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to your local agent today. This

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is the pulse stories about the

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people and places at the heart

0:22

of Health and Science. I'm Mike

0:24

and Scott. John's daughter Heather is

0:26

on the ground and chats with

0:29

her car. He takes off nearly

0:31

vertically from a field in Milton,

0:33

Delaware. It's a black and white

0:35

aircraft that looks like a cross

0:38

between a huge drone and a

0:40

vintage World War I fighter plane.

0:42

It's called Blackfly, one of just

0:44

five operating in the United States.

0:47

John's daughter Heather is on the

0:49

ground and chats with her dad

0:51

using a pink walkie-talkie. Okay, he's

0:53

up to 40 feet. Joystick forward?

0:56

Oh no 100. In close? Looking

0:58

good. On the 250, beautiful. Okay,

1:00

we'll see ya. John is flying

1:02

over a busy highway and the

1:05

flying car is bound to create

1:07

a stir. Okay, so he's heading

1:09

up Route 1 now, so there'll

1:11

probably be a bunch of UFO

1:14

sightings reported to the police. Uh-oh,

1:16

here we go. There have been

1:18

so many sightings in Jersey. Everyone

1:20

thinks we're some sort of alien

1:23

nation or something. John is 86.

1:25

He is a retired housing developer

1:27

who has flown planes for nearly

1:29

70 years. And he loves nothing

1:32

better than showing off this new

1:34

toy, which costs... about $200,000. This

1:36

is the future of aviation. There's

1:38

nothing like it. The Blackfly is

1:41

about the size of a compact

1:43

car, but it weighs only about

1:45

350 pounds. It doesn't need a

1:47

runway and it lifts off and

1:50

lands going basically straight up and

1:52

down. Eight propellers are powered by

1:54

battery. charged motors. It

1:56

can can head

1:58

speeds of 62 an

2:01

hour, hour, in hover

2:03

in mid fly

2:05

and fly backwards it

2:07

with a flying it with the joystick

2:10

that has the controls on it, nothing

2:12

on the floor, no rudder pedals, no

2:14

other controls other than the joystick,

2:16

a like a game, like a

2:18

gaming board. board, and front of me of

2:20

an iPad, iPad. and that iPad

2:22

has all the information. How

2:24

high I am, how fast I'm

2:26

going, what my motor temperatures are,

2:28

what my battery my battery batteries need

2:30

to be recharged after 20

2:32

minutes or so, or but John

2:34

says even with that limitation and

2:36

the fact that it's not

2:39

going all that fast, that this

2:41

flying car could still be very

2:43

useful. The of these will be

2:45

for the the that lives an

2:47

hour and a half drive from

2:49

his office, but yet he

2:51

might be only twenty minutes away

2:53

on a flight that flies

2:55

at 50 to sixty miles an

2:57

hour, and that's what will become

2:59

very popular popular there will be

3:01

a bunch of these in

3:03

the air. a bunch of these in the air.

3:05

John John believes there is

3:07

a car revolution ahead, and he

3:09

is excited to be be of

3:11

it. of it. We've been flying it

3:13

since August August a blast with

3:15

it made a lot of

3:17

new friends, really interesting people who

3:19

are interested in aviation in agree

3:21

with us that this is

3:23

the wave of the future. of the

3:25

future. of the future. future. It

3:28

sounds great, right? But

3:30

for have thought for decades that flying

3:32

cars were just around the corner. flying

3:34

An early version of a flying

3:36

car was certified in the US in

3:38

the 1950s. They were amazing designs.

3:41

They basically took planes and just fact

3:43

them into cars. to make the fact that

3:45

they managed to make that work of

3:47

you know, it's a feat of

3:49

engineering. It's impressive. That science

3:51

and tech journalist, Nicole Kobe. She

3:53

says those early flying cars

3:55

were not very practical, though. if

3:58

you couldn't really do anything. of the

4:00

fun things you'd want to do, like

4:02

take off from your own home and

4:05

things like that. And they were really,

4:07

really expensive. So I'm not sure it's

4:09

really the dream of the flying car

4:12

that you, you know, you probably have

4:14

in mind like the Blade Runner Jetsons.

4:16

So I could have had a very

4:19

bad flying car. They were very much,

4:21

they flew like planes, which meant you

4:23

had to go to an airport or

4:25

an airfield to take off. And if

4:28

you're trying to do this to improve

4:30

your commute, having to drive all the

4:32

way to the airport first and then

4:35

go, it doesn't really make a whole

4:37

lot of sense. We often think of

4:39

the future as something brand new, something

4:42

that will emerge in a few years,

4:44

a few decades, fueled by a sudden

4:46

breakthrough. But usually, whatever we think of

4:49

as the future has been in the

4:51

works for a long time, pushed forward,

4:53

little by little, by an... army of

4:56

innovators and tinkers. On this episode, what

4:58

it takes to create the future and

5:00

how we can shape our destiny. To

5:04

get started, let's stick with

5:06

Nicole Kobe. Her new book

5:08

is called The Long History

5:11

of the Future. Why Tomorrow's

5:13

Technology still isn't here. She

5:15

writes about all kinds of

5:17

innovations that people were sure

5:19

would be commonplace by now,

5:21

from bionic humans to hyperloops

5:24

and smart cities and flying

5:26

cars. little bit more about who came

5:28

up with these very early versions of

5:30

flying cars and why? What was their

5:32

impetus? There was such a range of

5:34

people working on these. It was everything

5:36

from, you know, kind of home inventors,

5:38

people who had some engineering skills and

5:40

were just interested in the idea, all

5:42

the way through to people who were

5:44

more accustomed to developing and designing things

5:46

for the military. But there was this

5:48

belief, you know, kind of post-war in

5:50

the 50s that... There was a lot

5:52

of people coming back that had, you

5:54

know, pilot licenses and that... This was

5:56

a very modern kind of optimistic view

5:58

of what the US was going to

6:00

become. You know, people would be able

6:02

to fly to get to their jobs

6:04

or live wherever they wanted and just

6:06

fly, you know, into the city and

6:08

that sort of thing. You know, there

6:10

was even a competition to try to

6:12

get the price of private planes down

6:14

to kind of, you know, the $500

6:16

or $700 mark just to make it,

6:18

you know, everybody has a car and

6:20

then their second vehicle is a plane.

6:22

And none of this worked, you know,

6:24

it just didn't part in the punn't

6:26

take off at all. These things just

6:28

weren't really affordable, that does not really

6:30

sensible. And people didn't really want to

6:32

spend their money this way, and then

6:34

the economy started to contract, and all

6:36

of this kind of got forgotten about.

6:38

I guess early on, they were so

6:40

expensive that you could have bought a

6:42

plane and a car for the same

6:44

price. Yeah, the very first one. that

6:46

was really certified as a car and

6:48

as a plane. You know, you could

6:50

take it on the road, you could

6:52

take it in the air without getting

6:54

in any trouble, was a car called

6:56

the Arrow Car, and it was designed

6:58

by a guy named Molton Taylor. And

7:00

his aim was to mass produce these,

7:02

to maybe get even 500 of them

7:04

made, which probably would have bought the

7:06

price down. But they only ended up

7:08

making about six or seven of them,

7:10

and to buy one, it was going

7:12

to cost you like $15, like $15

7:14

thousand dollars. For $2,000, you could buy

7:16

yourself a very nice car. And for

7:18

$2,000, you could buy yourself a plane.

7:20

So that leaves you quite a bit

7:22

of money left over in order to

7:24

have this machine that isn't great at

7:26

flying, isn't great at driving. So I

7:28

think that they kind of made it,

7:30

the price was a bit too high.

7:32

Now, the arrow car was this dinky

7:34

little cute car, like it looks like

7:36

a toy. It wasn't like a luxury

7:38

product. It was a great idea, but

7:40

it was just very, very overpriced. If

7:42

you wanted to have a car, drive

7:44

to the airport and take off, you

7:46

could do that for, you know, a

7:48

third of the price, less than a

7:50

third of the price. I want to

7:52

ask about the vision here, because this

7:54

is something that I felt like kept

7:57

coming up in your book, that sometimes

7:59

we just have the wrong idea. Like,

8:01

a flying car to me just doesn't

8:03

really make sense, because if I can

8:05

fly, I'm never gonna drive again, because

8:07

what's the point, right? And it sometimes

8:09

seems like when people try to iterate

8:11

a future version of something, they just

8:13

kind of go down the wrong path.

8:15

Yeah, I mean, I think this is

8:17

the thing with flying cars. Some people

8:19

want them just because they sound fun,

8:21

and it's, you know, it's a fantasy.

8:23

We kind of have a set vision

8:25

of it. in science fiction of how

8:27

need it would be and how it

8:29

would be faster and freeing. But I

8:31

mean, personally, I don't like driving anywhere

8:33

anyway. So the idea of having to

8:35

drive in the air just sounds like

8:37

really stressful to me. Like it sounds

8:39

like it's something that would be very,

8:41

very hard, even if it was completely

8:43

automated, it would be a bit scary.

8:45

Other people obviously feel differently. But when

8:47

it comes to, you know, if we

8:49

want to come up with a way

8:51

to end traffic, if we're actually trying

8:53

to solve a problem here with these.

8:55

there are better ways to solve traffic,

8:57

you know, public transportation, getting more buses

8:59

out there, that sort of thing, would

9:01

have a bigger impact on traffic. You

9:03

know, just changing our working patterns has

9:05

such a huge impact on traffic. If

9:07

people aren't going into the office every

9:09

day, that cuts traffic a huge amount.

9:11

So there's just a lot more simple

9:13

solutions to these problems rather than trying

9:15

to build these machines that we might

9:17

never be able to build. But on

9:19

the flip side, some people just find

9:21

them very... exciting. So, you know, there's

9:23

one guy that I interviewed for the

9:25

book named Paul Moller and he has

9:27

just spent his entire life trying to

9:29

make flying cars a reality. He has

9:31

an idea for what the design should

9:33

be and he just spends all of

9:35

his money that he has ever made

9:37

into trying to make this work. And

9:39

so far he hasn't succeeded really. You

9:41

know, he's managed to take off, but

9:43

that's about it. And he's doing it

9:45

just because he's compelled by the idea.

9:47

He finds it just for... You know,

9:49

just to see if you can do

9:51

it, if, you know, it's almost like

9:53

exploring. Did you learn anything about the

9:55

design process? and what it takes for

9:57

people to really envision something and to

9:59

get away from what we already have

10:01

and come up with something totally new.

10:03

I'm thinking for example about robots where

10:05

we've often envisioned them as looking like

10:07

us, which really doesn't make any sense

10:09

for them to look like us. Why

10:11

would they? Yeah, I think if you

10:13

were trying to... build a robot butler,

10:15

the first thing you would do is

10:17

to try to build something that looked

10:19

like a person, which as you say

10:21

doesn't make a whole lot of sense

10:23

because I have a very small living

10:25

space. I don't know where another person

10:27

would fit, you know, another robot that's

10:29

human-sized would fit and where we would

10:31

put it. So then when it comes

10:33

to building a robot to, say, clean

10:35

your floors, A lot of people would

10:37

immediately start trying to just automate a

10:39

vacuum cleaner. They would picture a vacuum

10:41

and they would start trying to automate

10:43

it. Which doesn't make a whole lot

10:45

of sense either, because you don't need

10:47

it to look like a traditional vacuum.

10:49

And I think it's something that a

10:51

lot of people probably aren't capable of

10:53

doing. I can't just imagine, completely imagine,

10:55

what a flying car should look like.

10:57

You just picture a car with wings.

10:59

And that's what they were building in

11:01

the 50s. was literally a car with

11:03

a plane stuck on top of it

11:05

in some cases. So to come up

11:08

with something like a room above, like

11:10

an actual robotic vacuum, and it's just

11:12

a little flat round thing that goes

11:14

around, and that's just the shape it

11:16

needs to be, because that makes more

11:18

sense for it to navigate well, and

11:20

that's a good size for it, and

11:22

all of that sort of thing. Sometimes

11:24

it's a design thing and having a

11:26

good sense of what is appealing to

11:28

people, and sometimes it's just... breaking an

11:30

idea down to what it needs to

11:32

be, and then kind of rebuilding from

11:34

there. If you knew how to build

11:36

a robotic vacuum and you kind of

11:38

thought about all of the elements and

11:40

pieces that you need, and you could

11:42

kind of picture sort of what the

11:44

minimum requirements were. You kind

11:46

of build from there

11:48

from of picturing a

11:50

human holding a

11:52

vacuum and trying to

11:54

a down from there.

11:56

You kind of

11:58

have to just start

12:00

from a completely

12:02

clear slate. just start think

12:04

that that is

12:06

a very truly difficult

12:08

thing to do. is

12:10

a This is why

12:12

so many... thing to do. you

12:14

know, so why so cars end up looking... flying

12:16

cars a car with wings, with you know. You

12:18

know, If you were actually going to build

12:20

a flying car, you should figure out how to

12:22

make a small thing fly. a small thing fly

12:25

you start trying to to... you know, it a

12:27

flying car, trying to evoke a certain

12:29

look, if that makes sense. So if

12:31

with the engineering first, start figure out what

12:33

is your minimum, and then kind of

12:35

go from there. is your minimum, so the

12:37

question is more from there. is it that

12:39

I want to create? What do I

12:41

want it to do? create? And then think

12:43

about what it should look like based

12:45

on that. should look like based on

12:47

absolutely. And I was was

12:49

talking to Reibert about this and

12:51

he's the of CEO and and

12:53

founder of... Boston Dynamics, you you know, the

12:55

company that's very famous for the

12:57

very kind of wild different designs of robots

12:59

and they kind of put them all

13:02

on on doing crazy things and sometimes

13:04

it's very funny and sometimes it's very

13:06

scary. it's very and they were trying

13:08

to come up with a robot that

13:10

could move boxes from. you know, from a a

13:12

shipping pallet onto a truck vice versa. So that

13:14

sort of a thing, a because logistics is in

13:16

a position at the moment where there's just

13:18

not enough workers. And it's a very

13:20

hard job to do. So it's a good

13:22

thing to try to automate. it's It a of

13:24

makes sense. It's a tough job. doesn't pay

13:27

amazingly well. There's not enough people who

13:29

want to do it, understandably. well. There's And they

13:31

started using their Atlas robot, which is kind

13:33

of human their Atlas a very impressive design, but

13:35

it wasn't the best way to move a

13:37

box, because it sort of moved to just

13:40

like a slow a slow human, So which car which

13:42

isn't very useful. by the time

13:44

that they kind of had developed

13:46

their idea, they had something that

13:48

was that was essentially a box with big arm with

13:50

a big arm on it. And

13:52

the arm has a bunch of cameras

13:54

and it can see different types of boxes,

13:56

can understand if one's about to fall,

13:58

can scan the information the... to understand, it doesn't

14:01

look anything at all like a person

14:03

because it doesn't need to. It's just

14:05

a robot with an arm. And I

14:07

think there's a reason that so many

14:10

of our factory and manufacturing robots end

14:12

up as big boxes with arms because

14:14

that's actually what we need. You know,

14:17

they're very functional. And then the rest

14:19

of the time we're trying to build

14:21

these humanoid things because we think, well,

14:23

then it can stand next to people

14:26

and it won't be so scary or

14:28

it'll be able to go upstairs and

14:30

things like that. But that's not really

14:33

what we need. You know, if we

14:35

need a robot just to move boxes,

14:37

let's just design one that can do

14:39

that. I think one of the takeaway

14:42

points from the book for me was

14:44

that the future happens in very small

14:46

increments, but we want it to happen

14:49

with a big bang. We want there

14:51

to be something that were like, oh

14:53

wow, we finally arrived. Meanwhile, there have

14:55

been like a million little steps. that

14:58

have been incorporated in our lives that

15:00

maybe we didn't even pay attention to,

15:02

that we didn't even notice. So talk

15:05

about some of those discoveries that you

15:07

made in researching the book. Yeah, there's

15:09

this idea that technology kind of happens

15:11

overnight or there's like a sudden breakthrough

15:14

that enables something and that does sometimes

15:16

happen. But all of this is, you

15:18

know, it's very long-term projects. You know,

15:21

with something like AI, you know, we're

15:23

talking about this a huge amount now

15:25

because of generative AI and, you know,

15:27

all of the advances that have happened

15:30

lately. But the idea of machines being

15:32

able to learn and to, you know,

15:34

quote unquote, think, you know, that goes

15:36

back to the 1920s and the 1930s,

15:39

like we're coming up on a hundred

15:41

years of talking about this. If you

15:43

think about it from a philosophical standpoint,

15:46

it goes even further back, you know,

15:48

and that's before we had computers, build

15:50

these things and then people who were

15:52

first trying to make the idea of

15:55

artificial intelligence into something. You know, they

15:57

were working with the big room-sized machines

15:59

that were very slow and very expensive

16:02

and couldn't really do all that much.

16:04

And, you know, we're slow. kind of

16:06

coming to a point where maybe we've

16:08

caught up enough with the computing hardware

16:11

to allow enough performance to actually start

16:13

to achieve some of the things that

16:15

we were talking about a hundred years

16:18

ago. And a lot of the ideas

16:20

have been talked about throughout all of

16:22

that time and we've kind of refined

16:24

some of the thinking, but we still

16:27

actually have to build it and building

16:29

things that's very very difficult. So I

16:31

think people. feel like things happen very

16:34

very quickly. Everybody talks about the fast

16:36

pace of technology and a lot of

16:38

things have really been accelerated by things

16:40

like the internet and you know faster

16:43

computing and much cheaper computing. But all

16:45

of these things are very very long

16:47

in coming. Did you see any kind

16:49

of lessons in the different stories that

16:52

you looked into in terms of what

16:54

goes wrong when the future quote fails

16:56

or What's a miss when something just

16:59

doesn't catch on or isn't ready for

17:01

prime time? Sometimes I think it's an

17:03

engineering or a technical failure, and it

17:05

doesn't mean that the people working on

17:08

it have failed. It just means that

17:10

it's not possible, or it's not possible

17:12

yet. And, you know, writing this book,

17:15

I kind of came across a lot

17:17

of people who saw that. You know,

17:19

they came up with an idea, they

17:21

developed it, and they went, this isn't

17:24

going to happen now. So one of

17:26

the people I write about is a

17:28

guy named Ivan Sutherland who created an

17:31

augmented reality headset like in the 60s

17:33

when the computers were not capable of

17:35

any kind of real imaging system. So

17:37

he just went on and did other

17:40

things, you know, and it was several

17:42

decades later when we're now talking, you

17:44

know, when we have these headsets at

17:47

home and we can actually do this

17:49

kind of thing. If he had kept

17:51

working on that his entire life, he

17:53

would have just been a very, very

17:56

frustrated man. So sometimes sometimes is waiting

17:58

for technology to catch up and and

18:00

then other times it just comes down

18:03

to things like business model and you

18:05

know what society wants and whether anybody's

18:07

actually interested in using a product. How

18:09

did he make those? augmented reality headsets.

18:12

It was such an interesting project. They

18:14

used a kind of a headset, a

18:16

helmet that was for helicopter pilots to

18:18

be able to see underneath the helicopter

18:21

when they were landing. So it was

18:23

just, it was a camera connection. And

18:25

all they did was take that hardware

18:28

and instead of having a camera feeding

18:30

in the image to the pilot, they

18:32

had a computer doing it. But at

18:34

that point, computers were nothing like what

18:37

we imagined them to be today. So

18:39

their computing system was, you know, several

18:41

disparate machines that all took on a

18:44

different aspect of, like, thinking about where

18:46

the line needed to be, calculating how

18:48

it would move, because you could actually

18:50

go, like, inside the shape that they

18:53

were creating, like, if they were trying

18:55

to show you a cube or something

18:57

like that, you could go inside it

19:00

and manipulate it and things like that.

19:02

So it was just a lot of

19:04

very complex math. They had, you know,

19:06

you know, individual computers. computing hardware systems

19:09

that were just analyzing all of a

19:11

sudden, they'd have to feed it into

19:13

the machine and they had to do

19:16

it fast enough so that, you know,

19:18

they could do it at a high

19:20

enough, you know, frame rate that it

19:22

would work for humans and stuff like

19:25

that. And, you know, the actual hardware,

19:27

the way that it looks on somebody's

19:29

head is hilarious. I mean, it's very

19:32

steampunk. It just, it looks, it looks

19:34

terrifying. But it was a research project,

19:36

they just wanted to know if they

19:38

could. Yeah, I'm kind of picturing something

19:41

out of Mad Max maybe, or... I

19:43

don't know. So... Yeah, not far off

19:45

it. Yeah, wow. Pretty much that. In

19:47

your conversations with engineers, innovators, people trying

19:50

to come up with future ideas, how

19:52

important is it for them to be

19:54

able to pivot? I think that's really

19:57

important, because the thing with building something,

19:59

if you're trying to build anything... I

20:01

don't think there's really such an idea

20:03

as failing. So if you're trying to

20:06

build a technology, it doesn't matter what

20:08

it... is and you put a bunch

20:10

of effort into it and you get

20:13

70 or 80% of the way there

20:15

and you realize it's not going to

20:17

work, maybe it's not possible or it's

20:19

just not going to work with the

20:22

money that you have, you should take

20:24

what you've learned and you should apply

20:26

it somewhere else. And we've come up

20:29

with this idea of, you know, the

20:31

pivot, you know, trying to apply that

20:33

to something else. And it's, you know,

20:35

it's a great idea. But one of

20:38

the people that I interviewed for the

20:40

book is Google's head of their X

20:42

Labs, which is their innovation labs. He's

20:45

a guy named Astro Teller, and he

20:47

has this idea of compost. So they

20:49

have all sorts of wild ideas that

20:51

get developed there. And if the idea

20:54

doesn't work, so it either isn't technically

20:56

possible, or they don't manage to pull

20:58

it off, or it's not commercially viable.

21:01

Then they just kind of take all

21:03

of those ideas and just dump them

21:05

into a pile them into a pile

21:07

and try to use the technologies in

21:10

other ways. It's just this idea that

21:12

if you have learned something or you

21:14

have built something, it is probably useful

21:16

for something else, even if you're not

21:19

sure what that is yet. So, absolutely.

21:21

I think a pivot is a perfect,

21:23

a perfect way of thinking about this.

21:26

If you can't make a flying car,

21:28

well, maybe you can use your technology

21:30

to make something else. And the things

21:32

that we kind of refer to as

21:35

flying cars now, you know, the air

21:37

taxis, they're basically electric helicopters, but that's...

21:39

That's not necessarily a criticism. That's not

21:42

a bad thing. An electric helicopter is

21:44

a very good idea. You know, they'll

21:46

be cheaper and they'll be quieter and

21:48

have no operational emissions and things like

21:51

that. Those are all things we would

21:53

love for helicopters to be. So if

21:55

you try to make a flying car

21:58

and instead you just really improved helicopters,

22:00

like I don't think that counts as

22:02

a failure. That's a very strong pivot

22:04

in something that's very useful for all

22:07

of us. And I guess the idea

22:09

with this... compost terminology is that whatever

22:11

this work is we did that didn't

22:14

work out it's not trash it's fertilizer

22:16

for something else absolutely you might come

22:18

up with something else that works it

22:20

might it might spark another idea it

22:23

might solve another problem for you that

22:25

you don't even have yet. So I

22:27

think it's a really good way of

22:29

thinking about things. I don't think any

22:32

engineering work is ever really wasted. Even

22:34

if all you find out is that

22:36

this isn't possible, I mean, you've still

22:39

learned something, right? That science and tech

22:41

journalist Nicole Kobe. Her new book is

22:43

called The Long History of the Future.

22:45

Why Tomorrow's Technology still isn't here? Coming

22:48

up? We'll hear from people whose job

22:50

it is to predict the future. It's

22:52

not looking into the crystal glass, but

22:55

have a real, very good understanding of

22:57

where things are moving. That's next on

22:59

the polls. Support for NPR and the

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is the polls. I'm Mike and Scott.

24:26

We're talking about the future, the one

24:28

we predict, the one we create, and

24:30

the future that's already here. Welcome to

24:33

the future. It can feel like the

24:35

future is a force that we're being

24:37

swept toward, a different era powered by

24:40

cutting-edge innovations and technologies. We think of

24:42

life on distant planets, AI, super smart

24:44

machines. Robots can free humans from the

24:46

most repetitive and dangerous tasks. When Devon

24:49

Powers asks her students to envision the

24:51

future, that's the kind of thing that

24:53

comes up. Kevin is a professor of

24:56

communication and media at the University of

24:58

Michigan and she focuses on trends and

25:00

futures. But she tells her students that

25:02

the future is always happening. You know,

25:05

if you say, hey, let's have lunch

25:07

tomorrow, you've technically thought about the future

25:09

of your life. If you say for

25:12

retirement, you've technically thought about the future

25:14

of your life, or if you've ever

25:16

made a plan for a vacation, or

25:18

a plan to marry your partner, or

25:21

anything like that, you've made a plan

25:23

for the future. That future we might

25:25

be able to predict, at least to

25:27

some extent, but what about big picture

25:30

stuff like robots or virtual reality, big

25:32

changes in culture, lifestyle and tastes? There

25:34

are people whose job it is to

25:37

forecast those kinds of changes. How do

25:39

they do that? Reporter Alan Yu picks

25:41

it up from here. Devin Powers wrote

25:43

a book about that industry. It's called

25:46

On Trend, the business of forecasting the

25:48

future. The idea to me that people

25:50

would pay for understanding the future, it

25:53

just blew my mind. I didn't realize

25:55

that that was a thing that somebody

25:57

could do. You can call

25:59

it future. tourism,

26:02

or trend forecasting. It

26:04

can be easy to roll your eyes at

26:06

this. this. Like this scene from the

26:08

the TV show Creek Creek, a rich

26:10

man man David Rose his money and

26:12

suddenly has to find a job.

26:15

to kind of job are you looking

26:17

for? of job are you looking for? or

26:19

trend forecasting. art reading or

26:21

trend forecasting? Okay. see, not

26:23

anything in art curating trend

26:25

forecasting. That's weird. That's

26:27

weird. Do you you have

26:29

any other skills

26:31

or areas or areas of I've

26:34

been told I have really good taste. I have well,

26:36

that's good. taste. Oh, well that's let's

26:38

see. see. Oh, bag boy at the at

26:40

the grocery store. But trend

26:43

trend forecasting is a - serious

26:45

business, And and more of

26:47

a science than fortune -telling.

26:49

It involves studying the

26:51

market what people people already

26:53

like, at what else is popular,

26:56

and trying to figure out where the world could

26:58

be in the future. in the future. Sam

27:00

Devillard is a futurist at

27:02

a company called Harmony Labs.

27:05

I was I was asked by

27:07

a publishing company to understand what

27:09

the next topics topics in the

27:11

book book for example. for example,

27:14

because... A A lot of companies have

27:16

to bet on particular products, correct?

27:18

correct? So it's like identifying, wow, which racehorse

27:20

which do you you think might be

27:22

winning the race? And how can

27:24

we identify that? that? You might think dig

27:26

dig into the existing of self-help books,

27:28

but books. looked elsewhere. I

27:30

would look into looked elsewhere. I

27:32

would look into music, into dancing

27:34

stars, into architecture trends, into architecture

27:36

trends, etc, etc, etc. And when I

27:38

see a common denominator, then I

27:40

feel, I this might be the might

27:43

be the zeitgeist formula. is a kind of

27:45

mosaic. Fashion, movies,

27:47

music, patterns, patterns. to think Sam

27:49

tries to think about

27:51

a... a lot of pieces. tries to

27:53

Sam tries to put her

27:55

finger on the she always always thinks

27:58

about one surprising factor. What

28:00

drugs are trending right now? You

28:02

think about cocaine, you think, hmm,

28:04

when was it that this drug

28:07

was really, really, let's say, yet

28:09

we spoke a lot about this

28:11

drug, I want the 80s, correct?

28:14

So what does cocaine create? Can

28:16

create a, let's say bloated sense

28:18

of self, confidence? It's extra version,

28:20

right? And what did we have

28:23

in the 80s? It was an

28:25

extra for the time. You had

28:27

big hair, big shoulder paths. It

28:30

may sound like she's naming random

28:32

80s, right? It's not coincidence that

28:34

cocaine was trending when the Mac

28:36

mansions were trending, when Terminator Rumble

28:39

were trending. It may sound like

28:41

she's naming random 80s stuff, but

28:43

where we hear nostalgic buzzwords, she

28:46

hears a pattern. To understand her

28:48

approach, it helps to know that

28:50

her background is in art history.

28:52

First I studied art history, comparative

28:55

religion and sociology in Germany and

28:57

was very enamored with the 16th

28:59

century Spanish art. Don't ask me

29:02

why. You could see correlations in

29:04

particular periods of time have similar

29:06

formulas that will translate cross categorically.

29:08

So the type of music would

29:11

correspond. have a similar style to

29:13

the type of architecture, to the

29:15

fashion, to the mannerisms, to the

29:18

food, etc, etc, etc. Her work

29:20

is a little like art history,

29:22

but in reverse. Art history looks

29:24

at the products of a certain

29:27

culture and tries to think, what

29:29

does this say about the culture?

29:31

Trend forecasting tries to understand the

29:34

culture and think of the next

29:36

product that people will need or

29:38

want. was the way of how

29:40

I started to interpret the world

29:43

and it's such fun when you

29:45

can take any conversation snippet and

29:47

see if you know if it

29:50

fits into your system or doesn't

29:52

or if you could like and

29:54

improve the system of interpretation. And

29:56

anyway, I thought, where can I

29:59

do this? I thought, no way,

30:01

academia is to myopic, no, no,

30:03

no, no. And then I thought,

30:06

fashion. Sam says fashion is an

30:08

industry where you interpret trends and

30:10

you can get concrete results relatively

30:12

quickly. by the numbers, the sales

30:15

numbers, that's very reassuring to see

30:17

did this hit the nerve or

30:19

did this not hit the nerve?

30:22

For example, back in the 90s,

30:24

she noticed a trend in clothing

30:26

and styles that weren't symmetrical. She

30:28

spotted this trend, reported it to

30:31

her team and her client, and

30:33

the result was an asymmetrical bag.

30:35

It's tiny, petite. It's of course,

30:38

like more a container for your

30:40

keys, maybe your credit card, who

30:42

knows a lipstick, it does not

30:44

offer much space. The design was

30:47

not at all practical. It's shaped

30:49

a little like a kidney, so

30:51

no matter what you put in

30:54

it, the weight just goes to

30:56

one side. But it was a

30:58

hit. It became a classic for

31:00

her client, Christian Dior. They called

31:03

it The Saddlebag. It's been on

31:05

Sex and the City. Beyonce had

31:07

one a few years ago. In

31:10

recent years, Sam has become interested

31:12

in the methods of trend forecasting.

31:14

She wants to know how did

31:16

the best forecasters get their incredible

31:19

intuition. I would not say clevoyance

31:21

in that classical sense. It's not

31:23

looking into the crystal glass, but

31:26

have a real, very good understanding

31:28

of where things are moving. She

31:30

says there is a method. It's

31:32

not magic. She now teaches trend

31:35

analysis and future forecasting at the

31:37

Masters in branding program at the

31:39

School of Visual Arts in New

31:42

York. She adds that not everyone

31:44

uses her method and also not

31:46

everyone does it well. There's a

31:48

lot of bullshit as well. So

31:51

how can you tell what is

31:53

that and what is good trend

31:55

forecasting? is a futurist at the

31:58

Future Today Institute. She says if

32:00

forecasting is done well you should

32:02

come up with concrete advice for

32:04

what's next. A good strategy is

32:07

actionable. It's not something that is

32:09

meant to be nebulous, it's not

32:11

you know a very fluffy description

32:14

of like you should consider this.

32:16

In other words it should not

32:18

be a horoscope, something that is

32:20

so intentionally vague it could apply

32:23

to almost anything. Layer said an

32:25

example of a good strategy is

32:27

you should invest in renewable energy

32:30

because the way the world is

32:32

going, no matter what happens, that

32:34

is going to be important. So

32:36

futurism isn't predicting the future. It's

32:39

a skill where you look for

32:41

patterns, currents that drive culture. It's

32:43

also the ability to see the

32:46

world and imagine that it could

32:48

be different. but who gets to

32:50

shape what our future looks like

32:52

may depend on how much power

32:55

they have. When Elon Musk used

32:57

to talk about hyperloop, and the

32:59

future of transportation as a network

33:02

of underground tunnels, it got a

33:04

lot of attention. What I think

33:06

this really amounts to is an

33:08

actual solution to the soul-crushing burden

33:11

of traffic. This is something that

33:13

I think will actually work. It's

33:15

scalable. We have a demonstration. tunnel

33:18

here and we expect to expand

33:20

us over time to many cities

33:22

all around the world. Elon Musk

33:24

can say like the future of

33:27

transportation is hyper loop, but he's

33:29

just saying that, right? And I

33:31

could stand up and say like

33:34

the future of transportation is like

33:36

me on my bike, but like

33:38

people aren't listening to me. People

33:40

aren't throwing millions of dollars at

33:43

me when I say, right in

33:45

my bike. That's Devon

33:47

Powers again. She says we could

33:49

all play a more active role

33:52

in our own future. Businesses have

33:54

figured this out, and they figured

33:56

it out in ways that have

33:58

impacts. on all of our lives.

34:00

And so I think it's only

34:03

fair, too, and it's only sort

34:05

of just for everyday individuals to

34:07

also recognize that this is a

34:09

practice that you can bring into

34:11

your everyday life and that you

34:14

can bring into your professional life

34:16

so that you can kind of

34:18

balance that control. And it's not

34:20

just more powerful interests than you

34:22

that are deciding what future you

34:25

will live. Once she realized this,

34:27

she says she saw the world

34:29

a little bit differently. For example,

34:31

she used to live in a

34:33

quickly developing neighborhood in Philadelphia. She

34:36

was at a meeting where property

34:38

developers were telling neighbors about their

34:40

plans to build more high rises

34:42

and parking and businesses. They say

34:44

things like, well, you know, this

34:47

is this is the future, right?

34:49

The future of Philadelphia is more...

34:51

you know, tall buildings and more

34:53

density on the streets and more

34:55

people walking around and you just

34:58

have to sort of go with

35:00

it. And I started to intervene

35:02

when I heard language like that.

35:04

And I was like, the future

35:06

is not predetermined, right? You don't

35:09

get to tell me what my

35:11

future is. And so that's just,

35:13

you know, a very sort of

35:15

small example. And it's not as

35:17

though that way of thinking has

35:20

stopped all of the development happening

35:22

in my neighborhood. It for sure

35:24

has not. But I think it's

35:26

a very empowering way to think,

35:28

because I think a lot of

35:31

people think, you know what, I

35:33

have no control over this stuff.

35:35

And you actually do. And I

35:37

think one of the ways that

35:39

you do is by countering this

35:42

discourse that, you know, the future

35:44

is set in stone and it's

35:46

set in stone by people who

35:48

are actually doing the work of

35:50

shaping the future themselves. They just

35:53

don't want to call it that.

35:55

They call it progress. or they

35:57

call it technology or they call

35:59

it some kind of inevitable force

36:01

and it's not it's never inevitable.

36:04

That story was reported by Alan

36:06

Yu. You're listening to the polls.

36:08

I'm Mike and Scott. You can

36:10

find us wherever you get your

36:12

podcast. Also, subscribe to our newsletter

36:15

to stay in touch with us

36:17

and to find out what's happening

36:19

on the show. Each week, I'll

36:21

send you a recap of favorite

36:23

moments from the latest episode. There

36:26

are exclusive previews of What's Ahead

36:28

and ways to participate in upcoming

36:30

episodes. To sign up, go to

36:32

W-H-Y.org/the Pulse newsletter. an invitation to

36:35

envision a different greener future and

36:37

how to make it happen. What

36:39

are you good at? What are

36:41

your skills, your resources, your networks,

36:43

your areas of expertise? Like what

36:46

can you specifically bring to the

36:48

table? We need literally every skill

36:50

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36:52

climate crisis. That's next on the

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Karvana Value Tracker. This

38:02

is the polls. I'm Mike

38:04

and Scott. We're talking about

38:06

the future. It's easy to

38:08

picture a grim future when

38:10

we think about the effects

38:13

of climate change, whether it's

38:15

warnings about increasing temperatures and

38:17

sea level rise issued by

38:19

scientists or stuff you've seen

38:21

in movies like catastrophic floods

38:23

or people walking around in

38:25

post-apocalyptic masks. Marine biologists and

38:27

conservation strategist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

38:29

says the doom and gloom

38:31

messaging can do more harm

38:34

than good. And I think

38:36

that lack of realistic future

38:38

visions, projections, has actually been

38:40

holding us back because we

38:42

don't really know what we're

38:44

running toward. We only know

38:46

what we're trying to get

38:48

away from. And I feel

38:50

like for most of us,

38:52

that's just not enough motivation.

38:54

But there aren't very many

38:57

depictions of, okay, so what

38:59

if we just rolled up

39:01

our sleeves and implemented all

39:03

the solutions we already have

39:05

that are this intersection of...

39:07

science and policy and culture

39:09

and justice, then what kind

39:11

of world would we get?

39:14

Ayana says that we all have

39:17

a role to play in building

39:19

a different future, and that's the

39:21

kind of world she wants to

39:23

see depicted in movies and TV

39:25

shows. The Meet Cute at the

39:28

composting facility, or you catch the

39:30

eye of the beautiful woman in

39:32

the bike lane, or the hot

39:34

solar panel installer, is the new

39:36

sort of like pool boy trope

39:38

for this decade. you know, there's

39:41

family fights at the EV charging

39:43

station because your husband forgot to

39:45

plug in the car before the

39:47

road trip. Iana envisions a greener

39:49

future, one that will be familiar

39:52

in some ways and reinvented in

39:54

others. In many ways, it's the

39:56

systems that undergird our lives that

39:58

will change our energy and food

40:00

and transit systems. buildings and infrastructure

40:03

that are just supporting and enabling

40:05

us to live lighter on the

40:07

planet and adapt and become more

40:09

resilient as we sort of move

40:11

away from the brink and toward

40:14

the many answers to this question

40:16

of what if we get it

40:18

right? What if we get it

40:20

right is the title of Ayana's

40:22

new book? It reads like an

40:24

inspirational how-to manual for everybody to

40:27

get involved. You have a system

40:29

for helping all of us find

40:31

ways to be part of the

40:33

solution. It's a Venn diagram. Describe

40:35

that and how it could help

40:38

us figure out how we fit

40:40

into the climate puzzle. So picture

40:42

a Venn diagram with three overlapping

40:44

circles and the first one is

40:46

what are you good at? What

40:49

are your skills your resources your

40:51

networks your areas of expertise? Like

40:53

what can you specifically bring to

40:55

the table? We need literally every

40:57

skill possible in order to address

40:59

the climate crisis from graphic design

41:02

to event planning to project management.

41:04

It's not just politics and engineering

41:06

by a long shot. The second

41:08

circle is what is the work

41:10

that needs doing? Are there particular

41:13

climate injustice solutions you want to

41:15

focus on and thinking about systemic

41:17

changes and efforts that can be

41:19

replicated or scaled as opposed to

41:21

really focusing on the individual and

41:24

household changes, which of course are

41:26

also very much needed? And then

41:28

the third question, circle, is what

41:30

brings you joy. And I think

41:32

maybe a better word is actually

41:35

satisfaction because it's about what gets

41:37

you out of bed in the

41:39

morning, what's gratifying, what energizes and

41:41

enliven to you because working on

41:43

climate solutions is in fact the

41:45

work of our lifetimes. This is

41:48

not something we're five years from

41:50

now, we're just going to be...

41:52

done. And so finding things that

41:54

you can keep doing without burning

41:56

out is of course critical. And

41:59

for me, that literally drawing this

42:01

out with colored pencils helped me

42:03

to think about founding a policy

42:05

think tank for the future of

42:07

coastal cities, which is Urban Ocean

42:10

Lab, because I'm a marine biologist.

42:12

That's what my PhD is in.

42:14

I am a policy nerd. I'm

42:16

from Brooklyn, New York. I'm concerned

42:18

about the future of coastal communities.

42:21

I'm really interested in design. That

42:23

brings me a lot of joy

42:25

and the types of collaborations we

42:27

can do, but also just changing

42:29

the rules of the game is

42:31

so gratifying. And tell me a

42:34

bit about the work that you

42:36

do with your organizations. What are

42:38

some goals? What are some of

42:40

the things you really want to

42:42

accomplish? So about one in five

42:45

Americans live in a coastal city

42:47

about... 40% of Americans live in

42:49

a coastal county. This is absolutely

42:51

not a coastal elite issue. The

42:53

ways in which climate change is

42:56

going to impact people who live

42:58

near the ocean. So we need

43:00

to figure out how to deal

43:02

with sea level rise. We also

43:04

need to figure out how to

43:06

take advantage of the opportunities provided

43:09

by the ocean from renewable energy

43:11

offshore, which is primarily wind power

43:13

right now, thinking about how we

43:15

can protect and restore coastal ecosystems,

43:17

which can absorb tons, literally tons

43:20

of carbon, but also help protect

43:22

shorelines and help protect coastal communities

43:24

and infrastructure from storms. We need

43:26

to think about regenerative farming in

43:28

the ocean of seaweeds and shellfish.

43:31

and just the types of transitions

43:33

for our infrastructure and community resilience.

43:35

We also need to think about

43:37

climate-driven relocation. It's estimated that around

43:39

13 million Americans are going to

43:42

have to move because of sea

43:44

level rise alone, and of course

43:46

we don't have a plan for

43:48

that relocation. It will be chaotic,

43:50

and the people with the fewest

43:52

resources are going to have the...

43:55

hardest time with

43:57

that transition. transition. So

43:59

are some of

44:01

the issues that.

44:03

issues that Urban is grappling with

44:06

with collaboration with other

44:08

organizations at the community and

44:11

national levels. We're trying to just

44:13

figure out what are the

44:15

policy frameworks that need to

44:17

be in place in order

44:19

to meet the moment. So what

44:21

what does that work look

44:24

like? Is it compiling research,

44:26

meeting with stakeholders, talking to

44:28

scientists, talking to politicians, all

44:30

of the above? above? All of

44:32

the above. One of the

44:34

things that we've released this

44:36

year this year is a hub with now I

44:38

think over I think, over 500

44:41

resources vetted by our team

44:43

sets to sets to policy memos

44:45

to government and scientific reports

44:47

to example legislation. just an open

44:49

access place that people can

44:51

go and find information on

44:53

what's working, lessons learned, best

44:55

practices, et cetera, so

44:57

we're not reinventing the wheel, but

45:00

really repeating each other's successes

45:02

and avoiding each other's failures. other's so

45:04

that we can move much

45:06

more quickly. quickly. we created that as

45:08

a tool for coastal city

45:10

governments and community leaders to be

45:12

able to have the information

45:14

they need to make better decisions

45:16

for them. for And we've also

45:18

recently released a memo on

45:20

climate -driven relocation to start to

45:22

be more concrete about the steps

45:24

that would need to be

45:27

taken in order to properly be

45:29

prepared for all the change

45:31

that's going to have to happen.

45:33

to happen. For the book, Ayana

45:35

interviewed farmers, architects,

45:37

advocates, and and people

45:39

with interesting ideas, like

45:41

like environmental historian Brian

45:43

Brian Doniyu. He's advocating for young

45:45

people especially, to move

45:47

to rural areas, to move

45:49

to small towns that

45:51

have been hollowed out by

45:53

globalization and the shifts

45:55

in industry, in and to

45:58

become farmers, to know, to become...

46:00

good citizens in these small towns

46:02

across the country that have

46:04

become ghost towns and seeing

46:06

that as a way to

46:08

improve the sustainability of our

46:10

lifestyles through supporting our food

46:12

system with local agriculture and

46:14

forestry and really help to

46:17

rehabilitate and bolster. some communities

46:19

that are facing really tough

46:21

times economically. Now a lot

46:23

of times when we talk

46:25

about climate solutions, people will

46:27

say, let's grow trees, let's

46:29

go trees, and that's certainly

46:31

part of it, but what

46:33

does sustainable forestry look like

46:35

in more detail? It looks

46:37

like very selective cutting down

46:40

of trees, so that you're

46:42

not really... stripping the mountainside,

46:44

leaving the soil prone to

46:46

erosion, taking away the complexity

46:48

of the habitat, but just

46:50

choosing specific trees that you

46:52

want to harvest, and replanting

46:54

as you go instead of

46:56

clear cutting. And how does

46:58

agriculture have to change in

47:00

this country to become more

47:03

sustainable and to be part

47:05

of the climate solution as

47:07

opposed to... being a part

47:09

of the climate problem. One

47:11

of the things that first

47:13

comes to mind is that

47:15

we don't only have a

47:17

climate crisis, we also have

47:19

at the same time a

47:21

biodiversity crisis. And so there

47:23

are about a million species

47:26

at risk of extinction due

47:28

to habitat loss, exploitation, climate

47:30

change, but also pesticides and

47:32

pollution. So when I think

47:34

about agriculture, I think about

47:36

how we could do it

47:38

in a way that's less

47:40

poisonous. to the rest of

47:42

life and to ourselves, how

47:44

we could use the practices

47:47

of regenerative agriculture from composting

47:49

and mulching and low till

47:51

farming and integrating different species

47:53

and using cover crops as

47:55

ways to. improve the quality

47:57

of the soil, reduce the

47:59

risks of pests, and, you

48:01

know, have healthy food to

48:03

feed each other. In addition

48:05

to potentially absorbing some amount

48:07

of carbon back into the

48:10

soil, I think agriculture right

48:12

now, so much of it

48:14

is industrialized monocultures, which are

48:16

actually quite fragile to diseases

48:18

and other things, and using

48:20

a lot of fossil fuel

48:22

in just the farm equipment,

48:24

actually. not to mention that

48:26

pesticides and fertilizers are often

48:28

derived from fossil fuels as

48:30

well. So I think... that

48:33

just points to this larger

48:35

challenge of having an economy

48:37

in society that's based on

48:39

burning fossil fuels. And the

48:41

estimate is that the industrial

48:43

food system is responsible for

48:45

something like 30% of global

48:47

greenhouse gas pollution. And about

48:49

half of that is from

48:51

meat and dairy, which are

48:53

using more than a third

48:56

of the habitable land globally.

48:58

So that's certainly. to put

49:00

it mildly a lot of

49:02

room for improvement. Are there

49:04

any small changes that you've

49:06

made in your own life

49:08

after all of these conversations

49:10

you had, any inspiration you

49:12

took away? I think I

49:14

made a very big change

49:16

in my own life right

49:19

before starting these interviews for

49:21

the book, which is that

49:23

I moved to Maine. and

49:25

my mother moved in with

49:27

me. We consolidated our households

49:29

and I have put solar

49:31

panels on our roof, installed

49:33

heat pump hot water heater,

49:35

we have a backup battery

49:37

system, the house, the heating

49:39

and cooling is done by

49:42

geothermal energy, you know, we

49:44

compost our food scraps. and

49:46

have a few chickens that

49:48

are now just babies, but

49:50

they'll be providing the eggs

49:52

that we eat and we're

49:54

helping to restore the soil

49:56

so that we can have

49:58

a vegetable garden around our

50:00

home. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is

50:02

a marine biologist and the

50:05

author of, what if we

50:07

get it right, visions of

50:09

climate futures? Now, if we

50:11

do get it right, what

50:13

kind of future do you

50:15

see? It's safer, it's healthier,

50:17

it's greener, it's more collective.

50:19

If we get it right,

50:21

the combustion phase of humanity

50:23

is over. We have relocalized,

50:25

we eat well, our homes

50:28

are comfortable, our energy bills

50:30

are lower. It's not drafty,

50:32

there's no traffic because there's

50:34

so fewer cars in cities

50:36

because we have better transit

50:38

options, the climate concerned majority.

50:40

rules. The majority of Americans,

50:42

the vast majority, are concerned

50:44

about climate and want our

50:46

governments to do more and

50:48

want to personally contribute more.

50:51

If we get it right,

50:53

there's fewer desk jobs because

50:55

people are out in the

50:57

world remaking society and the

50:59

trades like carpentry and plumbing

51:01

and electrical and welding will

51:03

become more revered again because

51:05

that is actually what we

51:07

need in order to make

51:09

this transformation. That's our

51:12

show for this week. The Pulse is

51:14

a production of W-H-Y-Y in Philadelphia, made

51:16

possible with support from our founding sponsor,

51:18

the Sutherland family, and the Commonwealth Fund.

51:20

You can follow us wherever you get

51:22

your podcast. Our Health and Science Reporters

51:25

are Alan Yu and Liz Tong. Chris

51:27

Barish contributed reporting to this week's episode.

51:29

Charlie Kyer is our engineer, and this

51:31

week we had additional engineering from Adam

51:33

Stanis Hester. Our producers are Nicole Curry

51:36

and Lindsay Lazarski. I'm Mike and Scott.

51:38

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