0:00

In a restless

0:02

search for new opportunities and

0:05

new ways of living, the

0:07

mystery and the promise of

0:10

distant horizons always

0:12

have called men forward.

0:17

One of the big things that I say

0:20

about FlashForward when I talk

0:22

about the show is that I am really

0:24

not trying to predict the

0:26

future. The point isn't to

0:28

say that aliens will come to

0:30

Earth or that an evil billionaire will

0:33

put up so many wind turbines that it changes

0:35

the climate. Or that we totally

0:37

will replace athletes with robots.

0:40

The point is to try and think about

0:43

what those futures might entail. So

0:45

we can figure out how to move towards

0:47

them or away from them.

0:50

New things to do and

0:53

new ways to do them. Telephone,

0:57

electric lights, automobiles,

1:01

aircraft, All

1:03

our symbols are better living,

1:07

new places to go, and

1:09

new means of getting there. Part

1:16

of the reason I avoid trying

1:18

to make predictions is because

1:21

I don't like being wrong. It's

1:24

easy and often quite fun to

1:26

look at past predictions about

1:28

the future. My personal favorite

1:30

comes from a book called a hundred years

1:33

hence, the expectations of an optimist.

1:35

Britain in nineteen o five, where the author

1:37

predicted all kinds of things, including

1:40

the end of stairs.

1:43

The plan of attaining the upper part

1:45

of a small house by climbing on

1:48

every occasion a sort of wooden

1:50

hill covered with carpet of

1:52

questionable cleanliness will,

1:55

of course, have been abandoned. It

1:57

is doubtful whether staircases

2:00

will be built at all after the next

2:02

two or three decades. It's

2:06

also easy, although perhaps

2:08

less fun to feel

2:10

as though we ourselves right

2:13

now are just on the

2:15

cusp of something. The

2:17

outbreak of war, a cure for death,

2:20

truly sentient day eye. So

2:22

many potentials, both inspiring

2:25

and terrifying, feel like

2:27

they are right around the corner.

2:30

Congratulations. You are on the verge of a

2:32

breakthrough. And

2:34

if you believe the people who get to hold

2:37

microphones and make speeches or

2:39

go on podcasts or tweet viral tweets,

2:41

We are indeed on the cusp of

2:44

something. What that thing is

2:46

changes? Maybe it's the apocalypse or

2:49

the singularity or the cure for Alzheimer's.

2:52

It doesn't really matter exactly which

2:54

cliff we are leaning off of. The

2:57

important part is that we're always one

2:59

step away from whatever is on the other

3:01

side.

3:02

America is on the edge of

3:04

an abyss, and our movement

3:06

is the only force on Earth.

3:09

That can save it this movement right here.

3:12

And we stand today

3:14

on the edge of a new frontier.

3:16

We're really right on the cusp of what is physically

3:19

possible.

3:20

because if you were on the cusp

3:22

of something new year, But

3:25

are we? Can

3:28

we actually know if

3:30

we are in the moment of change?

3:35

Historians, we have a whole field.

3:37

We have, like, journals and conferences,

3:40

but we seem to have this allergy to

3:43

analyzing how people think about the future.

3:46

This is Dr. Matt Connolly, a historian

3:48

at University and author

3:50

of the book the declassification engine,

3:52

which comes out in January. In twenty

3:55

nineteen, Matt published a study called predicting

3:57

history about weather historians can

3:59

really ever know which moments

4:02

will be significant in the future.

4:04

If you walk through, say, Central Park,

4:06

you're gonna see all these statues And

4:09

even historians don't necessarily know

4:11

who those people

4:12

are.

4:12

So there's sort of like a logic problem

4:15

here. You know,

4:16

the things that people before us thought would be important

4:18

and enduring. Why is it that they're so

4:20

often wrong? Among historians

4:23

and philosophers, there is

4:25

a debate as to the answer

4:27

to this question. One

4:29

side says that it's impossible to

4:31

know which of our current events

4:33

will be important and interesting to

4:35

future people. The opposing

4:37

argument says, no, it's definitely

4:40

possible to know which current events

4:42

future people will care about.

4:44

Most of us, you know, we've had the experience in

4:46

our own lives. Unfortunately, maybe too regularly

4:48

lately, where things happen in the

4:50

world. And we think, wow, that's a big

4:52

deal. For Americans, moments

4:55

like the uprising on January sixth,

4:57

or the planes hitting the Twin Towers.

4:59

Moments where, you know, you think to yourself

5:02

pretty quickly, you know, I'm gonna be telling

5:04

my kids about

5:05

this. And we're not always wrong.

5:08

But those big events are

5:10

rare. And of course, for every

5:12

one of those, there are smaller

5:14

events that wind up being critically important

5:17

in hindsight. When

5:19

Van Lavin Hook showed people the first

5:21

microscope, nobody really

5:23

cared. When Boris Jeltsin

5:26

picked a guy named Vladimir Putin as

5:28

his successor in August of nineteen ninety

5:30

nine, most people, even in

5:32

Russia, didn't think it would

5:34

be a globally historic choice.

5:37

When Alexander Graham Bell pitched his

5:39

new invention, the telephone, to

5:41

Western Union in eighteen seventy six,

5:43

the company laughed him off and called

5:45

the device, quote, hardly more

5:47

than a toy. So

5:50

which side of this argument is

5:52

right? Can we tell what will matter

5:54

in the future or not? And

5:57

how would one even figure

5:59

that out. One

6:03

way would be to start pulling people now

6:05

about current events and then wait

6:07

like thirty years and go back

6:09

and see if those polls were correct.

6:11

The problem is your experiment would have to

6:14

be thirty years long. Now,

6:16

I would love to run that experiment. And

6:18

if one of your listeners, you know, was

6:20

inspired by Azacazmab, you know, he wants

6:22

to help me create a foundation where

6:24

we can run thirty year experiments, where we

6:26

can begin to predict history, not

6:28

just now, but thirty years from now, I'm

6:31

all for it.

6:32

So Matt and his colleagues had to find a

6:35

proxy, something that could sort of stand

6:37

in for this long term multi

6:39

year dream data set that

6:41

they don't have. And what they settled

6:43

on was a collection of diplomatic

6:45

cables sent within the US

6:47

State Department. These are messages

6:50

between diplomats and the US government.

6:52

And when diplomats send these cables,

6:54

they can flag if they think an event

6:56

was critically important and perhaps

6:59

even historic.

7:00

Things that were classified secret,

7:03

you know, things that were addressed to the secretary

7:05

of state, things that were marked, you know,

7:07

urgent, etcetera.

7:08

So in the moment, diplomats would tag their

7:11

cables as important or

7:13

not. But how do you know if

7:15

they were right? There weren't quite

7:17

literally millions of these cables.

7:19

In the dataset that Matt used, looking at

7:21

cables between nineteen seventy three

7:23

and nineteen seventy nine, There

7:25

were one million nine hundred and

7:27

fifty two thousand and twenty nine

7:29

that had been declassified and released

7:31

by the US government. No matter

7:33

how many undergraduates Matt had, he and

7:35

his team could not go through each and every

7:37

one of those nearly two million

7:39

messages to figure out what ended

7:41

up being historically significant. But

7:44

it turns out, they didn't have to 2 the

7:46

state department had already done that

7:49

for them. The US

7:51

State Department actually has a team of

7:53

historians whose job it is to

7:55

assemble an official historical record

7:57

of the country. And this record

7:59

includes a sample of

8:01

cables. In other words,

8:04

US historians later decided

8:06

which of these cables were worth saving

8:08

and putting in the official historical

8:10

record. Howard Bauchner: What we found

8:13

is it's about one in a thousand. That's

8:15

how many of these state department cables when

8:17

the historians have a chance to look through them,

8:19

that's how many they choose, you know, to make

8:21

part of that official record, the foreign

8:23

relations in the United States.

8:25

So that's point one percent of

8:27

events that are actually considered historically

8:30

important. It's super

8:32

super rare. Which brings us to the

8:34

question of whether the diplomats

8:36

were right. Did they end up

8:38

flagging the things that ended up being

8:40

important later? What

8:42

Matt and his team found is that in

8:44

the moment, diplomats were

8:47

not all that good at

8:49

knowing what is going to wind up

8:51

being important later

8:52

on. And this goes both ways. There were

8:54

false positives and false

8:56

negatives. When

8:59

diplomats, you know, decide that something

9:01

is super important, you know, when

9:03

they classified at the highest level,

9:05

when they send it straight to the

9:07

top, you know, the secretary of state.

9:09

When they designated as

9:11

urgent, you know, and eyes only and all the rest

9:13

of it, Only about

9:15

one in a hundred of those

9:17

cables end up becoming part of the official

9:19

record. For

9:20

example, one cable classified as

9:22

secret at the time related to negotiations

9:25

involving Napoleon Dorte

9:27

before the coup in El Salvador. These

9:29

negotiations seemed to have been really important

9:31

to the person reporting them, but

9:33

in the end, the meetings

9:36

didn't really matter that much. The

9:38

US government's financial and

9:40

military support of Duarte made

9:42

a much bigger difference.

9:44

So they're much more likely to think that something is

9:47

historic, then will turn out to be the

9:49

case. On the other hand,

9:51

there are cables that nobody

9:53

thought were important that

9:55

actually did mark a historic

9:57

moment. One related

9:59

to how the state department for

10:01

the first time began to revisit their

10:03

long standing policy of not

10:05

allowing anybody whose

10:07

lesbian or gay or anything

10:08

else, you know, to be a foreign

10:11

service officer. So

10:13

what this all means is that it's kind

10:15

of both. Sometimes we can predict

10:17

what will matter, but not nearly

10:19

as accurately as we

10:21

like to think. But

10:23

the thing I really wanted to

10:25

ask Matt is, why

10:27

does it matter that historians get

10:30

the future right? Given

10:32

these results knowing that we are

10:35

not good at this kind of thing at

10:36

all, is it worth even

10:39

trying to predict anything ever?

10:42

I think absolutely, it's not

10:44

just human nature. I think, you

10:46

know, it's something that even when we're

10:48

wrong, we could be wrong for the right

10:50

reasons. There are people who have been

10:52

predicting there's gonna be a nuclear

10:54

terrorist attack in the next ten years.

10:56

And they've been doing that for thirty years.

10:58

Now with those people, are they

11:00

all wrong? Like, do we just

11:03

dismiss them and and think their fullest?

11:05

Those people at least some of them were

11:07

actually pretty influential in

11:09

getting resources behind

11:12

trying to scoop up loose nukes trying

11:14

to find new jobs for chemists

11:17

and physicists 2 otherwise were out of work.

11:19

So I actually think that the

11:21

best prediction, especially if

11:23

it's a worst case scenario, is

11:25

the one that is self falsifying. Right?

11:28

Is is something where when you make

11:30

that prediction and then you issue that warning,

11:32

things happen and things 2 make it less

11:34

likely. So absolutely, I

11:36

think not only is it even

11:37

nature, but it's absolutely vital we continue trying to

11:39

make 2, especially about the worst case

11:42

scenarios. You cannot

11:44

change your history, but you can look at it differently.

11:46

People are good. It's just easy to

11:48

forget. Cyphi.

11:52

There will be no edges but

11:55

curves. Clean

11:57

lines pointing only forward.

12:00

History with its hard

12:02

spine and dog head corners will be

12:04

replaced with Nuance, just

12:06

like the dinosaurs gave way

12:09

to mounds and mounds

12:11

of ice. Women

12:13

will still be women, but the

12:15

distinction will be empty.

12:18

Sex having outlived every

12:20

threat will gratify only

12:22

the mind, which is

12:25

where it will exist. For kicks,

12:27

we'll dance for ourselves. Before

12:30

mirrors studded with golden

12:32

bulbs. The oldest among us

12:34

will recognize that glow,

12:36

but the word sun

12:38

will have been reassigned to

12:40

a standard uranium neutralizing

12:43

device brought in households

12:45

and nursing homes. And

12:48

yes, we'll look to be much

12:50

older, thanks to the popular

12:52

consensus. We'll

12:54

eat this unhinged eons

12:56

from even our own little

12:59

drift in the haze of space.

13:01

Which will be once and for

13:03

all, it's scruggable and

13:06

safe.

13:26

My mom grew up in California, the

13:29

land of earthquakes. And when

13:31

we moved to the east coast where

13:33

hurricanes are the natural disaster you

13:35

have to worry about, she

13:37

hated it. She hated

13:39

watching the storm coming on

13:41

TV, hated the anticipation,

13:44

She preferred earthquakes, she

13:46

said. They just happen.

13:48

There's no waiting, no PRECIPICE. Just

13:51

cliff. It's

13:57

possible. It's a fundamentally unpredictable

14:01

process. This is Dr.

14:03

Susan Howe, a seismologist at the

14:05

US geological survey. And

14:08

I don't know about you, but our inability

14:10

to predict earthquakes has always

14:12

struck me as a little bit odd. I

14:14

mean, we know why they

14:16

happen? We know the basic geological

14:19

process that creates them. Howard

14:21

Bauchner:

14:21

The litmus test for modern science

14:23

is do you understand the system well enough that

14:25

you can predict what's 2 And

14:28

so you know, if you're studying

14:30

earthquakes, you should be able to

14:32

should be able to understand the system

14:34

and and predict what's 2 And

14:38

it seems like it's seems like,

14:40

you know, we should be able to do

14:42

2. But

14:44

we can't. And

14:46

it turns out there are a bunch of reasons why

14:48

it might never be possible

14:50

to predict earthquakes. They

14:52

begin deep deep

14:54

underground in places we don't have

14:56

access to. You also can't

14:58

easily simulate them in the

15:00

lab. They require way too

15:02

much pressure and intensity. 2

15:05

understand earthquakes, you have

15:07

to wait for them to happen. So

15:10

really, seismologists are just

15:12

like us. Sitting around waiting for earthquakes to

15:14

happen, which is

15:16

sort of terrifying given the

15:18

amount of damage earthquakes can

15:20

do. Right?

15:22

Even as a seismologist, if I'm sound

15:24

asleep at two thirty in the morning and

15:26

it feels like somebody picks up my house and

15:28

starts shaking it back and forth,

15:30

that my training as a seismologist goes

15:32

out the window in those early seconds

15:34

because it is this level

15:36

of, you know, terror that

15:38

your world's coming apart. If

15:41

you do a quick search online,

15:43

you can find all kinds of

15:45

people making claims about when

15:47

the next big earthquakes are going to be.

15:49

Based on their own various

15:51

attempts at modeling everything from

15:53

actual earthquake data 2 lunar

15:56

cycles 2 the movement of

15:57

Mars. It attracts

16:00

Charlatans, outright Charlatans,

16:02

and it attracts people who

16:04

I think are are just honestly

16:06

fooling themselves. They think they found

16:08

patterns and they don't really understand

16:10

the statistics.

16:12

And in a lot of ways, earthquake

16:15

predictions remind me of

16:17

future predictions. People

16:19

are going to keep claiming that they

16:21

can tell you what is coming. Of

16:23

course, they

16:24

can't. But that won't mean

16:26

they will ever stop trying.

16:29

I don't think we're ever gonna

16:31

let go of the hope. Just means -- Yeah. --

16:33

this idea that Earthquake can hit

16:35

it. 2 in the morning out of the blue

16:37

is is not something

16:39

that you know anybody likes

16:41

to live with. It's

16:43

a fool's errand, I think, to ask

16:45

people to stop predicting

16:47

the future. Even if we

16:49

know we are mostly wrong,

16:52

We just love the wager. It's

16:56

pleasurable to be

16:58

right about what's coming.

17:00

Science communicator Liz Neely says

17:02

that since it hasn't happened yet,

17:04

since it lives in the realm

17:06

of fiction, we tend to see the

17:08

future like a novel

17:10

or a movie. In other

17:12

words, like a story.

17:15

We tend to love narrative closure

17:17

because our brains are

17:19

different engines. We

17:21

are constantly trying to predict

17:24

the future. Human evolutionary history

17:26

has required us to get good

17:28

at trying to predict things.

17:31

That's how we survived.

17:34

Every single one of us is the

17:36

great, great, great grandchild of humans

17:38

that were under incredible pressures

17:41

to take in tons of information to

17:44

process it really quickly, to make definitive

17:47

decisions that have like life or death

17:49

stakes. So we

17:50

are, in some ways, wired

17:52

to try and guess what might

17:54

happen next. But at the

17:56

same time, it can feel like that guessing

17:59

is getting harder. And today,

18:02

it feels like there are so

18:04

many things happening all

18:06

at once. Like, we are constantly

18:10

hurdling towards the edge of

18:12

something.

18:18

Storming toward a precipice by

18:21

Simon j Ortiz. A

18:23

diesel freight truck wars toward

18:25

us A precipice is no mirage

18:27

for its metal plunge. It

18:29

is headlong nevertheless. It

18:32

carries its own storm I

18:34

say dry Aileen, feeling my tongue wet my

18:36

lips, trapped steel storming,

18:38

the faint line just so,

18:40

just inches, just split time

18:43

just nothing more than luck keeps

18:45

us alive. The mirage of metal

18:47

storming is PRECIPICE, no

18:50

mirage.

18:52

Have you ever stood at the edge of

18:54

a cliff or a building

18:56

or a high place

18:58

and looked down and had

19:00

this odd curiosity, I guess,

19:03

about what it would be

19:05

like to leap. Like,

19:07

what if I just don't We're

19:11

not talking about true suicidal

19:13

ideation here. We're talking about

19:15

this weird and terrifying,

19:17

but also sort of exhilarating pull.

19:20

About fifty percent of people

19:22

report having this impulse. If

19:24

you have felt it, you know exact

19:27

what I'm talking about. The French

19:29

call this feeling, the

19:31

call of the void.

19:33

And in English, it has the much

19:36

less poetic name, the high

19:38

place phenomenon. There's

19:40

very little research on why

19:42

this happens, which means I get

19:44

to tell you about my own armchair

19:47

psychology theory. There's an

19:49

allure to the edge when you are

19:51

safely standing next to it. It's

19:53

thrilling in a way because it offers

19:55

all of the excitement and potential of

19:58

big change, of a new

20:00

beginning of a leap. But without having to

20:02

suffer the tumble down the

20:04

cliff, you're not actually

20:06

going to jump. It's more

20:08

about the potential

20:11

the what if, the precipice.

20:13

When you say precipice, I

20:15

think of just a

20:18

sort of a canilevered cliff

20:20

edge, you know,

20:23

over some very, very, very far

20:25

down

20:25

space. And somebody just sort of standing on the edge of

20:28

this cliff edge and and looking at the

20:30

space. Are

20:30

you one of those people who has that

20:32

call of the boy thing where you when you get

20:34

to the edge of something, you have that like, what

20:36

if I just jumped off this?

20:38

Oh, of course. Of course. Yes.

20:41

It's only like fifty percent of people apparently according to

20:43

some of the

20:43

research. Really? Yeah.

20:46

How? Yeah. No. It's I

20:49

mean, I'm in a six floor

20:51

apartment right now and the windows don't have screens

20:53

and I didn't realize that. And so I sort of confidently

20:55

opened the window and I realized that I could have

20:57

just slept doubt. And part of me was like, oh,

20:59

maybe maybe you know, so, yeah, I

21:01

totally have

21:01

it. This is Eva Hagberg,

21:04

an architectural historian and the

21:06

author of when Iro met his match. And

21:09

Eva knows a lot about

21:11

standing on the edge of a

21:13

precipice. Because in twenty thirteen, she

21:15

was told by her doctors that she

21:17

might die. I

21:18

had this brain hemorrhage, which we didn't

21:20

know was a brain hemorrhage, and then I had

21:22

this elevated tumor 2. And so I sort

21:24

of went from being somebody who was diagnosed with

21:26

anxiety and depression to somebody who was diagnosed

21:28

with like provisionally diagnosed

21:30

with this like very gnarly type of

21:33

brain tumor. I

21:35

mean, I was thirty one. You know,

21:37

I'd never thought about my death. I'd never thought

21:39

about anything like that. And

21:41

I just remember being like, okay, this is really serious and I

21:43

really might die. And kind

21:45

of making some sort of piece with

21:47

that. For about five

21:50

years, Eva lived on this

21:52

weird edge, suspended

21:54

there by a medical

21:56

mystery. I remember feeling

21:59

very sad because I wanted

22:01

more life and I

22:03

also remember driving around and thinking,

22:05

well, what do I want more of? And it was

22:07

just it was just

22:09

like stupid shit. I just wanted more

22:11

driving around and looking at

22:13

stuff. That

22:13

time living on the edge of

22:16

life and death was strange

22:18

because Eva says it wasn't

22:21

all bad. At the time, Eva had

22:23

a close friend in the same position

22:25

named Alison who had metastasized

22:27

breast

22:27

cancer. She said, she's like,

22:30

there's so much freedom where we

22:32

live, but it's very

22:34

expensive. And I think that is

22:36

kind of the best encapsulation as

22:38

I felt this extraordinary freedom.

22:40

I felt like typical

22:42

rules of, you know, social life

22:44

did not apply to me That doesn't

22:47

mean I was like a jerk or a bank

22:50

robber. But I did sort of feel

22:52

like I had this sort

22:54

of fearlessness about sort of

22:56

interpersonal interactions.

22:58

I was very available

23:01

to sort of connect with people

23:03

So I felt very free in

23:05

a way and and suddenly

23:07

it was like, okay, what if today

23:09

is is the last day that I can read

23:12

a book earlier? What if today is the last day that I can,

23:14

you know, eat

23:14

a sandwich? What would I do?

23:17

And I really

23:19

it it's narrowed my window of

23:22

experience 2, like, very

23:24

discreet moments of, like, pleasure and

23:26

joy and laughter and really

23:28

just walking down the

23:30

street in Berkeley and just,

23:32

like, looking at a flower and

23:34

being, like, that flower is so beautiful and,

23:36

like, having a friend text me a joke and

23:38

being, like, this joke is so funny. Like,

23:40

you know, there's things that are beautiful and there's things

23:42

that are funny and this ice cream

23:44

is so good. But

23:48

let's not over romanticize life

23:50

on the precipice. That's

23:52

too easy. And I remember people saying to me like

23:54

I could never what you're doing. And I was like,

23:56

I can't either. I mean, I I'm not,

23:58

like, particularly enlightened. I'm not,

24:01

like, you know, having a

24:03

great time. When you're constantly

24:05

on the literal edge,

24:07

your body and mind get accustomed

24:09

to a certain level of

24:12

stress. Of intensity, a kind of

24:14

constant clenching. So

24:16

that when anything below that

24:18

high level, I'm going to

24:20

die input comes

24:22

your way, you don't

24:24

really know what to do with it.

24:26

Amidst the brain issues, Eva

24:28

also had all kinds of allergies

24:31

and

24:31

sensitivities. And I remember that was

24:33

just not it was not intense enough to

24:35

be interesting. And so I almost welcomed

24:37

my surgeries because that would like concentrate

24:39

everything, and I'd be like, okay, like

24:42

intense surgery. A

24:44

lot of us feel like

24:46

we are at an eleven a lot of

24:48

the time. When it to

24:50

future. There's just so much

24:52

to worry about facial

24:54

recognition, bomb toting robots,

24:56

white supremacy, climate

24:58

change, The list goes on

25:00

and on and on.

25:02

And there is a lot to worry about,

25:04

of course. But we're also made

25:07

to feel on the literal edge of

25:09

all of these things all the

25:11

time on purpose. Those

25:13

who want to drive and shape

25:15

and force the future use

25:17

the emotional power of the

25:19

precipice to force us to feel

25:21

that pull, that sense

25:23

of inevitability. That their

25:25

predictions, conveniently aligned

25:27

with their business interests and

25:29

investments, are inevitable. That

25:31

unlike those folks in the past This

25:33

time, we are going to be right about

25:35

the future of technology by

25:37

embracing it, by leaping into that future

25:39

with both feet. Like, there's no point in

25:41

resisting, no point in asking questions

25:43

because really we are just almost

25:46

already nearly there.

25:48

No time to waste. It's time

25:50

to 2, whether you like

25:52

it or not. When

25:58

you first walk up to the edge,

26:00

it's alluring. But if you're

26:02

forced to stand there, to

26:04

lean over it, constantly. Something else

26:07

happens. There's an

26:09

exhaustion and a numbness.

26:11

It's like you're listening to a

26:13

song, that just keeps building and

26:15

building and building and you're

26:17

waiting for the beat to drop and

26:20

it just doesn't. When

26:32

I spoke with Eva, she

26:35

was days away from another

26:37

ledge. The week after

26:39

we talked she was going to have a

26:41

baby. If all

26:41

goes well, I'm gonna know this

26:44

child for like the rest of my

26:46

life. Pretty big commitment.

26:48

Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's like one

26:50

of the biggest ones.

26:52

Yeah. Exactly. I was just thinking

26:54

like this or or,

26:57

like, dying I mean, it's yeah. It's, like,

27:00

that's it. I mean, those are, like,

27:02

the two most profound commitments, kind

27:03

of, everything else you can

27:05

get out of. In theory, Eva

27:08

knew the outline of what her new

27:10

life would be like with a

27:11

baby, but also she

27:14

did Nobody ever does.

27:16

I find more

27:20

security and more freedom in this idea that

27:22

we don't know what's going to happen.

27:25

Sometimes you do just have

27:27

to leap off the cliff.

27:31

Implementing this of faith in yourself and

27:33

others can be very scary at

27:35

first. 2

28:09

memories.

28:13

My sister woke me very early

28:15

that morning and told

28:18

me, get up.

28:20

You have to come see

28:22

this the oceans filled

28:25

with stars. Delighted

28:27

by the revelation I dressed

28:29

quickly and thought If

28:32

the ocean's filled with

28:33

stars, I must take

28:36

the first flight and

28:38

collect all of the fish

28:40

from the sky. I

28:45

spend probably an inordinate amount

28:47

of time thinking about what might

28:50

happen if aliens landed on

28:53

Earth. And if you read a lot of science

28:55

fiction as I do, you know that

28:57

first contact tends to happen

28:59

in a few different ways. And

29:02

one of my favorite tropes for

29:04

first contact, I like to call

29:06

the humanity

29:07

test. You're about to

29:09

meet some being from another planet for

29:12

us, reunite expirations.

29:14

I

29:14

mean, these guys,

29:15

aliens have discovered humans and they've

29:18

decided we must be

29:20

destroyed. They say, where

29:22

we're done? THEY

29:23

SAY WE'RE NOT DOING. Reporter: HUMANS THEN

29:24

MUST CONVINCED THE EILIANS THAT WE DESERVE TO

29:27

BE 2. BUT THEY GAVE

29:29

seventy two HOURS FOR

29:31

US pick them up with something

29:33

that is

29:33

unique. What you just

29:36

heard is from an hour long special

29:38

by the magician's pen and Eller, which

29:40

was entirely devoted to this trope.

29:43

I first encountered the humanity test

29:45

in the children's book. My teacher flunked

29:47

the planet by Bruce Covel. This

29:49

was also a plot point in an episode of Star Trek:

29:51

The Next Generation, that humans have

29:53

to appeal to aliens to

29:56

justify our existence. There

29:58

is evidence to support the court's contention

30:01

that humans have been savage.

30:04

Therefore, I say,

30:07

test us. Test whether this is

30:09

presently true of humans. I

30:12

think this plot is appealing because

30:14

it forces us all collectively

30:18

to a precipice. Be

30:20

PRECIPICE, I mean, complete destruction

30:23

of our species and the planet. There

30:25

is no bigger cliff than that.

30:28

What is our excuse for

30:31

existing? What are we even here

30:33

for? What could we

30:35

show aliens about ourselves,

30:37

about Earth, our planet that would

30:39

convince them to spare us? To find

30:41

out, I asked some people, some

30:44

random, some listeners, how they might

30:46

convince aliens to let our

30:48

planet live. Hi

30:53

aliens. Welcome. Greetings

30:55

friends. I call you friends

30:57

because today I want to extend friendship.

31:00

I'm told that you want to kill

31:02

all humans and I can

31:04

understand why

31:05

why? Why do they want to kill us all?

31:07

Did we do

31:09

something specific? I

31:11

mean, I could guess

31:14

certainly we've set up a lot of

31:16

things. I think that's what I'd

31:18

say. So you know what? You're

31:20

right. Humans were not great individuals.

31:22

We're selfish, we're nurses think we're

31:23

sloppy. Why are they actually coming here to destroy

31:26

humanity? Maybe humanity deserves to be

31:28

destroyed. 2 don't know. I would share him

31:30

how to get a big

31:31

rock. Uh-huh. Just

31:34

to just to kill us anywhere? Yes.

31:38

Everywhere I'm thinking the

31:38

only one would probably say, man, I'm gonna blow

31:40

it up anyway.

31:42

Perhaps in our encounter with you, we will see

31:44

a possibility. I don't know if this would work,

31:46

but my first instinct is

31:49

to, like, take them some

31:51

place where there's amazing nature.

31:54

Volcano. I take them to a volcano. If it

31:56

was a place, one of my favorite places

31:58

to go is Yosemite California,

32:00

which is a beautiful place.

32:02

Iceland, the earth is

32:04

like black and there's all these clips

32:06

and you can kind of imagine

32:07

how, like, came up out of the ground. Oh, jeez.

32:10

The Socrata of

32:12

Amelia? Maybe I

32:14

don't know. I'm trying to think of, like, what is the

32:16

most majestic stick.

32:18

Humanist project. If I come to

32:20

the vet or something, like I'd show them

32:23

in our museum That's not cool. Like, that's not as

32:25

cool as that. Actually, something that comes to mind.

32:27

2 thinking about, like, here in

32:30

in Brooklyn. When people come

32:32

and play live music in the

32:34

park and they just, like, set up shop and

32:36

everyone's just vibing with no

32:38

other, like, agenda, no

32:40

stage, everyone ones just like bear,

32:42

gel in and enjoy in music.

32:43

Together, we become a magical force when

32:45

we're a community. Not a

32:48

perfect one. Sure. But a powerful one and a

32:50

beautiful

32:50

one. I do have one thing to

32:52

say. I don't quite even know

32:54

if there's a way answer

32:56

this in a way that is,

32:59

like, together because

33:01

it's so many pieces. I would need

33:03

to put so many pieces together

33:05

to show them. But a lot of the

33:07

pieces would be like someone

33:10

standing in front of someone crying

33:11

or, like, belly laughing

33:14

laying down on the ground or,

33:15

like, a baby, like

33:19

art, like things that people weep

33:21

over. Buddles. That's

33:24

it. The beginning and end of humanity

33:26

is right there. Just stare deep into it.

33:28

That would be a cool adventure to

33:30

have with aliens. We

33:37

can't predict how the future

33:40

will go. Will humans make

33:42

it? Should we?

33:44

We know this about as surely

33:46

as we know whether or not there will

33:48

be a magnitude 2 point two earthquake

33:50

on Wednesday at noon, which

33:53

is to say, we don't,

33:55

not at all. But in

33:57

the example of earthquakes, even if we can't

34:00

make exact predictions, there

34:03

are other elements we

34:05

can know. We

34:07

can make meaningful aftershock forecasts. That's

34:10

our seismologist, doctor Susan Howe again.

34:14

So when an earthquake happens, typically 2 California,

34:16

we know there's about a one in twenty

34:18

chance that something bigger will

34:20

happen within the next few days.

34:23

So one in twenty, that means, you know,

34:26

nineteen times out of twenty, nothing will happen.

34:28

But if you have twenty

34:30

magnitude fives

34:32

in California, one of them is gonna be followed by

34:34

something

34:34

bigger. So we

34:37

can prepare. We can

34:40

stay aware. We can think about

34:42

the unsexy parts of getting ready for the future.

34:44

For earthquakes, preparation is

34:47

about building codes. Nothing

34:50

less sexy than building

34:52

codes. And yet, updating

34:54

our structures and spaces to

34:56

be safer is how

34:58

we don't die under a pile

35:00

of rebar and cement.

35:02

And you can do that whether

35:04

you know when exactly

35:06

the earthquake is coming or not. We

35:09

don't

35:09

want prediction. Right? But the

35:11

the building around us doesn't give a rat

35:13

-- Exactly.

35:15

-- behind if the earthquake

35:18

is predicted or not, it it's gonna have

35:20

to withstand the earthquake or

35:22

not. And it doesn't take much to see

35:24

the parallel here to so many

35:26

other things. We don't have to know exactly

35:28

what's going to happen and

35:30

when to get ready

35:32

for it. If

35:34

we can peel our eyes and our hearts away from

35:36

the sheer terror of the cliff

35:38

and focus on the structures

35:40

that will keep us safe, that

35:43

will support us in the meantime, that we

35:45

can improve and act upon right

35:48

now. I think that maybe

35:50

then, we would all

35:52

be ready for when the beat really does drop. Highness

35:54

is quiet. This

36:08

episode of FlashForward was written

36:10

by Newt Rosepolis edited by

36:12

Avery Truffleman produced by Aussie Munoz

36:14

Goodman and sound designed by Ariana

36:17

Martinez. The song that you are hearing now

36:19

was created by LaserBeak. Special

36:22

thanks to Julia Furlan who hit the streets of New

36:24

York City to ask people about aliens

36:26

for us. Thanks also to everybody who sent in voice

36:28

memos around that question, we couldn't use

36:30

them all, and there were so many good

36:32

ones. So thank you so much for

36:34

sending them. If you are a

36:36

bonus podcast getter, you will get a bunch

36:38

of the extras in the bonus podcast

36:40

this week. Thanks also to

36:42

Ed Young who read a passage from a

36:44

hundred years hence the expectations of

36:46

an optimist to Tracy 2 Smith

36:48

who read her poem, sci fi and

36:50

to Stanford University for letting us

36:52

use that audio. To 2 Mills

36:54

Gardner who read storming toward a

36:56

precipice by Simon j

36:58

Ortiz, and to Elena Fernandez Collins,

37:00

who called in the void for us

37:02

and read future memories by Mario

37:04

Melendez in both Spanish and

37:06

English. Also thanks to all of those poets for

37:08

letting us use

37:10

their poems. And a last special shout out to Eva Hagedberg's new

37:12

healthy baby, Rosemary. It reaches a

37:14

very good name. You can find a

37:16

full script of this episode as always

37:18

on FlashForward. Pod dot com.

37:20

The episode art is as always by

37:22

Maddie lipchanski. This is the

37:24

second episode in our

37:26

shows, finale. After this

37:28

series, which I've been calling onward and

37:30

upward, flash forward will be

37:32

over forever. If you wanna

37:34

learn more about what comes next, for me and

37:36

to support 2, go to FFWD

37:39

presets dot com. Kindness

38:31

is quiet. Kindness

38:38

is quiet.