A Brief History of the Future (2024) s01e05 Episode Script

1
The most important
thing for any human being
is to be with
other human beings.
We are not solitary creatures.
We are not
individuals in the way
that we think of it
or the stories that we tell.
Evidence shows us that we
have been traveling and moving
in groups as far back
as we can actually find
skeletons and bones in caves.
Humans feel the most
in themselves, the most happy,
the most joyful when they're
actually in large groups
together.
We're all kind of
focused and aligned.
We're actually
having a sense of awe
at whatever is happening.
We find that when people are
at certain events together,
that eventually their hearts are
actually beating in unison.
What we are meant to be
is to be in groups together.
It's who and what we are.
So there's
two things that Homo sapiens do
fundamentally better
than almost any other species
on Planet Earth.
It's to work together,
to cooperate,
and also a sense of prospection,
actually,
to think about the future.
And those are
inextricably linked.
As my journey continues,
everywhere I go,
I'm struck by how similar
we all really are.
We want to connect, to belong,
and to see ourselves
as a part of a team or a tribe.
Why is this sense of
togetherness so central
to who we are,
and what does it mean
in a moment when
that's often not reflected
in the world around us?
How can we build on
the best parts of who we are
in order to create
the future we want to see
and leave behind?
That's led me to Japan,
headed out to a small island
I've read about for years.
Coming here
is a dream come true,
as this quiet, distant place is
home to a troupe of
world-renowned drummers,
who've always struck me
as a beautiful picture
of what's possible
when individuals come together
to create something they could
never achieve on their own.
My name is Leo Ikenaga,
and I'm a performer for Kodo.
Kodo is a Japanese
drumming ensemble.
Japanese drumming
is called taiko.
And we are a group
that uses the taiko,
but we try to incorporate
different traditional,
cultural elements
that are native to Japan.
And we try to kind of create
something new out of it.
We travel all over the world
and perform and work with
a lot of different artists.
And we're just trying
to create something new
from this Japanese tradition.
What does it take
for someone to join Kodo?
So, to join Kodo, you
first have to complete
a two-year apprenticeship.
And then you become
a junior member,
and then you become
a full-time member.
And the two-year
apprenticeship is
a very, very rigorous
process.
You're living
in an abandoned
70-year-old middle school
with 15 to 20 other people.
You have no privacy.
You have no phones,
no TV, no Internet.
And you wake up
at 5:00 in the morning.
You run every day.
You plant your own rice.
You harvest your own food,
and then you practice all day.
And you do that
for two years.
So it's
a pretty crazy process,
but it's a great opportunity
to get in touch with
yourself,
because you're constantly
under pressure
and you're constantly
under stress.
Right now there are
about 15 apprentices.
Maybe one or two will
make it into the troupe,
so it's very,
very selective.
But the beautiful thing
is, these apprentices,
even though maybe one or
two make it into the group,
they have to work together.
They have to cook
for each other.
They have to perform
with each other,
because we're never looking
at them individually.
We're evaluating them
based on how well
they work with others,
how much they
improve others.
It's hard to see that when
you're in the apprenticeship,
but once you become
a member, it's very apparent,
because, you know,
when we're performing,
you have to be in sync with
everyone without a conductor.
So these apprentices,
they're constantly
fighting and competing
with each other.
But at the same time,
they have to be,
like, very, very close-knit
with each other.
So it's difficult,
but a very, very
rewarding journey.
What's possible
when you move
from being kind of
a solo player
to being an ensemble?
What is it that
you're able to do
that you couldn't
do alone?
You're able to
create something that you
could never do by yourself.
You are able to put
yourself into a situation
where you strive
to be better
and you strive
to make others better.
And it's this process that
we go through every day.
It's really hard
to do that alone.
It's possible.
But when you have
someone next to you
that's drumming
their heart out
and they're doing the best
that they can
and they're
doing it every day,
you want to be
like that person.
Yeah, it's
pretty incredible.
Wallach, voice-over: Being here
and experiencing
how the drummers live
and work together is moving.
And it makes me wonder
just how much we've lost
in the pursuit of seeing
ourselves as individuals
above all else.
In a time when distrust
feels more common than trust,
what kind of
collective price are we paying?
And what type of
futures are waiting
on the other side of us coming
to see ourselves as connected,
not alone?
We are the only species
in the animal kingdom
with the ability to blush,
which is, I think,
a telling fact.
We involuntarily give
away our feelings
to other members of our species
in order to establish trust.
We are the only species
among primates
with white eyes, right?
So that means people can see--
I'm looking in the camera
right now.
If I was a chimpanzee,
that would have been much more
difficult.
I'm looking to the left.
Now I'm looking to the right.
So I'm involuntarily giving
away my gaze,
which, again,
helps to establish trust.
So it's in our biology.
It's in our DNA that
we've been optimized for trust.
You want to feel like the
social system of which you're
a member and a participant
has something
legitimate, fair,
desirable, good,
something worthy about it.
We want to feel like
our sports team is
better than
the other sports teams.
We want to feel our town or
our city is better than others
or our university or college
is better than others.
It could also be
a racial or ethnic group
or other kinds of social groups.
That's where
the tribalism comes in.
We have created systems
that increase the distance
between people, right,
increases the distance between
people on the work floor
and the managers,
between the citizens
and the politicians.
The longer the distance becomes,
both physical distance
and psychological distance,
the more difficult
it becomes to trust one another.
So that's what we have.
We have a deepening
crisis of trust.
Listen, why must we divide?
Why are we dividing people?
You're completely
destroying our city!
You come down--
Things got so heated that
the board members
eventually walked out,
leaving the police
to deal with the unruly crowd.
I was so disgusted, like,
that people
would do this.
Close the border!
Close the border!
Close the border!
for 20 years.
You're just screaming
I was screaming
Come on.
No one's giving me free food.
No one's giving me
free housing.
We do a tax--
I need order.
Right?
This is what everyone does.
OK. Time-out. Time-out.
We've always
had disagreements,
but something more serious is
happening here.
The ideas and institutions
that govern our societies--
long taken for granted--
have begun being challenged
in new and unsettling ways.
Here at Stanford University,
Alice Siu
is working with her team at
the Deliberative Democracy Lab
to better understand
where we are right now
and what we can do to create
lasting change moving forward.
What is the state
of democracy today?
Many will say
democracy is in crisis.
A lot of democracies around
the world are backsliding,
and we have trouble
trying to figure out
what a lot of people
actually want,
what kind of system
of government
people want to live in.
But I think, as of today,
a lot of people
are concerned about whether
their voices are being heard
and if people are
really representing
their likes and dislikes.
But Alice also sees
an opportunity here,
a chance
for new and needed ideas
around how to improve
our democracies
in order to better
face the future
and engage directly
with the citizens they serve.
A growing set of ideas known
as deliberative democracy
are beginning to take hold in
countries around the world
like here in France,
where they've started holding
citizen conventions--forums
designed to better engage
their citizens in addressing
the major challenges
and opportunities before them.
So how did this
all first come about
here in France?
Look, I mean, first, we had
this yellow vest crisis
in France,
a crisis of
working classes in France.
You have a lot of
fears and anxieties,
climate change,
digitalization, geopolitics.
And a lot of people in
small cities and so on
having this feeling not to
be respected by our policies,
not to have a place anymore
in this world,
and not to be prepared
for this change.
So I made this tour,
and I launched a series
of citizen conventions.
On a random basis, you
take 100, 200 citizens
and you formulate a question.
You put them in
a situation to have
a lot of interactions
with experts.
They propose a solution,
which is based on a consensus
and collective intelligence
and ability to understand
the complexity of the problem.
So I did it on climate change.
It worked because we passed
a law after that
largely inspired
by the citizen convention,
and the feedback
was very positive.
They learned.
They were very committed,
but they respected each other.
But for me, this is
a constant work in progress
because it's never perfect.
But where
I'm really optimistic
is that you can have emotions,
positive and negative,
and argumentation
and rational discussion
to be merged together
regarding
our collective future.
Wallach, voice-over: Back
in the U.S., Alice and her team
have pioneered something
with similar ideas in mind.
Your team
put together an event
called
America in One Room.
What was that?
It was a four-day-long
deliberative poll,
where we gathered a nationally
representative sample.
We flew them in
to Dallas, Texas,
from across the country.
There were 523 people that
came from all walks of life,
and they gathered
together in small groups.
They deliberated
about immigration,
economy, foreign policy.
And for four days,
they discussed
in their small groups
about these topics,
and then they had
panels of experts.
And, actually, five
then-presidential candidates
answer their questions.
What we learned
from 500-plus people is
that people can and will
change their minds
after just four days of
being with each other.
We learned that those that
may have had extreme positions
on either side of the spectrum
actually moderated
and became
closer to each other.
We learned that after
deliberation together,
they liked each other more.
They came to understand
why the other
person held certain views.
I think,
especially on a local basis,
we have to find a way
to involve citizens,
make them much more
player of the game
and doer of
our democracies.
Paint a picture
for me of the democracy
that you want to see.
We don't have
to live like this today.
We can change it now, and we
can have those conversations
that build empathy.
We can have those
structured conversations.
We can build those skills.
And if we just start
somewhere and not wait,
then we can really
get to that future
where everyone actually
listens to each other
and our democracy
is held together
by everyone that's involved.
It's the organization
of humanity,
the self-organization
of humanity
which is the key change
that needs to happen.
Now, we live in this
extraordinary situation
where a tiny number
of people,
which calls itself
a government,
claims
to be able to control
this complex system that we
call society from the center.
There is no complex system
on Earth
that can be controlled
from the center.
It can't possibly work.
And yet at the same time, we
have this tremendous capacity
for participatory,
for deliberative democracy,
where we can come together
and make decisions together
for the good of all.
And where we've been
allowed to do this,
if only on a small scale,
or a partial scale,
the results have
been extraordinary.
I think it's
quite clear that we are living
through probably
the most dangerous century
in the history of our species.
It could also be
the most prosperous century
and the most exciting century
to be alive.
What we need are people
who are willing and able
to look forward to a future
that could be
so, so much better than
the world we live in today.
In some ways right now,
that can feel naive,
even impossible.
But this idea of
building on our desire
for connection and cooperation
can begin anywhere.
And that's what's led me
to Nashville,
where Reverend Jennifer Bailey
is working to create
new forms of community
to reach across what feels
like a growing divide.
It used to be, you know,
we kind of find
some common ground.
We kind of live together.
We broke bread together.
Now it just seems
ripped apart.
What do you attribute
that to?
It's feeling--it feels
very strong right now.
Yeah.
People are experiencing,
in the U.S. context at least,
higher rates of loneliness and
isolation than ever before.
And where they find
community can often be
in these online pockets,
where they're getting
talked to by the same folks.
And, see,
the world becomes--
rather than becoming bigger
and having spaces
where people can hear more
in the marketplace of ideas,
it becomes
smaller and more rigid.
And then you, like, make
the fool's errand
of believing everybody
thinks like you.
And the person who doesn't,
then, must be my enemy.
Tell me about the work
that you're doing
and how you kind of
got started in it.
Yeah, so the People's Supper
was a project
that I co-founded
with two friends
after the 2016
U.S. presidential election.
We wanted to create spaces
around dinner tables
for people to begin
having conversations
across lines of difference,
whether that be political,
ideological, religious,
racial difference.
We've hosted thousands
of suppers around the country.
And I think at the core
of those suppers
and our time together
is really an ability
for people to hear each other
and not just deeper speech,
but deeper personhood,
to be reminded of the fact
that we are not
just how we vote
or how we look, but that we
are a collection of stories
and that our story
is not individual
but the continuation
of other stories
and prologue to the stories
that are to come,
even if it's just
for one meal.
Wallach, voice-over: While I was
in town, Jennifer invited me
to one of these dinner parties,
joining a small group
of people
from various walks of life
and different backgrounds
to sit down together
for a shared meal.
We're gonna have a fun
conversation tonight.
I like to say
you all are joining,
whether you knew it or not,
a movement of people
who've been gathering
around the country
over the past six years
almost.
Well, just to toast you all,
thank you for being here.
So grateful
for this time together.
Wallach, voice-over: That night,
I experienced something
so simple and yet profound.
I witnessed a group of
strangers,
who in some ways
have nothing in common,
come to see the common
humanity they all share.
Our past and our stories
are unique,
and yet what we want to see
unfold in the future,
for ourselves
and for those we love,
is so much more alike than what
we often stop to consider.
I really feel like we're
at a period of rebirthing
and remaking the world.
And we see that
with the intensity
of the climate crisis.
We see that
with threats to the notion
of democracy globally.
We're at a real inflection
point in global history.
I find myself asking,
What does it mean
to be human in the future?
What are the things
that aren't replaceable?
And care for one another
feels like something
that we will never be
able to fully replace.
For tens of thousands
of years, even for centuries,
we would live
kind of collectively
in relatively dense
accommodation.
Even just in
the past 150 years,
many of us
began living in cities,
but something happened,
especially
in America after World War II.
We had returning GIs and
a rapidly expanding population
with not enough housing.
A lot of these people
needed to be close
to cities for jobs,
and so the cities gave way
to surrounding suburbs.
You and I live in a period
of tremendous growth
with many problems.
Across the United States,
new homes are springing up
by the thousands
for our rapidly growing
population.
Modern shopping centers
satisfy most
of the material needs of
suburban dwellers
who no longer depend on
the city as a retail center.
Now, the suburbs
could only happen in America
with the advent
of the vehicle.
We needed vehicles to live in
these new kind of communities.
And as they continued
to expand,
the newly needed roads
did as well,
in some cases paving roads
right through the heart
of existing neighborhoods,
separating what had been
thriving communities.
American suburbs
were held up as a symbol
of a thriving middle class,
but they had a distancing
effect on people as well.
Common areas
for human connection
were replaced
by individual spaces
and separated by greater
and greater distances.
What ends up happening
is a sense of separation
between people
right in the midst
of their own communities.
How does architecture,
how does urban planning,
and how do the neighborhoods
we live in today
impact how we relate
to each other?
How can we build
futures where we design
for more human connectedness?
And is that
even possible in a moment
that feels more deeply divided
than anything in our lifetimes?
I came to Washington
to sit down with the Secretary
of Transportation,
Pete Buttigieg,
someone who thinks a lot
about how we are shaping
not only the social fabric
but the actual infrastructure
of America.
You're leading the Department
of Transportation.
That's real infrastructure.
It's bridges. It's tunnels.
It's airports. It's roads.
That being said, what are
the takeaways to build
other types of kind of
social infrastructure,
in a sense more of that
human connective tissue?
Well, there's
a very real relationship
between how we connect
to each other physically
through transportation
and how we connect
to each other socially.
Even in an era where we
are discovering
remote and hybrid
and virtual interaction,
we're also seeing
how important it can be
to just be
around each other
or to literally
walk the streets
of one another's
communities,
to travel and understand
through travel
how other societies work.
One finding that I think
is very powerful
is when people get to
know each other better,
they tend to trust
each other more, not less.
It's 30 years from now,
and you're talking to your
children about this era,
this moment in human history.
How do you describe it?
Well, I'm gonna tell them
that this was a moment
when a lot of changes
happened in our society,
certainly in transportation,
and those changes led to
their lives getting better.
I think that we need to be
in a season of building,
not just because
we have a backlog
and there's a bunch of stuff
we should have been doing
the whole time
but because the projects
that are ahead
in this century--
the big shared national
and human projects--
like confronting
climate change,
staying a step ahead
of the next pandemic,
preventing
nuclear conflict--
will require levels
of cooperation
that, in turn, require
a lot of good
infrastructure.
Are we able to rebuild
to that kind of golden era
of community
that we once had?
Yeah, I believe we can,
and I believe we must.
This is not
just important
because of some vague
and romantic conception
of neighborhoods
and communities.
It's also got
life-and-death consequences.
There's evidence,
for example,
that the survivability
of tornadoes--
all other things
being equal--
goes up in neighborhoods
or communities
where neighbors
know each other.
So a simple principle
or test,
whether you're designing
a suburban subdivision
or a dense city block,
would be, Does
this design encourage
or discourage people
from knowing
who their neighbors are?
I really believe in so many
of these dimensions--
political, social,
even technological--
our salvation
will come from the local.
And we need processes
that empower
local decision making.
Wallach, voice-over: We spend
a lot of time these days
separating ourselves
into groups
based on ideas and identity.
But I wanted to see
what's possible
when a local community
decides to build together
around a shared sense
of belief and belonging.
In Amsterdam,
Marjan de Blok decided
to do just that,
when she helped create
a floating village right
here in the heart of the city.
Usually when I
show up to a village,
I just take, like, a path,
and I just, you know, start
walking among the homes.
But here I
immediately walked
onto a dock on the water.
So tell me where we are.
You are in the north
of Amsterdam
in Johan van Hasseltkanaal.
And I'm the founder
of this village
that you are in right now.
One school--one school
is here, very near
Marjan de Blok, voice-over:
So we have a big jetty
connecting all the houses.
There are actually
46 households living here.
We are a community,
so we share a lot together.
And we try to live
as sustainable as possible.
All our houses
have solar panels.
All our houses
have a heat pump.
We have a green roof,
and all the houses are built
with sustainable materials.
All houses are
really well-insulated.
And we have a smart grid,
which is quite special.
By the smart grid,
we are all connected,
so we can exchange
the surpluses of
the energy we generated.
And all the houses
have a battery.
And in this battery,
we can also save energy
that we don't need
at that moment.
If one house generates
more electricity
and another house
needs more electricity,
you can share electricity
among the homes?
Yeah.
That's how it goes.
So what was the motivation
for starting
a community like this?
Well, it actually
started 15 years ago.
At that time, I was living
in a small house in Amsterdam.
I hardly knew my neighbors,
and it was all really kind of
lonely and individualistic.
And I just completely
fell in love
with the concept of living
sustainable on the water,
but also to live
a more social life,
because that was something
that I was really missing
at that time.
I had this idea of
starting a group.
Build a couple of
houseboats together,
make them sustainable.
And living on the water makes
you feel closer to nature.
And the fact that you would
generate your own electricity
gave me this really
great sense of freedom,
a feeling that I would
never have
in the house that
I was living in.
Whoo.
So tell me more about
what it's like
living in community.
Yeah.
It's uncomparable.
It's uncomparable.
It's a feeling
You are never alone.
You have like-minded
people around you.
If you have to do everything
by yourself, it's not fun.
And so then
the community makes it nice
to try all these new
sustainable technologies.
So I really think that
the community is needed
for a transition to
a more sustainable society.
Hi.
Hello.
De Blok, voice-over:
When I started this
or when I had
this initial idea,
I had no idea how important
it was, what we were doing.
And that it's also
about, what can you do,
instead of what
you can't do or what is--
you can't eat meat,
you can't drive a car,
you can't fly.
It's all, like, negative.
And, of course, those things
are important to keep in mind
and to adjust your behavior,
but there's
also another side to it.
And I think that's
the side that we touched
and realized here
with this community,
because it's all positive.
It's all about connection--
connection to your neighbors
but also connection
to your environment.
If you are connected
to your environment,
you will think twice
before polluting it.
There's a lot of respect
for one another,
and I think everybody
realizes that it's
not just a jetty
with some houses.
I feel that it's an organism
that is still growing,
and it's almost
an organism in itself,
like, a live thing.
It's not just a project.
And I think people
realize that.
So they know it's special,
what we have.
And that's a really
nice feeling
if you have that
in your daily life.
Wallach, voice-over:
It's so exciting to think about
the futures we can create
when we design
with human connectedness
in mind.
Collaboration and cooperation
is how we got to this point,
and it's
our only path forward.
And yet, in so many ways
right now,
it feels like we're
moving further away
from these
primary human traits.
What makes us special?
Why have we humans
conquered the globe?
Why not the Neanderthals,
you know?
The Neanderthals
were pretty smart as well.
Actually, they had
bigger brains than us.
Why not the bonobos?
Why not the chimpanzees?
What distinguishes us
as a species?
All of us
are individuals.
And we have
individual needs, wishes,
wants, desires, and so on.
But we also are
part of social groups
that can mean a lot to us.
Being human
is this team sport,
is this collective,
collaborative
endeavor that we actually
have to bring ourselves to.
This whole story of evolution,
that may the best man win--
that's not
what Darwin was saying at all.
Page after page,
what he's actually doing
is marveling at
the way different species
communicate and collaborate
for mutual survival.
There's a really
old idea that's deeply embedded
in our culture
and in our history,
which says that human beings
are fundamentally selfish.
So what scientists
now believe is
that the secret of our success
is not our intelligence,
it's not our strength.
No, it's our ability
to work together.
It's our friendliness.
So this is what they call
survival of the friendliest,
and it's basically the secret
of our whole story.
Wallach, voice-over: These ideas
matter more than ever
because we have important,
unfinished things
to do right now that we
can only do together.
One of these things is
creating enough housing
for everyone who needs it.
In Austin, Melodie Yashar
and her team at ICON
are working on ways
to meet this challenge
by building 3-D-printed homes
that can be printed
in a matter of weeks.
OK, so tell me,
Where are we right now?
We are in House Zero.
House Zero is a project that
we both designed and built
in collaboration with
the architect Lake Flato.
And it is intended
to showcase
what is possible
using 3D printing.
It is a project
that we took on
as a research-and-development
effort to show what's possible
and to introduce
to the general public
what it's like
to live on the inside
and be on the inside
of a 3-D-printed home.
Give me a sense
of the problem.
Like, how many people are
we talking are unhoused
in the U.S. and globally?
It's close
to a billion people,
a billion homes that
we need to deliver
to address
the global housing crisis.
The way that we've
been building--
using sticks and bricks
of the past, and steel--
is just not getting
us there fast enough.
And so, to really address
and make a true impact
in this problem,
automated technologies
can get us there.
And 3-D printing, of course,
is one of them.
Take me through what
actually happened here
and in general, right?
We'll start off
with a concrete slab.
So you have level ground.
Now what happens?
Once a slab is poured,
we deploy our 3-D printer,
which is a 9,600-pound
Gantry-based robot.
We deploy it on rails
adjacent to that slab,
so the Y rails run back
and forth and parallel
to the slab.
And then we have two towers,
as well as an X beam,
that goes across
those towers,
which essentially comprise
the overall Gantry system.
We have
a material-handling system
that travels
through a very long hose
and gets deposited
at the nozzle of the printer.
And layer by layer,
the structure is fabricated.
We are at
the Wolf Ranch development.
This is a 100-home community.
This represents the largest
3-D-printed community
that we're aware of
in the world.
And as you can see,
it's well underway.
We have multiple printers
printing simultaneously,
adjacent to slabs that
have been poured by Lennar.
And we're delivering
the vertical-wall system,
which is the 3-D-printed
walls of these houses.
And how long
does it usually take
for one of these homes
to go up?
Roughly, two weeks
on average,
assuming that we have
continuous
24-hour-a-day printing.
But that's
essentially the idea,
is that we deploy
the printer within a day,
the printer prints
the home,
and the home
is finished traditionally.
You put on
a traditional roof.
Your plumbing and all
of that--electrical--
happens still traditionally.
I also know in your bio,
you're an architect
for both on-world
and off-world architecture.
So the on-world I get.
We're here.
Tell me more about
the off-world work.
3-D printing is
a leading contender
in in-space construction
because the premise for
3-D printing in space is
that we would use local
and indigenous materials
on the surface of the planet
rather than bringing
anything with us from Earth.
That's a really
high-impact concept
because it is
prohibitively expensive
to launch heavy materials
from Earth to space.
And it's not going to
enable us to create
the kinds of infrastructure,
small cities, and settlements
that we've seen
in science-fiction images
for decades in the past.
So NASA is really interested,
and other aerospace companies
are really interested,
in this idea of using
the soil that is local
to the moon and Mars
and sending up a single
3D-printing robot
that can leverage that soil
and those materials
to 3-D print, really,
any kind of infrastructure or
any kind of surface element
that would be beneficial
to the crew.
Wallach, voice-over:
The collaboration and innovation
at work here is beautiful.
And it's inspiring
to see how solving problems
with creativity and concern
for the here and now
is the same work as building
far-off futures as well.
Our story
is about you and me
and why we are alike
in some ways
and yet why each person
is different from every other.
Cynicism is
another word for laziness,
because if things
are lost anyway,
then you don't have
to do anything.
You can just sit back
and, I don't know,
make the best of
your own life, and that's it.
If things are not lost,
if we can do so much better
as a species,
then that gives
you a certain responsibility.
If you want
to call human beings
the most evolved species,
it's because we've evolved
the most elaborate means
of collaboration
and communication,
letting us do stuff together.
When you start
to understand that nature is
a collaborative dance
of different things,
you start to understand, Oh,
well, being human is that, too.
We are not alone.
We are in one big,
connected nervous system.
We become the stories
that we tell ourselves.
What kind of society
are you gonna create?
So, for example,
I think we should get into
that problem-solving mind-set
and think about, like, What
are the really big challenges
that we face
as a species today,
and what are the most
effective solutions?
I'm often asked
how new tools will enable us
to solve these challenges,
but the truth is
that all too often,
what we lack are not
the technologies
but, rather, the collective
will to act together
on behalf of our
neighbors and communities
rather than just ourselves.
One of these challenges is
around food,
a constant source of
unnecessary suffering
all over the world,
including right here
in this country,
where a shocking amount of
us are still hungry
and food insecure.
In Upstate New York, a farmer
named Karen Washington
has spent her life fighting
for a different future,
one in which healthy,
affordable food for everyone
is seen as
an essential human right.
Here we are--
beautiful, kind of,
Upstate New York.
Tell me,
did you grow up here?
No.
Believe it or not, I grew
up in the concrete jungle
of New York City.
As a matter of fact,
I grew up in the projects,
Lower East Side,
so those were my roots.
I started really growing
food back in the city,
back in the 1980s.
And then came a time where
my friends and I decided,
Let's try something
bigger.
And so we landed
here back in 2014.
You're here
at Rise & Root Farm,
which is in Chester,
New York, Orange County.
We are in the Black Dirt
Region of Orange County.
So what does that mean,
the Black Dirt Region?
Well, if you look at soil,
normally, it's between 1%,
maybe 2% of organic matter.
But here, the soil is 40%.
Wow.
So GreenThumb is
the organization
in New York City that runs
the community gardens.
So we grow for them.
There are over 400 community
gardens in New York City.
And so we've been asked
the task
of growing their starts.
And so each
community garden will get
a tray of flowers and herbs
and a tray of vegetables.
And so yesterday we did
all the flowers and herbs.
And today we're doing
all of the vegetables.
Wallach, voice-over:
When they leave the farm,
these plants are sent out
to community gardens
across New York City that
are working
to fight hunger and food poverty
by equipping local communities
in underserved neighborhoods
to grow their own food.
What's the role of
food in America today?
I think it has
been co-opted.
If you think of food,
food is the essence
of nourishment
for human beings.
But I think that has
now been made
more of a profit
sort of thing.
And it has divided
the human race
for the haves
and have-nots.
You know, people in
low-income neighborhoods
have food that is cheap.
It's processed food.
It's fast food, junk food.
And people who
are more affluent have
"healthy, organic foods."
Back in the day,
it was the small farmers.
It has been
industrialized.
And so what happened is
that this sort of
commercialization
of farmers
started swallowing up
small farmers.
The emphasis was
on that mighty dollar,
you know,
on a capitalistic system
to produce food
at a rate
that we wind up
producing so much food
and wasting so much food,
yet that food is not
getting
down to the people
that need it the most.
Why is that?
Why is it that just
the healthiest stuff
goes to one group
and the overly processed
goes to another group?
I think for so long,
we have been complacent
as a society.
We have gone home
in our nice houses
with our nice cars
and closed the door
and said, you know,
"That's not my problem.
That's someone else's
problem."
Why, in the greatest
country in the world,
where we grow enough food
and we waste enough food,
yet that food is not
getting
down to the people
that need it the most?
Why is it it's based
on race,
the color of your skin?
Why is it based
on where you live?
Why is it based on
how much money you have?
And start having
those hard conversations
that we don't have.
Wallach, voice-over:
The challenges in food systems
here and around the world
can easily feel insurmountable,
but Karen's work reminds me that
real, scalable,
and lasting change
is going to
start in our own communities.
What can it look like,
from where we are right now
to where we want to be?
Tell me, Where
do we want to be?
I think
where we want to be is
that everybody,
everybody--
and not only here
in the United States
but globally--
but everybody
has to understand
that food, clean water,
and shelter
are human rights.
And we're not
there yet.
Wallach, voice-over:
To create a future
where all people have access to
good, nutritious food
isn't just going to happen.
Better futures are not
easy or inevitable.
But together,
we can look around
at the systems
across our societies
and decide they are not
sufficient for the world
we're building.
That's the story of all progress
throughout our history--
people coming together to
decide the injustices of today
have no place
in our tomorrows.
I think of history as
essentially two steps forward,
one step back.
Resistance to change is
part of what it means to be
human, for better and worse.
We grow up in a world,
and we're socialized to see
the way things are
as essentially
the way things should be.
And most of the adults in
our lives are telling us this.
Literally, our teachers,
our parents, and so on
are all doing things
that make us experience
the reality that we're
growing into as natural,
perhaps even inevitable.
We want to feel good
about the social, economic,
political institutions
and arrangements
on which we all depend for
our livelihoods, for our lives.
And it's painful to
believe that you're living in
and operating in
an unjust social system.
Every single milestone
of civilization
that we are used to right now,
whether it's democracy
or the welfare state
or equal rights
for men and women,
all these milestones
were fantasies once.
It's ideas that really govern
and determine
our trajectory as a species.
And that idea in itself,
that progress is possible,
is probably one of the most
powerful ideas we've ever had.
Being here, you see,
on the one hand,
just kind of cutting-edge
infrastructure--
high-speed rail--just things
that are just so amazing.
And on the other hand,
you see folks
who are carrying
drinking water on their heads
back to their homes.
They don't have indoor plumbing.
And so when I think about,
What does it mean
to live sustainably
and regeneratively,
it can't just be
for the richest countries.
We won't have the futures
we want for everyone
until we can run basic
electrical lines into homes
and allow for indoor plumbing.
The project of moving forward
to a more kind of sustainable
way of living on Planet Earth
is going to require
electrification of everything
for everyone.
I'm here to visit a community
that made news around the world
by becoming the first village
in India
to become completely powered
by solar energy.
Thank you
for inviting me
to your village today.
So I thought we would
start by you letting me know,
like, who you are
and what your role here
is in the village.
What is the kind of historical
and spiritual significance
of the sun here in India?
Wallach, voice-over:
Safir explained to me
how this new form of energy is
especially meaningful,
here in a place
with such a long,
rich history with the sun.
So what were the challenges
that you were facing
as a village that led you
to have to and want to take
on a project like this?
How many panels are there
here in this entire village?
How does it feel
to see children playing
in a community that isn't
using dirty energy sources,
that's using the sun
to power, you know,
their homes and their schools
and their way of life?
What does that feel like?
When you think
about the future of India
potentially moving
to all solar,
how do you feel being such
a kind of pioneer village
for the entire country?
Wallach, voice-over: Seeing
countries take very small steps,
like you see in
a very small village,
saying, "You know what?
"Here's how we're gonna
contribute to the solution.
"We're not gonna
wait for something
"to come from Brussels
or from Washington,
"even, necessarily,
just from Delhi.
We're gonna do
it here locally."
And, you know, they say
all politics are local.
All energy is local.
All everything is local.
Even a sense
of community, right?
We talk about the need for
there to be more community.
And it's sometimes
talked about
almost at a national
or a nation-state level.
But you come to a village like
this, and I walk the town.
And that's community.
That's how futures are made,
really, at this
much more ground level,
be it about how you're gonna
make your electricity
and how
you're gonna power your homes
or how you're just
gonna act as a community
towards one another.
And it's beautiful to see that
happening in a place
that, to be honest,
has been getting,
really, just the exhaust
from all these other countries
who have been contributing
to the problem.
They're actually showing us
another way forward.
What must we do as
active and informed citizens?
We must decide now,
for how well we live tomorrow
will depend
on the action we take today.
I do want people 50 years,
100 years, 200 years from now
to know that people were really
trying hard
to leave the world
in a better place for them.
And I don't know
whether it will succeed,
but we have to try.
In order for us
to look at the future,
you got to understand
the past.
I have real hope that
these young people
are looking for
a more just system.
If we're not tapping
into shared humanity,
then we're not gonna be
finding the best answers.
The best answers
are the ones
that allow everybody
to prosper
and to succeed
and to belong.
We all have
to have a common goal.
We all have to know what
the other person wants.
It's a collective
experience.
It's a state of mind.
How can we take what
we see as some of the worst
of humanity's propensity
towards violence,
isolation, and exclusion
and transform that
into an opportunity
but also cast
a new way forward?
This distrust is hurting us
as a society.
Humans have evolved
to connect with one another.
We need to connect.
We need our friends.
We need our family members.
We need our coworkers.
We need the strangers
in the streets, right?
But if society keeps telling us
that we can't trust them,
that they're dangerous,
that we should be
wary of one another,
then that's tearing us apart.
We are not
supposed to be alone.
You have to be connected,
and happiness
comes from connection.
People don't realize
that enough, I think.
I thought people would
want to talk about the future
through a kind of
almost individualized lens,
they would want to talk about
the careers
that they're gonna have
or they're worried
about artificial intelligence
is gonna come for their job
or for their children's job.
But what I keep hearing is
a desire
and a hope for community.
Everyone I'm speaking to,
when I ask them,
"What do you want the future
to look like,"
inevitably, the idea or
just the term of community
comes up--this idea
of human connection.
And sometimes it's more
deeply with their friends,
and sometimes it's more deeply
as a town or a village
or as a state
or, really,
just as a kind of human family,
you know, as almost something
post-nation-state,
something bigger.
And that's both been surprising
and unbelievably delightful.
As we move forward,
as we kind of rethink
these baseline assumptions
about how we order the world,
there can no longer be
an "I win, you lose" mind-set
or mentality.
No one flourishes
until everyone flourishes.
As we move forward, we
have an amazing opportunity
to do that for ourselves
and for our species.