The Friday Evening Lecture with Jared Diamond, University of California at Los Angeles

okay I'm gonna broadcast okay good evening and thank you for joining us on the second of our Friday evening lecture series for 2020 we're going to go live in a few minutes we'll just wait for our attendees to start arriving remember that as you're joining us and as you're listening to the talk you can submit questions in the Q&A section at the bottom of the page of your window and we will do our best to answer as many questions as possible at the end of our talk if you're just joining us you can submit questions in the Q&A section at the bottom of your window and we will answer them at the conclusion of this evenings lecture we'll be getting started in just another minute or so please remember that you can submit questions at the bottom of the page in the QA section and we will answer them at the conclusion of our lecture this evening if you're just joining us we'll be getting started in just another couple of seconds please remember that you can submit questions in the Q&A section at the bottom of your window and we'll do our best to answer as many of them as possible at the conclusion of this talk and let us know where you're at [Music] [Applause] good evening and welcome to tonight's Friday evening lecture I'm Yvonne Patel director of the Marine Biological Laboratory the NBL is dedicated to fundamental biological discoveries that inform human health and the health of our planet every summer since its founding in 1888 the MBL has hosted public evening lectures for renowned scientists historians and architects of modern biology have presented stunning scientific discoveries for exploration and discussion despite the hardships of the warriors and the great depression the Friday evening lectures have always been held without interruption just as our predecessors did we are coming together as a community to adapt this year series with stream lectures delivered by notable Friday evening lecture alumni well I regret that we can't be together in person in the Lilly auditorium your presence here tonight is helping us to keep this important tradition alive thank you for joining us and enjoy the presentation and remember to turn off your cell phones good evening my name is Felix white sir I am a trustee of the grass foundation and it is a pleasure to present a foundation this evening in welcoming you to the 61st 61st Forbes lecture which will be given by dr. Jared Diamond the forks lectures are sponsored by the grass foundation which as you know has a long history of supporting research and education in neuroscience especially at the Marine Biological Laboratory the foundation was started by ellen talbert grass with proceeds from the EEG machines that they had invented and commercialized through the grass instruments company here you can see a picture of the two founders of the grass foundation and one of the very first machines that was being sold by the grass instruments company a major program supported by the foundation is the grass fellowship program which as so many things this year only has a virtual component but I'm happy to report that the 2020 fellows are very active in regular Xoom meetings and we hope that a significant social connections we'll stay vibrant during the coming decades as it has for so many previous grass fellows the first fourths lecture was given by Alexander Forbes himself in 1959 Forbes was a funded founding trustee of the foundation he was born near Boston and a great man was a grandson of Ralph Waldo Emerson he received his bachelor's master's and medical degrees from Harvard University and then spent some time in England together with Sir Charles Sherrington where he was introduced into electrophysiology when he returned to United States he joined Harvard as a faculty member for the remainder of his academic career dr. Forbes was one of the very first neurophysiologists in the United States he is credited with recording the first neuronal action potential in 1915 he also joined the needles work society which the group of electrophysiologists that work together at Harvard during these times was called in reference to the suit sewing needles that they were using at these times to make electrophysiological recordings I'd now like to introduce our 2020 Forbes lecturer dr. Jared Diamond although I feel he barely needs an introduction like Alexander Forbes dr. diamond was born in Boston and first trained at Harvard University he then went to England where he earned a PhD from Cambridge upon graduation he returned to the United States initially like alexander forbes back to Harvard but then he moved to the west and joined UCLA he was first the professor in the department of physiology and the School of Medicine and later switched until now to the Department of Geography into college dr. Diamonds earlier research was focused on nutrient transport across biological membranes in especially with relationship to digestion but he also had always had a keen sense for ecology and ornithology which led him in the is to discover the natural habitat of the yellow fronted power bird in a remote mountainous area of New Guinea up to this time only feathers were known of this particular bird since its habitat is in two remote areas to explore by mere humans and his research extends into the influence of human societies on their environment and vice versa dr. diamond is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and serves as a board member for the Wildlife World Wildlife Fund found he won many prestigious awards including the MacArthur award and the National Medal of Science which was bestowed up to him by President Clinton besides hundreds of scientific articles he authored eight books as accessible to the general public most notable Guns Germs and Steel for which he won the Pulitzer Prize his most recent book is called upheaval how nations cope with crises and change it explores resilience and crises at the level of nations and compares it to those crises at the level of individuals the global crisis of COBIT 19 as well as our never ending racial exploitations make the subject even more timely than it was a year ago when the book was published please welcome dr. Jared Diamond good evening everybody it's a great pleasure for me to be back at the MDL even if it's only electronically after more than 60 years this return visit calls back old memories for me and probably for most of you as well let's begin with the happy memories in the summer of 1957 I spent the summer at the MBL taking the invertebrate zoology course which was the closest approach to pure pleasure in my educational career that course was taught by John buck and Howard Schneiderman we went through the invertebrates file and by phylum we began in the early morning with a lecture then we went out into the field into the ocean to see where the animals lived observe their ecology collected them brought them back to the laboratory study their behavior in the lab poke them and examine their physiology to sector them to study their anatomy and finally in the evening we cooked them and attempted to eat them the course was an experience of pure pleasure pure educational pleasure it was not just a course in methods that would be out of date within a short time it was a lifetime's worth of ideas and potential projects I remember for example the animals called tunicates whose blood pigment contains vanadium why on earth instead of iron is there an animal whose blood pigment is based on vanadium and then I remember the ribbon worms the nemah teen worms with a porous poison stylus in their head but inside their brain were a couple of spare poisons styluses and we couldn't figure out how the animal matters should change its poison stylist those are my happy memories from 60 years ago then of course given what's going on today to give a memorial lecture now is an occasion for unhappy memories each of us I'm sure that all of you has had unhappy memories of recent deaths the deaths of friends friends from in my case 50 or 60 years in the last two my wife and I have lost six of our friends who we've known for 50 or 60 years those long relationships are irreplaceable they died of covered they died of other causes they died of who knows what but I'm sure that all of you have suffered from these deaths these memories of deaths and some of our friends will also have been friends of yours our recent losses include on June 15th Kirk Smith of Berkley before that Bob May of Oxford Don Kennedy of Stanford Donato ortler of Wisconsin many of you will have known them many of you will have known other people these losses kovat has produced a pulse of deaths and this pulse is going to continue they were going to be more of these tragic memories but this crisis is an opportunity to change the world for the better when I say that your first reaction my first reaction is what an obscene thought to suggest that there might be anything good coming out of this tragedy of Kogan but think what the world is going to be like next year when probably we've got a vaccine how may kovat have changed us then I'm interested in crises not just covered but other crises I'm interested in national crises and my recent book upheaval published year ago neh was on national crises why because when I think back in my life my experience has included living in countries that were going through or had just gone through or about to go through were in the run-up to national crises around the time of my visit for example I was living in Germany on the day of 1961 August when the Berlin wall was erected I was living in Chile during the run-up to the 1973 coup d'etat when the military with Pinochet took over and the democratically elected President Salvador Allende shot himself I began working in Indonesia in the aftermath of the Indonesian genocide of 1965 when Indonesians killed half a million Indonesians I visited Finland for the first time in the aftermath of Finland's went to war against the Soviet Union when my Finnish hosts were the veterans and the orphans and the widows of the Winter War and I began visiting what spare you in 1964 just as Australia was starting to come to grips with its legacy of its White Australia Policy so those are the national crises that have been part of my life each of them is a gut-wrenching crisis in its own way but one can ask is there anything to learn from these crises these national crises my approach to history is has always been a comparative approach I don't write books about late nineteenth century Germany I write books about I study the comparison of different countries because from comparisons questions arise and lessons emerge that you would never get from studying just a single country and so there's equipped among historians the historian who studies just a single society ends up understanding no society well one may think does correlation prove causation is it the case that Jared Diamond's living in a country provokes a crisis no that's not the case that's instead the case that national crises are common any country that you spend much time in is likely to experience they'll be coming out of a national crisis one may again say well there are so many books on national crisis so many studies of national crises what do we need a new book on national crises what's can be knew about this study well I'm looking at national crises from a new perspective from the perspective of the personal crises that affect all of us in our personal lives all of you I'm sure that's an experience of a personal crisis that made you throw into doubt your own identity personal crises include especially breakdown of a marriage or of a close relationship but personal crisis may include involve the death of a loved one it makes you doubt the justice in the world a personal crisis may be provoked by a job disaster or a health setback for you all of you like me I'm sure have gone through these personal crises that make you doubt yourself and how you've been operating well I'm interested in personal crises obviously because of my own I've had my own share of them but also because my wife Marie is a clinical psychologist who during the first year on marriage was doing a special training specialty training in the area of psychotherapy called crisis therapy crisis therapy is different from the usual long term psychotherapy when you meet with a counselor or a therapist for several years every couple of times a week the years and you have the time and the leisure to examine early childhood events and their consequences for you in in contrast in crisis therapy someone has had a crisis that makes them doubt themselves and the therapist has to help the client fast because that in the worst case there's the risk of suicide so Marie in this year of specialty training we and her fellow therapists a would meet with the clients once a week for only six weeks then you have six weeks to help will cry and figure out what's gone wrong and try to help them find a new way of approaching life each week Marie and her fellow therapists got together and discussed all the clients in the office and discuss who is dealing well with their crisis who's having problems with their crisis what are the outcome predictions what are the things that make it more or less likely that a person will succeed in overcoming a personal crisis these outcome predictors are things that I'm sure are familiar to all of you from your personal experience from your own crises or from watching the crises of your friends and it's Marie at the end of each week talk to me about the outcome predictors that she had seen the people in dealing with personal crises I realized I think similar factors apply to the outcomes of national crises of course there were differences between national crises and personal crises national crises have leaders they have issues and group interactions so their differences but nevertheless as you will see many factors that apply to personal crises apply straightforwardly the national crises and other outcome predictors for personal crises suggest related outcome predictors for national crises what are some of these outcome predictors that will be familiar to you from your experience or the experience of your friends outcome predictors who are dealing with with personal crises as you know the first step in dealing with a personal crisis is to acknowledge that you're in a crisis if you don't acknowledge the crisis you'll get no ears towards resolving it and similarly with countries some countries acknowledge their crisis and make progress and some some countries refuse to acknowledge their crisis the United States has been kicking and screaming about acknowledging a Kovach crisis now whereas Vietnam acknowledged the kobra crisis immediately launched measures and the result almost no deaths in Vietnam again you know from experience that important factor in dealing with the personal crisis is to accept responsibility to recognize that you have to do something about it it won't do just to say oh poor me this crisis was caused by all these bad people yes they are bad people out there but unless you figure out what you're going to do to deal with those people unless you accept responsibility for doing something you will get nowhere towards resolving the personal crisis then again nations have to accept responsibility for resolving a national crisis just think of the difference between Germany after World War one and Germany after World War two after World War one Germany denied responsibility the Germans sought the blame for the a defeat in World War one on traitors within Germany or on other countries the result no progress towards resolving the problems that a plunge Germany to World War one and Germany ended up in the disaster of World War two whereas after World War two the Germans acknowledged responsibility for the mess that they had caused themselves from the disaster the day had caused other people other people they recognize their responsibility for Nazism and Germany has made great progress in dealing with the legacies of world war ii as a result of accepting responsibility again you know from your own experience in dealing with crises the essence of resolving crisis is to dot selectively change you don't throw away everything about yourself you figure out what about yourself is not working and has to be changed and what about yourself is okay and doesn't need changes and similarly countries in the national crisis have to adopt selective change they have to figure out what needs changing and what's okay about the country an example being the Selective changes of Japan during the major year or that I'll talk more about you know from your own experience than resolving a personal crisis it's a great value to be able to get help from friends emotional help or material health and it's important to be able to look to friends for models for resolving a similar problem if your marriage is in difficulty it may help you to see how friends resolve their own marital difficulties and similarly countries may get help or they may not get help from allies and they may look to other countries for models or they may refuse to look to other countries for models you know from your own experience that to resolve a personal crisis you have to be honest with yourself honesty is lacking in some countries today in their dealing with covert and then again you know from your own experience that important dealing with the crisis is the confidence that you may have gained from dealing with previous crises if you resolved previous personal crises then when it comes to a new crisis you may tell yourself well I got from a previous crisis this one I'll somehow get through this one that's why the crises that befall young people teenagers and people in their 20s are so difficult because young people don't have the previous experience and the confidence that comes from that previous experience of having gotten through a personal crisis similarly for nations nations gain confidence from dealing with a national crisis Britain from dealing with a Battle of Britain in 1940 Finland from dealing with the legacy of the winter war after those crises the British and the Finns told themselves we got through 1940 nothing could have been worse from that that gives us confidence that we'll be able to deal with this new crisis whatever it is but all of that is is abstract let me give you a specific example of a national crisis it's one of the most striking examples of the modern world of a country that succeeded in resolving a national crisis and that was Japan in the Meiji era that's the Year in Japan that began in 1853 when after Japan had been isolated from the outside world for two centuries during which Japanese do not travel abroad and the Japanese did not admit visitor from abroad those two centuries of isolation of isolation enforced by the Japanese government were ended by the uninvited arrival of an American fleet of warships under under Commodore Perry demanding the Japan signed a treaty for looking after shipwrecked American sailors in a trade agreement and the Japanese recognized that their policy of isolation was no longer going to work they had to change fast while Japan would face the fate of China and be overwhelmed by the West Japan succeeded in resolving this crisis why because it began by acknowledging the crisis rather quickly Western bombardments of two Japanese reports convinced the Japanese that they were not capable of resisting the West until they had adopted change they acknowledge that there was a crisis the Japanese accepted responsibility they recognized that they had to change and they did not fall victim to self-pity and blaming of the West but they acknowledge responsibility for changing Japan adopted selective change massively the most striking example of selective change in modern world some things about Japan were retained unchanged Japan retained its Emperor Japan retained its wonderful writing system kanji but other things changed Japan change its form of government adopted a cabinet government adopted parliamentary government it adopted a national system of education it adopted Fleet and Army on the western model to change its courts following the Western model so Japan was a massive example of selective change that leave Japan today as a hybrid company traditional hybrid country traditional Japan mixed with a modern industrial country Japan is an example of on a self-appraisal Japan embarked on a program of military and territorial expansion cautiously and every step honestly appraising what they will capable of doing what they were not capable of doing in contrast to the failure of honest self-appraisal in Japan in the 1930s that plunge Japan into a world war true that they could never win the finally Japan was helped in dealing with its national crisis by a strong national identity but you know from your own experience but from watching your friend that it's important in resolving a personal crisis to have a sense of yourself a strong personal identity just as Japan had a strong national identity so there's an example of a country that dealt successfully with a national crisis and the result was that Japan between 1853 and 1910 underwent a massive program of westernization strengthened itself built up its military and was able to fight off the West was able to to fight a series of wars against China and then against Russia and finally against colonial Germany and Windows Wars as a result of successful selective change that then is example an example of a national crisis that was resolved successfully for Japan at least as of 1910 let's now take an example close to home front across Americans of the crisis that the United States is facing today as you may have noticed the United States had big problems today what are the problems that we face perhaps our biggest problems include our problem of political polarization the breakdown of compromise between our parties and within our compromise within our parties the breakdown of compromise between our executive and legislature and judiciary breakdown of compromise between our national government and our states that political polarization that end of compromise that's the essence of a democracy the United States also faces a big problem from restrictions on voting many Americans who would like to vote are prevented from voting but voting is the essence of Adam I see so the restrictions on registering provoke threaten the United States with the end of an effective democracy the United States faces big problems from inequality we think of ourselves as a country we are rags to riches as possible we have someone who's born or rise poor can work their way up through ability and hard work to achieve riches in fact the United States is the most unequal country the country were the biggest differences between lots of poor people and a few very rich people among all major democracies and the United States has those lowest socio-economic mobility among major democracies in the u.s. it's not easier it's harder for poor Americans to end up rich than in any other major democracy finally the u.s. is suffering today from a problem of low government investment in public goods such as education and health and now we are facing the covin crisis well how was the United States doing at dealing with these national crises how do the predictors of my wife Murray dry from personal crises applied to the current national crises of the United States there were some troublesome songs accepting responsibility is essential for dealing with a personal crisis and a national crisis but in the United States there's widespread denial of responsibility for America's problems especially at the level of our national leadership instead our national leadership is inclined to blame America's problems on China or on Mexico or on Canada but the United States as problems are caused by the United States no one can end democracy in the United States except for us American and so denying responsibility will get us nowhere another poor predictor for a happy outcome in the United States is our refusal to learn from models of other countries made you Japan learn from Britain and France and Germany in the United States without education and military and government but the United States has a fascination with American exceptionalism the belief that the United States is so exceptional there's nothing that we can learn from other countries and yes the United States is exceptional but Uruguay is exceptional in Uzbekistan is exceptional ultra voltar is exceptional the United States faces problems problems of education and health and voter registration that other countries face that our neighbor Canada faces that Western European countries face Japan Australia other democracies faced and resolved to the satisfaction of their citizens much more happily than the United States resolves these same problems we are unnecessarily spinning our wheels by refusing to learn from our neighbor Canada and from Western Europe so those are some examples of national crises national crisis yeah Japan went through and the national crisis of the United States is undergoing now and those are also examples of how outcome predictors from personal crises can help us understand the outcomes of national crises let's now go on for the final part of my clog since we've been talking about these heavy painful things now personal crises and national crises let's now turn to a lighter subject the problems of the whole world's today as you may have noticed the world faces problems including Kovan what is unique about the world problem of Kovan kovat is the first widely acknowledged global problem it's not the first global problem but it's the first time in world history that the whole world is recognizing the theory is a global problem affecting the whole world and the world is being forced to recognize that this is a global problem kovat that requires a global solution Kovach cannot be solved one country at a time if the United States solves the problem kovin within its boundaries but the world does not solve the problem of Kovan the United States are just going to get reinfected by other countries so kovat is a global problem requiring a global solution is not a first global problem I'll remind you of other big global problems but Kovan is perhaps the first global problem that is widely recognized as a global problem the manning a global solution why is that the kovat has caught our attention it's simple Kovach kills us quickly if you get covered your and you die of it you dive it within a few days at most within two weeks whereas other global problems like climate change climate change kills but it doesn't kill you within two weeks and again it's clear that that Kovan is a cause of death if you if you die of colon it's because of covin whereas if you die are the consequences of climate change you may not recognize that it's due to climate change so kovat is a recognizable global problem but it's also becoming clear that it will be solved only when it's solved globally only when the whole world has overcome kovat will the world be safe no one country can solve its core problem by itself we've seen recently China and New Zealand and Australia and Singapore seem to have made good progress in resolving kovin within their own boundaries but then travel from overseas just reinfected them making it clear that this is a global problem requiring a global solution but in a way it's puzzling that for the first time kovin is the global problem to wake us up to the need for global solutions because it's not the biggest global problem in the worst-case Cova suppose kovat infects everybody in the world suppose it kills 2% of its victims or right in the worst-case Kovan will kill 150 million people and it's a big setback to the economy for a year or two but only for a year or two whereas there are other big problems that will kill more people than 150 million and will wreck the world economy forever but all those big global problems problems much more serious than the problem of covin of course there's the problem of climate change what does climate change do how does it hurt us climate change decreases agricultural production and threatens starvation covin is causing drought here where I am in California in many places around the world covetous climate change is causing a spread of diseases from tropical countries to temperate countries for example chikungunya fever a tropical disease of Uganda has now shown up in Italy why because of climate change because it's warmer in Italy and chikungunya fever can now the staff thrive in in Italy climate change is also causing a rise of sea-level resulting in tsunamis and threatening low-lying areas for example the u.s. eastern seaboard but it's also clear that climate change cannot be solved one country at a time climate changes do ultimately to the production of gases atmospheric gases from fossil fuels but suppose the United States reduced its own co2 production will that reduce co2 levels in the atmosphere over the United States no of course not co2 over the United States depends not just on what the United States does but on the whole world so climate change is a global problem demanding a global solution another big global problem that Dwarfs Kovan is the problem of unsustainable resource use we humans depend upon many resources renewable resources that we've being harvested unsustainably and at the rate we're going we'll run out of them in a few decades those are resources such as fisheries on which we depend for codeine for our large fraction of the world's people forested supplies with timber and paper topsoil was being exploited unsustainable and freshwater we're now exploiting something like 85% of the rivers of the world the freshwater of the world now that's a another major problem and then there's the world problem of inequality inequality between peoples of the world and inequality within countries 60 years ago before globalization it was tolerable not moral but rich countries could survive on a planet sustained shared with poor countries but now with globalization poor countries have ways of sharing their unhappiness consciously or unconsciously with rich countries in many ways in emerging diseases Ebola and Marburg that emerged in certain African countries Warsaw's that emerged in China thanks to jet planes those diseases spread around the world that's an example of consequences of inequality of poor countries whose health systems are not capable not rich enough to stamp out their own disease epidemics these epidemics spread around the world with globalization migration unstoppable migration nowadays between poor countries and rich countries and support for terrorists in poor countries where people are desperate and see no hope for better life for themselves and their children every country has its own crazy terrorist the United States has a status Timothy McVeigh even Switzerland Norway had their terrorists but there's not widespread support for terrorists in the US and Switzerland and and in Norway because it's not the case that everybody is desperate but in poor countries their people are desperate there is support for terrorists these have been examples of global problems that are far more serious than than covin my hope is that kovin our solving the problem of kovin within the next year or two may give us confidence from having solved one global problem may serve as a model to us that we will be able to solve other global problems an example is Finland what Finland learned from solving a problem Finland in its winter war against the Soviet Union in 1990 39 to 1940 Finland with a population of 4 million managed to fight the Soviet Union the population 150 million to a standstill and the Finns learned from that we got through that crisis that gives us confidence that we can tackle other crises similarly if the world gets through the Cova crisis that may give us confidence that we can tackle climate change and other crises in the case of Finland the Finns learn from the winter war to be prepared of Finns today have a government organization that meets every month and thinks about everything that could go wrong and Finland and prepare so of course Finland is prepared for anything of course Finland had stockpiled facemask Finland stockpile fuel Finland stockpiles grain Finland stockpile of chemical Finland stockpiled medicine Finland learned from the winter war to be prepared for anything and so covin may prepare us also to be prepared for anything covin may modify motivate us to undertake global responses to global problems if that is the case then this tragedy of Kovan may cause our world to change for the better we can learn from the histories of previous crises there are generalizations about crises thank you for inviting me back to Woods Hole and to the MBL and to the happy memories of 1957 for me thank you yep Jared this is Katherine Carr thanking you on behalf of the grass foundation for a memorable and inspiring lecture it's part of a long tradition of member of memorable folks lectures and you've given us a great deal to think about and in this in this very difficult year and ended with some very inspiring ideas I've been looking at the questions popping up on our screen and I'm going to hand over to our moderator Donna my munis to moderate the questions thank you again very much all right dr. diamond if you would like to unmute yourself now and start your video we'll start taking questions and we'd like to welcome you to the live portion of our program tonight there you are good to see you thank you for a wonderful talk and then we'll jump right into the questions if you don't mind I'm ready good our first question for tonight one of many questions and they are continuously coming in so don't try to cover as many as we can this evening resilience is an individual level factor that can predict how well someone recovers from a crisis what is the net the nation level equivalent furthermore some psychologists say resilience is innate versus learned assuming it is innate do you think there are more and less resilient national cultures a good pair of questions resilience personal resilience innate will learn what one can learn from from experience from experience in dealing with previous crises to be less rigid and to be prepared to deal with future crises and similarly nations Finland is good example until the Winter War Finland was an unexceptional highly agricultural rather poor country but from the Winter War the Finns learned that they had to be prepared to survive in isolation and today Finland is an example of a resilient country again Japan after the end of the Meiji era after the arrival of Commodore Perry on Japan learned to become more resilient so while there may be an innate component to resilience resilience it's also something that we as individuals you know from experience and that nations can learn from things that have happened thank you next question it seems like we're constantly talking about crises considering the climate crisis economic crisis viral crisis constitutional crisis etc it seems labeling all of these and other things as crises mutes the severity of the word at what point do you believe a problem or a challenge rises to the level of a crisis that's a good question how serious must a crisis be to merit the term of crisis there are the small crises that happen every day there are crises that happen every few years crises that happen a generation for example the history of the Roman Empire there are Roman historians who would say the Roman Empire faced three crises on the end of the Republic the barbarian invasions of the two two or three crises in the course of a thousand years on the other hand of a colleague of mine at UCLA studies urban crises in the United States and by the definition that he adopts of a drop in investment every two or three years there's an urban crisis so insured crises are a matter of definition they were the crises that are rare there are the crises that happen every day I've had a few crises so far today I tried to take a nap I did not succeed falling asleep I could not find where I had left my glasses those are minor crises and then they were the big crises that wake me over the next dozen years my life I hope that there will be the next dozen years of my life into our crises are a matter of definition next question we deal with personal crisis with a lot of help from therapists like your wife who is the therapist for countries who is that external reference that can guide countries out of a crisis good question there is a difference between personal crises and national crises I mentioned at the beginning that there are differences nations have leaders individuals do not have leaders nations have group interactions individuals do not there are therapists for individuals if we choose to consult them but there's not a therapist for nations we're doing it by ourselves and simply individuals can get help from other individuals but we are planet earth we can't look to six legged creatures from the andromeda nebula to help us we have to figure it out ourselves next question how does the vein in American society of anti-intellectualism affect our ability to acknowledge crisis the first step towards resolution are we doomed good question the key question for for the United States and it's one of the puzzling things about the United States the u.s. leads the world in science and technology and unfortunately the u.s. also leads major democracies in resistance to science and anti intellectualism is flagrant now in the response of our national government and in the response of some states why should this be why is it that the United States were a leader in in science also leads the world in resistance to science and what can overcome it it's the responsibility of US scientists to communicate to the public and to do it as clearly as possible there's a lot of resistance among scientists to those ayats who do want to explain to the to the broad public we scientists have to assume responsibility ourselves to write clearly and to talk clearly if we don't do that the government and other people are not going to listen to us thank you our next question after nations solve a crisis how long does a feeling of goodwill amongst the citizens generally last would you predict that the US will be similar to other nations in terms of post crisis unification the answer that question varies all over the map and again from personal experience you know that if you've gone through a crisis the goodwill that you've gotten from getting through an individual crisis it may be that you will then have years of smooth sailing it may be that within a few months you'll have another severe crisis so in the case of the United States or in the case of the world suppose the u.s. gets through the problem of covent next year does that mean that we then have smooth sailing no it instead means that we will then have to confront the serious problems unfortunately all of us know from personal experience if you want smooth sailing do not live on planet earth find some other planet on our galaxy because we do not have smooth sailing here tragedies like Ovid could be a turning point for the world but it's possible even likely fragmentation gets worse what our inspiring global movements that we can adopt as models it is true that that code would might make things worse rather than better and there are troubling signs at the moment for example a vaccine will be produced somewhere whether in China Britain the United States when a vaccine is produced will the country that produces that share the vaccine will the rest of the world there's already talked about the country that is first with a vaccine taking selfish advantage that would be a really bad song there is then the risk that that covin will increase competition what might be the grounds for hope kovat is going to be a potent teacher it's going to become clear I think that no country can solve its own color problem no country will be safe until the whole world is safe and so I hope that kovat will be a teacher as I follow-up to that question dr. diamond what is a key milestone that would suggest we would be on track to address the issues that you've identified in the case of color that the key milestones are well known and they're discussed frequently the the milestones that you can read about in the newspaper every day are the number of new cases of Copland the number of deaths due to : other milestones that you can learn about every day are how are people reacting are people voluntarily wearing face masks or people kicking and screaming here in California there are plenty of people in California we're kicking and screaming and want to go to the beaches crowd together on the beaches don't want to wear face masks in public that's California which by and large has responded well to kovin there are other states that are responding much less well to - Kovach in short it remains to be seen whether we are going to get our act together or whether we're going to behave badly in this Cobra tragedy thank you another question how does the role of propaganda and untruths play into this paradigm in other words is it possible for our country to learn any lessons when there is a concerted anti science narrative being pushed pursued by a large portion of the federal government and the media yes there's a concerted anti science narrative and the only way that we scientists can deal with it is to adopt more potent conservative science a narrative that is a responsibility of scientists apropos of responsibility and disclaiming responsibility scientists the American scientific establishment doesn't put nearly enough effort into rewarding those scientists who try to explain things to the public into promoting scientific explanations and so the only way we can combat bad propaganda is by coming up with good propaganda by writing more interestingly by telling the truth we need much more of that among American scientists next question inequality came up in your talk how do you propose to end inequality in the context of crises how do i propose to end inequality in a democracy the only way to end inequality is the decision on the part of people and their government should end inequality of the United States does poorly compared to other democracies in ending inequality just as an example in there are parts of the United States of where educational levels of lower and parts where educational levels are higher similarly in Japan there they're rural parts of Japan that are less well educated and they're all there are urban parts of Japan that have better educated the Japanese government has a policy of sending to those worldly areas Ohio ratio of teachers of students than in urban areas and that tends to bring up the rural areas in Japan in the United States a policy is the reverse rural areas of the United States have a higher student-to-teacher ratio and a lower teacher-to-student although a teacher-to-student ratio than two urban areas so the United States is failing compared to major democracies in doing things that would reduce inequality in the United States that because the United States has a population of about 325 million but of those 325 million Americans we are educating well what a tenth of them 1/4 of them and we're throwing away the potential of three-quarters of Americans whereas we are competing with countries like Germany and Japan and other European countries that are investing in all of their citizens thank you well take a couple more questions I think we have time for that do you have a message for young people listening it would seem they are our best hope for a secure future my message to young people my first messages to young people is vote for heaven's sakes vote we have an important election I'm coming up the the voter turnout the percentage of people in an age cohort who vote paradoxically it's lower for young young Americans than it is for older Americans and that makes no sense because young Americans are the ones who are going to live with the consequences of voting for much longer than with older America so the first thing I would say to young Americans is vote yourself next thing I would say to young Americans is convince ten of your friends to vote the next thing I would say is get those ten friends to convince ten of their own friends to vote and then on top of that I would say identify causes that you care about and about which you are knowledgeable and devote some of your time and maybe even some of your money to promoting those causes let me see here's another question in the absence of government leaders governmental leadership is there a special role for universities or research institutions to mobilize disparate groups to produce rational approaches for solving national crises are there examples of this happening in the past there are examples of it happening today recently the u.s. national government has proposed to expel foreign students and yet foreign students have been an enrichment for foreigners in general immigration has been a great source of enrichment for the United States what a university is doing about it well Harvard and MIT and the University of California and other universities have announced within the last couple of days that they are suing the federal government for this bad policy that's something that universities can do we've received a lot of comments from attendees thanking you for a brilliant inspiring talk I wish we could take all the questions that we have on our queue but unfortunately we have come to the end of our time this evening I want to thank you again on behalf of the MBL on behalf of the eight hundred plus listeners that were on the zoom call tonight and I do hope that we can welcome you back to what's whole at some point in the near future so that you can take a stroll around Mill Pond and listen to the the ferries depart the port thank you I look forward to returning to the MBL after 63 years wonderful thank you and thanks to all of you who were able to join us tonight have a good evening

Channel: Marine Biological Laboratory

Views: 931

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Id: IcxuOqspjaA

Length: 61min 31sec (3691 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020