0:00:00.030,0:00:06.270 so I'm gonna go back and really try and[br]nail this thing down so that you wind up[br]with an operational understanding of the 0:00:08.490,0:00:12.840 blockchain that will allow you to[br]correctly interpret its significance in 0:00:12.840,0:00:20.520 your life right and to do that we have[br]to go back really 50 or so years into 0:00:20.520,0:00:25.230 the early days of computing because what[br]what is making this so confusing is that 0:00:25.230,0:00:29.189 most of the practitioners in the[br]blockchain space have 50 years of 0:00:29.189,0:00:33.989 history parked into their heads which[br]forms an implicit matrix in which words 0:00:33.989,0:00:39.120 like distributed database hang so to[br]really get this to hang together we've 0:00:39.120,0:00:41.730 got to go all the way back and we're[br]gonna go through this kind of quickly 0:00:41.730,0:00:45.899 but I want to try and lay out the[br]foundations in the past so that we can 0:00:45.899,0:00:51.989 meaningfully talk about the future[br]so we conveniently have this stage which[br]is set out in lumps and I'm gonna make 0:00:53.940,0:00:59.789 each one of these basically a ten year[br]span so right back somewhere over here 0:00:59.789,0:01:04.920 in the darkness of history we've got the[br]Second World War which is where the 0:01:04.920,0:01:08.880 computer was was originally created[br]right the computer as it currently 0:01:08.880,0:01:14.280 exists was developed as a weapon to[br]defeat the Nazis it was used to crack 0:01:14.280,0:01:18.750 the codes that allowed the Allies to[br]paralyze the German war effort and 0:01:18.750,0:01:23.220 eventually defeat them and the link[br]between cryptography and computation 0:01:23.220,0:01:27.540 goes all the way back to the birth in[br]fact if you go even further back the 0:01:27.540,0:01:31.470 analog computers these monsters brass[br]devices which were used way back in the[br]day were actually created to calculate 0:01:34.290,0:01:38.159 gunnery tables for naval ships at war[br]they wanted to be able to calculate the 0:01:38.159,0:01:43.680 trajectory of artillery so you come[br]forward into the 1950s and you get this 0:01:43.680,0:01:48.149 kind of demilitarized computing all[br]these machines and all these engineers 0:01:48.149,0:01:53.280 that have left of services and are[br]coming in to you know create a new 0:01:53.280,0:01:56.939 generation and we're gonna take all this[br]former military gear and we're gonna put[br]it in the hands of businesses and back 0:01:59.460,0:02:04.649 in this prehistory the computers are the[br]size of this room they weighed tons the 0:02:04.649,0:02:09.000 guy from IBM famously says that there[br]might be a world market for perhaps five 0:02:09.000,0:02:13.590 computers a year right the data is[br]stored on 0:02:13.590,0:02:19.650 cards and then eventually one inch wide[br]magnetic tapes and the complexity of 0:02:19.650,0:02:23.580 these systems is such that it takes a[br]roomful of programmers to get a simple 0:02:23.580,0:02:28.200 reliable system to do something a[br]process an invoice right this is the[br]prehistory and this is the mid mid-1960s 0:02:31.920,0:02:37.370 that were talking about so the game[br]really begins to be recognizable in 1970 0:02:37.370,0:02:40.830 when you get the creation of an[br]abstraction called 0:02:40.830,0:02:49.880 SQL in IBM by a guy called coder Edward[br]Cod and it caught so SQL is this[br]extremely forceful application of 0:02:52.470,0:02:58.349 mathematics to bring order to the chaos[br]of tape machines back here you've got a 0:02:58.349,0:03:02.160 whole bunch of data basically just[br]spattered across magnetic tape and 0:03:02.160,0:03:06.450 you've got huge machines that process[br]the tape but when you want to retrieve 0:03:06.450,0:03:10.560 something you have to go and fish for[br]the day to yourself move tape number 0:03:10.560,0:03:15.890 three forward 17 feet find me the record[br]and give me back the first name and[br]programming these things is glacially 0:03:18.450,0:03:22.799 slow it's a nightmarish so here is the[br]first place where the heavy mouth really 0:03:22.799,0:03:28.859 enters the picture in this story which[br]is the SQL abstraction assumes that you 0:03:28.859,0:03:36.269 create a multi-dimensional cube one tape[br]machine per axis of the cube five tape 0:03:36.269,0:03:40.950 machines five dimensional cube you can[br]imagine it kind of hanging in space you[br]then have an abstract algebra which 0:03:43.290,0:03:49.430 allows you to take a locus a set space[br]inside of the five dimensional cube 0:03:49.430,0:03:54.569 specify in ways which make sense the[br]programmers fairly intuitively see where[br]there might be a gap there and pull that 0:03:57.480,0:04:03.569 and that set of data out into something[br]that looks like a spreadsheet and that 0:04:03.569,0:04:08.819 conceptual jump was at the time so[br]revolutionary it took people were five 0:04:08.819,0:04:13.440 years to accept that it had happened and[br]that actually worked and what came out 0:04:13.440,0:04:22.169 of that was the golden age of SQL right[br]1970 to 1990 just about all that we did 0:04:22.169,0:04:26.700 was take every single thing that we[br]could fit into a database in business or 0:04:26.700,0:04:28.970 in the white[br]world and we shoved it into a database 0:04:28.970,0:04:36.230 and right here in 1970 the machines were[br]incredibly expensive and incredibly 0:04:36.230,0:04:39.910 fragile the people working with the[br]machines actually wore white coats 0:04:39.910,0:04:44.390 because if you weren't wearing a white[br]coat stray fibers from your clothing[br]could interfere with the tapes Jam the 0:04:47.540,0:04:51.140 tape machines and destroy your customer[br]data Ron[br]so amount in this very fragile very 0:04:53.690,0:04:58.520 arcane very expensive system it's only[br]just become technically feasible these 0:04:58.520,0:05:03.830 things are like laboratory artifacts[br]right it's like going into you know CERN 0:05:03.830,0:05:07.850 or something like that when you want to[br]inspect one of them and this sets the 0:05:07.850,0:05:14.030 mindset for databases right the way[br]through 70s up until the beginning of[br]the 80s that's the psychological 0:05:16.100,0:05:21.620 condition of the database and the[br]organization's become siloed because all 0:05:21.620,0:05:24.890 the information that makes your[br]organization work is stored inside of 0:05:24.890,0:05:31.850 one of these data temples right right[br]around 84 you get the microcomputer 0:05:31.850,0:05:37.190 revolution the IBM PC the Apple all this[br]kind of stuff and these are appliances 0:05:37.190,0:05:40.760 there are things that you can buy like a[br]television and plug into your office 0:05:40.760,0:05:45.920 they are robust they're reasonably cheap[br]as as well as four or five thousand 0:05:45.920,0:05:51.950 dollars amazing they are fairly easy to[br]maintain and repair they are relatively 0:05:51.950,0:05:55.910 resistant to dust and humidity they're[br]pretty much like a television in terms 0:05:55.910,0:06:02.840 of their operating characteristics one[br]per desk seems possible and weirdly[br]enough they can absolutely run database 0:06:04.340,0:06:08.150 software on them you can actually have a[br]database kind of sort of like the big 0:06:08.150,0:06:11.480 thing you had over here but actually[br]living on the machine that you have in 0:06:11.480,0:06:15.980 front of you and the kind of first real[br]heavy use of an application that works 0:06:15.980,0:06:20.030 in that environment is a thing called[br]Lotus 1-2-3 which is the first[br]spreadsheet and this begins a revolution 0:06:22.820,0:06:25.190 that goes all the way through accounting[br]but we're not gonna talk about 0:06:25.190,0:06:28.250 accounting too much but if you want to[br]think about computers and Ledger's 0:06:28.250,0:06:36.650 starts here back in the 80s now this is[br]15 years from you know enormous with 0:06:36.650,0:06:40.810 fragile machinery and enormous expanse[br]through to its 0:06:40.810,0:06:44.530 on a desktop can you imagine how[br]disoriented the people that live through[br]that technological transformation were 0:06:46.090,0:06:51.130 it was just as weird as what's happening[br]now but it was happening somewhere over 0:06:51.130,0:06:55.180 there because we hadn't invented the[br]Internet to bring you the news that 0:06:55.180,0:07:00.910 something weird it happened with[br]computers now we get to kill in 1990 the 0:07:00.910,0:07:06.520 networking push really starts a long way[br]back but it takes a long time to get the[br]networking stuff to work 1990 is about 0:07:09.340,0:07:14.080 where you begin to get networking that's[br]practical for real stuff yeah I got my 0:07:14.080,0:07:21.610 first email account about 91 and at that[br]point there was no World Wide Web there 0:07:21.610,0:07:26.740 was a computer there was email there[br]were chat programs but if you wanted a 0:07:26.740,0:07:30.610 document from another machine you got an[br]interface that looked a bit like a file 0:07:30.610,0:07:34.030 browser and you clicked on the document[br]you want then it loaded it onto your[br]machine and then you opened it in 0:07:35.110,0:07:38.800 something to take a look at it and the[br]notion that you could build the thing to 0:07:38.800,0:07:43.600 read the document into the thing that[br]got you the document was quite radical 0:07:43.600,0:07:49.840 that was sort of a big deal and that was[br]why the web was a big deal no one were[br]bit weird paradigm stuff over here 0:07:53.289,0:07:57.940 through this period the computing is[br]very much centered around data it's 0:07:57.940,0:08:04.120 structured it's hard it's rigid it's[br]formulated it's tabulated the stuff is 0:08:04.120,0:08:09.400 very rigid the web builds on a different[br]model of computing which is called 0:08:09.400,0:08:15.789 document-centric right document-centric[br]computers are paper simulators right 0:08:15.789,0:08:19.000 they harm do things which look like[br]documents you get email it looks like a 0:08:19.000,0:08:24.310 letter am you open up a graphics program[br]it looks like a canvas there are things 0:08:24.310,0:08:27.729 that look like paintbrushes in term[br]model of computing that we're using 0:08:27.729,0:08:33.880 right now is document-centric computing[br]and the connection between databases and 0:08:33.880,0:08:38.770 that sort of data centric computing and[br]document-centric computing is extremely 0:08:38.770,0:08:42.849 weak there are two completely different[br]ways of getting the machine to do stuff 0:08:42.849,0:08:48.760 for you and getting data into documents[br]is tricky as anybody who's ever done in 0:08:48.760,0:08:53.200 Excel merge knows and seriously right[br]it's hard 0:08:53.200,0:08:57.460 getting documents into data is even[br]harder which is the entire mass of 0:08:57.460,0:09:02.380 content management systems right[br]scanning documents all of us these two 0:09:02.380,0:09:08.200 things don't mix together at all well so[br]we come out through the 90s and you kind 0:09:08.200,0:09:14.470 of get to mid 95 maybe early 96 and[br]people suddenly realize that one day in 0:09:14.470,0:09:18.040 the future you'll be able to make money[br]on the internet there's just one problem[br]there's no security which means if you 0:09:20.890,0:09:25.450 type your credit card into an internet[br]form it will be bounced all around the 0:09:25.450,0:09:28.030 internet anybody can read it and they[br]can steal money out of your account[br]it's another five years until we get a 0:09:31.450,0:09:36.070 widely deployed solution that allows us[br]to have encryption which lets us move 0:09:36.070,0:09:40.030 credit cards around the internet[br]e-commerce doesn't really become a thing[br]into hot 1999 2000 so we were already 0:09:44.220,0:09:49.360 here by the time you've got a computer[br]that is capable of taking a payment from 0:09:49.360,0:09:56.620 you know the the internet again how fast[br]is the rate of change does anybody even 0:09:56.620,0:10:00.610 remember when you couldn't put credit[br]cards into the internet but you were all 0:10:00.610,0:10:05.530 alive pretty much but we forget so[br]quickly what was possible or impossible 0:10:05.530,0:10:09.220 when you technology arrived so we're[br]just gonna wash the memory out it's 0:10:09.220,0:10:12.670 quite hard even to think about what it[br]was like before we had cell phones so[br]you come forward to 2010 by 2010 I'm 0:10:16.870,0:10:20.140 gonna suggest that more or less[br]everything you could do in a webpage had 0:10:20.140,0:10:24.280 been done to at least the first[br]approximation more or less all the basic 0:10:24.280,0:10:27.790 stuff was there if you could do it with[br]a computer that was basically a paper 0:10:27.790,0:10:34.150 simulator it had been done more or less[br]now this is also roughly when Bitcoin 0:10:34.150,0:10:38.350 gets started and Bitcoin starts in some[br]you know festering little weird 0:10:38.350,0:10:41.950 counterculture on the internet which I[br]spent my entire 1990s and called 0:10:41.950,0:10:46.780 cyberpunk and the cypherpunks are[br]straight out of science fiction they[br]can't tell the difference between 0:10:47.590,0:10:51.280 science fiction and reality they[br]generally speaking have an emotional[br]intelligence Koecher around 75 to 50 it 0:10:55.300,0:10:59.560 took me a long time to grow over and one[br]of the things which makes that scene 0:10:59.560,0:11:04.090 work the way that does is the enormous[br]prevalence of autism so whenever you 0:11:04.090,0:11:08.339 hear somebody ragging on the Nerds[br]right but ever you hear somebody ragging 0:11:08.339,0:11:11.160 on the nerds remember what they're doing[br]generally speaking is picking on[br]autistic people right it's really 0:11:14.130,0:11:17.399 important to understand that the people[br]building the technologies on put your 0:11:17.399,0:11:22.500 society completely depends the people[br]without whom the lights go out and the 0:11:22.500,0:11:27.959 food stays cold are heavily heavily[br]heavily tending towards being on the 0:11:27.959,0:11:31.110 autistic spectrum so when you hear[br]people laughing at the Nerds remember 0:11:31.110,0:11:34.440 they're often at people that are[br]disabled there are also the people that 0:11:34.440,0:11:39.810 your civilization depends on so don't[br]screw with them right so the cypherpunks[br]come out and basically say in a very 0:11:42.120,0:11:48.450 naive way why do we need government and[br]they go and they build this thing which 0:11:48.450,0:11:53.339 is essentially a central bank of the[br]internet now you sort of think well that 0:11:53.339,0:11:57.209 was a bit of a big jump how did we go[br]from we can finally take a credit card[br]to central bank of the internet that's 0:11:59.940,0:12:03.690 what all of us spent about five years[br]wondering as well what the hell did they 0:12:03.690,0:12:08.940 do because the technology arrived raw we[br]could go to ask what satoshis intent was 0:12:08.940,0:12:13.230 because Satoshi was a ghost right the[br]software was dropped onto the internet 0:12:13.230,0:12:18.120 there was some early discussion and then[br]the guy vanished so we have no idea who 0:12:18.120,0:12:21.330 Satoshi was we don't know what the[br]intent was there is nobody to go to 0:12:21.330,0:12:24.959 conferences and pitch the technology we[br]were left with an artifact that to all[br]intents and purposes might have been 0:12:26.279,0:12:32.940 created by a time-travel or under[br]dropped it's about bigger jump um so 0:12:32.940,0:12:39.690 what did they do what they did was this[br]right back over here the databases were 0:12:39.690,0:12:45.800 singular they existed in an atomic state[br]one database per enterprise the network[br]existed in some relational sense between 0:12:48.270,0:12:52.770 enterprises but because the database was[br]perceived has been too fragile to let 0:12:52.770,0:12:57.180 anybody touch the database never[br]directly communicated with the network 0:12:57.180,0:13:01.230 you always had a lots and lots and lots[br]of guards and buffers and other stuff in 0:13:01.230,0:13:04.950 between to prevent the two things[br]working properly and if you did actually 0:13:04.950,0:13:09.180 connect the databases kind of directly[br]to each other you got another problem[br]which was the database encoded the 0:13:11.100,0:13:15.779 worldview of the organization to[br]organizations to different world views 0:13:15.779,0:13:18.900 you always needed something in between[br]to translate 0:13:18.900,0:13:24.570 so you never got large-scale[br]computer-to-computer connections that 0:13:24.570,0:13:28.140 allows you to create a shared model of[br]reality between lots of different[br]organizations and this shows up everyday 0:13:30.779,0:13:35.820 when you try and do something like[br]process a claim on insurance and you 0:13:35.820,0:13:39.930 have to fill in the name and address[br]details seventy four times for different[br]organizations often three or four times 0:13:42.029,0:13:46.140 for the same organization the databases[br]are kept separate from each other 0:13:46.140,0:13:49.680 there's no real connectivity between[br]them and when you try and build 0:13:49.680,0:13:53.460 connections between the systems the[br]complexity builds to the point where 0:13:53.460,0:13:59.339 it's too expensive to do so what they[br]say you know mean when they say the word 0:13:59.339,0:14:05.880 distributed database is a database which[br]is both like a database and like a[br]network and this is the genius of 0:14:07.920,0:14:13.350 Bitcoin it fuses together the database[br]and the network into a seamless hole 0:14:13.350,0:14:18.060 called blockchain everywhere there is[br]data there is Network and everywhere[br]there is Network there is data they're 0:14:19.890,0:14:25.110 completely fused inside of these systems[br]so what that means is rather than having 0:14:25.110,0:14:29.220 all of these individual kind of ivory[br]tower computer systems connected by a 0:14:29.220,0:14:33.029 network and then all the costs of moving[br]things in and out you have a single 0:14:33.029,0:14:39.660 shared story of reality spread across[br]all the machines simultaneously and when 0:14:39.660,0:14:44.010 it changes in one place it changes[br]everywhere and this is such a powerful 0:14:44.010,0:14:48.360 abstraction it's such a powerful[br]technology that the first thing they 0:14:48.360,0:14:53.790 implemented was the central bank of the[br]internet that was the first thing they 0:14:53.790,0:15:03.300 did can you imagine to write you open by[br]creating a single global currency which 0:15:03.300,0:15:06.540 is the first thing that has worked that[br]way since we went off the gold standard 0:15:06.540,0:15:10.920 and the technology deployed is so[br]powerful that it was done by either one 0:15:10.920,0:15:14.730 individual or a small group that[br]remained a secret they basically 0:15:14.730,0:15:22.020 reinvented gold and that was the first[br]move this is unimaginable strangeness to 0:15:22.020,0:15:24.300 somebody that spent their entire[br]lifetime monkeying around with computers 0:15:24.300,0:15:32.400 oh my god what have we done so you get[br]up to kind of where we are now right 0:15:32.400,0:15:38.670 basically 2015-2016 we're sort of midway[br]through the process Bitcoin is well 0:15:38.670,0:15:43.170 established as a reality everybody is[br]comfortable with bitcoins existence to 0:15:43.170,0:15:49.830 some degree what is it it's a bank[br]account that stores magic internet money 0:15:49.830,0:15:52.590 that comes from the central bank of the[br]internet which is a decentralized 0:15:52.590,0:15:55.110 database which is everywhere anoher[br]maintained by a bunch of people you 0:15:55.110,0:16:01.020 don't understand but the funny thing is[br]that if I describe to you how your 0:16:01.020,0:16:08.130 government works it's even worse right[br]so every four years we hold a popularity 0:16:08.130,0:16:14.040 contest regionally we pick the person[br]that is most likeable on television more 0:16:14.040,0:16:17.610 or less regardless of their values we[br]know nothing about them because they're 0:16:17.610,0:16:21.450 protected by privacy that surrounds most[br]individuals so they could be a person 0:16:21.450,0:16:24.870 playing a role and then we assemble[br]these people into a large group that 0:16:24.870,0:16:33.180 gets to decide who lives and who dies[br]every day right so you know don't assume 0:16:33.180,0:16:36.930 that because the new stuff is weird it's[br]any weirder than the old stuff the old 0:16:36.930,0:16:43.650 stuff is just weird stuff you got used[br]to now let me move a little forward to 0:16:43.650,0:16:48.900 this whole smart contract thing right so[br]the smart contract is the third big 0:16:48.900,0:16:53.130 integrative step first we merge the[br]network and the database to make the 0:16:53.130,0:16:59.310 blockchain then we take computer[br]software code and put it into the shared 0:16:59.310,0:17:04.230 database into the blockchain so we take[br]a little program and they can only be 0:17:04.230,0:17:07.260 little because it's just the beginning[br]of the story and we take the little 0:17:07.260,0:17:12.240 program and we store it in the[br]blockchain and that means everybody 0:17:12.240,0:17:16.520 that's connected to the block chain has[br]the copy of exactly the same program and 0:17:16.520,0:17:23.480 programs when you run the program same[br]data same code same result so now 0:17:23.480,0:17:28.109 everybody's got a copy of the database[br]everybody's got a copy the code we all[br]run the code at the same time we all put 0:17:30.420,0:17:34.260 the output back into the blockchain if[br]there's a disagreement we find it 0:17:34.260,0:17:38.550 immediately we sort it out so in that[br]sort of environment you have these 0:17:38.550,0:17:42.930 little programs which are just as[br]transactional sending people money it's 0:17:42.930,0:17:47.169 like a wire transfer you[br]go here and my fools across the network 0:17:47.169,0:17:50.620 it pops up there it's like a Bitcoin[br]payment what kind of things the world[br]programs do if this job has been done 0:17:54.130,0:18:00.100 pay bob if the job hasn't been done by[br]the 31st of March send the money back to[br]ours how you tiny little pieces of 0:18:03.190,0:18:07.450 business logic pulled out of the[br]application stack and put onto the box 0:18:07.450,0:18:11.890 chain instead and this is the third big[br]unification I work for a company called 0:18:11.890,0:18:17.320 consensus systems that uses aetherium[br]which is the first really durable smart[br]contract platform to build lots of 0:18:19.390,0:18:24.039 applications and those little programs[br]do things like make sure the artists get 0:18:24.039,0:18:27.370 paid when their music is listened to[br]they do things like streamline 0:18:27.370,0:18:33.130 transactions between banks through all[br]kinds of simple useful things and we're 0:18:33.130,0:18:37.809 still only at the very beginning of the[br]story right now the Bitcoin system[br]processes about seven transactions a 0:18:39.880,0:18:46.210 second the etherium system does[br]something like 20 so these are way back 0:18:46.210,0:18:50.799 in terms of speed they're way back over[br]there her computers were in the 1960s on 0:18:50.799,0:18:57.700 punched cards now brace yourselves right[br]now the challenge is to produce a thing 0:18:57.700,0:19:02.740 called a scaled blockchain and a scaled[br]blockchain is watch-chain that doesn't 0:19:02.740,0:19:07.720 do 20 transactions a second it does[br]roughly the same number of transactions 0:19:07.720,0:19:13.240 a second as Visa or Swift ten thousand[br]50 thousand a hundred thousand 0:19:13.240,0:19:17.500 transactions a second quarter of a[br]million transactions a second and the 0:19:17.500,0:19:21.820 scaled blockchain is something that[br]begins to provide us with something that 0:19:21.820,0:19:26.289 looks like a global computing surface[br]onto which things like the internet 0:19:26.289,0:19:30.309 things could be loaded you could take[br]the entire global financial system and 0:19:30.309,0:19:34.120 push it into a scale box chain you could[br]take the entire Internet of Things and 0:19:34.120,0:19:37.750 push it into a scale blockchain you[br]could take all of those machines in the 0:19:37.750,0:19:42.220 cloud you could put blockchain software[br]onto them as Microsoft recently did with 0:19:42.220,0:19:47.470 a thing called a Dewar and then you[br]could have a single global computing 0:19:47.470,0:19:51.010 surface that took all of our different[br]bits and pieces of computing power and 0:19:51.010,0:19:55.330 turned them into a global knowledge[br]resource that basically manages the 0:19:55.330,0:19:58.060 fundamental infrastructure of our[br]society 0:19:58.060,0:20:01.600 instead of the cobbled-together nonsense[br]that you get every time you talk to your 0:20:01.600,0:20:08.590 bank right and because these computer[br]systems don't create new woe curses of 0:20:08.590,0:20:13.000 political control when they're built[br]because they're decentralized what you 0:20:13.000,0:20:18.220 don't get is a position where the basic[br]infrastructure of your society a stock 0:20:18.220,0:20:21.640 that your society runs on is[br]automatically owned by a set of 0:20:21.640,0:20:25.930 corporations or even a set of[br]governments what you have is something 0:20:25.930,0:20:30.670 which is constituted by the will of the[br]people and serves their purposes which 0:20:30.670,0:20:35.140 is after all the original intention of[br]government now this is where we have to 0:20:35.140,0:20:39.280 go back and separate reality from[br]fantasy because this is the mistake[br]that's made it almost impossible for 0:20:40.630,0:20:45.100 people to understand Bitcoin remember I[br]mentioned the cypherpunks back here and[br]their inability to tell the difference 0:20:46.570,0:20:50.650 between science fiction and political[br]reality the notion that we're simply 0:20:50.650,0:20:55.480 going to automate away all of the things[br]which constitute government makes a ton 0:20:55.480,0:21:01.930 of sense to people that spend 23 hours a[br]day online and I'm really framing this 0:21:01.930,0:21:05.890 very carefully because this is causing[br]enormous trouble but if you're somebody 0:21:05.890,0:21:09.910 that spends only a little bit of your[br]time interacting with computers it's 0:21:09.910,0:21:14.110 pretty obvious that the computer only[br]exists as a rectangle of glowing light[br]somewhere in your room or in your hand 0:21:16.060,0:21:21.640 and and out here from that perspective[br]it's pretty clear that if you teach 0:21:21.640,0:21:25.570 computers governed resources a lot of[br]trivial stuff in your life gets a lot[br]easier like paying your taxes or making 0:21:28.270,0:21:32.200 sure that your telephone works or you[br]know doing your banking whatever happens 0:21:32.200,0:21:36.070 to be but it's not obvious that this is[br]a replacement for the general edifice of 0:21:36.070,0:21:41.410 government and the tension between the[br]way the world looks to the technologists 0:21:41.410,0:21:45.250 and the way the world looks to everybody[br]else is what's at the heart of the fight 0:21:45.250,0:21:49.060 with entities like uber because uber[br]makes perfect sense to a technologist 0:21:49.060,0:21:53.700 and it really upsets people that have[br]run a taxi monopoly for 150 years and 0:21:53.700,0:21:58.300 those kind of discussions and tensions[br]are as much about the different 0:21:58.300,0:22:02.800 neurological makeup of the people who[br]developed the world view as they are 0:22:02.800,0:22:07.090 about the technology what we're really[br]having here is a discussion about what 0:22:07.090,0:22:12.300 kinds of minds run our society is our[br]society predominantly run by charming 0:22:12.300,0:22:16.560 glib slightly sociopathic people who are[br]good on television or is it 0:22:16.560,0:22:20.130 predominantly run by people that live in[br]front of computers and control the world 0:22:20.130,0:22:25.170 with numbers and that debate has gone on[br]inside of our culture since the two 0:22:25.170,0:22:29.190 cultures period of British history where[br]there was this discussion about whether 0:22:29.190,0:22:33.870 arts and sciences could ever get along[br]well turns out the sciences guys are now[br]figuring out how to govern instead of 0:22:35.490,0:22:40.530 the lawyers and this is creating an[br]enormous amount of turbulence but the 0:22:40.530,0:22:45.420 turbulence is not well described because[br]it's happening extremely quickly and the 0:22:45.420,0:22:49.560 only place that there's a literary canon[br]that really describes these processes is[br]science fiction right if you want mental 0:22:52.620,0:22:56.400 models of how to think about the reality[br]that we're currently in you have to go 0:22:56.400,0:22:59.700 back to the science fiction a thirty[br]years ago published under a general 0:22:59.700,0:23:05.340 title of cyberpunk right and cyberpunk[br]was the fiction that describes the[br]reality that we're now in it's about 0:23:07.260,0:23:11.310 virtual reality it's about drones it's[br]about biotechnology that regrows your 0:23:11.310,0:23:14.850 nervous system[br]it's about virtual currencies and 0:23:14.850,0:23:19.560 artificial intelligence and we would all[br]have a much better grip on the reality 0:23:19.560,0:23:23.430 that we found ourselves in if science[br]fiction hadn't been kicked out of the 0:23:23.430,0:23:25.790 Witter recon and sometime after World[br]War two 0:23:25.790,0:23:30.870 there's a definite push where science[br]fiction is pushed away from the 0:23:30.870,0:23:35.160 mainstream of literature and into its[br]own kind of genre box and as a result 0:23:35.160,0:23:38.610 the place where most of the thinking and[br]analysis has been done about these[br]technologies and what they mean to us as 0:23:40.080,0:23:45.060 a society has been banished from polite[br]company it all exists in a place called 0:23:45.060,0:23:48.750 genre fiction and it's no longer[br]considered to be real literature as a 0:23:48.750,0:23:53.220 result the mainstream can arts[br]population have been left without mythic 0:23:53.220,0:23:57.540 narratives to allow them to interpret[br]the reality that the technicians have 0:23:57.540,0:24:02.550 created and what we've seen this evening[br]is a perfect demonstration of that gap 0:24:02.550,0:24:06.870 because actually getting the message[br]across requires a completely different 0:24:06.870,0:24:09.450 perspective to the one which is natural[br]to the technicians 0:24:09.450,0:24:14.100 you know I'm lucky in that I've managed[br]to bridge that gap because I was always[br]as much a writer as I was a programmer 0:24:15.690,0:24:19.800 and I've done about you comments are[br]both in my life so the thing that I 0:24:19.800,0:24:23.490 wanted to leave you with is this the[br]dialogue about how these technologies 0:24:23.490,0:24:28.059 are going to fit into our society[br]is going to be a dialogue about class 0:24:28.059,0:24:33.289 it's going to be about whether the[br]society is run by lawyers or technicians 0:24:33.289,0:24:38.629 both are the wrong answer it has to be[br]run by the people but for the people to 0:24:38.629,0:24:42.889 be able to intelligently make decisions[br]in a society where the core technologies 0:24:42.889,0:24:46.850 that run our society are rapidly[br]becoming so complicated we no longer 0:24:46.850,0:24:51.289 understand them we have to do better the[br]guessing which technocrat or which 0:24:51.289,0:24:55.600 lawyer to put in charge without a[br]fundamental reawaken event of 0:24:55.600,0:24:59.629 reawakening of interest in science and[br]technology and without reclaiming 0:24:59.629,0:25:03.499 science fiction as a fundamental[br]literacy for the present that we're in 0:25:03.499,0:25:07.369 we're going to be left making decisions[br]more or less at random depending on what 0:25:07.369,0:25:12.379 charming person tells us the news story[br]so my challenge to all of you is start 0:25:12.379,0:25:19.850 reading cyberpunk it's painful right[br]it's painful right it's much of it is 0:25:19.850,0:25:24.049 not very well written many of the ideas[br]look almost like it's kind of weird 0:25:24.049,0:25:28.580 potboiler fiction about the present but[br]if you sift through carefully and it 0:25:28.580,0:25:31.909 suggests starting with an anthology[br]called mirror shades which is a short 0:25:31.909,0:25:36.590 will book with short stories nothing to[br]challenge you too much if you go back[br]and read that stuff what you could begin 0:25:38.210,0:25:43.100 to flash out is the stories that all of[br]the programmers hand in their heads when[br]they built these technologies and that's 0:25:45.889,0:25:49.609 how you get your head around what's[br]happening if you share the myths at the 0:25:49.609,0:25:53.629 technical class half when they create[br]these things you can begin to understand 0:25:53.629,0:25:57.710 the technology in a mythic way which is[br]how we understand it you have to learn 0:25:57.710,0:26:00.230 the ways of our people because you're[br]living in the world that we create for 0:26:00.230,0:26:02.289 you