'm talking about. So, you know, some are 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:22.560 you see a lot of like dead ends and things 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:25.840 that didn't work. But you know, you know, it's a 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.360 big theme of of the show in the book too, 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.400 that there's you know, productive failure. You know, you you 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:34.840 you end up innovating more if you take a lot 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:37.440 of risks and if you're constantly like experimenting with ideas, 0:16:37.480 --> 0:16:41.440 most most of which aren't going to work out. Um uh, 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.160 But if you do that, eventually you'll start hitting you know, 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:47.200 hitting some that that actually do work out. All right, 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:48.480 So this one might be a bit of a doozy. 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:52.440 But but how does this understanding of innovation's history color 0:16:52.520 --> 0:16:58.360 our expectation for humanity's future, perhaps humanity's future beyond Earth? Well, 0:16:59.240 --> 0:17:04.800 I don't know, beyond Earth. That's that's probably kind of 0:17:04.840 --> 0:17:08.520 above my pay grades speculated on. But but but I 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:12.359 think it should color our long view of human history 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:15.919 in in a in a positive way, right, um. And 0:17:15.920 --> 0:17:17.800 then you know, one of the things that I tried 0:17:17.840 --> 0:17:20.760 to do in in this book. Um. And in a way, 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:23.920 in my last book, Future Perfect, was to just remind 0:17:24.000 --> 0:17:28.520 people how much incredible progress we've made over the last 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.600 particularly two hundred years. Um. You know, I have a 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.520 whole risk in the book and the show about the 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.640 introduction of chlorination into drinking water and the crazy story 0:17:37.680 --> 0:17:40.680 behind that. And and you know that one little step 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.960 understanding that chlorine and small doses would be harmless to 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:48.879 humans but could kill bacteria, that one little innovation, you know, 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:53.119 ended up reducing inframortality and child mortality by more than 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.359 and you know, just think about that. I mean to 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:01.720 think about how common infident child more stality was high 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.600 those numbers were in the developed world a hundred and 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:06.480 fifty years ago. I mean, it's just it is the 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.000 single worst thing that you can imagine happening to you 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.040 as as a parent, the loss of a child. And 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.879 through through all these kind of collaborative innovations over the 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.120 last hundred fifty years, we've taken something that was very 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.680 common in the middle of the nineteenth century, it made 0:18:20.680 --> 0:18:23.680 it very rare here at the beginning of the twenty one. 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:27.520 And that's just extraordinary. And that is that is actually 0:18:27.520 --> 0:18:30.960 happening in the developing world even faster now than it 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:34.880 happened in the developed world a hundred years ago. So yes, 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:37.800 they're lagging behind us, but they're seeing even faster rates 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:41.480 of progress on something like that. So I think, look, 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:43.840 we have big challenges that we have to confront. We 0:18:43.880 --> 0:18:47.159 have energy challenges, we have climate challenges. Um, you know, 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.000 we have any quality challenges and things like that. But 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:53.639 the track record as the last you know, two hundred 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.520 to three hundred years is an extraordinary one and as 0:18:56.640 --> 0:18:59.800 extraordinary all around the world. Um, it's not just anymore 0:18:59.880 --> 0:19:03.440 or the story of you know, the West with an impoverished, 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.480 um third world, that is not what's happening. We're seeing 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.879 actually the developing world, you know, increase in its basic 0:19:09.920 --> 0:19:16.440 standards of living faster than any human settlement uh in history. 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:18.560 So I think, while we do have these problems, hopefully 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:20.439 you look at you look at it from this angle 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:22.080 and you see, you know, you see a lot of 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.720 reasons for optimism. You've written about how innovation tends to 0:19:25.800 --> 0:19:29.479 keep tabs on itself and not unleash anything too terrible 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:33.680 or harmful upon the world. But in terms of today's technology, 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:36.480 which moves at a far faster pace than the current 0:19:36.560 --> 0:19:40.000 legal system. Do you see a downside or a need 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:44.280 to address the oversight system in place. Yeah, that's a 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:47.359 really good question. I mean, this is the classic you know, 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:52.600 concern about why why we haven't detected any radio signals 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:55.960 in like the SETI projects and things like that. And 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:58.160 one of the arguments is that it may well be 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:03.760 that civil sizations that advance far enough to send out 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:08.600 structured radio signals. It's some you know, other planet are 0:20:08.640 --> 0:20:16.439 almost immediately wiped out by some self destructive technology that 0:20:16.480 --> 0:20:21.240 follows the invention of radio UM, which is the the 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:25.480 less optimistic view of what happens UM. And I think 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:27.640 we do have you know, we live in a much 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.320 more you know, kind of connected world. And so if 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.880 there were some kind of you know, self replicating style 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:40.720 biotechnology or nanotechnology, this is the kind of gray goo 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:46.960 um nightmare scenarios that we would you know, we could 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:51.920 unleash something that's that you know, was incredibly damaging to society, 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:53.760 that that could be a risk. And you know, I 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:58.560 suppose like genetics meddling people are concerned about UM. I 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:02.760 think it would be really good you know too. We 0:21:02.760 --> 0:21:07.200 we certainly need to have better systems for thinking about risk, 0:21:08.160 --> 0:21:12.040 and particularly for thinking about these unintended unintended consequences in 0:21:12.160 --> 0:21:15.440 terms of risk. Um I'm not sure if our existant 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:18.600 kind of regulatory bodies are the best set up for that. 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.480 I don't think, you know, government agencies do a particularly 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:24.840 good job of thinking about that kind of risk. But 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:28.480 I'm not sure really what the alternative is. Um. It's 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:30.520 one of the places where I think, and I'm not 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:31.840 actually a big reader of this, but one of the 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:34.399 places where I think science fiction is probably pretty healthy 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:38.040 for the society because basically science fiction authors just sit 0:21:38.080 --> 0:21:42.240 around and like imagine pretty alternate future scenarios based on 0:21:42.640 --> 0:21:46.359 you know, projecting out from the present, and that that's 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.240 a pretty healthy attitude because it sometimes helps us steer 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.480 away from those things, right, you know, we we had 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:56.080 fears about what would look like and we're able to 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.800 kind of largely for the most part, some of it 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:01.800 a true, but some of it didn't. I think partially 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:03.879 because in my eighty four was such a powerful and 0:22:03.880 --> 0:22:08.280 evocative book. Um So, it made us worried about entering 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:11.240 into that kind of state. Um So, I think in 0:22:11.280 --> 0:22:14.040 some ways the kind of divisionaries and the sci fi 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:16.800 authors maybe as important to this kind of stuff as 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.800 the traditional regulators. All Right, we're gonna take a quick 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.520 break and we get back. We will have more from Stephen. 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:36.120 All right, we're back. More questions here. We'll author Stephen Johnson. Uh, Stephen, 0:22:36.160 --> 0:22:38.359