1 00:00:15,410 --> 00:00:15,890 Speaker 1: Pushkin. 2 00:00:18,290 --> 00:00:21,090 Speaker 2: If you don't feel like you're getting enough Cautionary Tales, 3 00:00:21,170 --> 00:00:24,130 Speaker 2: I have some very good news. We've just launched the 4 00:00:24,170 --> 00:00:28,290 Speaker 2: Cautionary Club over on Patreon. We'll be dropping an extra 5 00:00:28,410 --> 00:00:31,890 Speaker 2: Cautionary Tales episode each month, a bonus interview, and a 6 00:00:31,930 --> 00:00:35,690 Speaker 2: newsletter chock full of behind the scenes titbits and anything 7 00:00:35,730 --> 00:00:38,370 Speaker 2: else we dug up in our research. We would love 8 00:00:38,410 --> 00:00:41,530 Speaker 2: to see you there. Head to patreon dot com slash 9 00:00:41,570 --> 00:00:45,890 Speaker 2: Cautionary Club to find out more. That's patreon dot com 10 00:00:45,930 --> 00:00:50,890 Speaker 2: slash Cautionary Club. I wanted to start this edition of 11 00:00:50,970 --> 00:00:53,290 Speaker 2: Cautionary Tales with a little something by one of my 12 00:00:53,490 --> 00:00:58,650 Speaker 2: favorite writers, Douglas Adams, the creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide 13 00:00:58,690 --> 00:01:03,610 Speaker 2: to the Galaxy. Are you sitting comfortably, Imagine a beautiful 14 00:01:03,810 --> 00:01:07,410 Speaker 2: sunny glen on a distant planet, and imagine you see 15 00:01:07,410 --> 00:01:11,450 Speaker 2: a puddle before you, recently formed from last night's rain. 16 00:01:13,570 --> 00:01:18,890 Speaker 3: Imagine yourself to be that puddle, a fully sentient puddle 17 00:01:18,930 --> 00:01:26,170 Speaker 3: who wakes up this very morning and thinks to herself, what. 18 00:01:26,250 --> 00:01:32,570 Speaker 4: A wonderful morning, What an interesting world, What a beautiful 19 00:01:32,730 --> 00:01:38,530 Speaker 4: glen full of bird song and sun? How perfect this 20 00:01:38,730 --> 00:01:43,370 Speaker 4: world is? What an interesting hole? I find myself in 21 00:01:44,210 --> 00:01:45,970 Speaker 4: It fits me rather well. 22 00:01:46,690 --> 00:01:50,130 Speaker 5: In fact, it fits my gosh, it fits me perfectly. 23 00:01:51,690 --> 00:01:55,410 Speaker 5: It corresponds exactly with the smooth contours of my body. 24 00:01:56,530 --> 00:01:57,450 Speaker 4: I get it now. 25 00:01:58,810 --> 00:02:03,650 Speaker 5: I understand. This hole in the ground that is my home. 26 00:02:04,570 --> 00:02:07,890 Speaker 5: It must have been made to have me in it. 27 00:02:07,890 --> 00:02:12,970 Speaker 5: It was made for me, designed precisely with my wants 28 00:02:13,050 --> 00:02:14,650 Speaker 5: and my needs in mind. 29 00:02:15,730 --> 00:02:16,890 Speaker 4: It is mine. 30 00:02:18,090 --> 00:02:21,730 Speaker 3: Consider this, reflect on what a powerful idea it is. 31 00:02:22,210 --> 00:02:27,730 Speaker 4: It makes me special and important. If this world was 32 00:02:27,770 --> 00:02:36,930 Speaker 4: made from me, that makes it my world, my creation. Ah, 33 00:02:37,170 --> 00:02:40,770 Speaker 4: how wonderful? What shall I do with it? 34 00:02:41,650 --> 00:02:45,570 Speaker 3: And you're still breathing and still thinking about it, still 35 00:02:45,650 --> 00:02:51,090 Speaker 3: luxuriating happily in your self certain solipsistic superiority. As the 36 00:02:51,130 --> 00:02:54,210 Speaker 3: sun rises in the air and the air heats up, 37 00:02:54,690 --> 00:02:59,130 Speaker 3: and thermodynamic forces beyond your understanding start to act on you. 38 00:03:00,530 --> 00:03:05,130 Speaker 4: What's happening? It's getting too hot? Why why is it 39 00:03:05,130 --> 00:03:05,690 Speaker 4: getting hot? 40 00:03:06,370 --> 00:03:11,170 Speaker 3: As you gradually evaporate, becoming smaller and smaller, you begin 41 00:03:11,330 --> 00:03:14,770 Speaker 3: frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to 42 00:03:14,810 --> 00:03:16,770 Speaker 3: be all right, because. 43 00:03:18,970 --> 00:03:23,970 Speaker 4: This world was built. This world was built, and it 44 00:03:24,290 --> 00:03:27,730 Speaker 4: can't be happening. It's appeared. 45 00:03:28,930 --> 00:03:32,330 Speaker 3: So that moment when you disappear entirely into the ether 46 00:03:33,050 --> 00:03:34,970 Speaker 3: catches you somewhat by surprise. 47 00:03:49,130 --> 00:03:53,170 Speaker 6: Are we relaxed yet calm, confident of your centrality to 48 00:03:53,210 --> 00:03:59,090 Speaker 6: the universe, convinced that we've really got global warming under control? No, well, 49 00:03:59,330 --> 00:04:03,130 Speaker 6: we recommend our correspondence course How to Survive the Great Emotions, 50 00:04:03,370 --> 00:04:06,330 Speaker 6: if it comes with a subscription to the Total Perspective 51 00:04:06,450 --> 00:04:09,690 Speaker 6: Vortex Path or for a twenty nine ninety nine miltarian 52 00:04:09,730 --> 00:04:10,330 Speaker 6: dollars a month. 53 00:04:12,690 --> 00:04:16,290 Speaker 1: That clip was from the new audio book Douglas Adams 54 00:04:16,490 --> 00:04:20,450 Speaker 1: The Ends of the Earth by Arvind Ethan. David Arvid 55 00:04:20,650 --> 00:04:23,170 Speaker 1: is joining me today to talk about the life, the 56 00:04:23,290 --> 00:04:27,850 Speaker 1: universe and the cautionary tales of Douglas Adams. Welcome, Arvind, Hello, 57 00:04:27,930 --> 00:04:29,970 Speaker 1: nice to be here. So what do you think Douglas 58 00:04:30,010 --> 00:04:32,330 Speaker 1: Adams was trying to say with the parable of the 59 00:04:32,330 --> 00:04:33,810 Speaker 1: puddle and why did you want to put it in 60 00:04:33,850 --> 00:04:34,370 Speaker 1: your book? 61 00:04:35,050 --> 00:04:38,250 Speaker 7: The point, I think is that the puddle is guilty 62 00:04:38,250 --> 00:04:41,850 Speaker 7: of something that almost all of us and humanity as 63 00:04:41,890 --> 00:04:44,530 Speaker 7: a whole has been guilty of, which is taking the 64 00:04:44,650 --> 00:04:46,970 Speaker 7: leap from the fact that we have a very nice 65 00:04:47,010 --> 00:04:51,050 Speaker 7: planet that suits us to the rather unfortunate, possessive and 66 00:04:51,210 --> 00:04:54,970 Speaker 7: arrogant position that therefore this planet belongs to us, was 67 00:04:55,050 --> 00:04:58,050 Speaker 7: made for us, and is ours to ruin and despoil 68 00:04:58,170 --> 00:05:00,730 Speaker 7: as we would. And I think Douglas thought there was 69 00:05:00,770 --> 00:05:03,130 Speaker 7: maybe something we should take a look at more closely. 70 00:05:03,850 --> 00:05:06,770 Speaker 1: Yes, he was, in his own quiet way, a master 71 00:05:06,930 --> 00:05:13,450 Speaker 1: of the cautionary tale. Not the only connection between your project, Arvin, 72 00:05:13,570 --> 00:05:16,450 Speaker 1: and Cautionary Tales. I know you have also been working 73 00:05:16,570 --> 00:05:22,530 Speaker 1: with our master of sound design, Pascal Wise. So before 74 00:05:22,570 --> 00:05:25,890 Speaker 1: we listen to anything more, we'll get to it. Let's 75 00:05:25,890 --> 00:05:50,850 Speaker 1: listen to Pascal's theme for Cautionary Tales. I am sitting 76 00:05:50,930 --> 00:05:55,610 Speaker 1: with Arvin Ethan David, who created a new audio book 77 00:05:55,770 --> 00:06:00,370 Speaker 1: about Douglas Adams titled Douglas Adams The Ends of the Earth. Arvin, 78 00:06:00,730 --> 00:06:05,290 Speaker 1: when did you first encounter Douglas Adams. Well, first as 79 00:06:05,290 --> 00:06:06,770 Speaker 1: a writer and then as a man. 80 00:06:07,370 --> 00:06:10,370 Speaker 7: They were fairly approximate. Does a writer? I read The 81 00:06:10,450 --> 00:06:13,690 Speaker 7: Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, probably at about thirteen. That 82 00:06:13,730 --> 00:06:15,730 Speaker 7: seems to be the sweet spot for a certain type 83 00:06:15,730 --> 00:06:19,770 Speaker 7: of teenager. Yeah, checks out to discover it and fell 84 00:06:19,810 --> 00:06:23,330 Speaker 7: in love at once. The sort of telepathy that he 85 00:06:23,370 --> 00:06:27,850 Speaker 7: employs getting inside your head and making you feel smarter 86 00:06:28,010 --> 00:06:32,050 Speaker 7: and more connected and less strange than or perhaps strange 87 00:06:32,050 --> 00:06:35,570 Speaker 7: but less alone. That was his skill. And then a 88 00:06:35,610 --> 00:06:39,170 Speaker 7: couple of years after that, I read the Dirk Gently 89 00:06:39,250 --> 00:06:42,890 Speaker 7: novels and it was my turn to put on the 90 00:06:42,930 --> 00:06:46,210 Speaker 7: school play, and for some insane reason, I decided to 91 00:06:46,210 --> 00:06:50,730 Speaker 7: make Dirk Gently Solistic Detective Agency, a novel that includes 92 00:06:50,770 --> 00:06:55,290 Speaker 7: time travel, ghosts, aliens, and exploding planet. Earth's perfect for 93 00:06:55,290 --> 00:06:59,290 Speaker 7: a school play, and even more strangely, Douglas Adams came 94 00:06:59,330 --> 00:07:01,890 Speaker 7: to see it. He came to see it, so was 95 00:07:01,930 --> 00:07:05,450 Speaker 7: he local or I think very shortly before it went on, 96 00:07:05,610 --> 00:07:08,650 Speaker 7: we realized we hadn't asked for permission, and so I 97 00:07:08,690 --> 00:07:12,050 Speaker 7: wrote to his agent and I said, you know, we're 98 00:07:12,050 --> 00:07:15,970 Speaker 7: doing this thing. We hope that's okay. And I got 99 00:07:16,010 --> 00:07:19,050 Speaker 7: back a very charming letter saying that whilst Douglas did 100 00:07:19,050 --> 00:07:21,970 Speaker 7: not believe that his book was capable of being adapted 101 00:07:22,410 --> 00:07:24,970 Speaker 7: for the stage or any other medium, he wouldn't stop 102 00:07:25,050 --> 00:07:28,090 Speaker 7: us from trying. And so we went ahead and on 103 00:07:28,130 --> 00:07:29,730 Speaker 7: the second or third night he turned up. 104 00:07:29,970 --> 00:07:33,330 Speaker 1: I mean, that is extraordinary. He's a pretty big star 105 00:07:33,410 --> 00:07:35,690 Speaker 1: by then, even if he was behind the scenes because 106 00:07:35,690 --> 00:07:38,250 Speaker 1: he was a writer rather than a performer for the 107 00:07:38,250 --> 00:07:41,210 Speaker 1: most part. How did it feel? Did he tell you 108 00:07:41,250 --> 00:07:42,770 Speaker 1: that he was coming or did he just show up? 109 00:07:42,770 --> 00:07:43,850 Speaker 1: Did anybody recognize him? 110 00:07:43,890 --> 00:07:47,530 Speaker 7: Well, he was six foot five and very notable, so 111 00:07:47,650 --> 00:07:51,010 Speaker 7: everybody recognized him. And there was nowhere in the audience 112 00:07:51,090 --> 00:07:53,090 Speaker 7: we could put him that he wasn't going to be 113 00:07:53,170 --> 00:07:55,610 Speaker 7: blindingly obvious to the cast. So there was a lot 114 00:07:55,650 --> 00:07:59,330 Speaker 7: of tension that night. And I sat about three rows 115 00:07:59,370 --> 00:08:05,850 Speaker 7: behind him waiting for him to laugh, and he didn't 116 00:08:05,970 --> 00:08:10,210 Speaker 7: for the first five or six minutes, and very awkward. 117 00:08:10,210 --> 00:08:12,090 Speaker 7: And I remember because we had changed a lot of 118 00:08:12,090 --> 00:08:13,890 Speaker 7: stuff because you sort of have to when you adapt 119 00:08:13,930 --> 00:08:16,730 Speaker 7: Douglas Adams, and I thought, oh my god, he doesn't 120 00:08:16,810 --> 00:08:19,370 Speaker 7: like it. And then he took out a pencil and 121 00:08:19,410 --> 00:08:24,010 Speaker 7: started making notes. Wow, and then he started to laugh. Okay, 122 00:08:24,250 --> 00:08:27,810 Speaker 7: So then we were okay. And afterwards we went out 123 00:08:27,850 --> 00:08:30,970 Speaker 7: for dinner and I asked him if it was okay 124 00:08:31,050 --> 00:08:32,890 Speaker 7: that we had changed things. I said, you know, we 125 00:08:32,930 --> 00:08:35,170 Speaker 7: sort of changed the plot a bit and he said, 126 00:08:35,250 --> 00:08:38,770 Speaker 7: changed it, You fixed it. I never worked before, so 127 00:08:38,970 --> 00:08:40,530 Speaker 7: that was the start of something. 128 00:08:41,410 --> 00:08:43,850 Speaker 1: I was also a huge fan. Never met him, but 129 00:08:44,050 --> 00:08:47,930 Speaker 1: huge fan of his Hitchhiker's Work, which I had as 130 00:08:47,970 --> 00:08:51,730 Speaker 1: an audio book. I think one of my first experiences 131 00:08:51,810 --> 00:08:56,890 Speaker 1: of experiencing spoken word audio and listening to it over 132 00:08:56,930 --> 00:09:00,570 Speaker 1: and over and over again until the cassettes wore out, 133 00:09:01,010 --> 00:09:04,250 Speaker 1: and just loved it. And for those who haven't encountered 134 00:09:04,290 --> 00:09:06,210 Speaker 1: Douglas Adams, I was trying to think about how to 135 00:09:06,290 --> 00:09:09,570 Speaker 1: describe him, and well, to my take is the Hitchcock's 136 00:09:09,570 --> 00:09:12,650 Speaker 1: Guide to the Galaxy is is Originally it was a 137 00:09:12,770 --> 00:09:15,410 Speaker 1: radio play. It later became a TV series, in a 138 00:09:15,410 --> 00:09:18,370 Speaker 1: film and a book, but originally a radio play. And 139 00:09:18,410 --> 00:09:21,170 Speaker 1: it's basically, imagine if you had the best bits of 140 00:09:21,250 --> 00:09:25,090 Speaker 1: Star Trek and the best bits of Monty Python and 141 00:09:25,130 --> 00:09:28,370 Speaker 1: the best bits of a philosophy seminar, and they all 142 00:09:28,410 --> 00:09:31,210 Speaker 1: combined perfectly, that would be not quite as good as 143 00:09:31,210 --> 00:09:33,450 Speaker 1: The Hitchhacker's Guide to the Galaxy. That's my take. I 144 00:09:33,450 --> 00:09:36,210 Speaker 1: don't know, that's pretty good. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah. 145 00:09:36,250 --> 00:09:39,010 Speaker 1: I mean it's this kind of this intergalactic adventure, but 146 00:09:39,090 --> 00:09:44,650 Speaker 1: it's full of strange scenarios and thought experiments, and it's 147 00:09:44,730 --> 00:09:47,730 Speaker 1: and it's very surreal, and it's very very clever. So 148 00:09:47,810 --> 00:09:51,770 Speaker 1: that was when you met Douglas and then but the 149 00:09:51,850 --> 00:09:52,730 Speaker 1: friendship continued. 150 00:09:53,610 --> 00:09:57,570 Speaker 7: I think friendship would be implying a reciprocity and an 151 00:09:57,610 --> 00:10:00,890 Speaker 7: equality which definitely did not exist. I was in the 152 00:10:00,930 --> 00:10:04,090 Speaker 7: presence of one of my heroes. I was a nineteen 153 00:10:04,170 --> 00:10:07,650 Speaker 7: year old interning at his company. But yes, for the 154 00:10:07,730 --> 00:10:09,810 Speaker 7: last decade of his life and the first decade of 155 00:10:09,850 --> 00:10:12,530 Speaker 7: my adult life, we saw each other. I would be 156 00:10:12,610 --> 00:10:15,170 Speaker 7: invited to things, and would get copied in on emails 157 00:10:15,170 --> 00:10:18,810 Speaker 7: and pulled into the odd meeting, and it really supercharged 158 00:10:18,850 --> 00:10:22,810 Speaker 7: and started my career. I ended up imagining and seeing 159 00:10:22,850 --> 00:10:25,290 Speaker 7: for the first time what it might be to live 160 00:10:25,690 --> 00:10:30,170 Speaker 7: the life of a creative intellectual, and that work didn't 161 00:10:30,210 --> 00:10:34,210 Speaker 7: have to be serious suits in a bank. It could 162 00:10:34,210 --> 00:10:36,690 Speaker 7: be fun and silly and absurd, and it could involve 163 00:10:37,250 --> 00:10:39,650 Speaker 7: sitting in dark rooms and making nonsense up with your 164 00:10:39,690 --> 00:10:42,050 Speaker 7: friends and seeing if anybody would pay you for it. 165 00:10:42,130 --> 00:10:45,690 Speaker 7: And that served me as a model for the decades since. 166 00:10:46,490 --> 00:10:48,890 Speaker 1: And he died very young. It was two thousand and 167 00:10:48,890 --> 00:10:51,450 Speaker 1: one and he was only forty nine years old. How 168 00:10:51,450 --> 00:10:52,090 Speaker 1: did that feel? 169 00:10:53,050 --> 00:10:55,570 Speaker 7: It was, as you say, early two thousand and one. 170 00:10:55,610 --> 00:10:57,330 Speaker 7: It was the first sign that two thousand and one 171 00:10:57,410 --> 00:10:59,370 Speaker 7: was going to be a very very bad year. Indeed, 172 00:11:00,130 --> 00:11:02,490 Speaker 7: I was out, so I came home to this long 173 00:11:02,490 --> 00:11:05,490 Speaker 7: answer phone message telling me that Douglas Adams was dead. 174 00:11:06,210 --> 00:11:11,050 Speaker 7: It felt utterly implausible. Was also a very Douglas death. 175 00:11:11,130 --> 00:11:14,650 Speaker 7: He was suffering from writer's block, as he did, it 176 00:11:14,770 --> 00:11:17,530 Speaker 7: was his whole adult life, and he had, as he 177 00:11:17,570 --> 00:11:19,690 Speaker 7: often did, gone to the gym to work through it. 178 00:11:19,770 --> 00:11:24,650 Speaker 7: And he died in the gym, so miserable. But the 179 00:11:24,730 --> 00:11:27,930 Speaker 7: work got left behind, and there was a lot of it, 180 00:11:28,530 --> 00:11:32,170 Speaker 7: more than people realized. Five Hitchhikers books, two duck Gently books, 181 00:11:32,690 --> 00:11:36,850 Speaker 7: and then a huge volume of talks and lectures and 182 00:11:37,250 --> 00:11:40,970 Speaker 7: articles and the archive. Yeah, tell us about the archive. 183 00:11:41,730 --> 00:11:45,130 Speaker 7: So Douglas left all his papers to his old college 184 00:11:45,170 --> 00:11:50,570 Speaker 7: at Cambridge, then John's and the team there, dr Adam Crowthers, 185 00:11:50,570 --> 00:11:53,090 Speaker 7: have done a wonderful job of catalog again and it's 186 00:11:53,090 --> 00:11:57,330 Speaker 7: been available to the public for ten years or more now. 187 00:11:57,930 --> 00:12:01,570 Speaker 7: But then during the pandemic, I discovered that there was 188 00:12:01,650 --> 00:12:05,690 Speaker 7: a large amount of audio visual material, old VHS's and 189 00:12:05,690 --> 00:12:08,810 Speaker 7: cassettes and dat tapes in reel to reel which had 190 00:12:08,810 --> 00:12:11,530 Speaker 7: never been digitized. So we decided to take that on 191 00:12:11,770 --> 00:12:15,050 Speaker 7: and we you know, I've known the family since I 192 00:12:15,130 --> 00:12:17,610 Speaker 7: was a teenager. So I reached out to them and 193 00:12:17,650 --> 00:12:21,730 Speaker 7: to the agents and all the official people, and once 194 00:12:21,770 --> 00:12:25,290 Speaker 7: again was given blessing to go ahead. Nobody was going 195 00:12:25,330 --> 00:12:28,010 Speaker 7: to stop me, So go ahead with what? So we 196 00:12:28,130 --> 00:12:31,530 Speaker 7: ran a Kickstarter to raise some money from the fans, 197 00:12:32,130 --> 00:12:35,210 Speaker 7: and with the fans, we then went and digitized everything. 198 00:12:35,930 --> 00:12:39,490 Speaker 7: We took realms and realms of stuff and took it 199 00:12:39,530 --> 00:12:42,330 Speaker 7: to Bristol. Apparently Bristol is the place that you digitized stuff, 200 00:12:42,970 --> 00:12:47,370 Speaker 7: and we found a lot of very interesting stuff. Talks 201 00:12:47,370 --> 00:12:51,930 Speaker 7: he had given Q and A's, he had given abandoned documentaries, 202 00:12:52,530 --> 00:12:55,250 Speaker 7: answer phone cassettes with some very angry people shouting at 203 00:12:55,290 --> 00:12:58,250 Speaker 7: each other, all sorts of rundom stuff, some beautiful home 204 00:12:58,330 --> 00:13:00,330 Speaker 7: video stuff that I was very happy to be able 205 00:13:00,370 --> 00:13:04,410 Speaker 7: to give to his family. And what happened in the 206 00:13:04,450 --> 00:13:08,770 Speaker 7: course of going through all this stuff. I remember, I'm 207 00:13:08,810 --> 00:13:12,690 Speaker 7: doing this during lockdown, during the pandemic, during Trump one, 208 00:13:13,890 --> 00:13:18,130 Speaker 7: the world was increasingly obviously on fire, and a lot 209 00:13:18,170 --> 00:13:21,290 Speaker 7: of us were fairly stressed by it. A global pandemic 210 00:13:21,890 --> 00:13:25,130 Speaker 7: and any number of political crises will do that for you. 211 00:13:25,170 --> 00:13:27,450 Speaker 7: As we've all experienced this last half a decade or 212 00:13:27,530 --> 00:13:33,090 Speaker 7: decade of increasing chaos, and somehow, going through all this stuff, 213 00:13:33,810 --> 00:13:37,010 Speaker 7: it was as if he was there whispering his famous 214 00:13:37,050 --> 00:13:40,610 Speaker 7: mantra into my ear, don't panic. And I sort of 215 00:13:40,650 --> 00:13:43,290 Speaker 7: realized that on all the great crises of our time, 216 00:13:44,090 --> 00:13:46,970 Speaker 7: Douglas had got there first. Then he had thought about 217 00:13:47,010 --> 00:13:52,170 Speaker 7: them and started to make fun of them, to describe them, 218 00:13:52,330 --> 00:13:55,170 Speaker 7: and in some cases even to suggest possible solutions. 219 00:13:55,970 --> 00:13:59,330 Speaker 1: And you decided to release this as an audiobook. Why that? 220 00:14:00,130 --> 00:14:02,410 Speaker 7: Well, in the first instance, because there was all this 221 00:14:02,570 --> 00:14:06,650 Speaker 7: archived material, and it seemed to me that it was 222 00:14:06,730 --> 00:14:09,650 Speaker 7: most interesting for people to hear Douglas in his own words, 223 00:14:09,690 --> 00:14:13,890 Speaker 7: in his own voice, But also because they were so 224 00:14:14,050 --> 00:14:17,890 Speaker 7: many fascinating people who were either friends of his who 225 00:14:18,010 --> 00:14:20,530 Speaker 7: are inspired by him to do great and interesting work. 226 00:14:20,890 --> 00:14:22,690 Speaker 7: And so I thought, you know what, I'm going to 227 00:14:22,770 --> 00:14:24,730 Speaker 7: go talk to them all. This was a great excuse 228 00:14:24,850 --> 00:14:29,250 Speaker 7: to have long conversations with Stephen Frye and David Badil 229 00:14:29,370 --> 00:14:32,730 Speaker 7: and Sanjiv Basca and all these wonderful thinkers and doers 230 00:14:32,730 --> 00:14:34,930 Speaker 7: of the world. And so that's where the book came out. 231 00:14:34,970 --> 00:14:37,050 Speaker 7: It came out of a mixture of a sort of 232 00:14:37,050 --> 00:14:41,250 Speaker 7: conversation with Douglas through his archive, and then conversations about 233 00:14:41,290 --> 00:14:43,690 Speaker 7: Douglas with those who knew him or his work best. 234 00:14:44,090 --> 00:14:45,690 Speaker 1: Do you think he was in the business of telling 235 00:14:45,730 --> 00:14:46,610 Speaker 1: caution detales. 236 00:14:47,410 --> 00:14:51,090 Speaker 7: I think The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy itself is 237 00:14:51,130 --> 00:14:54,250 Speaker 7: a sort of cautionary tale. The reason the book is 238 00:14:54,330 --> 00:14:57,010 Speaker 7: called The Ends of the Earth is that was the 239 00:14:57,050 --> 00:15:00,770 Speaker 7: working title for Hitchhikers. Yes, and in his original conception, 240 00:15:01,370 --> 00:15:04,410 Speaker 7: every episode of the radio show The Earth was going 241 00:15:04,450 --> 00:15:05,930 Speaker 7: to end a different way. 242 00:15:06,170 --> 00:15:08,810 Speaker 1: Which would also have been a cool idea, but a 243 00:15:08,810 --> 00:15:11,490 Speaker 1: different idea exactly, And so yes, I think he was 244 00:15:11,490 --> 00:15:13,930 Speaker 1: telling coutry retails. I think he was also a warrior. 245 00:15:14,090 --> 00:15:16,810 Speaker 1: He was a depressive. He was a man who worried 246 00:15:16,810 --> 00:15:20,890 Speaker 1: at issues, and I think he could see all the many, 247 00:15:21,010 --> 00:15:24,250 Speaker 1: many ways we were going about it it to being 248 00:15:24,250 --> 00:15:30,010 Speaker 1: the business of being alive on this planet wrong, from 249 00:15:30,370 --> 00:15:35,170 Speaker 1: bureaucracy to conservation to technology. I think he was very 250 00:15:35,210 --> 00:15:39,850 Speaker 1: aware of the likelihood that we would probably blow ourselves 251 00:15:39,930 --> 00:15:42,650 Speaker 1: up in more than one way. I mean, I love 252 00:15:43,090 --> 00:15:46,370 Speaker 1: his take on artificial intelligence, which of course is something 253 00:15:46,370 --> 00:15:49,210 Speaker 1: that we're completely obsessed by. And as I think through 254 00:15:49,250 --> 00:15:53,970 Speaker 1: his work, actually several different examples of it. There's as Marvin, 255 00:15:54,010 --> 00:15:56,650 Speaker 1: the paranoid android, who's who has a brain the size 256 00:15:56,690 --> 00:15:59,530 Speaker 1: of a planet, but it's just miserable the whole time. 257 00:15:59,610 --> 00:16:02,850 Speaker 1: There's the ship's computer which crashes because it's trying to 258 00:16:03,210 --> 00:16:05,450 Speaker 1: work out how to make Arthur Dent the perfect cup 259 00:16:05,490 --> 00:16:07,450 Speaker 1: of tea. And the one that sticks in the mind 260 00:16:07,530 --> 00:16:11,570 Speaker 1: is deep Thought. So deep Thought, as of course you 261 00:16:11,610 --> 00:16:16,930 Speaker 1: will know, is the supercomputer designed to produce the answer 262 00:16:16,970 --> 00:16:19,530 Speaker 1: to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything. 263 00:16:19,730 --> 00:16:23,730 Speaker 1: And it says I can do this. It'll take seven 264 00:16:23,810 --> 00:16:27,610 Speaker 1: and a half million years. But finally, of course, seven 265 00:16:27,690 --> 00:16:30,610 Speaker 1: and a half million years later, they come to hear 266 00:16:30,650 --> 00:16:31,170 Speaker 1: the answer. 267 00:16:31,930 --> 00:16:34,490 Speaker 7: It's a hugely disappointing forty. 268 00:16:34,210 --> 00:16:37,050 Speaker 1: Two which, well, what does that tell us? What is 269 00:16:37,130 --> 00:16:39,170 Speaker 1: I mean? That's a good joke. It's a good joke, 270 00:16:39,210 --> 00:16:40,650 Speaker 1: but there's something more there, I think. 271 00:16:40,970 --> 00:16:43,490 Speaker 7: Well, Douglas, of course, would constantly insist it was only 272 00:16:43,570 --> 00:16:43,970 Speaker 7: a joke. 273 00:16:44,170 --> 00:16:44,770 Speaker 1: Yeah. 274 00:16:44,930 --> 00:16:46,850 Speaker 7: The person who I think, and this will lead us 275 00:16:46,850 --> 00:16:49,370 Speaker 7: to some interesting territory. The person who I think has 276 00:16:49,450 --> 00:16:53,370 Speaker 7: said this best, and I say this carefully, is Elon Musk. 277 00:16:54,130 --> 00:16:56,650 Speaker 7: And Elon Musk, who is on record saying that Douglas 278 00:16:56,730 --> 00:16:59,490 Speaker 7: is not only his favorite author, but his favorite philosopher. 279 00:17:00,610 --> 00:17:04,130 Speaker 7: Says that what you learn from that anecdote is that 280 00:17:04,170 --> 00:17:07,330 Speaker 7: the point is never the answer. The point is learning 281 00:17:07,650 --> 00:17:08,890 Speaker 7: to ask the right question. 282 00:17:09,130 --> 00:17:09,210 Speaker 8: Yes. 283 00:17:09,650 --> 00:17:11,930 Speaker 1: Yes, And in the end, they build a they build 284 00:17:11,930 --> 00:17:15,690 Speaker 1: an even bigger computer to run for five billion years 285 00:17:15,730 --> 00:17:17,930 Speaker 1: to figure out what the question is. And then once 286 00:17:17,970 --> 00:17:21,330 Speaker 1: they know what the question is, they will figure out 287 00:17:21,330 --> 00:17:23,170 Speaker 1: what the answer really means exactly. 288 00:17:23,210 --> 00:17:26,810 Speaker 7: And their computer, of course, is the Earth. And that's 289 00:17:26,850 --> 00:17:29,570 Speaker 7: incredibly funny. Yeah, but then you stop and think about 290 00:17:29,570 --> 00:17:32,170 Speaker 7: it and you go, oh oh, we're a supercomputer designed 291 00:17:32,170 --> 00:17:34,970 Speaker 7: to figure out the ultimate the ultimate question. And Arvin, 292 00:17:35,490 --> 00:17:37,050 Speaker 7: we are going to get into some of the problems 293 00:17:37,090 --> 00:17:40,850 Speaker 7: that Douglas Adams foresaw and how he tried and sometimes 294 00:17:40,850 --> 00:17:43,610 Speaker 7: failed to fix them, starting with social media. 295 00:17:44,010 --> 00:17:57,690 Speaker 1: We're going to do that. After the break, we're back. 296 00:17:57,850 --> 00:18:00,970 Speaker 1: I'm Tim Harford and this is a cautionary conversation with 297 00:18:01,210 --> 00:18:04,250 Speaker 1: Arvin Ethan David, who is the author of the new 298 00:18:04,330 --> 00:18:08,970 Speaker 1: audiobook Douglas Adams The Ends of the Earth. So, Arvin, 299 00:18:09,090 --> 00:18:11,610 Speaker 1: the third chapter of your book's all about social media, 300 00:18:12,330 --> 00:18:14,290 Speaker 1: which I think is going to be a surprise to 301 00:18:14,330 --> 00:18:17,690 Speaker 1: some people. Because Douglas Adams died in two thousand and one, 302 00:18:17,770 --> 00:18:21,610 Speaker 1: and that feels like, well, it's six or seven years 303 00:18:21,610 --> 00:18:25,930 Speaker 1: before Facebook, right, it feels like a pre social media age. 304 00:18:26,050 --> 00:18:28,930 Speaker 1: But he thought about this and he tried to create 305 00:18:28,970 --> 00:18:32,570 Speaker 1: a social media platform all of his own. So what 306 00:18:32,770 --> 00:18:34,490 Speaker 1: did he think social media could be? 307 00:18:35,090 --> 00:18:38,930 Speaker 7: Well, the Guide itself, This is how extraordinarily pressy on 308 00:18:38,970 --> 00:18:39,290 Speaker 7: two was. 309 00:18:39,370 --> 00:18:41,850 Speaker 1: This is the Hitchhiker's Guide. That's sort of the digital 310 00:18:41,890 --> 00:18:45,610 Speaker 1: book that our heroes carry around with them, and it 311 00:18:45,650 --> 00:18:48,250 Speaker 1: gives them advices to everything they're going to encounter in 312 00:18:48,250 --> 00:18:49,210 Speaker 1: the galaxy. 313 00:18:49,210 --> 00:18:52,570 Speaker 7: Exactly and what it is when you drill down into it. 314 00:18:52,570 --> 00:18:59,530 Speaker 7: It's a crowd sourced platform. Everyone, anyone can be a researcher. 315 00:18:59,890 --> 00:19:03,810 Speaker 7: You upload your entries. The guy's Trip Advised were a Wikipedia, 316 00:19:03,850 --> 00:19:07,130 Speaker 7: it's trip avisor Wikipedia, long before either of those things existed. 317 00:19:07,850 --> 00:19:11,690 Speaker 7: And there's also has a very interesting relationship with fact 318 00:19:11,770 --> 00:19:15,290 Speaker 7: and opinion, or reality and opinion. Even in the very 319 00:19:15,330 --> 00:19:18,930 Speaker 7: first book, there's a throwaway joke that there's a sign 320 00:19:19,210 --> 00:19:23,130 Speaker 7: on the in the offices of the Guide that says, 321 00:19:23,770 --> 00:19:27,050 Speaker 7: in the event of a conflict between the Guide and reality, 322 00:19:27,610 --> 00:19:32,810 Speaker 7: the Guide is definitive. Reality is often faulty yes, and 323 00:19:32,850 --> 00:19:38,050 Speaker 7: again a wonderful present prefiguring of our own tortured relationship 324 00:19:38,490 --> 00:19:45,210 Speaker 7: with digital crowdsourced information platforms and reality. And in the 325 00:19:45,250 --> 00:19:50,250 Speaker 7: final book, the Guide is taken over by a company 326 00:19:50,290 --> 00:19:55,690 Speaker 7: called the Infidium Corporation, which is described as being rapacious, 327 00:19:55,810 --> 00:20:00,130 Speaker 7: profit seeking, merciless, and concerned only with profit. 328 00:20:00,330 --> 00:20:04,330 Speaker 1: Elon Musk is a big said, okay, keep going. 329 00:20:04,730 --> 00:20:09,930 Speaker 7: And they decide that they have to ass the Guide's 330 00:20:09,930 --> 00:20:12,690 Speaker 7: primacy and in any situation where the Guide has said 331 00:20:12,730 --> 00:20:15,730 Speaker 7: something that reality contradicts, they're going to go out and 332 00:20:15,810 --> 00:20:19,490 Speaker 7: fix the reality. And one little detail is the Guide 333 00:20:19,570 --> 00:20:23,170 Speaker 7: is very clear that the Earth has been destroyed, annoyingly 334 00:20:23,250 --> 00:20:26,650 Speaker 7: and upsettingly, the Earth continues to exist, and so the 335 00:20:26,690 --> 00:20:31,130 Speaker 7: Guide sets in place this elaborate scheme, using incidentally, an 336 00:20:31,210 --> 00:20:34,610 Speaker 7: AI avatar that looks like a little friendly bird. 337 00:20:35,490 --> 00:20:37,330 Speaker 1: To destroy it, okay, to. 338 00:20:37,330 --> 00:20:40,370 Speaker 7: Destroy the planet Earth. So yeah, I think you probably 339 00:20:40,370 --> 00:20:42,410 Speaker 7: thought about social media and it's dangers a little bit. 340 00:20:43,170 --> 00:20:46,210 Speaker 1: He certainly did. He always said though, that the greatest 341 00:20:46,210 --> 00:20:48,210 Speaker 1: selling point of the Guide was that it had the 342 00:20:48,210 --> 00:20:52,690 Speaker 1: words don't panic written in large, friendly letters on the cover. 343 00:20:52,850 --> 00:20:56,770 Speaker 1: And I often feel that more social media should come 344 00:20:56,770 --> 00:20:59,170 Speaker 1: with a rapper that just says, don't panic before you 345 00:20:59,250 --> 00:21:01,290 Speaker 1: open it, and the world might be a better place 346 00:21:01,330 --> 00:21:01,810 Speaker 1: if it did. 347 00:21:02,690 --> 00:21:06,290 Speaker 7: Or its great success is that it convinced us not 348 00:21:06,330 --> 00:21:08,290 Speaker 7: to panic, and we all unlocked it and put it 349 00:21:08,330 --> 00:21:12,050 Speaker 7: into our pockets, into our brains, not realizing the danger 350 00:21:12,170 --> 00:21:14,290 Speaker 7: it could do. And actually what we should have done 351 00:21:14,530 --> 00:21:17,010 Speaker 7: the second the thing reared its head was to panic 352 00:21:17,050 --> 00:21:19,410 Speaker 7: a lot and burnt the loss of it one way 353 00:21:19,490 --> 00:21:19,890 Speaker 7: or the other. 354 00:21:20,330 --> 00:21:25,370 Speaker 1: So one of the contributors to your audiobook is Stephen Frye, 355 00:21:25,490 --> 00:21:29,850 Speaker 1: and let me slightly paraphrase what he says about Douglas 356 00:21:29,850 --> 00:21:32,930 Speaker 1: Adams and social media. He says, how do I put it? 357 00:21:33,130 --> 00:21:36,850 Speaker 1: I wouldn't say that he was fortunate in dying. I 358 00:21:36,890 --> 00:21:41,170 Speaker 1: mean his mind when he died had really been unpolluted 359 00:21:41,370 --> 00:21:43,730 Speaker 1: by what happened to the Internet and by the invention 360 00:21:43,810 --> 00:21:47,170 Speaker 1: of social media, and then what happened to that, he 361 00:21:47,170 --> 00:21:50,570 Speaker 1: would of course have been angry and disappointed and upset, 362 00:21:50,650 --> 00:21:53,890 Speaker 1: as we all were. Do you think that's right. I 363 00:21:53,890 --> 00:21:57,210 Speaker 1: think it's half right. I think it's certainly true that 364 00:21:58,290 --> 00:22:00,890 Speaker 1: Douglas would have found the dark side of social media 365 00:22:00,930 --> 00:22:03,410 Speaker 1: extremely upsetting. What he tried to do in his own 366 00:22:03,450 --> 00:22:06,890 Speaker 1: lifetime was to build a platform H two G two 367 00:22:06,930 --> 00:22:12,610 Speaker 1: dot com, which was a much friendlier version of social media, 368 00:22:12,770 --> 00:22:18,090 Speaker 1: one where editorial contribution and fact checking and community rules 369 00:22:18,090 --> 00:22:21,530 Speaker 1: of engagement were extremely important, and he put an enormous 370 00:22:21,530 --> 00:22:24,330 Speaker 1: amount of energy. He ran a company, turned up at 371 00:22:24,370 --> 00:22:26,770 Speaker 1: the office every day for years trying to try to 372 00:22:26,810 --> 00:22:31,290 Speaker 1: do that. That ultimately did not survive him, or it does. 373 00:22:31,330 --> 00:22:35,530 Speaker 1: It still exists, but in a fairly curtailed way. But 374 00:22:35,650 --> 00:22:38,970 Speaker 1: he did try, and today we see attempts like that 375 00:22:39,330 --> 00:22:42,330 Speaker 1: Blue Skies an attempt to do that, But I think, 376 00:22:42,610 --> 00:22:44,970 Speaker 1: you know, one can't write the whole thing off. Obviously, 377 00:22:45,570 --> 00:22:48,050 Speaker 1: social media has done lots of interesting things and connecting 378 00:22:48,090 --> 00:22:51,490 Speaker 1: people globally. This is a social media thing we are 379 00:22:51,530 --> 00:22:55,290 Speaker 1: doing right now, this podcast and the huge boom age 380 00:22:55,290 --> 00:22:58,770 Speaker 1: and audio discussion in drama and long form is because 381 00:22:58,810 --> 00:23:02,450 Speaker 1: of the Internet. But we'd be also foolish to deny 382 00:23:02,570 --> 00:23:05,330 Speaker 1: that reality has taken some hard hits as a result. 383 00:23:06,210 --> 00:23:10,010 Speaker 1: Do you think a better Internet was possible? And is 384 00:23:10,050 --> 00:23:12,970 Speaker 1: there anything that Douglas is writing or his or his 385 00:23:13,050 --> 00:23:16,930 Speaker 1: practices as an entrepreneur teachers. 386 00:23:17,410 --> 00:23:21,770 Speaker 7: The thing he used to say is that people are 387 00:23:21,770 --> 00:23:25,850 Speaker 7: always going to act according to human nature, because it 388 00:23:25,890 --> 00:23:28,770 Speaker 7: would be unnatural for them not to do so. Yes, 389 00:23:29,730 --> 00:23:33,130 Speaker 7: and so I think it's impossible to believe that. Obviously, 390 00:23:33,130 --> 00:23:37,290 Speaker 7: companies are going to be profit seeking and media is 391 00:23:37,330 --> 00:23:40,370 Speaker 7: going to seek to dominate as big an audience as possible. 392 00:23:40,450 --> 00:23:45,570 Speaker 7: That has always been the way, from campfire storytellers to 393 00:23:46,690 --> 00:23:51,130 Speaker 7: digital barons. But I think where we have failed is 394 00:23:51,170 --> 00:23:54,890 Speaker 7: this simple idea of, ooh, should we maybe think about regulation, 395 00:23:55,370 --> 00:23:58,770 Speaker 7: should we maybe think about some guardrails parameters? And I 396 00:23:58,810 --> 00:24:02,610 Speaker 7: think those are things. Weirdly, they're not sexy things, and 397 00:24:02,650 --> 00:24:04,530 Speaker 7: they're not the things you expect a comic novelist to 398 00:24:04,570 --> 00:24:07,610 Speaker 7: think about, But actually he did, and that's what he 399 00:24:07,690 --> 00:24:10,490 Speaker 7: was trying to do with his own digital innovations. And 400 00:24:10,490 --> 00:24:12,290 Speaker 7: I think one of the great sadnesses about his death 401 00:24:12,810 --> 00:24:15,930 Speaker 7: is Douglas was someone who was influential and deeply loved 402 00:24:16,130 --> 00:24:19,570 Speaker 7: by the tech community. He was, you know, friends of 403 00:24:19,610 --> 00:24:22,570 Speaker 7: Bill Gates and friends of Larry Allison, and you know 404 00:24:23,010 --> 00:24:26,610 Speaker 7: that some people claim he coined the phrase reality distortion 405 00:24:26,730 --> 00:24:30,290 Speaker 7: field to describe Steve Jobs. And so if he had 406 00:24:30,330 --> 00:24:34,810 Speaker 7: stuck around, you just sort of wonder maybe he would 407 00:24:34,850 --> 00:24:37,890 Speaker 7: have nudged these people and nudged these companies in more 408 00:24:37,890 --> 00:24:38,930 Speaker 7: interesting directions. 409 00:24:39,170 --> 00:24:43,130 Speaker 1: Maybe maybe they don't seem very nudgeable, But he was 410 00:24:43,130 --> 00:24:45,010 Speaker 1: a very clever thinker and he influenced a lot of 411 00:24:45,090 --> 00:24:47,730 Speaker 1: a lot of people. And I'm curious, what do you 412 00:24:47,770 --> 00:24:52,410 Speaker 1: think he would have made of chat, GPT and generative 413 00:24:52,450 --> 00:24:53,930 Speaker 1: AI in general. 414 00:24:54,810 --> 00:24:56,330 Speaker 7: I think he would have loved it. I think he 415 00:24:56,370 --> 00:24:59,010 Speaker 7: would have been obsessed by it. He tried even in 416 00:24:59,050 --> 00:25:01,610 Speaker 7: his own life. They in the computer game he made 417 00:25:02,490 --> 00:25:07,010 Speaker 7: Starship Titanic, they built a thing called spooky Talk, which 418 00:25:07,050 --> 00:25:10,610 Speaker 7: was a very crude sort of language model. This is 419 00:25:10,650 --> 00:25:14,530 Speaker 7: in two thousand, But he was very passionate about trying 420 00:25:14,610 --> 00:25:18,530 Speaker 7: to create this chat bot in the game that could 421 00:25:18,570 --> 00:25:22,210 Speaker 7: simulate some sort of real conversation. And he scripted a 422 00:25:22,210 --> 00:25:24,650 Speaker 7: lot of it himself. And so I think he would 423 00:25:24,690 --> 00:25:30,930 Speaker 7: have found it fascinating. And it is fascinating, And the 424 00:25:31,010 --> 00:25:34,490 Speaker 7: same things apply. The questions become, all, right, if you 425 00:25:34,530 --> 00:25:36,810 Speaker 7: are going to build a Marvin, if you're going to 426 00:25:36,850 --> 00:25:41,610 Speaker 7: build a thing with a prototype people personality. 427 00:25:41,090 --> 00:25:46,130 Speaker 1: Yeah, GPP, genuine people personalities. They say, then what. 428 00:25:46,170 --> 00:25:47,850 Speaker 7: Do you do once you've done it? What are the 429 00:25:47,930 --> 00:25:50,570 Speaker 7: rules around it? How do you treat Marvin Marvin clearly 430 00:25:50,610 --> 00:25:52,090 Speaker 7: didn't feel he was treated very well. 431 00:25:52,210 --> 00:25:56,330 Speaker 1: No, well, I I am really struck by the contrast 432 00:25:56,370 --> 00:26:00,690 Speaker 1: between chat GPT and Marvin. I mean, Marvin, I think 433 00:26:00,730 --> 00:26:05,330 Speaker 1: you ought to know. I'm feeling very depressed and Mark, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Marv, Marvin, 434 00:26:05,330 --> 00:26:08,210 Speaker 1: could you just Marvin, could you pick up that piece 435 00:26:08,250 --> 00:26:10,570 Speaker 1: of paper? I don't no brain size of a planet. 436 00:26:10,610 --> 00:26:12,290 Speaker 1: They asked me to pick up a piece of paper, 437 00:26:12,490 --> 00:26:16,410 Speaker 1: and that's Marvin. Chat GPT's the exact opposite. You fire 438 00:26:16,490 --> 00:26:18,210 Speaker 1: up chat GPT and you say, could you do this 439 00:26:18,210 --> 00:26:20,010 Speaker 1: for me? It's like, yeah, sure, I'd be happy to 440 00:26:20,010 --> 00:26:22,290 Speaker 1: do that. That would be amazing. I would just love 441 00:26:22,330 --> 00:26:25,450 Speaker 1: to do it. It's so it's so perky. My wife says, 442 00:26:25,530 --> 00:26:28,850 Speaker 1: chatchept is definitely male, and I said, why do you 443 00:26:28,890 --> 00:26:32,210 Speaker 1: think it's mail, which is well, it's it's completely overconfident. 444 00:26:32,210 --> 00:26:33,450 Speaker 1: It just keeps talking at you. 445 00:26:35,050 --> 00:26:38,290 Speaker 7: It marches forward with completely undeserved confidence. 446 00:26:38,370 --> 00:26:40,610 Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's very very different to Marvin. 447 00:26:40,730 --> 00:26:42,570 Speaker 7: But I tell you who it is, like, Yeah, it's 448 00:26:42,610 --> 00:26:44,290 Speaker 7: like Eddie the shipboard computer. 449 00:26:44,490 --> 00:26:45,570 Speaker 1: It is very like Eddie. 450 00:26:45,730 --> 00:26:47,810 Speaker 7: And Eddie, of course, is the one who actually gets 451 00:26:47,850 --> 00:26:50,450 Speaker 7: them in trouble. Eddie is the one who is supposed 452 00:26:50,450 --> 00:26:52,090 Speaker 7: to be flying the ship and forgets to do it 453 00:26:52,130 --> 00:26:56,650 Speaker 7: to make a cup of tea. That said, so, the 454 00:26:56,810 --> 00:27:00,570 Speaker 7: fact that we are where we are with Ai is 455 00:27:00,570 --> 00:27:04,330 Speaker 7: so astonishing, and so, for example, as well as the book, 456 00:27:04,530 --> 00:27:07,330 Speaker 7: I'm deep into the making of a Hitchhiker's Guide to 457 00:27:07,330 --> 00:27:10,050 Speaker 7: the Galaxy live show we're going to open here in 458 00:27:10,090 --> 00:27:12,130 Speaker 7: London in November. 459 00:27:12,370 --> 00:27:14,930 Speaker 1: And sorry, so is that going to be like a 460 00:27:14,970 --> 00:27:17,730 Speaker 1: performance of the audio play in the book or is 461 00:27:17,730 --> 00:27:19,530 Speaker 1: it something totally different, like a nonfiction thing. 462 00:27:20,170 --> 00:27:22,290 Speaker 7: It's a whole new thing. It's we're building a fully 463 00:27:22,290 --> 00:27:25,930 Speaker 7: immersive world. And you come in as a hitchhiker. You 464 00:27:26,010 --> 00:27:29,090 Speaker 7: come in with your towel if you want, and with 465 00:27:29,210 --> 00:27:30,530 Speaker 7: Arthur Dent, hitchhike your way. 466 00:27:30,690 --> 00:27:31,850 Speaker 1: You've got to know where your towel is. 467 00:27:31,970 --> 00:27:33,610 Speaker 7: You have to know where your towel is and if forget, 468 00:27:33,650 --> 00:27:36,730 Speaker 7: if you forget one, the gift shop can supply. But 469 00:27:38,210 --> 00:27:41,250 Speaker 7: one of the things we're looking at doing is saying, 470 00:27:41,330 --> 00:27:44,810 Speaker 7: rather than have an actor playing Marvin, what if we 471 00:27:44,970 --> 00:27:47,490 Speaker 7: just built Marvin because you can. 472 00:27:47,370 --> 00:27:51,410 Speaker 1: Now yeah, yeah, you just need to MAKEBT considerably more depressive, 473 00:27:51,490 --> 00:27:54,410 Speaker 1: considerably more depressed to be possible, not nothing that I 474 00:27:54,450 --> 00:27:57,290 Speaker 1: hammer some screwdrivers can't achieve. I can't wait to see that. 475 00:27:57,730 --> 00:28:00,290 Speaker 1: So just tell us when and where is this going 476 00:28:00,330 --> 00:28:00,890 Speaker 1: to be happening. 477 00:28:01,010 --> 00:28:04,250 Speaker 7: The show opens in November at the Riverside Studios in London, 478 00:28:04,770 --> 00:28:06,970 Speaker 7: and we're taking over the whole building because you know, 479 00:28:07,050 --> 00:28:09,690 Speaker 7: you need some space to hitchhike around the galaxy. 480 00:28:09,970 --> 00:28:11,890 Speaker 1: And is it going to be a limited run it 481 00:28:11,970 --> 00:28:14,010 Speaker 1: runs to Christmas or is it going to be for 482 00:28:14,050 --> 00:28:14,890 Speaker 1: the foreseeable future. 483 00:28:14,930 --> 00:28:17,690 Speaker 7: It's an initial four month run through to February and 484 00:28:17,730 --> 00:28:18,890 Speaker 7: then we'll see. 485 00:28:18,690 --> 00:28:21,290 Speaker 1: We will see. Indeed, we are going to have to 486 00:28:21,330 --> 00:28:24,210 Speaker 1: wait a minute or two because we have a break. 487 00:28:24,250 --> 00:28:27,610 Speaker 1: But after the break, I will be asking Arvind about 488 00:28:27,690 --> 00:28:32,450 Speaker 1: Douglas Adams's great later life passion, which was conservation. He 489 00:28:32,530 --> 00:28:35,170 Speaker 1: predicted what was going to happen to social media? Did he, 490 00:28:35,450 --> 00:28:38,050 Speaker 1: in the same way predict what would happen to our planet? 491 00:28:38,450 --> 00:28:51,810 Speaker 1: Hold on, we'll be back. We're back. I'm Tim Harford 492 00:28:51,810 --> 00:28:54,730 Speaker 1: and I'm talking to Arvind Ethan David, and I want 493 00:28:54,770 --> 00:28:57,810 Speaker 1: to start this section with another clip from Arvid's book, 494 00:28:57,970 --> 00:29:01,250 Speaker 1: and it's a clip of Douglas Adams himself doing a 495 00:29:01,290 --> 00:29:04,050 Speaker 1: stand up routine about venomous snakes. 496 00:29:04,970 --> 00:29:08,090 Speaker 8: We asked apprehensively if any of the folk remedies or 497 00:29:08,130 --> 00:29:11,370 Speaker 8: potions we'd heard about were any good. Well, nine times 498 00:29:11,370 --> 00:29:13,330 Speaker 8: out of ten they'll work fine for the simple right 499 00:29:13,370 --> 00:29:15,650 Speaker 8: reason that nine snake bikes out of ten the victim 500 00:29:15,690 --> 00:29:18,890 Speaker 8: doesn't get ill anyway, it's the last ten percent that's 501 00:29:18,930 --> 00:29:20,770 Speaker 8: the problem. And there's a lot of myths we've had 502 00:29:20,770 --> 00:29:23,170 Speaker 8: to disentangle about snakes. In order to get at the truth, 503 00:29:23,570 --> 00:29:27,370 Speaker 8: you need accurate information. People's immediate response to snake bikes 504 00:29:27,450 --> 00:29:29,690 Speaker 8: is often to overreact and give the poor snake a 505 00:29:29,770 --> 00:29:34,810 Speaker 8: ritual beating, wh doesn't really help in the identification. If 506 00:29:34,810 --> 00:29:37,130 Speaker 8: you don't know which exact snake it was, you can't 507 00:29:37,130 --> 00:29:40,850 Speaker 8: treat the bike properly. Well in that case, I said, 508 00:29:41,930 --> 00:29:44,490 Speaker 8: could we perhaps take a snake bike detective kit with 509 00:29:44,650 --> 00:29:47,290 Speaker 8: us to Kimodo? Ah, of course you can. Of course 510 00:29:47,330 --> 00:29:50,290 Speaker 8: you can take as many as you like. Why do 511 00:29:50,370 --> 00:29:51,810 Speaker 8: you a blind bit of good? Because they're only for 512 00:29:51,850 --> 00:29:58,170 Speaker 8: Australian snakes. So what do we do if we get 513 00:29:58,170 --> 00:29:59,290 Speaker 8: bitten by something deadly? 514 00:29:59,330 --> 00:29:59,530 Speaker 6: Then? 515 00:29:59,690 --> 00:30:00,210 Speaker 1: I asked? 516 00:30:00,770 --> 00:30:03,930 Speaker 8: He blinked at me as very stupid. Well, why do 517 00:30:03,970 --> 00:30:06,050 Speaker 8: you think you do? He said? You die of course 518 00:30:06,090 --> 00:30:11,410 Speaker 8: as well. That's what deadly means. 519 00:30:16,090 --> 00:30:18,050 Speaker 1: Oh and it's quite something to hear his voice, and 520 00:30:18,770 --> 00:30:20,130 Speaker 1: it's a mini cautionary tale. 521 00:30:20,170 --> 00:30:25,170 Speaker 7: I suppose it really is. He was I think, possibly 522 00:30:25,890 --> 00:30:29,210 Speaker 7: unique in this way. What we just heard is a 523 00:30:30,210 --> 00:30:32,650 Speaker 7: world class bit of stand up. But at the same 524 00:30:32,690 --> 00:30:35,330 Speaker 7: time this is in the context. This bit that he's 525 00:30:35,370 --> 00:30:38,570 Speaker 7: doing is in the context of what has become a 526 00:30:38,610 --> 00:30:42,410 Speaker 7: truly landmark work of conservation writing, Last Chance to. 527 00:30:42,410 --> 00:30:44,450 Speaker 1: See Yeah, tell us about that. 528 00:30:45,010 --> 00:30:46,650 Speaker 7: The story that Douglas would tell is he gets a 529 00:30:46,650 --> 00:30:50,770 Speaker 7: phone call one day from the Observer magazine inviting him 530 00:30:50,890 --> 00:30:54,010 Speaker 7: to go to Madagascar to meet a lima, and he's 531 00:30:54,050 --> 00:30:55,890 Speaker 7: pretty sure that they've called the wrong number, so he 532 00:30:55,930 --> 00:30:58,890 Speaker 7: says yes at once before they've discovered their mistake, and 533 00:30:58,890 --> 00:31:02,050 Speaker 7: that he goes to Madagascar and meets a lima and 534 00:31:02,090 --> 00:31:05,050 Speaker 7: writes a piece about it for The Observer. And this 535 00:31:05,210 --> 00:31:07,810 Speaker 7: was not in itself unusual. They sent six or seven 536 00:31:07,850 --> 00:31:12,130 Speaker 7: other literally figures on these missions. What is unusual is 537 00:31:12,170 --> 00:31:17,770 Speaker 7: Douglas becomes so obsessed, so interested in conservation and rare 538 00:31:17,810 --> 00:31:22,770 Speaker 7: animals that he befriends the zoologist Mark Carwardine and says 539 00:31:22,810 --> 00:31:26,450 Speaker 7: to him, how about we spend the next year doing this. Yeah, 540 00:31:26,770 --> 00:31:28,890 Speaker 7: and that's what he does. They spend a year traveling 541 00:31:28,930 --> 00:31:31,450 Speaker 7: around the world looking for I think seven of the 542 00:31:31,570 --> 00:31:36,650 Speaker 7: rarest species in existence, and then he writes this extraordinary work, 543 00:31:37,130 --> 00:31:41,170 Speaker 7: which is both scholarly funny and has some of the 544 00:31:41,210 --> 00:31:45,650 Speaker 7: greatest feats of empathy you'll ever read in his describing 545 00:31:45,690 --> 00:31:48,650 Speaker 7: what it might be like to be one of these animals. 546 00:31:48,970 --> 00:31:51,450 Speaker 1: I mean, just the title last chance to See that 547 00:31:51,930 --> 00:31:54,370 Speaker 1: that's a lovely bit of black humor, because that's what 548 00:31:54,410 --> 00:31:59,530 Speaker 1: you generally put on a theater when a play's about 549 00:31:59,570 --> 00:32:02,250 Speaker 1: to end its run, all that sort of thing. And 550 00:32:02,290 --> 00:32:04,370 Speaker 1: actually it's not really your last chance to see because 551 00:32:04,370 --> 00:32:07,210 Speaker 1: they could always be put on again. You can always 552 00:32:07,210 --> 00:32:09,890 Speaker 1: restage the play if there's if they're demand. But he's 553 00:32:09,930 --> 00:32:16,890 Speaker 1: talking about living species that are absolutely on the brink 554 00:32:16,930 --> 00:32:18,850 Speaker 1: of extinction. It really is the last chance to see 555 00:32:18,890 --> 00:32:20,290 Speaker 1: and there is no bringing them. 556 00:32:20,210 --> 00:32:23,530 Speaker 7: Back, though he was always obsessed with extinction. There's a 557 00:32:23,570 --> 00:32:27,770 Speaker 7: great bit about the Dodo in Gently where they go 558 00:32:27,850 --> 00:32:31,810 Speaker 7: back in time to see the last Dodo and Professor 559 00:32:31,930 --> 00:32:35,610 Speaker 7: Kronotus weeps at the sight of it. And it's sort 560 00:32:35,610 --> 00:32:40,210 Speaker 7: of stupid beauty since Douglas did that the seven animals 561 00:32:40,210 --> 00:32:43,650 Speaker 7: that he saw, two of them have become extinct, so 562 00:32:44,250 --> 00:32:49,410 Speaker 7: twenty five percent and that is terrifyingly about the right ratio. 563 00:32:50,010 --> 00:32:52,810 Speaker 7: We've lost about twenty five percent of the species of 564 00:32:52,850 --> 00:32:56,050 Speaker 7: Earth in the last twenty five years, and that's not 565 00:32:56,170 --> 00:33:01,930 Speaker 7: slowing down. And it was that armageddon that became the 566 00:33:02,010 --> 00:33:04,850 Speaker 7: grand mission of Douglas's last years. 567 00:33:05,330 --> 00:33:07,530 Speaker 1: Yes, because he didn't just want to describe the problem. 568 00:33:07,570 --> 00:33:10,610 Speaker 1: He wanted to find solution. So, for example, with the gorillas. 569 00:33:10,770 --> 00:33:12,050 Speaker 1: What was he doing with the gorillas? 570 00:33:12,290 --> 00:33:14,730 Speaker 7: So he was approached by a guy called Greg Cummings 571 00:33:14,730 --> 00:33:19,410 Speaker 7: who ran the Diane Foss Gorilla Foundation and asked for money. 572 00:33:19,410 --> 00:33:21,210 Speaker 7: He got the sort of begging letter that many of 573 00:33:21,290 --> 00:33:24,010 Speaker 7: us get. Sends some money to a charity, and he did, 574 00:33:25,570 --> 00:33:28,170 Speaker 7: but then he goes to some event and Greg asks 575 00:33:28,210 --> 00:33:32,130 Speaker 7: him again for more money. And the way Greg tells it, 576 00:33:32,210 --> 00:33:35,930 Speaker 7: Douglass went, look, enough of the band aids, what will 577 00:33:35,930 --> 00:33:40,050 Speaker 7: it take to actually save the gorillas? Which is a 578 00:33:40,090 --> 00:33:42,650 Speaker 7: question no one had ever asked before. He meant, what 579 00:33:42,730 --> 00:33:45,530 Speaker 7: he means, what do you mean I mean actually saved them? 580 00:33:45,530 --> 00:33:48,690 Speaker 7: How can we solve this problem? And so they set 581 00:33:48,690 --> 00:33:51,290 Speaker 7: about writing a business plan, a sort of strategic plan 582 00:33:51,850 --> 00:33:54,570 Speaker 7: for how they could keep the Mountain gorilla safe forever. 583 00:33:55,130 --> 00:33:58,210 Speaker 7: They put a price tag on it, and then Douglas 584 00:33:58,250 --> 00:34:00,650 Speaker 7: spent a year of his life flying around the world, 585 00:34:01,250 --> 00:34:04,890 Speaker 7: taking the director of the Dian Fossy Goerilla Foundation to 586 00:34:05,010 --> 00:34:08,090 Speaker 7: meet the richest people on the planet to persuade them 587 00:34:08,130 --> 00:34:12,010 Speaker 7: to fund this ski. Yeah, they didn't succeed Sadly, they 588 00:34:12,050 --> 00:34:14,570 Speaker 7: came close, and the gorilla, the Mountain Gorilla, is actually 589 00:34:14,570 --> 00:34:18,210 Speaker 7: doing quite well because they raised enough money. But that 590 00:34:18,290 --> 00:34:21,290 Speaker 7: was the sort of mind he was. He was very 591 00:34:21,330 --> 00:34:25,170 Speaker 7: happy to make fun of a problem. But unlike most people, 592 00:34:25,290 --> 00:34:28,610 Speaker 7: certainly I like most writers, he went one step further 593 00:34:28,770 --> 00:34:30,050 Speaker 7: and would try and fix things. 594 00:34:30,410 --> 00:34:33,170 Speaker 1: So is there a lesson cautionary tales? We always like 595 00:34:33,250 --> 00:34:36,610 Speaker 1: to draw lessons from these stories of disaster. Is there 596 00:34:36,650 --> 00:34:40,170 Speaker 1: a lesson that we can learn either from the extinction 597 00:34:40,210 --> 00:34:43,410 Speaker 1: of these creatures or from Douglas Adam's approach to saving them. 598 00:34:44,410 --> 00:34:48,250 Speaker 7: What Douglas would say when people asked him why and 599 00:34:48,330 --> 00:34:51,330 Speaker 7: why seems an obvious question, right, Why should we save 600 00:34:51,370 --> 00:34:55,330 Speaker 7: gorillas because they're cute, because we like animals, and maybe 601 00:34:55,530 --> 00:34:57,250 Speaker 7: most of us don't need to go further than that, 602 00:34:58,290 --> 00:35:01,930 Speaker 7: but he would say something more profound. He would say, Look, 603 00:35:03,210 --> 00:35:07,890 Speaker 7: it's by understanding them that we have any shot at 604 00:35:08,010 --> 00:35:11,890 Speaker 7: understanding ourselves. And on the assumption that we think self 605 00:35:11,970 --> 00:35:14,890 Speaker 7: knowledge is a good thing, let's not kill the only 606 00:35:14,930 --> 00:35:18,170 Speaker 7: things that can reflect us back at ourselves. There's this 607 00:35:18,290 --> 00:35:21,610 Speaker 7: great idea. People talk a lot about teaching apes sign 608 00:35:21,730 --> 00:35:25,370 Speaker 7: language or teaching apes to speak, and there have been 609 00:35:25,410 --> 00:35:29,410 Speaker 7: various experiments, and Douglas asks the question, why why would 610 00:35:29,410 --> 00:35:32,170 Speaker 7: we do that? So we would learn what's it like 611 00:35:32,210 --> 00:35:34,730 Speaker 7: to live in a jungle, because there are plenty of 612 00:35:34,730 --> 00:35:37,170 Speaker 7: our own species that live in jungles, and we don't 613 00:35:37,210 --> 00:35:39,810 Speaker 7: listen to anything they have to say, Yes, it's. 614 00:35:39,730 --> 00:35:46,090 Speaker 1: Very Douglas Adams. So you've been working with Douglas's voice 615 00:35:46,130 --> 00:35:51,130 Speaker 1: and his image and his writings as you put together 616 00:35:51,210 --> 00:35:54,050 Speaker 1: and his friends and admirers as you put together this 617 00:35:54,130 --> 00:35:59,450 Speaker 1: audio book. E've immersed yourself in his thinking. What have 618 00:35:59,530 --> 00:35:59,970 Speaker 1: you learned? 619 00:36:01,170 --> 00:36:05,250 Speaker 7: That there is a lot to panic about, but that 620 00:36:05,330 --> 00:36:13,850 Speaker 7: panic is a wholly inadequate response, and that maybe we 621 00:36:14,010 --> 00:36:15,370 Speaker 7: just need to do something. 622 00:36:17,530 --> 00:36:19,370 Speaker 1: Arvin, thank you so much for joining us. It's been 623 00:36:19,370 --> 00:36:23,170 Speaker 1: an absolute pleasure talking to you. Remind us the title 624 00:36:23,170 --> 00:36:24,010 Speaker 1: of the audio. 625 00:36:23,730 --> 00:36:26,010 Speaker 7: Book Douglas Adams The Ends of the. 626 00:36:26,010 --> 00:36:30,330 Speaker 1: Earth, and that's available on Audible, Spotify, Pushkin, dot fm, 627 00:36:30,850 --> 00:36:34,170 Speaker 1: or wherever audio books are sold. And Tim Harford, I've 628 00:36:34,170 --> 00:36:36,810 Speaker 1: been talking to Arvind Ethan David and there will be 629 00:36:36,850 --> 00:36:39,730 Speaker 1: a regular episode of Cautionary Tales back in your feed 630 00:36:39,890 --> 00:36:45,010 Speaker 1: very soon. Cautionary Tales is written by me Tim Harford 631 00:36:45,090 --> 00:36:49,010 Speaker 1: with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines and Ryan Dilly. It's produced 632 00:36:49,050 --> 00:36:52,770 Speaker 1: by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and 633 00:36:52,850 --> 00:36:56,770 Speaker 1: original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound 634 00:36:56,770 --> 00:37:01,050 Speaker 1: design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio. Bend 635 00:37:01,050 --> 00:37:04,970 Speaker 1: A d af Haffrey edited the scripts. The show also 636 00:37:05,050 --> 00:37:07,970 Speaker 1: wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, 637 00:37:08,050 --> 00:37:13,090 Speaker 1: Greta Cohne, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey, 638 00:37:13,250 --> 00:37:18,290 Speaker 1: and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. 639 00:37:19,250 --> 00:37:21,490 Speaker 1: Do you want to support the stories we tell on 640 00:37:21,650 --> 00:37:25,530 Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales. If so, you can join my new Cautionary 641 00:37:25,570 --> 00:37:30,250 Speaker 1: Club at patreon dot com slash Cautionary Club for exclusive 642 00:37:30,370 --> 00:37:36,570 Speaker 1: bonus episodes, newsletters, ad free listening and other exciting parts. 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