Difference between revisions of "Alan Kay - Inventing the Future Part 1 (2015)"

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<subtitle id="0:0:18">hi my</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:21"> name is Alan Kay and I like to apologize for having</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:24"> a bit of laryngitis just on the day of</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:27"> this shoot and I've been asked to talk</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:30"> about inventing the future and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:33"> of course we mostly think of inventing</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:36"> in the realm of technology but</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:39"> I think most people watching</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:42"> this will have been struck by</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:45"> the fact that living in the 21st century</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:48"> in the United States is</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:51"> a vastly different experience than living</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:54"> a hundred thousand years ago anywhere in the world and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:57"> as</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:0"> far as we know the brains</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:3"> that we have are roughly the same</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:6"> as those brains that belong</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:9"> to the very same species we are</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:12"> mostly lived in small groups</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:15"> of people hunting</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:18"> and gathering and falling</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:21"> in love and telling stories to each other and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:24"> fighting other people taking</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:27"> revenge caring for the young</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:30"> and gradually building up a culture</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:33"> that they</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:36"> taught to the next generation in</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:39"> their tribe and the</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:42"> first great invention of human</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:45">beings or of</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:48"> evolution was this idea of</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:51"> culture and it came from a slightly</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:54"> earlier invention of evolution</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:1:57"> which was language and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:0"> there's a language that just</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:3"> as a few important ways more different than</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:6"> our primate ancestors</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:9"> and that was enough</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:12"> to be able to deal with sequences</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:15"> of things and portrayals of things and being</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:18"> able to make up things which we no</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:21"> other animals can do but be able</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:24"> to tell our made-up things to other people and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:27"> get them to believe in it that started</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:30"> to allow us to</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:33"> aggregate together in larger than about</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:36"> a hundred people which is what we can deal</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:39"> with face to face so</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:42"> this notion of culture beliefs</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:45"> in the same kinds of religions beliefs in</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:48"> the same kinds of customs is something</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:51"> that can spread so that people</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:54"> we've never met are still recognizable</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:2:57"> when we finally do run into them</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:0"> so we can think about that as</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:3"> the first great inventing the future</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:6"> for Humanity and it took</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:9"> many tens of thousands of years</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:12"> with the invention</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:15">art which may have always been with us in between</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:18"> before we started</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:21"> taking stock of the world</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:24"> around us and starting</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:27"> to improve our condition and of course we use</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:30"> tools for a long time before this</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:33"> but much of the tool use before we</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:36"> came on the planet</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:39"> consisted of maybe</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:42"> a semi accidental invention like using</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:45"> a shaped Rock to</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:48"> cut something or pound</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:51"> something and those inventions</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:54"> which were very few also hung around</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:3:57"> for hundreds of thousands of years the idea of making</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:0"> improvements or even thinking about how it</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:3"> is that they did what they did didn't occurred</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:6"> to people before us and in fact we're</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:9">that good at it either so we're basically</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:12"> set up for coping with the</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:15"> world around us which makes sense in a subsistence</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:18"> society making do with it and finding</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:21"> ways to enjoy ourselves as much as possible</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:24"> and so when we look at that</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:27"> from the perspective of today</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:30"> there was a point where we</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:33"> started moving from accidental</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:36"> inventions that in themselves</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:39"> started changing us like writing</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:42"> which is intended for a very mundane purpose</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:45"> as far as anybody can tell which is not</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:48"> to write down stories but to write down numbers</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:51"> counts of ears of</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:54"> corn gradually got</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:4:57"> moved into starting</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:0"> to write down things people were saying and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:3"> started taking on</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:6"> a world of its own that took</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:9"> again took thousands of years to</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:12"> make us into a creature</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:15"> that not only learned</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:18"> from listening to others but learn from the</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:21"> past in a way that was</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:24"> what was written in the past</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:27"> rather than continually</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:30"> interpretations of it and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:33"> so the last</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:36"> few hundred years have been the greatest revolution</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:39"> of all because that was when people became</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:42"> self-conscious about</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:45"> how</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:48"> we deal with the rest of the world which is pretty much to not</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:51"> understand it to</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:54"> try and interpret the world through</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:5:57"> our belief structures rather than trying things and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:0"> I'm talking about the invention of science</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:3"> which has transformed humanity in</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:6"> more ways in more directions</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:9"> and in larger scope than any</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:12"> other invention in history so</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:15"> my interest in education</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:18"> actually came about in</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:21"> the 60s when a</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:24"> lot of us back then who were in our 20s</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:27"> we're worrying about the</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:30"> state of humanity and in</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:33"> the early 60s the Vietnam War hadn't</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:36"> happened yet that we weren't worrying about that yet but</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:39"> what it started to happen is the</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:42"> many issues that have been hidden</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:45"> away in our</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:48"> country our country that</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:51"> says it's based on</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:54"> individual liberties and pursuit</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:6:57"> of happiness but people</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:0"> started realizing people who are</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:3"> not oppressed started realizing that a rather</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:6"> large percentage of us were</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:9"> oppressed and unjustly</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:12"> stole and I'm not just talking about African</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:15"> Americans but one</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:18"> of the trigger points was the intern ship</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:21"> of native</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:24"> japanese-americans because of their ethnicity</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:27"> during World War two do a</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:30"> bunch of things started happening in the 50s</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:33"> that got a</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:36"> cause of renewal of</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:39"> interest in</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:42"> what this country actually has been trying</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:45"> to stand for and so there's a lot of thought</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:48"> about how can we actually</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:51"> make good on some of these ideals the</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:54"> ideals were looked at and they were found to be still</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:7:57"> good and the question is how to do something</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:0"> about it and one of the huge correlates</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:3"> was</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:6"> education in the large not</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:9"> education for specific skills but</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:12"> education that takes in and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:15"> compares and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:18"> contrasts knowledge without their cultures</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:21"> and in fact you could imagine</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:24"> as Gerry Bruner Jerome Bruner has pointed</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:27"> out a long time ago it's really hard to</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:30"> assess your own culture if it's the only culture</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:33"> you can see because everything looks normal</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:36"> and it's when you see other human beings have</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:39"> found other solutions for making their</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:42"> way through life that you start seeing that your culture is</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:45"> a collection of local</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:48"> solutions some of them good some of them pretty dumb</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:51"> but all of them learned as this is</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:54"> the way things should be and so this kind of</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:8:57"> relative ization of</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:0"> humanity into moving</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:3">view of us</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:6"> where we're always right out to a</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:9">level where there's more points of view is a one</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:12"> of the primary parts of what education needs</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:15"> to be about in our country it's actually</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:18"> vital and that's because the</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:21"> president and the legislators</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:24"> are chosen by the people and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:27"> by the way the Senate was only started</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:30">to be chosen by the people themselves around</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:33"> 1912 1913 before that</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:36"> the Senate in Washington was chosen by the</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:39"> the state legislatures and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:42"> so what we've seen is that mmm</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:45"> there is a movement towards more democracy and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:48"> as that movement happens these citizens have</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:51"> to actually be in the same ball game</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:54"> there cannot be an intellectual and knowledge</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:9:57"> gap between the</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:0"> people we choose as representatives for us and the</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:3"> people who choose those representatives</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:6"> and one of the feelings was that if</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:9"> this was ever good in the United States</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:12"> and it wasn't ever great as far</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:15"> as history records that it</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:18"> was eroding seriously in</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:21"> the 20th century and looking at it now from</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:24"> 2015 its</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:27"> eroded seriously and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:30">makes education something much more vital than</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:33"> whether or not you're gonna get a job</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:36"> after you finish high school</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:39"> even whether you can make a living it has to</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:42"> do with whether there's actually a rich</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:45"> flowing Society</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:48"> full of resources for us to do things with that</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:51"> Society was actually invented and</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:54"> the particular form of it was invented in</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:10:57"> the late 18th century by people</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:0"> who were amazingly prescient</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:3"> about the different kinds</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:6">problems that were going to be solved and they had a an idea that</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:9"> was rather new that the world fifty</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:12"> years from then was gonna be very different than</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:15">world and they're creating the country and so they created</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:18"> it in such a way that it</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:21"> was not bound to the time it was created it was created as</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:11:24"> a set of ideas and processes and experiments</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:1">Your feminist hero slept with the enemy</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:4">and she doesn't regret it.</subtitle>
 +
<subtitle id="0:0:10">I'm gonna stick around until you get canceled.</subtitle>

Latest revision as of 02:11, 21 November 2021

hi my
name is Alan Kay and I like to apologize for having
a bit of laryngitis just on the day of
this shoot and I've been asked to talk
about inventing the future and
of course we mostly think of inventing
in the realm of technology but
I think most people watching
this will have been struck by
the fact that living in the 21st century
in the United States is
a vastly different experience than living
a hundred thousand years ago anywhere in the world and
as
far as we know the brains
that we have are roughly the same
as those brains that belong
to the very same species we are
mostly lived in small groups
of people hunting
and gathering and falling
in love and telling stories to each other and
fighting other people taking
revenge caring for the young
and gradually building up a culture
that they
taught to the next generation in
their tribe and the
first great invention of human
beings or of
evolution was this idea of
culture and it came from a slightly
earlier invention of evolution
which was language and
there's a language that just
as a few important ways more different than
our primate ancestors
and that was enough
to be able to deal with sequences
of things and portrayals of things and being
able to make up things which we no
other animals can do but be able
to tell our made-up things to other people and
get them to believe in it that started
to allow us to
aggregate together in larger than about
a hundred people which is what we can deal
with face to face so
this notion of culture beliefs
in the same kinds of religions beliefs in
the same kinds of customs is something
that can spread so that people
we've never met are still recognizable
when we finally do run into them
so we can think about that as
the first great inventing the future
for Humanity and it took
many tens of thousands of years
with the invention
art which may have always been with us in between
before we started
taking stock of the world
around us and starting
to improve our condition and of course we use
tools for a long time before this
but much of the tool use before we
came on the planet
consisted of maybe
a semi accidental invention like using
a shaped Rock to
cut something or pound
something and those inventions
which were very few also hung around
for hundreds of thousands of years the idea of making
improvements or even thinking about how it
is that they did what they did didn't occurred
to people before us and in fact we're
that good at it either so we're basically
set up for coping with the
world around us which makes sense in a subsistence
society making do with it and finding
ways to enjoy ourselves as much as possible
and so when we look at that
from the perspective of today
there was a point where we
started moving from accidental
inventions that in themselves
started changing us like writing
which is intended for a very mundane purpose
as far as anybody can tell which is not
to write down stories but to write down numbers
counts of ears of
corn gradually got
moved into starting
to write down things people were saying and
started taking on
a world of its own that took
again took thousands of years to
make us into a creature
that not only learned
from listening to others but learn from the
past in a way that was
what was written in the past
rather than continually
interpretations of it and
so the last
few hundred years have been the greatest revolution
of all because that was when people became
self-conscious about
how
we deal with the rest of the world which is pretty much to not
understand it to
try and interpret the world through
our belief structures rather than trying things and
I'm talking about the invention of science
which has transformed humanity in
more ways in more directions
and in larger scope than any
other invention in history so
my interest in education
actually came about in
the 60s when a
lot of us back then who were in our 20s
we're worrying about the
state of humanity and in
the early 60s the Vietnam War hadn't
happened yet that we weren't worrying about that yet but
what it started to happen is the
many issues that have been hidden
away in our
country our country that
says it's based on
individual liberties and pursuit
of happiness but people
started realizing people who are
not oppressed started realizing that a rather
large percentage of us were
oppressed and unjustly
stole and I'm not just talking about African
Americans but one
of the trigger points was the intern ship
of native
japanese-americans because of their ethnicity
during World War two do a
bunch of things started happening in the 50s
that got a
cause of renewal of
interest in
what this country actually has been trying
to stand for and so there's a lot of thought
about how can we actually
make good on some of these ideals the
ideals were looked at and they were found to be still
good and the question is how to do something
about it and one of the huge correlates
was
education in the large not
education for specific skills but
education that takes in and
compares and
contrasts knowledge without their cultures
and in fact you could imagine
as Gerry Bruner Jerome Bruner has pointed
out a long time ago it's really hard to
assess your own culture if it's the only culture
you can see because everything looks normal
and it's when you see other human beings have
found other solutions for making their
way through life that you start seeing that your culture is
a collection of local
solutions some of them good some of them pretty dumb
but all of them learned as this is
the way things should be and so this kind of
relative ization of
humanity into moving
view of us
where we're always right out to a
level where there's more points of view is a one
of the primary parts of what education needs
to be about in our country it's actually
vital and that's because the
president and the legislators
are chosen by the people and
by the way the Senate was only started
to be chosen by the people themselves around
1912 1913 before that
the Senate in Washington was chosen by the
the state legislatures and
so what we've seen is that mmm
there is a movement towards more democracy and
as that movement happens these citizens have
to actually be in the same ball game
there cannot be an intellectual and knowledge
gap between the
people we choose as representatives for us and the
people who choose those representatives
and one of the feelings was that if
this was ever good in the United States
and it wasn't ever great as far
as history records that it
was eroding seriously in
the 20th century and looking at it now from
2015 its
eroded seriously and
makes education something much more vital than
whether or not you're gonna get a job
after you finish high school
even whether you can make a living it has to
do with whether there's actually a rich
flowing Society
full of resources for us to do things with that
Society was actually invented and
the particular form of it was invented in
the late 18th century by people
who were amazingly prescient
about the different kinds
problems that were going to be solved and they had a an idea that
was rather new that the world fifty
years from then was gonna be very different than
world and they're creating the country and so they created
it in such a way that it
was not bound to the time it was created it was created as
a set of ideas and processes and experiments
Your feminist hero slept with the enemy
and she doesn't regret it.
I'm gonna stick around until you get canceled.