StarTalk Live! at the Apollo (Part 2)

StarTalk’s night at the historic theater in Harlem concludes with some surprises, including a song by Neil Tyson’s nephew, the rapper, Tyson. With Eugene Mirman, Senator Cory Booker, Dr. Ainissa Ramirez, Phoebe Robinson and Maeve Higgins.

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

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 0:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Live from the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, this is StarTalk.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent. I've got Mae Higgins, she's from Ireland, a professional stand-up comedian. We've got Anissa Ramirez, who's an expert on mechanical engineering and education in STEM. And of course Senator Cory Booker from New Jersey. Excellent.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I just met you, so Phoebe, another stand-up comedian, and Eugene Mirman, who's one of the great organizers of all these, you've got it.

• 1:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Cory, a recent Kickstarter campaign was conducted by the Planetary Society, who are a friend of StarTalk, Bill Nye is the CEO of that. And they Kickstartered to fund a light sale campaign, which is a spacecraft that is driven by the pressure of the light from the sun.

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Think about the disintermediation of powerful...

• 1:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did you choose "disintermediation"? Did that word just come out of your mouth?

• 1:35Speaker 01

  It did. How many syllables? I thought I could drop those words.

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Dis?

• 1:40Speaker 01

  If I can't drop words like that on a science show...

• 1:42Speaker 02

  Wrap it up, Stanford.

• 1:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Disintermediate me, go.

• 1:48Speaker 01

  This audience, all of us, if we used to want to get money for a business or for an idea, we had to go supplicate ourselves before banks. Supplique? Another one?

• 1:57Speaker 02

  How did you get elected?

• 2:04Speaker 02

  I promised to supplicate everyone!

• 2:12Speaker 01

  Let me break this down.

• 2:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  Kickstarter, there's so many platforms now for you to go straight to the people with your idea and get resources. Information, you used to have to go up to ivory towers to get the best access to the best professors. Now, now you can go right to the internet and get some of the best lectures. Information gets you your degrees. Even they're just intermediating access to work as well. You used to have to go to a big corporation to get a job. Well, now, there are people being able to make money on with Uber or Airbnb. There's so many different ways to go directly to people to get your power. And so what excites me to this is that we used to have an oligarchy of people that were making decisions about what was important, what had value, what had worth.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  And now, it doesn't matter what your background is, what your race, what your sexual orientation is. If you have a great idea, if you have something that you want to bring before the people, that's a much more democratic way of getting it. We started with Kiva in Newark, for example, because the biggest complaint I got from entrepreneurs is it was so hard for them to get money for their ideas, banks weren't loaning. And so Kiva is an online nonprofit platform where people like you and I can give money to good ideas and businesses. We sort of select what we want to donate to. And so, this is a technology revolution that in many ways makes me in Congress get upset that when things like broadband access, which were behind other nations in getting people that which is becoming a lifeline. It's one of the ways that-

• 3:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Again, places that don't have copper wiring.

• 3:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 3:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They just have the straight internet access on the phone.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, and so, and so these are the issues that in the senate that are really important to me. Technology is critical and I'm fighting battles to not let America fall behind and, you know, think of something simple as drones. And I know that sounds like really bad to people, but other countries, because they're not dealing with government regulations like we are, they're using drones now to fix polls, to do mine surveys, cutting costs, moving ahead in innovation. While we, our FAA, is so slow on promulgating regulations for safety that the innovations are going on in other countries. And there's lots of examples of this where-

• 4:24Speaker 03

  A friend of mine in Ireland just got engaged to a drone.

• 4:28Speaker 03

  They're so happy. Very quiet, very helpful guy.

• 4:33Eugene Mirman?

  Wait, how can drones can fix stuff in other countries?

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Drones are very powerful uses of technology. Think about this.

• 4:41Eugene Mirman?

  Do they have little drone hands or something like it?

• 4:43Speaker 01

  There are facsimiles of hands, I'm sure. There are types of levers or whatever. I'm not a drone specialist, but yes.

• 4:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, when I think of drones, I was looking at a real estate section, you know, I mean, online recently. And now there are like views of homes where if it were a helicopter doing it, it would like kick up all the vegetation. And it's just a silent view over around the property. And I say, what's doing that? It must be a drone. So there are all these uses for drones that I don't think we fully understand or embrace yet.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  Well, that's the beauty of a guy like Biz Stone. He creates a platform called Twitter without even an understanding that by elevating this platform, the innovation, the creativity are going to apply that platform in ways that they never even imagined.

• 5:32Speaker 05

  But don't you think we should think about these things a little bit more? I mean, when we created the telegraph a long, long time ago, I'm going back in time.

• 5:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man.

• 5:40Eugene Mirman?

  Telegraph shaving used to be one of the worst things.

• 5:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a we. I guess when you're an engineer, these are your peeps from...

• 5:47Speaker 05

  That's right, sorry.

• 5:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Engineer peeps, they go across generations.

• 5:51Speaker 05

  Any engineers out there? When we created the telegraph, sentences...

• 5:54Speaker 03

  But there was one clap from up there.

• 5:58Speaker 05

  I'm talking to you.

• 5:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The engineer in the house.

• 6:00Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Very sometimes.

• 6:02Speaker 05

  When we created the telegraph, sentences got shorter. We used to have these long sentences like, you know, you see in the Victorian age. But when we created the telegraph, because it was...

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You mean written sentences, not legal time served in prison sentences?

• 6:15Speaker 05

  No, no, no. I don't know anything about that. Sending a telegraph is like $1,300. And so we got used to having short sentences. And that's the reason why languages got shorter. And so now we're in the age of Twitter and everybody's using LOL, OMG. The comma is, you know, death. I mean, it's gonna go away. So shouldn't we really think about these, how technology also impacts these things?

• 6:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You sound like an old fogey.

• 6:40Speaker 05

  I do, I know.

• 6:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Back in my day, we had commas.

• 6:45Speaker 05

  We had commas.

• 6:48Speaker 05

  Oxford comma.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  I think I. Hey, Oxford comma, that's what I say.

• 6:53Eugene Mirman?

  Wait. I have a question.

• 6:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, I have to say, there is a Twitter handle called Celebrity Oxford comma.

• 7:04Speaker 05

  Alright, I need to find it.

• 7:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And if you're a celebrity, you are supposed to tweet to that handle whether you agree with the Oxford comma or not. Okay?

• 7:14Speaker 05

  Who agrees with it?

• 7:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It doesn't follow anyone. It's just collecting data.

• 7:17Speaker 05

  Yeah. Who follows Oxford comma?

• 7:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've posted, I had to vote it, I had to say.

• 7:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, are you an Oxford comma?

• 7:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you a comma or no comma? Oh, so I'm an Oxford comma guy. You are? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

• 7:29Speaker 05

  But if you have a choice, you have 140 characters. How committed are you to the Oxford comma?

• 7:36Speaker 05

  That's my question.

• 7:37Eugene Mirman?

  Wait.

• 7:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got the answer. Hold, hold. I tweet to 125.

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of all my tweets, the 125 characters. No, they're not. Yes, they are. Are you serious? I'm serious. And not only that, I do not say LOL. And I don't use the letter U when I mean Y-O-U. I spell that sucker out.

• 7:54Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 7:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 7:56Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 7:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You go, check, you go. So, to me, here it is. I feel like Michelangelo when I have this many words and it has to become a tweet. Because what I do is, I carve away that which is not the tweet that I want to post. So if you. And what remains is the essence of the thought that might have taken long, taken more space to communicate. But in fact, all that really matters at the end of the day is its essence.

• 8:28Speaker 05

  That's what emojis are for.

• 8:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not only that, there's some tweets, I carve them out so much, they almost, they read like haiku. And, and, and if I gave you haiku, you'd say, "That's too short, make it longer." And that's, that's not what haiku is about.

• 8:45Speaker 05

  No.

• 8:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's about the essence.

• 8:46Speaker 05

  It's a beautiful thing.

• 8:47Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But let me get, I'm off topic here. Wait, so let me get, I'll find you again. So, I, there's a little, I gotta go back to ISIS for one split second.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Please.

• 8:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You, yes, they're using social media, but if others use social media, that doesn't mean you're gonna sort of win. You have to be better at it than they are.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yes, you have to compete in the marketplace of ideas against evil. You know, as Martin Luther King said, darkness can't cast out darkness, only light can do that. You have to compete with the darkness with light. And, and I don't think, when it comes to our countries sort of pulling, and I'm not just talking to the government, I'm talking about others, should be talking against this, this hate that's out there.

• 9:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, but, yeah, because you have, you, you're famous, you know you're famous for this, how you deal with trolls.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, how, how do you deal, now, I know you could just kick their ass if you wanted to, because you used to play football, but you were, but that's not what you do. You're like a kind gentleman.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  Yes, operative words are used to a long time ago. The older I get, the better I was.

• 9:48Speaker 03

  But I'd love to hear about trolls, and I'm sure Phoebe, like, being a comedian, being a woman, we get trolls, right?

• 9:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You get trolls in your audience.

• 9:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, we get hecklers and...

• 9:57Speaker 03

  And on, and on social media, when they're anonymous, it's much worse.

• 10:01Speaker 01

  So, the question is, is I believe that if every action is equal opposite reaction, right, so if you punch, there's gonna be a reaction to that, so why not just diffuse the whole situation and, and express love? So if somebody says to me on Twitter something really offensive or whatever, my response to them will always be, will always be trying to just extend kindness to them, no matter what.

• 10:22Speaker 06

  But it's always better to say, "Oh, you have a small [BLEEP]" and then they just totally, they stop. Never hear from them again.

• 10:29Speaker 02

  That's it, that's it.

• 10:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I just wanted for the audience to translate again, we are still talking about Dick Cheney.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  You have a tiny Dick Cheney.

• 10:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, a tiny Dick Cheney.

• 10:38Speaker 02

  Like in Total Recall, like Quato, but Dick Cheney.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  That's the kind of nerd illusion I love. So my point is, is that we have every day, the most powerful thing you have, I think, is your ability to choose. You can either accept conditions as they are, or you can take responsibility for changing them. If you think there's too much hate in the world, you can either just accept that and continue to motivate hate, or you can be a force against that with an unyielding, undetermined love. Because we all here, as Americans, are the ancestors of folks who loved those who cursed them, who were able to endure insults and still push forward with their positive vision and spirit for this world.

• 11:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's very Martin Luther King of you.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  I just think that, I think that when we give in to our baser instincts, you know, my father, God rest his soul, who used to say to me, there's two ways to go through life, either a thermostat or a thermometer. You can just reflect the world around you, if it's hot, you go up or down, or you can be someone who tries to set the temperature. And so my point is, is that why don't...

• 11:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's deep. That's deep, yeah. That is legitimately great. Oh my gosh.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  And so my thing is, why not be a force in the world that tries to elevate things, try to be warmth when it gets cold? And so that's what we have on social media, because we talked about this...

• 12:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because you're disarming the trolls at that point.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, and look, I think that the...

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He loves me, I can't...

• 12:10Speaker 01

  No. Sometimes I get apologies, sometimes I get more hate, but it doesn't matter, because my karma has nothing to do about with what you do to me, it's how I choose to respond. I tell my truth in how I react to that stimulus. And we talked about this earlier, that that's the difference between humanity, the divine, I think divine difference, is that for a plant, if you do something to it, it's going to respond in a way, it doesn't have a choice. But human beings, there's a power between stimulus and response, and that is choice. And we can choose to manifest our highest self, or we could choose to simply reflect that which is done to us. And to me, the people I respect from history, is that they did not, they realized that

• 12:54Speaker 01

  they were born an original, they were born unique, they were not born to be dull carbon copies of the world around them, they were born not to fit in...

• 13:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A carbon copy is a... Yeah, really. It's from paper, right? It's an early version of a photocopy.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 13:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell us about miniographs.

• 13:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And for those millennials...

• 13:16Speaker 01

  And just a fax, please.

• 13:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And those millennials, the CC in the email line, that stands for carbon copy.

• 13:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah. So, let me just find out, from the comedian... So, just get back to your trolls. Sure, on the internet, but you could be in front of an audience, and there's somebody who's a verbal troll. And, you know, the best of you guys... I wish there was a word for it.

• 13:36Speaker 03

  It's like a heckler?

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Heck, yeah, heckler. That's the word.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  But it's interesting.

• 13:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A heckler, I guess.

• 13:44Speaker 03

  I think it's true, like what Corey was saying. It's like, what are you put out there? Because more aggressive comedians, like Eugene, know.

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. A lion on the web.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  Fearsome, fearsome teddy bear.

• 13:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 03

  It's like, the more aggressive comics do get a lot of shouting and aggression back, but like, I don't, I don't really get a lot live. I remember like, one old lady was like, "We didn't have hula hoops then." Anyway, it was like a total nonsense.

• 14:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so that's the worst heckler you've ever had?

• 14:13Speaker 03

  That's pretty good.

• 14:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  An old lady saying, "We didn't have hula hoops."

• 14:18Speaker 03

  I know, it was crazy, because I didn't want to slam her. I didn't, so...

• 14:23Speaker 03

  Eventually, she just fell asleep, so it was totally fine.

• 14:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Corey, we're gonna wrap up this segment.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm afraid that you're slamming elderly women out there for just professing a love of real hula hoop authenticity.

• 14:39Speaker 03

  I know, I know, they're the worst.

• 14:44Speaker 03

  They're the real problem.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  All right.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, Corey, we'll close down this segment. Is there some bit of politics that you think the nation needs to know? That you think your social media access will help move the needle on?

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I, I don't...

• 15:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But I mean, I don't mean political view. I mean, something about our system, and how it works, and why it should work. And is there something that we're missing that you have the power to change? That you can help out?

• 15:10Speaker 01

  Well, we have the power to change. We used to be a nation that used to be number one in all categories of innovation. And if you think about everything from degrees in engineering, percentage of our population graduating from college, research and development, we used to be the number one country in percentage of GDP in R and D, now we've fallen down to number 10. 10? We've fallen down to number 10. We've fallen out of the top 10 as in 2011 data.

• 15:34Eugene Mirman?

  Who was, who are the, who are, who's ahead of us?

• 15:37Speaker 01

  I mean, every country's ranging.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Italy is beating us.

• 15:39Eugene Mirman?

  Who is?

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Italy.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Not.

• 15:41Eugene Mirman?

  Italy? Italy?

• 15:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, I was just there. We had wine and that was it.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  But my point is the World Economic Forum, OECD, these are international organizations that look at data for innovation and competitiveness. And we came in, we inherited a country, a country that was number one in the globe, dominating even things that are innovation and competitiveness, like the quality of our infrastructure. And that's everything from.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Like the subway.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Aviation infrastructure. But the sad thing is now we're leading the globe in things that we don't want to be leading the globe in. From, from childhood obesity, we're leading the globe. From infant mortality, we've fallen dramatically. We're one of the country that's not doing as well in infant mortality as we should.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  We got to get fatter kids.

• 16:24Eugene Mirman?

  No, we have the fattest children. What we need is more scientists, fat little scientists.

• 16:31Speaker 01

  And so the, the political message is simply this, and this goes back to the power of social media, the power of engagement, is that those 10, those powerful 10 two-letter words. Whenever you talk about something in the world, you need to turn yourself into a, look in the mirror and remember those 10 powerful two-letter words. If it is to be, it is up to me. So nothing in the world changes unless we do and we're a product of that change. And so we all have the power, whether it's our, our little phones, which have, if we have 100 friends on, following us on social media, we have power to create change. Because as you know, this idea of virality, if you talk to 100 friends and 72 of them

• 17:12Speaker 01

  decide to retweet what you did and 25 of them, it goes on, it can go on and on and on and ripple into a movement. And right now, America needs a movement. Like said, Hugh said, and I'll stop with this. He said, you know, America never was America to me, but I swear this oath, America will be. We need to swear an oath that we will be agents of our democracy. We'll be true patriots, not the shallow patriotism of flag pins and the other symbols of patriotism, but the substance of patriotism.

• 17:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Lori Booker on the case, there.

• 17:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk Live.

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I introduce to you my brother's son, that makes him my nephew, Steven Tyson Jr. Steven, come on out.

• 18:03Speaker 02

  How you doing, man?

• 18:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, I'm doing this because I like what he's doing with his life right now, and I'm sure the senator would... I know it sounds like what you were doing before, I didn't like, no, but it was cool. So, you're in school at Arcadia University?

• 18:21Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 18:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Getting a PhD?

• 18:23Speaker 07

  Yeah, EDD, in educational leadership.

• 18:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In educational leadership, focusing on, with what tools?

• 18:28Speaker 07

  Using hip-hop as a medium of uplifting youth, and also bringing awareness of science, tech, social justice, whatever the case may be, just using hip-hop to uplift youth.

• 18:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, very cool.

• 18:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, this is kind of in the spirit of StarTalk, because what we do is, we look for things that are emergent in pop culture, and then we bring them into our forum, and then plug, for us at least, we're plugging science into what is already pop culture. Hip-hop is clearly out there, it is mainstream, it used to be fringe, it's mainstream now.

• 19:01Speaker 07

  Started by the Zulu Nation, 1973, proud member.

• 19:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, and so...

• 19:09Speaker 07

  And one other out there, I guess, too.

• 19:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, so, so you're, so you're using hip-hop, realizing its potency in our culture and in society, and try to do some good with it.

• 19:21Speaker 07

  Absolutely.

• 19:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that's awesome. He has composed a rap song, inspired by StarTalk, and so...

• 19:28Speaker 07

  A rap song.

• 19:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, this is the Apollo Theater. As they, I never thought I'd ever say this, this is great. Put your hands together for Steven Tyson Jr. premiering his StarTalk rap. Alright.

• 19:57Speaker 07

  What's going on Apollo?

• 20:02Speaker 07

  We need everybody to put their hands together real quick. For science, for hip-hop, for StarTalk. This is Harlem, New York. The Apollo Theater. Black excellence.

• 20:16Speaker 07

  Let me break it down for you real quick.

• 20:19Speaker 07

  We're on planet Earth, living in this universe. It's all we're gonna know, from the cradle to the hearse. I'm here to educate, from me to all the Earth. Spitting scientific knowledge up in each and every verse. Start talking through a space-time odyssey. Leading you to question what is truth and what is fallacy. You are a part of me, and I'm a part of you. 'Cause we're all made up of star stuff. What you wanna do? Come together in a universal unity. Take us to a place where we can be free to be you and me. Intergalactic. That is the tactic, changing up the game like a number-one traffic. Make you think different than you've ever thought. It's so enticing, we're looking sized through a work of art. We bring a balance, even in the plane. If you think no, then you better remember the name. Keep it going, y'all. Hands up.

• 21:00Speaker 07

  My name is Tyson, representing Just Listen Entertainment. Universal Zulu Nation. And give it up to all our panelists real quick, so...

• 21:11Speaker 07

  Yeah, but most importantly, it's T-Y-S-O-N. Tyson, Neil deGrasse, and Stephen Joseph for the right ones. To educate and entertain me at the same time. He does it through TV, I do it through rhyme. Our minds shine bright like illumination. To help improve the situation, playing in all our nations. We need to be more scientifically literate. If we're gonna innovate, to recreate and flip the script. One of a kind, but supplied by a trillion. So what we can know, we surpass by our children. Science, tech, engineering, mathematics. We'll help to bridge the gaps and teach people new tactics. It shouldn't shake your faith if there's a creator. Or if you think there's nothing, I don't care, I'm no debating. Everything depends on how you choose to live your life. If you're trying to help another, or you're trying to add strife. Then prove your life, get your act together, damn it. We gotta help the planet, control it, you gotta claim it. Don't understand, boy, your hand, raise a fist.

• 21:55Speaker 07

  It's little blue rockets that we got, catch my drift? Think critically, the Big Bang history. Evolution of body and mind is still a mystery. So how's he supposed to put together all the facts? It's up to none of us, just kick back and relax.

• 22:08Speaker 07

  My name is Tyson once again. I appreciate y'all having me. My Apollo debut. Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 22:19Speaker 07

  Thank y'all. Enjoy the rest of the show. Peace.

• 22:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With that going on, I'm not even necessary.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Alright.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  He's related to you.

• 22:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

• 22:38Speaker 01

  Were you a hip-hop fan when you were young?

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I was around when... I was around...

• 22:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How come I'm the oldest one? You're talking about Martin Luther like he was your friend.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  Were you using like gramaphones as decks?

• 23:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, um... So no, so I, um... What was I talking about? So, uh, may though you be from Ireland, what hope do you see for...

• 23:11Speaker 01

  First of all, I just want to applaud Ireland for...

• 23:15Speaker 03

  Yay!

• 23:19Speaker 01

  For letting love win. Love won in Ireland. God bless that.

• 23:23Speaker 03

  Very happy, yeah. Very happy.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  God bless Ireland.

• 23:25Speaker 03

  Well...

• 23:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, and what's the kind of visa you're here on?

• 23:29Speaker 03

  Oh, it's the, um, it's the "I have to find a husband really quickly" visa.

• 23:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, and that's a special provision in the... Right, right.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  It's an alien of extraordinary ability, so it's, um, somebody who...

• 23:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alien with extraordinary ability?

• 23:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's your special power?

• 23:46Speaker 03

  It's not... I can't... It can't show you now. It's illegal. It's a sex thing. It's a...

• 23:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that would tell me that if we were visited by actual space aliens, the fact that they got here in a spaceship says immediately that they have extraordinary abilities, and that we would make them citizens immediately.

• 24:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally. And they'd be like, "Hey, Mase." And I'd be like, "This is Neil."

• 24:13Speaker 03

  He's gonna... No, I'm gonna...

• 24:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what hope do you have for America?

• 24:17Speaker 03

  Well, you know what? Like, I was so happy that Ireland passed the Equal Marriage bill, and it was like a referendum by the people, and that was so great. But I have to say, like, living here in New York City, and I know New York is different to America, as a... You know, like, it's not... But anyway. I feel like it's such a diverse and cool place and I'm so thrilled to be part of it. And I think like you've got a lot to teach the world and I know America isn't like the leader in the way it was before, but it totally can be again, you know, it totally can be again. So, and I'm psychic, I know you believe in that. I'm a psychic witch and I've got a lot of hope. I've got a lot of hope and that's why I live here.

• 25:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And most of what people claim as their psychic powers is nothing more than their acute sense of observation of what goes on around them.

• 25:12Speaker 03

  Totally, and I'm keeping my peepers open and I love it and I live here in Harlem and I love it.

• 25:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, excellent. Excellent, so what hope do you have for America?

• 25:20Speaker 05

  I'm actually very hopeful, I know I've been Debbie Downer, but I love the fact that technology, if you have an idea, you can do it. You don't have to wait to get a PhD or whatever. I mean, if you have an idea, you can actually be actualized by a lot of the technology. If you're a kid and you're like, "Hey, I want to make a song," you don't have to go to a studio, you can just garage band or whatever. So I just, I like that these tools are available and we can be far more creative if we're not too distracted.

• 25:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Distracted by what?

• 25:48Speaker 05

  Kardashians.

• 25:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Kardashians.

• 25:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so I'm a fan of free enterprise and free flow of pop culture, so for me, it's not, "Well, let's get rid of the reality TV and the Kardashians," it's, "Let's put other TV on that is more compelling than whatever they're doing." But that should be the challenge to producers.

• 26:16Speaker 05

  I think the Kardashians should talk about global warming, then we wouldn't have to worry about this.

• 26:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe we could get Kim Kardashian on StarTalk.

• 26:23Speaker 05

  I mean, if you could do that, boom.

• 26:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go, I'm working on it. So Eugene, what's your hope for... Can I just say a Kardashian point, because I can't let that go? Okay, go.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  So, you know, a lot of life is about perception and you know that, that's a very, I hope, a very scientific perspective. You can have two people with very different views of the world based upon their perspectives of an event. And there's something about the Kardashians which I used to, sometimes throw jokes at as well, but this last month or two with Bruce Jenner.

• 26:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  I think that was one of the great moments of education for our country. Lessons in love and acceptance and an exposure and an understanding of the diversity of humanity. And so I've been celebrating in many ways what Bruce Jenner's experiences as well as the Kardashians have done to elevate.

• 27:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the platform, that was a huge platform.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Huge platform.

• 27:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  For, if you didn't remember, if you missed that news cycle, Bruce Jenner, of course, was the Olympic world record setting decathlete from, I think, 1976 in Los Angeles. Was that LA?

• 27:28Speaker 01

  LA, yeah.

• 27:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. And he would later reveal that inside he felt that he was a woman. And via marriage, he was connected to the Kardashian family, if I get my pop culture accurate. And so that, access to him in various images throughout this reality program revealed what he had become. And then he just fully outed the whole story recently, just, you know, just this year.

• 27:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a remarkable courage. And I think it really did help to elevate conversation, understanding and love in our country.

• 28:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So Eugene, what do you have for us? You're born in Russia?

• 28:09Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah.

• 28:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Confess that to this audience.

• 28:12Eugene Mirman?

  I stole this job from you. Sorry, but not really. Yeah, it's funny because I do, I guess, have a, well, sort of a very great appreciation because there's no way I could do this in Russia. So I do very much, like you were talking about the patriotism of not a pin but a real, and it's true that I like...

• 28:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The patriotism of what?

• 28:34Eugene Mirman?

  Of not wearing a pin but a real patriotism.

• 28:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, not, yeah.

• 28:37Eugene Mirman?

  Kind of love and a real appreciation.

• 28:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't make it about the pin, make it about the ideas and your actions.

• 28:40Eugene Mirman?

  Yeah. So I think, I mean, so I always kind of see the idea that if you actually focus and persevere, you can do well. And I think that... You know, in terms of what you were saying where the idea of being effective, the idea of data-driven stuff, I think that you see a lot of just conflict and bickering in politics and stuff sort of staggering, but I feel like actually quite hopeful hearing you speak about data-driven solutions and really focusing and picking a problem and really moving forward.

• 29:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 29:16Eugene Mirman?

  So I find that actually quite inspiring. Yeah, so I think that it will hopefully be all right. Certainly prices here are a little much, but I think it'll be fine otherwise in America.

• 29:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what do you have for us?

• 29:33Speaker 06

  What I hope for America is that we're all gonna come together as people and force Instagram to make a filter that interracial couples can use. Because my boyfriend is white and when I use a filter, either he looks great and you just see teeth on me, or I look amazing and I'm standing next to powder. So what do we need us to figure this the fuck out? Please.

• 30:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then all will be well with America.

• 30:08Eugene Mirman?

  You just need funding. You have the product.

• 30:15Speaker 06

  Will you back my Kickstarter for this, Corey?

• 30:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you need a special optical filter that understands this distinction?

• 30:22Speaker 06

  Yes. That's powerful. That's powerful stuff.

• 30:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm gonna offer my reflections, but I know Corey's gonna have some deep thing to say. We're gonna end with whatever comes out of his mouth after I say what I'm gonna say. You know, I'm born in this country.

• 30:38Eugene Mirman?

  Braggart.

• 30:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's that?

• 30:40Eugene Mirman?

  Braggart.

• 30:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, I'm an American, I'm a scientist, I'm an educator, and in these different hats... When I see scientific discovery across the ocean and happen in other countries, as a scientist, I say, "Fine, at least somebody's doing it." When the Higgs boson was discovered, no relation to May Higgins here. When I was discovered and Nobel prizes were handed out, my scientist hat said, "Great, somebody's doing it." Then my American hat said, "We could have made that discovery with the superconducting supercollider, which was being built in Texas in the 1980s. The budget was canceled by Congress before your day."

• 31:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then the Center of Mass or Particle Physics went elsewhere. And we lost that leadership. And that was, I think, emblematic of many other places where the edge of discovery, and whatever that is, that gets you to want to do that, was, I saw it fade. And I think it can be, I think it can return. Maybe we have to sink lower before we, all of our pistons realign. I'm deeply concerned about conflict in Congress, because that's when, because if Congress aligns, oh my God, OMG, yes.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's nothing more efficient than a democracy where everyone agrees with one another, because stuff happens like this.

• 32:12Eugene Mirman?

  You love, that's a totalitarian.

• 32:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no.

• 32:17Eugene Mirman?

  If there were just one person that they did what he said.

• 32:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no, the difference is totalitarian is the person at the top does whatever they want.

• 32:26Eugene Mirman?

  No, no.

• 32:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if we all agree what we want, and Congress agrees with what we want, things, and we have a capitalist democracy, then we can go to the moon, you know? We can defeat evil in Europe, you know, as, you know, we're coming on the anniversaries of the, so, so I still have hope. And I see science trending now.

• 32:48Eugene Mirman?

  Amen.

• 32:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, Cosmos aired in primetime on a major network, right? And...

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wasn't just any, it aired on Fox.

• 32:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, really.

• 33:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That tells you anything is possible.

• 33:05Speaker 05

  I was very confused by that, very confused.

• 33:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very confused, I get you, but that should be an existence proof of what is possible in this country when people devoted to a cause, particularly a good cause, have their pistons aligned.

• 33:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Senator Cory Booker, I did not introduce you as the Democrat from New Jersey because I don't really give a [bleep] what your political affiliation is. I care. I should reword that. I don't... Give a [bleep]?

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm not interested in what your political affiliations are. I'm interested in how your mind works and how you think and do you have good ideas? Because good ideas transcend politics, policy, and the best of those ideas transcend time itself.

• 34:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I just want to ask, can you please leave us with some hope?

• 34:13Speaker 01

  I will, but I do want to say very first that I just want to say thank you. This has been an extraordinary experience and conversation. A good idea for me was to come here tonight and you are just an extraordinary... I'm not even going to say American because love of country is a wonderful thing, but why should love stop at our borders? That you are an extraordinary...

• 34:37Speaker 01

  You are an extraordinary exemplar of humanity and your voice, your vision, your inspiration is changing this planet for the good and I thank you for that.

• 34:55Speaker 01

  And so, on hope, I just want to say this. I believe this as a person that's wrestled with some really tough challenges, especially in my time as mayor, that hope is relational. Just like you cannot have courage without fear, you can't have hope without despair. And a lot of people want to be hopeful and happy and turn away from depravity, from despair, from darkness. But hope is confrontational. It stares despair and evil and sadness and darkness right in the eye, and it wrestles with it. And the idea of hope is to never let despair have the last word. And so what gives me hope and empowers me

• 35:38Speaker 01

  is understanding that we do have horrendous challenges in this country, unfinished business of our democracy. But I know that American history is a declaration of hope. It is a testimony to hope because it is this country, despite the wretchedness of poverty, of slavery, of sexism, of racism, we have always seen hope triumph over that. People being prisoners of hope, deciding every single day to choose hope despite every other reason not to. And because of that, we have been a hopeful nation that has advanced generation after generation. And now here in our generation, we must have the courage to confront our darkness and despair again.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  We must be people that not only choose hope, but have an activist, a rebellious, an audacious hope that confronts our problems and overcomes them. And knowing our history, knowing our potential, knowing that promise of hope in this country, I am lifted every single day.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Cory Booker, ladies and gentlemen. More talk talk, we come back.

• 36:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Live from the Apollo Theater, StarTalk!

• 37:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This next segment, we have a couple of minutes for Q&A, and so it'll be great to hear what you guys are thinking. So, go for it.

• 37:13Speaker 08

  So, internet and social media has a lot of benefits. You have a wealth of information at a touch of a button, but there are also a lot of pitfalls. I mean, there are a lot of websites spewing pseudoscience. So, with the, like, for example, the anti-vaccination movement, global climate change deniers. So, what is the best way to address this, especially since it can affect policy?

• 37:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. I have opinions there. I mean, yeah, I mean, there's, it's a conflict between the freedom of speech. I mean, you are free to be ignorant, right, in the world of the freedom of speech. You are free to write anything you want. So, isn't, doesn't it come down to, in the end, making sure that in the face of the misinformation and the disinformation, that there's the accurate information that's out there that is indeed accessible? But I don't know that you can let, freedom of speech is like the First Amendment, right? Absolutely. It's the First Amendment. So, I don't want to say, "Ban this and don't ban that", you know, I can't say that. I would not feel comfortable doing that. All I can say is,

• 38:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  if we get people producing content that is so compelling and so interesting, that you gravitate to that and you learn how and why the universe works. In fact, if all you did was tell people what is true, then they don't have the capacity to think about why it's true. And there's a whole missing part of our educational profile in this country that does not teach you what science is, how it works, and why it works. It tends to just think of your empty vessel and pour science into it, and then you go out and take your test. Science is a method of inquiry about what is true and what isn't. You don't just get it handed to you by what website you happen to stumble upon. So, I'm keeping the

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  freedom of speech, but, because that's sacred, that's like constitutionally sacred, but that puts the greater challenge on the rest of us. Yes, right here, right? And I will repeat the question, because you don't have a microphone, sir. He wants to know when we might see a hotel on the moon. So I guess the future of space tourism, perhaps.

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, so my stock answer for that is you might have a hotel on the moon, but you would have no atmosphere, you know?

• 39:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the future of space exploration, if there is a future at all, has to be based in commercial enterprise. Because that's only when you've turned a space program into a space industry does that ever become a routine thing. Otherwise, they're one-offs based on tax-based sources.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  SpaceX.

• 39:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  SpaceX is an important cog in that wheel. So if it's gonna happen at all, that will happen, and that'll have to happen, is what I'm saying. If we have a presence in space in a big way. Yes, over here, question.

• 40:04Speaker 09

  How did your role model inspire you to become an astrophysicist?

• 40:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How did role models inspire me to become an astrophysicist? It turns out it wasn't a role model at all. It was a visit to my local planetarium. Wow. The Hayden Planetarium. And how old are you?

• 40:26Speaker 09

  Ten.

• 40:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're ten, okay. My parents took me, my brother and my sister, every weekend, essentially every weekend, to different places around the city. To the zoo, to the art museum, to hockey games, to everything that talented grown-ups did. All right? Art, sports, the opera, Broadway plays. I was bored in a lot of that, but what did not bore me is the trip to the Hayden Planetarium. And I was nine years old when that happened. And at that age, it was not I who discovered the universe. It was the universe that discovered me.

• 41:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, later on, role models would matter. You get a piece of one person here and there to help shape that interest and ambition. But in terms of the infusion of love for learning about the universe, that happened in my first trip to the Hayden Planetarium. And that's now where I now serve as director. So, that's what that is, yeah. Sir, up there. Yes, sir.

• 41:33Speaker 10

  All right, I work in the STEM profession. I work with kids from pre-K in the college and I work with adults as well. What I often hear omitted from this conversation is art's role in STEM. In kindergarten, we start with crayons and paint and clay and we build our mental muscle through the arts. But yet, we're having a conversation about STEM without the A. There's nothing in art that doesn't involve science, technology, math. It's all, it's all there. But yet, we have these conversations. Why, why is that?

• 42:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so there is a movement called STEAM.

• 42:19Speaker 10

  I, I know.

• 42:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Where they put the A in the STEM.

• 42:22Speaker 05

  Can I take a shot?

• 42:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, definitely, go for it.

• 42:24Speaker 10

  We're steaming past STEM.

• 42:25Speaker 05

  I think it's based on this zero-sum game, that people feel left out. But I actually think that if you inject the A in STEM, it's gonna blow the whole thing up. It's gonna look absolutely different. Because the problem is that we've siloed everything. We siloed STEM, technology, engineering, math, so our brains don't get confused by nature. Nature has all these things fused together. So, schools are gonna have to change the way they teach so things are integrated and so that we're not having conversations that the A is missing and the M is missing, that we're just teaching the way the world is in all of its beautiful complexity.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, great, nice.

• 43:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I'm sorry, this has to be the last question, I've just been notified, oh, I'm sorry. Yes, go.

• 43:08Speaker 11

  All right.

• 43:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, yes, the pressure is on.

• 43:10Speaker 11

  Yeah, it definitely is. It piggybacks kind of off of the conversation about the military-industrial complex, the money that's in politics right now. It's hard to take a look at something like Kickstarter and Kiva and all those things that we champion as something that is wonderful about the country, when really, it seems more, and sorry to be cynical and Debbie Downer about this, I guess, but it seems to be more like something that helps us feel better about the fact that we don't have real impact. So, when the focus should be on education, instead we're funding the largest war machine that has ever been perpetually funded. So, how does that conversation shift back to education as the only way that we're able to bring ourselves into the broader conversation?

• 43:53Speaker 11

  Women in education, kids in education, bringing people out of poverty, the only way to do that is to educate.

• 43:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Senator, in the Constitution, there's no mention of power over education granted to the federal government. So, it all goes down to the states. So, what influence, however, whatever is, however poetic, or deep, or philosophically meaningful your rhetoric is, at the end of the day, you're a senator with no control over education, constitutionally. That's a constitutional fact. So, what, where do we go from there?

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Well, first of all, I agree with you that education is principally a local initiative, but please understand, we have a federal Department of Education that does make massive choices about investments. The Obama administration, whether you agree with their education policy or not, created programs like Race to the Top that was able to incentivize states to change their programs. So, the senators and...

• 44:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not without some influence.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  It's not without some influence, but, but I guess, to the young lady who asked the question, I mean, this is sort of where we keep coming back to as a nation, which is, how do we change the things that are incredibly important, that are, that are right now, unfortunately, in many ways undermining the best of what we thought... America is, was, or should be. Social mobility, for example. We have this major fracturing in our country in terms of those haves and the haves and nots. We used to be the top country in the globe for moving from poverty. It was the American dream. Well, now, other countries are blowing past us. If you want to be born poor on the planet Earth and have a shot of making it to the middle class, better to be born, and just factually,

• 45:35Speaker 01

  in England or Canada where people can move, social mobility is greater. And so the question is-

• 45:40Speaker 05

  Let me interject, though. I think it needs to be a grassroots effort, and we need to educate parents to insist on having STEM, STEAM, and that will change states. It has to come from the grassroots.

• 45:50Speaker 01

  And so I-

• 45:51Speaker 05

  It has to be this groundswell. Because we had Kennedy, and he said, "Hey, we're going to shoot for the moon." We don't have Kennedy now. We have all of you. So we have all of you to say that this is what we are insisting on, and it grows from the bottom up.

• 46:02Speaker 01

  And I agree. The thing I would add to that is, because I've been in these conversations since I was in college. And people leave, I left, feeling good about what we talked about. But if we're not willing to do something different than we did before, the world will not change unless we do. And we forget, we allow our inability to do everything to undermine our determination to do something. We get caught often in what I call the state of sedentary agitation. I know big words, but it basically means I'm sitting on my couch at home, watching the news. I get so upset, but I'm not getting up and doing anything. And the example I'll give you is, I am here, right now, because of this conspiracy of love of ordinary Americans who did small acts of courage and kindness

• 46:46Speaker 01

  that liberated me, and frankly, all of us. My father was born poor. He was too poor. He couldn't afford to be born poor, so he was po. What did you say? He was so poor?

• 46:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I say, you can be so poor you can't even pay attention.

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Yes. So- My father-

• 47:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's as low as poor gets.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  But my father was taken in by a family when his mother, single mother, couldn't take care of him. People rallied around. They would not let him fail. We live in a country right now, you want to know one of the best ways to stop violence in our communities? Those data show that- One mentor in a kid's life dramatically drives down incidents of juvenile crime, drives up educational attainment, but yet there are tens of thousands of kids in this metropolitan area alone that are on waiting lists because somebody won't give four hours a month is what it takes to do a mentor, the amount of time we spend watching our favorite TV show. The problem we have in America is poverty, but not material poverty, it's a poverty of action, a poverty of compassion, a poverty of engagement. If we individually don't make that decision, then we're not going to see change.

• 47:46Speaker 01

  And the powerful thing about us making a personal decision is we actually influence those around us to do the same way, and our decision of love to another person adds up to a grand conspiracy of love that does change the nation and the world.

• 48:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for coming out. This has been StarTalk, live at the Apollo Theater, Harlem, New York.