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It Wasn't A Hoax After All — Transcript

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0:00Hannah, do you remember all the fear
0:02around the world ending in 2012?
0:05>> I mean, I wouldn't say it was
0:06particularly prevalent in my community,
0:08but I mean, there's always sort of
0:10people getting a bit concerned, aren't
0:12they?
0:12>> Yeah, they're always concerned about
0:13things, but the 2012 one really stuck
0:16out. There were great memes. It became a
0:18whole thing. Like, General Motors made
0:21commercials where their Silverados drove
0:23around in post-apocalyptic places. And
0:26the Jello Company made commercials that
0:28aired here in America. Not here. I'm in
0:30New Zealand. But they aired commercials
0:32in America where a team of people made a
0:35sacrifice of Jello- pudding to the Mayan
0:37gods to stop the end of the world from
0:40happening.
0:40>> Remind me what was the big concern? How
0:42were people worried it was going to end?
0:44>> So supposedly
0:46on December 21st, 2012, the Mayan
0:51calendar would end. And so the Mayans,
0:55they built this calendar that was really
0:57mathematically very interesting because
1:00it's so old. It felt kind of magical.
1:03And if you looked at it uh well, if you
1:07didn't look at it very closely, you
1:09could claim that it ended
1:12in 2012. So what did they know that we
1:15don't? Is the end of the world coming?
1:17And like it could be pinpointed to the
1:1921st of December, 2012. Well,
1:21>> it was a smart civilization. They knew
1:23some stuff.
1:24>> They did, but they didn't know when the
1:26world was going to end because as we all
1:28know now, the world did not end in 2012.
1:33But what today's episode presupposes is
1:37maybe it did. [gasps]
1:40[music]
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2:51iscience.
2:58What a cliffhanger.
3:00>> [laughter]
3:00>> All right. So, first of all, let's talk
3:01about the the origin of the entire thing
3:05in the first place. I moved to London in
3:072012. All right. So, we were both in the
3:09same country at that time. We were both
3:11in the UK. And I remember everyone
3:13buzzing about it, but it was sort of a
3:15joke. Um, there there were books and
3:17music. There were entire albums that
3:19were all themed around the end of the
3:20world is happening.
3:22>> I even have a belt buckle. I bought a
3:24belt buckle off of a street vendor in
3:26London that says 2012 into the world. I
3:29don't have it with me. I wish I did. I I
3:32will I will send you a photo of it. I
3:34thought, okay, either this is a great
3:36way to say goodbye to the universe or
3:38it's going to be really funny next year.
3:41[laughter]
3:42And of course, I didn't really believe
3:44the world was going to end. But here's
3:46here's where it all began. The Mayan
3:49civilization
3:50existed in Meso America in the Yucatan
3:53Peninsula. From there all the way
3:56southwest to the Pacific Ocean from like
3:592000 BC all the way to 1697.
4:04In 1697 they all decided, "Yeah, this
4:07was pretty good. Let's move somewhere
4:09else." Just kidding. The Spanish Empire
4:11colonized the Mesoamerican region. There
4:14was a lot of fighting and bad things and
4:16the last Mayan city fell in 1697.
4:20>> And the Spanish, the Spanish had steel,
4:22of course, which we've spoken about
4:23before while the Mayans were fighting
4:25with obsidian.
4:26>> The You're right. The Mayans did not
4:28have steel, but they did have a really
4:30cool calendar. To be fair, it may not
4:32have completely been theirs. It may have
4:35come from the Olme who preceded them
4:37that were kind of in the little I I keep
4:40thinking of it as the armpit of Meso
4:42America, but it's not at all. It's
4:44actually like the top of the foot of
4:47Mexico
4:48anyway.
4:49>> Like it's like the c the crook of the
4:51elbow maybe.
4:52>> Well, no. It's more like it's if Mexico
4:55is my arm.
4:56>> Yeah. Make world maps with your body. My
4:58god.
4:58>> And you've got like the Tabasco down
5:02here, the Yucatan Peninsula up here.
5:04Theme were here, the Mayans were here.
5:06They were chilling out. Look at all of
5:08them.
5:08>> Can I just say surprisingly beefy guns
5:11there, Michael? I enjoyed that. Are you
5:13if this surprises you, I don't know what
5:15your expectations for me were, but the
5:18point is Mayan mythology stated that the
5:21gods created three other worlds before
5:24this one.
5:25>> And this one was good, so they kept it.
5:28But the first three they didn't like.
5:30And the third world, the last one before
5:33this one began, lasted 13 boktunes. A
5:38boon was a unit of time that the Mayans
5:41created that lasted 394 years
5:44approximately. So 13 of them were 5,125
5:50years more or less. You know the the we
5:53if you if you've watched the podcast for
5:55a while, you know that we've talked
5:56about time and calendars and how no one
5:59really knows what time it is. But people
6:01who wanted to predict the end of the
6:04world, they certainly were confident.
6:05And they said, "Now wait a second. If if
6:08the previous world lasted 13 bok tunes,
6:12then maybe this one will only last that
6:14long as well." And as it turns out, the
6:18the Mayan uh creation stories give a
6:21creation date for the world, which in
6:23the Gregorian calendar was the 11th of
6:27August, 3,114
6:29BC.
6:30>> I feel like there's a lot of that
6:32[laughter] are that raises a lot of
6:34questions. the idea that it's like
6:35actually on the 11th of August very
6:37specific there just all of creation came
6:40into being you know where was the first
6:42how what happened
6:43>> well that's the that's what's so great
6:45about the Mayan calendar it was like
6:47really specific it was base 20 they
6:50discussed dates not just by saying oh
6:54you know in the beginning or uh a
6:57thousand days is a year to the Lord they
7:00just said things like here's this exact
7:02number and you can do the math with it
7:04and Oh, wow. Okay. So, the world began
7:06on August 11th, 3,114 BC. If this fourth
7:12world lasts as long as the the one
7:15before it, then it should last 5,125
7:19years, which means it will end on the
7:2121st of December, 2012.
7:25Now,
7:25>> in a lot of ways,
7:26>> no,
7:27>> in a lot of ways, I think that it would
7:28have been a good time for the world to
7:30end. certainly if you're British, you
7:31know, it was um the Olympics had just
7:34been held in Britain. We'd had the uh
7:37the Diamond Jubilee that year as well of
7:40of of Elizabeth. It was uh our economy
7:43[clears throat] was doing all right, was
7:45sort of recovering from from from the
7:47financial crash. It was before Brexit
7:49came along. I think that was when that
7:52was really the glory days. That was
7:53really that was really when we peaked. I
7:55got a dog, you know. That was
7:58>> Oh, no. Really? Well, yeah. I mean, I I
8:00I completely agree. And so, I feel
8:02really fortunate that I moved to the UK
8:05in 2012. Like, I remember flying in and
8:09I I I got to Heathrow and it was full of
8:11people wearing purple suits who were
8:14there to help me.
8:15>> They they told me exactly what train to
8:17take and cuz they were they were they
8:20were there for all the tourists coming
8:21in for the Olympics. And I got to go to
8:23some Olympic events and there was all
8:25the excitement around the Diamond
8:26Jubilee. It was really really great. But
8:28hold on a second. Did the Mayans
8:31actually say that this world, the fourth
8:33world, ours will only last 13 bok tunes
8:38like the one before? They never did.
8:40They never ever did. But in 1966, a guy
8:45named Michael D. Stevens, no, Michael D.
8:50Co. Michael D. Stevens is me. I just
8:53wanted to say it was really cool to
8:54read.
8:55>> What does the D stand for?
8:56>> Mine stands for David. Oh,
8:59>> I sort of desperately wanted it to be
9:01something really unusual.
9:02>> But you know what? I I actually asked
9:04>> danger. That's what it should have been.
9:06>> I Googled myself yesterday, funny
9:09enough, and Google's AI Gemini like
9:12tried to answer my question and it said,
9:13"Oh yeah, Michael Stevens from Vsauce."
9:15And then in parenthesis, Michael J.
9:17Stevens and I'm like, "No, no, no. What?
9:20I'm not Michael J. Stevens. Where are
9:22you getting that?"
9:23>> I um I think you should change it.
9:25change your name to Michael Danger
9:28Stevens. I think that's what the D
9:30should stand for.
9:31>> I think I won't because Michael David
9:34Stevens is an anagram of I'm the cave
9:40devil's sand.
9:42You can take all the letters in my name
9:44and rearrange it to that sentence.
9:46>> That's good. And
9:47>> that's good.
9:47>> Michael Danger Stevens, I haven't
9:49checked, but it's probably not as cool.
9:52Yeah,
9:52>> you can't spell cave devils with with
9:54only one B. Come on, Hannah.
9:56>> I know.
9:56>> Um, so sorry, carry on. Okay, Michael D.
10:00Co., go on.
10:01>> Yeah, Michael D. Co. So, in 1966, he
10:05wrote in his book, The Maya, quote,
10:08"There is a suggestion that Armageddon
10:11would overtake the degenerate peoples of
10:13the world and all creation on the final
10:15day of the 13th boon. Thus, our present
10:19universe would be annihilated when the
10:21great cycle of the long count reaches
10:23completion.
10:25And people read that and it kind of grew
10:29in popularity as like a thing people
10:31knew. The X-Files did an episode about
10:33it and it started getting referenced in
10:36songs and I think people kind of thought
10:39it sounded cool and decided not to look
10:42any deeper into it because there was no
10:44suggestion from the Mayan at all that
10:48our current world would be only exactly
10:5013 boon long. In fact, if you look at
10:54what they wrote, uh you can find that
10:56they talk about dates way far in the
10:59future. They talk about things that
11:01happened in the year 4000 and so on. Um,
11:04in fact, their entire culture was very
11:06much about looking for promises of
11:09continuation
11:10that things were going to keep going.
11:13They were definitely not looking for the
11:15end, which is like a kind of more of a
11:17um a more recent or or western
11:19obsession. Ooh, the end of the world.
11:22When's that going to come? I think it's
11:23going to come soon. Oo, that's exciting.
11:25And that, you know, we we globbed on to
11:27that. I I love that idea, too, because I
11:30think it made me think about Stonehinge
11:32and how if it helped people
11:37notice the winter solstice,
11:40that was a really
11:43powerful thing to observe because every
11:46day for the last few months, the days
11:48have been getting shorter and shorter.
11:50the sun is spending less and less time
11:53shining on you. And that could be
11:55terrifying
11:56if you were an early human. But then
11:59there's this day where it's like, oh,
12:02this was the it's going to get better
12:04from now on.
12:04>> The time
12:05>> the sun is going to be up longer
12:07tomorrow,
12:09>> you know, hallelujah. They wouldn't have
12:10said hallelujah, but they would have
12:11said whatever. You know, it would could
12:13have been really exciting. And so, I
12:15mean,
12:15>> I suddenly realized I suddenly realized
12:17I don't know nearly enough about
12:18Stonehenge. Is it I know that it's sort
12:21of about the the solstice and sort of
12:22paganism and so on, but what happens?
12:25How does it how does it mark the the
12:27winter solstice?
12:28>> I'm not sure there's any agreement
12:30completely on this, but it might be that
12:32some of the stones align with the sun on
12:36that day. Of course, daytoday the sun's
12:38position in the sky at the same time is,
12:41you know, not that different. It all
12:44adds up to something pretty significant.
12:46But I don't think there's enough of a
12:48consensus on exactly why Stonehenge was
12:51made. It probably had multiple purposes
12:54over time. But if we imagine that it was
12:58related at any in any way to to
13:01observing, marking, or predicting cycles
13:04in in astronomy, then it kind of makes
13:06sense. They're like celebrating the
13:09cycles, not the ends, not the
13:11apocalypse. And and that I think is what
13:14the Mayans were doing too.
13:15>> I really like that idea actually that
13:17for for almost all of human history,
13:20time hasn't been this linear thing. We
13:24haven't seen it as like you're moving
13:26forwards. We currently have this insane
13:28obsession with the future in a way that
13:31people just didn't. Exactly as you
13:33described it was cyclical, right? Birth
13:35and death, spring and summer, you know,
13:37night and day. Uh and I think that
13:40actually especially when death was so
13:42much more a regular part of life. Um I
13:45think that actually it's really easy to
13:48get trapped into the modern way of
13:49thinking. But that wasn't true. Right.
13:51Just people did not think about time as
13:54as a linear thing.
13:56>> That's right. It is a historical anomaly
13:58to think of time so linearly and to
14:01think about time as a thing that
14:04contains a past that is different that
14:07is a foreign country. That is an
14:09incredibly modern idea. And it's not
14:12even hard to see why. It wasn't even
14:14that long ago that the tools you used
14:16every day were exactly the same tools
14:19your grandparents used. M but today the
14:22tools, the technology, the television
14:24shows that my Gen X wife watched
14:28>> are completely alien to millennial me.
14:31>> Like it's we may as well be from
14:33different planets and we're not that
14:36different in age. Whereas it used to be
14:38that like you just had the cycles of
14:39seasons and you always cut the wheat the
14:42same way. You traveled at the same
14:44speeds. explosion in change that marked,
14:47ooh, the past is was really different
14:49and the future therefore will be really
14:51different. That's really a modern idea.
14:53And so, of course, in 1966, you've got
14:56people writing about, oh, the end of the
14:58world. It was predicted and it became
15:01this huge thing. And then nothing
15:04happened. [laughter]
15:06>> Nothing happened.
15:08>> The world continues to exist and it has
15:10been for 14 years since.
15:14But in another way, I think there's an
15:17argument to be made that the world did
15:19end in 2012 or at least a new world
15:23began, a fifth world. And here's here's
15:27the evidence I have to support this.
15:29>> Okay?
15:30>> No, the the Earth is still here. Humans
15:33did not go extinct. But the world before
15:382012 was a very different one than the
15:41world since. This is an extraordinary
15:43claim, Michael. This is going to require
15:45extraordinary evidence.
15:46>> It does. And spoiler alert, I don't have
15:49it. [laughter] In fact, this entire this
15:52entire project was an exercise in biased
15:55researching and uh confirmation bias.
15:59You're like, okay, how can I somehow
16:02prove that 2012 was a special year? Some
16:05of them are pretty convincing. others. I
16:07just I tried to finagle the way I was
16:10wording it to make 2012 work. But I
16:12think it's really I think it's really
16:13interesting to see how this all happens.
16:15>> Okay. So So you you've started backwards
16:17here. Basically, you've started with I
16:19want to I want to prove that the world
16:21ended in 2012. What evidence can I
16:23collect? Okay. This is great. This is I
16:25like this as as a sort of psychological
16:27experiment in in confirmation of bias.
16:28This is good. Great.
16:29>> Exactly. It's great because first of
16:31all, what do you do? You can Google
16:33search um significant events in 2012 or
16:37statistics that make 2012 look important
16:40and you find a bunch. Google doesn't say
16:44well it's not any more important than
16:45any other year. No, it goes you wanted
16:48that. Here you go. And so you're
16:50immediately getting confirmation of
16:52exactly what you want to find.
16:54>> So I think some of these are actually
16:56pretty legit. For example, when was it
17:01in the United States and the UK that we
17:04crossed the threshold where the majority
17:07of people had a smartphone?
17:11>> Right? That is a new era.
17:13>> Not when were smartphones invented. When
17:15did it become if not having one meant
17:17you were in the minority? We we had
17:20moved to a world where the majority the
17:22norm is having a smartphone.
17:24>> Wait, what year did they come out? What
17:25year were they released? It depends on
17:27how you define a smartphone.
17:29>> Let's say let's say iPhone. Let's say
17:31the iPhone.
17:32>> The the first iPhone was announced in
17:34January of 2007.
17:36>> Okay. So, it comes out in 2007.
17:40More than half. H.
17:44[snorts]
17:45I mean, look, the point here is that
17:462012 is the turning point, right? So,
17:48I'm going to guess 2012.
17:50>> You're right. You are exactly correct.
17:53That's incredible that it took 5 years
17:55for that to happen.
17:56>> It took five years. I mean, when you
17:59look at these kind of statistics, you
18:00notice that there are there's a lot of
18:02people who adopt quickly. And if you're
18:04a young person, especially, it's kind of
18:07everyone, you know, but there are
18:08especially older people that adopt
18:10things so much more slowly. It does take
18:13longer than you think for things that
18:14feel ubiquitous to actually even become
18:16a majority thing. So in 2012,
18:20smartphone penetration crossed that 50%
18:23mark. Different question, when in what
18:27year
18:29were half of Americans and Brits on
18:32social media? At least one platform.
18:34[sighs]
18:36Okay, let's think. Right. So Facebook
18:39was started in like 2002, I think 2003,
18:44round about then. Yeah, I joined in
18:472004.
18:49>> Yeah, something like that. Me too.
18:50>> Because I was a college student and it
18:52was only available to us.
18:53>> Hey, me too. Same.
18:56>> What was some of the early social
18:57networks?
18:58>> There was Friends Reunited. Remember
19:00that one?
19:00>> Facebook was founded in 2004.
19:02>> Founded in 2004, right? Okay. Um,
19:05>> in fact, in fact, not to brag, but I'm
19:08pretty sure I'm like Facebook user
19:10number 9,000 or something. I'm not even
19:13kidding. Um because I it started in
19:172004. I entered college in 2004 and you
19:20needed a not only aedu email address but
19:23you needed to be in college at one of
19:25just a few institutions to get in and I
19:27went to Chicago which was included. So I
19:31joined and yeah a few years ago I was
19:34able to look this up. Maybe you still
19:35can. You can look up your actual number
19:38of when you joined and I was I was
19:40definitely like under 20,000.
19:43>> That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.
19:44>> That was pretty cool. When do you think
19:47the majority of people, so more than
19:49half of Americans and Brits were at
19:52least on one social media platform? I'm
19:54also including MySpace.
19:56>> So I think here I think it's I mean it's
19:59not 2012, is it? Is it 2012?
20:02>> It's 2012.
20:05>> Okay. So as you can see this is this is
20:08an inflection point. This is a a a
20:11threshold being crossed. No, social
20:14media and smartphones didn't start in
20:162012, but it became the norm. It became
20:19the world that we lived in now. You
20:21couldn't say it was a minority or a
20:23niche thing anymore. All right. But then
20:26here's something different. At what
20:28point did digital media sales surpass
20:33physical media sales? Are we talking
20:35here about sort of movies,
20:38songs, that kind of thing?
20:40>> Yeah, we're talking about buying songs,
20:43movies, any kind of multimedia
20:45digitally, either, you know, one off or
20:47through a subscription. When did that in
20:49total bulk dollars surpass physical
20:52media sales, DVDs, CDs?
20:54>> Michael, is it 2012?
20:56>> It's 2012.
20:57>> I'm noticing a pattern going on here,
21:00right?
21:00>> We immigrated to the digital world.
21:03>> Wow. slowly over time, but it became
21:06where most of us were in 2012.
21:09>> Wow.
21:10>> Side note, most of us, by us, I mean
21:13people in the Western world.
21:14>> Sure.
21:15>> Okay. This is actually a really fun
21:17statistic. I I'd like to see what you
21:18what you think. It might be the case
21:20that half of Americans had a smartphone
21:23by 2012. When did half of the humans on
21:27the planet Earth have a cell phone, a
21:30smartphone?
21:32So the thing is is that actually I think
21:34it probably happened quite quickly. So I
21:36mean I've spent quite a lot of time in
21:39uh Kenya for example and the thing about
21:41um subsaharan Africa is they sort of
21:43leapfrogged
21:45um technology you know like they may not
21:49have had credit cards but they did have
21:52mobile money right mobile phones and and
21:55I think smartphones too are are I think
21:57way more prevalent than you might
21:59expect. I I have a feeling in the back
22:01of my mind there's a statistic which is
22:03more people around the world have access
22:06to a smartphone than to a than to a
22:08toilet.
22:08>> The way I'd heard it was that more
22:10humans on earth own a smartphone than a
22:12toothbrush.
22:14>> And in many ways a smartphone is just
22:16how you connect not only with other
22:19people uh for your own safety but also
22:21for work.
22:22>> But um a toothbrush is kind of like you
22:25know you can get by in the modern world
22:27without a toothbrush.
22:28>> Agree. before you can get away with not
22:31having internet connectivity. And for a
22:33lot of the world, a smartphone is
22:35internet connectivity. They don't have
22:36like a computer room or a big gaming PC
22:38or something or even a laptop.
22:41>> Smartphones are so much more portable.
22:44But when was it that the entirety of the
22:47human population
22:49alive was
22:52majority smartphone owners? It has
22:54happened.
22:55>> I reckon later than the western world. I
22:57reckon 20
23:0116 18
23:03>> later
23:03>> is it? Go on.
23:05>> 2023.
23:07>> Really?
23:08>> Yeah.
23:09>> Wow. That is interesting. The 2023 was
23:12the halfway point and now more people
23:14have smartphones than toothbrushes.
23:16>> Yeah.
23:16>> Wow. That is a steep curve.
23:18>> Now social media became a majority
23:21thing. And this this one's almost more
23:23important to me because it feels like
23:26Okay. Yeah. having a smartphone. What do
23:27you do with it though? Maybe you just
23:29text people. But when it comes to
23:31actually belonging to an online social
23:35network,
23:36>> when did the human population cross 50%.
23:4050% of us, more than half of us were
23:42suddenly living part-time
23:45online in social networks on the
23:47internet.
23:52So I do know that there was a point when
23:54Facebook uh was running out of customers
23:57running they were sort of chasing growth
23:59because it goes back to what you were
24:00saying about the the sort of obsession
24:02with time as a linear thing that the
24:04future should be different from the
24:05past. Um and so they started adopting
24:09this strategy of essentially uh creating
24:13internet connectivity in places like
24:16subsaran Africa purely so so that they
24:19can get new customers. They were like if
24:21we invest in the infrastructure more
24:23customers will be there. There's more
24:24eyeballs. Facebook can be the the
24:26homepage of the internet essentially. Um
24:29so I know that that's what they were
24:31deliberately doing.
24:34And I think if there was sort of an
24:35aggressive drive for it. So it happened
24:37in 2012 for the Western world. Social
24:40media. Do you know what? I think it's
24:41later than the smartphone thing. I think
24:43it's I think it's like [snorts] 2024 is
24:47my guess.
24:48>> It was before 50% smartphone
24:51penetration. Yeah. 2020.
24:53>> Wow.
24:54>> Wow.
24:55>> When that kind of makes sense because
24:57you don't need a smartphone to be on
24:59social media. You can you can have a
25:00Facebook account that you only access
25:02once a week in an internet cafe.
25:04>> Yeah, true.
25:04>> So So yeah, 2020 is when we estimate
25:08that
25:09>> our species became a majority part-time
25:12online superorganism.
25:16Now, those facts are cool, but they kind
25:18of like show just how shaky my whole the
25:20world as we knew it ended in 2012
25:23argument is that I have to be like,
25:24well, if you don't count everyone, if
25:26you just count uh uh the United Kingdom
25:29and America, 2012 comes out to be a
25:31special date. But that's fine. Today,
25:34we're we're just we're just yapping.
25:37Okay. I I'm I'm okay with this though
25:39because I think on these on these topics
25:41that you're describing essentially it's
25:44like there
25:47it's an unstoppable train and I think
25:50that the biggest pins fall like you know
25:53when America falls with a new technology
25:56often the rest of the world will come
25:58with it just it's sort of a matter of
26:00time. I'm with you. I I I'm okay. I'm
26:02okay with the fact that this is like
26:04this is a really key turning point. I
26:06you've persuaded me. My confirmation
26:08bias says yes.
26:09>> All right. One more question on this
26:11topic and it is when do you think it was
26:13the case that we crossed a threshold
26:17where more than half of Americans got
26:21their news digitally?
26:26>> Is it 2012? [laughter]
26:28>> It's 2012. Yeah. Now, that means that
26:32they may have just been reading the New
26:34York Times, but they were reading it
26:36digitally
26:38>> online. It doesn't mean that they were
26:39getting it all from social media. That
26:41didn't happen until later. In fact, I
26:42don't even know it's still a majority uh
26:44yet. But yeah, it was a huge it was a
26:47huge jump. Okay. So, so we could
26:49actually go on and on with little
26:51statistics like that. The last one I
26:52wanted to mention doesn't really fit,
26:55but it's so close. I'm going to put
26:57another log on my fire while you think
26:59about this because now you know the
27:00answer is not 2012. When was peak
27:05viewership of linear television? Here's
27:09what I mean. Watching things on a screen
27:11that were being broadcast to you that
27:14you were watching at the same time as
27:16everyone else. So that means cable
27:18television counts. That means broadcast
27:21television counts but not streaming.
27:23when did that peak that people were
27:25watching stuff for the most part of the
27:27day alltogether? So because this is
27:30you're not asking here about I mean
27:33viewing figures would be a sort of uh a
27:36kind of a culdeac here because um you're
27:41not talking about one particular show
27:43had a really high viewership and I mean
27:45I'm pretty sure that like a Super Bowl
27:47quite recently that holds the record for
27:50the most people watching simultaneously
27:51or the Queen's funeral or something. And
27:53so then I think it's much earlier. I
27:56think it's I think it's much earlier
27:58than the digital revolution.
28:02Oh, maybe maybe I don't. Maybe I just
28:04think it's the '9s. Maybe I think it's
28:06the '90s.
28:06>> Okay. Well, that's not a that's not a
28:08bad guess because I think that there are
28:11two things to consider. One is bulk
28:14number of viewers and the other is
28:17percentage of available eyeballs
28:20watching. M. So look at something like
28:23the the finale of the television show
28:25MASH,
28:26>> right? Okay.
28:27>> Okay. That was huge. In fact, it was it
28:32was watched by so many people. I'll tell
28:33you when did it happen? It happened in
28:36>> 80s.
28:37>> On February 28th of 1983,
28:41the television show, the longunning
28:43television show Mash ended and its last
28:46episode was a two and a half hour
28:47special. Fantastic show. By the way, I
28:50think like the writing is just
28:52incredible.
28:53>> I could sit here and quote MASH to you
28:55for the whole rest.
28:56>> I know almost nothing about it, right? I
28:58don't really know what the cast is. I
29:00don't I couldn't pick out anyone who was
29:02in it out of a lineup, but I do know
29:04what happened in that finale. [laughter]
29:07>> Exactly. I mean, that's kind of that's
29:09kind of where I think we're going to go
29:11in this conversation. You you still are
29:14kind of a part of it.
29:15>> It infiltrated popular the popular
29:17psyche, right? It's and it's still there
29:19even though it happened before I before
29:21I was born or certainly before I was
29:22conscious
29:23>> and it's still it's still a really good
29:25show. In fact, funny enough, I've never
29:27actually talked about this, but when I
29:28was first making Vsauce videos in the
29:31very early years of Vsauce, I was
29:33watching a lot of MASH and a lot of the
29:35episode ideas came from things that I
29:38was inspired to think about because of
29:40MASH. Like there's an episode where
29:42Hawkeye Alan Alda creates this like fake
29:46person in order to get things like done.
29:48He he says, "Oh, you know, I forget who
29:50it was, like a sergeant he made up. He's
29:51like, "Oh, sergeant said it's okay." And
29:53then it turns out that like people need
29:55this fake character to exist because it
29:57gives them hope. And so he has to stage
30:00a whole like death of the sergeant
30:03because he can't keep the lie going. But
30:04he does he doesn't want to ever tell
30:06people that that person didn't exist.
30:07And I'm like, "Wow, sometimes there are
30:09lies that we need."
30:11>> Anyway, I love the show and a lot of
30:14other people did because in 1983,
30:17so many people tuned in to watch the
30:20final episode simultaneously. By the
30:22way, this isn't like a thing where they
30:23like, "Oh, I'll stream it next week."
30:25No, they all had to tune in, stop what
30:26they were doing.
30:2852%
30:31of Americans alive on that day were
30:34watching the MASH finale.
30:37>> That's incredible. That is incredible.
30:39>> That's incredible.
30:39>> Yeah.
30:40>> To be fair, more people watched the um
30:45uh the Chiefs Eagles Super Bowl, uh
30:47Super Bowl 59, I believe it was. But
30:50that's only because the the American
30:52population has gotten so much larger
30:54than it was in 1983 that even the most
30:57viewed American broadcast is still was
31:00still viewed by a smaller percentage of
31:04available people than the MASH finale
31:06was. Um but then if you look at if you
31:10look at the percentage of people
31:12watching an individual program, of
31:13course it goes down after 1983. There
31:16are so many more options. Cable
31:19television comes around, home media
31:22viewing with, you know, VHS and
31:25[clears throat] later DVD becomes a
31:27thing. People can timeshift what they
31:29watch. They're not all watching it at
31:31the same time. Basically, after
31:34Seinfeld and ER in the '9s,
31:37linear television, where everyone
31:39watches together has just plummeted.
31:44When was the peak? And and let me
31:46describe what I mean by this. By peak I
31:49mean there was a t time where if you
31:52surveyed people and asked them how many
31:53hours do you spend per day watching
31:57linear TV a shared storytelling amongst
32:01you and your your your your fellow
32:04citizens? When did people watch the most
32:08linear TV every day?
32:10>> You said the 90s and you're wrong.
32:12>> I'm wrong. Is it late 80s?
32:14>> Nope. Is it later?
32:16>> Yep.
32:16>> Is it linear TV? Really?
32:20>> Yep.
32:21>> When?
32:22>> 2010.
32:23>> No.
32:25>> Really?
32:26>> Yep.
32:26>> Well, keep in mind that we had American
32:29Idol
32:30>> in the early 2000s. There was a real
32:33golden age of television at that time.
32:36So, Breaking Bad was a show that a lot
32:39of people watched as appointment viewing
32:42>> because you couldn't really easily
32:44stream it. For the 2010 2011 television
32:47season, for the first time in decades,
32:51viewership of linear TV was lower.
32:54>> And then in 2012, our magic year, it
32:57continued going down. So, I could say
32:592012 was when it stopped being an
33:01aberration and became this is the way
33:03it's going. two years in a row now it's
33:06dropped and it has dropped ever since.
33:08Now we're all watching out of time with
33:10each other, out of sync with each other
33:12and we have so many more options that
33:15that nowadays you can just be like, "Oh,
33:18hey, have you heard of um Squirtle
33:19Town?"
33:20>> And someone's like, "No, I literally
33:22have not even heard of that show." And
33:23you're like, "Oh, I' I spend every night
33:25watching it." And we're we're we're
33:27really spread apart. Whereas decades
33:29ago, if you just randomly knocked on
33:32someone's door, one out of three of them
33:34were watching Mary Tyler Moore.
33:36>> See, the thing is
33:37>> the Cosby show was a thing that you
33:39could bring up at work and everyone had
33:41watched it literally. But today, if I'm
33:44even like, "Hey, so what do you guys
33:46think of Succession?"
33:48>> More than half of the people are like,
33:49"Haven't seen it."
33:50>> So, I think I I think about this quite
33:52often actually, uh, partly because I
33:54still make linear TV. [laughter] I'm
33:56clinging on, baby. Well, okay. I think
33:58two things about this. One is that um I
34:01think some people get quite down on
34:02linear TV and like, "Oh, well, no one's
34:04watching it. No one's watching it." And
34:06actually, I just don't think that that
34:08is true because when you compare who is
34:12watching linear TV who is watching stuff
34:15on the internet, right? It's like vastly
34:18different. So, you know, I'll have a
34:19program, I'll put a program out on BBC 2
34:21or whatever, watching live. Couple of
34:24million people will watch it live.
34:25Imagine if I did a stream on YouTube.
34:29You imagine if I did a YouTube stream
34:31and I got two million people logging on
34:33to sort of uh to watch. It would be
34:36wild. I mean, even the biggest YouTubers
34:39like would struggle to pull in numbers
34:41like that. So, I think for starters,
34:42it's sort of the kind of baseline that
34:44you're thinking about when it comes to
34:46describing linear TV is always in the
34:48past. You know, back to like the past
34:50being different to the future and not
34:52what else is out there. But the other
34:54thing I think though about that idea
34:55that all of our um attention is sort of
34:57fragmented. There's no single town
34:59square anymore. No single sort of
35:01cultural touch point that has embedded
35:03herself into all of our psyche
35:04simultaneously. I think that celebrities
35:07are really different to to what they
35:09were before. I think there's some people
35:12who um 10 years ago, 15 years ago
35:15apparently in 2010 would have been
35:19household names, right? would have been
35:21mega mega mega stars. And now actually,
35:25I mean, they're still living the same
35:27life, right? They're still making the
35:28same shows, still doing the same things,
35:30still getting to do all the the stuff,
35:32but like they get to live a life that is
35:35more private because they're not getting
35:37mobbed the entire time. There's not the
35:39cultural cut through that that you get
35:41in quite the same way.
35:43>> Yeah. Oh, definitely. Yeah. It feels
35:45like there are fewer Tom Cruises
35:50And there are fewer Mel Gibson's and
35:54Marlon Brandos and there are a lot more
35:56Michael Stevens's.
35:58>> Yeah.
35:58>> Okay.
35:59>> Everyone's become you, Michael.
36:01[laughter]
36:02>> But people who are like phenomenally
36:03well known to a smaller to to to their
36:06own group of people. It's not like
36:07you're small actually, but you know,
36:09>> like when I'm recognized in public, it's
36:11by like one one person and their friends
36:13are all like who? [laughter]
36:14>> And they all have to like learn who I am
36:17>> because there was one but that's how
36:18fractured they are. Even within the
36:20friend group, only one of them knows
36:22what Vsauce is. So there's today we've
36:25got an enormous amount of like cult
36:27celebrities,
36:29>> but very few blockbuster
36:31monoculture celebrities like a Michael
36:34Jackson. Now to be fair, the entire
36:37notion of a monoculture is controversial
36:40because there are still moments that we
36:42all share in some way. I think Taylor
36:45Swift is arguably for the for for for a
36:47lot of the world someone that we're all
36:49familiar with. Look at the launch of
36:51Barbie and Oppenheimer. Okay, that was
36:54that was a thing we all shared. The
36:56Titan submarine imploding or at least
36:58disappearing that like brought us all
37:01together
37:02>> and sports continue to bring us all
37:04together. The most viewed podcasts are
37:07sporting events. It there's there's
37:09something there. I don't even know what
37:11it is. Tell us in the comments what you
37:12think. Well, what does it mean that it's
37:15more like news events that bring us
37:18together at the same time? But it used
37:20to be fictional stories. It used to be
37:23MASH and er and Seinfeld and Friends,
37:27and now it's what's going to happen,
37:29who's going to win, um who's going to
37:32slip up in this political debate. People
37:34tuned in to watch the Hillary Trump
37:36debate in in huge numbers. agree
37:38>> that they don't tune in all together to
37:40watch Big Bang Theory.
37:42>> See, this is this is the thing. I think
37:44I actually think the blockbuster
37:45celebrities, the Michael Jacksons, the
37:47Taylor Swifts, right? I think that they
37:48have always existed throughout history,
37:50you know, like Byron or I don't know,
37:53Gilgamesh, whatever, like all of these
37:54people in history that that have the
37:56kind of cut through these mega stars. I
37:57don't know why I use that as an example,
37:58but anyway, that's a hilar I'm just
38:01imagining someone going, "Oh my gosh,
38:04Teresa, that's Gilgamesh.
38:06quick, let's get a stone carving
38:08together. [laughter]
38:10>> Yeah. And being like, walk and talk,
38:12guys. Walk and talk. But I think it's
38:14more like the um the sort of the the
38:17sort of people who are who are not mega
38:19stars, you know, like Angela Ripen,
38:21right? Maybe you don't Angela Rippen is
38:23or like Michael Parkinson, right? Like
38:26people who were household names um and
38:29yet were not I don't think mega stars
38:32like ordinary people doing a job in the
38:34public sphere. The thing is is that
38:35actually going back to your Stonehenge
38:37comment from earlier, I do sort of think
38:40that what we're doing is returning to a
38:43much more natural state of being in
38:47compared to the history of humanity,
38:49right? Because what we used to do is we
38:51used to have little clusters. We used to
38:52have little communities and then there'd
38:54maybe be a mega star here and there
38:56where the news would get real cutth
38:57through. You know, a a king dies, that
38:59news would get real cut through.
39:00Everybody would know about it. maybe
39:02something sporting if the equivalent is
39:05old wars, right? Wars and football kind
39:08of [snorts] simultaneous way to like act
39:10out your your natural violence. You'd
39:12sort of hear about all of that.
39:14>> But but actually this idea of like
39:16localized communities is is a very human
39:18thing. The only thing is now we are
39:20localized by topic, not by ge geography.
39:25>> You basically just said my conclusion.
39:28>> I'm really sorry.
39:29>> No, I love it. I love it because we're
39:33so much alike, Hannah. Because yeah, I'
39:35I've I've looked into this kind of stuff
39:36for years and I just got sick of the
39:39whole like our attention spans and we're
39:42all just looking at screens and I'm
39:43like, I get it, but there's more to it
39:45than that. And I think that in a lot of
39:47ways we are returning to
39:51>> the way we used to be before the modern
39:53world happened. [snorts]
39:54that not only are you're right we're in
39:57smaller groups but also we have in a lot
40:01of ways that freedom of association that
40:03we lost in the modern world. The dawn of
40:06everything fantastic book to read and
40:08and dear Jarrett wrote supernormal
40:10stimuli um she speaks also about this
40:14which is that people used to be way more
40:18free in a specific way before land
40:22ownership. You're in nomadic groups that
40:24are small. If you have a problem with
40:26people in your group, you just go
40:28[laughter]
40:29and in the dawn of everything, this is
40:31discussed really deeply. That freedom
40:34people had to just do their own thing.
40:37And that lasted a long time. I mean,
40:38even into the modern world, the the
40:40pilgrims were like, "Hey, we want to
40:42have church in a different way. There's
40:44other land we can go to where you cannot
40:46do anything about it."
40:47>> See, Europe,
40:48>> that's not true anymore. Uh good luck.
40:51If you want to go form a new country
40:53where you do religion in some way that's
40:55completely disallowed by any other
40:57government, where are you going to go?
41:00>> Today, we almost have that in some
41:03different form now where you can say,
41:05you know what, I'm really into extreme
41:07body modification. Hey, look, I'm
41:10already on a forum. I'm already within a
41:12subreddit or um a Facebook group where
41:16everyone is more like me. and I was able
41:19to find them and escape and I can be
41:21here and yet um no one can stop me. It
41:24doesn't make me feel isolated. So, we've
41:27changed.
41:27>> You know what's nice about this,
41:28Michael, is that um I I don't know
41:30whether [laughter]
41:32our lovely listeners slash viewers have
41:34noticed that we've started doing this
41:36thing where you prepare an episode and I
41:38have no idea what's coming up and vice
41:40versa. I don't know if they've noticed.
41:42Um but that idea that I just stole
41:43Michael's conclusion was not rehearsed,
41:45everybody.
41:46>> No, it wasn't. Yeah, we're doing a thing
41:48where we I I don't know what Hannah's
41:49going to do in in the next episode, but
41:52you know, I look forward to it and I
41:53will react appropriately.
41:56However,
41:58even though I think that in a lot of
42:00ways social media, the internet, digital
42:03lives, our immigration to this like
42:07different world, it's it's not a utopia,
42:10but it's also not a dystopia. I just
42:11think of it as a heterotopia. It's
42:14another place. Our immigration to this
42:17heterotopia, this other place has given
42:21us um new ways to be active, new ways to
42:25to to learn about the world and
42:27associate with people. So, it's made us
42:29more like like more human
42:32>> but less humus [snorts]
42:36where humus means dirt like the
42:38physicality is gone. I can I can share
42:42stories with people who think the way I
42:44do and I can agree and we can we can um
42:48you know commune in a certain sense but
42:50I can't smell them. I can't hug them. I
42:54can't see the pores on their skin when
42:57they just do little microexpressional
43:01reactions to what I say. I can't like a
43:05lot of my communication with them will
43:07be disentrained from time. It'll be, oh,
43:10they sent me a message. I'm going to
43:11read that when I have time. And I don't
43:14know what the consequences of losing
43:16that are. But it used to be that not
43:19only would you could you say stuff and
43:21your body language and and the
43:23temperature of the room and all of this
43:24was shared between you and who was
43:27listening, but it it it also kind of
43:30disappeared.
43:31>> Like exactly what I said was was only in
43:35our memories after it was said. But now
43:38what that person on the forum said to me
43:39last week, I've got a screenshot of it.
43:42It's right there with a time stamp and
43:44everything for everyone to see and for
43:45me to to look at. That
43:49>> that's a big change. And I don't know
43:50how I feel about that. I don't know how
43:53that makes us different now than of
43:56course we were when we were um preodern
43:59people.
44:01>> But that documentation,
44:03it's called the documentality of society
44:06is definitely a new thing, not a return.
44:10>> What was it you said? more human, less
44:12human.
44:12>> Humus means um the earth. In fact,
44:16that's probably where the word human
44:17comes from. It comes from like we are
44:19from the earth. We are from dirt, right?
44:21We are humus. That's like that a really
44:25nice kind of it's a kind of dirt kind of
44:27soil.
44:27>> Is it related to the chickpea snack or
44:29um
44:30>> it it might be.
44:33>> I wish I wish it didn't sound so much
44:34like hummus. Humus is spelled with just
44:37one M. [snorts]
44:38>> Here's the thing about it, right? I
44:40think that's such a good description.
44:42>> Sorry, I I just want to interrupt
44:43because I need to say this, too. Humis
44:46is the Latin word for ground or earth.
44:48And so, uh, by by immigrating to these
44:52digital heterotopias, we have become
44:56more human in the like preodern sense of
45:00having the freedom of association in
45:02smaller groups. But at the same time,
45:04we've lost the grounding and the earth
45:07of it, the physicality.
45:09See, this is the thing, right? I think
45:12that ends up making so many of us so
45:15unhappy because because we know I think
45:20that doom scrolling that being in these
45:22online communities when you're in them,
45:25it feels like it's scratching the itch
45:27that you need to scratch, right? It's
45:28sort of it's doing the thing that our
45:30species adapted for. We're a cognitive
45:33social species. It's like it's thinking
45:35and socializing in this way, but because
45:39it's only the mind part, because you are
45:42tapping into sort of an alternate, what
45:44did you call it? A a different version
45:46of reality,
45:48>> a heterotopia,
45:49>> hetererotopia,
45:50>> an other place.
45:51>> Because you're tapping into this
45:52heterotopia,
45:54I think that your body, you know, then
45:58ends up realizing that it's missing
46:00something. You know, all these tech bros
46:02are talking now about like, oh, touching
46:04grass, right? And and they sort of say
46:06it in a very flippant way, but you know
46:07what? I think touching the earth, right?
46:11Physically touching the earth, I
46:13actually think there's something in it.
46:14And I think that that's something that
46:16um you can't replicate in a digital
46:19world.
46:20>> I I completely agree. And so I'm going
46:22to make a prediction. I think that we
46:24will see a lot more in-person
46:29association in the future within our
46:31lifetimes. It's mainly going to be
46:33accomplished by some huge technological
46:36innovation in travel. It'll probably be
46:38something like, oh yeah, we found a way
46:40to not just take an airplane, but
46:42literally go suborbital and and be able
46:45to go from, you know, New Zealand to
46:47London in like half an hour. Then people
46:50will be able to say, "Hey, I'm really
46:52into this one really specific thing or I
46:54like this one kind of specific book. I
46:56can that that community that loves that
46:58can all get physically together and we
47:01can interrupt each other and hear each
47:03other's voices and be embodied
47:06together." I think that's going to
47:08happen in our lifetime. I also think
47:10that linear entertainment is going to
47:14come back and this is this is it's not
47:17going to come back and replace um uh
47:19streaming you know uh video on demand
47:22but I think it'll come back and this is
47:24based purely on the fact that um I was
47:26in LA recently in a house where I wasn't
47:29logged into any of my streaming services
47:31and I had to watch TubeB and I had to
47:33watch logged out YouTube where I where I
47:36didn't have my premium account so ads
47:38were appearing
47:39And I actually came to love the
47:42commercial breaks. And I even made a
47:45rule that I can't pause because that
47:47wasn't the way things were when I was a
47:49kid. I'm like, I'm going to have
47:50commercial breaks and I'm not going to
47:51be able to pause it. And the connection
47:55it made between me and the program was
47:57really strange. I had never been so
47:59committed to something. I couldn't pause
48:01it and look at my phone. Um, if I needed
48:04to go to the bathroom or get a snack, I
48:06had to wait for the commercial break. It
48:10felt like me and the and the story were
48:13together as opposed to I'm in control of
48:15you. To not have control made me so much
48:19more vulnerable and present for the
48:22show. I don't know. I I loved it in a
48:24way that I think we're going to all
48:28embrace.
48:29>> You, Michael, are an optimist. [snorts]
48:32[laughter]
48:33I love the idea. My concern is that that
48:36the the exact opposite might happen that
48:38rather than people changing their
48:40geography to get with the other people
48:42they like, I [laughter]
48:45I I rather fear that that people may
48:48decide that the people they don't like
48:50can't share their geography. [laughter]
48:53I'm talking civil war. Anyway, let's um
48:55one of those two. One of those two.
48:57>> One of those two. Exactly. It's going to
48:59be one of those two. And I have an
49:01unfortunate piece of evidence that kind
49:02of supports what you just said. Go
49:04ahead.
49:04>> And it's the fact that we we are doing
49:07this. We are geographically sort of
49:09relocating ourselves because that has
49:10become easier to do along ideological
49:13lines. And in 2012, 50% of Americans,
49:19and ever since then it's gone up, 50% of
49:21Americans found themselves living in a
49:23county that voted for one presidential
49:27candidate over the other by 20 points or
49:29more. They're called landslide counties.
49:31So, we stopped living
49:33>> surrounded by a diversity of people that
49:35we kind of had to learn to live with and
49:37also like kind of made our own beliefs
49:39stronger because we were having to
49:40coexist with people who disagreed with
49:42them.
49:43>> That is eroding away. And I don't know
49:46how we solve that because yeah, if I can
49:48get together with people that I agree
49:49with, who's going to force me to to get
49:52a little bit of diversity now and then
49:54and get around people who really just
49:56don't understand the movies that I like,
49:57do not have the same values as me.
50:00>> Yeah.
50:00>> I'll say the thing that really made my
50:02whole 2012 project fall apart was that I
50:05really hoped that political polarization
50:09somehow like really took off in 2012,
50:13but it just didn't. 2012 has there's
50:16nothing special about polarization in
50:182012. I'll tell you though, it really
50:21really took over American society in
50:252003.
50:26>> Okay.
50:27>> So, for for for a long time, Pew
50:29Research has been doing this American
50:31values survey. It's 48 questions about
50:34what you value, uh what's the role of
50:37family, the role of government, all
50:38these things. and they would track how
50:41different people's values were based on
50:45their education, their income, their
50:48race, their religiosity. When they
50:50started doing this in the 80s, all the
50:52way from then until 2003, the number one
50:55predictor of a value difference in
50:57America was race,
50:59>> right?
50:59>> But in 2003, that changed. And suddenly
51:02the biggest predictor that you were
51:04going to have different values than
51:05someone was what political party you
51:07preferred.
51:08>> Uh-huh. M is definitely the case.
51:10>> That was big.
51:11>> And then when they surveyed again in
51:142012, the difference was astronomical.
51:17It used to be that they were all still
51:19pretty clumped, but political party
51:21preference was the top. Now, every race,
51:24income, education, gender, they're all
51:26different by maybe two, three percentage
51:28points. Political party, 30%age point
51:32difference. I mean, it's it's huge. And
51:35so, yeah, something is is still going on
51:39and I don't know how that's going to
51:40work with the way we consume information
51:44together or apart, if it's going to get
51:46better or worse.
51:47>> The one thing I've seen recently that
51:49actually does make me feel quite
51:50positive about that is um some evidence
51:53around the way polarization is changing
51:57large language models. So you've had
51:59this era, the 2012 being the tipping
52:02point of people on social media, of
52:04people finding their own individual
52:05communities of of of these bubbles
52:08happening, of people spiraling down into
52:10more and more and more extreme content.
52:12And people were really concerned that if
52:14you were talking to large language
52:15models, you end up getting the exact
52:17same effect. But actually, and there's
52:20like the evidence is really emerging on
52:22this, but it's it it's looking pretty
52:24robust that actually you get the exact
52:27opposite effect that people when they
52:30are talking to a large language model,
52:31not only do they not feel judged or or
52:34sort of insulted or looked down on
52:36because of their political views, but
52:38actually they end up uh asking the
52:41questions that they want to ask. And it
52:45appears that it's nudging people from
52:47both extremes by the way not from one
52:48extreme but from both extremes slightly
52:51more together than we were before. And
52:54it's an effect also actually sorry
52:56forgive me because I can't remember the
52:57name of the author but there was one
52:58study really looked amazing which is
53:00where they sat people with quite extreme
53:02views down and then they had a
53:04conversation with the large language
53:04model and they changed their opinion but
53:07not only that they went back and spoke
53:08to them again a few weeks later and
53:11their opinions had remained softened
53:13from from earlier.
53:14>> We'll we'll we'll do a whole episode
53:17because I know exactly what you're
53:18talking about. have had this experience
53:20and I've seen it from other people where
53:23if they talk to someone a a human they
53:25disagree with
53:27>> they're easy they're able to just
53:28psychologically say there's something
53:30wrong with you.
53:31>> Yeah.
53:31>> But if if a language model is is I mean
53:34it can be tuned to do the opposite. It
53:35can just say you're right and let's
53:37let's exacerbate your current feelings.
53:39It provides that necessary friction for
53:43us to really shape out what it is we
53:45really believe. We do get pushed into a
53:48more reasonable perspective that that
53:51that is aware of his own subjectivity
53:53and that we're, you know, that not
53:55everyone agrees with us. So gosh,
53:58there'll definitely be a role played
53:59there. I think in a in a way people look
54:02at AI as being just like so smart. these
54:05LLMs they they think they they think
54:07that they are like
54:09>> omnisient basically almost to a fault
54:12where someone will say oh well I asked
54:15chat GPT and it didn't say that that's
54:17true and it's like oh my gosh but it's
54:19wrong
54:20>> um however they just trust it they don't
54:22think it has a personality or ulterior
54:24motives they just think that it's like
54:27either right or wrong I don't know
54:29that's going to be a significant
54:30influence on this whole topic in the
54:33future
54:34>> let's let's definitely do do an episode
54:35on that one. But I think you know what I
54:37I end up being persuaded. I am persuaded
54:39by your arguments here. I think 2012 was
54:41a turning point. I think that the world
54:43as we knew it did end in 2012. I agree
54:46with you.
54:47>> And a whole new world began. I mean,
54:49look, I'll end with this. I'll say in
54:512012, Facebook went public. All right?
54:54So, social media became this like ma
54:56very mainstream not private thing. Also,
55:00what else started in 2012? Tinder. Okay.
55:04I think I think it's it's certainly true
55:07that 2012 stands out as an important
55:10year for this migration to digital
55:13heterotopias, but the process has been
55:16uh a slow one that's happened over time,
55:18and we still don't really know where
55:20it's taking us. I think it's taking us
55:22together,
55:23>> but whether it does that or takes us
55:26apart
55:28in bad ways is completely up to us.
55:33>> Amazing. Like this is this isn't a great
55:35like bumper sticker slogan, but we kind
55:37of need both. We need to be a part, but
55:42also apart.
55:43>> We need the freedom to escape, but we
55:46also need to be forced into friction and
55:49disagreements. So, if we keep that in
55:52mind, I think it'll guide us well.
55:55>> Okay. Okay. Well, um I'm just writing
55:57down your predictions here for um for
55:58the future and we will see if they um
56:00see if they come true in the next um
56:02Back to
56:03>> That's a lot of time.
56:04>> That's a lot of time. We got to watch
56:05>> sometime in the next 394 years. We'll
56:08see what happens.
56:08>> We'll see what happens. All right. Well,
56:10thank you very much for [laughter] for
56:11as ever for joining us. Send us your
56:13thoughts, your your ideas to the rest of
56:15[email protected] and we'll see you
56:17next time.
56:18>> See you then. Right.
56:20[music]

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