Ben Gilbert: belief

Transcript context

…Technology changes, human nature doesn't. Right. Unfortunately, there are some sets of people who want to come and take your stuff. In the same way that price is set in a market by the person who is willing to pay the most, the need for security in the world is set by the person who's most willing to come and take your stuff. That's how much defense you need to have in order to stop them from coming and taking your stuff. Hopefully, you don't need to get into armed conflict over it. I do generally feel that there is a disconnect between people who enjoy the way of life that we have, but are unwilling to acknowledge why we have it. I think that is extremely different today than it was 60 years ago. Yes, I totally agree with everything you're saying. I also think there's another layer to this, which is really a huge theme of this journey with the research and doing this episode for me with Lockheed. That is the phenomenon of competition and its impact on human behavior, probably for both the Soviet Union and the US, although I'm less equipped to talk about the Soviet Union. The fact of that competition led to tremendous advances for society. All the things we just talked about. Silicon Valley itself, for God's sakes, wouldn't have existed without this. There's a rational argument for having an adversary. Technology and society was pushed forward in America by the Cold War, by Lockheed as part of that.…

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