Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…Right. It is terrifying to think that most of it will be forgotten. Everything we assume will not be forgotten. We think maybe some of the technological developments will be forgotten, but we assume some of history won’t be forgotten. But realistically, especially us descending into primitive survival, probably everything since the industrial age will be forgotten. Everything. Maybe some religious ideas will persist. Some stories and myths will persist. But all the wisdom we’ve gathered, higher level sort of technological wisdom would be gone. That’s terrifying to think about. Maybe even, as you touch on, the very fact of nuclear war might be forgotten. The lessons of nuclear war might be forgotten. That there are these weapons, sort of the obvious elephant in the room would be one of the things that’s completely forgotten or become so vague in the recollection of humans that our understanding will change. It’s almost as if a God descended on earth and destroyed everything. Maybe that’s how it will persist. Mythological interpretation of what nuclear weapons are. That’s terrifying because then it could repeat again. But I think, for me, the idea of what is buried becomes very interesting and very human, and in a strange way, optimistic and positive because if you can visualize that wishing tree, and I have a picture of it in the book from one of the archeologists who work on that, you think, “What were they wishing? What were they wishing for?” And then, you think of your own self, what do I wish for in this world? Because I do think all things come from what happens metaphorically around the dinner table. What people put their eyes on becomes interesting and expands what people talk about. Ultimately, when you think about the long arc of time and human civilization, it does kind of make you want to communicate more with your enemies, with your adversaries. I think about the quote, what Einstein has said to have said, which is that he was asked what weapons World War III would be fought with. He said, “I don’t know, but I know that World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”…

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