WEBVTT - The Ordinary Stuff Behind Technological Breakthroughs 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:28.436 Pushkin. It's easy to think that technology is just about ideas, words, numbers, math, algorithms, 0:00:29.076 --> 0:00:33.516 But of course technology is and always has been, about stuff, 0:00:34.276 --> 0:00:38.876 and in particular, it's about combining ideas with that stuff. 0:00:39.036 --> 0:00:41.836 It's about figuring out how to use copper to send 0:00:41.876 --> 0:00:45.236 electricity around the world, how to turn sand into glass 0:00:45.396 --> 0:00:48.596 and cement and chips. It's about coming up with clever 0:00:48.676 --> 0:00:51.116 ways to make cheap steel so that we can build 0:00:51.196 --> 0:00:55.556 basically anything we want. And looking at technology and the 0:00:55.636 --> 0:00:59.556 history of technology through the lens of those essential materials 0:00:59.676 --> 0:01:03.276 of that stuff turns out to be a really interesting 0:01:03.516 --> 0:01:13.676 and surprisingly useful way of thinking about the world. I'm 0:01:13.756 --> 0:01:16.476 Jacob Goldstein, and this is what's your problem. My guest 0:01:16.476 --> 0:01:20.516 today is Ed Conway. He's an economics journalist and he 0:01:20.556 --> 0:01:24.396 wrote a book called Material World, The Six raw Materials 0:01:24.436 --> 0:01:28.836 that shape Modern Civilization. I talked to Ed about three 0:01:28.876 --> 0:01:32.796 of the six materials. We talked about iron, because the 0:01:32.796 --> 0:01:36.076 story of iron really is the story of the industrial revolution, 0:01:36.556 --> 0:01:38.836 and for that matter, the story of the wealth and 0:01:38.876 --> 0:01:42.596 poverty of nations around the world today. We also talked 0:01:42.636 --> 0:01:45.956 about copper, which is of course the story of electricity 0:01:46.316 --> 0:01:49.396 and the energy transition we're going through now. But copper 0:01:49.516 --> 0:01:53.196 is also a story about humanity's ability to be very 0:01:53.196 --> 0:01:56.076 clever in getting the thing that we need, even when 0:01:56.116 --> 0:01:57.836 it seems like we're going to run out of that thing. 0:01:58.276 --> 0:02:01.676 So those two materials, copper and iron, they are the 0:02:01.716 --> 0:02:04.156 second part of the show. In the first part of 0:02:04.196 --> 0:02:08.196 the show, Ed and I talked about sand, sand, which 0:02:08.436 --> 0:02:10.636 after reading Ed's book, I have come to think is 0:02:10.676 --> 0:02:14.596 a highly underrated material. Sand, of course, is essential for 0:02:14.676 --> 0:02:18.236 making chips and making cement, both of which we have 0:02:18.316 --> 0:02:21.076 covered on other episodes of this show. So Ed and 0:02:21.076 --> 0:02:24.956 I focused on another material made out of sand, glass, 0:02:25.476 --> 0:02:29.156 And as Ed explains, glass really was central to the 0:02:29.196 --> 0:02:33.636 emergence of the modern world starting around the sixteenth century 0:02:33.796 --> 0:02:34.596 the Venetians. 0:02:34.956 --> 0:02:38.076 That was really the first moment where they were able 0:02:38.076 --> 0:02:42.276 to create a truly clear, perfect type of glass, of 0:02:42.316 --> 0:02:45.556 the type that we could recognize these days. Roman glass 0:02:45.596 --> 0:02:49.396 was often beautiful, but it was a bit cloudy. The 0:02:49.436 --> 0:02:51.836 Venetians really mastered it, and part of the trick to 0:02:51.876 --> 0:02:55.196 that was obviously expertise and bringing in people who knew 0:02:55.196 --> 0:02:57.316 how to do it. And they were based on this island, 0:02:57.316 --> 0:02:58.796 the island of Murano, which is. 0:02:58.796 --> 0:03:00.036 Just an off Venis. 0:03:00.596 --> 0:03:03.436 They were forbidden to leave so that there was this 0:03:04.396 --> 0:03:06.436 in the same way that people making silicon chips in 0:03:06.476 --> 0:03:08.636 Taiwan these days are not allowed to go to China. 0:03:08.756 --> 0:03:10.916 It was a same thing with morano. 0:03:10.716 --> 0:03:15.436 And it's like like a trade secret basically, like the 0:03:15.916 --> 0:03:19.396 Venetians are traders. This is like a competitive advantage essentially 0:03:19.476 --> 0:03:24.356 a technological advantage they have and they're logging it down exactly. 0:03:23.876 --> 0:03:26.276 It's really analogous to what, you know, what we have 0:03:26.316 --> 0:03:28.796 these days with silicon check, I mean silicon technology as well. 0:03:29.676 --> 0:03:30.356 That's also sad. 0:03:30.636 --> 0:03:33.076 They cracked it, and partly they cracked it because they 0:03:33.116 --> 0:03:36.356 found a really good source of sand. Actually it's little 0:03:36.396 --> 0:03:39.036 quartz chips that they found in the rivers just kind 0:03:39.036 --> 0:03:41.996 of on the Swiss Italian border, and because they cracked it. 0:03:42.036 --> 0:03:45.036 You know, if you look back, like one of my 0:03:45.156 --> 0:03:48.276 favorite kind of stories, it's kind of theory, but to 0:03:48.276 --> 0:03:51.236 me it's a really compelling theory, is that the Renaissance, 0:03:51.276 --> 0:03:54.436 you know, there's great flowering of artistic kind of ability and. 0:03:54.596 --> 0:03:56.916 Where painters discovered how to use perspective. 0:03:57.516 --> 0:03:59.516 You know, there's this moment where it goes from being 0:03:59.596 --> 0:04:04.876 really two D kind of Giotto, medieval style paintings of 0:04:04.956 --> 0:04:07.996 Christ and all of these different kind of icons to 0:04:08.076 --> 0:04:10.596 being something that's three D and something's more recognizable as 0:04:10.636 --> 0:04:14.276 a painting of the Renaissance. The prevailing theory is basically 0:04:14.356 --> 0:04:17.116 what happened there, There was just this moment dawning realization, 0:04:17.236 --> 0:04:19.556 and people worked out how to do perspective. And it's 0:04:19.636 --> 0:04:22.836 this enlightenment to me, a much more compelling explanation. 0:04:22.876 --> 0:04:25.556 It's one that David Hockney and a few other theorists 0:04:25.556 --> 0:04:26.396 have posited. 0:04:26.516 --> 0:04:28.636 David Harckney the artist, David Hockney. 0:04:28.356 --> 0:04:30.596 The artist has wrote a whole book on this a 0:04:30.596 --> 0:04:32.716 few years ago and actually did this great documentary which 0:04:32.716 --> 0:04:36.476 you can find on YouTube about this, basically saying, no, 0:04:36.796 --> 0:04:39.876 what happened was they worked out how to use lenses. 0:04:39.916 --> 0:04:42.316 They worked out how to make glass lenses that enabled 0:04:42.356 --> 0:04:45.116 them to make camera obscurers and other different types of 0:04:45.156 --> 0:04:49.996 contractions that enabled them to basically trace out the outline 0:04:50.036 --> 0:04:52.436 of what was happening in a studio or in a 0:04:52.436 --> 0:04:55.836 picture or whatever. And there are artifacts of this because 0:04:55.876 --> 0:04:58.316 if you look at certain pictures, particularly from those early 0:04:58.396 --> 0:05:02.036 kind of medieval, well early Renaissance paintings, and also some 0:05:02.116 --> 0:05:05.796 from the Dutch Golden Era. You see, for instance, that 0:05:06.156 --> 0:05:08.796 parts of the painting go out of focus and something 0:05:08.876 --> 0:05:11.476 going focus. The human eye doesn't really go out of 0:05:11.516 --> 0:05:15.436 focus in that way, but through a lens things do 0:05:15.556 --> 0:05:18.676 go out of focus. And so Hockney points out, and 0:05:18.716 --> 0:05:20.636 like I say, I think it's a really compelling case 0:05:20.996 --> 0:05:24.036 that the places that where you had this flowering of 0:05:24.636 --> 0:05:28.516 you know, enlightenments and beautiful paintings that use perspective also 0:05:28.676 --> 0:05:31.596 happened to be close to the great places where glass 0:05:31.676 --> 0:05:35.996 was being manufactured, so Venice, in the Netherlands, in England 0:05:35.996 --> 0:05:37.996 as well to some extent, although our painting wasn't quite 0:05:38.036 --> 0:05:41.116 so great, wherever there was great glass making there also 0:05:41.196 --> 0:05:43.636 happened to be great enlightenment leaks forward. 0:05:44.756 --> 0:05:47.876 The Renaissance is sort of following, and so you need 0:05:47.916 --> 0:05:49.996 the glass to be able to make the lens, and 0:05:50.036 --> 0:05:54.556 in Hockney's argument, you need the lens to project the 0:05:54.596 --> 0:05:58.276 world onto a two dimensional surface. Except from that projection 0:05:58.476 --> 0:06:00.036 then you can learn perspective. 0:06:00.116 --> 0:06:02.956 Exactly, Then you learn perspective, and obviously in the same 0:06:02.996 --> 0:06:06.036 way that you have enabling technologies throughout history. You know, 0:06:06.316 --> 0:06:07.436 right now we're thinking of AI. 0:06:07.956 --> 0:06:11.276 So was Leonardo t Yeah, yeah, he was. 0:06:11.876 --> 0:06:14.116 He was, and so were you know, so were many 0:06:14.116 --> 0:06:16.156 of these artists. And I don't think there's anything kind 0:06:16.156 --> 0:06:17.196 of to be ashamed of here. 0:06:17.556 --> 0:06:20.356 No, especially if you discover tracing. If you're like, wait 0:06:20.436 --> 0:06:21.796 a minute, I can trace. 0:06:22.036 --> 0:06:25.036 Yeah, and then suddenly it's a lot of as every 0:06:25.116 --> 0:06:27.836 kid knows, it's a lot easier suddenly, And that's what 0:06:27.876 --> 0:06:29.236 they were doing. But they were doing it with great 0:06:29.316 --> 0:06:32.356 panashion style, and we've kind of, I think, forgotten that. 0:06:32.396 --> 0:06:34.676 But there's there's a very material explanation. 0:06:34.636 --> 0:06:37.876 In a similar thing. You also talk about the relationship 0:06:38.036 --> 0:06:42.316 of improvements in glass technology to the scientific revolution, which was, 0:06:42.796 --> 0:06:44.676 you know, around this same time. 0:06:44.916 --> 0:06:45.116 Yeah. 0:06:45.156 --> 0:06:47.476 Well, I mean if you look and again, I find 0:06:47.476 --> 0:06:48.836 this kind of mind blowing. 0:06:48.876 --> 0:06:51.916 And that one seems clearer. Again, no pun intended that one. 0:06:52.156 --> 0:06:54.876 That argument seems less tenuous. 0:06:55.156 --> 0:06:56.876 Yeah, well, I don't know, I don't know, I don't 0:06:56.876 --> 0:06:58.516 know if it's okay, respectful. 0:06:58.956 --> 0:07:01.916 How about this? That argument seems more compelling. That's a 0:07:01.996 --> 0:07:03.716 nicer way of saying less tenuous. 0:07:03.916 --> 0:07:06.836 It's even more compelling, isn't it. Yeah, it's even more compelling. 0:07:07.036 --> 0:07:09.476 It's it's if you look at basically I think the 0:07:09.556 --> 0:07:12.836 vast majority of scientific discoveries that were made in that 0:07:12.836 --> 0:07:14.756 period of the great you know, the Enlightenment, the kind 0:07:14.756 --> 0:07:17.796 of eighteenth nineteenth century, seventeenth some excent. 0:07:17.676 --> 0:07:20.556 Even earlier, right, like Galileo, right, Like, you don't even 0:07:20.596 --> 0:07:22.636 have to leave galileanly. 0:07:22.196 --> 0:07:24.556 So telescope, I mean, how do we pair into space? 0:07:24.596 --> 0:07:28.356 And this was all thanks to our ability to harness sand, 0:07:28.556 --> 0:07:30.916 turn it into glass, and then turn it into you know, 0:07:30.996 --> 0:07:33.956 kind of sand that down into beautiful lenses that enabled 0:07:33.996 --> 0:07:36.596 us to see further or indeed see kind of deepest, 0:07:36.596 --> 0:07:39.156 so microscopically, that was glass. 0:07:39.956 --> 0:07:43.196 You don't discover the cell until you have a microscope, 0:07:43.196 --> 0:07:45.436 and you don't have a microscope until you have really 0:07:45.476 --> 0:07:49.436 good glass. Right. And I feel like tools, like this 0:07:49.476 --> 0:07:52.956 is the story of tools, right, and tools are underrated 0:07:53.116 --> 0:07:54.236 in scientific. 0:07:53.796 --> 0:07:55.836 Discovery, right, like totally. 0:07:56.316 --> 0:07:58.956 Once you have a telescope, then somebody is going to 0:07:58.996 --> 0:08:01.516 see the moons of Jupiter. Once you have a microscope, 0:08:01.756 --> 0:08:03.556 somebody is going to see a cell. The hard part 0:08:03.636 --> 0:08:05.596 is getting the telescope and the microscope. 0:08:05.676 --> 0:08:08.236 Yeah, and yet the thing we celebrate and understandably is 0:08:08.396 --> 0:08:11.596 we celebrate the Galileos and the van Luveruk, who's one 0:08:11.636 --> 0:08:15.796 of those first great people looking down into microscopes. But yeah, 0:08:15.836 --> 0:08:18.716 they needed the contractions and also they needed to rely 0:08:18.796 --> 0:08:21.236 on people to make really good glass for them, because 0:08:21.276 --> 0:08:23.636 you could you needed really clear glass to be able 0:08:23.676 --> 0:08:26.596 to peer down into this. And the funny thing I've discovered, 0:08:26.636 --> 0:08:29.756 you know, looking back through that history of the Enlightenment, 0:08:30.076 --> 0:08:31.996 what you kind of notice if you look through lots 0:08:32.036 --> 0:08:34.236 of the stories and the accounts, is that so many 0:08:34.236 --> 0:08:36.756 of the people who were scientists and renowned actually as 0:08:36.796 --> 0:08:38.196 scientists for something else. 0:08:38.396 --> 0:08:40.316 Michael Faraday is a really good example, you know. 0:08:40.316 --> 0:08:42.996 Electoral magnets, electromagnets, basically the electricity. 0:08:43.236 --> 0:08:46.796 He's the electricity guy. He was also totally obsessed with glass, 0:08:46.996 --> 0:08:49.436 so he used to make his own glass. Actually one 0:08:49.436 --> 0:08:51.956 of the earliest recipes for something called boris silicate glass, 0:08:51.956 --> 0:08:54.476 which is like these days what we use for test 0:08:54.476 --> 0:08:57.156 tubes and the vials that you get your kind of 0:08:57.236 --> 0:08:58.516 vaccines and medicines in. 0:08:59.116 --> 0:09:00.756 There's really hard type of glass. 0:09:00.836 --> 0:09:02.836 So is that related to pyrex to the glass you 0:09:02.876 --> 0:09:03.356 can put in. 0:09:03.276 --> 0:09:06.396 The oven is Boris silicate glass. It's just you know, 0:09:06.836 --> 0:09:10.396 the trademark. But Faraday, he I don't know if invented 0:09:10.436 --> 0:09:12.876 to the right word. But he was a tinkerer with glass, 0:09:12.956 --> 0:09:15.276 and he made an early form of boris silica glass 0:09:15.276 --> 0:09:17.636 because everyone was doing it. And if you look back, 0:09:17.676 --> 0:09:20.156 there's this great book Making of the Atomic Bomb by 0:09:21.276 --> 0:09:24.796 Richard Rhodes. I was reading it after having written this book, 0:09:24.916 --> 0:09:27.636 and I was struck by how many times within the 0:09:27.716 --> 0:09:31.316 discovery of how to split the atom, people were waylaid 0:09:31.396 --> 0:09:33.756 by getting hold of the right glass. Because you need 0:09:33.756 --> 0:09:36.916 a glass within which to do your experiments, because glass 0:09:36.956 --> 0:09:39.516 is very inert, obviously, and it's the inertness of glass 0:09:39.516 --> 0:09:43.316 that makes it really important, you know, for doing chemical experiments, 0:09:43.356 --> 0:09:46.276 for making vacuums, all of these things. So if you 0:09:46.316 --> 0:09:48.476 look at pretty much I think the vast majority of 0:09:48.476 --> 0:09:52.036 different scientific discoveries during the Enlightenment, and some authors did 0:09:52.036 --> 0:09:54.756 a survey of here are the great discoveries, how many 0:09:54.756 --> 0:09:56.836 of them depended one way or another on glass, whether 0:09:56.876 --> 0:10:00.476 it's a test ubes, vacuum chambers, or indeed lenses. 0:10:01.036 --> 0:10:02.156 It's the majority of them. 0:10:02.396 --> 0:10:06.436 And so our scientific world is built on glass as well. 0:10:06.876 --> 0:10:08.716 So we think this stuff is kind of historic. And 0:10:08.756 --> 0:10:11.116 that goes by the way for even right now, because 0:10:11.676 --> 0:10:14.236 there are when we're making silicon chips, and maybe we'll 0:10:14.276 --> 0:10:16.156 come onto this. When you're making a lot of kind 0:10:16.156 --> 0:10:19.876 of advanced equipments, you still need optics. And for great optics, 0:10:19.876 --> 0:10:21.716 you still need excellent glass. 0:10:22.316 --> 0:10:26.076 Well, fiber optics you talk about in the book, right right, 0:10:26.236 --> 0:10:29.876 talk about fiber optics. That seems like the obvious contemporary yeah, 0:10:29.956 --> 0:10:31.196 glass case. 0:10:31.956 --> 0:10:32.116 You know. 0:10:32.196 --> 0:10:33.996 Fiber optics I think is a really good example of 0:10:34.036 --> 0:10:38.196 the underlining of our forgetting of the materiality of our world. 0:10:38.276 --> 0:10:40.356 Because when people think about the Internet, I think, because 0:10:40.396 --> 0:10:41.356 we have Wi Fi, just. 0:10:41.396 --> 0:10:44.236 That last twenty feet is just the last twenty feet 0:10:44.276 --> 0:10:45.076 that's going through the air. 0:10:45.116 --> 0:10:47.556 But that's the twenty feet that we're familiar with, you know, 0:10:47.596 --> 0:10:48.676 That's what we're aware of. 0:10:49.036 --> 0:10:51.036 So what's the rest. What are the other I'm talking 0:10:51.036 --> 0:10:53.956 to you, three thousand miles away, four thousand miles away, 0:10:53.956 --> 0:10:54.556 what's going. 0:10:54.436 --> 0:10:56.956 Through The majority of all of the bits that they're 0:10:57.036 --> 0:11:00.116 enabling us to talk are going on fiber optics. They're 0:11:00.116 --> 0:11:03.676 going on fiber optics. In our case, underneath the Atlantic Ocean, 0:11:03.996 --> 0:11:07.796 there's only a teensy tiny bit where things are traveling 0:11:07.836 --> 0:11:10.556 through the air. The World Wide Web is a physical 0:11:10.636 --> 0:11:14.076 structure with loads of fiber optics, loads of service centers, 0:11:14.276 --> 0:11:16.916 and each of those fiber optic cables is a tiny 0:11:16.956 --> 0:11:20.876 little strand of glass. It's actually two types of glass, 0:11:20.956 --> 0:11:25.036 kind of one inside the other. Which again, that's our world. 0:11:25.156 --> 0:11:29.676 Our world depends on glass. We can't have the Internet 0:11:29.716 --> 0:11:32.996 without glass. And again we forget that, we're kind of 0:11:33.076 --> 0:11:33.956 encouraged to forget it. 0:11:34.876 --> 0:11:38.276 Not anymore. I want to make one more stop on 0:11:38.476 --> 0:11:41.916 glass before we move on, because it was truly surprising 0:11:41.956 --> 0:11:44.836 to me, and I'm happy that I know it tell 0:11:44.836 --> 0:11:50.636 me about the shortage of lenses in the UK in 0:11:50.676 --> 0:11:51.396 World War One. 0:11:51.716 --> 0:11:53.396 I think this is actually a great story because it 0:11:53.396 --> 0:11:56.156 tells you quite a lot about what we're going through 0:11:56.196 --> 0:11:59.916 right now with period of you know, de industrialization in 0:12:00.076 --> 0:12:03.316 the US, Europe everywhere else and wondering like how on 0:12:03.316 --> 0:12:06.116 earth do we turn this around. So for a long time, 0:12:06.436 --> 0:12:08.796 England was kind of at the cutting edge of glass 0:12:08.796 --> 0:12:11.716 technol A lot of the great lenses were made here. 0:12:11.756 --> 0:12:15.356 You've got Michael Faraday obsessing over glass and Crown glass. 0:12:15.676 --> 0:12:18.756 A lot of achievements that then led to really good 0:12:18.756 --> 0:12:22.396 optics happened in England. And then they decided the governments 0:12:22.556 --> 0:12:24.876 as they often do needed to raise money for the 0:12:24.916 --> 0:12:27.996 wars against France, and they decided to tax glass making 0:12:28.476 --> 0:12:29.796 and they also tax windows. 0:12:29.916 --> 0:12:33.436 So in England you have lots of older. 0:12:33.156 --> 0:12:36.156 Houses, particularly ones that are kind of Georgian and Queen 0:12:36.156 --> 0:12:38.436 Anne's so kind of going back like two three hundred 0:12:38.516 --> 0:12:40.436 years where if you look at them, suddenly some of 0:12:40.476 --> 0:12:42.516 the windows have been bricked up. And the reason they 0:12:42.596 --> 0:12:44.836 bricks up is because the government decided to impose a 0:12:44.916 --> 0:12:47.236 tax on however many windows you had, you would have 0:12:47.236 --> 0:12:48.036 to pay more tax. 0:12:48.196 --> 0:12:50.356 It's a sort of seeing like a state thing. Right, 0:12:50.396 --> 0:12:52.956 It's like what can somebody walk down the street and 0:12:53.116 --> 0:12:56.876 count from the street, right, Yeah the legibility, Yeah, legibility 0:12:56.916 --> 0:12:57.916 is good, right yeah. 0:12:57.756 --> 0:13:00.276 Counting windows, but also actually chimneys was another thing. 0:13:00.516 --> 0:13:00.636 Uh. 0:13:01.156 --> 0:13:03.356 So the government wanted to tax glass, they wanted to 0:13:03.396 --> 0:13:04.676 raise lots of money, and they did, and they raised 0:13:04.716 --> 0:13:06.476 leads of money and that was great for them. But 0:13:07.036 --> 0:13:08.556 partly as a result of that, a lot of the 0:13:08.876 --> 0:13:11.036 innervation in glass shifted elsewhere. 0:13:11.316 --> 0:13:12.716 And actually Germany, which was. 0:13:12.676 --> 0:13:16.796 Beginning to engage in what you today call industrial strategies, 0:13:16.876 --> 0:13:22.236 so the government governmental organizations starting to introduce kind of subsidies. 0:13:22.516 --> 0:13:25.196 They really focused on glass because it was you know, 0:13:25.276 --> 0:13:28.676 this was an opportunity. This is eighteen hundreds and you've 0:13:28.716 --> 0:13:32.676 got actually Gerte, the kind of famous statesman poet, was 0:13:32.756 --> 0:13:36.396 really heavily involved in this, to the extent that in 0:13:36.916 --> 0:13:38.556 what is now kind of towards the. 0:13:38.476 --> 0:13:40.116 East of Germany it became East Germany. 0:13:40.556 --> 0:13:43.636 You had in a town called Jenna, there was a 0:13:43.756 --> 0:13:47.596 university that a lot of money went into which encouraged 0:13:47.836 --> 0:13:50.836 investigation and also kind of manufacture of glass. And out 0:13:50.836 --> 0:13:54.956 of that that hub of manufacturing came some names that 0:13:54.996 --> 0:13:55.996 we will probably. 0:13:55.676 --> 0:13:58.876 Recognize today, like Seis. A guy called Carl Seiss. 0:13:58.876 --> 0:14:02.396 Became a really big kind of manufacturer of glass, indeed 0:14:02.636 --> 0:14:06.356 of lenses. And the long story short is that Germany 0:14:06.356 --> 0:14:09.796 became really dominant in the manufacture of really good, quite 0:14:09.876 --> 0:14:14.476 cheap optical glass, and the English industry basically withered away. 0:14:14.796 --> 0:14:18.076 France had slightly withered away as well, and in Germany's 0:14:18.236 --> 0:14:23.916 Seiss binoculars and telescopes and sniperscopes became totally dominant, to 0:14:23.956 --> 0:14:28.796 the extent that come nineteen fourteen, England is importing about 0:14:28.836 --> 0:14:33.156 sixty percent of all of its binoculars from Germany's Zeiss binoculars. 0:14:33.476 --> 0:14:35.436 So when war breaks out, then all of a sudden, 0:14:35.636 --> 0:14:38.756 it is a terrible crisis. They call it the glass famine. 0:14:39.076 --> 0:14:42.196 You've got people, you know, going to the trenches in 0:14:42.236 --> 0:14:47.716 France and Belgium equipped with binoculars and opera glasses. 0:14:47.236 --> 0:14:48.676 That they've had to borrow off people. 0:14:49.476 --> 0:14:51.956 There was an appeal that was launched for people to 0:14:52.276 --> 0:14:55.916 donate their used binoculars to troops because England didn't have 0:14:56.036 --> 0:14:58.796 enough of them, and you know, people were getting killed 0:14:59.036 --> 0:15:01.396 because the Germans had the better snipers. This was kind 0:15:01.436 --> 0:15:03.356 of the First War. Really, the First World War was 0:15:03.356 --> 0:15:06.116 the first war where you were able to fire your 0:15:06.116 --> 0:15:07.556 weapons far further. 0:15:07.276 --> 0:15:08.196 Than you could see. 0:15:09.116 --> 0:15:11.556 So your ability to see and your ability to see 0:15:11.556 --> 0:15:13.396 far was the matter of difference between life and death. 0:15:13.396 --> 0:15:15.756 And the Germans had by far and away the upper 0:15:15.756 --> 0:15:18.756 hand on that. And it culminated in nineteen fifteen in 0:15:18.836 --> 0:15:23.716 this extraordinary deal where Britain actually sent spies to meet 0:15:23.756 --> 0:15:26.796 with their German counterparts in Switzerland to do a deal 0:15:27.316 --> 0:15:32.036 to buy binoculars off the Germans so that they could 0:15:32.116 --> 0:15:35.996 kill them better. The most extraordinary thing is the Germans 0:15:35.996 --> 0:15:36.676 said yes. 0:15:37.236 --> 0:15:39.156 Like why would the Germans agree to it? 0:15:39.276 --> 0:15:41.876 They said yes, And the reason they agreed to it, 0:15:41.916 --> 0:15:44.356 and it comes back to materials again, is that they 0:15:44.356 --> 0:15:47.476 were short of rubber. So Britain controlled most of the 0:15:47.476 --> 0:15:50.076 global rubber supply, and you need a rubber obviously for 0:15:50.196 --> 0:15:53.436 fan belts in your engines, for tires, for everything else. 0:15:53.836 --> 0:15:55.996 And so the Germans were short of rubber, we were 0:15:55.996 --> 0:15:58.716 short of glass. And rather than saying, okay, well this 0:15:58.756 --> 0:16:00.356 is a bit of a pretty pass here, let's just 0:16:00.356 --> 0:16:02.756 stop the war, they said, okay, we'll do the deal, 0:16:02.796 --> 0:16:04.236 and then we can carry on killing each other a 0:16:04.276 --> 0:16:05.316 little bit more effectively. 0:16:05.596 --> 0:16:07.876 Let's make a deal, swer you could keep killing each other. Yeah, 0:16:07.876 --> 0:16:09.396 And it happened, in fact, and. 0:16:09.956 --> 0:16:11.836 It's a great story and it did actually happen. But 0:16:11.876 --> 0:16:14.556 what's even more interesting is that in the following years, 0:16:14.596 --> 0:16:16.276 and this I think a lesson for where we are now. 0:16:16.436 --> 0:16:20.236 In the following years, England did manage to increase its 0:16:20.236 --> 0:16:23.996 glass manufacturing massively and really fast. And it just goes 0:16:24.036 --> 0:16:25.996 to show so by the end of the war they 0:16:26.036 --> 0:16:28.916 were producing more more binoculars than they needed. They were 0:16:28.956 --> 0:16:31.756 sending some of them to America, and it just goes 0:16:31.756 --> 0:16:33.716 to show you can do it. Like if you need 0:16:33.716 --> 0:16:36.196 to try and create an industry. It is possible to 0:16:36.196 --> 0:16:38.436 do it, but often you need a wartime situation to 0:16:38.556 --> 0:16:41.196 encourage you to do it. The catch is you do 0:16:41.356 --> 0:16:43.356 need a bit of a base to start from. 0:16:43.436 --> 0:16:45.596 Well, And it's complicated, right, I mean, we're going to 0:16:45.596 --> 0:16:47.276 talk about this later, but we can talk about it now. 0:16:47.316 --> 0:16:49.876 Like there is a set of trade offs, right, Like 0:16:50.116 --> 0:16:53.116 at certain margins, you know, comparative advantage, it makes sense 0:16:53.156 --> 0:16:55.196 to do what you're good at and let other countries 0:16:55.236 --> 0:16:57.636 do what they're good at, and you get more material 0:16:57.716 --> 0:17:01.796 prosperity that way, right. But the asterisk is if Germany 0:17:01.876 --> 0:17:03.756 is making all the lenses and you go to war 0:17:03.796 --> 0:17:05.796 with Germany, that's going to be bad, right, And so 0:17:05.916 --> 0:17:08.596 that is a hard We shouldn't try and make everything 0:17:08.756 --> 0:17:12.596 like that seems clear, I mean, I guess there is 0:17:12.596 --> 0:17:17.516 a big question which is like can you abstract lessons? 0:17:18.516 --> 0:17:20.076 What should we try and make and what should we 0:17:20.156 --> 0:17:22.076 not try and make for me? 0:17:22.276 --> 0:17:23.876 And I'm kind of thinking about this a lot, so 0:17:23.876 --> 0:17:26.476 I'm kind of working on what might be in another 0:17:26.516 --> 0:17:30.316 book on this kind of topic. Like comparative advantage, it's 0:17:30.356 --> 0:17:33.156 not set in stone, you know, it is something you 0:17:33.196 --> 0:17:35.316 can change and something you can influence sure. 0:17:35.836 --> 0:17:38.516 Presumably you don't believe in autarchy. You don't think that 0:17:38.556 --> 0:17:40.796 just because the country is a country, it should make everything. 0:17:41.116 --> 0:17:44.476 Presumably you don't believe in like pure comparative advantage. Right. 0:17:44.476 --> 0:17:47.156 The hard questions are at the margins, like how many 0:17:47.236 --> 0:17:49.516 chips should we try and make in the United States? 0:17:49.556 --> 0:17:51.476 Like that's a weird hard question. 0:17:51.276 --> 0:17:53.756 Completely, and what are the trade offs there? And what 0:17:53.796 --> 0:17:55.596 are you foregoing in order to do that? And I 0:17:55.596 --> 0:17:58.836 think again, we are living through an exercise in that 0:17:58.956 --> 0:17:59.436 right now. 0:17:59.996 --> 0:18:02.916 Right, the pendulum is swinging back. Right, the pendulum is 0:18:02.956 --> 0:18:04.916 swinging back toward domestic production. 0:18:05.236 --> 0:18:05.476 Now. 0:18:05.596 --> 0:18:08.956 Yeah, And you know, I think that's some more new 0:18:09.476 --> 0:18:11.996 an interesting conversation than it's often made out to be. 0:18:12.276 --> 0:18:13.076 I think that's the thing. 0:18:13.116 --> 0:18:15.716 I think when you when you start looking at some 0:18:15.836 --> 0:18:19.316 of the history of technologies, you kind of realize this 0:18:19.356 --> 0:18:21.396 stuff it didn't just come down from the sky. You know. 0:18:21.476 --> 0:18:24.196 Most of the reason that things happen in particular countries 0:18:24.276 --> 0:18:27.076 is because of various interventions. And some of those interventions 0:18:27.116 --> 0:18:28.196 worked and some of those didn't. 0:18:30.556 --> 0:18:34.716 Still to come on the show, Iron and Copper, we'll 0:18:34.716 --> 0:18:45.316 be back in a minute. Let's do Iron. 0:18:45.556 --> 0:18:49.316 So you're navigating this in a I have a plan. 0:18:49.756 --> 0:18:53.276 And it's going basically to plan. Yeah, tell me about 0:18:53.316 --> 0:18:55.916 how iron production in the UK helped lead to the 0:18:55.956 --> 0:19:01.356 Industrial Revolution. Okay, you need to break you get some water. 0:19:01.596 --> 0:19:03.156 No, I'm just wondering where you were taking me. 0:19:04.956 --> 0:19:09.876 I feel like that was a very straightforward turn right revolution. 0:19:10.076 --> 0:19:14.276 Yeah, No, I mean so the industrial revolution really, you know, 0:19:14.356 --> 0:19:16.076 it's kind of a two part thing. First of all, 0:19:16.676 --> 0:19:19.596 came the moment where in England there's it's kind of 0:19:19.636 --> 0:19:23.436 a semi environmental story. We were taking that iron out 0:19:23.436 --> 0:19:27.236 of the ground, or taking the iron ground, smelting it 0:19:27.276 --> 0:19:30.956 down into iron and burning a lot of charcoal along 0:19:30.996 --> 0:19:33.356 the way to make that happen, and we cut down 0:19:33.356 --> 0:19:35.676 a lot of trees to make it happen. This is 0:19:35.716 --> 0:19:38.756 around the kind of fifteen sixteenth century, one of the 0:19:38.756 --> 0:19:43.396 first kind of early ecological panics. Everyone started to panic 0:19:43.436 --> 0:19:45.796 that we were running out of trees and that if 0:19:45.796 --> 0:19:47.876 we carried on making as much iron as we wanted to, 0:19:48.036 --> 0:19:49.836 not just iron, because it was other things like making 0:19:49.996 --> 0:19:52.636