0:00:46.091,0:00:49.208
Let's talk about the facts of life.

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You remember that conversation you had when you were a kid

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about sex

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or drugs

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with your parents or some trusted adult?

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Probably not

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because it's a myth.

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You don't talk to kids about that stuff.

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It's just so embarrassing.

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And, hey, maybe that's OK.

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We've been outsourcing the facts of life for decades.

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We spend billions of dollars on it.

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So, why talk to kids when you can just turn on the TV?

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I learned about drugs from an egg and a frying pan:

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"This is drugs,

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and this is your brain on drugs.

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Pssssssss.

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Any questions?"

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Yeah, actually, I did.

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But it's not about questions.

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It's about data.

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In the 1980's when I was growing up,

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those data were terrifying parents:

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1% of high school seniors had try heroin,

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12% hallucinogens,

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12% tranquilizers,

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17% cocaine,

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26% stimulants,

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and over 50% of us had tried marijuana.

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It was an epidemic!

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At least, that's what they told us.

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And marijuana was the gateway drug, leading to all the harder stuff.

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Of course, 92% of us were drinking alcohol,

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and that was killing more of us than all drugs combined.

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But, nevermind, it's legal.

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So we declared war on drugs!

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Nancy Reagan was our general.

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All drugs will kill you, so just say, "No!"

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Just say, "No!" to pot.

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Just say, "No!" to cocaine.

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Just say, "No!" to everything.

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So simple!

0:02:29.227,0:02:30.811
If you want to save kids,

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you have to scare the hell out of them!

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And we spent ridiculous amounts of money doing that.

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Soon that war on drugs spread to become a war on sex.

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We were pushing abstinence on kids to fight AIDS.

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And when all the data finally came home,

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guess what:

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completely ineffective.

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We love big solutions to big problems, don't we?

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What if the facts of life don't work that way?

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What if the experience of having that conversation can't be mass-produced?

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What if it can't be scaled up?

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Well, that would be very frustrating for everyone in this industry, wouldn't it?

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And, many of them are really trying to help.

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Who, then?

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Us.

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We have to talk to kids.

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Openly and honestly.

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But are we ready to be honest?

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I don't think so.

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We mythologize childhood.

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Mine was in Stone Mountain, Georgia,

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a completely typical 1980's American suburb.

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For the parents, a wholesome paradise of bridge parties and tennis games.

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For us kids, we were all working on a secret research project,

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and our laboratory was in the woods after school,

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under the covers during sleep-overs,

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really, any opportunity we could take

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to peel off our clothes and investigate.

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What were these things,

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bodies?

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What do they do?

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We had to figure them out

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and that's childhood.

0:03:59.740,0:04:01.544
It's not just fun and games,

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it's actually a Manhattan project of nakedness.

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And then you walk into your first class in middle school,

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and the bomb goes off.

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You are not just a body any more.

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Oh no, now you are grotesque.

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That's when the suffering really starts.

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So, yeah, talk to kids.

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But if you are not honest about your own experiences first,

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everything you say smells like bullshit.

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Don't worry, you can practice

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and you should start by talking to the one kid you definitely know:

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you.

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What kind of kid were you?

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What troubled you?

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For me, it was age 13.

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That was the worst year.

0:04:50.230,0:04:53.223
I was obsessively curious about sex

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and also deeply ashamed by it.

0:04:55.763,0:04:58.821
It wasn't my only problem, of course, not by a long shot,

0:04:58.821,0:05:02.152
but it was the beginning of a downward spiral.

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And my bad luck was to hit bottom

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while watching "The Wall" by Pink Floyd,

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which is a bad idea for a miserable 13-year old high on weed.

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So, that night, for whatever reason,

0:05:14.001,0:05:18.260
it seemed like good idea to shave off my eyebrows,

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and then try to kill myself by swallowing all the pills in the bathroom,

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which was not at all fatal,

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but everyone noticed the eyebrows.

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And that made middle school extra fun.

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So, what was your low point?

0:05:32.724,0:05:36.828
And if you could build a time machine to travel back and talk to that kid,

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what would you say to yourself?

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For me, it was easy.

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All I really needed was someone to reassure me

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that somehow I was a normal part of the universe.

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But I didn't feel like I could talk to anyone.

0:05:48.942,0:05:51.596
And yet weirdly, I fully expected a time traveler

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to materialize at any time

0:05:52.793,0:05:54.739
because I was a geek.

0:05:54.739,0:05:57.147
I didn't know if it would be my unborn son

0:05:57.147,0:05:59.270
or a T-101 cyborg.

0:05:59.747,0:06:02.292
But either one would be awesome!

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Hey, it's me, yourself from the future, in the year 2012.

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I have crucial information for you, but not about the future, about the past,

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a billion years in the past, when this planet was covered with nothing but cells

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and all they did was fight, eat, and divide;

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fight, eat, and divide.

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Except for one.

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And that's your ancestor.

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This cell enslaved other ones,

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but master and slave became one.

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And then those cells invented sex,

0:06:46.427,0:06:47.888
and then they invented the first bodies

0:06:47.888,0:06:49.722
with each cell doing a different job,

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some smelling,

0:06:50.249,0:06:51.520
some moving,

0:06:51.520,0:06:53.629
some eating.

0:06:53.629,0:06:57.620
And the job of sex went to a special cell called the gamete.

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And those bodies became giant.

0:07:07.770,0:07:10.927
The distance to the next body was vast so they had to swim.

0:07:10.927,0:07:14.721
Most would be lost and die so they were mass-produced.

0:07:14.721,0:07:19.426
Soon the oceans were a non-stop riot of sex and death

0:07:19.426,0:07:24.397
until 500 million years ago, when the first beast crawled onto land.

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Land is hard

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because bodies are heavy.

0:07:37.587,0:07:39.583
And the sun kills gametes.

0:07:39.583,0:07:41.327
To keep them safe,

0:07:46.639,0:07:48.722
so deep inside of a body,

0:07:48.722,0:07:51.388
the mother builds a tiny ocean.

0:07:54.081,0:07:57.942
Outside are events of unimaginable violence.

0:07:57.942,0:08:00.205
Whole new forms of life are being created

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only to be wiped away.

0:08:02.421,0:08:05.570
Millions of years are flashing by.

0:08:05.570,0:08:08.698
But in here, it's always the same.

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Peace.

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Just peace.

0:08:18.257,0:08:20.746
Maybe we will never know why,

0:08:20.746,0:08:24.501
but of all the possible bodies that have appeared on this planet,

0:08:24.501,0:08:26.399
it was this one,

0:08:26.399,0:08:28.099
bilaterally symmetric,

0:08:28.099,0:08:29.723
warm-blooded,

0:08:29.723,0:08:30.915
bigger than a mouse,

0:08:30.915,0:08:32.597
smaller than a horse,

0:08:32.597,0:08:35.397
2 legs, 10 toes,

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no tail,

0:08:37.066,0:08:39.006
big brain,

0:08:39.006,0:08:40.334
language,

0:08:40.334,0:08:42.021
technology,

0:08:42.021,0:08:42.835
and civilization

0:08:42.835,0:08:45.501
rising and falling for thousands of years.

0:08:49.298,0:08:51.530
And here you are,

0:08:51.530,0:08:53.381
a 13-year old human

0:08:53.381,0:08:56.271
perplexed and embarrassed about sex.

0:08:56.271,0:08:58.683
That's what I came here to tell you:

0:08:58.683,0:09:03.650
we don't know why sex evolved nor why it persists.

0:09:03.650,0:09:06.853
Why don't we just clone ourselves like all life did a billion years ago?

0:09:06.853,0:09:08.328
It's so much more efficient.

0:09:08.328,0:09:12.345
We would all have babies, no mates.

0:09:12.345,0:09:17.481
It could be that children who are genetically different from each other are protected from disease.

0:09:17.481,0:09:21.015
And that is still our best guess.

0:09:21.015,0:09:24.840
So be comforted to know that even in the distant future,

0:09:24.840,0:09:27.286
in the year 2012,

0:09:27.286,0:09:30.090
we still don't know what sex is for.

0:09:30.090,0:09:31.508
It is perplexing.

0:09:32.815,0:09:35.179
You shouldn't be embarrassed by it.

0:09:36.288,0:09:38.645
Sex is a beautiful puzzle.

0:09:40.860,0:09:43.388
And without it, you simply would not be here.

0:10:03.265,0:10:05.310
By the way,

0:10:05.310,0:10:07.776
be nice to your little sister.

0:10:07.776,0:10:11.635
She's your best friend. You'll see.