WEBVTT - Selects: How Futurology Works 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:03.480 Hey, everyone, it's me Joshuam. For this week's select I've 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:08.680 chosen our January twenty sixteen episode on futurology. It's one 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:10.520 of those topics that has a name that makes it 0:00:10.560 --> 0:00:13.240 sound way cooler and far out than it actually is. 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.799 But happily we found that when you dig into it, 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.680 even the blandest parts of futurology are super interesting. Still, 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:22.279 I hope you like this one. 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:33.880 Guys, welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:39.600 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:43.760 There's Charles w Chuck Bryant and Jerry's here, and it's 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:48.120 stuff you should know from the future, but not really. 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:54.840 How you doing, I'm fine, Well, good, that's good. I 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.120 enjoyed this topic. I thought it was kind of neat. Yeah, 0:00:57.200 --> 0:00:59.360 it was. It was funny. 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:06.400 When you're reading about futurology and futurelogists aka futurists, you 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.399 tend to want to make it like more than it 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:13.319 actually is, and when you look into the topic it 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:15.760 keeps having to be beaten down just because of the 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:16.360 name alone. 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:18.880 Yeah, you sound like a little bit like a wackad 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:21.679 do A whack could do, say you're a futurist, a seer. 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:25.679 Yeah, and you know, sometimes they're thinking about they're using 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:32.120 these these really neat techniques to predict the future. They're 0:01:32.120 --> 0:01:37.280 talking about some really mundane stuff, Yeah, boring stuff, economic forecasts, 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:39.840 things like that, how much oil will be left in 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:41.840 thirty years, that kind of thing. But then on the 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.280 other hand, if you're a futurerologist, you may also be 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:47.440 tasked with figuring out what technology we're going to be 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:52.800 using in thirty years, or you know, what color the 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:55.000 shiny jumpsuits we're all going to wear will be. 0:01:55.160 --> 0:01:57.280 That kind of stuff. Yeah. I think one of my 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:02.320 favorite things is to look at past future predictions. Yeah, 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:05.840 it's fun. Yeah, there's nothing that'll make someone look less 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.919 knowledgeable than going back to what they thought the future 0:02:09.919 --> 0:02:12.160 would look like in the year two thousand, right, like 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.200 back in the nineteen thirties or forties or sometimes some 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:18.359 of those things happen. Yeah, and then it's amazing. Yeah, 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.040 that's like wow, you know, because something to this. 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.160 These guys are like really really dead on. And I 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:27.160 was reading an article I think it was in Harvard 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:31.480 Business Review, and it was a post by Paul Sappho, 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:37.320 who runs a venture capital firm I believe called discern. Yeah, 0:02:37.480 --> 0:02:41.440 and Paul Sefa was saying like he was trying to 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:50.600 get across that sci fi authors and future ologists their 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.680 paths overlap quite a bit, but really there's pretty big distinctions. 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:57.800 And even in this article they got lumped in together. Yeah, 0:02:57.880 --> 0:03:03.799 because sci fi writers do definitely use futurology techniques. But 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.000 Paul Cefo was saying like, yeah, but a real futureologist 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:08.360 you have to use logic. 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:10.519 If you're a sci fi. 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.320 Writer, you can just use your imagination, you don't have 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:14.680 to back it up with anything. Yes, you're a creature ologist. 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:17.840 You have to use logic that makes sense to whoever's 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:19.400 hearing your prediction. 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.320 Yeah, And I think that's one reason why some sci 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:26.680 fi writers have been right on the nose with some 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:32.000 future predictions, because they're not hampered by logic and they 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:36.840 can just free form, you know. Yeah, but then it's 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.200 just a lucky guess. No, I don't think so. I 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.600 think they're still applying a lot of the same rules 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.000 of future ology. Yeah, but they're just not bound by 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.600 you know, the laws of well not the laws, but 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.360 you know, the laws of logic. Yeah, exactly. I'm with you. 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:56.760 But that's the best science fiction though, I think, is 0:03:57.360 --> 0:04:02.600 something that logically makes sense. Yeah, because then it's just fantasy. Yeah, 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:03.080 that's true. 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:12.200 So futurology is recognizing and assessing potential future events. I 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:14.400 could have sworn Jonathan Strickland wrote this, by the way, 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.720 it ready, but it was not. No, it's very Strickland esk. 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:22.400 Nicholas Gerbis. Yeah, that's Strickland's alter ego. I wonder if 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:26.680 it is. I've never met this, Nicholas Gerbis. But the 0:04:26.760 --> 0:04:28.880 point Gerbus makes, which I think is good as it's 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.880 a product of our times in many cases, like depending 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:36.599 on where we are as a society, and like he 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.039 makes a great point. During the Civil War there probably 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:41.400 weren't a lot of like rosy predictions for the future 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.480 American Civil War, sure, but in the Gilded Age people 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.480 a lot more optimistic, optimistic, so they may have you know, 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:50.640 it's a whole different deal like during the Cold War, 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:54.880 for instance, right, a lot of paranoia, a lot of cynicism. 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.560 Probably not going to be a rosy outlook for the future, right, 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.640 like during the Gilded Age when it was rosier. Yeah, 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:03.280 way more optimistic than the Cold. 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:06.080 War, which is kind of ironic because the Gilded Age 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.400 didn't have anything to be optimistic about. They were just pretending, 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:15.320 hence the name. Yeah, the thing is what you've just said, though, 0:05:15.400 --> 0:05:19.400 is is kind of an argument against futurology because one 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:21.560 of the big critiques of it is that a futureologist, 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:25.040 they're not doing anything. Even if you're commenting on the 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:29.960 past or the future, you're still really commenting about your present, 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:32.799 your contemporary time, because that's what you. 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:33.640 Or recent past. 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:37.400 Sure, yeah, that's what you what you've lived through and experienced. 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:42.920 That's all you can really reflect on. And futurology seeks 0:05:42.960 --> 0:05:43.960 to go beyond that. 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:46.520 Well, yeah, that makes sense. So if you like, look 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:49.679 at this thing that is happening now or just happened, 0:05:50.240 --> 0:05:52.960 then what is going to be happening in that thing 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:56.839 in ten years? And it's a lot of times based 0:05:56.880 --> 0:06:00.600 on how the direction it's currently going. Yes, okay, so. 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:04.440 Gerbis makes a pretty good It gives you a good 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:07.760 example that the cell phone grew out of the telegraph, 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.240 which ultimately is related further. 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:12.320 Back to the smoke signal. 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.560 Sure, right, yeah, but if you were a future all 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:18.360 just hanging out around somebody who was sending smoke signals. 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.600 Would you be able to predict the cell phone? Probably 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:26.919 not or not? Could you predict the impact of the 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:31.599 automobile or the highway system? Right? Maybe? But would you 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:35.560 predict that people would have sex in the back seat 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:38.600 of a car because it provides a little well, I 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:41.880 don't think they did. Or urban sprawl? Yeah? Could you 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:47.040 predict exurbs and edge cities just because the highways got built? 0:06:47.120 --> 0:06:48.680 Yeah, and not a lot of people did, even though 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.440 a lot of people said there's going to be horseless 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.520 carriages one day, and it's going they're going to change 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:56.479 things big time. People are going to be able to 0:06:56.480 --> 0:06:59.479 move around a lot more. Yeah, But that doesn't mean 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:04.159 that everybody saw every result of the automobile. It was 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:09.320 a game changer, yeah, is what you could agreed. So 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:12.240 what we're saying here, And if it sounds a little 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.320 weird that we're at once supporting and criticizing futurology, that's 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.280 basically the fun thing to do when you talk about 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:24.200 futurology is to criticize it and be awed by it 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.400 because a lot of times they really are super right. 0:07:27.760 --> 0:07:32.600 That's right. Futurology has been around for a long time. 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.760 I mean, since people were writing fiction, there were people 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:42.920 predicting the future, right, but as far as things didn't 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.520 really get going as far as being meaningful until after 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:52.520 World War Two, when the US started developing technological forecasting. Basically, 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.800 like it was really important to try and see where 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.160 things were going militarily, right, because it was super expensive 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:02.920 to develop new technologies. It could take a long time. 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:05.960 So they started thinking, hey, we need to get some 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:09.200 people on board that can kind of hopefully predict where 0:08:09.200 --> 0:08:11.000 we're headed here so we can make the right decisions. 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:13.160 Yeah, because if it takes a really long time, like 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.880 you said, to develop a weapon, by the time you 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.480 have that weapon in deployed in the field, you're going 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.640 to need to know it's not already obsolete. The only 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.000 way to do that is to predict what kind of 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:27.440 warfare you're going to be engaged in. Because this is 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:29.040 a time like at the end of World War two, 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:31.320 so many inventions came out of World War one and 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:35.000 two war machine inventions that things were changing so quickly 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.080 that there was actually you can kind of put modern 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.680 futureology into the lap of one guy, an Air Force 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:46.120 general named hap Arnold, who saw that things were changing 0:08:46.160 --> 0:08:50.280 so fast that his Air Force needed to basically predict 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.520 the future and see what direction it needed to go. 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:55.080 So he looked around and he started tapping people to 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:57.040 do that. One of the first people he tapped is 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:02.280 a scientist anautical engineer named Theodore von Carmon. 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.880 Yes, he was a super smart dude, and he led 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.320 a team that did predict a lot of stuff like 0:09:09.480 --> 0:09:13.640 drones and as far as you know, the military using drones, 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.000 not your uncle who flies it around the neighborhood, just 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:21.720 a film stuff. He predicted the rise of Brookstone, target 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:26.880 seeking missiles, supersonic aircraft, and even the atom bomb. 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.000 All of this was in one report. Yeah, to hap 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:33.120 Arnold like, this is like and this guy knocked it 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.760 out of the park. But he and his group were 0:09:36.920 --> 0:09:40.520 very much limited to small academic and military circles. Like 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:42.840 the general public wasn't aware that this was going on, 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:49.360 but his group. Von Carmon's group so accurately foresaw the 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:54.960 direction that modern warfare was going that you can also 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.880 very easily make the case that no, he basically created 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.000 a roadmap to the future that the Air Force follows. 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:04.240 So is his prophecies were self fulfilling? Yeah, because he 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.280 said go this way, and the Air Force went that way, yeah, 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:08.800 and created all this stuff. 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:15.160 Yeah, and then the military and well, the Brand Corporation specifically, 0:10:15.520 --> 0:10:17.880 it grew out of the US Air Force and Douglas Aircraft. 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.240 In the mid forties. They said, well, having one person 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.080 to say these things is great, but what we need 0:10:24.160 --> 0:10:27.959 is a team and a consensus among this team. So 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:30.839 they kind of, well, not kind of. They very much 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:35.720 patented a technique they called the Delphi technique d E. 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:39.440 L Phi, and that is basically a technique where they're 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:43.720 trying to get agreed on consensus from a number of people. 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:50.080 So there's this very famous story about how the Navy, 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:53.360 I think lost a submarine, a nuclear submarine, or the 0:10:53.440 --> 0:10:55.559 Russians had lost a submarine something like that. There was 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.600 a loss sub that they wanted to find and they 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.880 had no idea where it was. So the Navy polled 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:06.600 all these different different experts and all these different fields 0:11:06.600 --> 0:11:13.280 that might have something to do with nuclear submarines, whether aeronautics, 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.880 people from Noah, all these people right, and ask them 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:20.640 where do you think the sub is? And no one 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:24.360 hit it on the nose. But why when they basically 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:30.840 used statistical distribution of these various opinions guesses of professionals. 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:34.440 It led them right to that sub And that's what 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:38.400 the Delphi technique does too. It takes opinions of experts 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:40.880 in various fields and says, what do you think of this? 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:45.120 And everybody sends in a questionnaire and anonymously, and there's 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:48.160 no group meeting, so the group doesn't bow to pressure, 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:52.400 no leaders emerge. They're giving their unvarnished opinion. And then 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:56.960 after those opinions come in, they take that information and 0:11:57.040 --> 0:11:58.839 send it out again. So it goes in rounds and 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:02.320 rounds and rounds until they finally come to a group 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.559 consensus that in the future, we're all going to be 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.479 wearing metallic blue jumpsuits. 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:11.120 Yeah. And what they're doing is generating what's known as 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:15.839 a scenario. And a guy named Herman Khan Kahn worked 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:19.120 with Rand in the nineteen fifties and he's the one 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.800 that kind of coined the term scenario as it applies 0:12:22.360 --> 0:12:26.400 to futurology. A pretty good definition I found was a 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.400 scenario is a detailed portrait of a plausible future world, 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:33.640 one sufficiently vivid that a planner can clearly see and 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:37.800 comprehend the problems, challenges, and opportunities that such an environment 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:43.880 would present. So it's you know, it's saying, in the future, 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:46.360 we're going to have a scenario where there are going 0:12:46.400 --> 0:12:49.400 to be robots in every house hold. Yeah. And one 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.120 of the biggest ways that they work on scenarios is 0:12:52.760 --> 0:12:55.959 with something called back casting, which is starting at the end, 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.400 which is you got a robot in every house, and 0:12:58.440 --> 0:13:01.320 then go backwards to how you got there? Yeah, how 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:03.360 you got there? Really? Yeah makes sense? 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.160 Yeah, and a scenario that's a pretty cool scenario. They 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.760 can also be as mundane as running a fire drill 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:13.640 where you're envisioning the fire broke out in the high 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.920 school gym, right, and so everybody needs to get out. 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:19.679 That's a that's a scenario. It's as simple as that. Yeah. There. 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:24.320 The weather forecasts are economic forecasts that are run through 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:29.000 computer algorithms. The computer algorithms, the model, the process that 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:31.920 it's going through is the scenario, and it spits out 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:32.959 a possible prediction. 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:37.040 It's almost like an effect then, cause right, yeah, you know, yeah, 0:13:37.080 --> 0:13:40.600 excellently put thank you. So Herman Kahn worked with rand 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:42.920 and and he did you look him up at all? Oh? 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.040 Yeah, he's one of the inspirations for Doctor Strangelove. Yeah, 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.480 he was described as a super genius. 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:51.600 Yeah, he was super smart, and he he kind of 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:53.480 was a bit of a celebrity at the time. He 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:57.640 wrote a book in nineteen sixty one called on Thermonuclear 0:13:57.720 --> 0:14:00.720 War and then went on to forum left ran to 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.840 from the Hudson Institute, where he basically was like, we're 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:08.679 a group that is going to forecast the future. So 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.560 he became it was like super popular book. Yeah, and 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.040 he spawned a lot of other books, similar books. 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:16.800 We need to take a break, but we're getting We'll 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:34.760 get right back to this in a second. So, Chuck, 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:37.880 you were just talking about Herman Kahn being the super 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.640 genius who is something of a celebrity. I read that 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.840 Timothy Leary animated that he had taken acid with him. 0:14:44.600 --> 0:14:45.160 I believe it. 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.240 He was a part of the inspiration for Doctor Strange Love. 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:53.520 And this book that he wrote called the Year two 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:57.040 thousand a Framework for Speculation on the next thirty three years. 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:04.080 It basically established this outlook that America and capitalism could 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:11.640 do anything thanks to basically technological inventiveness. 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:14.960 Yeah, here's a let's hear some of these There was 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:19.160 a list in that book, one hundred technical innovations very 0:15:19.280 --> 0:15:22.440 likely in the last third of the twentieth century, one 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:28.760 hundred some of the first ten multiple applications of lasers, boom, 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:35.640 high strength structural materials nailed it, wouldn't you think, Hellois 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:41.920 new or improved materials for equipment and appliances. That's easy. Yeah, 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:42.680 anyone can. 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:44.920 Say that, sure should be better material and predict that 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:46.960 now for twenty fifty. 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:53.920 Longer range, longer range weather forecasting, more reliable weather forecasting. 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:55.640 I don't know about that one. I think that was 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:58.800 a miss. How about this here here are a few 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:03.440 of the other ones. New techniques for cheap and reliable 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.200 birth control for sure. Yeah, the pill. I don't know 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:10.440 if the pill is around, we should do A whole 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:12.160 thing may have been the same year because it came 0:16:12.200 --> 0:16:13.560 out in sixty seven, was it. 0:16:13.720 --> 0:16:17.360 Yeah, well, this book came out in sixty seven, right, right? 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.880 A widespread use of nuclear reactors for power duh. Improved 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:25.800 capability to change sex of a children or adult gender reassignment, 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:31.320 Pervasive business use of computers. Yeah, they're all over. Personal pagers. Yeah, 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:34.520 they came and went, and then one of the other 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:37.600 ones was home computers to run households and communicate with 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:39.960 the outside world. Yeah, the Internet of Things. Yeah. 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:43.480 They also predicted the rise of the credit economy. Oh 0:16:43.560 --> 0:16:47.160 really Yeah, that we currently are in interesting yeah. So, 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:51.760 and that was just like a list, like a sidebar basically, yeah, 0:16:51.760 --> 0:16:54.320 in the book, in this book, but the whole idea 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.200 that America and capitalism in the West could invent its 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:00.800 way out of any problem. Will we possibly ran across 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:04.560 in the future was the premise or the position of 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:10.200 this book, and it caused an enormous furor in academic circles, 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.640 and not just academic circles, because this book was one 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:15.640 of the first to introduce to the public that there 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:19.440 were such things as think tanks like Randy and that 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.160 Club of Rome. Yeah, and that these people were sitting 0:17:22.200 --> 0:17:25.840 there thinking about the future and we're writing books about it, 0:17:25.880 --> 0:17:28.159 and it kind of became a hip thing. But the 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:33.359 Club of Rome was basically diametrically opposed to the outlook 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:36.800 that Herman Kahn had. And the Club of Rome was 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:41.200 a business consortium that conspiracy theorists say is basically the seat. 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:42.080 Of the new world order. 0:17:42.400 --> 0:17:45.960 They're still around, they are, And the Club of Rome 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.280 basically said No, we are establishing the gloom and doom 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:53.840 camp that there's such thing as resource depletion overpopulation and 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:55.240 we are basically doomed. 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:58.160 Yeah. I mean we've covered this a lot on the show. 0:17:58.160 --> 0:18:01.000 Different people that have made wild predictions about we're going 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.920 to run out of this by this year. Thomas Malthus, Yeah, 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:06.879 very Malthusian. One of the books that came out of 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:09.560 the Club of Rome in nineteen seventy two was called 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:14.560 Limits to Growth by Danella H. Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jurgen Randers, 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.120 and William Barn's at MIT and they had a very 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.320 dire apocalyptic outlook of the future, as did a lot 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:26.320 of other people at the time, and a lot of 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:30.280 these were way off base. A lot of these dire predictions, right, 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.879 you know, which happened over and over again. Yeah, and so. 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:37.000 On the Club of Rome's website they defend the Limits 0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:40.760 to Growth. No, not the Limits to Growth, the yeah, 0:18:40.800 --> 0:18:44.840 the Limits to Growth book, basically saying that it's often 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:50.960 miscited as predicting the collapse of civilization due to renewable 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:54.800 resource over use, right, and it doesn't do that. But 0:18:54.880 --> 0:18:57.879 they did use these same kind of techniques that Herman 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:01.240 Kahn and some of his other colleagues. We're coming up 0:19:01.240 --> 0:19:09.560 with by by taking population information, food production data, industrial production, pollution, 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.280 and non renewable resource consumption and then running scenarios through 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:17.399 this model that they built using computers and coming up 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:21.400 with the scenarios they came up with were kind of grim. 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:23.960 The thing is is, even though they missed the mark, 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:31.520 they still helped establish a very young idea that you 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.359 can't just throw your McDonald's styrofoam on the ground, You 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.040 can't drive a car that gets two miles per gallon, like, 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:42.760 we can't live like everything is just forever abundant, that 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:44.280 there's no such thing as scarcity. 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.680 Yeah, it's a double edged sword though, Like I totally agree. 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.080 But then it also when you're wrong about these things, 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:53.360 it gives Cynex something to point to to say, well, see, 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:55.919 we didn't run out of oil in the early nineteen 0:19:56.000 --> 0:19:57.960 eighties like you said we would, and we don't do 0:19:57.960 --> 0:19:59.080 anything about it. Yeah. 0:19:59.160 --> 0:20:02.280 I mean, man, that is a great point. It's a 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.400 very great point. But at the same time, what you're 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.600 seeing here between the limits to growth and the year 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:14.160 two thousand, we still see this today with climate change. 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:17.560 You know, it's like, let's do something about climate change. 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:19.560 The other people say, no, we can invent our way 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:21.280 out of it. And besides, if we do something about 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.399 climate change, it's going to mess with the economy. And 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:27.160 these people are saying, forget about the economy. We are 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:27.840 all going to. 0:20:27.800 --> 0:20:30.320 Die, yeah, or not necessarily forget about the economy. But 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.919 maybe you can do both, right, you know, yeah, you know. 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:36.320 My whole deal with that has always been just like 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:37.760 why take that risk? 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:41.520 Well, who we humans aren't very good at like preparing 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.119 for future risk, which is I think one of the 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:48.320 reasons why future ologists are so revered and odd but 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.920 also mocked and scorned, because they're doing something that's almost 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.119 almost flies in the face of human nature. 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:57.879 Yeah, you're really putting yourself out there when you predict 0:20:57.920 --> 0:20:58.600 some of this stuff. 0:21:00.200 --> 0:21:02.080 One other episode that that just reminded me of the 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:03.120 ten thousand year clock. 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:06.320 Oh yeah, yeah, that was a great one. Yeah. So 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.480 the military, the United States military obviously has used it 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:15.480 for years. Then beginning when was this in the sixties 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:17.879 or seventies, that business got into it. 0:21:18.000 --> 0:21:21.320 So in nineteen seventy two, I think Royal Dutch Shell 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:24.800 heard somebody at the top heard that there wasn't going 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:27.240 to be any oil in by nineteen eighty five, and 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:28.840 they went w Yeah. 0:21:28.960 --> 0:21:32.000 Businesses basically said, wait a minute, there are people that 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:36.280 can actually use models to determine what the future might 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.639 look like, right, how can we use that to make money? Well, 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:42.119 let's throw money at them and find out exactly. 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.800 A couple of other places too that were nascent think 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:50.840 tanks like RAND was the Stanford Research Institute Futures Group 0:21:50.880 --> 0:21:55.919 in the California Institute of Technology early like kind of 0:21:56.040 --> 0:22:01.320 think tank breeding grounds of smart people walking around thinking 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:01.960 about the future. 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:03.120 But that wasn't enough. 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.400 You can't just say this is what I think it's 0:22:06.440 --> 0:22:08.840 going to be like, you have to back it up 0:22:09.040 --> 0:22:10.560 and we'll talk about how they back it up right 0:22:10.600 --> 0:22:23.080 after this. 0:22:27.080 --> 0:22:27.919 How do they back it up? 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:32.040 Well, they use different techniques. If you're a futurist or 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:35.000 a future ologist, you're going to be using techniques that 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:38.560 are pretty recognizable. But the way you put them together 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:42.240 and the things you sort out is what's going to 0:22:42.240 --> 0:22:45.199 make you successful or not successful. Right, So you like 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:46.760 brainstorm ideas. 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:48.879 Yeah, that's probably where you start. Yeah, it's just like 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:50.480 blue Sky Territory as. 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:55.080 They say, yeah, you imagine things using scenarios or games, 0:22:55.200 --> 0:22:56.520 apparently game theory. 0:22:56.640 --> 0:22:58.040 But we got to do that at some point. 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:01.760 Yeah, I've been avoiding it cano so like we's a 0:23:01.800 --> 0:23:04.440 mind bender. We could mess it up really bad, Yeah, 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:11.200 but we'll do it. That changed the futurism feel tremendously 0:23:11.320 --> 0:23:13.359 when they came up with game theory, because it's a 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:16.359 pretty good way of predicting how people will work. And 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:20.960 that's one of the big confounding factors is you can 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:23.520 predict something, follow every single one of these steps that 0:23:23.520 --> 0:23:27.080 we're talking about right now, and then people will just 0:23:27.720 --> 0:23:30.280 cut to the left all of a sudden, and your 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:33.879 prediction just fell to the wayside because humanity went this 0:23:33.920 --> 0:23:34.600 way real quick. 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:38.480 Yeah. Or somebody invented a game changer, a game changing 0:23:38.520 --> 0:23:42.160