Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text Stuff from stuff
Speaker 1: dot com. Then welcome to text Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland,
Speaker 1: and today I'm joined by a very special guest host.
Speaker 1: Say hello, do Hi, I'm Joe McCormick. Yes, from Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: coming over to visit our our our friendly little neighbor
Speaker 1: podcast Text Stuff. Right. For those of you who may
Speaker 1: not have listened to a Forward Thinking podcast, you should
Speaker 1: fix that. I mean, Lauren, who was my former co host,
Speaker 1: is still on Forward Thinking, and so is Joe, and
Speaker 1: so am I, and we talk about future stuff. They
Speaker 1: just want to hear Lauren. You need to that's they
Speaker 1: can still They can still hear her by going to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. So but Joe, you had this idea that
Speaker 1: was kind of milling around for a blog post, but
Speaker 1: it just never quite fit anywhere, right, Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: finally wanted to talk about it with you. And it's
Speaker 1: about ways that technology could, or at least people thought
Speaker 1: could end war as we know it, so about world peace.
Speaker 1: You've got a lot like people who are are real innovators,
Speaker 1: really uh, forward thinkers, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: often get kind of idealistic and optimistic, sometimes perhaps unrealistically
Speaker 1: so right, And so we have some examples here of
Speaker 1: people who very confidently at the time proclaimed that the
Speaker 1: technology either they invented or that they were an advocate
Speaker 1: for would be the end of war for one reason
Speaker 1: or another. And they fall into different kinds of categories.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna talk about all of them. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: there are several different ways I guess you could imagine
Speaker 1: that war between humans could end, and me, on one hand,
Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to imagine that because it's just
Speaker 1: such a fundamental part of human nature and human history,
Speaker 1: and obviously it would be a fantastic thing for us
Speaker 1: to not violently kill each other in great numbers at
Speaker 1: intervals of time. But there are a few ways you
Speaker 1: could look at how this might happen. So one would
Speaker 1: be to sort of make war too risky so that
Speaker 1: it's just not in your self interest to pursue it, gotcha.
Speaker 1: So the idea of being that even if you feel
Speaker 1: you have an advanced military that to wage war of
Speaker 1: any type would would encourage such losses as to nullify
Speaker 1: any positive effect that that war might have, so it
Speaker 1: just cannot be of a net advantage to you. The
Speaker 1: only way to win is not to play. I guess
Speaker 1: another way, though, this is kind of harder to imagine
Speaker 1: how it would be done, would be to say that
Speaker 1: you would make war completely impracticable or physically impossible. So
Speaker 1: it's just you somehow create a technology that makes it
Speaker 1: so that people cannot actually do it. You want to
Speaker 1: shoot somebody, but your gun doesn't work. It's just filled
Speaker 1: with crayons. Yeah, that would be a more difficult kind
Speaker 1: of technology to imagine, but some people have sort of
Speaker 1: gone down that road and it will blur together with
Speaker 1: the category I just mentioned. Um. Another way would probably
Speaker 1: be to sort of make war irrelevant, like to eliminate
Speaker 1: the motivations that would drive people to war. So you
Speaker 1: imagine that you might come up with a list of
Speaker 1: different reasons people would declare war on one another, and
Speaker 1: if you can eliminate all of those reasons for people
Speaker 1: wanting to go, hypothetically they won't go. Gotcha. So this
Speaker 1: would be kind of the Star Trek future where you
Speaker 1: have created a world where where you've eliminated need. Therefore
Speaker 1: war is a thing of the past. Yeah. Got The
Speaker 1: other one would be to sort of change us, to
Speaker 1: to change our outlook or to change our nature or
Speaker 1: at least give us some kind of perspective that would
Speaker 1: make war ridiculous to where we just realize it's no
Speaker 1: good and we don't want to do it. And we've
Speaker 1: got some some actual examples that fall into these various
Speaker 1: categories in more than one well, and they're One of
Speaker 1: the funny things is you don't have to go digging
Speaker 1: into the annals of crank history to find people who
Speaker 1: thought world peace would come about by one of one
Speaker 1: of these methods. In fact, you can find really smart, famous, powerful,
Speaker 1: influential people who thought technology could get us down one
Speaker 1: of these roads to world peace. And I think the
Speaker 1: first one we should talk about is a guy who's
Speaker 1: very Internet famous these days, Nicola Tesla. Although you did say,
Speaker 1: you know you don't have to look at cranks, Well, oh,
Speaker 1: you're you're getting on your anti Tesla. Look, I just
Speaker 1: electrical Horse. The episode that just published was a rerun
Speaker 1: about our episode on Tesla where I talked about advocating
Speaker 1: for Tesla and the Tesla versus Edison debate. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's not that I'm against Tesla, but it's pretty
Speaker 1: true that he had some mental health issues. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, let's talk about this idea, this idea of
Speaker 1: a of an invention that negates war. Right, Tesla thought
Speaker 1: that you could build something that would make war impossible.
Speaker 1: What was that thing, Well, it's Tesla's famous death ray,
Speaker 1: which immediately, as soon as you hear the name, you think, yeah,
Speaker 1: that that sounds peaceful. I don't know if he actually
Speaker 1: called it death ray. I don't think those were The
Speaker 1: New York Times called it a death ray. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: we've got a quote from Nikola Tesla. This is from
Speaker 1: an article from nineteen thirty seven called a Machine to
Speaker 1: End War, which featured an extended interview with Nikola Tesla,
Speaker 1: where he gives the following quote. We cannot abolish war
Speaker 1: by outlawing it. We cannot end it by disarming the strong.
Speaker 1: War can be stopped not by making the strong week,
Speaker 1: but by making every nation week or strong able to
Speaker 1: defend itself. Hitherto, all devices that could be used for
Speaker 1: defense could also be utilized to serve for aggression. This
Speaker 1: nullified the value of the improvement for purposes of peace.
Speaker 1: But I was fortunate enough to evolve a new idea
Speaker 1: and too perfect means which can be used chiefly for defense.
Speaker 1: If it is adopted, it will revolutionize the relations between nations.
Speaker 1: It will make any country, large or small, impregnable against armies, airplanes,
Speaker 1: and other means for attack. My invention requires a large plant,
Speaker 1: but once it is established, it will be possible to
Speaker 1: destroy anything men or machines approaching within a radius of
Speaker 1: two hundred miles. It will, so to speak, provide a
Speaker 1: wall of power, offering an insuperable obstacle against any effective aggression.
Speaker 1: So when he says plant, he of course means power plant.
Speaker 1: He does not a venus flag rout, not yet, not
Speaker 1: an enormous redwood or something. So this death ray, as
Speaker 1: as was referred to in the article I was never
Speaker 1: actually fleshed out as far as we know. Tesla, first
Speaker 1: of all, was famous for not writing a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff down. He or at least that's why he claimed.
Speaker 1: He claimed he could envision inventions completely fully formed in
Speaker 1: his head, and even take them apart virtually in his
Speaker 1: head and examine them to see how they worked, and
Speaker 1: then eventually build the things, and they worked exactly the
Speaker 1: way they were supposed to. Uh, that's part of the
Speaker 1: Tesla story. Whether or not that's true, I don't know,
Speaker 1: But at any rate, we don't have any evidence that
Speaker 1: Tesla had anything remotely resembling a death ray or what
Speaker 1: the actual mechanism would have been. Well, and he says,
Speaker 1: my apparatus projects particles which may be relatively large or
Speaker 1: of microscopic dimensions, enabling us to convey to a small
Speaker 1: area at a great distance trillions of times more energy
Speaker 1: than it's possible with rays of any kind, which doesn't
Speaker 1: really sound like it means anything, but at any rate, UH.
Speaker 1: During this time of Tesla's life, he was in his
Speaker 1: seven these and this was when he was really kind
Speaker 1: of mentally, it appeared he was breaking down. He had
Speaker 1: already shown some signs of obsessive compulsive behaviors, possibly even
Speaker 1: some paranoid schizophrenia, because it was around this time also
Speaker 1: when he claimed that he had received transmissions from people,
Speaker 1: either from Venus or Mars, so you know, it's things
Speaker 1: were a little rough for Tesla. He was also in
Speaker 1: the process of moving from one hotel to the other
Speaker 1: because he would get evicted due to incurring enormous debts.
Speaker 1: But because he had such a rock star status as
Speaker 1: a physicist and UH an electrical engineer, he would be
Speaker 1: invited to go live in another hotel until he had
Speaker 1: run up the debts there. So he may very well
Speaker 1: have just been trying to earn as much money as
Speaker 1: he possibly could selling this idea. Uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: not necessarily. I don't mean that he didn't think it
Speaker 1: was real. He may very well believe that he could
Speaker 1: in fact produce this advice, but he didn't. So uh.
Speaker 1: But this definitely falls into the realm of let's make
Speaker 1: war impossible to happen by creating something that would prevent
Speaker 1: the very act of aggression from reaching the intended target.
Speaker 1: Once another country knows that you have this capability to
Speaker 1: stop any incoming attack, there's no reason they would ever
Speaker 1: attack you because it wouldn't work, right, of course, I
Speaker 1: mean that's the that's the logic behind it, and the
Speaker 1: idea actually. Now, whether you're talking about array or a
Speaker 1: thing that he doesn't want to call array but is
Speaker 1: instead projecting particles or whatever it is, this idea has
Speaker 1: not necessarily died the basic idea of creating a technological
Speaker 1: infrastructure that would repel automatically all incoming attacks and make
Speaker 1: them pointless. How about the Star Wars initiative, Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Strategic Defense initiative in the nineteen eighties, often referred to
Speaker 1: as the Star Wars program derisively. Yeah, I've really wanted
Speaker 1: to do a full episode about this, to really explain
Speaker 1: what the concept was, what the motivations were, because this
Speaker 1: is this ends up being a very political, uh, a
Speaker 1: very political story, not just a technology story. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's more political than technological in many ways. The whole
Speaker 1: strategic defense initiative was fueled by the Cold War between
Speaker 1: the United States and the then Soviet Union, and the
Speaker 1: idea was that if you have a system in place
Speaker 1: that can block any incoming missile attack, then your country
Speaker 1: is going to be at an advantage and be safe
Speaker 1: from aggression. Uh. This was during an era that we'll
Speaker 1: talk about very shortly, the whole idea of mutually assured destruction,
Speaker 1: but we'll get to that in a little bit. So
Speaker 1: very similar idea. Yeah. There's another idea that's a lot
Speaker 1: like this, which is actually in use today, Israel's Iron
Speaker 1: Dome system. Have you read about this has been in
Speaker 1: the news lately. Yeah, it went into effect in two
Speaker 1: thousand leven. This is an anti rocket defense system, so
Speaker 1: it's meant to intercept rockets that are fired from outside
Speaker 1: of Israel. Into Israel, and it does this by firing
Speaker 1: off interceptor missiles. They're called tamire surface to air missiles.
Speaker 1: And you've got a radar system that first to texts
Speaker 1: an incoming rocket, and then you have computers running predictive
Speaker 1: software that will look at the pathway of the rocket,
Speaker 1: predict which way it's going, and then send an interceptor
Speaker 1: missile to destroy that rocket before it reaches its intended target.
Speaker 1: It's even supposed to only focus on rockets that are
Speaker 1: aimed at populated areas, So if a rocket were to
Speaker 1: be aimed at an open area where there's not likely
Speaker 1: anyone to be harmed, it won't target that rocket. The
Speaker 1: reason being that interceptor missiles are expensive. We're talking like, sure,
Speaker 1: just shy of a hundred thousand dollars a pop. So
Speaker 1: also I'm imagining that this is him at large must
Speaker 1: just be incredibly expensive and complicated, because if it's actually
Speaker 1: able to calculate the trajectory of an incoming rocket to
Speaker 1: figure out whether it needs to intercept or not, I
Speaker 1: mean wow. And there's been some criticism of the system.
Speaker 1: One is based on just a skepticism that it's really effective.
Speaker 1: The idea being that it's possible that in a display
Speaker 1: of its effectiveness when because just recently there was a
Speaker 1: news story where the system was able to shoot down
Speaker 1: fifteen different incoming rockets that were fired simultaneously. Uh, and
Speaker 1: that that's really impressive. But there's some critics who suggest
Speaker 1: it's kind of in a conspiracy theory way, that it
Speaker 1: could just be the is the Israeli government firing off
Speaker 1: the interceptor missiles and then having them detonate because you
Speaker 1: can't see these rockets with the naked eye when they're
Speaker 1: flying through the air. They're they're too small for you
Speaker 1: to notice, and they fly too high for you to notice.
Speaker 1: So it's possible that you could detonate in receptor missiles
Speaker 1: then uh, and then say, oh, that's a successful interception.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go so far as to say
Speaker 1: that that conspiracy theory holds merit. I more inclined to
Speaker 1: believe that this is in fact an actual demonstration of
Speaker 1: it working. Um. But there are also critics who say
Speaker 1: it gives any system that's like this, whether it's the
Speaker 1: Strategic Defense Initiative or the Iron Dome initiative, it can
Speaker 1: create an unhealthy political environment, meaning that if you have
Speaker 1: this kind of technology at your disposal, you may feel
Speaker 1: that you are to some degree invulnerable. It's weird to
Speaker 1: say to some degree, but at any rate that you
Speaker 1: are largely invulnerable to incoming attack, which some argue means
Speaker 1: that you have less of of an incentive to pursue peace. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: if we want to transition to the next item on
Speaker 1: our list here, some people might say that it's very
Speaker 1: important that we all feel vulnerable in order to maintain peace. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is where we get into the idea of mutually
Speaker 1: assured destruction. So this is, uh, it doesn't have a
Speaker 1: very friendly name, but believe it or not, for the
Speaker 1: past century, there have been a lot of people who
Speaker 1: thought that this was one of the best technological routes
Speaker 1: to world peace. Yeah, and in fact, this is this
Speaker 1: is kind of piggybacked onto Tesla's idea, right, the idea
Speaker 1: that if you are in possession of enough firepower of
Speaker 1: whatever sort, that that's enough to to deter people or
Speaker 1: other countries from attacking you. This ends up being repeated
Speaker 1: over and over again up and up through the Cold
Speaker 1: War and before the Cold War or the Cold War.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, Hiron Maxim, who invented the machine gun, said
Speaker 1: this device is going to end all war because it's
Speaker 1: so dangerous that no one would dare attack. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that ended up being very much wrong, especially in the
Speaker 1: whole story of World War One and World War Two.
Speaker 1: Certainly proves that Orville right believe that the airplane would
Speaker 1: end war. The airplane would be such an incredibly superior
Speaker 1: are your vehicle that there'd be no reason to ever
Speaker 1: declare war for fear of what would rain down upon you. Obviously,
Speaker 1: that became a very important tool in war. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think there are some people who would look at
Speaker 1: those two examples you just cited and say that those
Speaker 1: might have been some of the leading causes of World
Speaker 1: War One obvious at least the leading tools. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean causes in the sense that obviously there was a
Speaker 1: lot of international political tension. I mean, does anybody really
Speaker 1: know what caused World War One? I think it's a
Speaker 1: lot of confusion, But uh, certainly an opinion that I've
Speaker 1: heard before, and I don't know enough to dismiss it
Speaker 1: out of hand, is to say that a major factor
Speaker 1: in what led to World War One was the acquiring
Speaker 1: of new warmaking technology and people building up their military
Speaker 1: stockpiles and basically looking for a way to test this
Speaker 1: new stuff out. Well, that's part of it. I mean,
Speaker 1: during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, you had
Speaker 1: all these different countries in Europe, including Germany, which had
Speaker 1: just formed as an actual country tree I mean odd
Speaker 1: people forget that Germany as a unified country didn't really
Speaker 1: exist until the mid nineteenth century. Uh, you know it,
Speaker 1: since it had previously been part of of various empires.
Speaker 1: These different countries were all trying to make sure they
Speaker 1: cemented their stability, that they made sure they were safe
Speaker 1: from other nations, which meant investing in militaries. For Germany
Speaker 1: and for the United Kingdom that was largely naval, they
Speaker 1: were investing heavily in their navies. Um. But what it
Speaker 1: what it also meant was that you had these these
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful armies around Europe that were ready to go
Speaker 1: at any moment with no particular opponent. But you also
Speaker 1: have these incredibly complex treaties between countries, so when there
Speaker 1: would be a precipitating event, it wasn't in at least
Speaker 1: in hindsight, it wasn't a huge surprise to see it.
Speaker 1: Kind of escalate into the major conflict that Kane. Well,
Speaker 1: just that historical onion headline about World War One. I
Speaker 1: think it's something like war declared by all. It's a
Speaker 1: that's fairly accurate. I mean, it certainly didn't all happen simultaneously,
Speaker 1: but it it's again, in hindsight, you can totally see
Speaker 1: how it happened. But at the time, I'm sure people
Speaker 1: just thought it was it was unimaginable, but that that
Speaker 1: philosophy continued beyond World War One. Yeah. Well, so it's
Speaker 1: quite obvious that machine guns and airplanes have not made
Speaker 1: war obsoletely, but there's a more questionable proposal, which is
Speaker 1: that maybe nuclear weapons have. Yeah. Alright, so you've heard
Speaker 1: of the The scientist Edward Teller is born in Hungary
Speaker 1: and uh immigrated to the United States, and he had
Speaker 1: this to say about scientists in general, which was, the
Speaker 1: scientist is not responsible for the laws of nature. It
Speaker 1: is his job to find doubt how these laws operate.
Speaker 1: Is the scientist's job to find the ways in which
Speaker 1: these laws can serve the human will. However, it is
Speaker 1: not the scientist's job to determine whether a hydrogen bomb
Speaker 1: should be constructed, whether it should be used or how
Speaker 1: it should be used. Now, the reason he said that
Speaker 1: was that he worked on the Manhattan Project, all right,
Speaker 1: he was one of the science In fact, he was
Speaker 1: one of the three scientists who convinced Albert Einstein that
Speaker 1: he should tell the President about the powers of nuclear fission,
Speaker 1: which then of the United States. The President United States Yes,
Speaker 1: in order to precipitate the development of the atomic bomb.
Speaker 1: And then there became another discussion within the same group
Speaker 1: of the Manhattan Project about the development of what they
Speaker 1: were calling a superbomb, a thermonuclear weapon, and Teller was
Speaker 1: very much on the side of we should make this thing.
Speaker 1: This this is something we should invest in. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then there were other scientists like Oppenheimer, who said this
Speaker 1: is a bad idea, we should not do this thing.
Speaker 1: And there was a lot of disagreement, which led to
Speaker 1: some pretty controversial stuff down the line. But at any rate,
Speaker 1: you had Teller advocating for this. Now, why did he
Speaker 1: had the cap for this? Well, he grew up in
Speaker 1: Europe during a very tumultuous time and developed a distinct
Speaker 1: dislike for fascism and communism before leaving to come to America. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he saw Europe being torn apart. I mean it was
Speaker 1: already uh, it had already gone through World War One
Speaker 1: and was entering World War two, or was about to
Speaker 1: enter World War two by the time he was leaving,
Speaker 1: and things just got worse from there. So in his mind,
Speaker 1: one of the worst things in the world was the
Speaker 1: formation of the Soviet Union. He saw communism as being
Speaker 1: probably the greatest danger to the human race, and his
Speaker 1: argument was that if we don't pursue this sort of
Speaker 1: weapons program, this arms race, the Soviet Union certainly will.
Speaker 1: So if we don't do it, we're gonna be left
Speaker 1: behind and we'll be vulnerable. The only way to ensure
Speaker 1: that we're safe is to also engage in an arms race,
Speaker 1: to develop these incredibly destructive weapons and thus be a
Speaker 1: big enough threat where the Soviet Union would never attack us.
Speaker 1: I mean, we would surely never attack anyone else unprovoked.
Speaker 1: So this is just for us to make sure that
Speaker 1: they don't attack us. That was the That was the
Speaker 1: general philosophy. So build up your arms to the point
Speaker 1: where you would be such a destructive force that it
Speaker 1: would be crazy to attack you, which is again very
Speaker 1: similar to what we've already talked about right. So now
Speaker 1: we have gigantic nuclear stockpiles on Earth, yes, as a
Speaker 1: result of this doctrine. But this is this is interesting
Speaker 1: because I feel like, while on one hand, it's not
Speaker 1: a very friendly sounding doctrine, some people might still argue
Speaker 1: for the wisdom of mad Well, it's there. I mean,
Speaker 1: there would be a lot of people. I think it
Speaker 1: is completely wrong to say that it would make war obsolete.
Speaker 1: I mean, there have been tons of wars since nuclear
Speaker 1: weapons were invented, you know, involving nuclear powers. But it's
Speaker 1: some people I think might still say that, well, maybe
Speaker 1: the presence of all these nuclear weapons did prevent all
Speaker 1: out war between say the United States and the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: We just have to keep in mind that there have
Speaker 1: been tons of proxy wars throughout the years, fought by
Speaker 1: these powers sort of through other countries. And sure so,
Speaker 1: so essentially what you're saying is the existence of thermonuclear
Speaker 1: weapons has prevented a thermonuclear war. That without the existence
Speaker 1: of these thermonuclear weapons in one or other of the parties,
Speaker 1: the possibility of thermonuclear war rises. But because you have
Speaker 1: this this balance where you have people, you know, who
Speaker 1: realized what the implications of starting such a war would
Speaker 1: be it hasn't happened. Yeah, even if you were to
Speaker 1: agree with this idea, you might not necessarily think it's
Speaker 1: good for the world as a whole. It might be
Speaker 1: better for the people living in the United States and
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union and not so much for their allies. Uh.
Speaker 1: But I'm not even saying I agree with this. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say, well, this is one that we
Speaker 1: can't put it in the totally ridiculous camp because I
Speaker 1: think there are still people who think that mutually assured
Speaker 1: destruction had some kind of effectiveness. Now, this has also
Speaker 1: led to the very popular trope of creating a doomsday
Speaker 1: device that is so dangerous that that's what protects you
Speaker 1: from attack, right right. The idea of a fail deadly
Speaker 1: device as depicted in the movie Doctor Strangelove, which how
Speaker 1: how would something like a fail deadly device work? Well,
Speaker 1: Doctor strange Love. The way it works is that it's
Speaker 1: a device that, once initiated, cannot be canceled and and
Speaker 1: and Dr Strangelove. It's it's the Soviet Union that has
Speaker 1: built a device that will automatically activate if any sort
Speaker 1: of oncoming attack, bombing attack were to target the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union and wants it detects such an attack, it then
Speaker 1: initiates this device, which is you can't turn it off,
Speaker 1: and it's designed to kill essentially everything. It's automatic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and because you can't turn it off, then the ideas
Speaker 1: that's the perfect deterrent, because you just tell everyone, hey,
Speaker 1: if you attack us, this thing goes on. It kills everybody,
Speaker 1: and we can't stop it. We even if we want to,
Speaker 1: we cannot stop this thing. And uh, the the main
Speaker 1: character or the title character of the movie, Dr Strangelove,
Speaker 1: he's not the main character, but he is the title character,
Speaker 1: points out that this particular kind of device is only
Speaker 1: useful if the world knows about it, if it's secret,
Speaker 1: as it is in the movie. But then it turns
Speaker 1: out like the Russian and the Russian Inveastador was like, well,
Speaker 1: we're going to have a big event next week, unfortunately
Speaker 1: forgotten type of thing. And uh, supposedly Dr Strangelove himself
Speaker 1: was based off of Teller. Yeah, that's the that's the rumor.
Speaker 1: Although whether or not that's true, I do not know,
Speaker 1: but it's um, it's certainly interesting that, uh, you know
Speaker 1: this this kind of idea has filtered into the fiction
Speaker 1: as well as into reality. This is also what fed
Speaker 1: into that Star Wars program we talked about earlier, the
Speaker 1: idea that, well, if the Soviet Union also has these major,
Speaker 1: massive weapons and we have these massive weapons, do we
Speaker 1: really feel comfortable that just the presence of those weapons
Speaker 1: is enough to deter a thermonuclear war? What if we
Speaker 1: could end up creating a system that would shoot down
Speaker 1: enemy weapons so that we remained safe. And that was
Speaker 1: what really led to this, that strategic defense initiative. And
Speaker 1: tell her was a major opponent for that. He he
Speaker 1: really wanted to see this enacted. Uh. Ultimately, that technology
Speaker 1: did not prove to be very reliable and it didn't
Speaker 1: really seem like it would actually do what it was
Speaker 1: supposed to do. Um at the time. We probably could
Speaker 1: develop much better technology now, but it's a very different
Speaker 1: world now because the Cold War is over. Sure, So
Speaker 1: even if we accept that, Okay, what if we believe
Speaker 1: that mutually shared destruction prevented all out nuclear war between
Speaker 1: the United States and the Soviet Union, it still didn't
Speaker 1: prevent all kinds of other smaller wars during that time period.
Speaker 1: And we can't say that it will necessarily always work
Speaker 1: in the future. I mean, it's something that depends on
Speaker 1: everybody being sort of rational and self interested, and on
Speaker 1: your technology being reliable and not breaking and not just
Speaker 1: There are a lot of contingencies that go into this
Speaker 1: being a good strategy for avoiding major warfare, right, Not
Speaker 1: mistaking a flock of geese for incoming missile attack that
Speaker 1: kind right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean you could argue that
Speaker 1: saying mutually assured destruction is the reason we haven't had
Speaker 1: a nuclear war is equivalent to saying, hey, I've got
Speaker 1: this magic rock that keeps tigers away. Do you see
Speaker 1: any tigers here that proves it works? Right? I meant, yeah,
Speaker 1: So we don't want to just be doom and gloom here.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's so let's stop talking about weapons and
Speaker 1: look at other ways technology could in fact prevent all
Speaker 1: war in the future and lead to a happy, peaceful
Speaker 1: flower time. Yeah. This is more of the idealistic version
Speaker 1: of people who came up with technologies and and the
Speaker 1: their reasoning behind why they thought the technology they had
Speaker 1: either developed or advocated for would end war. And one
Speaker 1: of them goes back to uh a fellow named Mark Coni.
Speaker 1: You know, he didn't just play the momba. No, he
Speaker 1: did not listen to the radio. UD listen to the radio.
Speaker 1: He made the radio make noise. Uh so Marconi often
Speaker 1: credited as the inventor of the radio. Can you pronounce
Speaker 1: his first name? Can I? I could try Googli Elmo, Googli,
Speaker 1: Googli Elmo. Yeah, I would say, but my my, sorry,
Speaker 1: I imagine Elmo from Sesame Street, but with googly eyes.
Speaker 1: My my. Italian is worse than any of the other
Speaker 1: foreign languages I don't speak. It's probably the worst out
Speaker 1: of all of them. Well, Greek is maybe worse. Please
Speaker 1: enjoy our ignorance at any rate. Yeah, so Marconi, who
Speaker 1: is credited as the inventor of the radio. I know
Speaker 1: the Tesla fans out there are up in arms, and
Speaker 1: I agree. Marconi used a lot of Tesla's patents, according
Speaker 1: to Tesla's like, he's a good fellow. He's using seventeen
Speaker 1: of my patents. But but he is the first person
Speaker 1: to transmit a an encoded letter in Morse code across
Speaker 1: the Atlantic, and that's why he is often referred to
Speaker 1: as the inventor of the radio. So he's into wireless
Speaker 1: very much. So. He believed that we were going to
Speaker 1: enter a wireless age where we wouldn't just have wireless communication,
Speaker 1: we'd have wire a less power, which goes back to
Speaker 1: what Tesla believed to He was very much an advocate
Speaker 1: for that as well. But he also thought we'd have
Speaker 1: wireless commerce and wireless fertilization. I don't know what that means,
Speaker 1: but yeah. There was an article where a reporter had
Speaker 1: interviewed Marconi's in a Technical World magazine in October nineteen twelve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this way back in nineteen twelve, and and Marconi
Speaker 1: was kind of just thinking out loud about the possibilities
Speaker 1: of the future. I mean, think about this. This is
Speaker 1: an era where we just had really mastered the the
Speaker 1: harnessing of electromagnetic radiation for the purposes of communication. It
Speaker 1: seemed to at this point like anything could potentially be possible. Well,
Speaker 1: and let's go right ahead and say it. I believe
Speaker 1: radio certainly did change the world absolutely. I mean it
Speaker 1: changed the world even you would say changed the world
Speaker 1: almost definitely for the better in lots and lots of ways.
Speaker 1: But when he says, quote, the coming of the wireless
Speaker 1: era will make war impossible, because it will make war ridiculous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it turned out a little bit wrong. Now, I greatly
Speaker 1: admire the reason behind what he said, you know, because
Speaker 1: it now grant it assumes that people will try to
Speaker 1: comport themselves with compassion and rationality and also let go
Speaker 1: of things that are culturally ingrained for generations, sometimes millennia
Speaker 1: in some areas, and that is a lot to ask for.
Speaker 1: But his idea was that this wireless era would result
Speaker 1: in a world where we are able to understand one
Speaker 1: another and communicate with one another so freely that we
Speaker 1: would end up resolving disagreements before it would ever get
Speaker 1: to a point where warfare would even be a consideration.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to say this about someone
Speaker 1: who's obviously a brilliant man, much smarter than me. But
Speaker 1: that's so naive, it is, it's but it's so sweet
Speaker 1: you want it to be true. Yeah, the the idea that, well,
Speaker 1: maybe we're just having lack of communication. Yeah, we're not
Speaker 1: getting through to each other. But if we have wireless
Speaker 1: radio going from every country to every other country, we
Speaker 1: can just talk it out. Now. The truly ironic part
Speaker 1: of this is that radio would play an instrumental role
Speaker 1: in warfare. Everything from communication to radar and all sorts
Speaker 1: of other applications. I mean, not to mention just stoking
Speaker 1: anger around the world with talk radio hosts. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: propaganda is a huge part of it. I mean, and
Speaker 1: in fact, propaganda, you could argue, would be the opposite
Speaker 1: of what Marconi was envisioning, instead of it being this
Speaker 1: kind of nationalistic approach where you know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: very simple US versus them story where you make us
Speaker 1: as as noble as possible and them as evil and
Speaker 1: wicked as possible in your in your narrative. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's hell, that's that's probably. It seems to me exactly
Speaker 1: the opposite of what Marconi's idealistic vision of the future
Speaker 1: would have been. He also thought with this wireless age
Speaker 1: that we would probably have more access to resources than
Speaker 1: we do now, which would help alleviate the reasons for
Speaker 1: going to war in the first place, not just communication
Speaker 1: but resources. Well, he's not the only person in history.
Speaker 1: In fact, he's not the only famous, brilliant person in
Speaker 1: history to have predicted that changes in access to resources
Speaker 1: would be able to obviate the need for war. I mean,
Speaker 1: there is an idea that Okay, at least a large
Speaker 1: number of the struggles that we experience in our lives
Speaker 1: are over resources. We need food, we need water, we
Speaker 1: need space and shelter, and so we are I mean,
Speaker 1: life is a struggle. We are competing for things that
Speaker 1: we need. I wonder how much you can really chalk
Speaker 1: war up to this. But let's take a look at
Speaker 1: somebody who thought that you basically could. So you're talking
Speaker 1: about the chemist Pierre Yogene Mascelen Bertel Yeah, Bertolo say
Speaker 1: important chemist, very important chemist, brilliant man, absolutely brilliant man.
Speaker 1: And uh he had some pretty pretty amazing things, some
Speaker 1: amazing predictions that he made. He was also interviewed for
Speaker 1: a magazine article. This was in McClure's magazine in September
Speaker 1: eight and the article was titled Foods in the year
Speaker 1: two thousand Professor Bernelow's theory that chemistry will displace agriculture. Now,
Speaker 1: some of his predictions in here, while they haven't exactly
Speaker 1: come true, are kind of perceptive of some of the
Speaker 1: food innovations we might see coming down the road. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously not by the year two thousand, but still on
Speaker 1: the way, and not not not solely through chemistry, which
Speaker 1: was his his vision. He was we now have lab
Speaker 1: grown beef. Absolutely yes. So he was looking at the
Speaker 1: world through the eyes of a chemist. And this is
Speaker 1: right of the era where synthesizing chemicals was starting to
Speaker 1: really become, uh, you know, an amazing industry. And he
Speaker 1: foresaw an era where we be able to synthesize organic
Speaker 1: compounds as easily as anything else, to the point where
Speaker 1: we could synthesize in the lab anything. We could synthesize meat,
Speaker 1: we could synthesize vegetables, we could synthesize alcohol and tobacco.
Speaker 1: And his idea was that once we get to this world,
Speaker 1: which he thought would be around the year two thousand.
Speaker 1: I've got more of his quote in a second that
Speaker 1: um will will really kind of pull in his idea
Speaker 1: of why this would change the world. He was sure
Speaker 1: that this kind of development would mean that one you
Speaker 1: would end up eliminating a lot of the problems of
Speaker 1: the world because you would have a surplus of resources,
Speaker 1: no longer scarcity, which would be a good thing on
Speaker 1: its own, of course. And keep in mind this is
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century Europe, a time when there were some
Speaker 1: serious famines going on around Europe that were leading to
Speaker 1: lots of of strife, and so hunger was definitely one
Speaker 1: of the big motivators. And he thought, well, if you
Speaker 1: can eliminate hunger, you've eliminated a large reason why countries
Speaker 1: go to war. Take care of that resources problem. He
Speaker 1: also thought that we would develop food that is so
Speaker 1: delicious and nutritious and edifying that it would improve the
Speaker 1: moral nature of mankind itself. So in other words, you
Speaker 1: would eat this food and you would become a better person,
Speaker 1: and that would also help lead to the end divorce.
Speaker 1: So not only would we have a surplus of resources,
Speaker 1: but we'd be better people, and therefore we would not
Speaker 1: go to war because we would have compassion for our
Speaker 1: fellow men, which is again an interesting concept. Uh, the
Speaker 1: idea that you know, make sure you get your your
Speaker 1: fruits and vegim otherwise you'll go to war with Spain.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of well, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of weird ideas floating around at the time about how
Speaker 1: nutrition like created the personality of a nation and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, they thought weird stuff in Europe in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. This is true. Here is one of
Speaker 1: his longer quotes, and I think it's absolutely charming. Again,
Speaker 1: you probably would have to chalk this up as being naive,
Speaker 1: but still very charming. Man should grow in sweetness and
Speaker 1: nobility because he will have done with war, with existence
Speaker 1: based upon the slaughter of beasts. Perhaps this is only
Speaker 1: a dream. Remember, synthetic chemistry, or something that we might
Speaker 1: call spiritual chemistry, will develop means to as profoundly alter
Speaker 1: man's moral nature as material chemistry will change the conditions
Speaker 1: of his environment. There is no fear that art, beauty,
Speaker 1: and the charm of human existence are destined to just appear.
Speaker 1: If the surface of the earth ceases to be divided
Speaker 1: and i may say disfigured by the geometrical devices of agriculture,
Speaker 1: it will regain its natural verdure of woods and flowers.
Speaker 1: Man becoming familiar with the principles and responsibilities of self
Speaker 1: government will be more easily governed. The favored portions of
Speaker 1: the earth will become vast gardens in which the human
Speaker 1: race will dwell amid a peace, a luxury, and an abundance,
Speaker 1: recalling the golden age of legendary lore. These are dreams,
Speaker 1: of course, but science may surely be permitted to dreams.
Speaker 1: Sometimes if it were not for our dreams, where would
Speaker 1: it be our impulse to progress, which I think is
Speaker 1: a beautiful thought. Yeah, sure, I I wish it had
Speaker 1: turned out that way. Yeah. Well, I mean this is
Speaker 1: like Tesla's case. This is one where we haven't actually
Speaker 1: achieved the technological advance that he says is required to
Speaker 1: bring about this future. So unlike mutually assured destruction or
Speaker 1: unlike wireless radio, it's not one we can look at
Speaker 1: and say, well, the technology is here, and your prediction
Speaker 1: fell flat. The technology is just not here yet, and
Speaker 1: maybe it never will be so well yeah, and even
Speaker 1: if it does get here, and even if we get
Speaker 1: to a point where it's incredibly nutritious, I think this,
Speaker 1: this moral improvement is probably based upon more nineteenth century
Speaker 1: philosophy than than our current understanding. Also, you know, unless
Speaker 1: you just take it off the menu, you're not gonna
Speaker 1: stop me from eating some of the horrible, horrible food
Speaker 1: I love. The other thing I would say about this is, obviously,
Speaker 1: at the ground level, the struggle over resources does matter
Speaker 1: very much. But we're talking about war here, and we're
Speaker 1: talking about nations mobilizing vast organized forces and superior weaponry.
Speaker 1: I mean, at that level, how many wars are started
Speaker 1: by people who aren't getting enough to eat? Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of those. A lot of reasons for war are
Speaker 1: outside of resources. Resources often play a very important part,
Speaker 1: Oh sure, sure, but there they might be resources beyond
Speaker 1: what we need to survive and be healthy, you know,
Speaker 1: we might. I can see a world where everybody has
Speaker 1: complete access to nutritious pills that are delicious and fill
Speaker 1: you with happiness and butterflies and all that, and and
Speaker 1: that would be a great thing in itself. But I
Speaker 1: still can see in that world people going to war
Speaker 1: over other things, over boundaries of national territory, over ideologies
Speaker 1: certainly whether religious or or over ethnic division, and just hatred.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are lots of reasons that people do
Speaker 1: the horrible thing we call war, and not all of
Speaker 1: them have to do with competing for resources, right, There
Speaker 1: are a lot of other fundamental issues that would have
Speaker 1: to be addressed, and this particular approach would not necessarily
Speaker 1: address us. So how do we get to a point
Speaker 1: where we're able to get a different perspective, be able
Speaker 1: to to expand our minds and and see what's really important?
Speaker 1: I mean, what does it take? Maybe once we colonized space,
Speaker 1: Does this sidmire civilization? Is that what we're doing now? No, No,
Speaker 1: I want to tap into one more idea here. And
Speaker 1: this isn't so much a specific prediction of one person,
Speaker 1: but there's a general idea that's been propagated by several people,
Speaker 1: including some former astronauts, known as the overview effect. Now,
Speaker 1: that was coined by Frank White, right, that particular term. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh So. The idea is when astronauts go
Speaker 1: up into say the International Space Station, or to a
Speaker 1: space capsule, or orbiting the Earth and traveling to the moon,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and they look back down on the Earth.
Speaker 1: It's striking that many astronauts have independently report did this
Speaker 1: feeling of euphoria and connectedness and togetherness with all of humanity,
Speaker 1: where national boundaries seem to fade away and the idea
Speaker 1: of human strife suddenly seems very ridiculous and points because
Speaker 1: we're all in it together, right. I mean, it's when
Speaker 1: you're from that distance and you see that everybody, every
Speaker 1: single human being that is alive, with the exception of
Speaker 1: less than a dozen people, are in your field of view,
Speaker 1: right then, because they're all on that planet. It's hard
Speaker 1: to say that, you know, why are why are their divisions?
Speaker 1: I mean, why aren't they're more? Why isn't there more
Speaker 1: of a connectiveness? Were clearly all in the same place.
Speaker 1: We're all on this one planet. This is also where
Speaker 1: you get this idea that a lot of astronauts report
Speaker 1: feeling that the world is is ultimately a acentual place.
Speaker 1: It's this tiny blue spec the tiny blue dot that
Speaker 1: you know, you heard Carl Sagan talk about another phrase
Speaker 1: you often here, hanging in space. I mean it is it.
Speaker 1: It's it's floating out there, just vulnerable to the universe,
Speaker 1: and this is where we all have to live, and
Speaker 1: that this results in this cognitive shift, that that is
Speaker 1: a phrase that's come up, cognitive shift because it's not
Speaker 1: just reported as a sort of momentary feeling of euphoria revelation,
Speaker 1: but something that stays with astronauts after they return to Earth.
Speaker 1: And so if it really does happen to to everybody. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously not all astronauts have talked about this, but not
Speaker 1: all astronauts have been asked about it, So it may
Speaker 1: very well be that this is a universal or near
Speaker 1: universal experience. But some have chosen to talk about and
Speaker 1: some may not have right now. Sure, yeah, so we
Speaker 1: don't know yet, but the fact that so many of
Speaker 1: them experience this does make someone wonder, well, if we
Speaker 1: become a space faring species and everybody can have that
Speaker 1: profound moment of looking back at the Earth and realizing
Speaker 1: the togetherness that we really must feel in the face
Speaker 1: of the vast universe that wants to kill us all,
Speaker 1: then maybe it would become widespread enough in humanity that
Speaker 1: war just couldn't happen anymore. Yeah. That's a tough solution, right,
Speaker 1: getting a lot of people, I mean we're talking. I
Speaker 1: like the idea of it. I mean, if you if
Speaker 1: you narrow it down to say, let's get the people
Speaker 1: who would be the ones responsible for waging war in
Speaker 1: the first place, like the ones who would be the
Speaker 1: ones to initiate war, take all the executives in generals
Speaker 1: and everybody up into space, then maybe that's a little
Speaker 1: more mageable than say everybody. Um. Yeah, this is one
Speaker 1: of those things where I don't doubt that there is
Speaker 1: a really profound moment that a person experiences when they
Speaker 1: are able to look back on the Earth and see
Speaker 1: it as this hanging globe in space. I don't doubt
Speaker 1: it at all. I wish I could experience it. It's
Speaker 1: one of those things that I think would really mean
Speaker 1: a lot to me personally. But because I seriously doubt
Speaker 1: that this is ever going to become something within the
Speaker 1: near future anyway that the average person or even the
Speaker 1: quote unquote important people would be able to do, it's
Speaker 1: it's one that I fear is moot in this discussion,
Speaker 1: at least for you know, the the near future, like
Speaker 1: the next twenty to fifty years. Um, maybe I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: which would be the best That would be the best
Speaker 1: mistake I ever made. I would love to be wrong
Speaker 1: about that. Well. I mean, as with what we were
Speaker 1: just talking about with Berna Low having widespread nutritious food,
Speaker 1: this is something that would be good in its own right,
Speaker 1: and we can see reasons that it would be great
Speaker 1: to get lots of people into space for exploration and
Speaker 1: scientific discovery, even if it didn't cause this. So I mean,
Speaker 1: if this is a side effect of something that would
Speaker 1: be good anyway, that that's a sort of double plus,
Speaker 1: unlike something like mutually issued destruction, where you're just hoping
Speaker 1: it works out and it's not a side effect of
Speaker 1: something that's nice. Yeah, so Joe, what if, um, what
Speaker 1: if during this era of space exploration, the astronauts go up,
Speaker 1: they look back on Earth, they have this profound moment,
Speaker 1: they go to Mars and then declare war on each
Speaker 1: other because they're like, this is Mars. It's totally different. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's Mars, the planet of war. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's it's a named Mars Mars. I think it was
Speaker 1: the Mars bar Candy Company if I'm not mistaken. You know,
Speaker 1: I have a need to renew their contract with NASA
Speaker 1: or it's gonna expire and become the Snickers planet. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I haven't. I haven research that. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: Disney Disney name Pluto, so um yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I have to they did not. Okay, look this is stopformation.
Speaker 1: This isn't stuff to blow your mind. I don't know science. No, no, obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm just having a little goofy fun here. But
Speaker 1: this is really like, on one hand, you could say
Speaker 1: we're kind of bumming everybody out because we're talking about
Speaker 1: these technologies that were meant to end war but have
Speaker 1: it and at least in a couple of cases, the
Speaker 1: jury could still be out. But I like to think
Speaker 1: of it as there's no reason why we can't truly
Speaker 1: examine the the concept of war and really work towards
Speaker 1: eliminating it, whether technologically or otherwise. I think probably otherwise,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the technological solutions pretty much end
Speaker 1: up with, well, we won't have war because we'll wipe
Speaker 1: everybody out. Yeah, I mean, there are also plenty of
Speaker 1: doomsday science fiction scenarios about that. Right, you create the
Speaker 1: perfect artificial intelligence that's super smart, it's super humanly smart,
Speaker 1: and you asked the computer, you say, I want you
Speaker 1: to end all war on Earth, and the computer then
Speaker 1: runs through all the various scenarios and says that the
Speaker 1: most realistic one is to wipe out all of humanity.
Speaker 1: Therefore you cannot have war anymore. And then the humans go, whoops,
Speaker 1: that's not a great it's not a great outcome. So
Speaker 1: but you know, I am, I am a peaceful kind
Speaker 1: of person myself. I really hope that that we continue.
Speaker 1: I like the optimism and the idealism, even if it
Speaker 1: does border on the naive. It appeals to me that
Speaker 1: people who are really sincere in that and who really
Speaker 1: uh pursue that are also these folks who are far
Speaker 1: more intelligent than I am. I mean not one of
Speaker 1: these people is a dummy. No, they're all like absolutely brilliant.
Speaker 1: I mean they're their discoveries, their contributions to science. You know,
Speaker 1: I talk about Teller and his he's often called the
Speaker 1: father the hydrogen bomb. He made so many different contributions
Speaker 1: to science that have nothing to do with war, but
Speaker 1: that's what he's known for. But all of these people
Speaker 1: had made amazing contributions to the world knowledge and too
Speaker 1: technology and science. And so I certainly hope that we
Speaker 1: see more idealistic innovators out there. Uh Like I feel
Speaker 1: that that. Uh In some ways, Musk comes across as
Speaker 1: that he Elon Musk. He's certainly also an entrepreneur, but
Speaker 1: he does seem to genuinely believe in a lot of
Speaker 1: the idealistic things he talks. Well, he's one of those
Speaker 1: big thinkers, he is. He's certainly he's certainly more intelligent
Speaker 1: than I am as well. I have no problems. Don't
Speaker 1: mean like he has a big brain. I mean like
Speaker 1: he has big projects. He's he's willing to take on
Speaker 1: things that might see ridiculous at first glance. And I
Speaker 1: think it's good to have people like that absolutely, because
Speaker 1: even when we say this on forward thinking all the time,
Speaker 1: even if you fail in your efforts, along the way,
Speaker 1: you learn and by learning probably going to be useful
Speaker 1: to somebody down. Yeah, and of course there are scientists
Speaker 1: who say you learn more by failing than you ever
Speaker 1: do by succeeding. If you succeed, all you do is
Speaker 1: confirm something you thought. If you fail, you realize you're
Speaker 1: wrong and you have to learn something else. So that's
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting perspective as well. Well. Joe, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today and thank you
Speaker 1: for the amazing concept here. This was a lot of
Speaker 1: fun to talk about what it was much pleasure. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it, and I'll probably be asking you on again
Speaker 1: in the future. I'd love to be back. Meanwhile, you
Speaker 1: can hear us chatter about all sorts of futuristic stuff.
Speaker 1: I'll run forward thinking, so definitely go do that. And
Speaker 1: for those of you who have any suggestions about future
Speaker 1: topics for tech stuff, make sure you let me know.
Speaker 1: Send me an email. My address is tech stuff at
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