Technology and Us, with Ainissa Ramirez

Do we control technology or does technology control us? Neil deGrasse Tyson, comic co-host Negin Farsad, and material scientist and author Ainissa Ramirez, PhD, answer fan-submitted Cosmic Queries and explore how technology has shaped our world.

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. This is StarTalk. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, you're a personal astrophysicist, and this is going to be a Cosmic Queries edition. Fan favorites, and they've been that way ever since we began these many years ago. My co-host, my comedic co-host for this episode, is Negin Farzad. Negin, welcome to StarTalk.

• 0:34Negin Farsad?

  Oh my god, hello.

• 0:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we're in the coronavirus, so we're all separated. Where are you right now?

• 0:41Negin Farsad?

  I'm actually in a studio in Manhattan, a recording studio, because I'm in the middle of doing an audiobook with a sultry voice of mine.

• 0:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Whoa, you're working!

• 0:51Negin Farsad?

  I'm working. I'm in the middle of a gig. It's new and different to be outside of my apartment.

• 0:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, because I, you know, I knew comedians had gigs. I didn't know they had actual jobs. This is a gig, though, right?

• 1:03Negin Farsad?

  This is a gig. No, no, no, comedians aren't good enough to have jobs. Come on.

• 1:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, that's what I thought. That's what I thought. You just, you know, you get what comes your way, day by day. So you have a podcast with the greatest name ever, Fake the Nation.

• 1:18Negin Farsad?

  Thank you.

• 1:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Love your host of that podcast, and you wrote a book, How to Make White People Laugh. You gotta buy that book just to know what...

• 1:29Negin Farsad?

  I think you should just, yeah, because it'll tell you how to do it, and then it'll give you useful information.

• 1:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's always good.

• 1:37Negin Farsad?

  But it'll also make your bookshelf look fun.

• 1:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and people laughing is a, that warms them up to receive other information that they might need.

• 1:47Negin Farsad?

  Exactly. I think you know a little something about that, because sometimes you need to make them laugh before you can douse them with science.

• 1:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly, exactly. And you're, for fans of the show, you are a recurring guest on NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.

• 2:04Negin Farsad?

  Yes, I am.

• 2:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is another fan favorite out there in the... So you're here and you're going to help us bring questions to our special guest. She's a returning guest on StarTalk and it's Ainissa Ramirez. Ainissa, welcome back to StarTalk.

• 2:19Speaker 02

  Hey Neil, how are you? So glad to be here in the Corona-verse.

• 2:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I know, and it's been too long. It's been years since we've had you on. You're a material scientist and engineer and you've got a pie by has got a podcast. Host of the podcast, Science Underground. It's not just studying caves or anything like that.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  No, no caves.

• 2:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No caves. Give me a one sentence accounting of Science Underground.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Science Underground explains science in two minutes. So we'll explain how tires are made from lettuce and how leaves change color.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, okay, I want some of that.

• 2:55Negin Farsad?

  I thought, I thought with a name like Science Underground would be some sort of like punk science movement.

• 3:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, something, something countercultural, Ainissa.

• 3:05Negin Farsad?

  Yeah.

• 3:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You got a ways to go there.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  Okay, I'm working on it. I'm working on it. Baby steps.

• 3:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You gotta punk it up.

• 3:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And the reason why we caught up with you again is because you have a new book out, just published this year and it's, I get the title right? The Alchemy of Us.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  This is my baby.

• 3:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, How Humans and Matter Transformed One Another. Great title. And so, so when you read that book, forgive me, I haven't read it because I learned about it only just a couple of weeks ago. What, how will you be changed for having read this book?

• 3:41Speaker 02

  You're going to look at technology differently. You're going to see that it actually shaped us. Simple things like the telegraph shaped language, the light bulb is actually changing our health and our computers are changing the way we remember things. So we're going to have a new relationship with the things that are around us.

• 3:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's such an engineering thing to do.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  A good thing I'm an engineer. But I just want people to have a new approach to technology. We're wowed by them and that's perfectly fine, but also know that we're actually in a relationship with these technologies. And so what this, this is what this book highlights.

• 4:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But Negin, do you have a relationship with technology?

• 4:20Negin Farsad?

  I mean, like in that I have to stare at a screen like all the time. Yeah. I have a love hate relationship with, with technology. I have, I'm one of those people that like wishes I died before computers. Like I was born too late.

• 4:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow. So, so Ainissa, is there an age threshold below which they, um, they're incapable of uttering what was just said about, I wish I was born before computers.

• 4:52Speaker 02

  I haven't heard that. That would be a great quote on this front of the book. Wish I was born before something like that. Maybe the next edition I'll have Negin come on board.

• 5:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Which is Negin in your head examined for even uttering such a sentence.

• 5:06Negin Farsad?

  I know. Is that sacrilege?

• 5:08Speaker 02

  I don't think so. As a writer, I mean, when I was writing the book, I was using old tech. I was using pencils and index cards because that's what my brain could handle. And I'm sure maybe younger folks would use computers and, you know, different ways of databases. But, you know, so you have to do what you feel comfortable with.

• 5:24Negin Farsad?

  Remember when we used to all have handwriting?

• 5:27Speaker 02

  What's that?

• 5:30Negin Farsad?

  Like we actually used to know how to like hold pencils and stuff.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  Is this how you, is this how you do it?

• 5:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's what worries me.

• 5:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't think computers started this issue. Okay. Before printing, the printing press, everything was handwritten. And so handwriting was an art and you would have illuminated manuscripts with artwork on the side. And then out, you could write a word. In a scripty way to convey an emotion beyond just the pure definition of the word.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, writing itself was a multi-dimensional mode of communicating. Then you had a printing press. Now, letters just get stamped.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 6:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And now you can flourish them. And then, okay, so that took that out. And now, people forgot or lost how to communicate emotions. Now you have emojis.

• 6:23Speaker 02

  Right, right, right. Well, that's one of the things I discuss in The Alchemy of Us, that we're actually losing our ability to empathize. Because, as you were talking about, these different layers of communication that we use are being removed as we move from the printing press to our computers today. And what we need is, we need to look at each other and also able to communicate with our body language. So, I'm totally on board with what you're saying.

• 6:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, we have to actually look at each other?

• 6:49Speaker 02

  What? Did you say something?

• 6:55Speaker 02

  Sorry, I was texting when you said that.

• 6:58Negin Farsad?

  I'm taking notes with my quill pen of everything you say.

• 7:04Negin Farsad?

  Can I tell you though, and you say I think you would like this, that when my dad met my mom, they're Iranian immigrants, so in Iran, he was really into calligraphy, and he wrote her a little book of poetry, and with all the flourishes that Neil talked about, with the flowers on the side and little like, you know, just the stuff of calligraphy and all of this in beautiful, you know, Farsi text. And then, you know, it worked on her. She married.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  It worked out. So, get yourself a quill.

• 7:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I gotta show you something. Hang on a sec, hold on.

• 7:33Speaker 02

  Get yourself a quill. If you like someone, get you something.

• 7:36Negin Farsad?

  Because an emoji is just not gonna have the same effect.

• 7:39Speaker 02

  Not at all, not at all. Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. Do we have a collection?

• 7:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, I love calligraphy and quill pens, and so, I have a whole supply of them.

• 7:52Negin Farsad?

  Oh, my God.

• 7:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just for the, you know, the emergency case where you need to...

• 7:58Negin Farsad?

  Listeners were looking at a bunker's worth of feathered quill pens in Neil's office.

• 8:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm ready for the Corona-verse, when all printing presses are down.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  That's right, that's right. He's making his own ink.

• 8:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Negin, you collected questions for this Q and A? I did. For this cosmic queries. Should we get into that? What was the theme? Was it just technology in modern times?

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Technology and how it's connected to humans.

• 8:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, let's do that. So all these questions will be for Ainissa. Occasionally, people slip in something where I can jump in. But basically, I'll grab it.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  There were plenty of questions that were for you, like dark matter. I was like, I know who's gonna answer that one.

• 8:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So go for it.

• 8:50Negin Farsad?

  I'm gonna start with a question from a Patreon listener. Elaine asks, has technology affected our biology? Like, our actual biology?

• 9:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, I like that one.

• 9:04Speaker 02

  It has. It has. Actually, researchers say that we are slightly taller than our ancestors. And one of the reasons, besides nutrition and water and metronormative medicines, is actually the lights. It ends up that we have two modes. We have a daytime mode and a nighttime mode. We have a growth mode and we have a rest mode. And the growth mode is instilled by blue light, which is from the sun. But also, artificial lights have a lot of blue light. And since we're under artificial lights most of the time, we grow. And so here's how our biology has been affected by a simple, simple device of the electric.

• 9:38Negin Farsad?

  I'm annoyed because I'm five foot three and a half, so I feel like my body did not get that memo.

• 9:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, you have to get out more. Just get out more, okay?

• 9:49Negin Farsad?

  No, I've been hanging out in caves too much.

• 9:51Speaker 02

  That's right. Listening to Science Underground, so you don't tell them you can get out.

• 9:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, but so, all right, that's one aspect of it. But what about? Okay, here's something. I don't know how old the two of you are, but I'm old enough to remember that if you were clumsy, someone would say, hey, you're all thumbs. But then when video games came out, and the thumb is a fundamental part of the utility and your dexterity, to say you're all thumbs in a modern context might mean you're highly dexterous.

• 10:26Speaker 02

  That's a good point. It's true.

• 10:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, is that in your book?

• 10:30Speaker 02

  No. It's only 300 pages. I didn't get to the hand.

• 10:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You didn't get to the thumb part.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  I didn't get to the thumb part, but maybe if there's a new addition.

• 10:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But the, but the hand-eye coordination achieved at a young age. Uh, you know, you look at, it's in the military, drone pilots are way back in some base camp. And they're, they're basic, they're, they're controlled, they're flying an airplane.

• 10:53Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As though it's a video game.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Do you, is you, is there any understanding of whether our brains are different because of technology?

• 11:00Speaker 02

  Well, uh, what you use a lot, you enhance. So if they've been training and been doing this for some time, they will have a higher level of being able to do that than if someone just walks up and tries to fly a drone.

• 11:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, so the whole world of video games where parents are always complaining that the kids are spending too much time on them, they're actually training for jobs.

• 11:20Speaker 02

  Pretty much, but don't tell them that. We still want them to do their homework.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, uh, so, so the, the future of this, I mean, you gave, you gave, um, basic biological examples, but you can imagine a future, which everyone talks about. I don't think it's coming, but people like to talk about. Where they inject a chip into your brain?

• 11:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 11:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you merge the biology and the technology into one functioning entity, because it's just electrochemical. It is, do you see that as, as an inevitable step into the future?

• 11:54Speaker 02

  That's what scientists would like, um, you know, whether it's a good, a good idea or not, that's still something that's for debate. Uh, but I do know without even including the chip, our brains are actually being rewired by the internet. Uh, I can give you an example. I, I often ask people, I say, you know, tell me, tell me your mother's phone number. And most people will say, well, they don't know their mother's phone number. They love their mother, but what they've done is they, they've offset that information to their cell phones. But I remember my childhood phone number, so because of the internet, because of its pervasiveness and the fact that we can recall, have access to it all the time. Our memories have changed. We don't remember what the information is, but where the information is. So we've already been rewired.

• 12:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh, Einstein is rumored for having said, uh, never memorize anything that you can just look up.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  Why isn't Apple using that in their advertisements?

• 12:46Negin Farsad?

  Einstein was born too early.

• 12:49Speaker 02

  Yeah. Too early. Hey, you should switch.

• 12:52Negin Farsad?

  We should have.

• 12:54Negin Farsad?

  This was all messed up. Can I say, though, that I don't think that I do, you know, I do feel like we're going in that being chipped direction, the way you're talking about, Neil, but I still feel like there's backlash to that. Like, remember when Google came out with glass? And at first everyone was like, ooh, glass. But then immediately, once started people wearing them, people called those wearers glass holes. You guys remember this?

• 13:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow.

• 13:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:21Negin Farsad?

  I think there was a backlash. People were like, no, don't merge your body. Like, don't have a thing on your body that does the thing. And so I feel like people, you know, they have some limits.

• 13:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what you're saying is that the, not to put words in your mouth, but you're saying, if you remember me because you had to look me up in your database, then the pretense that you have some fond thoughts about our last encounter are false. And that fact was transparent to everybody. Is that what you're saying there?

• 13:55Negin Farsad?

  Yeah, I'm, yeah, I mean, because it's sort of like when a politician is glad handing, like at a big rally, and there's always like a person right behind them whispering like this person's from, you know, Sheboygan, like this person's one of your donors. That's like what we're getting. And we know that the politician is fake. We know there's not very much sincerity in that. So that's basically a chip is just making it. You're just being a glass hole.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  I remember those people on place. I think also the backlash is that they were recording people in front of them all the time. And you wanted to be able to have control over your image being captured all the time and being lifted up into the cloud. So it was, it was both those things. It was, you know, having these fake interactions, but also you stealing my, my likeness for whatever use.

• 14:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so how about this then? Like in the movie Avatar, where the Aliens, the life forms there, had like these USB ponytails, right? And they would plug it into like the...

• 14:54Negin Farsad?

  Yeah.

• 14:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They plug it into stuff and it would connect and then they would be able to communicate. And so if we had like a USB port and we plugged in the internet so that we can gain immediate access to information. So I'm not... It's really just for research, I guess, rather than for social interaction. What do you think of that?

• 15:14Speaker 02

  What are we doing with all that information? That's my question. I mean, most of the time I see people playing games. You... I don't know who you're hanging out with, Neil. I'm seeing this and they're just, you know, it's candy falling from the sky. So if people are actually gonna use that information to do something and to create, I'm all for it because you have access to the entire planet. But we don't use the internet in a way that's actually meaningful. So that's the thing I push back with.

• 15:44Negin Farsad?

  You know, I play this game with my friends called the human Google and it's essentially we have a conversation and never look anything up.

• 15:53Speaker 02

  What?

• 15:55Negin Farsad?

  We just try and remember. We just try and remember.

• 15:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What a concept.

• 16:00Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 16:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I've always wanted to introduce something similar to that, not as severe, because, Negri, you're over...

• 16:09Negin Farsad?

  Over the top, yeah.

• 16:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What I would do is you say, if an argument begins, someone usually quickly goes to their Google search. And I say, no, we should argue this for at least 10 minutes. Forcing you to get to dredge memory, to figure stuff out, and you get to learn that whoever is the loudest isn't always the one who's correct. To calibrate people's capacity to argue based on what they think is true. This is very useful. This is very useful.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  No, that's great because if you don't practice that, you're gonna lose that ability. That's what we learn about the brain. The brain is this wonderful thing. It's called plastic. It will change if you give it a new talent, a new skill, it will enhance it. But if you stop using that skill, it will lessen. So it's...

• 16:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't call my brain plastic.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  I mean, in a good way. Hey, man, your brain is plastic. It's a compliment. It's a compliment.

• 17:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In a good way.

• 17:04Negin Farsad?

  It's bendy.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  It's malleable.

• 17:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Bending, thank you.

• 17:07Speaker 02

  It can change and enhance. But if you don't use those skills...

• 17:11Negin Farsad?

  And it can also stay in a landfill forever.

• 17:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's floating in the ocean.

• 17:19Negin Farsad?

  Dolphins will choke on it.

• 17:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So guys, we've got to take a quick break. When we come back, more Q and A for Ainissa Ramirez, engineer, material scientist on StarTalk.

• 17:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk. Neil deGrasse Tyson. I'm here with my co-host, Negin Farzad. Negin, welcome to StarTalk.

• 18:03Negin Farsad?

  Hello again.

• 18:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You tweet, I presume. What's your Twitter handle?

• 18:06Negin Farsad?

  My Twitter handle is at Negin Farzad, a name that is both easy to pronounce and spell. That is N-A-G-I-N-F-A-R-S-A-D on the Twitters.

• 18:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Negin Farzad.

• 18:18Negin Farsad?

  I say things.

• 18:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Excellent, excellent. And Ainissa, you're our special guest today. It's not often we have an engineer on the program. It's great to have most. I have more scientist friends than engineering friends. Nothing against you and your kind.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  We're a special kind.

• 18:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A special kind. So we're discussing the ideas that are explored in your book. Give me the full title again here.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  It's called The Alchemy of Us: How Humans and Matter Transform One Another.

• 18:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a brilliant title.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Can you see the cover? Kind of looks like the periodic table. This is a wink to you.

• 18:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very nice. Very nice. Au, that would be gold.

• 18:59Speaker 02

  Hey, that's what I'm talking about.

• 19:03Speaker 02

  You're talking nerdy to me.

• 19:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Au aurum for gold.

• 19:07Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 19:08Negin Farsad?

  I feel alienated. I just want you both to know.

• 19:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Did we just leave you out of that?

• 19:12Speaker 02

  No, we're back, we're back.

• 19:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We will drift back, but only when we feel like.

• 19:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this is Cosmic Query. So Negin, you got another question for Ainissa?

• 19:24Negin Farsad?

  I do. We're gonna take another question from a Patreon listener. Richard Russo asks, "What would you say was the single greatest advancement in technology that propelled us further than any other?"

• 19:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that question.

• 19:41Negin Farsad?

  It's a tough one.

• 19:42Speaker 02

  That is a tough one. And it's really down to opinion. And so as a material scientist, I would probably say steel. Steel allowed us to have railroads so that we can connect this huge country. Steel also allowed us to have tall buildings with skyscrapers. Before steel, buildings were no taller than nine stories tall. So those two things, the railroads, skyscrapers, department stores, that's commerce. This small material made this economy grow. So that would be my vote.

• 20:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you couldn't build taller buildings because the structural integrity of what was used before, bricks and things,

• 20:17Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 20:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  would not support the weight?

• 20:19Speaker 02

  You could use stone, but the rooms on the first floor would be very, very small because you needed a lot of stone to hold up all of that weight.

• 20:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, in fact, I live in a building where it's a stone building.

• 20:33Speaker 02

  Is that right?

• 20:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I look at the blueprints for every floor as it gets higher and higher. And in my apartment line, I say, "Hey, wait a minute, they got more space than we do."

• 20:42Speaker 02

  It's not their fault, it's architecture.

• 20:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, but we have really thick walls and you can't hear the neighbors. So it works out great.

• 20:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:49Negin Farsad?

  Great wall.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how about you, Negin? What would you think is the most important?

• 20:57Negin Farsad?

  Oh my gosh. I mean, I was, that steel thing really, by the way, when was steel created?

• 21:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. When do we date that?

• 21:06Speaker 02

  Steel's been around for a while. I would say late... The late seventeen hundreds, but when we, the way to make a lot of it was in eighteen fifty, in the eighteen fifties. That was Henry

• 21:17Negin Farsad?

  Right, so then there was all this stuff that happened before the eighteen fifties, um, and all this advancement. I guess, I mean, you sort of, I don't know, you sort of mentioned this before Neil, but the printing press, I feel, I feel like that's a big one because people were like, oh, let's form a government. I, like, whoa, how would people even know what our constitution is? We'll print it, we've got this printing press, right? And then like, oh, are we just gonna hand them out? Like, yeah, like brochures, what's a brochure? You know, like, everyone's learning.

• 21:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's a newspaper?

• 21:55Negin Farsad?

  So I feel like that was a big one.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  Definitely the printing press. The printing press also helped to start, uh, religions. Uh, Martin Luther wanted to separate from the standard way of religious, uh, religious practice. And so he created these pamphlets, as you talked about.

• 22:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  From Catholics, just say it.

• 22:12Speaker 02

  From the, well, I'm trying not to get attacked, but okay. I'm focusing on the technology. But yeah, I would, I would say the printing press is definitely up there.

• 22:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, now I have to, I've got a, I've got a, um, I can say you're both wrong. I, I go way back. I'm a way back guy.

• 22:26Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 22:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm gonna say the, the wheel and axle.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  Oh, man. Tell me why.

• 22:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, because then you can move stuff. You can build stuff.

• 22:36Speaker 02

  What is this wheel? I haven't been outside.

• 22:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you know, don't over, don't, you know.

• 22:43Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Imagine life before the wheel and life after the wheel. You would say, hey, I'm living in the future. Look what I can do.

• 22:52Negin Farsad?

  You know, as someone who has to stroller a baby through the streets of New York, the wheel does not always hold up against potholes.

• 23:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, okay.

• 23:02Negin Farsad?

  You know, so in terms of inventions.

• 23:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Had worse than potholes.

• 23:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They didn't even have roads.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  They didn't have Starbucks, they didn't have anything.

• 23:14Negin Farsad?

  You're not, you're not like wheeling the way you do through like an airport terminal where it's like butter and you're just gliding through. Like, that's not what it looked like for prehistoric men with their little wheels.

• 23:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Nick Green, you're not, you're not, you're not, uh, swaying the attitudes of trog.

• 23:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so what else you got? Another question.

• 23:39Negin Farsad?

  Ooh, another question, okay. Um, let's go to... This comes from Instagram, Small Talk, Small Laughs. "Do you think technology has affected our very means of life? If so, do you think we as a world could survive in a world with minimal technology?"

• 24:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, another way to ask that maybe is, uh, how much of this is reversible?

• 24:06Speaker 02

  That's a good question. Um, I think technology's always been important to us, you know, starting from the wheel and from skins that we use. I'm with you now. Making tents, you know, building fire, these are all technology. So, technology's always been important to us. But, right now, how much is reversible? I was okay in the eighties. But I don't know if I could live in the eighties right now, you know, with less tech. I wouldn't be able to connect with my friends, I wouldn't be able to go to the bank. So, I think we're kind of on this escalator, where we're all kind of riding this wave to however the world will be. But, we could have less tech, but it would be a deliberate decision.

• 24:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But, but here's what I'm wondering, okay? If I'm driving on a country road and I see a deer bounding across the road, I'd say to myself, "Wow, that deer doesn't have grocery stores or internet." And it is a full-grown, living mammal, living out its life.

• 25:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, here we are in the Corona-verse, and people are hoarding toilet paper and water. And, and I'm imagining, what happens if our grid goes out? What, what would we do? Can we survive the way the deer can, bounding through the woods? I, I don't think so, because we don't know how.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  We don't know how, right? The preppers know how, but we don't know how.

• 25:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wait for the food to show up, delivered, you know? I don't go out, I don't hunt for it, I don't... That's why you have these survivalists, right? They got their guns and they got their...

• 25:35Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, they'll survive, I guess. The rest of us, I don't know.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  We're, we're goners.

• 25:42Negin Farsad?

  I have no, I have honestly no skills. I mean, it's remarkable. It's remarkable that I am, I can barely get the cap off of a soda, you know?

• 25:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ever since the earliest days of royalty and the like, there's always been a need for comedians.

• 26:03Negin Farsad?

  Right, and I think because you can make fun of me as I can't get a cap off of a soda.

• 26:13Negin Farsad?

  Yeah.

• 26:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know, the court jester always had a job. Unless they failed to make the king laugh, and then...

• 26:20Negin Farsad?

  Right. And then they would just beheaded. I recently, not to promote myself, but I recently wrote a piece for the Progressive Magazine called "The Art of Being Not Essential," because I think comedians and also magicians are the least essential workers right now in society.

• 26:40Negin Farsad?

  My theory is that if you ever find yourself in a bunker with a comedian or a magician, like, the first thing you should do is basically eat that comedian. Like, that's all we're good for. Especially if we've been carb loading, you know?

• 26:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, the first thing is throwing it off the life raft, yes.

• 27:01Negin Farsad?

  Exactly.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Funny and delicious.

• 27:07Negin Farsad?

  Let me try that funny bone.

• 27:10Speaker 02

  Oh, that hurts.

• 27:12Negin Farsad?

  Sorry, everybody.

• 27:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I got another question for Ainissa.

• 27:17Negin Farsad?

  Another question for Ainissa. So this is also from Instagram. Thatboy.tristan asks, "We know that NASA has contributed to the public with some of their innovations intended for space. How much has technology created and innovated for a specific purpose come back around and improve everyday life? Something NASA made hasn't come back and made our lives better?"

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Well, I don't have an example for NASA, but DARPA made the Internet, and they made that as a way for scientists all over the world to communicate with each other, to send this crazy thing called email. And then it became a way to shuttle information, and now we know the Internet. So, this is, it was for a specific use for a small population, for scientists, and now everybody uses it and relies on it.

• 28:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So DARPA, the defense...

• 28:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know the meaning of that acronym. I just know it is DARPA. But it's definitely part of the Department of Defense.

• 28:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or something. Right, so they, they, they have a budget where they only fund things that are kind of out of the blue and have a low chance of succeeding. Because you need, you need to, risk takers out there to, what is it? High risk but high return.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But you don't spend all that much money on it. Their budget is relatively low, but, but yeah. And I always confuse the internet as a thing with the World Wide Web as a thing. Because I do know that at CERN, the, the particle accelerator in Switzerland, the physicists there made major contributions to this internet thing.

• 28:53Speaker 02

  So I may be getting those confused, but yeah, essentially, what I was trying to get across is that it was targeted for scientists to communicate. And so with a small, and then it was launched into the rest of the world and it became the thing that we know.

• 29:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so the questioner is presuming that we want to invent something for a purpose and we do it and then it solves that purpose and then we're all done and we move on?

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 29:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so I got one for you. We're throwing this into the pot. In, in the Second World War, we learned that microwaves might be very good at, as a, as a means of communicating over long distances. And in one of the chambers where they're experimenting with microwaves, someone, as the rumor has it, they had left out a chocolate bar. And when they hit a frequency of microwaves, it melted the chocolate. And they said, "What? What? Huh?"

• 29:42Negin Farsad?

  And then, and then that guy was like, "Hold on, let me go get a Hot Pocket and see if it works."

• 29:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Exactly.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Oh, let me invent the Hot Pocket.

• 29:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He invented the Hot Pocket.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  And then go see if it works.

• 29:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, see how our life has benefited from the Second? So out of that concept came, of course, the, the contained microwave oven. And the microwave oven exists not because anyone tried to invent it. It exists because we saw the, the off-ramps from what it is working with microwaves to begin with. But my favorite example here... Is the physics professor of mine from college, who specialized in the study of molecules in space. And he discovered a new physics phenomenon called magnetic resonance, nuclear magnetic resonance, where the nucleus of an atom would vibrate

• 30:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  in a way depending on what kind of energy you passed across it. And that correlation was not previously known. And he won a Nobel Prize for it, nuclear magnetic resonance. Then a medical technician said, wait a minute. If one nucleus vibrates this way and another vibrates a different way, maybe I can make a cavity and then we can identify what atomic nuclei are in the thing that you put in the cavity. And thus was born the MRI, the magnetic resonance imager in hospitals.

• 31:11Speaker 03

  Nice.

• 31:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because now you can image things, you can image soft tissue that X-rays could not. And of course, the original name of it, it had one of the N-words you're not supposed to use, like nuclear magnetic resonance.

• 31:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:28Negin Farsad?

  I got so scared for a second.

• 31:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So they took out the N and now it's magnetic resonance imaging, the MRI. But the full expression of that would be nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. But no one would go into a cavity that has the word nuclear on it. They're too spooked.

• 31:46Negin Farsad?

  Well, Neil, I love that your example is MRIs because my example was going to be Tang, the orangey drink that I believe NASA developed for space travel. So like the idea that you could take like a garbagey orange powder, add some water to it and create a drink. I feel like that's something that's changed our lives.

• 32:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's changed your life. I'm interested to learn this about you.

• 32:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And of course, Velcro had some good, good applications in space and it's, and it's still used today for so much. In space, you know, you don't want to have to, uh, if two things will stick to the wall of, you know, of the space station, for example, without glue, without hooks, without, it'll just stay there. And the force required to separate it is not so large that you couldn't, anyone could do it. So it turned out to be quite useful. So there's a whole list of these. Um, in fact, in fact, there's an organization called the Space Foundation, which has the Space Technology Hall of Fame. You can just Google this. Um, Space Technology Hall of Fame, and in there are products conceived

• 32:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  and invented for space that have been commercialized and are making people a buck just in the, in the open marketplace. Nice. And one of them was Tempur Foam, which was designed to, for impact safety for the, for the cushions, the seats in spacecraft. And now people make mattresses out of it. Right. Yeah. We gotta take another break. Uh, and when we come back, we'll have our third and final segment of Cosmic Queries, the intersection of life and technology when we return.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  Hey, we'd like to give a very special Patreon shout out to the following Patreon patron, Andy Green. Andy has been a terrific supporter of StarTalk for quite some time, and we certainly appreciate his support. And if you would like your very own Patreon shout out, please go to patreon.com slash StarTalk Radio and support us.

• 34:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk, Cosmic Queries. And we got a good one going here because the past, present, and future is on our table. Negin Farzad, my co-host and comedian, and Ainissa Ramirez. So Negin, you got another question for her?

• 34:27Negin Farsad?

  I do, from Patrick Leby on Facebook. He asked, "Do you think that there will be a day when technology will divide us even more? That the rich will have the majority of it and the poor will be outcasts and will not have any technology?"

• 34:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, Ainissa, how much sociology did you get to in there? Yeah, I know, I know.

• 34:43Speaker 02

  Well, I think the question is very good. I don't talk a lot about the division of society, particularly that topic, but I do think that it's going to continue to stratify us in many ways. Because it's a matter of access to technologies. You need money to do that. And so if we have a technology and it requires that you be connected to it and you don't have the money, there's going to be a further divide between these two things. So I don't talk about that so much in The Alchemy of Us, but as I was researching it, I definitely saw how this could possibly be a problem.

• 35:16Negin Farsad?

  So isn't that the premise of Avatar? Neil, you mentioned Avatar earlier.

• 35:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, there was a guy, an ex-military guy, who couldn't afford the operation to get his legs in the future. So the principal would be able to do that. So, right, there was sort of... He could not live his fullest life simply because he didn't have the money to do so. And so that was sort of a sad element of it. But then, you know, all that needed to be righted was righted by the end of the movie. So that's why I'm dwelling on his issues.

• 35:52Negin Farsad?

  Right, and that's just a biopic of the future. So we're all just gonna have an Avatar future with blue stuff.

• 36:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And a quick note here, I learned, I think it was Dean Kamen who told me this. I hadn't heard it, was it Dean Kamen? Yeah, I think it was Dean Kamen, who's said that initially, there's a big divide between the haves and the have-nots for a new technology. But new technologies never really work well. All right, and so by the time they work really well, their price has dropped and the company gets wealthy, not because they're selling it to rich people, but because they're selling it to everyone. And so now that everyone has a cellphone, a smartphone, basically, you're not looking, oh, they're rich, they have a smartphone. No, everybody has a smartphone.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Right.

• 36:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, and so, except for the poorest of the poor. And so, I was walking the street a few months ago, before the Covid, and a homeless person stopped me. And he was laying in the street. And I said, oh, you're Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, and he said, yeah, I saw you on Netflix. And I was like, you're homeless in the street?

• 37:00Speaker 02

  How are you getting Netflix?

• 37:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Explain that one to me.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, their promotion's amazing.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  Whoever's doing marketing for Netflix, he needs to get a Nobel Prize, that's amazing. Really good. Yeah, it's good.

• 37:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Let's see how many questions we can squeeze in. Since we've been luxuriously answering these questions. But let's see if we can speed it up. Okay, go.

• 37:25Negin Farsad?

  This one is a little bit related to what we're just talking about, but Virgil Hayward asks on Facebook, "Kind of a simple question, but I often wonder if we were ready for the technological era. Do you believe that we, in this time, are mature enough in the way we use technology? Has it been more harmful or useful?"

• 37:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, good one, Ainissa.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  I don't know if we're, it's a matter of maturity. I don't think we're fully informed. So, some of the devices that have come into our lives, we didn't know that we were actually giving away some of our privacy. I think that if we knew about that to a deeper extent, then we would make different decisions. Like having those devices that record us and we can have a voice command. They're also recording us at the same time, and that information's being stored. Maybe if we knew that in much more detail, we could make different decisions. So, it's not a matter of maturity. I think people are mature. I think it's, they don't have all the information.

• 38:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So disclosure is a thing.

• 38:18Speaker 02

  Definitely.

• 38:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, all right.

• 38:20Negin Farsad?

  But isn't there a thing where like, we are so addicted to our phones because like, we're the, we're sort of the guinea pig cohort? We don't know how to put them down or how to like... You know, modulate our use of them because we're like dumb dums and it came to us.

• 38:37Speaker 02

  They also have designed these things to be addicting. They know that our brains get fired up when we see things that give us a sense of success and award. So that's the reason why we get pulled in. So sure, we may not be the most disciplined, but it's also that the apps and the like are also taking advantage of that.

• 39:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So any country that wanted to take over another country, just hand them free apps that'll addict them and they won't even know you're coming.

• 39:08Speaker 02

  I think that's happening.

• 39:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You weren't supposed to say that.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  Sorry, I didn't say that.

• 39:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Scratch that. We'll cut that out in the edit. Yeah. Okay, got another question.

• 39:23Negin Farsad?

  Another question. This is also from Patreon. Woody asks, and I love this because I have questions about conspiracy theories myself. Are 5G conspiracy theorists just Luddites and where does their ideology fit into how technology shapes us?

• 39:38Speaker 02

  Ooh, I don't want 5G people coming to my house. So I'll just say that we need to learn much, much more about the connection between health and 5G and the thing. And a lot of people are always attaching to that new thing so that they can attach their conspiracy onto that, but there's still a lot more.

• 39:57Negin Farsad?

  What is the fear, in case listeners don't know what the fear is?

• 40:00Speaker 02

  That birds are going to die, that... What have you heard, Neil? I've heard just things about our health.

• 40:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like you said a moment ago, it's driven by ignorance of technology. Any new technology, if it's not fully explained and people don't take the time to sit down and recognize how it works and why it works, you still have people today who put food in their microwave oven and say they're nuking it, as though there's some kind of, you know, nuclear radiation going on in there. And that's not the case, just simple microwaves, which you use every day when you use your smartphone. The different frequencies, of course, but so...

• 40:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  China pioneered 5G, the way we in America pioneered 4G LTE. We pioneered that, which enabled all kinds of streaming that wasn't previously available. Whole companies rose up within the marketplace, exploiting the bandwidth that that provided. So 5G would take that yet another notch. Except, we didn't pioneer that technology, so people are a little spooked. China, people, they're China spook people. And so, but getting back to the specifics of the question, do you see technology as more susceptible to conspiracy thinking than other aspects of our lives?

• 41:17Speaker 02

  I think so, because it's so complex and people don't understand it. If I said, you know, the light bulb is coming into our homes, it would be a little bit of an extension of what life was like before with gas lamps and the fireplace. And you're like, okay, I don't know about a conspiracy here. But now, with these technologies that have tons of code that's so distant and so unfamiliar, it's easy to latch on to something unfamiliar and say, okay, well, this is the cause of my ailment or what have you.

• 41:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we can expect this for every wave until the technology is so absorbed that it's just commonplace and no one thinks about it anymore?

• 41:50Speaker 02

  Or if we start explaining it.

• 41:59Negin Farsad?

  Anisa has completely lost it.

• 42:06Negin Farsad?

  No, but also, you know, what's weird is that if people are concerned that they're under mass surveillance or 5G is going to increase that surveillance, whatever, like, we've already sort of been under mass surveillance. So like, it's not cra- it's like, these conspiracy theories end up seeming kind of normal or like rational, you know? And so it's hard sometimes, you know? I think if you really don't know, it's hard sometimes to see the difference.

• 42:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If you have maps operating in real time in your car to find grandma's house, somebody is tracking every- how fast you're going and where you're going and where you are. There's all the three bits of information anybody wanted to know about you. So, yeah, you're all- that's a great point. You're already seeding this content into the world. So, you know. Anyhow, they can- what'll happen is they'll refuse to adopt 5G, everyone else will, and they'll get left behind. That's what'll happen.

• 43:03Speaker 02

  That's the op- yeah, that's true.

• 43:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, got another question.

• 43:07Negin Farsad?

  I have a question that is the logical extension of this one. It's from Jacob Owlet on Patreon. And he has, do you think that the rate at which we continue to progress in technology will continue? Or might it drop off sometime in the future?

• 43:23Speaker 02

  Hmm. I don't think technology is going to slow down. I mean, maybe now in this pandemic, it's slowing down a little bit. But I think we're going to continue to do progress. If not, what are we going to do with all these scientists? We better keep them busy. Just give them, give them something, give them the prize, do, do something. So I don't think it's gonna slow down.

• 43:41Negin Farsad?

  What did we do with the scientists during the dark ages? Weren't they just like churning butter?

• 43:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There were no scientists in the dark age. That's why this is called the dark ages.

• 43:51Speaker 02

  During the war, you know, they kept mathematicians busy. They're like, well, make these math tables, these very, very thick math tables. And, you know, we use them today. So we've got to keep them busy.

• 44:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's a welfare program.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  It is a welfare program. It's a very smart one.

• 44:07Negin Farsad?

  I don't, I, I do feel like there's gonna be a time where people are just like, forget it, I'm joining a commune. Like I can see people just being like, I'm going to a farm. None of this is worth it. And uh,

• 44:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I've never met anyone under thirty. I've never met anyone under thirty who came close to having that thought.

• 44:28Negin Farsad?

  But then the second they turn thirty-one, that's when the farm is ending.

• 44:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, I think about it, if, if, if you're gonna say, oh my gosh, I'm overwhelmed by all this technology. Young people don't think or feel that at all. This is their life. They're not overwhelmed by it. If it is what they, um, they're forged in it. So.

• 44:52Speaker 02

  Right. Maybe my generation is the one that's just feeling a little overwhelmed by it. And I take a break from it. Like, you know, on Sunday, I'll just say, okay, three hours, I'm not gonna look at my phone. Just so my whole brain will come back. Yeah.

• 45:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's brave of you.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  I miss it the whole time.

• 45:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Something could happen in those three hours.

• 45:09Speaker 02

  Something can happen. I,

• 45:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You could miss a tweet. A tweet could go by.

• 45:13Speaker 02

  I know. What happened? Oh, man.

• 45:19Negin Farsad?

  Do we have time for one part?

• 45:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, let's do a couple more, yeah.

• 45:21Negin Farsad?

  Okay.

• 45:23Negin Farsad?

  So, Todd Ambrose wrote on Facebook, "How can we make sure the technology is used to benefit all humankind and bring us to a more peaceful and intelligent rather than dystopian society?" Todd's watched some movies set in the future, and it's always dystopian.

• 45:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:42Speaker 02

  Ooh, that's a good question. Well, we can always control technology with our purchases. If we don't like the way something's going, we can not purchase it, or we can encourage other people not to purchase it.

• 45:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, but when bad things happen, it's not because everyone makes a bad thing happen. It's because one person makes a bad thing happen, exploiting the technology for nefarious...

• 46:02Speaker 02

  It's a good point.

• 46:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Reasons.

• 46:04Speaker 02

  So what should we do about that?

• 46:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm asking you, you're the engineer.

• 46:10Speaker 02

  I think that we should keep an eye on each other. I also think that when we make technology, we should... We often think that it's going to be used in positive ways, and we need people who do bad things to look at a technology and show us, "Okay, how is this going to be used in a bad way?" And then put some fail safes in it to just kind of, you know...

• 46:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so it's like a hackathon, where...

• 46:30Speaker 02

  A hackathon, exactly.

• 46:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, if I have a secure system, I invite in the world's best hackers to see if they can hack into it.

• 46:37Speaker 02

  Come on in, try it. Okay, we'll fix that. There's a hole, there's a hole.

• 46:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And whoever hacks in, they get a reward.

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 46:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, and now that bulletproofs my system. Okay, so we need more of that. That's excellent.

• 46:45Speaker 02

  I think we need more of that for all devices.

• 46:47Negin Farsad?

  But I also think, like, fashionability and trends, there's a cultural pressure on certain technology. It's like you think, like I talked about glass holes before, that was just cultural pressure that ended that, you know? Or beta versus VHS, you know what I mean? Like, people just randomly decided that VHS was gonna win.

• 47:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How old are you?

• 47:11Negin Farsad?

  I just applied for Medicare, you guys.

• 47:15Negin Farsad?

  I look really good for my age.

• 47:17Speaker 02

  You look really good, yeah.

• 47:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, cultural pressure will do it. But I think from the onset, as we're making the innovation, we should start to think those hard questions. How can this be misused?

• 47:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So that's got to be a fundamental part of the development.

• 47:34Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 47:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very good.

• 47:35Negin Farsad?

  Is there a technology, and you said that you are currently worried will be misused in the future?

• 47:41Speaker 02

  Well, I'm a little worried about driverless cars. Uh, they are being sold as wonderful ways to take us to places, and I think that's great. But they're actually ethical decisions that are being made in the algorithms. So when the car is at a place where it can possibly have an accident, it will make a decision who it's going to harm. And, uh, I think-

• 47:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is like the trolley car analogies, right?

• 48:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, those are humans, though.

• 48:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  But this is an algorithm. And so I think that ethicists and philosophers should be part of that decision-making when they talk to computer scientists, like, what is the best way? Because right now, it's a couple of people with low-grade body odor who are making these decisions.

• 48:17Speaker 02

  I would like someone in another pay grade to be making-

• 48:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so what you're saying is if a car is gonna hit two people by veering right, or one person by veering left, it'll say-

• 48:26Speaker 02

  It will make a decision.

• 48:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I wanna make a decision, I wanna hit the one person, possibly kill them, but then I... We're net plus one life by that decision.

• 48:34Speaker 02

  Right, right. But, but as, you know, I used to be a lifeguard. They would say, "Look, if there's an old person and a young person who's, you know, in trouble, choose the younger person." I don't know if the algorithms are doing that. So we need some human interface in there, too.

• 48:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  Oh, that's a-

• 48:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't want you to ever be my lifeguard.

• 48:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, it would look good. I wouldn't save me, so it's okay.

• 49:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, couple, we got time for like two more, real quick.

• 49:02Negin Farsad?

  Okay. Oh, what do you think? Oh, sorry, this comes from Meneko Hazagawa on Instagram. What do you think has been the single biggest missed opportunity for technological advancement due to other factors? I.e. death of the inventor, sociopolitical factors such as war, disease, or lack of funding?

• 49:21Speaker 02

  Ooh, that's a good question.

• 49:23Negin Farsad?

  Yeah.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Um, I think we've capitalized on most inventions. I can't think of one that hasn't been capitalized. Uh, even with death, like, I'm thinking about DNA, you know? We, we stole- Rosalind Franklin's picture. Uh, so people always capitalize on inventions. I don't, I can't think of anything off the top of my head of where some, where there was a lost opportunity.

• 49:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to clarify, Rosalind Franklin was

• 49:46Speaker 02

  Oh, sorry. She was a co-discoverer of the DNA. Of DNA and had this wonderful picture that explained how things were arranged. She had it to the side. It was actually taken, for lack of a better term. Uh, she didn't get the Nobel Prize, but you know, we all know what DNA is.

• 50:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Watson and Crick did, but I think they're doing a biopic on her if they haven't already.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  I'm glad, there's actually, yeah, a couple of films.

• 50:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, she's getting her due. So for me, uh, the way I see this, and unfortunately I'm gonna have to rap here, is it's not so much that there's a single invention that could have been further exploited and was not. I think there's an entire slowdown that comes about by people who, a rising population of people who are just simply anti-science. And they think science somehow has made their lives worse, when half of them are actually alive today and wouldn't have been alive 200 years ago because science, health, medicine, uh, security, all of this have been brought about. So if you have movements that are anti-science, anti-technology, that's gonna slow things down.

• 50:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And, and you don't even know what you could be benefiting from, because it's not there to, for you to benefit from it. I mean, it's one of these things. So that, I, that's my worry, that civilization could be in a more advanced place than it already is, simply because of these, these regressive forces in society.

• 51:08Negin Farsad?

  Well, that's why we didn't get on board with the electric car, right? Like in the eighties or whatever, the electric car was trying to be a thing. And then all the forces were like, no, thank you. And then now here we are, like 20 years later with the electric car becoming a thing.

• 51:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, even with the back An electric car was an idea back in the nineteen twenties. People thought about it because electricity was becoming more and more available. But by then, like you said, Beta, uh,

• 51:32Negin Farsad?

  Beta versus VHS.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  It's got VHS.

• 51:35Negin Farsad?

  That's a cattle.

• 51:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They got VHS.

• 51:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Ainissa, take us out with some quick words of wisdom.

• 51:44Speaker 02

  Well, technology is all over us and they've always been used as a way to advance humankind. But what I talk about in The Alchemy of Us is that we are in a dance with technology. We create them and then they create us. And so it's up to all of us to make sure that these technologies are actually moving us in the directions that we think is best for all of humanity.

• 52:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, that's beautiful. Can't top that. No, we can't. We've got to end it there. So, Ainissa Ramirez, great to have you back on StarTalk.

• 52:14Speaker 02

  Thank you so much.

• 52:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Could you write more books so we can bring you on more often?

• 52:17Speaker 02

  Just that.

• 52:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We'll probably find another way to, we'll invent an excuse to bring you back on. And Negin Farsad, we really enjoyed you for this.

• 52:27Negin Farsad?

  Oh, thank you.

• 52:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I hope you come back.

• 52:29Negin Farsad?

  I would love to come back. Also, Ainissa, I just want to pitch to you that The Alchemy of Us should be a spinoff series to This Is Us, but it's like a family of scientists.

• 52:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Ooh, nice idea. When you heard it here first.

• 52:44Negin Farsad?

  Heard it here first.

• 52:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, we've got to cut it there. I am Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. This has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries, Engineering Edition. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.