WEBVTT - How Bubbles Power Breakthroughs 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:23.396 Pushkin. There are these moments when people make huge technical 0:00:23.436 --> 0:00:26.396 advances and it happens all of a sudden, or at 0:00:26.476 --> 0:00:28.836 least it feels like it happens all of a sudden. 0:00:29.596 --> 0:00:33.196 You know this is happening right now, most obviously with AI, 0:00:33.396 --> 0:00:37.556 with artificial intelligence. It happened not too long ago with rockets, 0:00:37.796 --> 0:00:41.196 when SpaceX dramatically lowered the cost of getting to space. 0:00:42.076 --> 0:00:45.876 Maybe it's happening now with crypto. I'd say it's probably 0:00:45.876 --> 0:00:49.156 too soon to say on that one. In any case, 0:00:49.436 --> 0:00:52.796 you can look at technological breakthroughs in different fields and 0:00:52.836 --> 0:00:55.956 at different times, and you can ask, what can we 0:00:56.076 --> 0:01:00.196 learn from these? You can ask, can we abstract certain 0:01:00.596 --> 0:01:04.356 you know, certain qualities, certain tendencies that seem to drive 0:01:04.476 --> 0:01:09.436 toward these burths of technological progress. There's a recent book 0:01:09.436 --> 0:01:12.836 called Boom that asked this question and it comes up 0:01:12.876 --> 0:01:16.396 with an interesting answer. According to the book, one thing 0:01:16.476 --> 0:01:19.236 that's really helpful if you want to make a wild 0:01:19.316 --> 0:01:29.516 technological leap a bubble. I'm Jacob Goldstein, and this is 0:01:29.516 --> 0:01:33.276 what's your problem. My guest today is Burne Hobart. He's 0:01:33.356 --> 0:01:36.356 the author of a finance newsletter called The diff and 0:01:36.396 --> 0:01:39.156 he's also the co author of a book called Boom, 0:01:39.396 --> 0:01:43.956 Bubbles and the End of Stagnation. When burn talks about bubbles, 0:01:44.196 --> 0:01:47.676 he isn't just talking about financial bubbles where investors drive 0:01:47.756 --> 0:01:51.316 prices through the roof. When he says bubble, largely he 0:01:51.396 --> 0:01:55.996 means social bubbles, filter bubbles, little groups of people who 0:01:56.036 --> 0:01:59.796 share some wild belief. He really gets it what he 0:01:59.836 --> 0:02:01.676 means in this one sentence where he and his co 0:02:01.756 --> 0:02:07.516 author write, quote, transformative progress arises from small groups with 0:02:07.596 --> 0:02:14.156 a unified vision, vast funding, and surprisingly poor accountability end quote, 0:02:14.876 --> 0:02:19.116 basically living the dream. Later in the conversation, Burne and 0:02:19.156 --> 0:02:22.796 I discussed the modern space industry and cryptocurrency and AI. 0:02:23.436 --> 0:02:25.996 But to start, we talked about two case studies from 0:02:26.036 --> 0:02:29.316 the US in the twentieth century. Burn writes about him 0:02:29.316 --> 0:02:31.916 in the book, and he argues that these two moments 0:02:31.996 --> 0:02:36.196 hold broader lessons for how technological progress works. The two 0:02:36.236 --> 0:02:38.556 case studies we talk about are the Manhattan Project and 0:02:38.596 --> 0:02:43.436 the Apollo Missions. So let's start with the Manhattan Project, 0:02:43.196 --> 0:02:46.196 and maybe one place to start it is with this 0:02:46.276 --> 0:02:50.836 famous nineteen thirty nine letter from Albert Einstein and other 0:02:50.916 --> 0:02:55.436 scientists to FDR the President about the possibility of the 0:02:55.516 --> 0:02:56.596 nazis building an. 0:02:56.556 --> 0:03:02.116 Atomic bomb, right, So that letter it is it feels 0:03:02.116 --> 0:03:04.476 like good material for maybe not a complete musical comedy, 0:03:04.516 --> 0:03:06.436 but at least an act of a musical comedy, because 0:03:06.716 --> 0:03:07.196 it's kind. 0:03:07.116 --> 0:03:09.316 Of a springtime for Hitler in Germany. 0:03:10.356 --> 0:03:13.436 There is this whole thing where you have this brilliant physicist, 0:03:13.676 --> 0:03:17.236 but he is just kind of the stereotypical professor, you know, 0:03:17.356 --> 0:03:19.876 crazy hair, very absent minded, always talking about these things 0:03:19.916 --> 0:03:22.836 where no one, you know, no normal person can really 0:03:22.916 --> 0:03:26.956 understand what he's talking about. And suddenly, instead of talking 0:03:27.036 --> 0:03:30.316 about space time and that you know, energy and matter 0:03:30.556 --> 0:03:33.156 in their relationship, suddenly he's saying someone could build a 0:03:33.156 --> 0:03:36.676 really really big bomb and that person will probably be 0:03:36.836 --> 0:03:40.236 a German, and that has some very bad implications for 0:03:40.276 --> 0:03:40.996 the rest of the world. 0:03:41.076 --> 0:03:43.956 So now here we are, the president decides, okay, we 0:03:43.996 --> 0:03:46.116 need to build a bomb, we need to spend a 0:03:46.156 --> 0:03:48.156 wild amount of money on it. And this is a 0:03:48.156 --> 0:03:50.916 thing that you describe as a bubble, which is interesting, right, 0:03:50.956 --> 0:03:53.156 because it's not a bubble in the sense of market prices. 0:03:53.196 --> 0:03:56.956 It's the federal government in the military, but it has 0:03:56.996 --> 0:04:01.996 these other bubble like characteristics in your telling, right, maybe 0:04:02.036 --> 0:04:03.756 other meanings of bubble, the way we talk about a 0:04:03.796 --> 0:04:06.076 social bubble or a filter bubble. Tell me about that, like, 0:04:06.116 --> 0:04:08.956 why is the Manhattan Project a kind of bubble? 0:04:09.796 --> 0:04:11.956 Why is it a bubble? Because there's that feedback loop 0:04:12.036 --> 0:04:15.916 because people take the idea of actually building the bomb 0:04:16.036 --> 0:04:19.156 more seriously as other people take it more seriously, and 0:04:19.596 --> 0:04:21.996 the more that you have someone like more that you 0:04:22.076 --> 0:04:25.036 have people like Oppenheimer actually dedicating time to the projects, 0:04:25.196 --> 0:04:27.556 the more other people think the project will actually happen, 0:04:27.556 --> 0:04:29.516 this is actually worth doing. So you have this group 0:04:29.556 --> 0:04:32.796 of people who start taking the idea of building a 0:04:32.796 --> 0:04:35.076 bomb more seriously. They treat it as a thing that 0:04:35.116 --> 0:04:38.036 will actually happen rather than a thing that is hypothetically 0:04:38.076 --> 0:04:40.396 possible if if this particular equation is right, if these 0:04:40.396 --> 0:04:42.436 measurements are right, et cetera, and then they start actually 0:04:42.436 --> 0:04:42.996 designing them. 0:04:43.036 --> 0:04:47.036 The man Hen Project seems like this sort of point 0:04:47.076 --> 0:04:49.476 that gets a bunch of really smart people to coalesce 0:04:49.516 --> 0:04:51.916 in one place on one project at one time. Right. 0:04:52.436 --> 0:04:55.876 It sort of solves the coordination problem the way whatever 0:04:55.916 --> 0:04:59.676 you might say AI today is doing that, Like just 0:04:59.796 --> 0:05:02.196 brilliant people suddenly are all in one place working on 0:05:02.236 --> 0:05:04.116 the same thing in a way that they absolutely would 0:05:04.196 --> 0:05:05.236 not otherwise be. 0:05:05.756 --> 0:05:08.196 That is true. And this was both within the US 0:05:08.276 --> 0:05:10.596 academic community and then within the global academic community, because 0:05:10.596 --> 0:05:13.196 you had a lot of people who were in Central 0:05:13.236 --> 0:05:15.676 Europe or Eastern Europe who realized that that is just 0:05:15.796 --> 0:05:18.596 not a great place for them to be and tried 0:05:18.596 --> 0:05:23.236 to get to the UK, US other Allied countries as 0:05:23.356 --> 0:05:26.036 as quickly as possible. And so there was just this 0:05:26.276 --> 0:05:29.276 massive intellectual dividend of a lot of the most brilliant 0:05:29.276 --> 0:05:34.076 people in Germany and in Eastern Europe and in Hungary, etcetera. 0:05:34.196 --> 0:05:37.276 They were all fleeing and all ended up in the 0:05:37.316 --> 0:05:40.796 same country. So, yeah, you have just this this serendipity 0:05:40.876 --> 0:05:44.236 machine where it was just if you were a physicist, 0:05:44.236 --> 0:05:47.476 it was an incredible place for just overhearing really novel 0:05:47.556 --> 0:05:50.756 ideas and putting those ideas, putting your own ideas to 0:05:50.796 --> 0:05:53.076 the test, because you had all the all the smartest 0:05:53.116 --> 0:05:55.436 people in the world pretty much in this one little 0:05:55.436 --> 0:05:56.516 town in New Mexico. 0:05:57.156 --> 0:06:01.236 Right. So the Los Alamos piece is is the famous part, 0:06:01.396 --> 0:06:04.996 you know, it's the part one has heard of with 0:06:05.116 --> 0:06:07.356 respect to the Manhattan Project. There's a less famous part 0:06:07.396 --> 0:06:09.556 that's really interesting, and that also seems to hold some 0:06:09.556 --> 0:06:12.276 broader lessons as well, right, And that is the kind 0:06:12.316 --> 0:06:15.756 of basically the manufacturing part of the how do we 0:06:15.916 --> 0:06:19.196 enrich enough uranium to build the bomb? If the physicists 0:06:19.236 --> 0:06:21.556 figure out how to design it, talk about that piece 0:06:21.556 --> 0:06:22.596 and the lessons there. 0:06:23.356 --> 0:06:26.796 Yes, so that one, You're right, It is often under 0:06:26.836 --> 0:06:29.956 emphasized in the history. It was more of an engineering 0:06:30.036 --> 0:06:31.756 project than a research project, though there was a lot 0:06:31.756 --> 0:06:35.316 of research involved. The purpose was get enough of the 0:06:35.716 --> 0:06:39.196 get enough in rich uranium so the isotope that is 0:06:39.236 --> 0:06:44.476 actually prone to these chain reactions, get it isolated, and 0:06:44.516 --> 0:06:48.276 then be able to incorporate that into a bomb. They 0:06:48.276 --> 0:06:52.076 were also working on other physom materials because there were 0:06:52.156 --> 0:06:56.596 multiple plausible bomb designs. Some use different triggering mechanisms, some 0:06:56.756 --> 0:07:00.756 use different materials, and there were also multiple plausible ways 0:07:00.836 --> 0:07:03.756 to enrich enough of the physico material to actually build 0:07:03.796 --> 0:07:07.156 a bomb. And so one version of the story is 0:07:07.676 --> 0:07:09.916 you just go down the list and you the one 0:07:09.956 --> 0:07:12.476 that you think is the most cost effective, most likely, 0:07:12.596 --> 0:07:15.916 and so we choose one way to get just you 0:07:16.036 --> 0:07:18.916 two thirty five, and we have one way to build bomb. 0:07:18.716 --> 0:07:21.716 You two thirty five is the enriched uranium. Yes, And that, 0:07:21.756 --> 0:07:24.396 by the way, is the way normal businesses do things 0:07:24.396 --> 0:07:26.036 in normal times. You're like, well, we got to do 0:07:26.076 --> 0:07:28.276 this really expensive thing. We got to build a factory, 0:07:28.276 --> 0:07:29.556 and we don't even know if it's going to work. 0:07:29.796 --> 0:07:32.316 Let's choose the version that's most likely to work. Like 0:07:32.356 --> 0:07:35.316 that is the kind of standard move right, yeah, right? 0:07:35.356 --> 0:07:38.156 And then the problem though, is that if you try 0:07:38.196 --> 0:07:41.596 that and you just you got unlucky. You kept the 0:07:41.596 --> 0:07:44.076 wrong bomb design and the right phissile material or right 0:07:44.116 --> 0:07:46.476 material of wrong bomb design, you've done a lot of 0:07:46.516 --> 0:07:49.676 work which has zero payoff, and you've lost time. Right, 0:07:49.716 --> 0:07:52.236 Like crucially, there is there is a huge sense of 0:07:52.396 --> 0:07:56.036 urgency present at this moment that is driving the whole 0:07:56.076 --> 0:07:57.556 thing really right. 0:07:57.796 --> 0:08:00.516 We could also do more than one of them in parallel, 0:08:00.556 --> 0:08:02.196 and that is what we did. And on the manufacturing 0:08:02.236 --> 0:08:05.396 side that was actually just murderously expensive. If you are 0:08:05.516 --> 0:08:08.196 building a factory and you build the wrong kind of factory, 0:08:08.396 --> 0:08:10.596 then you you've wasted a lot of a lot of 0:08:10.716 --> 0:08:13.676 money and effort and time. So they just they did 0:08:13.836 --> 0:08:17.756 more than one. They did several different processes for enriching 0:08:17.876 --> 0:08:19.356 uranium and for perstonium. 0:08:19.396 --> 0:08:21.276 All at the same time, right, And they knew they 0:08:21.316 --> 0:08:23.396 weren't going to use all of them, they just didn't 0:08:23.396 --> 0:08:25.316 know which one was going to work. So it's like, well, 0:08:25.396 --> 0:08:27.276 let's try all of them at the same time and 0:08:27.316 --> 0:08:30.156 hopefully one of them will work. Yes, Like that is 0:08:30.196 --> 0:08:33.196 super bubbly, right. That is wild and expensive. That is 0:08:33.316 --> 0:08:37.276 just throwing wild amounts of money at something in a 0:08:37.316 --> 0:08:38.236 great amount of haste. 0:08:38.916 --> 0:08:42.316 Yes. Yeah, And if you so, if you believe that 0:08:42.356 --> 0:08:46.196 there's this pretty linear payoff, then every additional investment you make, 0:08:46.556 --> 0:08:49.196 you know has it doesn't qualitatively change things. It just 0:08:49.236 --> 0:08:50.316 means you're doing a little bit more of it. But 0:08:50.356 --> 0:08:52.516 if you believe there's some kind of nonlinear payoff where 0:08:52.916 --> 0:08:56.436 either this facility doesn't basically doesn't work at all or 0:08:56.716 --> 0:08:59.916 it works really really well, then when you when you 0:08:59.956 --> 0:09:02.396 diversify a little bit, you do actually get just this 0:09:02.396 --> 0:09:05.356 this better risk adjusted return even though you're objectively taking 0:09:05.476 --> 0:09:06.116 more risks. 0:09:06.116 --> 0:09:09.796 Interesting, right, So in this instance, it's if the Nazis 0:09:09.836 --> 0:09:12.076 have the bomb before we do, it's the end of 0:09:12.156 --> 0:09:14.436 the world as we know it, Yes, and so we 0:09:14.596 --> 0:09:17.236 better take a lot of risk. And that's actually rational. 0:09:17.956 --> 0:09:21.996 It reminds me a little bit of aspects of operation 0:09:22.276 --> 0:09:26.316 warp speed. I remember talking to Susan Athea, Stanford economist 0:09:26.396 --> 0:09:28.596 early in the pandemic who was making the case to 0:09:28.636 --> 0:09:32.156 do exactly this with vaccine manufacturing in like, you know, 0:09:32.716 --> 0:09:34.916 early twenty twenty, we didn't know if any vaccine was 0:09:34.956 --> 0:09:36.676 going to work, and it takes a long time to 0:09:36.796 --> 0:09:39.076 build a factory to make a vaccine, basically a tailor 0:09:39.076 --> 0:09:41.316 of factory. And she was like, just make a bunch 0:09:41.356 --> 0:09:43.716 of factories to make vaccines because if one of them work, 0:09:43.716 --> 0:09:45.276 is we want to be able to start working on 0:09:45.316 --> 0:09:47.876 it that day. Like that seems quite similar to this 0:09:48.396 --> 0:09:48.956 and you work. 0:09:49.596 --> 0:09:53.156 Yeah, yeah, I think that's absolutely true that you you know, 0:09:53.196 --> 0:09:55.556 the higher the stakes are, the more you want to 0:09:55.556 --> 0:10:00.116 be running everything that can plausibly help in parallel. And 0:10:00.156 --> 0:10:01.916 depending on the exact nature of what you're doing, there 0:10:01.956 --> 0:10:04.676 can be some spillover effects. It's you know, it's possible 0:10:04.676 --> 0:10:08.316 that you build a factory for manufacturing vaccine A and 0:10:08.716 --> 0:10:11.276 vaccine doesn't work out, but you can retrofit that factory 0:10:11.316 --> 0:10:14.036 and start doing vaccin B. And you know, there are 0:10:14.036 --> 0:10:16.516 little ways to shuffle things around a bit, but you 0:10:16.556 --> 0:10:19.436 often want to go into this basically telling yourself, if 0:10:19.436 --> 0:10:22.076 we didn't waste money and we still got a good outcome, 0:10:22.076 --> 0:10:24.156 it's because we got very, very lucky, and that we 0:10:24.236 --> 0:10:26.116 only know we're being serious if we did, in fact 0:10:26.116 --> 0:10:27.756 waste a lot of money. And yeah, I think that 0:10:28.596 --> 0:10:30.716 kind of inverting your view of risk is often a 0:10:30.756 --> 0:10:34.076 really good way to think about these big transformative changes. 0:10:34.196 --> 0:10:36.996 And this is actually another case where the financial metaphors 0:10:37.156 --> 0:10:41.076 do give useful information about just real world behaviors because 0:10:41.476 --> 0:10:43.836 at at head funds, this is actually something that risk 0:10:43.876 --> 0:10:47.076 teams will sometimes teleportfolio managers. Is you are making money 0:10:47.116 --> 0:10:49.316 on two higher percentage of your trades. This means that 0:10:49.396 --> 0:10:51.436 you are not making all the trades that you could 0:10:51.756 --> 0:10:54.276 and if you made, if you took your hit rate 0:10:54.276 --> 0:10:56.836 from fifty five percent down to fifty three percent, we'd 0:10:56.836 --> 0:10:58.916 be able to allocate more capital to you, even though 0:10:59.036 --> 0:11:01.356 you'd be annoyed that you were losing money on more trades. 0:11:01.516 --> 0:11:05.436 Interesting because overall you would likely have a more profitable 0:11:05.516 --> 0:11:08.916 outcome by taking bigger risks and incurring a few more losses, 0:11:08.916 --> 0:11:11.116 but winds would be bigger and make up for the losses. 0:11:11.516 --> 0:11:13.316 Yes, and this kind of thing, you know, it's very 0:11:13.356 --> 0:11:14.996 easy if you're the one sitting behind the desk just 0:11:15.036 --> 0:11:16.876 talking about these relative trade offs. It's a lot harder 0:11:16.876 --> 0:11:19.396 if you are the first person working with uranium in 0:11:19.436 --> 0:11:21.636 the factory and we don't quite know what the risks 0:11:21.636 --> 0:11:23.516 of that are, but it is. It is just a 0:11:23.596 --> 0:11:26.316 it's a generally true thing about trade offs that if 0:11:26.356 --> 0:11:28.556 you about trade offs and risk, that there is an 0:11:28.556 --> 0:11:31.276 optimal amount of risk to take. That optimal amount is 0:11:31.316 --> 0:11:34.396 sometimes dependent on what the what the downside risk of 0:11:34.476 --> 0:11:38.796 inaction is. And so sometimes if you're if you're too successful, 0:11:38.836 --> 0:11:41.036 you realize that you are actually messing something up. 0:11:41.276 --> 0:11:44.036 Yeah, you're not taking enough risk. So we all know 0:11:44.036 --> 0:11:49.116 how the Manhattan Project ends. It worked. I mean, it 0:11:49.196 --> 0:11:51.636 is a little bit of a weird one to start with. 0:11:51.796 --> 0:11:54.636 You know, the basic ideas like technological progress is good, 0:11:54.716 --> 0:11:56.676 risks are good, and we're talking about building the atomic 0:11:56.716 --> 0:12:00.716 bomb and dropping it on two cities and it's you know, 0:12:01.076 --> 0:12:03.276 it's morally a much easier question if you think it's 0:12:03.316 --> 0:12:06.036 the Nazis. Sorry, but the Nazis are absolutely the worst, 0:12:06.036 --> 0:12:08.196 and I definitely don't want them to have a bomb first. 0:12:09.196 --> 0:12:11.596 You know, there is the argument that more people would 0:12:11.636 --> 0:12:14.476 have died in a conventional invasion without the bomb. I don't, 0:12:14.836 --> 0:12:19.516 I don't know. I mean, how do you what do 0:12:19.556 --> 0:12:21.556 you make of it? Like, obviously the book is very 0:12:21.596 --> 0:12:25.036 pro technological progress, this show is basically pro technological progress. 0:12:25.196 --> 0:12:28.156 But like the bomb isn't isn't a happy one to start? 0:12:28.196 --> 0:12:29.116 I'm like, what do you make of it? 0:12:29.276 --> 0:12:32.476 Ultimately, Yeah, it's one of those things where you do 0:12:32.996 --> 0:12:34.636 it does make me wish that we could we could 0:12:34.676 --> 0:12:36.876 run the same simulation, you know, a couple of million 0:12:36.876 --> 0:12:39.396 times and see what the what the net? You know, 0:12:39.516 --> 0:12:42.436 loss and save lives are different scenarios, but one thing 0:12:43.356 --> 0:12:46.956 the bomb. If you I guess from like a purely 0:12:47.076 --> 0:12:52.876 utilitarian standpoint, I suspect that there have been net lives 0:12:52.956 --> 0:12:56.916 save because of less use of coal for electricity generation, 0:12:57.036 --> 0:12:59.476 more use of nuclear power, And that is directly downstream 0:12:59.636 --> 0:13:02.636 of the bomb. That you can build these, you know, 0:13:02.916 --> 0:13:06.716 buy design uncontrollable releases of atomic energy. You can also 0:13:07.076 --> 0:13:10.676 build more controllable ones, and then getting the funding for 0:13:10.676 --> 0:13:11.396 that would be a lot harder. 0:13:11.676 --> 0:13:14.556 And presumably we got nuclear power much sooner than we 0:13:14.596 --> 0:13:18.196 otherwise would have because the incredibly rapid project progress of 0:13:18.236 --> 0:13:21.836 the Manhattan Project. That's yes, there fair. 0:13:22.956 --> 0:13:24.516 Which I don't I don't think you know you if 0:13:24.556 --> 0:13:27.596 you let me push the button on what I drop 0:13:27.916 --> 0:13:31.756 an atomic bomb on a civilian population in exchange for 0:13:32.076 --> 0:13:35.516 fewer people dying of respiratory diseases over the next couple decades, 0:13:35.556 --> 0:13:37.636 you know, there, I would have to give it a 0:13:37.636 --> 0:13:38.236 lot of thought. 0:13:38.516 --> 0:13:41.236 I'm not going to I'm not going to push that button, 0:13:41.236 --> 0:13:42.516 but I'm never going to have a job where I 0:13:42.556 --> 0:13:47.116 have to decide because I can't deal. Okay. Then you 0:13:47.196 --> 0:13:50.196 mentioned in the book kind of in passing that was 0:13:50.276 --> 0:13:54.636 really interesting and surprising to me was that nuclear power 0:13:54.916 --> 0:14:00.236 today accounts for eighteen percent of electric power generation in 0:14:00.276 --> 0:14:03.196 the US. Eighteen percent, Like that is so much higher 0:14:03.276 --> 0:14:06.156 than I would have thought, given sort of how little 0:14:06.236 --> 0:14:08.716 you hear about existing nuclear power plants, right. 0:14:08.596 --> 0:14:13.156 Like, that is a lot. Yeah, yeah, it is. It 0:14:13.196 --> 0:14:15.996 is a surprisingly it's a president hand number. But also 0:14:16.276 --> 0:14:18.596 nuclear power it is it is one of the most 0:14:18.636 --> 0:14:21.276 annoying technologies to talk about, in the sense that it 0:14:21.316 --> 0:14:25.916 doesn't do anything really really exciting other than provide essentially 0:14:25.996 --> 0:14:28.716 unlimited power with minimal risk. 0:14:28.596 --> 0:14:33.716 And some amount of some amount of scary tail risk, 0:14:34.116 --> 0:14:36.356 right ye, Like, I mean that is what is actually 0:14:36.476 --> 0:14:39.276 interesting to talk about. Sort of unfortunately for the world, 0:14:39.316 --> 0:14:41.836 given that it has a lot of benefits, there is 0:14:41.876 --> 0:14:44.316 this tail risk, and once in a while something goes 0:14:44.316 --> 0:14:47.156 horribly wrong, even though on the whole it seems to 0:14:47.196 --> 0:14:50.356 be clearly less risky than say, a caul fired power. 0:14:50.076 --> 0:14:54.596 Plant, right, And the industry has they they're aware of 0:14:54.596 --> 0:14:58.076 those risks, and nobody wants to be responsible for that 0:14:58.196 --> 0:15:00.676 kind of thing, and nobody wants to be testifying before 0:15:00.716 --> 0:15:04.076 Congress about ever having cut any corner whatsoever in the 0:15:04.076 --> 0:15:07.236 event that a disaster happens. So they do actually take 0:15:07.276 --> 0:15:11.556 that incredibly seriously. So nuclear power does end up being 0:15:11.716 --> 0:15:15.356 in practice much safer than other power sources. And then 0:15:15.516 --> 0:15:18.396 you add in the externality of doesn't really produce emissions, 0:15:18.436 --> 0:15:22.996 and uranium exists in some quantities just about everywhere. 0:15:23.116 --> 0:15:25.516 No climate change, no local air pollution, has a lot 0:15:25.556 --> 0:15:31.036 going for it. Always on. Okay, let's go to the moon. 0:15:31.956 --> 0:15:36.556 So you write also about the Apollo missions us going 0:15:36.556 --> 0:15:40.236 to the moon. It's the early sixties, right, was it 0:15:40.276 --> 0:15:44.076 sixty one? Kennedy says we're gonna go to the moon 0:15:44.076 --> 0:15:48.076 by the end of the decade. There's the Cold War context. Yes, 0:15:48.556 --> 0:15:52.676 Kennedy announces this goal. What's the response in the US 0:15:52.716 --> 0:15:55.276 when Kennedy says this, Yeah, so a lot of the response, 0:15:55.356 --> 0:15:59.116 you know, at first people are somewhat hypothetically excited. 0:15:59.196 --> 0:16:01.916 As they start realizing how much it will cost, they 0:16:01.956 --> 0:16:05.636 go from not especially excited to actually pretty deeply opposed. 0:16:06.316 --> 0:16:09.076 And you know this shows up in there was a 0:16:09.236 --> 0:16:10.676 someone coined the term moondoggle. 0:16:10.916 --> 0:16:14.156 Yeah, moondoggle. I loved moondoggle. I learned that from the book. 0:16:14.276 --> 0:16:17.676 It was Norbert Wiener, like a famous technologist, not a 0:16:17.956 --> 0:16:20.876 not a not a crank, right, somebody I knew what 0:16:20.916 --> 0:16:23.396 he was talking about. Was like, this is a crazy idea. 0:16:23.556 --> 0:16:26.796 It's a moondoggle, right, And you know, this really works 0:16:26.796 --> 0:16:28.476 its way to popular culture. Like if you if you 0:16:28.556 --> 0:16:32.076 go on Spotify and listen to the Tom learror song 0:16:32.476 --> 0:16:35.636 Verner von Braun, the recording that Spotify has, it opens 0:16:35.636 --> 0:16:38.196 with a monologue that is talking about how stupid the 0:16:38.276 --> 0:16:41.636 idea of the Apollo program is. It's a it and 0:16:42.116 --> 0:16:43.916 you know this is a This is again someone who 0:16:43.996 --> 0:16:46.836 is in academia, who's a very very sharp guy and 0:16:47.236 --> 0:16:50.596 who is just feels like he completely sees through this 0:16:50.876 --> 0:16:54.796 political giveaway program to big defense contractors and knows that 0:16:54.836 --> 0:16:56.316 there's no point in doing this. 0:16:56.636 --> 0:17:01.796 You write that NASA's own analysis found a ninety percent 0:17:01.876 --> 0:17:05.636 chance that that a failure of failing to reach the 0:17:05.636 --> 0:17:07.676 moon by the end of the decade. Like, it wasn't 0:17:07.756 --> 0:17:10.916 just outside people being critical, it was NASA itself didn't think. 0:17:10.836 --> 0:17:11.476 It was good work. 0:17:12.756 --> 0:17:15.636 There's a phrase you use in the book to talk 0:17:15.676 --> 0:17:18.756 about talk about these sort of bubble like environments that 0:17:18.796 --> 0:17:21.076 are of interest to you, and I found it really 0:17:21.076 --> 0:17:23.276 interesting and I think we can talk about it in 0:17:23.276 --> 0:17:27.436 the context of Apollo. That phrase is definite optimism. Tell 0:17:27.476 --> 0:17:28.276 me about that phrase. 0:17:28.836 --> 0:17:32.076 Yes, So definite optimism is the view that the future 0:17:32.196 --> 0:17:35.836 can and will be better in some very specific way, 0:17:36.436 --> 0:17:39.076 that there will be there is something we cannot do 0:17:39.316 --> 0:17:40.916 now we will be able to do in the future, 0:17:40.956 --> 0:17:42.196 and it will be good that we can do it. 0:17:42.636 --> 0:17:45.516 And why is it important, Like it's a big deal 0:17:45.636 --> 0:17:48.916 in your telling in an interesting way. Why is it 0:17:48.956 --> 0:17:49.516 so important? 0:17:50.036 --> 0:17:52.756 It's important because that is what allows you to actually 0:17:53.316 --> 0:17:57.596 marshal those resources, whether those are the people or the 0:17:57.636 --> 0:18:00.796 capital or the political pull, to put them all in 0:18:00.876 --> 0:18:03.676 some specific direction and say we're going to build this thing. 0:18:03.716 --> 0:18:05.556 So we need to actually go step by step and 0:18:05.556 --> 0:18:08.356 figure out, Okay, what specific things have to be done, 0:18:08.396 --> 0:18:10.756 what discoveries have have to be made, what laws have 0:18:10.836 --> 0:18:13.476 to be passed in order for this to happen. And 0:18:13.996 --> 0:18:16.236 that is so it's definitely optimism in the sense that 0:18:16.276 --> 0:18:18.276 you're saying, there is a specific thing we're going to build. 0:18:18.796 --> 0:18:20.436 It's the kind of thing that can keep you going 0:18:20.836 --> 0:18:23.596 when you encounter temporary setbacks. And that's that's where the 0:18:23.596 --> 0:18:27.996 optimism part comes in, because if you have a less 0:18:28.076 --> 0:18:31.036 definitely optimistic view of about that project, you might say 0:18:31.076 --> 0:18:33.396 the goal of the Apollo program is to figure out 0:18:33.716 --> 0:18:36.396 if we can put a person on the moon. But 0:18:36.956 --> 0:18:38.956 I think what that leaves you open to is the 0:18:38.996 --> 0:18:41.116 temptation to give up at any point, because at any 0:18:41.156 --> 0:18:45.236 point you can have you know, a botched launch or 0:18:45.276 --> 0:18:48.876 an accident, or you are you're designing some component and 0:18:48.916 --> 0:18:51.116 the math just doesn't pencil out. You need you know 0:18:51.156 --> 0:18:53.716 it's going to weigh too much to actually make it 0:18:53.756 --> 0:18:56.156 onto craft. And you could say, okay, well that's how 0:18:56.156 --> 0:18:57.636 we figured out that we're not actually doing this. But 0:18:58.156 --> 0:19:01.116 if you do just have this kind of delusional view 0:19:01.356 --> 0:19:04.196 that know that if there's a mistake, it's a mistake 0:19:04.196 --> 0:19:07.236 in my analysis, not in the ultimate plan here, and 0:19:07.236 --> 0:19:08.916 that it is physically possible, we just have to figure 0:19:08.916 --> 0:19:11.116 out the all the details. Then I think that does 0:19:11.156 --> 0:19:12.836 set up a different kind of motivation, because at that 0:19:12.876 --> 0:19:16.556 point you can view every mistake as just exhausting the 0:19:16.596 --> 0:19:19.556 set of possibilities and letting you narrow things down to 0:19:19.796 --> 0:19:22.476 what is the correct approach. What you sort of needed 0:19:22.676 --> 0:19:26.876 was this sort of very localized definite optimism where someone 0:19:27.556 --> 0:19:30.076 could you could imagine a researcher thinking to themselves, or 0:19:30.076 --> 0:19:33.876 an engineer or someone throughout the project thinking to themselves that, Okay, 0:19:34.356 --> 0:19:38.516 this will probably not work overall, but the specific thing 0:19:38.556 --> 0:19:41.196 I'm working on, whether it is designing a spacesuit or 0:19:41.236 --> 0:19:45.556 designing this rocket or programming the guidance computer, that one 0:19:45.996 --> 0:19:47.996 I can tell that my part is actually going to work, 0:19:48.076 --> 0:19:49.636 or at least I believe that I can make it work. 0:19:49.676 --> 0:19:51.676 And two, this is my only chance to work with 0:19:51.716 --> 0:19:54.316 these really cool toys. So if the money is going 0:19:54.316 --> 0:19:56.236 to be wasted at some point, let that money be 0:19:56.276 --> 0:19:59.036 wasted on me. And I think that that kind of 0:19:59.076 --> 0:20:01.916 attitude of just you know that you have one shot 0:20:01.956 --> 0:20:04.356 to actually do something really interesting, you will not get 0:20:04.396 --> 0:20:07.236 a second chance. If everyone believes that, it does become 0:20:07.236 --> 0:20:10.276 a coordinating mechanism where now they're working extremely hard, they 0:20:10.316 --> 0:20:13.596 all recognize that the success of what they are doing 0:20:13.716 --> 0:20:16.076 is very much up to them, and then that ends 0:20:16.156 --> 0:20:17.636 up contributing to this group success. 0:20:18.316 --> 0:20:22.716 So it's like this, if I'm going to do this, 0:20:22.756 --> 0:20:24.596 I got to do it now. Everybody's doing it. Now, 0:20:24.596 --> 0:20:26.996 we got the money. Now this is our one shot. 0:20:27.116 --> 0:20:29.156 We better get it right, We better do everything we 0:20:29.236 --> 0:20:30.116 can to make it work. 0:20:30.796 --> 0:20:32.636 Yes, fear of missing out? 0:20:33.036 --> 0:20:35.676