01 / recommendation
Built How Buildings Learn.
“Well, I wrote a whole book called How Buildings Learn, which is probably my best book, and it’s certainly the most successful.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler / episode intelligence
Stewart Brand on Starting Things and Staying Curious
Speakers in the public record
Claim mix
belief 7evaluation 4preference 3observation 2prediction 2recommendation 1
Evidence policy
Every row below preserves an exact excerpt. Identified speakers are linked; unresolved voices are labeled and excluded from people counts.
Claim ledger
The useful parts, with receipts.
19 published records
02 / belief
Certainly in this century, I think we’ll have what looks like and acts like woolly mammoths back.
“Certainly in this century, I think we’ll have what looks like and acts like woolly mammoths back.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
03 / belief
Whenever anybody says something disparaging about Silicon Valley and tech bros and so on, I think of Patrick and think, “Well, that’s bullsh — .
“Whenever anybody says something disparaging about Silicon Valley and tech bros and so on, I think of Patrick and think, “Well, that’s bullsh — .”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
04 / belief
I think that’s very good in terms of long-term thinking because people who are older have a longer “now.
“I think that’s very good in terms of long-term thinking because people who are older have a longer “now.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
05 / observation
People just wanted to jazz their guts out all night long. The Dead had the way to do that.
“People just wanted to jazz their guts out all night long. The Dead had the way to do that.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
06 / belief
I think of him as someone who was there early or there first in a multitude of movements, including cyberculture, psychedelics, the importance of Native Americans and their philosophy, the Whole Earth Catalog, the entire San Francisco scene, the Long Now Foundation, and the notion of the importance of durability and the idea of maintenance, the idea of bringing back woolly mammoths to life, and much, much more.
“I think of him as someone who was there early or there first in a multitude of movements, including cyberculture, psychedelics, the importance of Native Americans and their philosophy, the Whole Earth Catalog, the entire San Francisco scene, the Long Now Foundation, and the notion of the importance of durability and the idea of maintenance, the idea of bringing back woolly mammoths to life, and much, much more.”
- Speaker
- Tyler Cowen
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
07 / belief
Kim Stanley Robinson recently did a book called, I think, Aurora, where he basically makes your point and my point: that if you get people out that far, the wear and tear on the social fabric, on the biology, on everything — you cannot isolate a very complex biological system like humans for that long and expect to get anywhere that’s useful.
“Kim Stanley Robinson recently did a book called, I think, Aurora, where he basically makes your point and my point: that if you get people out that far, the wear and tear on the social fabric, on the biology, on everything — you cannot isolate a very complex biological system like humans for that long and expect to get anywhere that’s useful.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
08 / belief
I was jumping out of airplanes and climbing things and doing all the dangerous stuff that you do when you’re young and witless. That one, I think, was an outgrowth of the Bay Area of Midpeninsula T-groups that developed the confrontational personal interaction in group sessions.
“I was jumping out of airplanes and climbing things and doing all the dangerous stuff that you do when you’re young and witless. That one, I think, was an outgrowth of the Bay Area of Midpeninsula T-groups that developed the confrontational personal interaction in group sessions.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
09 / belief
I see a very serious puzzle that our military and CIA cannot figure out at all. I suppose I think there’s a modest chance it’s an actual alien drone probe.
“I see a very serious puzzle that our military and CIA cannot figure out at all. I suppose I think there’s a modest chance it’s an actual alien drone probe.”
- Speaker
- Tyler Cowen
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
10 / evaluation
One of the things I learned early on is people fixed on basically two photographs, the earthrise photograph of the moon in the foreground, which was powerful because you saw in one frame and in one frame of reference, a dead planet and a living planet, and boy, the difference is striking, and you’re glad that you’re on the living planet, and it incites you to want to make sure that it stays living.
“One of the things I learned early on is people fixed on basically two photographs, the earthrise photograph of the moon in the foreground, which was powerful because you saw in one frame and in one frame of reference, a dead planet and a living planet, and boy, the difference is striking, and you’re glad that you’re on the living planet, and it incites you to want to make sure that it stays living.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
11 / observation
If not, I’ll just stay open to further news, but in the meantime shrug at it because one of the things you probably notice as you get older is you’ve seen a lot of illusions come and go.
“If not, I’ll just stay open to further news, but in the meantime shrug at it because one of the things you probably notice as you get older is you’ve seen a lot of illusions come and go.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
12 / evaluation
I had a chapter on maintenance because buildings are the most maintenance-needing and maintenance-defying things that we build.
“I had a chapter on maintenance because buildings are the most maintenance-needing and maintenance-defying things that we build.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
13 / prediction
I think that one of the things we’ll be figuring out increasingly for the next few decades is, what things to hand over to robots and what things not to, and there’ll be lots of stuff that surprises us.
“I think that one of the things we’ll be figuring out increasingly for the next few decades is, what things to hand over to robots and what things not to, and there’ll be lots of stuff that surprises us.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
14 / prediction
I haven’t answered that question before, so answering it this time, I think I’ve talked myself into being a Darwinian.
“I haven’t answered that question before, so answering it this time, I think I’ve talked myself into being a Darwinian.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
15 / preference
Yes, I think there’s some motivations for all of that. And then I paid very close attention — as I started to pay attention to things — to the research library in electronics that was going on at MIT.
“Yes, I think there’s some motivations for all of that. And then I paid very close attention — as I started to pay attention to things — to the research library in electronics that was going on at MIT.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
16 / preference
What I learned is that the libertarians I knew — they clustered around the Whole Earth Catalog because, in a sense, the catalog was saying .
“What I learned is that the libertarians I knew — they clustered around the Whole Earth Catalog because, in a sense, the catalog was saying .”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
17 / evaluation
I was in a town that was Rockford, Illinois. It was rated as number seven on the list of the American cities to be destroyed by the Soviet Union with bombs because we built machine tools.
“I was in a town that was Rockford, Illinois. It was rated as number seven on the list of the American cities to be destroyed by the Soviet Union with bombs because we built machine tools.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
18 / preference
James Stewart there is the guy who connects with Indians. And when I later married an Indian woman, Lois Jennings, we used to play scenes from that where she’s watching him shaving and wondering what the hell he’s doing because Indians don’t shave.
“James Stewart there is the guy who connects with Indians. And when I later married an Indian woman, Lois Jennings, we used to play scenes from that where she’s watching him shaving and wondering what the hell he’s doing because Indians don’t shave.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler
19 / evaluation
He was aware that every system is basically self-referential to some degree — that’s the thing Fuller would never take on — and hierarchically organized at a very deep conceptual level, that we are always immersed in the system that we think we were isolating something from.
“He was aware that every system is basically self-referential to some degree — that’s the thing Fuller would never take on — and hierarchically organized at a very deep conceptual level, that we are always immersed in the system that we think we were isolating something from.”
- Speaker
- Stewart Brand
- Publisher
- Conversations with Tyler