Why You Really Should Talk to Strangers & What Could Actually End the World

If you have a goal you really want to accomplish, when you start may matter more than you think. January 1st gets all the attention, but there are other dates and occasions that can give you a surprisingly powerful motivational boost. https://behavioralscientist.org/new-years-resolutions-failed-be-prepared-to-leverage-other-fresh-starts How often do you strike up a conversation with someone you don’t know very well? Probably not as often as you could. It is usually easier to look at your phone, avoid eye contact and keep to yourself. Yet those little interactions you have with a cashier, a neighbor, a coworker or even a stranger in line can have a surprisingly big impact on your life. And chances are, you are seriously underestimating how much you and the other person will enjoy them. Nicholas Epley joins me to explain the fascinating research showing what happens when we become just a little more social and why the payoff can extend well beyond simply having a pleasant conversation. Nicholas is a professor of behavioral science and director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. His new book is A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection (https://amzn.to/4g5vYHf). Spend enough time watching the news and it can seem as if the end of the world is always just around the corner. Nuclear war, artificial intelligence, asteroids, pandemics, climate change — there appears to be no shortage of things that could wipe us out. But which threats should genuinely worry us, which ones are wildly exaggerated. Ben Bradford has been investigating the things that supposedly threaten our existence and what he has discovered may change how you think about all those dire warnings. Ben is a journalist and host of the NPR podcast Are We Doomed? (https://doompod.com/), which examines the threats facing humanity — both real and imagined. Every time you fill your car with gas, you trust a surprisingly simple piece of technology to do something very important: stop the pump at exactly the right moment. So how does it know? Listen as I reveal the clever bit of engineering hiding inside every gas pump. https://www.southernliving.com/should-you-keep-pumping-gas-after-the-nozzle-clicks-off-12027088 PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS AIR DOCTOR: Head to ⁠⁠https://AirDoctorPro.com⁠⁠ and use promo code SYSK to get $250 off select AirDoctor air purifiers, including the 3500, 4000, and 5500 models. Plus, you’ll receive a free 3year warranty, an $84 value, and AirDoctor’s 30-day money back guarantee WAYFAIR: Ready to upgrade your home for way less? Head to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Wayfair.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ right now to shop all things home and get your space ready for less. QUINCE: Elevate your everyday. Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Quince.com/sysk⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada, too! DELL: Built for those who want better. The Dell XPS, built for you! HEALTH MATTERS: If you enjoy learning new ways to live a healthier life, check out NewYork-Presbyterian's Health Matters. Listen now and follow NewYork-Presbyterian's Health Matters wherever you get podcasts. SHOPIFY: It's time to turn those "what ifs" into CHA CHING with Shopify Today! Sign up for your $1 per month trail and start selling today at ⁠⁠https://Shopify.com/realm⁠⁠ INDEED: Get a $75 Sponsored Job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://Indeed.com/PODCAST⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 0:41Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:23Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, what's the best time to start on a new goal? Then the extraordinary benefits of those small social connections you make with strangers.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  It's easy to overlook the importance of social connection. It's easy not to notice what you might be missing in a conversation you don't have. What our data suggests is that people are overly pessimistic about how much value they will get out of reaching out and connecting.

• 1:51Mike Carruthers?

  Also, how does the gas pump know to shut itself off when your tank is full? And a look at the things that could destroy us: nuclear war, viruses, AI, asteroids.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Asteroids may be the thing that is the coolest one. We didn't even start realizing we had a potential problem until the 1990s. And we have gotten really good, really quickly at asteroids.

• 2:16Mike Carruthers?

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• 2:59Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:42Mike Carruthers?

  Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, please let them know it was Something You Should Know. It's the best way to support our show. Something You Should Know: Fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. If there's a big goal that you really want to reach, when you begin working toward that goal can be a big factor in whether or not you achieve it. And that's the first topic today on this episode of Something You Should Know. Hi, I'm Mike Carruthers.

• 4:27Mike Carruthers?

  Welcome. So there really does seem to be something psychologically powerful about a clean slate. Researchers have found that people become more motivated to pursue goals following what they call temporal landmarks. New Year's Day certainly, but also the beginning of a month, the beginning of a week, a birthday, a holiday, or even the start of a new semester. It's called the fresh start effect. These dividing lines seem to help us separate the person we were before from the person we want to be next. That means if you've fallen off your diet, or abandoned your exercise program, or gotten

• 5:09Mike Carruthers?

  hopelessly behind on some project, you don't necessarily have to summon more willpower. Instead, pick a meaningful date and declare everything before it the old chapter. Monday morning may actually be a pretty good time to begin the new you. And that is something you should know. We spend a lot of time avoiding people. We look at our phones in elevators, use the self-checkout, put on headphones, and generally find ways to move through the day without having to talk to strangers. And when there is an opportunity to strike up a conversation, say with a cashier, or

• 5:52Mike Carruthers?

  someone waiting in line, or the person sitting next to you, we often think, eh, why bother? Well, maybe you should bother, because those little interactions that seem so insignificant may actually do something surprisingly important. And apparently, it doesn't take much. Being just a little more social and engaging with the people around you can make you happier, healthier, and more connected. And the research suggests we consistently underestimate just how good those interactions can make us feel. Nicholas Epley is here to explain. He is a professor of behavioral science and director of the Center for Decision Research

• 6:35Mike Carruthers?

  at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. He's author of a book called A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection. Hi Nicholas, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Hi Mike, thanks so much for having me again.

• 6:50Mike Carruthers?

  So when you're looking at the research that you've done on this topic of small interactions and social connection and all, what is the big takeaway here?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  I think we're not social enough for our own good. Every day, there are opportunities, big and small, to reach out and connect with other people that we choose not to take. And by choosing not to take those, I think we're missing out on increased happiness and well-being in our lives.

• 7:16Mike Carruthers?

  And the assumption in your statement that I always question is that there's value in reaching out to lots of people. And there's value in reaching out to some people, but there's a lot of interactions I have every day that don't really have, or seemingly have, a whole lot of value.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  I think we want to distinguish between two things. One is, our data certainly don't suggest that people should be reaching out all the time. What our data suggests is that when we are in situations where we could reach out and engage with another person, we tend to underestimate how positively it will turn out. And by doing so, we underestimate how enjoyable these interactions will be, and therefore, at times, are choosing not to interact when it would make us better off. Now, this again, doesn't mean that we should always be reaching out and engaging with other people, but if you knew you were off by some amount, you're sitting there in a doctor's office, not having any conversation with anyone, just sitting there by yourself, you're sitting

• 8:25Speaker 01

  there waiting in line at a grocery store, you could say hi to the neighbor, to the person standing behind you. If you knew that would turn out a little better than you thought you would, I'm betting most of us would reach out a little more often.

• 8:38Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, I buy that. But I want to really zero in on something, and maybe I'm kicking a dead horse here, but you use the phrase, you know, that if you did, it would be more enjoyable, and that you would be better off. What does that mean?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  You'd be happier. So in any given moment, we can ask you, how positive are you feeling right now? How negative are you feeling right now? When people are engaging with other people, they report feeling more positive and less negative, so there's increased well-being. But being positively connected to other people doesn't just feel good psychologically. It isn't just well-being, although I have to say, I think that is among the most important things that we're seeking out there in the world. But it also improves, increases our health, and actually, our longevity. So being socially isolated and disconnected from other people is a psychological stressor.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  It gives us a spike in cortisol in our bloodstream, and that compromises our immune system functioning and also our cardiovascular functioning. If you play that out over and over again over the course of our lives, if we're consistently choosing to avoid other people, it can create health risks that are on par with smoking 15 cigarettes a day, and also shorten how much life we have to live, again, on par with smoking 15 cigarettes a day. So I think these are really important. It's easy to overlook the importance of social connection. It's easy not to notice what you might be missing in a conversation you don't have. What our data suggests is that people are consistently overly pessimistic about how

• 10:16Speaker 01

  much value they will get out of reaching out and connecting with other people. And I think that matters a lot for our lives.

• 10:24Mike Carruthers?

  I understand that if you're lonely, establishing some connection with people, like real connection, like somebody whose phone number you have and that you can call, I don't always see the value, if somebody is desperately lonely, how having a hello, goodbye with the guy stacking bananas at the supermarket addresses the problem of that person's loneliness even a little bit?

• 10:53Speaker 01

  So it does a little bit, it turns out. So the data make it crystal clear that happiness and well-being and our sense of connection with other people isn't just a function of the major interactions that we have, but also a lot of little moments we have. Our well-being in particular is a little bit like a leaky tire. And if you want to predict how positive someone feels or how happy they are, what you want to know is how frequently are you having positive experiences in your life? It's the frequency of events that really matters, not the intensity of those events. So, missing out on opportunities in our daily lives, these can be small things like saying

• 11:35Speaker 01

  hello to somebody in the grocery store, or having a conversation with somebody on a train, or having a deep and meaningful conversation with acquaintance or a neighbor of yours, or reaching out to express gratitude. Every day, there are lots of opportunities like these that would improve the moments of our lives. And by avoiding those, we're missing out on some well-being that we could be getting because we underestimate how positively others respond to us. The other key thing about loneliness is that it stems in large part from the psychological error that I'm describing to you right now. So people who-- loneliness comes in part from thinking that other people don't want to interact with you.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  We kind of find this across the spectrum of extroversion, and also across the spectrum of loneliness too. But on the extreme lonely side, people tend to think that others don't want to interact with them, and that creates a barrier to reaching out and connecting. So, these interactions can help to change those beliefs. We find over time that people do learn, although it takes a lot of experiences to learn. And getting over those barriers, thinking that other people don't want to connect with you, I think is the key to living a more socially connected life. So, I think this is critical to connecting us with other people, whether you're lonely or not, but especially if you're feeling like you'd like to be better connected with other people.

• 13:01Mike Carruthers?

  So what is that thing that makes us think that other people don't want to talk to us, when in fact, if I had to think back to the last time somebody rebuffed me, pushed me away, said, "You know, I don't want to talk to you, you're an idiot." I can't remember that. Every time I talk to somebody, it goes pretty well. I mean, people are, even if they don't want to talk to you, they're generally polite about it. So I don't understand where that fear comes from.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, so there are three things that we document in our research. One is that we tend to evaluate ourselves differently than other people do. And this matters a lot when we're reaching out to connect with somebody in a positive, warm, friendly way, the kind of way that creates connection. In particular, we tend to think about ourselves in terms of our competency. How good are we at this thing? How effective are we? When you think about having a conversation with someone sitting next to you, you're often thinking about, "Well, what are we going to talk about here with this person?" Or you're thinking about expressing gratitude to somebody, and you're thinking about, "How am I going to say this?" We're focused on our competency. Other people tend to evaluate us, though, in terms of our warmth, our friendliness.

• 14:14Speaker 01

  And if you're reaching out to somebody in a positive, warm, and friendly way, that other people are likely to evaluate positively. But if you're thinking about your own competency, then you're going to underestimate how positively others are likely to respond to you, because you're just focused on the wrong thing. That's one. Second, there's a key feature in social interaction that our expectations tend to overlook, and that is reciprocity. Reciprocity and responsiveness. So when we ask people to predict how a conversation with a stranger, or a deep conversation with someone, will go, how much they'll enjoy it, they tend to think almost anything that can happen.

• 14:56Speaker 01

  They tend to think it's almost equally likely that they will enjoy it not at all, as they will enjoy it a great deal. However, what happens when you actually reach out to somebody, is that, in a positive way, they tend to reciprocate that back to you. When you say hello to somebody, they tend to respond with a hello to you in return. When you wave at somebody, they tend to wave back to you. When you take an interest in somebody, they tend to take an interest in you in return. Which means, like you said, mostly people respond to us in a way that's consistent with how we reach out to them. But failing to appreciate the power of that reciprocity leaves people thinking that there's

• 15:37Speaker 01

  just a much wider range of possible outcomes than is actually true. You think you turn to a stranger, "Oh man, anything could happen. They could punch me in the face, or give me the middle finger, or say hello to me back." Mostly, they say hello to you back. So that's the second thing. And the third thing is that anything that creates pessimism in your mind is likely to be self-fulfilling. So if I believe that, as you mentioned at the beginning, that you don't see any value in having conversations, small conversations with people, or having a deep conversation with somebody maybe who you might not see again, if you tend to think that those aren't

• 16:18Speaker 01

  going to be of value, or that it's not going to be very meaningful, or the person doesn't want to talk with you, say, then you might not try. And by not trying, you might not learn that your beliefs might be off, might be wrong. Pessimism in that way is self-fulfilling. Optimism gets calibrated. If I think talking to you will be pleasant, I'll try it, and I'll learn whether I'm right or wrong. But if I'm pessimistic, then you can get a whole trainload of people, like I see every morning on my way into the University of Chicago, who might be happier talking with a stranger, but nevertheless, never trying and never finding out that those pessimistic expectations we have about each other might be a little wrong.

• 17:01Mike Carruthers?

  I want to get you to talk about the difference between interactions with strangers, with just casual conversation, and conversations with real friends. And we'll do that when we come back. A big thank you to today's sponsor, Vinted. I think most of us have what I call "someday clothes." "I'll wear that someday. That'll fit better someday. Someday, I'll have a place to wear that." Meanwhile, it's been hanging in the closet for three years. Vinted offers another possibility: Sell it. Every day, people can sell clothes they're no longer wearing and make some extra money. And they've made the process pretty painless.

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• 18:30Speaker 03

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• 19:02Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about social interaction with Nicholas Epley. He's a professor of behavior science at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, and he's author of a book called "A Little More Social: How Small Choices Can Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection." So Nicholas, talk about the difference between connecting with strangers, which seems--

• 19:27Mike Carruthers?

  Perhaps more surfacy and having real friends that you really, really connect with. And like, what would be the difference between, say, you're very social with, at the supermarket, but you have no friends? I mean, that doesn't seem like one bullet proves you from the other.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  No, no, that's right. We find in our work that we're pessimistic about our interactions in lots of ways. And one is about what will happen when we try to go deeper in conversation. So one, you know, one barrier is thinking other people don't want to engage with us at all. But, but once engaging, once talking with somebody, we now have another choice about what kind of conversation we have. Do we have a meaningful conversation that really connects us with that person in the moment? Or, you know, strengthens an acquaintance, turns an acquaintance into a friendship, or strengthens a friendship? We're overly pessimistic about how positive we'll feel after trying to have a deep conversation with someone as well.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  And these effects are really quite massive. So I've now had over 5,000 people across lots of different demonstrations of this that I've, that I've done with, with audience and talk, audiences and talks I give, or in experiments we've done as well, where we have people have a conversation with someone about topics that are usually a little deeper, deeper than they might normally talk with someone about, like, what are you most grateful for in your life? Please tell me about it. Or, could you tell me about one of the last times you cried in front of another person? People anticipate that those conversations are going to be pretty awkward, because we don't normally talk about that with a stranger, and is going to be kind of mediocre, because

• 21:11Speaker 01

  they think other people aren't that interested in opening up and sharing with them. But once they get into the conversation, the problem I have is getting folks to, to stop. They tend to enjoy these conversations much more than they imagine, in part because when you open up to another person, they tend to open up to you more in return than you'd guessed.

• 21:31Mike Carruthers?

  Well, another reason I think there's value in having those kind of conversations with strangers is, you know, every friend you have started out as a stranger. Every friend you have, you had an initial conversation. And if you limit yourself to not having those conversations, then you can't develop new friendships. And of course, we hear today that people have fewer friends than ever. But I think people struggle with that, developing a casual conversation into a friendship, if that's what you want to get out of it. It's, it's hard to do, and I think people really do struggle with it.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Yes, lots and lots of people do. And it's tricky, because friendships require you to be together, you know, in, in, often in physical space, or at least to spend time with each other. But the sense of friendship doesn't necessarily require it, requires a sense of being understood and understanding another person. But this is where I think two things are really important. One is, this is where the moments of social connection really matter. You never know, as you point out, every friend was one time a stranger to you. You never know when turning to the person in the grocery store line is going to reveal a neighbor you didn't know who you might see again, or a conversation on a plane with somebody is going to turn into something that, that sticks with you, or, you know,

• 22:56Speaker 01

  a conversation with a colleague at work is going to build a friendship that you didn't know you couldn't have had. So the moments, taking the swings at these social connections are going to matter a lot for increasing the odds that some of these will turn into friends. But second, approaching social interactions in a different way, this is changing your mindset a little bit, I think can help to make this a lot easier, too. When we go into an interaction with the mindset of being interested in another person, trying to, you know, take an interest in them, getting to know them in a more meaningful, rather than just superficial way, questions come to mind that you can ask another person that are genuine, because they reflect your actual interest.

• 23:41Speaker 01

  And they push you, they move you beyond just superficial things. So for instance, I got into a, I got into an Uber in LA about a week ago. My Uber driver was Iranian. And because I do this, that is, I've taken this on as a habit, I take an interest in other people. I know people are interesting, and that everybody's got an interesting story to tell you. I started by asking him, can you tell me how you feel about the war right now? And it was clear when I asked him that question, I wasn't just asking for some superficial thing. I was really wanting to know how he felt about this, something, something meaningful.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  And he proceeded to tell me a story about his life going back a very long way, describing how his son was, was killed, actually, in a protest in Iran. He was arrested and sent to jail for six years, when he went back to find his son's, to get his son's body, how he came to the US as an asylum seeker, then was eventually granted asylum on the day that his wife passed away. And this really amazing, amazing story I heard from this man, that had both of us in tears and a big hug in 23 minutes, because I'd taken an interest in him.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  And going into conversation with that mindset means that you, I think, just approach these conversations differently in ways that, that make them turn out better. And I do think that we have the capability to this. We can all become better conversationalists. But when we asked people in one experiment to write down some questions that they would normally talk to somebody about in conversation, and then set those aside and come up with additional questions that they could ask somebody that go deeper than they might normally talk about, they came up with really good questions. I think this is something that most of us have some capacity and power to do if we choose to try.

• 25:46Mike Carruthers?

  I sense from your story about your Uber driver from Iran, that this, all this research you're doing has affected your life.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  It has changed the way I live my own life. I see opportunities to enrich my life and make it better in small moments that I otherwise would have overlooked. I see opportunities to create acquaintances out of strangers that I otherwise would have passed by. It's also changed even big decisions I've made in my life about connecting with other people. Once you realize how pessimistic beliefs are keeping you from engaging with other people in ways that would add a little bit more enrichment into your life, make it a little more rewarding, you see these bars that you're kind of, that are holding you back from connecting to other people as being almost weak, like pasta noodles.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  It, it just changes how you live your life. It's empowering to, to see those mistakes and to know that you can, you can change your life if you'd like to.

• 26:48Mike Carruthers?

  Well, you make a very compelling case. I mean, the upside is great, and there's really no downside to reaching out more and talking to people and seeing what can happen. I've been speaking with Nicholas Epley. He's professor of behavior science and director of the Center for Decision Research at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. And the name of his book is A Little More Social: How Small Choices Create Unexpected Happiness, Health, and Connection. There's a link to that book in the show notes. Nicholas, great, thank you for sharing this.

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Thank you, Mike.

• 27:24Speaker 03

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• 27:53Speaker 04

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• 28:18Speaker 04

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• 28:28Mike Carruthers?

  If you watch the news, you often hear the phrase existential threat thrown around, meaning it's something that could literally threaten our existence. And there certainly seem to be no shortage of candidates. Nuclear war, climate change, asteroids, artificial intelligence, deadly viruses. Take your pick. At times, it can sound as if the end of the world is just around the corner. And yet, here we are. So how worried should we really be? Which threats could actually wipe us out? Which ones are wildly exaggerated? And why are we so fascinated with the possibility that we're doomed?

• 29:12Mike Carruthers?

  Ben Bradford has taken a close look at many of the things people insist could bring about the end of humanity. Ben is a journalist and creator and host of the NPR podcast, Are We Doomed? Hey, Ben, welcome to Something You Should Know.

• 29:26Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 29:28Mike Carruthers?

  So as somebody who examines if the world is coming to an end and all the potential threats that could cause that, what's your general sense? What do you think?

• 29:38Speaker 02

  You're asking me, are we doomed? I would say that I came into doing this show as someone who's more glass half empty. And one of the things that has actually been really fun and surprising for me is the degree of optimism that I've gotten from doing it. And so I wouldn't call myself an optimist, but I would say that by doing this, by looking at these both, you know, big things that really do imperil us and looking at things that, you know, maybe are not as big of a deal. When you start looking at the solutions for the big things and realizing what maybe isn't as big of a deal, it just gives you more optimism.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  It's almost like, you know, when you're a writer and you start it by staring at a blank page and you're like, well, I don't know how to even get started on this thing. But then, as you write, you start to figure out how to, you know, what the solutions are. You start to see where the story is going. And I think the same thing is true when you take something like, let's say, nuclear war. And you are like, well, what can we possibly do about this just enormous, terrible threat? And it is an enormous, terrible threat that seems unsolvable. But there are people who think about how to solve it and what that looks like and how to lower danger. And once you get into that, I don't know, for me at least, it just feels like, yeah, there's more reason to be optimistic than at least I expected.

• 30:59Mike Carruthers?

  So let's start with nuclear war, because that's been something that's been hanging over our head for decades now. Could we end up in a nuclear war that wipes us all out? Should we be worried about that or not?

• 31:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I mean, nuclear war is one of the biggest existential risks to humanity. There are really four things when you talk to experts. There are experts that, you know, track what's called existential risks or global catastrophic risks. These are sort of the academic terms for doom. And nuclear war is our oldest one. Obviously, it's very real. The destructive power of these weapons is hard to overstate if they were to be fired. Even, you know, there's some really terrifying stuff, like even a regional war between, let's say, Pakistan and India, that someone might think, well, it doesn't affect us over here in the US.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  The amount of ash kicked up from those weapons firing would create a nuclear winter that there are at least estimates would cause starvation in, you know, large parts of the world. So it is really, really scary. I think that there's another reason for hope there, though. One of the things that's really interesting is to look back at times people thought they were doomed in the past. And of course, going back to the 1950s, 1960s, you can see the predictions that nuclear war is going to happen. And then you can look at, you know, why it didn't happen. You can see predictions that there would be, oh, by, you know, by 2000, there was going to be 50 armed nuclear states. And that hasn't happened.

• 32:37Speaker 02

  And it's not like it hasn't happened because people didn't go that direction. It didn't happen because there was a lot of work. There was a lot of diplomacy. There was a lot of efforts to make that not happen. We haven't had loose nukes where, you know, a terrorist gets a nuclear weapon. And so there was a lot of work to make that happen. But it suggests that there are ways to prevent these things and that our predictions can be wrong if we make them wrong.

• 33:02Mike Carruthers?

  And so my sense is that the reason that nuclear war has never happened and hopefully won't is because it's kind of the peace through strength idea. If somebody launches a nuke at us, well, we'll launch a nuke at them and then everybody gets blown up. So what's the point of that? So we're kind of holding each other, or everyone's holding everyone at bay.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  This is the concept of mutually assured destruction that certainly like I grew up with, being like, oh, yeah, this is the way it works. That is just how it is. It's really interesting for me to come out of this as a reporter who is not necessarily all that versed in these threats and then to get to ask experts, right? I mean, that's the joy of being a reporter, get to ask experts, well, what do you think? How does this work? And to hear different views of it. And so I have heard people who say, yes, that is the way it is. I've heard people who say, well, no, actually, our nuclear weapons, and this is true, most of our nuclear weapons are pointed at other nuclear weapons. And some people will say, well, that means that we can limit the damage if nuclear weapons are launched. This is kind of the current zeitgeist in the US government right now.

• 34:13Speaker 02

  There's a push to build more nuclear weapons for the first time since the Cold War, because, let's say, you know, China, for instance, and North Korea are building their arsenals. So there's a big movement to build more nuclear weapons to point them at other nuclear weapons. And then you get into this question of, well, okay, can you actually destroy the other nuclear weapons before they fire? Or does that just give people an incentive to fire those nuclear weapons before you launch yours, right? Are you basically just quickening the game of mutually assured destruction, which is sort of what the disarmament people would say? So there's a lot of debate about that particular paradigm. You know, does mutually assured destruction work? It seems like it's worked so far, but I had an expert who, just a great person in our

• 34:58Speaker 02

  very first episode, who told me, it's not that this paradigm works, it's been luck. And that that wasn't coming from her, that was coming from the person who used to run Strategic Command. So, you know, nuclear war is fascinating. It's a knotty problem. But also, we've come close in the past to nuclear incidents, the Cuban Missile Crisis being the most famous, but then there's a lot of other close calls throughout history. And every time, it's been people who have stepped back from the brink, making decisions to say, you know what? We are not going to do this.

• 35:36Mike Carruthers?

  Thank God.

• 35:37Speaker 02

  Right? I agree.

• 35:39Mike Carruthers?

  How many do we know?

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Because it wouldn't be pleasant. You know, we've looked at that. I'll just say, we've looked at that too. Like, what does it actually mean? What is it like? What kind of fallout shelters do we actually have? And none of it, I'm not saying that the post-apocalypse movie is glamorous, but at least it seems like there's some fun to be had in the miserable world. And it doesn't seem great. So I would like to avoid it personally. I don't know about you.

• 36:02Mike Carruthers?

  Do we know how many nukes are out there?

• 36:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, there are estimates. Between the US and Russia right now and the rest of the world, you know, I'd have to go look at the numbers specifically, but I want to say we're around 14,000. That was the number I just heard from the woman who runs the organization that sets the doomsday clock.

• 36:24Mike Carruthers?

  Wow. That's a lot of nukes.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  But it is. It's far less than the 70,000 that used to be out there at the height of the Cold War.

• 36:33Mike Carruthers?

  Well, let's switch gears here. There have been plenty of movies and TV shows, I guess, that have fueled the fear of an asteroid hitting the Earth and killing us all. What about that?

• 36:47Speaker 02

  You know, you asked me if I was an optimist, and asteroids may be the thing that is the coolest one that I've learned about, because they are absolutely destructive, right? I mean, you know, most famously, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. And it did so much more than that. There are estimates that it wiped out three quarters of all the species on Earth. And we have evidence from earlier in history, two billion years ago, of an even bigger asteroid hitting. And, you know, space rocks, I mean, you know, space rocks created the moon and in a way created us. It was two planets colliding into each other that were just both molten at the time in the early solar system.

• 37:31Speaker 02

  And there's a great NASA visualization of what this looks like, these two just like paintballs hitting each other, then their gravity doing weird things, and they spin into the Earth and they spin into the moon. And that's why we have them. So asteroids are incredibly destructive. We didn't even start realizing we had a potential problem until, and this is wild to me, the 1990s. We had just figured out in the 1980s that it was an asteroid that did it for the dinosaurs. And then in the 90s, in the early 1990s, there was a comet that astronomers watched plunge into Jupiter. And they saw the impacts happening. They saw the way that it affected Jupiter's atmosphere.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  And apparently, this was the moment where people realized, oh, in the words of one of our guests in that episode, stuff still hits planets. But the reason that this makes me optimistic and the reason that this is, I think, is a really cool story is because what starts happening then is NASA and other space agencies around the world start working on what's called planetary defense. And so we have a planetary defense office. We have these networks at the UN and, you know, between space agencies and private astronomers who are all spotting asteroids. We just did a test a couple of years ago where we sent a spacecraft to punch an asteroid

• 38:55Speaker 02

  to see if we could deflect it, because this is a better solution than, let's say, Armageddon or Deep Impact or our movie solutions of like drill into the asteroid and nuke it. And we have gotten really good really quickly at asteroids. So they don't hit that often, the big, big, big ones, don't hit that often. We're talking 700,000 years, a million years. And that's, you know, a lot longer than most of us expect to live. But we've gotten really good in 30 years at figuring, starting to figure out where these things are. So the view that I've heard there is... Like, this is the thing, the real existential threat that we very quickly have started to figure out how to handle.

• 39:39Mike Carruthers?

  So what are the biggest concerns right now, do you think?

• 39:43Speaker 02

  So I mentioned that there are kind of four big existential threats that I think really credible places, we're talking, whether it's, you know, Defense Departments, or Cambridge University, or the Rand Corporation, or MIT typically put on the list. There's nuclear war, there's climate change, there is increasingly AI is put on that list, which is interesting. And then, the final one is pandemics. And so, you know, diseases are just the absolute killer of creatures on Earth. Mosquitoes of all the animals are the biggest vector of disease to humans.

• 40:26Speaker 02

  And then, of course, you have, you know, your pathogens that are airborne, or, you know, droplet spread, or other means through which they attack us. They're a big deal. And I think that there's a race between people and disease, and it's been ongoing. You know, our immune systems are really amazing, and they've been bred for billions of years to protect us from pathogens. Of course, we get better and better with vaccines. The mosquito one is really interesting, because the mosquito, you know, you may have heard, there are some thoughts of like, should we take it out? Should we get the mosquito? Should we doom the mosquito?

• 41:10Speaker 02

  And I've looked into that, and there's a technology called a gene drive, and it's basically, you create a gene-edited mosquito, where it's gonna always have, let's, for instance, that mosquito you send out is gonna mate with another mosquito in the wild, and they will always have male offspring. So ultimately, this genetic line keeps creating males until everything in the area is all male, and then they get wiped out. And there's kind of a series of puzzles you have to do to figure out, can you do this? Would it be safe? Would it be a problem for the ecosystem? Would it be its own doom? And it's probably, answering those questions is probably more time than I have with you,

• 41:48Speaker 02

  Mike, but I will say, it is a fascinating, potential solution to not just malaria and other mosquito-borne illnesses, but if you can do that to the mosquito, you could do it to things like invasive insects, or pests that eat crops, instead of having to, let's say, spray those crops with... So, it's a really interesting fraught technology, that I think has a lot of promise and a lot of fear attached to it.

• 42:17Mike Carruthers?

  What about a threat to humanity that maybe I haven't heard of, or that most of us haven't heard of?

• 42:23Speaker 02

  There is a, what is called a supervolcano, underneath Yellowstone National Park. It is a volcano that stretches beyond the boundaries of Yellowstone. It is the reason that we have the geysers and the hot springs. There are rumors that circle that Yellowstone's supervolcano is going to explode. And a thing that is true, is that the Yellowstone supervolcano exploded on a cycle of 600,000 years. You know, 600,000 years, and 600,000 years later, et cetera, et cetera. And the last time was, guess what? 600,000 years ago. So, we did an episode, again, one of our early ones, that was about supervolcanoes. Is Yellowstone gonna explode? And I kind of didn't know, I was like, you know, is this rumor, or is this true, or what's the deal?

• 43:08Speaker 02

  And, it is not gonna explode. It is real. There are supervolcanoes around the world, and, again, in this sort of time span of geologic time, the history of the Earth, they go off in, you know, fairly regularly, but we're talking, again, you know, millions of years, or hundreds of thousands of years. And so, there's evidence that they can be incredibly destructive, that other than asteroids, volcanic activity has probably been the most destructive thing to life on Earth over time. All which seems concerning, until you figure out, and one of my all-time favorite guests is who we talked to in that episode, among other people, is the scientist in charge

• 43:52Speaker 02

  of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, who works for the government, he's USGS, the US Geological Survey, and he's there because it's geologically interesting, hence you have all the hot springs, you have all the geysers, of course we'd want to study it, it's right there. But, of course, he's spending so much time batting down rumors that it's going to explode, he's kind of got his head in his hands, just like, this is not gonna happen. And you ask, but why? How can you be sure of that? And what we find out is, kind of like, the biggest space rocks are also the easiest to see, the biggest volcanoes take probably quite a long time to load, right? The magma chamber, which is mostly solid, it's hot, but solid, the rock needs to melt, you need a lot of heat to melt the rock, it takes time.

• 44:35Speaker 02

  And so, it could be that if Yellowstone were going to explode, we would have up to, I don't know, 1,000 years of notice? And, again, Mike, I don't know if it's the optimist in me, but I feel like if we had 1,000 years to address a giant volcano before it exploded, we might be able to figure something out.

• 44:55Mike Carruthers?

  Talk about the fear of technology and robots to destroy us all.

• 45:00Speaker 02

  The history of fears of technologies to destroy us all, particularly robots to destroy us all, goes back a really, really long time, goes back to even the late 1800s, this idea of mechanical men. Some were human-sized, sometimes they were giant, and they were either gonna save us or destroy us. You know, they were gonna save people from all labor, or they were gonna be the thing that takes us out. And that was true in the late 1800s, it was true in the 1930s, it was true in the 1920s. And we have an episode that looks at past dooms that didn't come true, that traces that, and some other ones.

• 45:41Speaker 02

  Because, there is a long history of humans thinking the end was coming, and it keeps not coming. And I don't think that that's because it can't.

• 45:50Mike Carruthers?

  I know you did an episode about the ozone layer, and that is an example of what was really thought to be a very serious threat, that we actually solved, right? I mean, it's not a threat anymore.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  Well, it's still there, it's getting better, but it's on pace to be solved. And it's sort of an incredible story of, you know, humanity coming together, and different aspects of the world working together, whether it was, and it was messy, it was hard, there was a lot of false starts, not like it was just kumbaya. But it was an example that's really interesting to look back on, about not just how do we handle environmental threats, but how do we handle threats in general?

• 46:34Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I like that you started our conversation by saying you're an optimist when it comes to human annihilation and destruction of the planet. As someone who's looked into the potential threats, and comes away with a sense of optimism, I think that's really good news. Ben Bradford's been my guest, he is the creator and host of the NPR podcast, Are We Doomed? And there's a link to that podcast in the show notes. Ben, thank you for explaining the things that could potentially wipe us out, and reasons why hopefully that won't happen.

• 47:08Speaker 02

  Mike, thank you so much.

• 47:13Mike Carruthers?

  When you fill up the gas tank in your car, how does the pump know to shut itself off when the tank is full? Well, the secret is a tiny little hole near the very tip of the gas nozzle that you've probably never noticed. While you're pumping, air is continuously being sucked through that hole, and then through a small tube inside the nozzle. When gasoline rises high enough to cover the hole, the airflow stops. That changes the pressure inside the nozzle, and triggers a mechanical valve that shuts off the pump. It uses a principle known as the Venturi effect. It requires no electricity to detect that your tank is full.

• 47:57Mike Carruthers?

  It's a very simple, reliable technology that's been around for decades, and nothing better has yet come along to replace it. And that is something you should know. Well, since you listen to this podcast, I bet you know other people who, like you, would enjoy it as well. I invite you to share this podcast with them, tell them about it, use the share function, the share button on the player you're using, and just send it to them, and let them give a listen. I'm Mike Carruthers, thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 48:31Speaker 03

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  The Hulu original series, The Kardashians, is back.

• 49:04Speaker 06

  Season eight, isn't it great?

• 49:06Speaker 05

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• 49:13Speaker 06

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• 49:23Speaker 04

  Oh my god. All episodes of season eight are now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+ for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.