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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb. Today's episode is an interview with podcaster

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Speaker 2: Ben Bradford about his new NPR Network show Are We Doomed.

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Speaker 2: When this interview opportunity came up, I have to admit

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Speaker 2: that my initial response was I don't know if I

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Speaker 2: really want to do that right now. I wasn't sure

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Speaker 2: if it was going to be good for my state

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Speaker 2: of mind, because, you know, listeners, you know me to

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Speaker 2: some extent, I've always been drawn to topics that circle

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Speaker 2: around the doomy. I love apocalyptic media of all sorts.

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Speaker 2: I listened to doomy music. But I also, especially over

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Speaker 2: the past decade or so, have certainly found myself prone

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Speaker 2: to spiral over some of the more pressing existential threats

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Speaker 2: facing humanity today. And I just wasn't sure I wanted

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Speaker 2: to lean in to cover it all right now on

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Speaker 2: the podcast. However, I want to stress the listeners that

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Speaker 2: Are We Doomed is not merely a teeth gnashing self

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Speaker 2: injection of darkness and anxiety, and that's why I'm excited

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Speaker 2: to chat with Ben Bradford here today about it is.

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Speaker 2: It is a podcast that takes a very even keel

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Speaker 2: journalistic approach to these topics, and I found myself at

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Speaker 2: the end of the episodes feeling in ways more hopeful,

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Speaker 2: but certainly more grounded. So let's go ahead and jump

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Speaker 2: right into it. This was a really fun chat and

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Speaker 2: I'm excited to share it with you. Hi, Ben, thanks

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Speaker 2: for coming on the show.

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Speaker 3: Great to be here.

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Speaker 2: As you mentioned on Are We Doomed, many, if not

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Speaker 2: most of us have grown up in the shadows of

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Speaker 2: certain looming apocalyptic possibilities, certainly the specter of nuclear war

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Speaker 2: for many listeners, climate change, and these fears just permeate

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Speaker 2: our media, our novels, our music, our video games, our

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Speaker 2: TV shows. What have been some touchedone examples of apocalyptic

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Speaker 2: media in your own life?

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Speaker 3: You know, when you say it, I immediately think Mad Max.

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Speaker 3: I think Sandy Wasteland. I think about the disastrous attempt

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Speaker 3: to do that on Water Water World. I think about

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Speaker 3: you know that the show Fallout the Road. I think

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Speaker 3: as a more grounded, gritty version of that in a

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Speaker 3: lot of ways, right, but those are our tropes. Is

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Speaker 3: the the sand, the desert, the people, are out there

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Speaker 3: for out there to get you, and so yeah, like

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Speaker 3: they all kind of bleed from that Mad Max thing.

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Speaker 2: I feel like, what do you think it says about

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Speaker 2: some of our worst fears about reality and some of

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Speaker 2: our favorite distractions, that they're both sort of couched in

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Speaker 2: apocalyptic vision. You know, that we might flee from a

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Speaker 2: news report about nuclear proliferation into the arms of say

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Speaker 2: a Fallout video game or the latest Hunger game series.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? Because on one hand, I

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Speaker 3: think we do spend all this time not thinking about

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Speaker 3: in particular nuclear war, and some of these other ones

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Speaker 3: I think are are maybe lesser known, lesser reflected on

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Speaker 3: as well. And then it's like we love post apocalypse

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Speaker 3: and apocalyptic media. I just saw The Odyssey and you

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Speaker 3: know there's trailers. Two of the trailers are like post

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Speaker 3: apocalypse movies and those same tropes. You know, really, Scott's

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Speaker 3: got a new one coming out and it's so amazing.

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Speaker 3: But I think that part of it is that, like

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Speaker 3: the post apocalypse movie, post apocalypse media is a power fantasy,

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Speaker 3: and it is like fantasy is the key word, right,

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Speaker 3: because you also are creating this world that it has

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Speaker 3: recognizable touchstones to us. You know, it's the plan of

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Speaker 3: the Apes thing where at the very end you see

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Speaker 3: the statue of Liberty buried in sand. There's an emotional

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Speaker 3: resonance to that. And I think that when you create

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Speaker 3: a post apocalypse, you get to wipe the slate clean,

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Speaker 3: imagine society doing whatever, terrible but exciting things. You know,

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Speaker 3: the rules are off, but it's still us. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's not Game of Thrones, where it's an interesting, political,

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Speaker 3: complicated world, but we don't have dragons, we don't have

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Speaker 3: those those medieval things. And so there's a way in

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Speaker 3: that post apocalypse film of connecting us to where we

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Speaker 3: can really kind of envision ourselves in those shoes, or

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Speaker 3: we think about who would we be in it? I

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Speaker 3: think that might be why, but I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I mean clearly it's it's one of those

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Speaker 2: questions we can really go down the rabbit hole thinking about.

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Speaker 2: Sometimes when down the rabbit hole, what do you think?

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, sure. I mean one one thing that

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Speaker 2: I keep thinking about in all of this because I

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Speaker 2: reckon iognize. So on one hand, I absolutely have this feeling,

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Speaker 2: you know where it's like I'll be reading Reuters or something.

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Speaker 2: I'll be kind of like scrolling and doom scrolling on routers,

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Speaker 2: and then I'll need an escape from that, and whatever

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Speaker 2: I end up running into also has these touches of

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Speaker 2: apocalypse to it, you know, and I'll maybe reflect on that.

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Speaker 2: I've sometimes come back to this particular line from jam

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Speaker 2: Cootsies Waiting for the Barbarians about the mind of empire.

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Speaker 2: And on one hand, like, you know, empire is just

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Speaker 2: always doing everything it cannot to die and pursuing its enemies,

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Speaker 2: and then quote by night, it feeds on images of disaster,

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Speaker 2: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones,

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Speaker 2: acres of desolation. And when I think about that, it

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Speaker 2: makes me wonder, like, Okay, are we the night in

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Speaker 2: that scenario? You know, each of us, as we engage

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Speaker 2: in this type of media, is our media obsession with

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Speaker 2: apocalypse kind of a symptom of our role in empire.

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Speaker 3: That's interesting. I've never heard that before. Maybe overthinking a bit, No,

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Speaker 3: I think that's that's fascinating, And so that carries back too.

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Speaker 3: Then you one would think to other other ages and

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Speaker 3: other empires. And you know, a thing that's interesting is

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Speaker 3: speaking of using the word empire is we have another

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Speaker 3: episode that we look at, you know, what does it

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Speaker 3: take for a civilization to collapse? Does it take for

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Speaker 3: a society to collapse? And that episode is pisfly titled

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Speaker 3: are we going the Way at the Roman Empire? Specifically

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Speaker 3: because my father is always grumbling that. But one of

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Speaker 3: the things that we heard from an expert who studies

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Speaker 3: not just Rome but other civilizations that have collapsed, was that,

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Speaker 3: you know that there was sort of this mixed thing

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Speaker 3: happening right where Rome. They would say Roma eterna right,

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Speaker 3: eternal Rome. They thought they'd done it, They thought they'd

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Speaker 3: cracked society. They thought they were post history, and of

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Speaker 3: course they're not. And that that quote reminds me of that.

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Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, yeah, I think very much a meditation

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Speaker 2: on that. We'll come back to I guess empire here

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Speaker 2: in a minute, But I wanted to ask you specifically

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Speaker 2: about the first episode in your show, How to Start

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Speaker 2: a Nuclear War? And on one level, obviously that's a doozy. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it ties right into some of my own worst fears,

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Speaker 2: and yet listening to the episode in full, I left

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Speaker 2: it maybe more even tempered, you know, in a way

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Speaker 2: it reminded me the experience of listening to the episode

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Speaker 2: was kind of like a therapy exercise where we confront

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Speaker 2: fearful thoughts or worst case expectations and kind of put

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Speaker 2: them on trial. And in your case, you speak with

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Speaker 2: experts who walk you through it. So tell me your

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Speaker 2: thoughts going into that episode, like what that episode sets

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Speaker 2: out to do and what you think it ultimately accomplishes.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's our first episode, and I think when

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Speaker 3: there's sort of two tracks here. One is the journalism

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Speaker 3: track of what are we going to cover in terms

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Speaker 3: of this issue, what are we going to bring to

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Speaker 3: people that's new, how do we make sure that it's

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Speaker 3: a well rounded conversation that is enlightening. And then there's

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Speaker 3: sort of the we're starting a new show, and what

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Speaker 3: do we want in the broad spectrum of everything that

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Speaker 3: we can talk about, what do we want to cover?

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Speaker 3: And I decided that I wanted to cover, you know,

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Speaker 3: a big one in if we're covering dooms, we're covering

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Speaker 3: potential and the world scenarios and related things. Let's take

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Speaker 3: the biggest and most well known and let's take a

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Speaker 3: piece of that, and what piece we want to take

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Speaker 3: and also how do we want to cover it? And

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Speaker 3: one of the things that we want to make sure

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Speaker 3: that we do is do the doom without the gloom?

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Speaker 3: So how do we approach this with curiosity? How do

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Speaker 3: we have fun? How do we marry the journalism with that?

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Speaker 3: And so ultimately I think that I wanted to get

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Speaker 3: expert views of one is what I know about nuclear

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Speaker 3: war or and what I've kind of grown up with

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Speaker 3: and the system of that is that right? What is

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Speaker 3: the paradigm today, how has it changed over years? Is

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Speaker 3: it really how likely?

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Speaker 2: Is it right?

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Speaker 3: I mean, one of the things that we want to

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Speaker 3: do in the show is kind of gauge where our

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Speaker 3: threats stand, but also what can we do? And there

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Speaker 3: is something very fun and interesting about asking experts solve it?

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Speaker 3: Just if you could solve nuclear war, this thorny, complicated,

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Speaker 3: in some ways seemingly unsolvable thing, how would you do it?

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Speaker 3: And the thing that I found you mentioned is sort

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Speaker 3: of a therapy exercise. And it's funny because I didn't

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Speaker 3: look at it that way, but I have very much

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Speaker 3: had that experience working on this show, where it kind

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Speaker 3: of feels like, you know, when you start writing a

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Speaker 3: story for anyone who's had this experience in any medium.

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Speaker 3: You start writing a story and the page is blank,

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Speaker 3: and it is a full panic. When the page is blank,

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Speaker 3: you don't know what's going to be on there, and

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Speaker 3: it feels impossible. And then you start digging into it

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Speaker 3: and you start typing in some sentences and it just

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Speaker 3: sort of becomes less daunting. And I think that the

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Speaker 3: same thing is true of almost any challenge. Right You're

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Speaker 3: trying to fix your car and it's broken. You don't

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Speaker 3: even know where to start, and then you kind of

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Speaker 3: identify the area and you identify, Okay, what do I

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Speaker 3: need to do, and one step at a time you

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Speaker 3: can kind of see the pathway to fixing it. Nuclear

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Speaker 3: war is not a broken car, but I think that

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Speaker 3: there is something about that that is also true, where

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Speaker 3: when you start asking people who do think about this deeply, well,

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Speaker 3: what is a pathway by which we could not have

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Speaker 3: all these weapons pointed at each other or we can

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Speaker 3: ensure that we do not fire them, you start to

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Speaker 3: hear solutions that maybe don't take it off the table.

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Speaker 3: It is a big, crazy, scary thing, but that do

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Speaker 3: make it feel like there are solutions that are more

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Speaker 3: achievable that can make the fingers go away from the

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Speaker 3: buttons and rob. The other part of this is that

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Speaker 3: it's not so much in that episode, but we have

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Speaker 3: an episode a couple down the line that are about

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Speaker 3: past dooms that didn't come true. We look back at

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Speaker 3: the times people thought they were doomed in the past,

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Speaker 3: and what you see when you do that is basically

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Speaker 3: that this feeling that we have, I think is really omnipresent,

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Speaker 3: not just in our current era, but also for nuclear

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Speaker 3: war in particular. There have been predictions of a nuclear

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Speaker 3: war since two nations first got the bombs, and the

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Speaker 3: fact that it hasn't happened. I don't think should make

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Speaker 3: us say, oh, well it can't happen, or oh well

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Speaker 3: they were wrong. But what it does is it does

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Speaker 3: show that with work and you can look at why

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Speaker 3: they were wrong, why these predictions didn't come true. And

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Speaker 3: it's actually a very optimistic story of work and diplomacy

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Speaker 3: and thoughtful effort that I find really inspiring. So I

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Speaker 3: think that, like both in that first episode and kind

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Speaker 3: of throughout the series, I try to hold on to

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Speaker 3: that because otherwise I will need therapy for the show.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that like again this is this is something

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Speaker 2: I love about what you've put together here, is that

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Speaker 2: you mentioned like the the terror of the white page,

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Speaker 2: and I think that does line up with the way

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Speaker 2: we sort of abstractly think about some of these threats,

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Speaker 2: because we'll, you know, we'll think about nuclear war, for example,

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Speaker 2: in its worst possible, most cinematic scenarios, and and then

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Speaker 2: you know, we don't want to then do homework on that,

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Speaker 2: and we don't want to necessarily even seek out any

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Speaker 2: any journalism on that. You know, we just want to

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Speaker 2: get away from it and run into a distraction. And

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Speaker 2: you know, what you do in the show is like

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Speaker 2: we'll break it down, like, well, okay, what are the ways,

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Speaker 2: you know, how how can a nuclear war happen? What

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Speaker 2: are the ways that that it could occur? And some

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Speaker 2: of those are still really terrifying. Again, just the idea

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Speaker 2: that you get into that, you know, one person can

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Speaker 2: just side that it's it's nuclear wartime, and then it

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Speaker 2: is that is that is terrifying and it feels entirely broken. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but then yeah, you touch on all these efforts that

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Speaker 2: have taken place and are continuing to take place to

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Speaker 2: also reduce that risk and prevent it from happening. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean I think that pretty early on my take,

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Speaker 2: and I is, the nuclear war is pretty embarrassing. You know,

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Speaker 2: we're going to be looking throughout this series all these

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Speaker 2: different ways that all these different threats. Some of them

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Speaker 2: are real, some of them are hype. Some of them

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Speaker 2: there are a couple that I had not heard of before,

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Speaker 2: and now.

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Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, I do love that. But for nuclear war,

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Speaker 3: it really is one that we built, and we have

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Speaker 3: created this system. It is a system for your own protection,

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Speaker 3: and that system is worldwide destruction. And you got to

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Speaker 3: be like, really, good job, humanity. I mean, there's something

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Speaker 3: very human about creating that system, and I think through

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Speaker 3: that lens it also takes some of the majesty away

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Speaker 3: from it, and it also allows you to hear some

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Speaker 3: kind of fun I find in a lot of this stuff.

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Speaker 3: There is there are fun and ridiculous stories.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: We're doing one about food and the food supply, and

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Speaker 3: which is I think you know both it's both fragile

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Speaker 3: and resilient.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: The slightest thing that you might not think of can

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Speaker 3: can spike food prices and can cause problems in various

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Speaker 3: parts of the world. On the other hand, we're feeding

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Speaker 3: far more people than the world has ever fed before

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Speaker 3: and and and generally doing that quite successfully with some caveats.

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Speaker 3: I was talking to an expert about this and he's like,

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Speaker 3: you know, the thing that I find ridiculous is that

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Speaker 3: we grow all of this corn, and most of it

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Speaker 3: we just grow it and then we burn it. Like

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Speaker 3: we grow the corn and then we turn into ethanol,

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Speaker 3: and then we burn the ethanol. And that's what we're

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Speaker 3: doing with this corn. And it's like, oh yeah, And

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Speaker 3: when you think about it that way, it's not to

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Speaker 3: say there aren't reasons for doing that, not to say

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Speaker 3: that that's not you know, we'll investigate that and explore it.

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Speaker 3: But you're like, yeah, it's a it's a weird thing.

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Speaker 3: Humanity is weird. We do weird stuff, and when you're

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Speaker 3: looking at these kind of global scales, it gets pretty weird.

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Speaker 3: A nuclear war is on there where nobody has an

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Speaker 3: incentive to start a nuclear war with a couple of

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Speaker 3: caveats that we get into, and yet it seems like

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Speaker 3: or you know, there's a reason that it's on the list.

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Speaker 2: I love one example of that, you that you're a

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Speaker 2: guest in that episode brought up, and not just because

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Speaker 2: it would be a great gimmick for a John Carpenter movie,

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Speaker 2: but the idea that the nuclear football that a US

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Speaker 2: president turns to in the event of a possible nuclear

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Speaker 2: exchange should be surgically implanted in a person's chest, so

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Speaker 2: you'd have to kill somebody to get it out of it,

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Speaker 2: you know, to really drive home the stakes of the decision.

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Speaker 2: I don't even have a question about that, but I

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Speaker 2: just wanted to bring that up.

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Speaker 3: No, I appreciate you mentioning it to me. That was

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Speaker 3: actually a real moment. So we have this expert, Sharon Winer,

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Speaker 3: who is at American University. But the reason I sought

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Speaker 3: her out was because she's also done work for the Pentagon,

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Speaker 3: She's done work for the Armed Services Committee in Congress,

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Speaker 3: and you know, really has an almost encyclopedic knowledge of

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Speaker 3: the issue. And so I was like, Okay, I want

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Speaker 3: somebody who's well rounded. I mean, again, when we talk

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Speaker 3: about how are we going to approach this thing? And

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Speaker 3: then I didn't know her particular take on what we

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Speaker 3: should do, and you can hear in the episode me

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Speaker 3: being kind of surprised where she lands on what she

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Speaker 3: would like to see happen. But one of the things

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Speaker 3: that she studies that is really interesting is decision making

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Speaker 3: and the decision making process that could put us more

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Speaker 3: at risk. And I thought this was really interesting because

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Speaker 3: again we talked about the things that you know, could

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Speaker 3: make nuclear war less likely and also the things that

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Speaker 3: are ridiculous. It's like, her contention is that we have

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Speaker 3: built this very very short window a huge amount of pressure,

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Speaker 3: put it all on one person in the United States

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Speaker 3: in this case, the president, to decide whether to launch

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Speaker 3: these weapons, whether to start a war, and that everything

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Speaker 3: that we know about the way we've created this is

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Speaker 3: like this is a bad meeting. Like you have created

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Speaker 3: a bad meeting that leads to bad decision making because

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Speaker 3: people don't react well under pressure. And so a lot

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Speaker 3: of what we're talking about in that moment is sort

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Speaker 3: of the decision making process and how do you make

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Speaker 3: sure that if somebody is deciding whether or not to launch,

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Speaker 3: that they're doing it as informed as possible, with the

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Speaker 3: understanding of the consequences as possible. And one of the

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Speaker 3: things that she said, and I was like, wait, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 3: what is She's like, you know, you just put the

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Speaker 3: launch codes in someone's chest cavity, and they've got to

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Speaker 3: kill that person to get them out. And yeah, and

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Speaker 3: for her, her point was that if you're going to

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Speaker 3: fire those nuclear weapons, you're gonna kill a whole lot

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Speaker 3: of people. And it's the you know, it's the statistics phrase, right,

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Speaker 3: that one person's death is a tragedy, a million deaths

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Speaker 3: is a statistic, And that's absolutely right. You know, these

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Speaker 3: are gonna be faceless people. These are people that you're

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Speaker 3: not seeing, You're not going to see the direct consequences.

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Speaker 3: But how many people would actually pull that knife on

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Speaker 3: that one person to you know, do the bloody work

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Speaker 3: of getting that launch code, getting those launch codes out?

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Speaker 3: So it's not a real proposal. I don't think she's

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Speaker 3: like thinking that someone has to undergo the surgery, but

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Speaker 3: I do think it drives home what we're talking about here,

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Speaker 3: and I thought it was a fascinating example.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely so Yeah, again, I highly recommend, yeah, starting

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Speaker 2: with that first episode for anyone out there who wants

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Speaker 2: to give the show a go. Now, you know earlier

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Speaker 2: that they're there are these threats that we've grown up

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Speaker 2: with our entire lives. You know, for many of us

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Speaker 2: we've grown up in the in the shadow of the

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Speaker 2: mushroom mushroom clouds, as Queen put it, or you know,

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Speaker 2: we've we've grown up knowing about the dangers of global

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Speaker 2: warming and climate change, uh others. You know, on one level, AI,

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Speaker 2: you know, certainly we've grown up watching Terminator, we've grown

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Speaker 2: up engaged in with sci fi. But this is also

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Speaker 2: one that certainly we've seen the changes happen so rapidly,

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Speaker 2: and they're still happening so rapidly. Was this was this

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Speaker 2: a tougher one to navigate? What was your approach to

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Speaker 2: handling AI on the show? So here's what I thought.

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Speaker 3: I thought, Okay, the first episode is about nuclear war

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Speaker 3: grounded practical, you know, this is this is one we

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Speaker 3: got to worry about. And now this show it's like

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Speaker 3: a mixtape, you know. So we have episodes that are

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Speaker 3: about the big stuff, and we have episode about stuff

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Speaker 3: that's hype, and we have you know, our recent We

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Speaker 3: have an episode that's about how we are losing the

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Speaker 3: moon because the moon is drifting away, which is true

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Speaker 3: but not really a big deal for any of us

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Speaker 3: unless you're plan to live for about five hundred million years.

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Speaker 3: And so I wanted to be a mixtape, and I thought, well,

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Speaker 3: the second episode, let's look at AI. AI is now

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Speaker 3: on the list at a lot of very credible places

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Speaker 3: that track what's called existential risk or global catastrophic risk.

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Speaker 3: These are the academic terms for doom stuff. And so

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Speaker 3: you want to ask why. And so I was like, well,

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Speaker 3: let's design the AI that goes rogue and kills us

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Speaker 3: all this big galaxy brained thing. What would that take?

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Speaker 3: And the problem is that when I did that episode,

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Speaker 3: it's like a magic trick. I just it's like, you

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Speaker 3: take the ingredients that you need for this thing to happen,

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Speaker 3: and all of a sudden, for me at least, it

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Speaker 3: feels so much less science fiction. So I had initially thought,

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Speaker 3: and I do like to let this show be guided

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Speaker 3: in some to some degree by my curiosity.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 3: The episode after that is about super volcanoes and super volcanos.

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Speaker 3: Was like, Oh, I've heard about super volcanos. I wonder

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Speaker 3: what their deal is For the AI one. I started

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Speaker 3: off thinking, Oh, this will be a lark, this will

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Speaker 3: be fun, this will be a nice, you know, kind

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Speaker 3: of more ridiculous, more sci fi ish second episode, and

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Speaker 3: instead I left being like, oh boy, and we have

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Speaker 3: a couple of AI episodes I don't want to get

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Speaker 3: you know, I'm trying to again parcel these things out.

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Speaker 3: I think we're so inundated with AI, and I think

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Speaker 3: our episodes are fun and different kind of bites on them.

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Speaker 3: But that was very much my feeling of it. It

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Speaker 3: I don't love it. I don't love the existential possibilities

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Speaker 3: of it. It doesn't mean that they will happen. It

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Speaker 3: doesn't mean that they couldn't be snake oil, it doesn't

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Speaker 3: mean that it couldn't all work out really really well.

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Speaker 3: But I think that what I found in that episode,

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Speaker 3: and I can drill down more specifically if you would like,

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Speaker 3: But I just that's how I desired to approach it,

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Speaker 3: and I did not land where I expected to land.

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Speaker 2: So I'm always interested in how journalists podcasters pick their sources,

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Speaker 2: pick their their interview subjects for topics like this, What

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Speaker 2: can you tell us about your selection process for this

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Speaker 2: particular episode.

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Speaker 3: So I was trying to figure out if we're trying

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Speaker 3: to build the AI that goes rogue and kills us all,

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Speaker 3: but who are the people who can speak to that thing?

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Speaker 3: Who can kind of give the argument. And I think

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Speaker 3: there's sort of two sides of this. One are there

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Speaker 3: is sort of a block of AI folks who are

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Speaker 3: saying this is really scary, not just for what it

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Speaker 3: could do to jobs or knowledge or culture or just

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Speaker 3: you know, grappling with rapid change as society has in

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Speaker 3: the past with our technologies, but there's an actual existential risk.

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Speaker 3: And I think that for this episode, my goal was

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Speaker 3: to talk to those people, although finding different people in

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Speaker 3: the broad range of it. So we have two guests

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Speaker 3: in that episode. We have one who is a researcher

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Speaker 3: who's very scared about this. But one of the reasons

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Speaker 3: I liked her was because she does surveys. In part.

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Speaker 3: Part of her job is doing surveys of the industry

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Speaker 3: itself and the people who are there, so she can

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Speaker 3: say not only hey, these are the pathways, these are

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Speaker 3: the thoughts. Like basically, if we're saying what ingredients do

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Speaker 3: you need for AI to go do bad stuff on

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Speaker 3: its own, and we're not talking about I should just say,

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Speaker 3: by the way, we're not talking about sentience here. We're

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Speaker 3: not talking about like the AI is smart. You're talking

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Speaker 3: kind of like what you saw in the Hugging Face incident,

428
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Speaker 3: which is this thing that just recently happened where a

429
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Speaker 3: chat GPT model was being built to hack something, but

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Speaker 3: they were testing it in a sandbox close closed, closed

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Speaker 3: internet and as we're recording this, this happened a few

432
00:24:13,280 --> 00:24:19,760
Speaker 3: days ago, and the AI figured out how to get

433
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:22,440
Speaker 3: out of the sandbox, how to basically go from being

434
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:25,200
Speaker 3: not connected to the Internet to getting an Internet connection,

435
00:24:25,560 --> 00:24:29,919
Speaker 3: hacking into another AI repository to get the answers to

436
00:24:30,200 --> 00:24:31,440
Speaker 3: what it was supposed to do, and then kind of

437
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:33,840
Speaker 3: sneaking its way back in kind of like you know

438
00:24:33,880 --> 00:24:35,760
Speaker 3: the squid at the aquarium who figures out how to

439
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:37,680
Speaker 3: unlock its cage and then goes out and eats a

440
00:24:37,720 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 3: fish and then scurries back in and relocks the cage.

441
00:24:41,119 --> 00:24:44,080
Speaker 3: We just saw that happen. And essentially, the the the

442
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:48,600
Speaker 3: scary versions of this are the more existential versions of

443
00:24:48,640 --> 00:24:52,520
Speaker 3: that thing where you give it a goal and it

444
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 3: kind of stupidly is like, well, I'm going to pursue

445
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 3: the goal by any means necessary, because that's what you've

446
00:24:56,760 --> 00:24:59,719
Speaker 3: told me to do. And the more capable it gets,

447
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:03,120
Speaker 3: more weird stuff it can do in terms of hacking

448
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:05,560
Speaker 3: or whatever. And we have some reasons that we look

449
00:25:05,600 --> 00:25:09,360
Speaker 3: at that these people tell us about about why they

450
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:13,520
Speaker 3: fear that that's sort of the default case. I would

451
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:15,040
Speaker 3: say I do much better job of explaining that in

452
00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:19,480
Speaker 3: the episode, but the people we wanted to talk to.

453
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:21,359
Speaker 3: I wanted to talk to people who could explain that

454
00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 3: because to me reading about it, it does feel like

455
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 3: a magic trick to say, Okay, this seems insane and

456
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:27,920
Speaker 3: then to kind of walk through it and be like, oh, well,

457
00:25:27,960 --> 00:25:31,159
Speaker 3: that actually seems less insane. I like the idea of

458
00:25:31,200 --> 00:25:34,600
Speaker 3: having somebody who could give us the view within the industry.

459
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 3: We also have somebody who's sort of more on the

460
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:39,399
Speaker 3: solution side, who we also have in a later episode

461
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:43,440
Speaker 3: that talks about more like human misuse. He's more worried,

462
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 3: I think, near term about how humans misuse it than

463
00:25:49,800 --> 00:25:52,040
Speaker 3: you know, you give somebody a really capable assistant who

464
00:25:52,080 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 3: can help them make bioweapons, and like, that's not great either.

465
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:01,040
Speaker 3: But so I want people on that spectrum. I want

466
00:26:01,080 --> 00:26:03,439
Speaker 3: to basically acknowledge in the episode and talk through some

467
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 3: of the reasons and ask these people, what are some

468
00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:08,399
Speaker 3: of the reasons that you could be wrong? But that

469
00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:10,720
Speaker 3: was the guests that I chose for that particular episode,

470
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 3: and we will have other episodes. I am sure that

471
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:17,520
Speaker 3: grab other guests to talk through it. The AI thing,

472
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:21,399
Speaker 3: for me, the way that I look at it is,

473
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:27,160
Speaker 3: you do have all of these organizations. Whether we're talking

474
00:26:27,160 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 3: about the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that was you know,

475
00:26:29,840 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 3: Oppenheimer and Einstein were part of the founders to kind

476
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 3: of they run the doomsday clock. We're talking about Cambridge University,

477
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:37,560
Speaker 3: they have the Center for the Study of Existential Risk.

478
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,160
Speaker 3: We're talking about defense departments, we're talking about the Rand Corporation.

479
00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:45,160
Speaker 3: Why do they have AI on their list of existential threats?

480
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 3: That's sort of like the thing that I started with.

481
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 3: And when we say why, what we really mean is

482
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 3: how because nuclear war we understand the how pretty easily

483
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:55,280
Speaker 3: it goes boom. AI doesn't go boom, So what is that?

484
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 3: So that's where I started, and then the question was, Okay, well,

485
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 3: who can kind of speak to that. That's very long

486
00:27:00,000 --> 00:27:01,959
Speaker 3: answer for how I got those guests, but that's kind

487
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:02,800
Speaker 3: of how I approached it.

488
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:05,720
Speaker 2: I think I early we alluded to the idea of

489
00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:08,240
Speaker 2: there being like a or at least I was thinking

490
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:10,600
Speaker 2: of it this way. A ranking system in our own minds,

491
00:27:10,640 --> 00:27:13,359
Speaker 2: like we have certain existential threats that are sort of

492
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:15,359
Speaker 2: up there at the top, and then there are others

493
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:18,479
Speaker 2: that we've pushed down to the bottom. And I was wondering,

494
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 2: at this point in the run of the show, has

495
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 2: your own personal internal rankings it has adjusted. Have you

496
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,760
Speaker 2: found like certain big ones kind of like dropping down

497
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:32,880
Speaker 2: the scale and maybe some more obscure ones. I think

498
00:27:32,920 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 2: you did allude to this sort of climbing up the

499
00:27:34,680 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 2: scale a little bit.

500
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:40,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know that I've had the big ones

501
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 3: drop on the scale beyond to the extent that we've discussed,

502
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:48,959
Speaker 3: where just I'm more optimistic about humanity's ability to solve

503
00:27:49,160 --> 00:27:52,879
Speaker 3: these seemingly unsolvable problems, and that has been a really

504
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 3: nice side effect of doing this show that I didn't

505
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:04,360
Speaker 3: necessarily expect. But I certainly have had some other ones

506
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:10,040
Speaker 3: that I had not considered also climb the rankings. One

507
00:28:10,080 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 3: that I didn't know about. There are something like I

508
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 3: didn't know so the Yellowstone super Volcano is a good

509
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 3: example where you may have encountered this in the past.

510
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:26,359
Speaker 3: But essentially, if you are on certain corners of the Internet,

511
00:28:26,480 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 3: not even like deeply weird corners of the internet. Just

512
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 3: you know, just I think this can kind of drift

513
00:28:30,160 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 3: drift past you. This factoid, and it is a true factoid,

514
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 3: which is that there is a massive volcano underneath Yellowstone

515
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 3: National Park. It extends beyond the boundaries of the park.

516
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:45,240
Speaker 3: That is true. It has erupted in a cycle of

517
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 3: six hundred thousand years. It spread ash all over the

518
00:28:48,520 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 3: continent in a way that would be catastrophic to the

519
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 3: nation and probably too much of the globe if it

520
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 3: were to happen again. And the last time was guess what,

521
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 3: six hundred thousand years ago. So we started there. On

522
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 3: that episode, I was like, huh, is this the thing

523
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 3: that we actually have to worry about? And very quickly

524
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 3: the answer is no. And very quickly the challenge on

525
00:29:07,240 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 3: that episode was, well, how do you how do I

526
00:29:10,840 --> 00:29:14,080
Speaker 3: not be one of these like breathless cable TV documentaries

527
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:19,840
Speaker 3: that's like Yellowstone is going to explode? And what we

528
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:22,880
Speaker 3: do is sort of investigate that actually, and I love

529
00:29:22,920 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 3: that episode. That's our third episode, and and and that

530
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,000
Speaker 3: one very much. Within two minutes you have the not

531
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 3: we tell you, I think in the episode description, and

532
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 3: it's like we're fine. And the reasons we're fine are

533
00:29:36,480 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 3: really interesting, and the reasons that people think we're not

534
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 3: fine are also really interesting. So super volcanos is one

535
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 3: that I think was like in the back of my mind, like, huh,

536
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 3: I wonder if I have to worry about that, And

537
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 3: we're fine. But the big ones are the big ones

538
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:56,880
Speaker 3: for a reason. And I think that the part of

539
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 3: it that is maybe less scary is just seeing ways

540
00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:06,160
Speaker 3: that we can get ourselves out of messages that we've

541
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 3: made that we have done so in the past.

542
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 2: When considering the various doom scenarios. Yeah, do you feel

543
00:30:13,760 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 2: like modern civilization's global interconnectedness makes us more resilient to

544
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 2: localize shocks or does it open us up to more

545
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 2: cascading effects?

546
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:31,680
Speaker 3: Yes, yes to both, because on one hand, you know,

547
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:35,080
Speaker 3: someone described it to me one an expert who covers

548
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 3: both looking at history and civilizational collapse and looking at

549
00:30:42,520 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 3: sort of current threats. He described it as like a

550
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,880
Speaker 3: coral reef, where a coral reef gets damaged in a

551
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 3: specific part and the rest of the reef will bring

552
00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:56,000
Speaker 3: nutrients over to it and repair that part of the

553
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 3: coral reef, and that's the beauty of interconnectedness. You know,

554
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:02,640
Speaker 3: we see that with a hurricane Katrina, or we see

555
00:31:02,680 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 3: that with other disasters. The I'm in Los Angeles, you know,

556
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:10,840
Speaker 3: the wild the wildfires, and you know Los Angeles is rebuilding,

557
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:17,840
Speaker 3: and that happens throughout history, of course. But the larger

558
00:31:17,880 --> 00:31:20,600
Speaker 3: the support network, the more people willing to send aid

559
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 3: or send fire trucks or any of those things, that

560
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:28,920
Speaker 3: the easier it is for a society to survive. And

561
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:30,960
Speaker 3: so that's the beauty of interconnectedness. And I think that

562
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 3: that's true on a really global scale. You know, we're

563
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 3: talking about about hunger and the amount of food that

564
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:43,600
Speaker 3: can be delivered. I mean, at this point, hunger is

565
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:48,719
Speaker 3: a political challenge more than it is a technology challenge.

566
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:50,560
Speaker 3: We have the food to feed everybody in the world,

567
00:31:51,520 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 3: and there is a lot of effort to and has

568
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 3: been in the past, more so than than this particular moment,

569
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 3: but to to get food too different places around the world,

570
00:32:04,360 --> 00:32:06,280
Speaker 3: and that's an amazing thing. I think we don't necessarily

571
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 3: always recognize those accomplishments, and so that interconnectedness is really helpful.

572
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 3: The problem is if a coral reef gets too damaged

573
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 3: in one part, it can overwhelm the entire system, and

574
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 3: the entire system can collapse, And I think that that

575
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:28,959
Speaker 3: is the other fear, and I'm actually really interested in

576
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 3: that idea. So we have another episode that's like, can

577
00:32:32,160 --> 00:32:35,400
Speaker 3: we kill the Internet? Basically? Is there a way that

578
00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 3: the Internet that we all rely on for kinds of

579
00:32:37,960 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 3: things like not just the things that we all know

580
00:32:39,680 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 3: we rely on it for, which I think are pretty

581
00:32:41,880 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 3: broad in and of themselves, but you know, water treatment

582
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 3: plants are often network connected and vulnerable to hacking. Is

583
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 3: there something that could bring down the Internet, not for

584
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,479
Speaker 3: an hour, not for a day, and not in one area,

585
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 3: but around the globe? And we try to do it,

586
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:00,240
Speaker 3: and it's a pretty galaxy brain episode, and we have

587
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:02,400
Speaker 3: kind of we tracked you know, it's the great thing.

588
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 3: We tracked down some experts who work in Internet security

589
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:08,080
Speaker 3: and we're like, Okay, you have all the resources in

590
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,040
Speaker 3: the world at your supposal break the Internet. And they

591
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 3: come up with some real James Bond style effort to

592
00:33:13,520 --> 00:33:15,400
Speaker 3: do it. And again, I think that's like an You're like, oh, wow,

593
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:20,000
Speaker 3: the Internet's pretty darn resilient, but it is a Any

594
00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:27,520
Speaker 3: sort of single failure system is a potential point of fragility.

595
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 3: So that interconnectedness, right, the fact that we all rely

596
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 3: on the internet for for so many things means that

597
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:36,120
Speaker 3: if there were some way to bring it down, it

598
00:33:36,160 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 3: would be a global catastrophe. So so it's both.

599
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 2: What if you found is if you found there to

600
00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 2: be some sort of a like a fundamental difference between it,

601
00:33:55,640 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 2: like a scientifically sound warning, say like climate modeling, asteroid tracking,

602
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:05,040
Speaker 2: or you know, just the very real threat of nuclear war,

603
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 2: and on the other hand, like a cultural apocalypse panic,

604
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 2: Like yeah, and then how and how are these two

605
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:12,800
Speaker 2: interconnected totally?

606
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 3: You know, if we're talking about post apocalypse movies, I

607
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:23,759
Speaker 3: think those speak to cultural panic. There are ways to

608
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:28,799
Speaker 3: look at what we think would probably happen in an apocalypse,

609
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 3: you know, whether that's the pathway that a nuclear war

610
00:34:31,760 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 3: would actually take. What would it mean if the missiles flew,

611
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 3: where would you go? Who would survive? More people survived

612
00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:43,680
Speaker 3: the blasts than we commonly think, at least, you know,

613
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 3: for our for projections that the government made even during

614
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 3: the height of the Cold War, But what would it mean.

615
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:53,960
Speaker 3: It's a lot different from the movies. We can look

616
00:34:54,000 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 3: to past collapses and have we have this great episode

617
00:34:57,560 --> 00:35:04,600
Speaker 3: with an anthropology who studies particularly civilizations in the Americas

618
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 3: that that that collapsed, and a lot of them with

619
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 3: European colonization, and so what happened was very fast collapses, right,

620
00:35:18,440 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 3: government collapsing, many many, many, many people killed. In some cases,

621
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 3: you could have indigenous communities where ninety percent of a

622
00:35:26,400 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 3: village were wiped out of the course of a winter.

623
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 3: And the point being on that that you could look

624
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:34,319
Speaker 3: at that and say, okay, that is an example all

625
00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 3: across the world, I mean across the two continents, a

626
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:45,040
Speaker 3: very grim example, but of something that approximates the kind

627
00:35:45,040 --> 00:35:49,920
Speaker 3: of apocalypses that presage our movies, right, the kind of

628
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:54,280
Speaker 3: thing that leads to these post apocalypse societies. There's no government,

629
00:35:54,600 --> 00:35:57,719
Speaker 3: there's there's ruins. People have to figure out what to do,

630
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 3: and you can ask then you can look for to history,

631
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 3: and you can look to anthropology, and you can look

632
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 3: to psychology and to say, well what do people do?

633
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:10,319
Speaker 3: And the thing that actually sort of amazing is what

634
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:13,080
Speaker 3: people do is they do not retreat to their bunkers.

635
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:16,879
Speaker 3: They do not go off on their own. In those

636
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:24,920
Speaker 3: situations in history, in different communities across two continents, people

637
00:36:25,960 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 3: reform communities, they turn to each other instead of away

638
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 3: from each other, which is an amazing thing. It's like

639
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:36,160
Speaker 3: not a thing I'm rooting for, but is like suggest

640
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:38,960
Speaker 3: something about the difference between kind of our cultural awareness

641
00:36:39,560 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 3: and our cultural consideration of how these threats look versus

642
00:36:45,560 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 3: the reality of it. And so I think when we're

643
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,320
Speaker 3: evaluating who the guests are, the kind of information that

644
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 3: we're going to give, I actually think that's like a

645
00:36:53,920 --> 00:36:57,839
Speaker 3: kind of a good example of the lens, right. We're

646
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 3: always doing the thing. I mean, I'm a longtime reporter

647
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 3: and the thing that I love about reporting is asking,

648
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 3: you know, what does somebody else think? How do they know?

649
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:13,360
Speaker 3: What can they point me to about how they know?

650
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 3: And there is a wealth of scientific knowledge of you know,

651
00:37:24,280 --> 00:37:27,600
Speaker 3: historical knowledge that speaks to these things, and so that's

652
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:29,880
Speaker 3: always who we're trying to identify. Is like, you know,

653
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:33,160
Speaker 3: I talked a little bit earlier about our nuclear expert

654
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:35,479
Speaker 3: that we have, and you very much hear her point

655
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 3: of view in that episode, and you hear me being

656
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 3: surprised by it, but you also hear I think this

657
00:37:42,920 --> 00:37:49,000
Speaker 3: very grounded explanation of how we think nuclear war escalates.

658
00:37:49,000 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 3: And I will say that it is very similar to

659
00:37:52,920 --> 00:37:55,480
Speaker 3: what we hear. We have an upcoming episode as we

660
00:37:55,520 --> 00:37:58,640
Speaker 3: record this week, we have an episode that is about

661
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:03,080
Speaker 3: the percurrent push, the case within the US government for

662
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 3: more nuclear weapons, and the ways in which those conversations

663
00:38:06,800 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 3: dovetail between somebody who wants less nuclear weapons or no

664
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:12,320
Speaker 3: nuclear weapons and somebody who thinks that we need more

665
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:17,200
Speaker 3: for our safety. There's a lot of a lot of

666
00:38:17,719 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 3: overlap in the process that they see. I want a

667
00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:26,440
Speaker 3: little bit off track there, but the point is, you know,

668
00:38:26,719 --> 00:38:29,800
Speaker 3: trying to find these experts who can answer those questions

669
00:38:29,800 --> 00:38:35,200
Speaker 3: about you know, what do we know about these things?

670
00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 3: How do we pull in history, science, hard data, and

671
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:45,400
Speaker 3: making sure that we're doing that and not just playing

672
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 3: into pop culture fears.

673
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:51,920
Speaker 2: Finally, you get into this even in the very first episode,

674
00:38:51,960 --> 00:38:54,839
Speaker 2: but can you explain the idea of a reverse apocalypse

675
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:57,759
Speaker 2: and are we living in one?

676
00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:04,319
Speaker 3: I think the idea of that is if you go

677
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:08,920
Speaker 3: back two decades, if you go back three decades, you

678
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 3: go back five decades, and you say, what does the

679
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:16,600
Speaker 3: world look like. Who has access to water, what kind

680
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 3: of diseases are killing people? Who has access to roads?

681
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 3: What is the quality of life?

682
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 2: Health?

683
00:39:26,200 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 3: How many children are get to live to adulthood, and

684
00:39:32,600 --> 00:39:35,240
Speaker 3: what you see is broadly around the world, those numbers

685
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 3: go up across decades. So we have an episode that

686
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 3: is essentially the argument that we are living in a

687
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:44,800
Speaker 3: reverse apocalypse.

688
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 2: That.

689
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 3: Even the store bought gas station sleeve of doughnuts that's

690
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 3: so bad for you is a mini miracle, and we

691
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 3: hear that case, and I think it's I think it's

692
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:04,000
Speaker 3: a fascinating one because a thing that I do think

693
00:40:04,320 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 3: is that we often miss the we miss the parts

694
00:40:12,200 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 3: of our society that we would miss if things did collapse,

695
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 3: If that makes sense, It's easy to overlook the gains

696
00:40:19,560 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 3: that we as a civilization have made, and there are

697
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:25,840
Speaker 3: terrible things happening all the time. And the way that

698
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,759
Speaker 3: the guests in that episode, the first thing he said

699
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:32,440
Speaker 3: to me, He's like, look, when this episode airs, something

700
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 3: horrible is going to have happened, and we're going to

701
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 3: be talking about how good things are. And it's not

702
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 3: to discount the horrible thing that happened, because horrible things

703
00:40:39,600 --> 00:40:44,680
Speaker 3: are always happening and and really broad scales, but if

704
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 3: you sort of distill down to some of these things

705
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 3: that people really care about, like let's say, the number

706
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:53,239
Speaker 3: of kids that make it to adulthood. You know, the

707
00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 3: stat that we hear and that checks out is that,

708
00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:58,480
Speaker 3: you know, for most of human history, one out of two,

709
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:03,239
Speaker 3: one out of two, and across the world, not just

710
00:41:03,280 --> 00:41:05,400
Speaker 3: in the United States, but across the world, you know,

711
00:41:05,480 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 3: that figure is radically different. And there's huge disparities in

712
00:41:08,520 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 3: that number still in the US and Europe or you

713
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 3: know what have you versus some other places in the world,

714
00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:18,920
Speaker 3: But every place in the world is doing better than

715
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 3: like eighteen forty five. When I think that the life

716
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:26,759
Speaker 3: expectancy in the best, the highest life expectancy in the world,

717
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:29,319
Speaker 3: I think was I think was in England and it

718
00:41:29,400 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 3: was like forty five years old. So you know, when

719
00:41:34,719 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 3: you look at things along that scale, But then you

720
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 3: also kind of go a decade by decade, you start

721
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 3: to see the real games that we've made. And to me,

722
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:46,920
Speaker 3: that matters because I think a theme that we're seeing

723
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:53,760
Speaker 3: is that people can make choices to make life life

724
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:55,560
Speaker 3: better and they have to kind of come together to

725
00:41:55,600 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 3: do that. And I think that one of the real

726
00:42:01,120 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 3: problems that we have that we investigate is that particular breakdown.

727
00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:07,520
Speaker 3: And maybe if we're talking about you know, what are

728
00:42:07,560 --> 00:42:11,160
Speaker 3: the risks today that actually you could argue would be

729
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:14,440
Speaker 3: the greatest risk, which is also kind of cool because

730
00:42:14,520 --> 00:42:16,319
Speaker 3: it means if we wake up to that fact, if

731
00:42:16,360 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 3: we figure out that we do have agency, that you know,

732
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:26,919
Speaker 3: collectively we can choose what we want to do about

733
00:42:26,920 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 3: these things and have in the past. That also shows

734
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:30,879
Speaker 3: a way out.

735
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 2: It reminds me a little bit, how what is in

736
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 2: I think twenty eleven, Stephen Pinker had the book The

737
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:43,239
Speaker 2: Better Angels of Our Nature, and I remember being, you know,

738
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:45,360
Speaker 2: won over by some of the arguments of that book

739
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:47,520
Speaker 2: about you know, about you know, that we're living in

740
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 2: a better time than any other time in human history,

741
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 2: for all these various advancements and so forth. And then

742
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:58,799
Speaker 2: over the past maybe ten years or so, it has

743
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 2: felt less like that, you know, and certainly since you know,

744
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 2: the pandemic, I think a lot of us, you know,

745
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:04,360
Speaker 2: a lot of things that have been going on in

746
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 2: the world, going on in the news cycle. And maybe

747
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:09,279
Speaker 2: part of this too is just you know, for my

748
00:43:09,320 --> 00:43:12,319
Speaker 2: own you know, my own subjective place, you know, I'm

749
00:43:12,360 --> 00:43:15,279
Speaker 2: just older than I was then. But you know, it

750
00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:19,480
Speaker 2: has felt less like we were, at least on some level,

751
00:43:19,480 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 2: like when you start, you know, getting into the facts

752
00:43:21,200 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 2: and you remind yourself, well, yeah, actually, I'm I still

753
00:43:24,200 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 2: am glad I'm not living in the dark ages. I'm

754
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 2: still glad it's not in the early nineteenth century or something.

755
00:43:31,719 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 3: A lot of goiters.

756
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but it has I think it is good

757
00:43:35,200 --> 00:43:37,320
Speaker 2: to be reminded of these things while again at the

758
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:38,840
Speaker 2: same time, and I think this is very much in

759
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 2: the spirit of your show, certainly not dismissing these threats

760
00:43:42,680 --> 00:43:44,600
Speaker 2: and the things that are going wrong, the things that

761
00:43:44,640 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 2: are that are terrible in the world, but also sort

762
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:50,800
Speaker 2: of looking at the sort of I guess, grander scope

763
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:53,240
Speaker 2: of where things could be headed.

764
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:56,799
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I think that's I think that's so well said,

765
00:43:56,920 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 3: and I completely agree. And I think that, you know,

766
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:02,960
Speaker 3: one of the things I'm interested in pursuing as we

767
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:05,800
Speaker 3: keep going is the sort of the threats behind the threats,

768
00:44:05,800 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 3: the connections between these things that maybe don't seem like

769
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 3: they have a lot of connections. You know, your your

770
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 3: your pandemics, or your solar storms, or your your hysterias,

771
00:44:16,920 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 3: your hypes, the things that you know are not a

772
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:20,920
Speaker 3: big deal, but but but take up a lot of

773
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:25,320
Speaker 3: our mind space, the things that we do well and

774
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,560
Speaker 3: not recognizing those and how all those things connect. And

775
00:44:28,600 --> 00:44:32,960
Speaker 3: I think that is very much part of it. And yeah, no,

776
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:34,919
Speaker 3: it's it's uh, that's the thing that I'm like looking

777
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:36,840
Speaker 3: forward to digging into more awesome.

778
00:44:36,880 --> 00:44:41,080
Speaker 2: Well, can you tell tell our listeners here and interviewers

779
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:44,000
Speaker 2: for those watching on Netflix where they can check out

780
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 2: the show, and especially where they can watch the show,

781
00:44:46,160 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 2: is very excited h to realize you have a video component. Yeah,

782
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:51,200
Speaker 2: that's that's really jazzy. Here.

783
00:44:51,239 --> 00:44:55,759
Speaker 3: It looks just like me. It's so we have The

784
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:58,320
Speaker 3: name of the show is Are We Doomed? It is

785
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:01,640
Speaker 3: a podcast available on all the pop cast platforms. We

786
00:45:01,680 --> 00:45:05,760
Speaker 3: are also on YouTube. We are at Are We Doomed

787
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 3: Pod on YouTube, and we have every show has an

788
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 3: animated podcast version. So that's a little character that has

789
00:45:17,760 --> 00:45:20,080
Speaker 3: my voice behind it, and all of our guests have

790
00:45:20,120 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 3: a cartoon version. And yeah, it's a little merry thing

791
00:45:24,200 --> 00:45:24,800
Speaker 3: we've created.

792
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,919
Speaker 2: Very cool and and I believe you mentioned that there's

793
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:31,880
Speaker 2: like a tear for supporters of the show where they

794
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:34,879
Speaker 2: can request certain apocalyptic episodes, right.

795
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we're certainly going to have mail bags many

796
00:45:38,160 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 3: people can go onto our website, which is doompod dot com,

797
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 3: and there's a space there to fill it in, but

798
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 3: we were giving our our supporters sort of first crack

799
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:48,520
Speaker 3: at when we do these mail bag episodes. We haven't

800
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:50,160
Speaker 3: done one yet, but we're going to have one coming

801
00:45:50,239 --> 00:45:51,359
Speaker 3: up fairly soon. Here.

802
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:55,800
Speaker 2: All right, Well again, the show is Are We Doomed?

803
00:45:56,640 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 2: I'm really enjoying it. I'm going to keep listening to it,

804
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:01,239
Speaker 2: and I recommend that to our listeners check it out

805
00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:03,480
Speaker 2: as well. Thanks again for taking time out of your

806
00:46:03,520 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 2: day to come on the show and chat with me.

807
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 3: I'm grateful for you having me.

808
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 2: All right, Thanks once more to Ben Bradford for coming

809
00:46:13,120 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 2: on the show and talking about the NPR Network show

810
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:19,319
Speaker 2: Are We Doomed? Again? I highly recommend this one to you.

811
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:23,040
Speaker 2: I did this interview because I was one over by

812
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:25,080
Speaker 2: this show and think that a lot of you are

813
00:46:25,080 --> 00:46:27,640
Speaker 2: going to benefit from listening to it as I have,

814
00:46:28,360 --> 00:46:30,440
Speaker 2: So go ahead and check that out wherever you get

815
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:32,960
Speaker 2: your podcasts. And again, he also has a really fun

816
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:36,879
Speaker 2: video version of the show on YouTube. Thanks once more

817
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 2: to the excellent JJ Possway for his work on this episode,

818
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 2: and as always, if you want to reach out to

819
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 2: us with suggestions for future episodes, questions, comments, and so forth.

820
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:47,920
Speaker 2: You can do so by emailing us at contact at

821
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:56,640
Speaker 2: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

822
00:46:56,800 --> 00:46:59,719
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

823
00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:03,640
Speaker 1: more podcast My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

824
00:47:03,719 --> 00:47:24,560
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M