WEBVTT - The Magic Eight Ball of Your Existence 0:00:03.800 --> 0:00:06.680 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:14.120 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:17.200 My name is Robert Lamb and Julie Douglas. Julie, you know, 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:21.360 making decisions in this world can be really taxing. We've 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.400 discussed that before. Even the smallest decisions in life are 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.040 often difficult to make. But put yourself in the in 0:00:27.120 --> 0:00:31.520 the boots in the gold studied jewel encrusted boots of 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:37.440 a king or or an Elvis, somebody who's whose decisions 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:42.800 are are are sweeping that change the escape of international 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:48.000 politics and economics. We're talking about huge ripple effect globally, globally, 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:53.840 huge political leaders, leaders of multinational companies, policymakers, The decisions 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:58.040 that they make UH can have catastrophic effects. They can 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.840 they can change the world for the better for the worst. 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:03.960 So in UH, in ancient times, you know, you would 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.080 have the emperor and he would have like a sourcerer 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:08.399 or a diviner there too. I was gonna say, an 0:01:08.440 --> 0:01:10.560 oracle or an oracle, you know, there would be some 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.760 sort of magical go to man to bounce these ideas 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:16.360 off of and be like, hey, I'm trying to figure 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:18.560 out what to do about this. I don't know this 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:22.959 protest situation in the streets, um, but I'm not really 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.759 sure what to do. Can you look into your magic 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:28.200 pool of water and see what the future is going 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:32.440 to be, um, and tell me what I should do? Now? 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.600 Of course, there's no such thing as magic. There is, 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:38.720 so I'm sorry atually to tell me that my fortune 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:42.520 cookies are full of bunk, except the ones where the 0:01:42.600 --> 0:01:46.039 fortune is general advice. But but we we love the 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:47.960 idea of being able to do that. Mainly we want 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.520 to we want to test our assumptions about what should 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.560 be done versus the outcome of those assumptions in the 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.200 real world. So what you're saying is that if leaders 0:01:57.240 --> 0:02:01.760 had some sort of magic ball, right that they could 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:04.600 ask a question of and it could it actually spit 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:09.079 out an answer that was valid, we could uh really 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:12.040 manage our lives on a global scale in the much cleaner, 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:15.400 better way. That's the idea. But of course, to power 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:18.480 that magic eight ball, you would need some pretty intense 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.080 computer technology, and you would you would basically have to 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:24.760 have a computer model of everything under there. Uh. And 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.919 in the same day, in our attempts to understand global 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.880 climate UH, and just not even global climate, just local 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.720 weather to find out whether whether we should have a 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:35.840 picnic tomorrow. Can I plan on mo in my yard? 0:02:35.919 --> 0:02:37.840 Should I would bring a raincoat with me to the 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:40.359 to the train station, that kind of thing. We depend 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:44.920 on these these climate models, which UHL is we've discussed 0:02:44.919 --> 0:02:47.000 in the past. Creating an an accurate climate model is 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.320 very difficult. There's so many factors involved. It's a it's 0:02:50.800 --> 0:02:54.400 largely chaotic system, and it's it's difficult to judge. Like 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.400 every every day that you're into the future that you look, 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:02.200 the more flawed the model becomes. But but still we 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:04.840 we depend on the community computer models for for our 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:06.880 understanding of what the weather is going to be. And 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:11.200 if conceivably, if we created a complex enough computer model, 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.920 could we not have a a kind of simulation of 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.200 the world in which to test our ideas. So you 0:03:19.240 --> 0:03:22.600 would have this politician or this policymaker somewhere in a 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:26.400 position of power, gold stilettos, and she's thinking to herself, 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:28.640 what should I do? Should I enact this policy or 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.760 this policy? Well, bring me the magic eight ball and 0:03:31.800 --> 0:03:33.679 I will ask it in the magic eight ball will 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.080 then run two scenarios in the in its simulation of 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.880 the world, one in which policy A is enacted and 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.720 one in which policy B is enacted. Okay, but this 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.640 magic eight ball would have to aggregate data of our 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:51.000 entire existence, right, so we're talking about the economic existence, 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:56.800 are social um existence, the geographical existence um, you know, 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:00.240 the physics of our existence. All of this, uh, would 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.520 have to be something that we could get our arms around, 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.120 all this data, right, and and and then we have 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:06.760 to have a name for this, all this data. We 0:04:06.800 --> 0:04:10.600 call it big data. Big data name for it. And 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:12.720 it's kind of like imagine, like the way I was 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.840 kind of thinking, because I'm writing about some related issues 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.320 here for work, so I've been been researching, and the 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.480 way I tend to think of it is imagine, imagine 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:25.080 like this this field, all right, this flat plane, right, 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:28.240 what's not completely flat. There's some slight bumps in it 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.400 enough to where you have numerous puddles of water, and 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:33.880 then it starts raining, right, those puddles get bigger and 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:35.720 bigger until those puddles all meet and then you have 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:39.600 like a giant lake. And so that's the kind of Uh, 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:42.440 that's how I like I end up imagining big data 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.840 because every day we create an estimated two point five 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:51.080 quin trillion bytes of data. So to the point of 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:52.919 the data in the world today has been created in 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.160 the last two years alone. And when I say big data, 0:04:56.240 --> 0:04:58.560 like this is all these little puddles of data that 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:00.839 form this giant lake of big day. We're talking about 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.920 everything we'll climate sensors, to your to everyone's Facebook and 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:10.200 Twitter updates, to digital text, digital video and picture upload. 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:12.600 Stuff you're putting on Flicker, stuff you're putting on YouTube 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:16.360 to just to show visions of the world, ideas about 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.440 what the world is doing, online transaction records, cell phone 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.520 GPS signals, all of it is coming together into this 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.320 big picture of big data, right and right now it's 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:27.320 chaos to us, right, I mean, this is not something 0:05:27.360 --> 0:05:30.560 that we've tried to manage before to get a picture 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.039 of what our lives look like using all of this 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.919 big data, although some people, some institutions have tried to 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.240 do it at a smaller scale, like NASA. Right, it's 0:05:39.279 --> 0:05:41.960 kind of like imagine the dude or a lady who 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:44.880 starts just picking up buying a book every day and 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:47.920 doesn't doesn't have any kind of accurate library system going 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:49.760 in their house. They just bring a book or to home. 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:51.520 They maybe they read a little bit of one, they 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:53.320 throw on here, throw on here. Eventually they have an 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:56.360 entire house just filled with books. But they have no 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.400 system of organization to understand how many books they have, 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.000 how their selection in one category stacks up against another, 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:05.440 or even kind of like just a general idea of 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.040 what kind of books they like. Um. So we were 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:11.839 in this household of big data where data is just everywhere, 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:15.520 on everything, but we we tend to lack a complete 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.200 picture of what that data is telling us. What we're 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:21.760 getting to is that there is actually in the works 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:26.560 a a proposal and an enactment of this idea. It's 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.680 a billion a half dollar idea computing system to actually 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:34.160 try to wrangle all of this data. Right. It all 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:38.039 falls under the this project known as UH Future I 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:41.560 C T, which is really three parts. There's a planetary 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.040 nervous system and the idea here is you would um, 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.479 it's like a global sensor network throwing in all sorts 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:51.559 of socio economic, environmental, technological data from around the world. Again, 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:53.760 like the big day of the big data in the 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:56.440 world is from the last two years. Although there it's 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:58.760 the the timiness of this data as it's rolling in. 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.240 So if you put up enough, put up enough sensors, 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:04.679 you you hooked into enough existing data networks, you would 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:07.840 have like a real time picture of what is happening 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:10.560 in the world and all these different spheres. Okay, and 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:13.720 the guy who is heading it all up is dirt helping. 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:16.480 He's the Scientific Coordinator of the Future i c T. 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:18.840 Which is that what you're talking about, this large scale 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:23.559 European research program to explore and manage our future. And 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:27.760 he's talking about the necessity to understand complex global, socially 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.360 interactive systems. He's saying that we live in a global 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:35.160 world and this requires new tools. Yeah, and uh, if 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.720 i'm engine the first tool the planetary nervous system. Another tool, 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:40.640 which we'll get into later, is the Global Participatory Platform, 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:43.000 which you can think of in a way sort of 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:47.960 like this the the interactive aspect of this project. But 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:49.520 then the really core thing, the thing that we're going 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:53.000 to talk in detail about here is the Living Earth simulator. 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.000 And this is exactly what we were talking about, the 0:07:55.000 --> 0:07:58.960 engine that would drive this imaginary eight ball magic eight ball. 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:01.560 I love this idea because to me it seems like 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:04.040 a souped up second life. Yeah, where it's or it's 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.560 you can't help. But even though it's it's probably not 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.800 kosher to really talk about the matrix anymore after the 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.480 last two films, but it sounds very matrix like the 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:15.600 idea that here is here, there's a simulated world where 0:08:15.600 --> 0:08:17.480 we would we would bring in all this data to 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:19.640 create a model of the world on which we can 0:08:19.640 --> 0:08:23.360 test possible choices. Well, and have you ever seen Google's 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:26.200 Liquid Earth. I don't think I have. It's really cool. 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:30.200 It's a it's actually created as like someone's project over 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.200 at Google. So the Skuy's time, he decided to dedicate 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:35.760 to the Google Earth model that they have, you know 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:38.720 that consuming on the cities, and he created this highly 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:42.680 immersive program has eight panels surrounding you. She almost feel 0:08:42.720 --> 0:08:45.920 like you're in a video game. And the idea I 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:47.679 think is that you know, you can zoom in and 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.559 out and you can see the taj Mahal and you 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.720 can see all the details. Um So when I think 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:57.400 about this Earth simulator, this Living Earth simulator, I think 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.000 about this sort of immersive situation and where you can 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:03.200 be on a city street, you can zoom in and 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:05.640 you'll have all of this data overlaid on top of 0:09:05.679 --> 0:09:09.120 it real time, right, And again, real time is key 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:13.120 when we're talking about all this data. Um so Dr 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:18.040 Dirk Um, Dr Dirk, Dr Dirk he Um. He's very 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:20.160 expressive about all of this. He makes the point that 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:22.080 in the past, we we didn't really have the data 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.120 to come up with a systemic science of how our 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.040 society works. But now we have this data, right, and 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.280 of course who could have conceived of it right? Right? Right? 0:09:30.280 --> 0:09:32.040 Who could have conceived of it in the past. And 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.520 he's saying it's it's necessary to keep up with globalization, 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.880 technological change. You have all these systems like smashing into 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.240 each other. In fact, he often refers to the living 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.280 or simulator is a knowledge collider. The idea that you 0:09:43.280 --> 0:09:45.400 would take all this data and in the same way 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.920 that the the large hypn collider is is slamming particles 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:51.360 together to try to understand how the universe works. This 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.000 is about like slamming all this information together and seeing 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:57.880 what happens. Which I like this idea because although I 0:09:57.880 --> 0:09:59.520 will say that it doesn't sound like it's going to 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:02.760 be quite that dynamic, because this is this is predictive 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.760 modeling that we're talking about, and as and as we 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:11.280 discussed in the weather example, predictive modeling is uh imperfect 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:15.480 at best. Uh. There there are various arguments about what 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.640 can be done with computer modeling of of complex systems. 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:21.600 There are plenty of arguments that state that you cannot 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.360 form a perfect model of a complex system that you're 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.280 you're never gonna be able to to really get down 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:30.080 into the exact minusha of it. Uh. It's kind of 0:10:30.080 --> 0:10:32.560 like with our our ability to understand whether you can 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:35.400 look at data telling you what the weather has been 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:38.840 like at a particular place, particular times of the year, 0:10:39.280 --> 0:10:40.840 and you can use that and you can create a 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:42.439 general idea of what the weather is going to be 0:10:42.440 --> 0:10:45.280 in the future. You know, I can see, like say 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:49.000 March third, We can take March third for Atlanta, Georgia, 0:10:49.720 --> 0:10:51.679 run it all the way through the past as far 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:53.559 as the recorded data goes, and we can get a 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:55.560 general idea of what March thirds in the future are 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.480 going to be because it's the their their seasonal aspects 0:10:58.480 --> 0:11:01.600 to all of this. There is currents, but it's not 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.640 that far away from Richard's Almanac, right, or Richard's Almanac, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.520 which is what two hundred years old or something that 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.520 they've been, um, you know, recording all the weather systems 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:14.520 to try to predict the best time to plant crops 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.040 and some one and so forth. So yeah, there's it's different. 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:20.960 Um you know, technologies of course to have are in 0:11:21.000 --> 0:11:24.440 play now that inform us, but it's you know, the 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:28.719 unpredictability factor is still there. But before we talk about that, 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:30.559 I just wanted to talk about the impetus for this 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:35.800 whole creation. This the the future I see because because 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.600 it's we can agree that it's a wonderful idea, but 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:42.720 what potentially gets the money behind this idea? And uh 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:45.719 and that's what Yeah, billion and a half dollars. The 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.840 European Commission selected the Living Earth Simulator, which is part 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:51.120 of this project right as a way to help predict 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:53.959 economic conditions. And this was brought up by the Greek 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:58.240 financial crisis because as we know now, it's severely undermine 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:02.360 the European Union and a lot of people are saying, well, perhaps, uh, 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.280 you know, grease should pull out of the euro Zone. 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:07.000 And if they were to do that, what would be 0:12:07.000 --> 0:12:11.599 the ramifications? You know, you would have a highly devalued 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.880 currency for Greece. But what does this mean on a 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:18.319 practical level, for for a global economy. Does this mean 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:23.800 that trade routes would alter? Would there be less disease? Actually, 0:12:23.800 --> 0:12:26.200 because it would be a less tourist, less people traveling 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.120 to Greece. Um, they're saying, I wish we had to 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:32.200 magic eight ball to ask about this. Dr Dirk says, 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.040 I have one. I can build one for you. Will 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.520 only cost a billion and a half. There you go. Yeah. 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:40.880 So they have all these different questions about what would 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:43.640 happen if this were the scenario, because of course they 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.280 don't want Grease necessarily to pull out and you know 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.240 for the EU to crumble, right, I mean these are 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.320 big stakes. It's like a big economic ginga game. Um, yeah, 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.200 it is. It is um. And And then also you 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:59.840 know you can use this for for other huge situations 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:02.640 or high impact and situations. I should say, like for 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.439 instance of volcano eruption. UM could tell you what the 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:08.560 short term economic growth is going to be, as well 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.280 as the effect it may have on everything from education 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:17.280 to the distribution of vaccines, political unrest. UM. Disease epidemics 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:21.079 was another one. How disease is spread across the world, 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:23.920 how we should be prepared for the spread, and that 0:13:24.000 --> 0:13:29.080 was actually modeled on how the dollar bills are circulated 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:33.480 in the United States, which is really interesting that they 0:13:33.559 --> 0:13:35.920 use this as a model. And again we'll talk about 0:13:36.000 --> 0:13:39.320 the limitations of using these types of models for other 0:13:39.360 --> 0:13:43.400 instances such as disease epidemics. One of the real world 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:46.880 systems that this is based on is UH as actually 0:13:46.960 --> 0:13:51.840 the urban traffic the idea of typically congested traffic and 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:54.360 urban area and how do you how do you figure 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.400 out what's going wrong, how do you combat it? How 0:13:56.400 --> 0:14:00.280 do you deal with the little pockets of unrest and 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:05.719 change that eventually cascade into just complete gridlock, right, and 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.280 and Dirk helping this is really his knowledge center, you know, 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:11.480 this is something he's been concentrating on in his career. 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:14.880 Um in this case it's human and machine traffic patterns. 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:17.559 Helving actually consulted on a project that model the movement 0:14:17.600 --> 0:14:21.520 of pedestrians during the Hajj in Mecca, resulting in a 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:25.320 billion dollars of street and bridge rejiggering to prevent deaths 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:27.480 from trampling. So this is yeah, this is of course 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:29.720 one of the pillars of Islam. Uh and the the 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.560 idea that if you were able, you take this pilgrimage 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:36.440 to Mecca to see the holy sites. So it creates 0:14:36.680 --> 0:14:39.680 a lot of challenges just for the infrastructure in Saudi 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:42.200 Arabia to how do you deal with all these these 0:14:42.280 --> 0:14:45.160 visitors coming to the country to to see these sites 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:47.720 and do so in a way that doesn't, like you said, 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:51.400 result in trampling, result in starvation. I'm not starvation, but 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:55.320 the hydration. I watched an interesting video here just back. 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:57.960 It was actually put up by the Saudi government that 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:00.400 it was kind of their their video of saying, hey, 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.760 we got it under control, don't worry when you come 0:15:02.840 --> 0:15:05.600 on the hodge. It's like a public service and yeah, yeah, 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:07.920 and uh, you know, so it was definitely coming from 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:09.320 from the said of government, but it but it was 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:11.520 really interesting because they did go into all these various 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:13.520 things that they are doing and or have done in 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:17.040 the past to try and and limit the congestion or 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:19.960 or or things like the hydration making sure there's plenty 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.920 of water. Yeah, and this is a really cool model. 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:25.640 But of course there are limitations to this type of model, 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.120 and in particular, if you look at the Hajje or highways, 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:31.520 everyone is moving in the same direction. Right, This is 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:35.760 highly predictable, which underlies one of the main criticisms of 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:39.880 trying to predict the future based on these types of models. Um, 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:43.560 what we know and can predict is actually far less 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.560 than what we don't actually know, because in real life 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.760 there's not just a northbound lane and a southbound lane 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:54.160 and turn lane there. It's commendously more complex and every 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:58.600 every layer of complexity, Um, I mean it just makes 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.880 the overall model that much more are difficult to create. Right. 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:04.920 And there's actually a term for this. Yes, yes, they're 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:09.080 called black Swan events. And when we return, we shall 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:17.480 reveal what the black Swan is. The black Swan we're back. 0:16:17.880 --> 0:16:21.240 The black Swan is, uh, is not a crazy ballerina 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:24.560 who turns into a bird. It's true, Yeah, just to 0:16:24.600 --> 0:16:26.880 get that out there. Uh, but it is actually an 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.800 incredible theory about not only the auliers who change the world, 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:35.280 but the way that we try, the way the way 0:16:35.280 --> 0:16:39.400 that we don't understand, um, the importance of those outliers 0:16:39.480 --> 0:16:42.640 in retrospect, and the reason why we we it's called 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.960 the black Swan event for black Swan events is because 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.880 for I don't know, decades hundreds of years. Actually people 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.680 thought that there were no black swans because all that 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:57.840 had been documented were white swans. Right, so people thought 0:16:57.920 --> 0:17:00.840 really like that there are no black swans, um, there 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:02.720 are only white swans. And in fact they were so 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:06.240 confident of this information that black swan became sort of 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:10.399 this this uh code word for for you know, something 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.040 not existing, right, just be something of medical fantasy. Really, yeah, 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.080 there's there's actually a Latin term that talks about this, 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:18.320 but low and the whole. Some dude in the eighteen 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:22.399 hundreds visits Australia documents a black swan, and all of 0:17:22.440 --> 0:17:26.840 a sudden, this this uh certainty, this this absolute idea 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:28.960 that there were no black swans on the white swans 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.760 was turned on its head. Yeah. It reminds me a 0:17:31.760 --> 0:17:34.440 lot of two events in the last several years, one 0:17:34.760 --> 0:17:37.879 being the maybe half hour or so that it seemed 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:40.639 possible that we had found Bigfoot and Bigfoot's body was 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.000 in a cooler in the in the middle Georgia. Uh. 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:46.760 And of course that turned out to be complete bunk bunk. 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:48.959 But but for a for a very brief time, I 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:50.679 was like, oh my goodness, what if they what if 0:17:50.760 --> 0:17:53.159 this is it? What if if the the world in 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.240 which Bigfoot is an unproven mythical creature is about to end, 0:17:56.560 --> 0:17:58.880 and I am entering into a new world in which 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:01.719 Bigfoot is a reality, proven reality, what would that be like? 0:18:02.000 --> 0:18:04.879 Another example would be in the last year. And the 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.120 jury is still out on exactly what these findings means. 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:11.480 But the findings out of cern regarding faster than light particles. 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:13.879 The idea, I mean the speed of light is is 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:18.320 based on our understanding of physics, uh a universal speed limit. 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.520 Nothing can go faster than that, um, because I mean 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:23.280 it would break the universe, to break our understanding of 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:25.800 the universe, it would be a black swan. And then 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:27.840 suddenly we have this finding saying, yeah, we we clocked 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.040 some uh some phimotomic particles going fast in the speed 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.840 of light. And everybody's like, whoa, I doubt it. Uh, 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:36.480 you know, let's let's do some let's study this, let's uh, 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:38.919 let's find out if if you're if your findings are 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.240 actually accurate here. But if they are, it changes everything. 0:18:42.320 --> 0:18:44.719 It's it just forces us to complete to enter this 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.920 new world where the rules are are different than we 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.040 originally perceived them to be. Right, there's a book by 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:54.600 Nacineing Nicholas Talub And he's a distinguished professor of Risk 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.720 Engineering at the Polytechnic Institute that n y u UM. 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.520 He has this book black Swan, and he talks about 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:04.840 these black Swan events is having three attributes, and the 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:09.879 attributes are rarity, extreme impact in retrospective and what he 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:12.320 means by that is the first, for for for it 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:14.080 to be a black Swan event, it has to be 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:18.560 an outlier. Right, it's outside of our realm of expectations 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:23.120 because nothing in the past would have predicted that it existed. Right. Second, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:27.200 it carries an extreme impact. The ripples of its existence 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:29.600 are far reaching. Right, and like the photon, I mean 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:32.840 the subatomic particle example here definitely lines up with those 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.240 two right if true? If true? Right, that's that's the 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:39.560 key there. For that third, in spite of its outlier status, 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:43.399 human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:47.199 the after the fact, making it explainable to us and 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.919 seemingly predictable. Okay, So he says that there are examples 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.639 of this all around us, like the two thousand and 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:59.399 four tsunami, the Rise of Hitler nine eleven, UH, the 0:19:59.480 --> 0:20:02.720 advent of the Internet. He says, there all all black 0:20:02.760 --> 0:20:08.240 Swan events that we didn't expect were outliers, changed our culture, 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:13.880 um forever right, Uh, changed society, changed world events and uh. 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:18.280 And also the things that we we scrambled afterwards to 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.440 try to explain their existence, to to try to make 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:25.400 them feel not so much like these voids of knowledge 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:27.760 to us, because a lot of people would say, oh, well, 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:30.359 if we could just only have done this, we would 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.600 have you know, avoided the tsunami or voted nine eleven. 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:36.840 So he actually says, and this is a quote from 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.440 his book, Um, this is from the intro. He says, 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.520 what did people learn from the nine eleven episode? They 0:20:42.600 --> 0:20:45.200 did they learn that some events, owing to their dynamics, 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:49.359 stand largely outside the realm of the predictable. No, did 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.919 they learn the built in defect of conventional wisdom? No? 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:56.800 What they what did they figure out? They learned precise 0:20:56.960 --> 0:21:00.280 rules for avoiding Islamic proto terrorists and tall bill links. 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:04.359 And this, he says, is a real problem because we 0:21:04.560 --> 0:21:09.199 learned so specifically that we try to apply this model again. 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:12.399 You know, we're talking about model systems over and over again. 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:15.119 So he's saying Okay, we learned some sort of lesson 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.280 from there, but it's so specific it deals with strong 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:21.520 predators and tall buildings, that it doesn't necessarily say that 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.680 we learned a lesson there that helps us to avoid 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.919 terrorism altogether. Right, I mean, and that comes down to 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:29.919 just to wear of our minds work. And we were 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:33.440