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NIGHT. All day.

>> Very nice meeting you, sir.

>> It's a pleasure. Great pleasure to meet

you.

>> I really [music] enjoyed Guns, Germs,

and Steel. And uh I just got into this

yesterday uh and today I I started

reading your new book. Uh awesome.

Awesome so far. Fascinating. I have so

many questions but my first one is have

you done podcasts before?

>> Um I've done podcasts um quite a few

podcast um at home in my wife's study on

my wife's te and I've done face-toface

interviews like with you.

>> Oh okay cool. Um so what first of all

why did you write this book?

>> Why did I write this book? Um,

a short answer is I was born in 1937,

which means that I grew up in the Second

World War under the shadow of of Hitler.

Um, every day there was something going

on with the war. Um, my father pasted up

on the wall of my bedroom um a map of

the European theater and the Pacific

theater and there was always the

question, why did it happen? And if it

hadn't been for Hitler, um, would there

still have been that outcome? Then I

moved to Europe. I lived in England. Um,

I lived in Germany. I love German music.

I love the German language. Why? And

then I moved to Chile. Um, I lived in

Chile, the most democratic country of

South America. Before Pinocha, nobody

saw what was coming with Pinocha. His

own fellow generals didn't see it

coming. Um, and so there's there's been

throughout my life this this question

um, do bad as well as good people make a

difference? Also, my wife is my wife was

Polish. The last of my family in Europe,

disappeared in the Holocaust. Marie's

mother ended up in Achvitz. She

survived, but others of the family

didn't survive. And so, ever since I've

known Marie, there's constantly been

that that question. And then leaders

made a difference in my life. Um there

was the chairman of the Cambridge

physiology department who when a pump

water pump that I had been operating

blew overnight and it flooded my lab

room but it also flooded the lab room

below me and that was a poor choice of

lab room to flood because it belonged to

Lord Adrien Nobel Prize winner the

father of father-in-law of my thesis

supervisor and the master of my college

at Cambridge. Not a good choice.

>> Oh, no.

>> But the the chairman of the of the

department called me in. I thought I'm

going to be thrown out. Um he he said

that was sloppy. You have to um be

careful with water pumps and be more

careful in the future. Um that permitted

my scientific career to continue. Um

other people might have thrown me out.

So leaders have made a difference in my

life. Well, leaders most certainly make

a difference in the world. And one of

the things that really terrifies me is

uh

Nazi Germany was not that long ago

>> and there was a time in my life where I

think most people generally agreed that

that could never happen again. that that

type of scenario where uh a a group of

people are completely otherred to the

point where they're not human anymore

that a nation goes along with it like

that. We thought we were done with that

>> forever. I don't believe that anymore.

Um as I've gotten older, I realize how

fragile civilization really is and that

there is always these these battles of

for lack of better terms, good and evil.

good leaders who generally just want

something good for their people and they

want to leave a mark and be remembered

as someone who made a difference. And

then leaders who just want to take over

all the systems and make sure they can't

be contested and want to dominate the

the country and and change it. And you

make some really compelling cases in

your book about circumstance and about

all these different factors that lead to

leaders either having successful runs or

not successful. There's a lot of factors

that we don't take into consideration.

Like you open the book with a story

about how Hitler almost died in a car

accident.

>> And what would what would the world have

looked like if these cars had just been

moving? One one was two seconds ahead,

one was two seconds behind. Perfect

impact, dead Hitler. Now what?

>> Yeah.

>> What would the world look like? There's

there's so many instances. What if JFK

didn't get shot? What if Martin Luther

King Jr. didn't get shot? There's so

many different moments in history where

you go, how would culture look? How

would society, how would civilization

look if just a few things had been off?

>> There are so many things to say about

what you've just said. Um so growing up

um after World War II we thought never

again. Um and yet um in Cambodia

um Paul Pot killed about one quarter of

the Cambodian population in evil ways.

He he encouraged children to kill kill

their parents. Pinish nobody expected

what Pinish did in Chile. um his body

count was was nowhere near Hitler's body

count because Chile is a small country

and Pinocha did not set out to

exterminate a large fraction of the

population. But the torches that he

implied are simply too they were far

worse than anything that the Nazis did

and he surprised his his fellow

generals. So all of that is a surprise.

Um as for

leaders can do either good or bad or

they can do nothing. Um if you want a

simple answer to when leaders will make

a difference. Jared Diamond doesn't give

simple answers. Um but there about I can

boil it down to four or five things. A

leader has to be at the right time and

place. Um some leaders recognize that

it's the right time and place and they

seize it. Bill Gates when he saw the

cover of popular electronics with the

Intel 8080 chip chip. Bill Gates said to

Steve Allen,

"Now is the time. We got to start now

building a micro computer because if we

don't do it, somebody else will." So

Bill Gates recognized that the time was

right. Winston and he he made the time

right. Winston Churchill recognized that

the time was right. When Winston

Churchill was appointed prime minister,

he said, "I knew that this was the

occasion for which my whole life was a

preparation, but he didn't manu

manufacture it." Winston Churchill

became prime minister because Germany

invaded France, and Churchill did not

cause Germany to invade France. He he

recognized that he was the right time

and place. Um, there are other leaders

who are at the right time and place, but

they don't know it. Mark Zuckerberg. Um,

Mark Zuckerberg was a sophomore at

Harvard, I think in 2004 as a result of

us having been born in 1984. Mark

Zuckerberg [snorts] did not choose the

year of his birth. But 2004 was an ideal

time to to jumpstart social media

because there had been some before and

some afterwards. But the changes in the

internet made 2004 a particularly good

year. So leaders, some leaders choose

the time and place to go all dead. Some

leaders find themselves in the right

time and place although they didn't

manufacture it. Winston Churchill did.

And some leaders um such as Mark and

Genghaskhan

um Genghaskhan the largest land empire

in world history all the way from China

to to Poland. And yet there were other

people who tried Adel the Han and and

Timour the Turk. Why did Genghaskhan

succeed? Well, within the last 10 years,

um, students of tree rings have figured

out that on the Mongolian step, the

wetest time in the last 2,000 years was

the decade of Genghaskhan's birth. If he

had been born 10 years later or 200

miles further away, we wouldn't know

anything about Genghaskhan. But he

happened to have been born at the right

time and place because with all that

rain, that meant hay to feed sheep and

goats, to feed Mongol babies, and it

also meant hay to feed Mongol horses to

ride into battle. So Genghask Khan was

someone at the right time and place, but

he had no idea and we didn't have any

idea until this tree ring study of the

last decade.

>> That's interesting. But you think that's

the primary reason why he was so

successful because he was obviously a

brilliant strategist and he was

incredibly ruthless and fantastic at

organizing

different groups of people together,

particularly people of different

religious persuasions. So he accepted

all religions and it was one of his

strengths is that he didn't care. I'll

take you all in. Everybody gets to come

in here. And the way he would attack

these cities there also the strategy of

they they never settled down. They

always were intents and they would camp

out in front of cities and just wait

them out.

>> I mean there was a lot to it other than

just resources. Right.

>> Absolutely.

>> He's kind of an extraordinary

individual.

>> It took two things together. Um the

second thing the first thing was that he

was at the right he was at the right

time and place

>> but he also had to be an extraordinary

person. If he had been an equally

extraordinary person at some other time

and place we wouldn't know anything

about him. So you are correct um at at a

given time and place that may be the

occasion for someone to emerge but who

emerges depends upon the personal

qualities. for example, to to take to

take religion. Um, the first century AD

of the west of the Roman Empire was the

the perfect time and place to found what

would become the world religion 15

centuries later because the Roman Empire

was the most powerful state of of of

Western Eurasia. And so Christianity was

founded in the Roman Empire then, but

the Roman Empire um was the basically

the the father of the European countries

that spread around the world 15

centuries later. Now Jesus Christ didn't

pick the place where he was he was born.

Um neither he nor his followers had any

idea that 15 centuries later um the

religion that grew up in the Roman

Empire then would spread around the

world. Um it was the right time and

place and but there were other

candidates besides Christ. The New

Testament talks about six messiahs who

variously got killed by the Romans. D of

the six candidates Christ was the most

successful. But Christ also um to found

a religion you have to be charismatic

number one. You have to be a outstanding

organizer. Christ died too early. It was

St. Paul who was the town outstanding

organizer and often religions also need

a great general. In some cases the same

person is the charismatic leader and the

organizer and the g for Muhammad was an

outstanding he was charismatic. He was a

great organizer. He was a great general.

The mai of the Sudan who established

this empire in in East Africa. a

fantastic

general and organizer and incredibly

charismatic. But the Mai, he was in the

right place to establish an empire in

East Africa, but he wasn't in the right

place to establish a world empire

because East Africa just didn't have the

the technology and the demographics

whereas Christianity did.

the the Paul thing is very interesting

because the more I read uh about the

Bible and the construction of it, the

more it just [clears throat] gives you

pause. Like Paul was really kind of the

creator of Christianity because he never

met Jesus. So Jesus never spoke to him

and Jesus never wrote anything down. And

so when Paul has this vision, when he's

on the road to Damascus and he has this

whatever it is, some spiritual encounter

that he says he met Jesus,

>> like we're taking the the entire

religion is based on this guy saying

that I think he said all these things 20

years after he said them when no one

wrote it down and I never met him.

>> Yeah.

>> So it's really Paul.

>> Yes. And um it it it was two people. It

was Jesus and there was Paul. Yes, Paul

was the great organizer. Jesus of those

various other rival messiahs. Um Jesus

had some advantages with his message. It

was a universal message. It was not

directed just to the Romans. It was not

directed just to men. It was it was

aimed aimed at um um everybody. Um so of

the candidate messiahs then um Jesus had

a particularly good message. Um but it

took an a good message isn't enough. It

took St. Paul as as the organizer.

>> But it's fascinating that Paul never met

him and that Jesus never wrote anything

down. So when Paul's talking about this,

this is literally just from verbal

history,

>> right? which is really strange an oral

history that it takes 20 years before

this guy says this is what Jesus said

and then we all go on that

>> right the the what's thought to be the

first of the gospels um um gospel

according to Mark um is estimated to

have been written down something like 20

years after the death of Jesus.

>> Yeah. So we we have have no

first person accounts of of Jesus.

>> It would have been really nice if he

wrote things down.

>> Um it would have made [laughter] things

more certain in in the case in the case

of Mo Muhammad. Um it was two centuries

before things got written down. So we

know even less about Muhammad than we do

about Jesus. Or a difference also

between Muhammad and Jesus is that Jesus

we know was at the right place and right

time. the Western Roman Empire we know

was at the peak of its power. Why on

earth did Saudi Arabia produce a world

religion then? Um was it that as with

Genghaskhan in Mongolia? Was it that at

the time of Muhammad's birth was Saudi

Arabia undergoing a particularly wet

time which meant lots of people which

meant lots of ar we don't have the

weather information about Arabia. So we

don't know why. We don't know whether we

infer that probably um Muhammad was at

the right place in right time, but we

can't nail it down the way we can with

Genghaskhan and the way we can with

Jesus.

>> It's interesting too because Muhammad

was essentially a prophet, right? He

wasn't a child. He wasn't the son of

God. It's like and we know there was a

man that existed during that time and he

became this religious leader. the

religion is founded on his thoughts and

his ideas essentially. of course written

down hundreds of years later. the it

it's just incredible how many different

versions of that kind of a system, these

religious systems where someone becomes

the person who has all the rules and

everyone follows those rules or you're

ostracized from the kingdom like and

there's so many of them

>> and it it t we know some of the people

who created it like Muhammad or like

Jesus or like Joseph Smith like there's

some weird ones

>> and it's just it's a very strange

pattern that comes up over and over and

over again. I don't know how all of them

can be correct,

>> you know, without any judgments on on

religion. Someone's got to be wrong if

you have all have completely different

origin stories. But it's so fascinating

to me in particular that people want to

have this sort of a structure. It gives

them comfort. They and you can get

entire populations to go along with it.

>> Right? One might say that that the the

religious teachings are secondary. Um in

the case of um 19th century American

history, um the United States gave rise

to five religions that have gone around

the world. Mormon religion, 7th Day

Adventists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and

Christian Science. Why have the Mormons

been so successful? was because of

Joseph Smith's um teachings. With due

respect to the Mormons, the religious

teachings of Joseph Jose Joseph Smith

are of modest merits, but the Mormons um

um were very well organized um under

Brigham Young and

the social features of the Mormon

religion. um their optimism

um their emphasis on on living a

fulfilling life on being happy and

their

expecting every Mormon if if you're a

Mormon you tithe yourself. You don't

fill out a 1040 income tax form. Mormons

are expected to devote 10% of their

their income um to the church and they

calculate it themselves. So that's a big

big commitment. So the Mormon religion,

I would say, has spread not because of

Joseph Smith's theology, but because he

was charismatic and because Brigham

Young then was an outstanding leader.

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>> Like I have yet to run into an

that's a Mormon. [laughter]

It's kind of shocking. You know, if if

the whole origin story wasn't so, as the

kids say, sus. You know, it would make

you really be interested like what's

going on here? like seems like these

guys have it nailed

>> other than you know the nine wives and

all that other jazz. But that seems like

an offset of the original idea

>> with with due resp with due respect to

the to the theology of of Christianity.

Um the idea of a virgin birth and ascent

to um heaven um is is stretching um

scientific understanding. And I I don't

think it could be claimed that that the

belief in a virgin birth was a major

factor propelling Christianity. Instead,

what there were many things that

propelled Christianity. This gets

interesting. Um the Christians

outbred

pagans in the first couple of centuries

of the Roman Empire because um um

ro Roman religion had a low view of

women. Um

um children did not have a high

prestige. um um there was frequent um

abortion whereas Christianity from the

from the early Christianity um did give

give a high role to women compared to to

Roman religion. Um Christianity favored

having babies. Um Christianity

emphasized taking care of the sick. And

so when you look at tombstones from the

first couple of centuries of the the

Roman Empire, um Christians lived longer

and and and they [clears throat] were

less likely to die than were pagans. And

the result was that Christianity that

started out as a maybe a few dozen

people under Jesus and even in St.

Paul's time, what maybe 100 people,

Christianity grew to be the numerically

dominant religion of the Roman Empire.

On top of that, um, Christianity derived

from Judaism um, um, emphasized writing.

And so when Constantine needed

bureaucrats for his empire, there were

all of these literate Christians and the

pagans were not literate. So

Christianity had reasons for its success

that would with due respect have nothing

to do with the virgin birth.

>> Yeah, of course. Um, it's really

interesting the way you just outlined

the reason why Christianity was

successful. You could say that that same

pattern is being mirrored by Muslims

that they uh strict adherence to

religion. They emphasize having many

children and they take care of the

community.

>> Yeah.

>> And their populations are rising while a

lot of secular people their populations

are dropping off.

>> That's true. Yeah. W with Muslims as

with with Christianity. Um um

I would not I would not ar Muslim might

argue I would not argue that that the

theological beliefs of Islam were

decisive in the spread of Islam. instead

the the organization um the motivation,

the military spirit, um the family and

social connections and maybe although we

don't know something about the weather

in Saudi Arabia during Muhammad's

lifetime, those rather than theological

beliefs I see as the reason behind Islam

spread. Well, whatever was the origin of

the original way of uh constructing it,

the way it's practiced today,

>> the people that are are Muslims are

devoutly Muslim. There's a large

population of them that are very

religious and that population is very I

think that whole very strong belief

system is very attractive to people

because most people are very undecisive.

They they don't really know why they're

here. They don't know really know what

life is for. Existential angst. Society

seems pointless. The constant pursuit of

material possessions with with a finite

lifespan. something that you can join

where everyone is all in and they're

very locked in and disciplined. And that

discipline, you know, it takes a lot to

agree to pray five times a day. It takes

a lot where everyone agrees. We're all

going to play music and pray five times

a day and we're a part of a team. And if

you leave,

>> the punishment is death. So if you

decide that you don't want to be a part

of this anymore and you don't believe

anymore and you announce that they can

kill you. That's also in the religion

which is like you're all in and you're

all in for life and we all support each

other. It's a very strong sentiment that

I I think appeals to people like it is

it doesn't appeal to me like I want to

join it but when I watch these people

give speeches and I watch them express

their views and beliefs the confidence

that they have is something that is very

attractive to people and I think that

confidence is a weird that charismatic

confidence is a weird aspect of human

beings uh in in that we we follow those

people uh like universally like we

follow charismatic confident people

universally and charismatic confident

people that have a very strong belief

system and you got all these other

people that are part of the strong

belief system

>> there's a compelling force that makes

you want to join

>> something something of that is also true

of Mormonism although in somewhat

different ways

>> right it's less militant but it's very

compelling that they're so they believe

so much That's right. And and it's

compelling that that 18 year olds, every

18-year-old Mormon man is expected to go

devote two years to um to procilitizing

and if you don't have much money, you go

70 miles away. And if you do have money,

you go to the Pacific Ocean or to Europe

with a result that you're But these

these people take it seriously. Yes. And

so Mormonism has done well at spreading

in Europe and the Pacific. There's one

other thing that that I' I'd like to say

here and that is that that people often

ask me um Jared Gunstorms and Steel um

neglects individual people it's about

things that happen over the last 10,000

years um and Gunsm and Steel the

different outcomes of societies and

different continent has nothing to do

with any individual whereas here you've

written a book about leaders about

individuals how do you reconcile guns

German steel deal with leaders. And my

my first response would be to say that

Guns, German, Steel is about entire

continents for 10,000 years, where one

person doesn't make a difference,

whereas my book about leaders is about

individuals in the short term. But the

the one case that I can think of where

an individual um makes a difference

2,000 years later is in religion. the

beliefs of Jesus and the beliefs of

Muhammad, those individuals had a

longlasting effect. And so far it looks

as if the beliefs of Joseph Smith, he's

been gone for what, 200 years now. But

the prospects are that Joseph Smith

again will have a longlasting influence.

whereas I can't I can't think of a of a

politician or a business person um who

has had an effect 2,000 years later.

>> Well, I think uh guns, germs, and steel

highlighted all the factors that have to

be in place for for these types of

changes to take place. It it's not like

mutually exclusive that leaders aren't

important as well. Like it seems like

they both work together hand in hand.

But those leaders wouldn't have been

been able to do what they did without

all the innovation without the industry

without the infrastructure that these

places had without the the wet season

that the Genghaskhan and the Mongols had

fortunately arrived in. Like all those

factors kind of all have to be in place.

They're not it's not either or, right?

>> Yeah. Um so the this the spread of of

European religions namely Christianity

from 1500 um onwards um yes there were

convincing um convincing priests and

devoted priests but behind these

convincing devoted priests were European

guns germs and steel European smallpox

European measles that killed far more

Native Americans than did than did

European guns and and and horses. So, um

religion

to become worldwide religion needs what

one can call an economic and demographic

engine, the madi of the Sudan. The

accounts that we have of him are of his

being incredibly charismatic and his

military success as a general. Um his

his small troops with sticks and stones

nevertheless wiped out British Egyptian

armies with machine guns and then his

organizational ability. Um but so the

madi was able to set up an empire in

East Africa, but he didn't have the the

economic and demographic push to

um spread his religion around the world.

>> Yeah, a lot of factors have to be in

places. Sometimes the chips all align

perfectly,

>> right? Um let's think.

>> Keep that microphone up to your face. My

camera. Sorry. My apologies. Very soft.

So examples of of everything everything

aligning um in in the business world um

Jeff Bezos and and Steve Jobs

um

out of 340 million Americans today or

320 million when Jeff Bezes and Steve

Jobs were were getting launched um it's

impossible to make an argument that that

nobody except um Bill Gates had the

business knowhow and the computer skills

um to to to found personal computers,

but he was there at the right place and

right time. And again, um Jeff Bezos um

he was he recognized that it was the

right time. He went to the the head of

the company that had hired him and he he

said the internet has multiplied by a

factor of 2,300 in the last year. this

is the perfect time to set up an

everything store based um based on the

internet. So he recognized that the that

the time was right.

Yeah. And imagine what would have

happened if you tried to do that.

It's like what he did was really

fascinating because he started off with

what I thought was like an okay idea

like sell books sell books online like

okay but you can get books at Barnes &

Noble you can get books anywhere there

was bookstores everywhere it was kind of

easy to get books but then the whole you

can buy toothpaste too and and

everything like in just one click like

all that revolution and it all appealed

to our laziness and as we got more and

more lazy and more and more short

attention span tick- tocky it became the

perfect way to buy things one click he

was it it was like all the green lights

he was driving down the boulevard and

every light turned green right when he

got to it was brilliant

>> right in the c in the case of of Jeff

Bezos it was not that his goal in life

was to set up an online bookstore it was

his goal explicit his goal in life was

to set up an everything store and but he

recognized that an everything store has

to start out with something

>> really so he started out with books

>> he started out with books because he

recognized that books were a a ideal

thing to start out with. All books are

uni uniform. It's not that you buy a

diamond and 78. There are different dime

every all the books are uniform. Um and

there are there are couple of warehouses

for books where he could get books and

anybody else could get books. and

customers in stores um they're not going

to look around to see what is the best

copy of Jared Arman's profits profits um

every copy is the same so so Jeff Bezos

retina explicit that that books are a

good thing to start out with having

started out with books he then

reasoned what are good things to move on

to and he moved on to perfume and

jewelry

he he waited quite a Ohio to move on to

um move on to whatever else he moved on

to. He was strategic.

>> Yeah, it's it's kind of amazing because

if it didn't take place, what would

online shopping look like? Would

somebody else have figured that out? I

wonder

>> that. Yeah, that's a that's a great

example. There was online Sorry, there

was there were everything stores um

>> but not to that level. not to that level

before Jeff Bez before Jeff Bezos there

was eBay

>> eBay operates in a different way

>> and after Jeff Bezos um Walmart has set

up its own everything store but

Walmart's everything store is based on

coupled to a brickandmortar store

whereas Jeff Bezos his strategy from the

beginning was his everything store was

going to be an online store so here's an

example that That indicates that without

Jeff Bezes, we would still have

everything stores. We've got Walmart and

and we've got eBay, but Jeff Bezes put

his distinctive stamp on everything

stores by making an online everything

store.

>> Also being the first to figure out the

whole one-click thing. Yeah. Well, you

have an account, your credit cards

listed, you you know what you need. Bam.

One click. Toilet paper on the way.

Arrives by 400 p.m. Let's go. You don't

have to go to the store. And now you can

get groceries delivered too. Like it's

And eventually it's going to be robots

showing up at your house delivering

these things, which is [snorts]

probably already happening somewhere.

They're probably testing that right now

with drones, right?

>> Yeah. Yeah. Um

this again illustrates that Jeff Bezos

was strategic. Out of 340 million

Americans, if Jeff Bezos hadn't done it,

maybe somebody else would have done it.

But what we know for sure is that there

there there were and before and there

were afterwards other ways to develop an

everything store. What Jeff Bezes did

was to to put his stamp on how to do it

by prioritizing customer satisfaction um

to hell with whether the investors are

satisfied with their um their their

stock returns. Um he didn't care about

that. He prioritized customer

satisfaction. So he he developed

something that would have happened that

did happen before and did happen

afterwards, but he did it in a

distinctive way.

>> I often think what would society look

like if there wasn't a stock market.

If the concept of investing in other

people's businesses was just never

discussed, never hurt, no one invented

it, what would the world look like if it

was just a bunch of businesses selling

things individually with people either

owning a business or not owning a

business? So you don't you don't have

stock in publicly traded companies where

there's a there's this obligation to

your shareholders to make more money

which makes you more ruthless, cut more

corners, pay people less, do do

everything you can to save as much money

possible because you have an obligation

to your shareholders.

>> Interesting question. My my guess is

that that if we didn't if we didn't have

if we didn't have a stock if stock

markets hadn't developed,

stock markets would have developed.

Namely, it's it seems a a a unique way

of doing things and it didn't take a

person or it didn't take an accident. A

a stock market is as logical as say as

as is the internet.

>> Interesting. Well, it it certainly makes

for more businesses being able to be

funded. That's for sure.

>> It it certainly makes more people invest

in businesses and then more people who

are just investors who don't do anything

in in business at all except buy and

trade stocks.

>> Yeah.

>> Which is a very odd position in society.

But that all encourages growth. You

know, it's uh makes us uncomfortable

because it's unchecked growth sometimes

and uh we worry about pe things getting

too big and people getting pushed aside.

But it is uh it's a fascinating engine

for growth,

>> right? Um it it it raises the question

are some some things inevitable in some

broad form, right? But some individual

places a stamp on the broad form. for

example, um um cell phones. Um

um there were cell phones before iPhones

and Steve Jobs. Um there was I think the

Korean Samsung and there were

>> a phone. I had a Motorola Star Tac back

in the day.

>> I have a cell phone that my wife and son

forced me to get and I use it to do my

email and that's that's all that I use

it for.

>> You don't get on TikTok. Do any dances?

Nothing?

>> No. No,

>> nothing. No memes.

>> I'll send you some memes. [laughter]

whatever meme

I I'm I'm technophobe and I'm so cell

phones certainly would have would have

emerged. Yeah. Um but Steve Jobs put a

distinctive face on cell phones and that

he cared a lot about appearance and he

cared a lot about simplicity. Um

simplicity including simp simplicity of

the gadget but simplicity also of the

overall business. when Steve Jobs was

was fired from Apple, um Apple then went

downhill for a decade until Steve Jobs

was brought back. And when Steve Jobs

was brought back, um one of the first

things he did was to say there are too

many products. We should not have 100

products. We should have just four

products and concentrate on them. Um

another thing that he did was to say the

project product should look good and be

simple. Um um only a couple of buttons

on it. The contrast case um is that the

television set that we have at home um

has a um

you know one of these push button

devices with with 49 buttons when my

wife and I wanted to watch the World

Cup. We had to call up on Joshua and Max

to to talk us through [laughter]

and and I wrote it down. Um and when I

wrote it down I still didn't get it

right. So, I still called called up Josh

on that because there so many buttons.

Um Steve Jobs didn't do it that way. My

iPhone um has one, two, I think it's got

four buttons. Last night, I discovered

um an essential button. I didn't realize

on the left side, the most recent

conversation that I had with my iPhone,

the sound quality was very poor. And I I

knew from Marie having showed me before

that somewhere is on that iPhone there's

a volume control device, but I didn't

know [laughter] what it was. But but

yesterday I saw that on the left side

there were two things. I tried pushing

one and the volume went up. It was the

upper one.

>> How do you not know that? H

>> h how did I I wasn't born with the

knowledge. [laughter]

>> That seems so alien to me. But I mean,

uh, those things existed even on old

flip phones. Did you ever have an old

flip phone?

>> I did have an old old flip phone.

>> Didn't it have like a little thing where

you press it for the volume and it goes

up?

>> Possibly, but I don't recall. I recall

[laughter]

certainly with my iPhone. Marie did

explain to me when she forced me to get

the the iPhone, she showed me that of

these four buttons to these lengthy

things on the left of volume controls,

but I didn't didn't remember whether the

lower one increased or the lower one

[laughter] decreased the volume. I

didn't touch them because I was afraid

that I would I would ruin the device.

And it was only yesterday that I tried

pushing the upper one [laughter] and and

I got louder volume. So now I know that.

Well, the then there's a button above

that too that silences the phone or

makes the ringer go on. Did you know

about that? Yes, I'm [laughter]

>> that that one. I know there's there's

this there's this tiny device and if I

push it to the right, the tiny device

looks orange and that means that that I

will not be disturbed,

>> right? So, my device is always on

orange. And if I push it back on the

rare occasions when I'm expecting a

phone call, then I push it back and it's

no longer our

>> With all due respect, it is so

fascinating to me that a man so

brilliant as you who knows so much about

history is talking about a phone like as

if it's some like insanely complicated

thing from another planet that you're

trying to backineer to figure out

[laughter] how it works when everybody

knows how to do the things you're saying

here.

>> It is an insanely complicated thing.

from another from from childhood

onwards. Um I've always been been

technophobe. Um

>> why?

>> I'm just incompetent at it. In my school

um in I think the second year in my

middle school, we were all toldum to

build to build these these um make it

yourself radios and they were I tried to

do it. I couldn't do it. [laughter]

My my father then got my father was a

physician and scientist. He got someone

in his lab to put my phone together when

when [laughter] I when I went to went to

Cambridge, England to get my PhD in

physiology. Um

there were various organs I could have

worked on. I could have worked on the

electric electric organ of electric

eels. I could have worked on muscle, but

I had no idea how to build a plastic

chamber that would allow an electric

organ to separate two solutions. But

when a lecturer in my um beginning

physiology course said the gallbladder

is a sac, the gallbladder is a sack um

coming out of the bile coming out of the

liver. is just a simple sack um and it

absorbs salt and water but we don't know

how I thought my god that's my or I can

do that because to measure water

transport by the gallbladder didn't

require micro pipets and technology

didn't require chambers all it required

was that I put a little plastic canula

into the mouth of gall and then I waited

on a balance but there was a there was a

balance in my lab so I I picked that

organ because it was technologically so

simple and it [laughter] it turns out

that it turns out that the gallbladder

does what the kidney and intestine and

more important organs do. But the

gallbladder is much more convenient to

study and so I made my reputation as a

physiologist with a gallbladder

precisely because I could not build the

ham radio. I can't nor can I figure out

my iPhone nor can I do any other

technology without

>> fascinating. So it's like you're averse

to it like it you don't like it. There's

something about technology that it just

it almost repulses you.

>> That's true. It Why does it repel me?

Because I'm incompetent at it and I feel

feel lousy and frustrated when when I

try to do it. Um instead I try to do

everything in in the simplest way

possible. Um, so one of my secrets for

successful, let me show you. [laughter]

This is

Behold 0.7 mm pencil. It has one device.

I advance it and and the lead advances.

Um, my books, I write my books by hand.

>> Really?

>> Yep. And after after I've written them

by hand, I then correct the draft by

hand. And once I've cleaned up the

draft, then I dictate it into my my

iPhone, my three or four button iPhone,

and my secretary um cleans it up. But I

really recommend

>> this pencil.

>> So you write in pencil and then do you

edit by erasing?

>> Yes. Yeah, I I edit I edit more by

crossing out. I I do some some editing

by a rate. For example, um um um

yesterday I flew in flew into to Houston

on Sunday and yesterday was a downtime

for me. I had an event I had a event in

the evening. Um I spent yesterday

revising a paper that I'm writing on the

birds of the Wandom Peninsula of New

Guinea. New Guinea. The island of New

Guinea has 10 isolated mountain ranges

on the north coast. And I personally

have explored 10 of those and for many

of them I've discovered the highest peak

and I've I've inventoried their birds.

So yesterday I was working on a paper on

the birds of Wandom Mountains. Um

I used uh

behold

>> an eraser

>> and an eraser. [laughter] You got a nice

big

>> eraser. I used the eraser and I used my

0.7 mm pencil. I cleaned up my

handwritten draft which I will give to

my secretary. My secretary will then

type it up and then I will edit the

draft again with my um

>> eraser and pencil.

>> Eraser. Erase and pencil.

>> So when you edit the draft when she

types up a draft and you edit it, are

you just writing on it? Writing on the

the printed draft? Yeah. Is there is

there another way to do it?

>> Well, rewrite it again. That's what I'm

worried about. I'm worried you're saying

you write all the edits by hand again.

>> Um,

if I have to rewrite it massively, then

I will retype it. Um, but if I

>> But you will type it.

>> Oh, yeah.

>> Okay. So, you will you're not averse to

using a typewriter or or a keyboard?

>> No. when when I was about eight

[laughter] when I was about eight years

old, I had chickenpox and I stayed home

from I had to stay home from school for

two weeks. Um I during those two weeks,

I learned to use a typewriter, but I got

cured of chip chickenpox after I had

done the first three rows. So I can

touch type the bottom three rows, but I

cannot touch type the top row. But

[laughter] but but I

>> That's hilarious. I'm a faster typist

than any secretary that I've ever had.

>> Really?

>> Yeah.

>> Wow.

>> And only touch typing the first three

rows.

>> That's right.

>> That's hilarious.

>> Um I there's a lot of people that I know

that write longhand

>> and they they like to write like with a

pen on paper, whether it's a book or

anything, songs. A lot of songwriters,

like most songwriters that I know, they

write on pieces of paper or they

improvise it and then write it down as

they're improvising it. But um it's so

much easier and quicker to type. That's

what drives me nuts. Like I know that I

remember things much better when I write

them down physically, but I can type

pretty quickly and I don't have to look

at the keys. I touch type. I some things

I some things I produce the first draft

by typing. But what what I find

is that my my style my English pro style

is different if I type it than if I

write it. When I type it, I notice that

that my style is more wordy. Whereas if

I write it down, my style is more more

simplified and and compressed.

>> Interesting. because it takes longer to

write a word than it does to type it or

say it. So, as you're writing the word,

you have more time to think and you have

more time to analyze whether or not you

need extra words or you can sort of

focus more on the structure of the

sentence rather than if you're typing,

it's like so quick.

>> Yeah. that maybe you put some extra

stuff in there that you didn't need to

because you didn't have a time to really

as you're writing each word out, you're

thinking, what's the correct word after

this? What's the proper way to phrase

this?

>> You have more time.

>> You're right. Typing typing is faster.

And so so typing reflects better

my my thinking, whereas if I'm writing,

it takes longer for me to to to write a

word than to type it. And so I have to

think a little more when I'm when I'm

writing. I'm doing more of the

organization

than when I'm typing, which can be more

of a free uh free flow.

>> Yeah, that makes sense. That makes

sense. Um

>> I I want to mention one other great

advantage of um

iPhone. I don't know if you've

discovered this, but [laughter] but but

at the at the at the bottom of my

iPhone, there's an there's an icon,

right? Which looks like a a microphone

that that icon um when I press that

icon, it allows me to dictate in other

languages. So, the languages that I'm

active in today are Italian and German.

I do my correspondence on my iPhone in

Italian and German because of this

little device. Now, this little when my

wife forced me to get the iPhone, um

there were a few buttons at the bottom

that I didn't know about. And then a

high school classmate of mine um who

married a French woman um showed me on

my iPhone there's this little icon and

he said, "That icon, Jared, will permit

you to to do your dictation in German

and Italian." So, I learned and and I do

my correspondence in German and Italian

now, not never by hand. I always do it

on the iPhone.

>> Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Um, with AI

now they um they have I think Google was

the first to do this and I think Samsung

phones definitely had this where you

could have someone uh speak to you and

it would translate their words in real

time. Yeah.

>> So you could have a real honest

conversation with someone in another

language. I guess they would have to put

on headsets as well and you would be

able to talk back and forth and it would

absolutely change and in the future

they're going to have it set up where

it'll do it in your voice.

>> Yeah.

>> So you will say something in in English,

it'll translate it perfectly in Spanish

>> and it'll translate it as Jared Diamond

instead of like some robot voice. Mr.

Diamond wants to know. Instead of that,

you would get your actual voice,

>> which is, you know, we're getting close

to like Tower of Babel type stuff here,

like universal language, the the ability

to instantaneously translate everything

all the time, so everybody knows what

everybody's saying. It's a very unique

time.

>> This has a very interesting history in

which I was secondarily involved. Um, in

the 1970s,

Xerox Park in PaloAlto got the idea of

um

got the idea of automatic translation.

And so that they set up a research

group, a well-funded research group. Um

I had a close friend who was a member of

that that research group. Um and the

goal of Xerox Park which was well

founded was to to develop um a device

that would do simultaneous translation

um they failed. It was a couple of

decades later. The reason was there were

two things that were complicated that

were not understood in the 1970s. One

was we didn't understand enough about

the structure of language and I'll give

you an example of that. And the other

thing we we didn't understand was the

technology of simultaneous translation.

The the example of not understanding

enough about the structure of language

was was that in the initial trial runs

of of Xerox Park. Um they they had a

sentence um the the phrase out of sight,

out of mind and they had their attempted

technology to translate this into

Russian and then from Russian to

translate it back into English and so

they they said out of sight, out of

mind. The device translated into

Russian. The Russian translated back

into English and out of sight and out of

mind came back invisible idiot.

[laughter]

BUT IT took it it took a couple of

decades to to overcome that.

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Well, which brings us back to religious

texts, which is I mean the Bible, the

Old Testament, there's versions of it in

Aramaic and the Dead Sea Scrolls and

some of the some of the books. And then

there's the ancient Greek version of it,

the ancient Hebrew version of it, the

the translations to all these different

languages and how much is lost in those

translations and how how weird do things

get,

>> right? The beginning of the gospel

according to St. John in the be in the

beginning was the word and the word was

with God word. So the St. John was not

written in English. It was um written

um in Greek or translated into Greek and

the Greek word for for word is logos.

The Greek word logos um means word but

it also means rational system. And so

when you translate the first line of the

St. John gospel, in the beginning was

the word. Um

there was much more. In the beginning

was

a system and organization,

not just a word. But that that's an

example of the the difficulties of

translating from one language into it.

Let me give you another example. Um, the

last foreign language that that I

learned was Italian and I now read

Italian every day. But in Italian, there

are two words that mean I love. In

English, there's only one word that mean

I love. In Italian, you can either say

amo or voyen. Um, voyen literally means

I wish you well. Surprisingly to me in

Italian, physical love, sexual love is

voybeen, whereas ammo, which is

literally the word love. Ammo is is the

the root amateur. It's it's the root for

love in other languages. Um that's a

friendly love rather than a sexual love.

So Italian has these these two words um

for for love. Another example,

>> can I ask you one more question? Does

Italian have a word for love for things

that aren't sexual or like like not and

not personal, not friendly, like a thing

like love a like love race car driving.

>> Um,

for deso desire.

>> Desire. So they don't use the term love

like we do. We we have it

>> we have a bunch of different versions of

love. Even ironic love. Oh, I love it

when that happens. You know, when

something stupid happens, you know, you

break your shoelace. Oh, I love it when

that happens. We have a lot of uses of

that word love,

>> right? Um that that illustrates the

difficulty of translating from from one

language to another. So if if if

I were to have an Italian girlfriend,

which I'm I'm happily married, but if I

were to have an Italian girlfriend and

if I made the mistake of saying her to

her to and I didn't say tyen, I would be

th I would be thrown out. She'd beat

your ass.

>> A a German example is that the German

language has two words meaning meaning

to eat. Essen and fen. Essen is eat

referring to

humans and fresen is eat referring to

animals.

>> But a person who gobbles up a lot of

stuff, you say that person is thr or

I'll give you an example from from the

the the only New Guinea language that I

that I I made much progress learning the

foray language of papa nug guina. Um in

the foray language the verb to be in

English we have just one verb to be. In

foray there are two verbs to be. There's

mindia and windia. Windia is to be of

something inanimate. Um this sweet

potato tastes good. This sweet potato is

good. Um windia but mindia is to be

referring to an animal. And so the first

first sentence of foray that I learned

on my second day in the foray area was

um there was a a frog in a creek and I

had already learned the word for water

which is um daquani wani in foray and

daquo was a word for that sort of frog.

Um and so I said to I was practicing the

foray that I just learned. I said to a

foray man daquo wip wia and he shook his

head severely. Windia mind because I had

used the inanimate word for to be to

refer to this frog when I should have

used the animate word to be. English

does not make that distinction.

>> Wow.

>> The example that you brought about the

word in in the biblical scripture and

logos the difference that that is such a

giant difference. Yeah.

>> So there's a giant difference in what it

means and unfortunately it leaves when

you just have the term word. It leaves

so much to interpretation.

You there's so much spin that a pastor

or someone who's like relaying this can

say what it actually means is if they

don't know the original language of it.

My friend Rick Stman, he's a researcher,

very fascinating guy. He learned ancient

Hebrew over the course of 16 years. he

self-taught himself ancient Hebrew so

that he could read the Bible in its

original form

>> and uh he's like I highly recommend it.

I'm like well that's a lot. You're

asking a lot. But he felt like the only

way he could really understand what they

were saying, what it really meant was to

really truly understand the language and

be able to read it and speak it.

>> Yeah. Um

the same the same is true of

>> [laughter]

>> um every language. um languages. One

translates languages, but um there's

lots of stuff lost in translation

because of the words and the grammar.

Yeah. For example, the Iliad, Homer's

Iliad, um the the English text of the

Iliad, um um we'll begin by saying

something like

[clears throat] I sing of the wrath of

Achilles, the terrible wrath that

destroyed so many Greeks. So that's how

it comes out comes out in English. Um

the original Greek is

The uh

so the first word in the elite is wrath

man. The second word is adah sing the

third word is goddess. So literally it's

wrath sing goddess and then then wrath

of Achilles son of Pelus. um

um the

the Iliad as it was written in Greek.

That is a great first line and it loses

its power in translation. H

I wonder if AI could

reinterpret certain books that have been

translated and do so in a way that

accurately accurately reflect reflects

the context and what they were saying

like instead of sticking to the original

translations of these books like the

Iliad or any any old book that was

written in different languages.

there could be a way where it could

analyze what the correct way of phrasing

it in the English language would be

>> with whatever extra words we would have

to use or whatever different ways you

would have to phrase it. But instead of

just going with word for word the way we

did it now,

[clears throat]

>> if if that could be done, one might be

able to to to get the meaning with more

lengthy pros, but one would lose the the

the power, the condensation of of the

Iliad to be able to be

>> You really have to be able to read it in

Greek.

>> Yes. Yeah. And the weirder stuff uh is

uh with ancient Hebrew the numbers that

also letters also double as numbers and

words have numeric value.

That's kind of wild.

>> Yeah. My understanding is that that um

that with with Hebrew at least at least

originally um the the so-called um

Semitic Afroasiatic languages um the

vowels were non-essential. um a word

root was specified just by the

consonant. And so so the the early texts

of the Bible and of say Phoenician um

had just the consonants, not the vowels.

Um the the vowels um

the there wasn't ambiguity if you

omitted the vowels. Nowadays my

understanding is that that Hebrew does

ha have um um lines in the corner and

Amharic the language of Ethiopia which

is a afroasiatic language also has lines

in the corner um that convey convey the

vowels but there's a lot with those

languages that you can convey without

specifying the vowels at all whereas

with with English you can't dispense

with the vowels.

>> That is so it's so interesting.

>> [clears throat]

>> It it's so interesting that different

languages evolved like like that that

they have so many variables that just

don't exist in the English language

and then for us to try to understand

exactly what they were saying the power

in their words is almost impossible

>> an example is so my books get translated

into lots of languages the guns German

the steel have been translated into into

45 languages and one thing that I can

see I see how because I've got all the

edi I see how thick are the additions.

Um the the German and German edition is

always the thickest. The Italian edition

is the next thickest. The English

edition is is thinner. It just takes

more words to say something in German

than it does to say the same thing in

English.

>> Is it saying the exact same thing

though? Like in their language, the way

they interpret it, is it the same?

>> Um yes. Yes. Yes. And

yes and yes and no. Um German grammar is

is distinctive. The German vocabulary is

distinctive. Um so when you ask is it

the same? Um any linguist would say no

it's not the same. We we attempt to come

up with an approximation but we know

that that that you cannot translate

perfectly from one language into another

language. I had uh a fascinating guy in

here the other day that uh spent eight

years of his life living with the Paha

people in the uh Amazon jungle and

learning their language.

>> Was this Daniel? What is this?

>> Yes. Daniel Ever. Yeah. Have you spoken

to him before?

>> Um I've corresponded with him.

>> Brilliant guy and such a fascinating

conversation. I mean, utterly

fascinating that he had no writing, no

no studies, nothing to go by and he had

to construct their language and write it

down over the course of years and years

of learning how to say things with them.

>> Yeah. Um, so in in New Guinea, New

Guinea is the most language rich part of

the world. There are a thousand

languages, not dialect, but a thousand

languages in New Guinea. And most of our

understanding of New Guinea languages

comes from missionaries

um especially Lutheran missionaries who

are highly trained linguists who are

sent out there. The their purpose is to

translate the Bible into a language. But

a the local languages um they start out

the of course there was no writing in

New Guinea. So a Lutheran linguist will

be dropped into an area. he just listens

to what they're saying. He has to figure

out what they're saying. Um, and it's

figure out the sounds. One example of

that is that in 1990, um, I was in the

lakes plains of Indonesian New Guinea,

um, next to a tribe called the Fawi

being studied by an American woman who

was devoting her life to understanding

this language. The Fawi Yao language is

a tonal language like Chinese. Chinese

um has either five tones mainland and

Mandarin and six tones Cantonese or vice

versa. Um this this woman linguist um

she had been living for 15 years with a

fa yao and she had already identified 12

tones. She thought there might be a 13th

tone but after a dozen years she didn't

wasn't sure of that. But in among the

foui you have to get the tone

right. The the syllables are mostly

they're mono syllable like ba but ba you

can pronounce in 12 different ba ba ba

ba ba b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b b

b b b b and one of those bays means

um sweet potato and another bay means

snake and another bay means delicious

and another bay means feces and then

there's another bay that means

mother-in-law.

And so, so if um if a linguist or if a

young child learning thaw Yao says

something with the word ba and gets the

tone wrong and you want to say, "Beloved

mother-in-law, let me give you this

delicious sweet potato and you drop the

bay instead of rising the bay." What

comes out? What comes out is vile snake,

let me give you this feces TO EAT.

[laughter]

OH MY GOD.

>> But

>> oh my god.

>> A consequence of that is is this this

ling this this linguist noticed that um

when little kids are going around the

faui village with with their mother. Um

there's not a back and forth

conversation. Instead the mother says

something and the kid repeats the same

thing and the mother may correct the

kid. Um, so it's mother and then

repetition. Why? Because with a fouo, if

you if you get the pronunciation

slightly wrong, you've turned beloved

mother-in-law into feces dropping snake.

[laughter]

>> How did those two get so close? That

seems to me to not be a coincidence.

>> That's their problem.

>> It is [laughter] their problem, but it's

also very telling.

>> It's a big problem.

>> What did you do?

[laughter] It's almost like they left

the door open to people with bad hearing

to not be able to catch what you're

saying as you're walking out the door.

>> Yeah. Yeah.

>> That's not what I said. No, no, no. I

said, "Beloved mother-in-law."

That's hilarious. What was the first uh

truly uh literate society?

>> Oh, that that we know. The first writing

was in the fertile crescent of the

Middle East. It was so what's called

kuneao form these the wedge wedge shape

um symbols. Um it was written with a a

stylus that that had different forms at

the end. And so so the writing was done

kuneaoiform writing was done with a

stylus. Kuneaoform was used to write

many different languages. It was used

first to write I believe Aadian which

was the the language of the first empire

of the fertile crescent um and kaoform

the Hittite language of um of Turkey um

which is the oldest and most distinct

Indo-European language. Hittite was also

written in in Kuneao form. Um so um

kuneaoiform symbols were used to record

many different writing systems just as

the the um English alphabet or the Roman

alphabet is used to write

German and Swedish and it's used to

write for the New Guinea language that I

that I work with. um the the um

Phoenician the the Phoenetians the first

Greek writing was linear B of Homer's

Homer's Troy um it was a salabic writing

system and around then the Greeks lost

writing for a couple of centuries and

then

>> they lost it totally

>> they became illiterate so

>> the whole culture

>> right at the time the tro at the time of

the Trojan war. Um the Greeks wrote in

linear B this salabic writing system and

then writing disappeared from Greece for

several centuries. It came back around

800 BC but the writing that came back

was not this salabic linear B system. It

was instead derived from the Phoenician

alphabet. So it was an alphabetical

writing um that it was not salabic but

but was alphabet alphabetic and the

Greeks added vowels. The phoenetians

because it was Afroaziatic

language did not have symbols for

vowels. In Greek if you in Phoenician if

you drop the vowels you you can still

understand. In Greek you have to specify

the vowels otherwise it's not

comprehensible. So the the first what we

call alphabet was the Greek alphabet of

AD800 which then got modified

slightly into the Atruscan alphabet in

Italy. And the Greek al alphabet then

got modified into the the Roman alphabet

for Latin which is modified again to the

to the alphabet that we've got today. Um

so so the first writing system then was

was um

um with style kuneoiform and and then

there were salabic writing systems and

then then came alphabets. Japanese is

the world's most complicated writing

system because it's really four writing

systems. Japanese has two syllaries.

Um for example my name diamond the

Japanese writing into diamo do

because

Japanese doesn't put two consonants

together so my name comes out diamon do

neither of these two writing systems

Japanese also has a third writing system

which is basically Chinese derived the

kanji and then a fourth writing system

which is the the Roman writing system so

Japanese is the most complicated writing

system in the world. I just come from

Korea last Friday. I flew from Korea.

>> I heard you speak about the Korean

language that it's the best language.

>> It's it's the best writing system in the

world. The Korean what the Koreans do is

they take their letters and they group

their letters into syllables. So if if

you look at Korean writing, you'll see

that there are several things pushed

together in a little box. That box is a

syllable. And the result is that Koreans

when they read they they read not letter

by letter but they read by syllables.

And so Koreans can read faster than

anybody else in the world

>> because of this wonderful writing

system.

>> Uh one of the more interesting things

about the history of the Mongols and

Genghaskhan is the book the lost history

of the Mongols that they initially

thought was gibberish.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. because it wasn't written like it

was written phonetically like the

Mongolian language but in Chinese. Is

that what it was? Is that how they did

it?

One of my um um

classmates at Harvard um Joe Fletcher

was the person who who

um rediscovered that Mongol book and

figured out how to how to how to read

it.

>> Really?

>> That wasn't until

the early 1960s.

>> That's insane.

But there there are of course there are

writing systems that we still can't

can't read. The Atruscans um the people

of Italy whom the Romans eventually

conquered. Um so the Atruscans took the

Greek alphabet and modified it slightly.

Um we have some Atruscan writing in

stone. The longest but all all at

Truskan books got got burnt or lost. the

longest at Truscan text that we've got.

There was a linen shroud that turned up

in Yugoslavia. And this linen shroud was

used to wrap something. But the linen

shroud was was evidently a piece of at

was a piece of Atruscan writing because

there's a long Atruscan text on it and

the shroud was then reused to to to wrap

someone's book. Um the result is that we

can pronounce Atruscan writing. We can

read it because it's Greek Greek

letters, but we don't know the meaning

of the words for the most part. Um there

there aren't Rosetta stones for at

Truskin. The closest that we come to it

is that dy dices these six six-sided

dices um have been found in Atruscan

areas and on the dices there are there

are six symbols. So evidently the six

symbols uh must mean 1 2 3 4 5 six. Um

and people have figured out one or two

of those but they haven't figured out

the others. So we know the the the

atruscan symbols for 1 2 3 4 5 six but

we don't know which one of them is six

and which one of them is three and which

one of them is four.

>> Have you ever seen the Easter Ireland uh

language that they can't translate? I'm

sure you have. Yeah.

>> That's fascinating.

>> Yeah.

>> That's a beautiful one too, right? It's

really interesting the way they write,

>> right? There there it's quite

mysterious. Um it's

there are only there are few samples of

Easter writing, Easter Island writing

known. They're all in wood. Um the first

European visitor,

>> there it is right there.

>> Yes. All right. Um the first European

visitor to Easter Island of whom we have

a record was the Dutch Rogavine in I

think 1722

and he did not observe writing. The

first mention of writing was by the

third or fourth European visitor to

Easter Island in the 1770s.

the there's a suspicion that the Easter

Islanders might have invented writing

when the Spaniards

came as the second visitor to Easter

Island in 1770. The Easter Island may

have seen Spaniards with wooden sticks,

looking at the wooden sticks and doing

things and that may have given the

Easter Islanders the idea to invent a

writing system of their own. So, it's

possible that was late invention

inspired by the Spaniard. But a case

where we know that happened,

um the Cherokee Indians of of the

Carolas,

no Native Americans had a writing

system. Um in in North America, the

Maya, yes, but not in North America. Um

there was a there was a Cherokee Indian

co called Sequoia who had a store and he

noticed that when Europeans came into

his store they had pieces they would

scribble things on paper they would talk

to each other and they have they got a

lot of power. They were able to

communicate with each other. So he he

realized that they were writing down

words but he had no idea about what the

writing system was. He didn't know

whether it was an alphabet. Didn't know

whether it was he didn't know about

alphabets or syllibaries. He tried

different writing systems. He spent

about 10 years doing it. And he finally

ended up with a syllary where the

symbols are for syllables, not letters.

The Cherokee syllary has um 80 signs for

80 different syllables. And um um

Sequoia

convinced the Cherokees of the value of

this riding system by having two

Cherokees at the the opposite end of

like a football field. And he had one

Cherokee say something to him which he

then wrote down on paper. And then he

went to the other end of the football

field and handed that piece of paper to

another Cherokee to whom he had taught

his writing system. and that other

Cherokee then looked at the paper and

pronounced the words that the Cherokee

at the other end of the football field

was at the field had said. So, um,

Sequoia in that way convinced the

Cherokees of the power of his writing.

>> Wow,

that's fascinating. Like knowing the

origin of a culture's written language

and learning it from others. Well, they

all had to have originally have learned

it most likely from someone else that

they saw something being written down. I

mean, or did they all come up with it at

the same time? Like I when did

we know have you seen the the newest

discovery out of Gobeclete where they

believe that they found what they think

is probably writing that predates cunia

form by five or 6 thousand years?

>> Um, no. I I have I've not seen that.

It's really recent. It's over the last

couple of weeks.

>> Okay. It is the

>> Jamie will pull it up. It's it's it's a

very weird way of uh writing. Did Daniel

ever discuss this with us?

>> You talking about the thing I have on

the screen?

>> Yes.

>> I brought this up because I found it on

that uh podcast I was watching with Lex

and he in uh

Irving is his name.

>> It is the case with Kuneaoform. Although

we we think of Kao form as having arisen

around 3,500 BC. Um

>> Irving Finkele that's it.

>> So this is it. Did Irving Finkele find

ancient writing at Quebec?

>> Uhhuh. Um we know that that for

kuneaoiform um there were there were

marks

going back several thousand years and

there's a de debate among among

linguists whether those marks are the

earliest proto writing. Um it's it's

suspected that the that the marks were

used to to they were to to count sheep.

They function as numerals. They might

have had had word for sheep. But um what

what's clear is um every writing system

other than the first writing one has to

ask might it have been copied from the

first writing but the first writing had

to be a new invention right

>> and there are at least three writing

systems that we we're sure are

independent um kunea form because it was

the first writing system we know of the

new world was isolated from the old

world and yet Mexican Indians developed

writing. The earliest writing in Mexico

is something like 700 BC or 900 BC. And

then the Maya also had had writing

salabic writing. The Maya had lots of

books which Bishop Lander burnt all of

them except four. But but the Maya

writing

arose independently of Kaoform because

there was no contact between between the

old world and new world. And then

Chinese writing. Chinese writing is

first attested around 1300 BC. Chinese

writing is totally different from kuneao

form or anything else in the fertile

crescent of the time. So it's suspected

that the that the Chinese developed

writing in independently the fertile

crescent which would mean that we have

three independent inventions of writing

namely kunea form and the fertile

crescent Mexican writing and then

Chinese writing and then possibly east

island writing. Well, the the thing you

were talking about with Greece is so

fascinating that a war the Trojan war

can be so catastrophic that the entire

culture becomes illiterate for hundreds

of years.

>> It was not the Trojan War that did in

Greek writing. Um it was a much broader

phenomenon called the the collapse of

the the the Bronze Age. So Bronze Age

cultures this was just as iron was

emerging. Um, bronze was the the main

metal used in

the Middle East in in Turkey. Um,

Bronze Age cultures included

Troy, Homer's Troy, Cree. Um, so the

island of Cree had linear B, which was

the earliest the the salabic old Greek

writing system. But linear B was derived

from another writing system called

linear A which we can't read yet. We

don't have we don't have enough text.

It's suspected that linear A recorded

the Manoan language of Manoan cree

whatever that language is we don't know

know the language um that would have

been might have been another independent

invention right but anyways um the

bronze age encompassed citrus

and the Levant from from um palis

Palestine up to Lebanon and then then