WEBVTT - Future Shock 2023, Part 1 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.880 --> 0:00:14.920 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:15.840 name is Robert. 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:18.200 Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:22.079 So the world is of course always changing. We know 0:00:22.160 --> 0:00:25.000 this to be true, and yet I don't know about 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:26.640 the rest of you, and this is going to probably 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:31.600 vary greatly. I was actually talking about my wife with 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:33.519 this right before I came in. She was like, what 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:36.520 are you recording about today? And I was like, well, 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:38.560 we're going to be talking about this concept future shock. 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.200 And she's like, oh, yeah, you've explained it to me before. 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.919 Can you explain it again? And I did and she said, oh, 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:50.000 that's not real. I never feel that way. So I 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.120 do want to acknowledge straight up that not everyone is 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:55.440 necessarily going to feel this way. It is, I guess subjective, 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:57.640 but I don't know. For me, I feel like there 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:02.360 are times when it feels like change is accelerated, or 0:01:02.440 --> 0:01:05.720 that the changes that are occurring in the world social 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:10.720 to our technology, technological or scientific or what have you, geopolitical, 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:14.080 et cetera, are are kind of like the topiary animals 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:18.560 in Stephen King's novel The Shining in the book as 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.280 opposed to the Stanley Kubrick movie. It's it's not a 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.920 hedge maze, it's hedge animals. And you look away, and 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.680 then you look back and they've moved in closer. So 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.200 it's sometimes it feels like that to me, with with 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.720 advancements and technological advancements and so forth, that they've been 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.800 steadily advancing on is while our backs are turned, and 0:01:36.840 --> 0:01:40.559 it's and we only begin to notice, perhaps seemingly too late, 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:43.560 that oh, these these things are basically here. 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:46.800 Okay, So you're saying in this episode or this series, 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.880 you wanted to talk about the idea of future shock, 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.160 and this is brought on by some recent feelings about technology, 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:54.040 primarily AI. 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.520 Yeah, I mean, I think AI is is one of 0:01:57.520 --> 0:02:00.280 the main metrics of change that a lot of people 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:02.840 are talking about right now. AI has come up on 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:04.880 the show quite a bit over the years, and including 0:02:04.880 --> 0:02:09.400 the idea of AIS and creativity as recently as just 0:02:09.440 --> 0:02:12.520 a couple of years ago. Me personally, I found that 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.160 these concepts felt exciting, maybe a little bit threatening, but 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.600 not in an immediate sense. At the same time, there 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:24.200 was also a lot of optimistic ideas concerning what the 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:28.640 future might look like with generative AI and so called 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:32.800 creative AI systems in place, that AI would essentially be 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:36.440 our partner in change. It would be a collaboration. I 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:39.760 remember seeing you know, talks about this and examples of 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:42.679 how this would play out. You'd adapt to using these 0:02:42.720 --> 0:02:45.720 new tools as part of your creative process, while in 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:48.920 other fields individuals would reskill to adapt to the change. 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.440 You know, it seemed like there was kind of a 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:55.400 you know, a roadmap in place, and you know it 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.120 eased any rising future shock you might have. 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:00.600 Okay, so you used to feel more or like whatever 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.880 changes are going to be brought on by AI, we're 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:07.040 sort of we're taking the proper steps to like cushion 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:07.760 those blows. 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:10.520 Yeah, or at least, I mean not to say that 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:14.320 I wasn't exposed to other ideas and more negative views 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.079 of what could occur, but it seemed like there was 0:03:16.240 --> 0:03:19.320 enough positivity out there that I was able to sort 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.280 of buy into it. And then I remember, before the pandemic, 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:25.919 at some point of Frequage year, this was I tended 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:28.840 to talk at the World Science Festival in which physicist 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:33.080 Max Tegmark reference to this idea, this kind of topography 0:03:33.200 --> 0:03:36.760 of human abilities and jobs, with the idea being that 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:41.440 the higher elevations of this topography, like the mountain peaks, 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:45.000 we're going to be the most protected from the rising 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:50.120 sea levels of artificial intelligence. You can find this illustration online, 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:54.720 but it's like down there in the water, that's where jeopardy, chess, arithmetic, 0:03:54.960 --> 0:03:59.320 and rote memorization are like, those are already underwater of AI. 0:04:00.240 --> 0:04:02.480 But then as you move up through the topography, eventually 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.880 you're going to reach the heights of art, book, writing, 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:06.640 and science. 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.360 So his idea was things like art, I'm looking, you've 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:11.800 got the image here for me to look at two 0:04:11.880 --> 0:04:18.120 things like maybe art, cinematography, writing, science theorem proving these 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:20.279 are all like the peaks that are going to be 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.160 the last things that AI can reach and replicate. 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:26.280 Right right, And there would be other things in the 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:28.400 low lens that would be kind of like next to go, 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:32.640 like vision and speech recognition, driving, for example. And not 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.760 to say that this is now inaccurate or anything, but 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:38.720 at the time when I first saw this image, you know, 0:04:38.760 --> 0:04:41.520 it was interesting, maybe somewhat concerning, but it still didn't 0:04:41.520 --> 0:04:46.200 feel immediate. But then in the summer of twenty twenty two, 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.200 I chatted with Mike Sharples, the author of Story Machines, 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.880 how computers have become creative writers. And I know we 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:55.920 had a lot of fun on some subsequent listener mails 0:04:56.120 --> 0:05:01.400 using some of these technologies to generate tech But I 0:05:01.720 --> 0:05:05.520 asked Sharples about this image, this idea from Max tech Mark, 0:05:05.839 --> 0:05:07.679 and I, you know, ask him what he thought about 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.599 this projection, you know, the idea that human book writing, 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.479 for example, was in the highlands, and he said that 0:05:13.520 --> 0:05:16.520 he thought the waters were already considerably high. 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:20.080 I guess one problem maybe affecting a picture like this 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:22.839 or a topography like this, is that it considers book 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:28.080 writing as one thing. And whereas it might be quite 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:31.359 difficult for AI to write a certain kind of book 0:05:31.360 --> 0:05:33.760 aimed for a certain kind of audience, it might be 0:05:33.839 --> 0:05:36.240 quite easy for AI to write a different kind of 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:38.039 book with a different purpose in mind. 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:40.279 Yeah, yeah, I mean to sort of throw in a 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.200 sci fi example, like if you were to find out, oh, 0:05:43.279 --> 0:05:47.280 the aliens are among us now and they are disguising 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.840 themselves as people. The disguises are horrible, but the mere 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.000 fact that they are now doing it is enough for alarm, 0:05:54.040 --> 0:05:56.240 you know. I guess it's that sort of thing. Yeah, 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.400 because right now, you know, can AI write like, quote 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:04.400 unquote the Great American novel now? But can it do 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.800 other things that can be passed off at least in 0:06:08.120 --> 0:06:10.240 you know, sort of like self publishing marketplace and that 0:06:10.320 --> 0:06:13.120 sort of thing. You know, has it reached the point 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:17.000 where it is of concern in education, in publishing in general? 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.760 Yes, I think I was just reading an article about 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:26.920 people relying on AI generated travel guides just supposed to 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:28.880 be you know, this is this is the kind of 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:31.160 thing that you might imagine AI could do well, because 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:35.120 it's just sourcing publicly available information from the Internet and 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.760 then compiling that into a book. And it's like, oh, okay, 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:40.680 so you can know here the restaurants you can go 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.200 to in this city or something like that. But I 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.279 think I recall in the article of his reading that 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:50.800 people had been sent wildly astray about these things. But 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:55.760 that's still stuff that seems like mere I don't know, 0:06:55.880 --> 0:07:01.880 compilation of publicly existing factual information should be more easily 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:06.160 achievable by AI than say, writing a really beautiful, expressive 0:07:06.240 --> 0:07:09.080 literary novel that you know is meaningful to people. 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.560 Yeah. Yeah, And I actually have a friend who experimented 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:17.640 with vacation planning via AI, and he thought it was amazing, 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:19.440 you know, what you could do. But then of course 0:07:19.480 --> 0:07:22.400 the realization then you've got to do the legwork of 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.560 fact checking everything and making sure that it all lines up, 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:27.960 because you don't want to just you know, go off 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.400 with this being your main you know, bit of planning. 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.400 So yeah, I don't know. Recently, it seems like there 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:40.800 have been varying waves of you know, excitement, enthusiasm, concern, malaise, 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.320 all of this concerning generative AI. You see this wave 0:07:44.400 --> 0:07:46.960 sort of catching people at different points. Like I remember 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.560 when I first saw what some of these visual generative 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:52.800 AI programs could do, I was like, wow, that's amazing. 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:54.640 Look at this, this is this is this is kind 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:59.080 of great. It can make a dream like reality and 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:03.000 you can sort of create images that no one is 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.720 going to create for commercial reasons or even you know, 0:08:05.800 --> 0:08:09.559 for personal artistic reasons, and you can make them sort 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:13.160 of real. And then I, for me personally, I don't 0:08:13.200 --> 0:08:15.920 know that enthusiasm waned a lot when I just sort 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:17.960 of begin to see sort of like the soullessness of it, 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.560 at least from my perspective, it certainly waned when I 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.120 when I saw you know, visual artists that I know 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.560 or at the very least follow online, and you know, 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.320 saw them registering their concern over how these systems worked, 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.080 how they were sourcing information. And you continue to see 0:08:34.080 --> 0:08:36.120 people at different points. You know, some people out there 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.320 just discovering some of this technology, and they're at the 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.760 high point, and maybe they're going to stay up there 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:43.800 for a little while. So I don't know. I find 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:47.280 I have to sort of voice you some restraint when 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:49.400 interacting with people. I don't want to be the person 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:52.800 who's immediately trying to squash everyone's excitement for new technology. 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:56.600 You know, specifically when it comes to the arts, there 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.679 has long been a kind of implicit model at work 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:03.959 in our culture. I'm sure you'll know what I mean 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:08.680 when I described this that says, well, an artist, they 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:12.040 will sort of have two simultaneous careers. They'll have the 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.520 stuff that they care about working on that they don't 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:17.680 expect to make money on. It's difficult to make money on, 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.680 but might actually be quite beautiful and meaningful, and we 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:22.880 are glad that we have that stuff in the culture. 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:25.600 It is enriching, even if it is not a major 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.520 source of economic of money moving from place to place. 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:30.360 And then on the other hand, they're like, well, they've 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:32.880 got to have a day job, so they do you know, 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.360 illustrations for advertisements or something like that. This kind of 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.520 like not very inspired and not very fulfilling, but is 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:43.560 the way they can use their skills to make some 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.000 money to pay the bills while they do this other thing. 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:50.160 And so if that secondary thing is now it's like, oh, well, 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.760 we can just get a program to do that for us. 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.120 I wonder how that affects the other half of the equation, 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:00.040 because now you have an artist who can't subsidize the 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:02.720 kind of art they want to do by doing this 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:03.439 other job. 0:10:04.280 --> 0:10:06.600 Yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. It's it's 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:08.480 like saying, oh, don't worry, we're not going to replace 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.160 your your art. We just want to replace that that 0:10:11.280 --> 0:10:14.120 side gig you had where you were doing you know, 0:10:14.200 --> 0:10:17.840 some mockups of concepts for various projects, and yeah, that 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:20.240 that could that may very well be the thing that's 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:21.760 sustaining the other efforts. 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:25.040 So I think that's one way when people have said like, oh, 0:10:25.160 --> 0:10:27.560 you know, AI, it's not gonna it's not going to 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.280 replace great works of art that that might be kind 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:34.040 of missing some of the practical realities of what it 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:35.840 means to make a living as an artist. 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:39.360 Yeah, and so yeah, all this was going on, and 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.200 then it wasn't too long after this that a number 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.199 of people that that we both know lost their writing 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:50.640 and editing jobs to Generative AI, which seemed that was 0:10:50.720 --> 0:10:52.600 especially a moment for me, which seemed to come just 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:57.000 shockingly fast that it just it's like people were saying, 0:10:57.040 --> 0:10:59.200 this is the sort of thing that could occur, and 0:10:59.520 --> 0:11:01.800 I still didn't think that it was on the cusp 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:03.040 of happening, and then it did. 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:04.559 You thought it was farther away. 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.200 Yeah, it just it just seemed like those toperary animals 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.120 were farther off, but then suddenly they're right here. So yeah, 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:14.440 it just suddenly felt like a lot of these advancements. Yeah, 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:18.480 we're far closer to me and people around me than 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:20.839 they had been previously. It seemed like some of the 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:23.760 rosy ideas concerning how it could all play out were 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.480 maybe not quite as accurate. And I found that it 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.120 made me, It made me feel a bit anxious, you know. 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:30.480 All while everything else in the news cycle was going 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:33.800 on from congressional testimony about UFOs, to the sort of 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:37.680 general grinding stone of political coverage, to the equally suddenly 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:41.000 very real ramifications of climate change, which of course are 0:11:41.320 --> 0:11:44.920 kind of are basically reflected in that Max tech mark concept, 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:47.560 you know, trying to understand the rising threat of AI 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:52.240 by comparing it to the rising, literal, rising sea waters 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:56.640 due to climate change. And of course it's it's interesting 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:01.280 to use one to to understand the other when both 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.960 suffer at times from this this this lack of feeling 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.840 like an immediate concern to many people, even when here 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.520 we are suddenly you know, just watch the news any 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:13.720 given day and you can see it playing out in 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.040 real time. So anyway, I didn't think about it much 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.640 at the time, but then later I was chatting with 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.199 some friends and I was reminded once more of Alvin 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:27.880 Toffler's nineteen seventy book Future Shock, which i'd read myself 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:32.320 for the first time maybe ten years ago, and I thought, well, 0:12:32.559 --> 0:12:35.000 we should come back and revisit it, like I want to, 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:37.000 you know, wanted to revisit it. At this point in 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.960 my life. I feel like there's more to discuss in 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:43.400 terms of like where we are in the world at 0:12:43.400 --> 0:12:45.959 this point, and it's just it also deals with a 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:49.640 number of you know, stuff to blow your mind, you know, 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.560 classic concepts of futurism and change. 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:58.600 I always enjoy reading about the predictions people made about 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.440 the future from the disc in past. So this book 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.160 is now fifty three years old, is that right? 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:07.640 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's over a half a century old. 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:12.280 So it's yeah, it's interesting to look back on because, 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.120 as you might expect, so many ideas are thrown out 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.800 in this book that you know, some hauntingly hit the mark, 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:23.760 some are way off base, and many of them are 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:27.440 just sort of like a snapshot of the time, like imagining. Yeah, 0:13:27.440 --> 0:13:29.840 that this is this is a book that came together 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:32.760 in the late nineteen sixties, you know, at this point 0:13:32.800 --> 0:13:36.520 of you know, drastic change in America, in the world, 0:13:36.800 --> 0:13:39.600 and this is what one individual or a pair of 0:13:39.640 --> 0:13:41.960 individuals put together about all of it. 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.439 There is a lot about hippies in this book. 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:47.880 Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of looking to what is 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:51.680 the hippie culture subculture doing and how can this be 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.640 like a magic ball in a sense to understand the future. 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:57.080 And some of it does pan out, like some of 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.600 the future predictions by looking at the hippies works, other 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:03.760 things not so much, you know, so we'll definitely get 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:05.000 into some of those examples. 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:07.679 Yeah. So, as I was saying, I love these things, 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.880 even when they're ludicrously wrong, you know. I like Criswell 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:15.040 predicts and future events such as these will concern us 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:17.800 all in the future because that is where we're going 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.920 to be living the rest of our lives. But I 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:22.960 like you so I'd never read this book before. I 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:25.800 just finished it for the first time literally hours before 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:29.160 we started recording here, and I was struck by Yeah, 0:14:29.200 --> 0:14:34.360 a very interesting mix of reactions. On one hand, Future 0:14:34.360 --> 0:14:39.200 Shock is it's exactly the kind of book that I 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:42.640 think one needs to be wary of, and I would 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.320 character I would put it in this category of charismatic 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:50.760 big cultural thesis books, books that have a kind of 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:56.680 basically easy to understand charismatic idea at the core, that's like, 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.800 here's the thing that explains what's going on in culture. 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:03.720 Books like that can be kind of epistemically dangerous because 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.600 it's very appealing to have to like land on a 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:10.160 theory that finally, you know, culture is so confusing, I 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.080 don't understand what's happening in the world today, and then oh, 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:16.240 here's a thesis that explains what's going on. Now I 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:18.960 finally understand it, and you can like put use that 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:23.040 as your lens that now the world makes sense. And 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:25.280 so it is a book in a way like that, 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.760 which is especially funny because there is a section in 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:32.680 the book warning about books of that sort and theories 0:15:32.680 --> 0:15:35.120 of that sort that explain everything about culture. 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.680 Yeah, and if memory service, they do kind of acknowledge 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.360 like this book could could be exactly the sort of 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:46.360 thing that could be like a maladaptive reaction to future shock. 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:48.840 I just go all in on it exactly. 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.920 Yeah, So they have that consciousness, and so I think 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.920 that's fair and that's a good kind of self consciousness 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:57.640 for the author or authors. Maybe we can talk about 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.480 whether we should be talking about the author as Alvin 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.680 Toffler or Alvin and Heidi Toffler the book I read 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.280 the author name on it was Alvin Toffler, but from 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:10.400 what I understand there now sort of understood to be 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:13.920 co authors, though she was sort of an anonymous co author. 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:16.920 Is that right, Yeah, Yeah, that's my understanding as well. 0:16:17.120 --> 0:16:19.240 He was a writer, a journalist and a futurist. She 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:22.320 was a researcher and an editor. According to her oh 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:24.960 bit in The New York Times, she quote served an essential, 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.640 though anonymous, collaborative role alongside her celebrated husband, and she 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:31.800 is later in later works she is credited as co author. 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.480 So I think we'll probably be interchangeables. 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.440 Like sometimes we may say he when we could easily 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:42.480 say they, we may say Toffler, and other times we 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:46.120 may say the Tofflers. But I think it's widely recognized 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:47.320 that they work together on these. 0:16:47.640 --> 0:16:50.000 Okay, yeah, so for now I'll say the Tofflers. I 0:16:50.000 --> 0:16:53.400 think the Tofflers do show that self consciousness and acknowledge 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:57.400 that which is useful. But like I said, it's always 0:16:57.400 --> 0:17:00.440 good to approach books like this cautiously because there are 0:17:00.520 --> 0:17:05.960 good books like this that can offer some good insights, 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.560 but rarely are they correct in everything they claim. And 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.840 also you just have to be conscious that I think 0:17:12.960 --> 0:17:16.680 books like this can be more appealing than they deserve, 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.399 like that, you know, be like, oh, the explanatory power 0:17:20.440 --> 0:17:24.080 they seem to offer can prove too alluring and can 0:17:24.200 --> 0:17:28.160 kind of easily hop over our defenses to arguments that 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.399 we would notice our week in another context. Like I 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:33.479 remember at one point when it was making a point 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:39.159 about the diversity of options available in the world today 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:42.119 on things which you can you know, give your interest 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:44.960 to or spend your time on. It said quote book 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:48.560 clubs are finding it increasingly more difficult to choose monthly 0:17:48.640 --> 0:17:52.840 selections that appeal to large numbers of divergent readers. And 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:54.720 I you know, at first you can just kind of 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:56.840 like read that sentence and be like yeah, yeah, And 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:58.679 then I stopped and I was like, wait a minute, 0:17:59.160 --> 0:18:01.840 how would one know this? Like, no evidence of that 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:05.320 claim is given. It's just sort of it's something that 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.520 sounds plausible. That's probably, but I have no idea if 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.959 that statement is true. So, and there's just like a 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.719 lot of stuff like that in this book and books 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.400 like it, statements that kind of like they they're part 0:18:17.520 --> 0:18:21.680 of this march of evidence toward the thesis about what's 0:18:21.680 --> 0:18:25.240 going on in culture, and they sound plausibly enough true. 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:27.600 They kind of fit into the rhythm of the argument 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.240 being developed, and they just wash over you and you think, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.600 but it's so anyway, I guess my point is when 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:36.760 you realize that's happening to you in a book, you 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:38.800 should stop and think, Okay, wait a minute, maybe I 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:40.240 should be a little cautious here. 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:43.600 Yeah. I mean we've covered books of this nature before. 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:47.000 I mean the bicameral mind. You know, I've talked about, 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.520 you know, the works of Terrence McKenna on the show before, 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.399 and you know, these are I think these are you know, 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:57.720 books by individuals who had some amazing ideas, some amazing viewpoints, 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:02.000 some things to say that were at times important, at 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:06.320 times entertaining, and you know also sometimes perhaps you know, incorrect. 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:09.600 But yeah, it's like, do you go all in on it? 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:11.800 Do you do you go all in on the Stone 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:15.520 Dape hypothesis or do you just you know, you read it, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.639 you hear it, but you also, you know, keep a 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:23.000 foot in in other realities as well. So yeah, I 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.000 think it is it is important to maybe not go 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.120 all in on an idea like this, but I still 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:29.680 think that, yeah, there is a lot to learn from 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:31.320 it and to draw out of it. 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:33.960 Yeah, I mean, I think the healthy attitude is when 0:19:34.000 --> 0:19:36.760 you're reading something like this, don't get sucked in and say, oh, 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:38.320 here's the person who's explaining it. 0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:38.520 All. 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:41.560 This is now the teacher and I am the student. Instead, 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:43.679 you regard this as this is a person who's making 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:48.639 a series of claims, and like remember to evaluate those claims. Uh, 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:50.560 And I, like I said, I think some of the 0:19:50.600 --> 0:19:53.240 claims made here are pretty good and are pretty insightful, 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:55.119 and I'll identify those as we go on. 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.159 Now. It also helps that Future Shock just has a 0:19:58.200 --> 0:20:01.439 great title, the title book and also the title of 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:05.880 the central thesis, the idea that we as individuals and 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:10.040 we as a society are suffering from future shock. So 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:13.320 it's no surprise that even even you know so certainly, 0:20:13.320 --> 0:20:14.880 this book was a huge success when it came out, 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:16.760 and a lot of people read it was translated into 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:18.959 so many different languages. It's my understanding it's never been 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.560 out of print. People continue to read it and other 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:24.919 works by the Toddlers to this day. So a lot 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:28.000 of people were exposed to the ideas in this book. 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:31.840 But also just the title itself inspired various things. So 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:34.560 in the British two thousand and a d comic book 0:20:34.600 --> 0:20:38.920 series there is a regularly occurring a section called Thrag's 0:20:39.000 --> 0:20:42.240 Future Shocks. I don't think it has anything really to 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.160 do with the central premise here, other than it sounds cool. 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:48.960 It's a thrag or oh, it's Thark. I'm sorry, Yes, 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:51.959 Tharg's Future Shocks. I don't know that I've ever actually 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:54.280 read Tharg's Future Shocks. I've read a lot of Judge 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:58.040 dread over the years, but in a few things outside 0:20:58.040 --> 0:20:59.600 of that in two thousand and a d But yeah, 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:02.080 I don't think of read Thark per. 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:03.400 Se, who is the Ark? 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.280 He's just this. He's kind of like, you know, a cripkeeper. 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.480 I think you know, Oh, okay, nice futuristic monster cripkeeper 0:21:11.720 --> 0:21:13.240 of two thousand and eighty. 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:14.200 I see. 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.120 There was also, and I've never seen this, but from 0:21:17.200 --> 0:21:20.800 nineteen seventy six through nineteen seventy nine, James Brown hosted 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:25.520