00:00:24 · Tommy Stadlen, Roman Krznaric
[00:00:24] S0: This is good. So I want this to try to be as useful as possible to all the people watching and listening, Giant Ideas, to see how they can basically be a good ancestor and how it can make them happier and more fulfilled in their lives. So I'm going to be guided by you. How shall we start this? [00:00:39] S1: Well, I think to start this, let's just think about the idea of the legacy that you want to leave to the future. Now, the great thing about human beings is that we die. And what I mean by that is that once we start hitting kind of middle age, we start thinking about what we want to leave when we're gone. Now, we could want to leave an egoistic legacy like a Russian oligarch who wants a football stadium named after them. Or you might want to leave a legacy to your family, whether that's, you know, a property or passing on a culture or language or religion. But what I'm talking about is trying to leave a kind of more transcendental legacy, something more universal for the strangers, the future and the world they live in. How do we do that? Um, especially in a world where we're trapped in a kind of hyper-individualism. So I want to invite you to do a short visualization exercise. This will just take a couple of minutes. Okay. So what I'd like you to do first is called Human Layers, and it was developed by a brilliant organization called the Long Time Project. [00:01:35] S0: And Ron, can we open it? Is this available to our listeners as well?
00:01:35 · Tommy Stadlen, Roman Krznaric, S2
[00:01:35] S0: And Ron, can we open it? Is this available to our listeners as well? [00:01:39] S1: Everyone listening to this can do it right now, but just don't listen on double speed. Right? Just slow down to regular times one speed. Okay. And give yourself a bit of space to do this, and just do exactly as I say. So first I want you to just close your eyes for a moment. Take a deep breath. And I want you to imagine with your eyes shut the face of a young person in your life who you really care about. It could be a nephew or niece or child or grandchild. [00:02:12] S2: Just picture their face for a moment. And now I want you to imagine, still with your eyes shut, that young person 30 years in the future. [00:02:24] S1: It's 30 years from today. Think again for a moment about now what they look like 30 years older, and consider for a moment about the joys in that person's life and the struggles they might be facing. And now finally I want you to imagine that young person is now 90 years old. It's their 90th birthday party, they're surrounded by family and friends and loved ones and work colleagues and neighbors. Now just go and have a look out the window. [00:02:59] S2: What kind of world do you see out there?
00:02:59 · S2, Roman Krznaric, Tommy Stadlen
[00:02:59] S2: What kind of world do you see out there? [00:03:06] S1: And now come back in and you notice this 90-year-old stands up and is about to give a birthday speech when suddenly they see a photograph of you, their dead departed ancestor, over on the wall, and they decide to tell the gathered room about a positive legacy that you left to their generation. Something that you did to be a good ancestor. Now think for a moment about what they said about you in their speech. And now just slowly open your eyes again and come back into the room. So the question I would ask you at this point, after having gone on that brief journey into the future, is what did it make you think and how did it make you feel? [00:03:55] S0: I felt broadly positive, Roman, about this. You're a positive person. Let's hear more. So I I I I felt positive. I I uh on the 90-year one, I found well, let me let me go in order. On the 30-year one, I I thought about my daughter Skye, who's currently about to turn five. So she was about to be turning 35 in your scenario. And um I sort of that one was a bit more confused and chaotic. Because I think someone who's gonna be 35 in 30 years is gonna be dealing with, I think, a very confused world about the world of work in particular. Will people be working anymore? Will they be at a loose end? Will will people be sort of worrying about what is their purpose in life? And I think probably yes is my guess at the moment because of AI. But the 90-year one was actually much more positive. [00:04:37] S1: That's really interesting.
00:04:37 · Roman Krznaric, Tommy Stadlen
[00:04:37] S1: That's really interesting. [00:04:38] S0: What did you see out the window when you looked out? Well, I looked out at a very um reassuringly familiar London scene. I kind of imagined this was taking place in a London Victorian terraced house, which I imagine people will still be living in, despite all everything that changes and all the technology. I think probably people in London will still be living in these quaint Victorian terraced houses. So that was quite reassuring and comforting. [00:04:58] S1: And what did Skye say about you and her 90th birthday speech?
00:04:58 · Roman Krznaric, Tommy Stadlen
[00:04:58] S1: And what did Skye say about you and her 90th birthday speech? [00:05:02] S0: Well, I'm positive about the world, but also about myself. So I gave myself a pat on the back and imagine my daughter saying that, you know, my my dad, uh, at a time of profound technological change, was at least trying to back the technology, which was a force for good in the world. Um, and and then I started thinking about our space investments because my daughter Skye is a um she wants to be an explorer. And I always feel a little bit sad that I'm not sure there's much of the world left to explore. You will you've been living in many more places than me, Roman, so you'll tell me if I'm wrong. But I always think maybe you can't be an explorer. But you could be a space explorer, I thought. The negative bit, as I looked out, I thought a nice kind of um comforting London scene and these terraced houses and parks of London. But I did imagine a much more kind of balkanized world world. That was the negative that sprung to mind was that have we really managed to get our act together to make the world come together, or is are things very balkanized between countries? [00:05:53] S1: That's really interesting, actually. Because I remember when I did it for the first time, I was imagining my daughter when she was my daughter Siri, when she was at that time 10. Okay. And suddenly I kind of realized, thinking forward to her 90th birthday, I thought, my gosh, she could be alive in the year 2100. [00:06:08] S0: Yeah.
00:06:08 · Tommy Stadlen, Roman Krznaric
[00:06:08] S0: Yeah. [00:06:08] S1: And that future isn't science fiction, but it's like an intimate family fact. Yes. But the other rec realization I had was that I thought, in that future, whatever it's like, whether it's good or bad, or whether she's in space or not in space, um, she's going to be part of a web of human relationships and the web of the living world as well, like the air she breathes, the water she drinks. So the the recognition I had, which might sound kind of simple simple and obvious, was that if I care about her life, I need to care about all life. Right. Right. So for me, that exercise was like a jump from something quite personal to something much more universal, something broader. And I think in a way, that's what I'm trying to do in my work to try and encourage people to realize that you know we're not alone. Yeah. You know, um, if you are investing or designing for the future or whatever it is, um, that your loved ones and you know, the fut all those future generations are going to be parts of networks. You know, they're not gonna probably be able to survive alone in a bunker. [00:07:12] S0: Yeah. It's I mean, it's a very simple exercise, but I I find it um I find it very profoundly um impactful. Because it's actually unusual for people to really visualize the world in the future, your family in the future. [00:07:23] S1: Right, it's amazing we don't give ourselves that that time or space. It's such a simple thing. I think it it shows something quite beautiful about humans that we we can do this. [00:07:31] S0: Yeah.