Benedict Cumberbatch reads a letter from Kurt Vonnegut

[Applause] ladies and gentlemen of a.d 2088 it has been suggested you might welcome words of wisdom from the past and that several of us in the 20th century should send you son well do you know this advice from polonius and shakespeare's hamlet this above all to thine own self be true or what about these instructions from john the divine fear god and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come the best advice for my own era i guess is a prayer first used by alcoholics who hoped to never take a drink again god grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change the courage to change the things i can and the wisdom to know the difference our century hasn't been as free with words of wisdom as some others i think because we were the first to get reliable information about the human situation how many of us there were how much food we could raise or gather or how fast we were reproducing what made us sick and what made us die how much damage we were doing to the air and water and topsoil on which most life forms depended how violent and heartless nature can be and on and on who could wax wise with so much bad news pouring in for me the most paralyzing news was that nature was no conservationist it needed no help from us in taking the planet apart and putting it back together in some different kind of a way not necessarily improving it from the viewpoint of living things it set fires to forests with lightning bolts it paved vast tracts of arable land with lava which no more could support life than big city parking lots it had in the past and glaciers down from the north pole to grind up major portions of asia europe and north america nor was there any reason to think it wouldn't do that again someday this very moment it is turning africa and its farms to desert and could be expected to heave up tidal waves or shower down hot boulders from outer space at any moment it has not only exterminated exquisitely evolved species in a twinkling but drained oceans and drowned continents as well if people think nature is their friend then they sure don't need an enemy yes and as you people 100 years from now must know full well and as your grandchildren will know even better nature is ruthless when it comes to matching the quantity of life in any given place at any given time to the quantity of nourishment available so what have you and nature done about overpopulation back here in 1988 we were seeing ourselves as a sort of new glacier warm-blooded and clever unstoppable about to gobble up everything and then make love and then double in size again second thought i'm not sure i could bear to hear what you and nature have done about too many people for too small a food supply here's a crazy idea i'd like to try on you is it possible that we aimed rockets with hydrogen bomb warheads at each other all set to go in order to take our minds off deeper problems how cruelly nature can be expected to treat us nature being nature in the by and by now that we can discuss the mess we're in with some precision i hope you have stopped choosing abysmally ignorant optimists for positions of leadership they were useful only so long as nobody had a clue as to what was really going on during the past seven million years or so in my time they've been catastrophic as heads of sophisticated institutions with real work to do sorts of leaders we need now are not those who promise ultimate victory over nature through perseverance and living as we do right now but those with the courage and intelligence to present the world as to what it appears to be nature's stern but reasonable surrender terms these are numbered one reduce and stabilize your population two stop poisoning the air the water the topsoil three stop preparing for war and start dealing with your real problems four teach yourselves your kids while you're at it anyone how to inhabit a small planet without helping to kill it five stop thinking science can fix anything you give it with a trillion dollars six stop thinking your grandchildren will be okay no matter how wasteful or destructive you may be since they can go to a nice new planet on a spaceship that's really mean and stupid and so on and so on am i too pessimistic about life a hundred years from now maybe i've spent too much time with scientists and not enough time as speech writers for politicians for all i know even bag ladies and gentlemen will have their own personal helicopters or rocket belts in ad2088 nobody will have to leave home to go to work or school or even stop watching television everybody will sit around all day punching the keys of computer terminals connected to everything there is and sip orange drinks through straws like astronauts cheers kurt vonnegut you

Channel: Letters Live

Views: 127,413

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Id: mHMS35ZfyGw

Length: 6min 25sec (385 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 19 2021