Shannon Luminary Lecture Series - Stephen Fry, actor, comedian, journalist, author 

Stephen Fry's command of the English language and his story telling is exquisite, he calms my rapid mind.

What a remarkable talk! I've long admired Fry for his other talents, and only over the last year or so have been exposed to his eye-opening videos thanks to youtube. With this one, however, I suddenly grasp what a huge intellect he is. How can one thank this wonderful man enough?

Stephen's own enthusiasm breeds more enthusiam. A pleasure to listen to

The depth and breadth of Stephen's knowlege, insights and talent is difficult to believe. For my American friends, check out the old British comedies he used to star in, Blackadder - and A Bit of Fry and Lawrie, where he co-stars with the guy now known as "House". Not just a national treasure, an international treasure!

We are so privileged to live at the same time as this superb man.

A gentleman and a gentle man... he has such warmth and intelligence plus the ability to communicate complex ideas in a clear way. Funny too !!

This is why I love RU-vid. Thank you!

Stephen Fry makes me proud to be English. He is such a good Ambassador for our Country. Grown up watching this guy on English TV.

A brilliant, interesting and well-researched man. Really great to hear Stephen Fry and he gives me hope for the future of mankind.

Thank you, NBL for posting this. What a treat. Whenever I see Stephen giving a speech or lecture, or even watching him on past episodes of QI, I think of that time, many years ago, when he was suffering from a particularly bad episode of depression - before he had been diagnosed and started treatment. The night he sat in his car, in his garage, with a duvet across the bottom of the garage door to stop the fumes from escaping, and his hand on the keys. The world would be a much poorer place if he had turned that key. Such an amazing, articulate, creative, funny, kind, thought-provoking, generous man. Somewhere on YT in another Fry related post, somebody commented: "Stephen Fry makes you want to be a better person". I couldn't agree more. The world needs more Stephen Fry.

Brilliant & insightful, thought-provoking & original: thank you Stephen Fry. May future humanity be endowed with similar empathy, compassion and, above all, humour. Bless you man. You da Best!

I think that having Pandora close the jam before HOPE escaped has not trapped it but simply has guarded and preserved it so that all the negatively, evil and saddest in the world has not been able to totally overwhelm and destroy HOPE. It simply allows people with hope, positivity and humour to be protected and thus live in this world. Thus being guiding lights to lessen the darkness. Thank Stephen Fry for being one of those guiding lights. The world needs his like to continue to double and double until it is so light that there is little or no darkest.

When Stephen Fry speaks, I listen. What a brilliant man.

It’s hard to imagine a greater speaker than Stephen Fry. So articulate and so broad.

Thrilling, breathtaking, absorbing and utterly frightening.

Brilliant, insightful, compassionate man. We need more men like you, Stephen Fry!!!

The eloquence of this man is something I could never even imagine matching.

Such prose. Historically accurate, eloquent, meaningful... What a treasure.

So Riveting and enlightening, Thank you Stephen.

Naked humanity. Never have I felt less talked down to by a superior intellect [despite the crippling lecturn....] - clearly his high intelligence spreads to the emotional spectrum/type too. Bless him.

Everything Stephen says is like poetry.. no matter the topic.

The only human I can listen to for endless hours

Intelligence can weave history and myth into the very manna that gifts us life itself. Here is the reason Stephen Fry will always hold an sacred place in both my heart and mind. I again muster myself to strive to greater things, greater understanding, greater humanity as I witness the truth of our capabilities should we but seek it out.

This is just a feast for the mind. I can't take it in all at once.

This lecture should be made mandatory viewing in every classroom in every school on this lovely little planet of ours. I have little faith in today's politicians to solve today's problems, but perhaps Mr. Fry's words of wisdom might inspire the leaders of tomorrow!

Just simply brilliant. Magically woven together!

Top of my bucket list is to meet this man just for a few minutes

Wonderful exposition. I couldn't have put it better.

No matter the subject, Stephen Fry with prep time can make it fascinating and beautiful.

Nokia asked people to turn off their phones. I never thought I'd live to see the day...

Really enjoyed this. How the hell does he know and remember so much? Great man

A masterful presentation by a master of the English language, I could add much more but probably best to say superb, simply superb.

A brilliant speech! I knew he was a great actor and gentleman, but not that he was a scholar too.

He is absolutely phenomenal.

It is astounding how little we know. This recognition is the first pre forward step.

Though I do not agree with everything about Mr fry, he is one of the intelligent minds of our time and so eloquent.

Mr Fry you are scholar and a gentleman and a judge of good whiskey.

Truly magnificent talk thanks for publishing!

I have a pertinent question: why is he not 'Sir Stephen Fry' yet?!

"...so we dance, play cricket or baseball if you must...". 😄👍

The love of shearing his believes and knowledge in the way that he does is truly inspiring . Also his humble positioning towards his audience and his humor is heartfelt. I am not putting a'n hallow above his head, but he is truly a humanitarian philosopher , who loves the challenge that lay before us, and by making room for the arguments and the probabilities of our'e human progress and the downside that comes with it, he addresses it so eloquently and caring that you must love this man and his believes.

Please consider this. In the Seventies I worked in the military, in a technical trade. We knew that any technology we heard about would be at least 5 years old. Anything we saw would have been around for at least 10 years. The leading edge of the envelope was far, far ahead. Anything the person in the street heard about would be at least 20 years behind. Now I'm a person in the street again, but I now know there's a lot I don't know.

Wow-- there is so much information in this that I will listen to it several times before I absorb it all.. we all need Stephen's awareness of what is happening every time we use Facebook, twitter etc.. beware, folks.

fascinating!, I felt my neurological grid expand exponentially, great talk thanks!!

"Technology is not a noun, it is a verb." That's what he gets the big bucks for.

Great broad perspectived presentation, very enjoyable!

I would love to know what the audience discusses after an address like this. With so many important concepts floated, what does the swarm intelligence pick out and amplify?

”Al politicians disappoint in the end”. Brilliant.😅

Please someone give him a taller lecturer table.

What an incredible lecture. Fry is always exceptional!

"it doesn't have all the degrees of freedom that you might want" spontaneous goodness

Total admiration..fry for p.m

Meet him once at The Groucho, it was in his days of doing cocaine, he was absolutely wonderful & adorable, just faster than normal.

The only thing more boundless in humanity than greed, stupidity, hate, and even love is curiosity. Curiosity unleashed will propel mankind into understanding, science, exploration , and its limits are as vast as the universe .

I've enjoyed Fry but I won't be around for his predictions...and I'm glad !

he touches on another of my pet subjects, maybe when we reach immortality we'll clean up the mess we have to spend an eternity with. and we have to become immortal if we want to get to the stars.

Can I give this two thumbs up? or ten? or a hundered?

Stephen Fry is my life's rudder.

When people make anti-semitic remarks, I point to Stephen Fry and that usually shuts them up. Think of this. 50 years ago Fry would have been locked up for his 'natural' way of living. In some ways we are still stupid and in others ways there is still hope for us all.

The "Science doesn't know everything" comment reminded me of a line by one of Stephen's friends, comedian Dara O Briain, that "science knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise, it would stop!"

Stephen Fry never ceases to amaze or amuse. ♥👏👏👏👏👏♥

I'm only 6 minutes in, but I feel the need to comment on just how low that podium is.

Love Stephen

The very wonderful S. Fry, but Nokia cannot sort out a proper height for the lectern? Mr. Fry is, well, quite tall.

I am over my 70th year and still look for the edge. I write models for Watson. No charge. IBM think I am 23. But I consider I am privileged. I have witnessed these things: I can remember or witnessed: The automatic telephone exchange The first TV (in Australia) The first satellite The first man in space The first man on the moon The first electric typrwriter The first commercial mini computer Sold the first IBM PC (in Australia) Sold the first colour monitor on a PC (in Australia) The first group to be immunised against Mumps Reubella and Measels by government The first oral polio vaccine The first person to use a biro in my school class. There are so many things where I witnessed them first. My kids envy me. But I look ahead and feel we are about to lose control of data and we will face a singularity in coming years. Privacy will enable us to be paid for our information, not just have it taken from us and sold on. So guard your private information and one day you will be able to sell it.

Lovely, lovely narrative, indeed.

This is what the WWW was built for & meant to be.

In reference to comments about 1:15 I could argue that a ton of free time more frequently leads to boredom and idle hands can be a workshop for good, but more often not. And again they speak with nostalgia about hunter gathers, I would agree that those outdoor self determined jobs are more satisfying but that model could not support the population growth and maybe as a blessing mortality at all levels was higher.

such a brilliant speaker

Who's here in COVID-19 2020 ????? God, how I wish this lecture was not so damn on. f*cking. point.

Captivating ! Nuff said .

They have a voice introducing the person that introduces the person that introduces Stephen Fry. Talk starts at: 3:15

Steven released hope from Pandora’s jar.

Stephen Fry! brilliant!

A wonder insight into real intelligence.

How do I do this for a living? I enjoy speeches/lectures/ performances. Stephen fry, Alan watts, love them all.

They know he is a tall man why is he having to stoop like that

I have found that perhaps the most impressive thing about Mr. Fry is that he has memorized so many literary references. Of course he is VERY intelligent, which does NOT imply that you have read a lot of things (nor that you can remember who wrote them), but just the amount of literary quotes he can dish out is just unbelievable. I consider myself pretty intelligent and knowledgeable in (mostly) scientific subjects, but I have never been able to remember many references to literature such as to say "this person wrote this and that".

I remember that episode of Startrek clearly.

It's wonderful that some of our leading universities are entertaining European brilliance, but we need to give some thought to nurturing our own. Those who we have seem to be accidental, not the product of a society which needs and wants them. What a phenomenal difference such inspiration would render.

At 1:02:48, it seems to me that the host is being subtly, critical of Fry’s lecture. Fry then appears to be on his back heels. Has anyone else noticed this?

Why is the lectern so low for Mr Fry?

Wonderful and inspiring,

Have a bottle of red wine and then watch this video...the majesty is too much to handle, the implications are too epic and severe. Time for some Karl Pilkington.

1:44:44 "... how empty this table is! The gaps between the atoms are just so immeasurably vast - well not immeasurably..." Yes, atoms within molecules are around 10,000 times further apart than the planets within our solar system are. ;-)

Stephen Fry steps on the stage at @3:30

From us folks in 2083, hello.. we still use that phrase...

Starts at 3:33

Unless I missed something, with all the Star Trek references, an important component seems to have been overlooked, or intentionally ignored ... The potential likelihood of advanced extraterrestrial influence or intervention ... past, present, and future. (?) Perhaps 'they' will help us to understand those things that we are yet unable to understand about ourselves.

Luv Fry. Funny the call to turn off phones was made by a man from nokia...and he did it without a hint of irony

Hah, in swedish it's still called "shack matt" when you win in chess.

YES

Again, UBI is mentioned by smart people. Awesome. Glad to see the people shaping our world are at least thinking of the survival of people lower down the economic ladder. Think of it not as a handout - more as Guillotine Insurance. Think on it as you remove the 'need' for people to work and the phrase 'increased leisure'.

I'd say Fry is on a bi-polar high here. The way he cannot stop talking. Extraordinary.

I haven't finished watching to see if Mr. Fry corrects himself, or if someone else does, but he said it took 110 days for the West to learn President Harding died, but the country knew almost immediately that the next President to die in office, Lincoln, had died because the telegraph had been invented by that point. Harding came after Lincoln, so I'm curious what he was referring to. I love hearing him speak. I wish we had someone comparable to Mr. Fry here in the states, or at least someone like him who was equally popular.

LOL this is so funny. In my language the game of chess uses those exact words when ending the game. Sah mat.

Anybody know the word he is looking for at 1:08:29? ( ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-24F6C1KfbjM.htmlh8m29s "I I think it's um there is a word for this and I can't know what it is it's a word in logic or it's named after a person but that it's essentially when you sound a warning by sounding it it stops being true but if you don't sound it the thing you're worrying about will happen")

I wonder how long it took him to write this lecture?

And one small virus can fuck the whole thing up.

Someone just asked how will technological singularity effect the economic well-being of the average person in the world? I suspect that there will be a lot of social unrest because with the current economic structure of corporations produce some kind of beneficial product whether it be intellectual or physical and they pay people to do the work that produces that product then the product can be sold to anybody else who wants to buy. If however everyone is laid off because machines are doing all the work there’s no one to buy the product you don’t have to pay the machine but if the users of the product have no money or income to buy the product that you made all these products and they are basically worthless because you can’t sell them. So there has to be some way for the people be able to exchange something for the product they want either by having a universal income which is paid for by corporations and distributed by the government or something like that which I suspect it will be different methods devised by the political entities throughout the world. Some will be better than the others and hopefully, the best ones will eventually dominate. Also, there will need to educate the entire population on the need for continuing education particularly on the need for sound logic and critical thinking which may fail the first adult generation after the technological singularity. It’s very difficult for adults to change their mindset some will be able to do it but the majority will not and therefore the social unrest occur. But I would also suspect abuse and be in need for incentives of some kind to keep the next generation in school long enough for them to learn the new skills needed for a life of leisure for a life that will allow some kind of meaningful activity or work. We have already seen the kinds of social unrest that comes particularly with late teens and young adults who don’t have some type of structured meaningful activity to occupy themselves. That’s when our baser natures seem to take hold and create social destruction of some kind. I don’t know what those incentives be but I suggest that every effort must be bent towards every member of society who has an IQ over 70 be required to learn the skills for logical and critical thinking. Now I’m not sure where the IQ cutoff should be. But if we're having a technological singularity perhaps it would be time for genetic to make sure that everyone has the capacity to have an IQ of at least 110 on the current scale. A new IQ scale could be developed after that generation reaches maturity. I believe that the IQ scales have had to been adjusted every decade by about three points in order to keep up with the increased general education of the population. However, it seems that the IQ of the general population may have slipped in the last 10 or 20 years.