I was working in Russia in a Siberian city named Samera, the people there have never seen a black person physically before. On the bus or in the market place they wanted to touch my skin. The strange thing was that they always commented that how smooth and wrinkle-free my skin felt
@@TrickOrRetreat that comment was somehow abhorrent yet intriguing at the same time. And to address your statement, I have been on the internet so much that I’d presume I’ve been on it longer than you.
As a young man in the south during the 90's I decided to dye my hair green and I remember getting pulled over shortly thereafter and when I asked why I had been pulled over the officer literally said "I pulled you over because you have green hair, son." As a white kid from the south I had never experienced this before, but it opened my eyes to the level of laziness that we all use to make our daily decisions about everything. He proceeded to call in drug dogs to search my car because I clearly had some kind of illegal substance on me if I was crazy enough to have green hair.
@@TrickOrRetreat Word to that. It's a simple reply I offer but I mean a lot by it. It's difficult, these anonymous interplaces. A man I believe was called Viktor Frankl wrote a great book about Man's Search For Meaning and, I think we see a lot of that in these places. Or I read too many books but I prefer to go with "nah, it's better to mean something" like he was pointing out.
I love the "spend a year in Atlanta" idea. This goes back to something that even Mark Twain wrote about in "The Innocents Abroad," and how people were desperately in need of travel to places where they were the "outsider."
It wakes you up! And just casual traveling in general wakes up your senses. You come back home & notice things you drove or walked by a million times. Traveling is necessary for open & healthy perspective.
For the longest time I didn’t understand what Chuck brought to the table sitting next to Neil as a host, since he’s not a science guy. His wit and insights have grown on me.
I was also confused by the format when I first started watching the show. Now I think every scientist doing public work should have a comedic co-host. Might be hard to find one as clever and enthusiastic about science as Chuck, but it's certainly something to strive for.
I like most of your videos, but this discussion has to be one my favorites. Everything that was touched upon was super interesting and pretty enlightening, thank you Chuck, Neil, and especially Malcolm. Thank you.
I feel like "fantastic guest" is my reply to every StarTalk episode. I'm really glad the show has branched out from discussing strictly astrophysics. The breadth of topics discussed is really amazing.
I was raised in a boy's home convent by Dominican nuns. Probably 70% Hispanic and 15 % black and 15% white. My mentor a counselor helped raise me and took care of me was black and often invited me to visit with his family. It was always interesting to go back to my family and hear racial remarks that left my mouth open in disbelief. Even more fun to introduce my black mentor and sort of big brother. The tension could be cut with a knife.
How am I now only seeing this?! I geeked out, flat out laughed my AO, and felt an injection of pure genius in one sitting. So wonderful to see Malcolm on Star Talk. 🎁
Notice the look of glee on Malcolm's when Neil completely skewers his anti-science conclusion 9:37... that's how a smart person looks and feels when they realize they missed something or were wrong. It's a joyful moment.
I'm a tall White male. When I was a kid I was literally off the charts on the growth scale. My mother began warning me about being 'singled out for offenses' when I was a child, five or six years old. She said my very nature would attract attention that wouldn't always work in my favor, 'that's reality, deal with it'. I don't doubt that it's worse for tall Black male children - in a mixed race environment - but the unwanted and unjust negative attention is not unique to Black people. In a Black school with Black teachers I wonder if the same racial/height profiling takes place.
Being a med student in Africa, who's heard countless stories of African doctors who travel abroad only to realize they can only be offered jobs as nurses due to the colour of their skin, I believe Malcom's "Internal years abroad" would be useful.
@@PyscoNaturalist The UK's General Medical Council doesn't recognise all overseas medical qualifications. I'm not sure what proportion of African medical courses award qualifications that they do accept though.
Not likely that it is based completely on color. There are probably more American trained Nigerian doctors in America than there are doctors in Nigeria. It has mostly to do with certification of other countries medical programs.
@@MelodiousThunk you are spot on, and it is also a requirement that all non Brits have a fluent understanding of English and Must also be audible to patients. I have worked in the NHS for years and communication has been a problem with many workers regardless of skin colour.
6:00 I read that in high school. I ate it up. And I listen to Richard Feynman Cornell lecture series with joy. I am just a “normal” person without a formal college education. I’ve had a life long fascination with material science and went on to repair aircraft in the USAF.
Regarding the issue of driverless cars at night, they can use night vision and infrared, and heightened motion detection, as deemed beneficial. They have an enormous advantage over humans in that regard.
I grew up in the school systems in and around Seattle. (1950's and 1960's) I had the good fortune to attend both Jr High and High Schools that were probably the most balanced racially in the city. The only problems about who your friends were were the parents. I had no problem if my friend was Black, Filipino, Chinese, Japanese or some other race. But try and invite someone home is where the problems started. And it wasn't just my household. One of my cousins wanted to date a football and Basketball player. He was a great guy and was very smart and talented. Only problem he was Black. (He was actually lighter than Malcolm in skin tone) The fights at the dinner table were almost violent over the issue. It is the person who counts not their skin.
A brief history of time is one of my favorite books. I read it once and the listened to it all the way through twice in the car. I had 1 semester of college physics at the time.
You can tell someone is a genius when they open their mouth and say they aren’t a genius, but then go on to explain things to the general population in a way only a genius could… True Geniuses are humble and don’t brag, but still get s**t done at that level, but when complimented they again respond by “I could do better”
35:08 It says a lot about *American car culture* that even Malcolm Gladwell will talk at length about self-driving cars and never mention trains or public transport. Like, look at the old San Diego Stadium parking lot and compare it to the Amsterdam ArenA, what problem will self-driving cars solve exactly?
Why does it matter what colour a character's skin is? This sounds exactly the same as: "It's about time we had a blue eyed supervillain. ". It doesn't make sense, and it trains us to think along the lines of race, and leads us to be more racist.
So, I just want to say this: I read A Brief History of Time either my Senior year of High School or my Freshman year of college...and I understood it! I consider myself of an above average intelligence, but no where NEAR the education of a quantum physicist....maybe the statement by Malcom should just make me realize how much more intelligent I am than I thought. I even did a presentation...yeah it was my senior year of High School, AND in my astronomy class in college. I'm now a teacher's assistant at a therapeutic day school and I could not WISH for a better career.
What a delightful conversation. I loved hearing about your life experiences. Please have Malcom back again. He's delightful as well a brilliant! You both are!
haha I just seen Malcolm on "Hot One's" eating spicy chicken wings. He beat those wings like they were nothing haha. So now both Neil and Malcolm have been on that show :-)
The problem of not being able to see a dark skinned person at night can easily be solved with adding an infrared camera to assist the visible light spectrum.... We talk about AI being smart.... but its super easy to add all the tools it needs so it doesnt have to be difficult as well.
Not only Black people at night, a lot of White kids with blue jeans and dark hooded jackets are almost impossible to see, too. Anybody wearing camouflage uniform is invisible...I learned that in the Army! And if you are elderly with the starts or worse of cataracts all bets are off. That is when you drive like a little old lady at the same time calling yourself all sorts of words they don't use in the Military concerning WHY are you driving after dark!!! Whatever possessed you to drive after dark, you 'insert bad word here'.
Dr. Tyson, your birthday cake analogy also works for the Christmas pyramids from Germany and Scandinavia. The hot air from rising the candles from outside concentrates toward the center and help move the blades.
I remember stopping in a Burger King in Atlanta with my grandfather as a white kid from north Ga. I couldn't understand why everyone pretended like we weren't there as the clerks took everyone else's order. I could see my grandfather's face change as he said "We'll have to go somewheres else." I didn't realize until (probably years) later that it was because we were white and everyone else in the place was black. As a kid, skin color was nothing to me so I couldn't understand the situation at all.
The reason you don't have to be too afraid of pedestrians losing their fear of autonomous vehicles is that while you may go and do your yoga exercises in the middle of some highway in New York and the cars will stop, some New York passengers will also get out of their cars and let you know precisely what they think of you :P Oh, and btw. the proposed solution to the trolley problem is a Captain Kirk solution. If the assumption is the situation only allows for killing left or right, saying you just stop instead is _not_ a solution, because the premise of the trolley problem is that that's not an option. The premise is something unexpected happens and you're past the point where you can chose an entirely safe option.
I was telling people on my radio show in the 1970s and '80s that almost 100% of car accidents are caused by people being in a hurry or people not paying attention. Period.
As the only white kid in two different schools in New Orleans, I have a slightly different perspective. I always felt the outsider, so wanted to be black, yet the mirror told me no. It’s hard to be the outsider, yet I was never bullied, but recognized the teachers were nervous of me.
Another question about the number of people in a hurry were how many were actually running late for something and how many were hurrying simply out of habit. A question on the cars detecting people of varying skin hues: Would a thermal camera help there, or is there too much noise in the environment? A question on the cars learning to not hit people of varying skin hues: Could we use simulated accidents of people of every size, shape, color, gait, etc. to teach the car not to hit any known human appearance and movement? That many simulated killings might also introduce the psychopathy that Mr. Nice referred to.
I am astonished by the statement/ joke that people weren't really reading 'Brief History of Time'. In the late 90's - early 2000s, as a High school student I had read it, understood it fairly well and had it lost/ stolen among a circle of friends and had a terrible fight with the first one that I had lent it to. I stole his Music cassette for 'Dil Se' as a revenge. :p
I always enjoy listening to Malcolm. I've read all but one of his books. He takes me down intellectual roads that lead me to places that I didn't know I wanted to journey to.
To the soap dispenser tale. The UK introduced an airport automated face recognition systems and as an IT guy based in many european cities I'm used to frequent travel. The first time I used the system I got rejected and had to join the rejects line(queue) who were all British but of varying hues. When I got to the Immigration officer I enquired had they bought the system in Finland!
Another AI story like the ruler-cancer-confusion was a military research group training AI software to detect enemy tanks from air photos. The AI was trained to a point of perfect score. It found all the photos with tanks and had no false alerts on photos without tanks. When the Pentagon later tried with their own photos the AI didn't guess better than flipping a coin. Turns out the research group had photos with tanks that were all taken on a cloudy day and the ones without on a sunny days. So the AI became an expert at telling if it was sunny or not.
Some people used to try to dry their pets off by putting them in the microwave, only to be met with gruesome results. That's why there's a rule to not put your cat in the microwave.
Malcom, thank you for saying Black folks should wear lighter colors at night!!! I live in a mixed neighborhood with a lot of younger Blacks who don't always walk on the sidewalk. I've come far too close to hitting people often enough to make me paranoid about driving in my own neighborhood after dark. Please find a way to dress cool but not be all in black at night. Please!
As an european, I don’t understand the saying “people that don’t look like me”. Most people I know have one hand a pair of legs and hands. Their skin colour doesn’t even cross my mind. Usually I talk about someone’s accent and trying to guess what country they come from ( their accent while speaking English), but that’s it.
With ABS (anti-lock brake system in cars) people brake much later when coming to a stop at a light or stop sign and also tailgate more and closer. For a few years it served its intended purpose of giving greater safety but then people adapted their driving to nullify that. Same with better tires and other safety improvements; much of their effect is erased because people can get away with less safe driving.
I am 70 yrs old, been driving for 50 years and still cannot get used to using the anti lock brakes. We got one of the first front wheel drive Chevy Citations and I can't tell you how many spinning outs we had. Muscle memory is alive and well.
ÔÔ Malcolm Gladwell on Startalk? :O Startalk is already one of the few I still watch despite RU-vid's disgusting ad policy but I love Revisionist history and his books ... I'm geeking out. I recently finished "Talking to strangers" and loved every page. Interesting to suggest that self-driving cars will encourage bicycles but transportation and shipping will likely thus have to remain manual?
4 A champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span.[a] 5 He had a bronze helmet on his head and wore a coat of scale armor of bronze weighing five thousand shekels[b]; 6 on his legs he wore bronze greaves, and a bronze javelin was slung on his back. 7 His spear shaft was like a weaver’s rod, and its iron point weighed six hundred shekels.[c] His shield bearer went ahead of him. 41 Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. 42 He looked David over and saw that he was little more than a boy, glowing with health and handsome, and he despised him. 43 He said to David, “Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?” And the Philistine cursed David by his gods. 44 “Come here,” he said, “and I’ll give your flesh to the birds and the wild animals!” 1 Samuel
Ah yes, General Curtis "Curtains" LeMay. Actually ran for Vice President as George Wallace's running mate - what a dream ticket that was! (Sadly, they'd probably do pretty well with today's GOP.)
Loved this episode, loved it! One note though: when it came to the leaders responsible for the most deaths, all were the main political figure of that country, but when it ccomes to the US it was a general? Maybe I'm not thinking properly, but that guy could have been discharged by anyone superior to him...
Well if you will read the book you will see the us uses a diffusion of responsibility to insulate it's leaders. No one told lemay to do that it was his idea ! The guy that was in Charge who refused to bomb civilians as a strategy was fired basically when his strategy if bombing strategic choke points didn't work.
I think safety brings a form of complacency. Much like how you have discussed, if people feel that self-driving cars won't hit them, people will be walking in front of cars all the time, and it will cause traffic jams and delays everywhere. It would be interesting if the cars gave you a 10 seconds to get out of their way or they would would speed up and run you over, like in a video game. Then maybe people would know, they can't do just anything , and they would be cautious. Sure right now the smart cars are really polite drivers, but if they encounter too many idiot idiots that's going to change. I personally would love to see a self-driving car start itself, and attempt to run over the thief who tries to break into a vehicle or steal it. I also think of hilarious scene of a self-driving car start itself and drove away as a tow truck tries to tow away or repossess it. I just believed it be hilarious for a tow truck to try to take down a car that doesn't want to be repossessed.
On the human driver not stoping front: People should add a question for people caught speeding: "If you drive at x speed (like 70 km/h) And a tree falls on the road and you hit the breaks and just scrape your name plate. Then if you would have driven at y speed(y>x in the same circumstances, lets say y=90 km/h) at what speed would you have hit that same tree." That simple question added, i say, would lower the deaths on the road by half(i don't have the real effectiveness in order to be more precise), because people have the wrong common sense, thinking the answer is y-x, because of brain efficiency shorthanding like that sin(x) / n = six (... also wrong) or stereotyping people to save mental space for more people (which has the negative side effect of distancing people you could have been friends with because you dislike their stereotype, or befriending moraly questionable people in the opposite case)
