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00:15the most important thing for any human being is to be with other human beings we are not
00:21solitary creatures we are not individuals in the way that we think of it or the stories that we
00:25tell evidence shows us that we have been traveling and moving in groups as far back as we can actually
00:33find skeletons and bones and caves humans feel the most in themselves the most happy the most
00:40joyful when they're actually in large groups together we're all kind of focused and aligned
00:46we're actually having a sense of awe at whatever is happening we find that when people are at certain
00:52events together that eventually their hearts are actually beating in unison what we are meant to
00:58be is to be in groups together it's who and what we are listen seeing you got ritualistic cleansing my
01:08soul of addiction for now cause i'm falling apart
01:17yeah tension between us just like big defenses you got issues that i won't mention for now cause we're
01:28falling apart
01:34passionate from miles away passive with the things you say passing up on my old ways i can't blame you
01:44no
02:02so there's two things that homo sapiens do fundamentally better than almost any other species on planet earth
02:09it's to work together to cooperate and also a sense of prospection actually to think about the future and
02:15those are inextricably linked
02:19as my journey continues everywhere i go i'm struck by how similar we all really are we want to connect
02:26to belong and to see ourselves as a part of a team or a tribe why is this sense of
02:31togetherness so central
02:32to who we are and what does it mean in a moment when that's often not reflected in the world
02:37around
02:37us how can we build on the best parts of who we are in order to create the future we
02:42want to see
02:43and leave behind
02:47that's led me to japan headed out to a small island i've read about for years
02:52coming here is a dream come true as this quiet distant place is home to a troop of world-renowned
02:58drummers who've always struck me as a beautiful picture of what's possible when individuals come
03:03together to create something they could never achieve on their own
03:08so
03:13so
03:20so
03:45My name is Leo Ikenaga, and I'm a performer for Kodo.
03:50Kodo is a Japanese drumming ensemble, Japanese drumming is called Taiko, and we are a group
03:57that uses the Taiko, but we try to incorporate different traditional cultural elements that
04:05are native to Japan, and we try to kind of create something new out of it.
04:09We travel all over the world and perform and work with a lot of different artists, and
04:15we're just trying to create something new from this Japanese tradition.
04:33What does it take for someone to join Kodo?
04:35So, to join Kodo, you first have to complete a two-year apprenticeship, and then you become
04:42a junior member, and then you become a full-time member.
04:45And the two-year apprenticeship is a very, very rigorous process.
04:50You're living in an abandoned 70-year-old middle school with 15 to 20 other people.
04:58You have no privacy.
04:59You have no phones, no TV, no internet.
05:02And you wake up at 5 in the morning, you run every day, you plant your own rice, you harvest
05:07your own food, and then you practice all day.
05:11And you do that for two years.
05:15So it's a pretty crazy process, but it's a great opportunity to get in touch with yourself,
05:22because you're constantly under pressure, and you're constantly under stress.
05:29Right now there are about 15 apprentices.
05:32Maybe one or two will make it into the troop.
05:34So it's very, very selective, but the beautiful thing is, these apprentices, even though maybe
05:43one or two make it into the group, they have to work together.
05:46They have to cook for each other.
05:48They have to perform with each other, because we're never looking at them individually.
05:54We're evaluating them based on how well they work with others, how much they improve others.
06:02It's hard to see that when you're in the apprenticeship, but once you become a member, it's very apparent,
06:07because when we're performing, you have to be in sync with everyone without a conductor.
06:13So these apprentices, they're constantly fighting, competing with each other, but at the same time,
06:21they have to be very, very close-knit with each other.
06:24So it's difficult, but very, very rewarding journey to come.
06:32What's possible when you move from being kind of a solo player to being an ensemble?
06:39What is it that you're able to do that you couldn't do alone?
06:42You're able to create something that you could never do by yourself.
06:46You are able to put yourself into a situation where you strive to be better, and you strive
06:51to make others better.
06:53And it's this process that we go through every day.
06:58It's really hard to do that alone.
07:00It's possible.
07:01But when you have someone next to you that's drumming their heart out, and they're doing
07:06the best that they can, and they're doing it every day, you want to be like that person.
07:14Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
07:34Being here and experiencing how the drummers live and work together is moving.
07:38And it makes me wonder just how much we've lost in the pursuit of seeing ourselves as
07:43individuals above all else.
07:45In a time when distrust feels more common than trust, what kind of collective price are
07:50we paying?
07:51And what type of futures are waiting on the other side of us coming to see ourselves as
07:55connected, not alone?
08:00We are the only species in the animal kingdom with the ability to blush, which is, I think,
08:06a telling fact.
08:07We involuntarily give away our feelings to other members of our species in order to establish
08:11trust.
08:12We are the only species among primates with white eyes, right?
08:18So that means people can see it.
08:20I'm looking in the camera right now.
08:21If I was a chimpanzee, that would have been much more difficult.
08:23I'm looking to the left now.
08:24I'm looking to the right.
08:25So I'm involuntarily giving away my gaze, which again helps to establish trust.
08:33So it's in our biology, it's in our DNA that we've been optimized for trust.
08:39You want to feel like the social system of which you're a member and a participant has
08:44something legitimate, fair, desirable, good, something worthy about it.
08:48We want to feel like our sports team is better than the other sports teams.
08:52We want to feel our town or our city is better than others or our university or college is better
08:57than others.
08:57It could also be a racial or ethnic group or other kinds of social groups.
09:01That's where the tribalism comes in.
09:03We have created systems that increase the distance between people, increases the distance between people on the work floor and
09:11the managers, between the citizens and the politicians.
09:14The longer the distance becomes, both physical distance and psychological distance, the more difficult it becomes to trust one another.
09:22So that's what we have. We have a deepening crisis of trust.
09:27We've always had disagreements, but something more serious is happening here.
09:32The ideas and institutions that govern our societies, long taken for granted, have begun being challenged in new and unsettling
09:40ways.
09:42Here at Stanford University, Alice Su is working with her team at the Deliberative Democracy Lab to better understand where
09:49we are right now and what we can do to create lasting change moving forward.
09:53What is the state of democracy today?
09:56Many will say democracy is in crisis.
09:59A lot of democracies around the world are backsliding and we have trouble trying to figure out what a lot
10:06of people actually want, what kind of system of government people want to live in.
10:10But I think as of today, it's a lot of people are concerned about whether their voices are being heard
10:17and if people are really representing their likes and dislikes.
10:23But Alice also sees an opportunity here, a chance for new and needed ideas around how to improve our democracies
10:30in order to better face the future and engage directly with the citizens they serve.
10:35A growing set of ideas known as deliberative democracy, beginning to take hold in countries around the world.
10:43Like here in France, where they've started holding citizen conventions, forums designed to better engage their citizens in addressing the
10:52major challenges and opportunities before them.
10:56So how did this all first come about here in France?
10:59Look, I mean first we had this yellow vest crisis in France. Crisis of working classes in France. You have
11:06a lot of fears and anxieties. Climate change, digitalization, geopolitics and a lot of people in small cities and so
11:14on having this feeling not to be respected by our policies, not to have a place anymore in this world
11:20and not to be prepared for this change.
11:23So I made this tour and I launched a series of citizen conventions. On a random basis you take 100,
11:31200 citizens and you formulate a question, you put them in a situation to have a lot of interactions with
11:38experts.
11:39They propose a solution which is based on a consensus and collective intelligence and ability to understand the complexity of
11:47the problem. So I did it on climate change. It worked because we passed a law after that largely inspired
11:53by the citizen convention and the feedback was very positive.
11:57They learned, they were very committed, but they respected each other. But for me this is a constant work in
12:05progress because it's never perfect. But where I'm really optimistic is that you can have emotions, positive and negative, and
12:14argumentation and rational discussion to be merged together regarding our collective future.
12:20Back in the U.S., Alice and her team have pioneered something with similar ideas in mind. Your team put
12:25together an event called America in One Room. What was that?
12:28It was a four day long deliberative poll where we gathered a nationally representative sample. We flew them in to
12:37Dallas, Texas from across the country. There were 523 people that came from all walks of life. And they gathered
12:45together in small groups. They deliberated about immigration, economy, foreign policy.
12:51And for four days. And for four days, they discussed in their small groups about these topics. And then they
12:57had panels of experts and actually five then presidential candidates answer their questions. What we learned from 500 plus people
13:05is that people can and will change their minds after just four days of being with each other.
13:12We learned that those that may have had extreme positions on either side of the spectrum actually moderated and became
13:20closer to each other. We learned that after deliberation together, they liked each other more. They came to understand why
13:30the other person held certain views.
13:34I think especially on a local basis, we have to find a way to involve citizens, make them much more
13:40player of the game and doer of our democracies.
13:44Paint a picture for me of the democracy that you want to see.
13:48We don't have to live like this today. We can change it now. And we can have those conversations that
13:55build empathy. We can have those structured conversations. We can build those skills. And if we just start somewhere and
14:03not wait, then we can really get to that future where everyone actually listens to each other and our democracy
14:10is held together by everyone that's involved.
14:16It's the organization of humanity, the self-organization of humanity, which is the key change that needs to happen. Now,
14:25we live in this extraordinary situation where a tiny number of people, which calls itself a government, claims to be
14:32able to control this complex system that we call society from the center.
14:37There is no complex system on earth that can be controlled from the center. It can't possibly work. And yet
14:44at the same time, we have this tremendous capacity for participatory, for deliberative democracy, where we can come together and
14:52make decisions together for the good of all.
14:55And where we've been allowed to do this, if only on a small scale or a partial scale, the results
15:03have been extraordinary.
15:06I think it's quite clear that we are living through probably the most dangerous century in the history of our
15:13species.
15:14It could also be the most prosperous century and the most exciting century to be alive.
15:19What we need are people who are willing and able to look forward to a future that could be so,
15:25so much better than the world we live in today.
15:28In some ways right now, that can feel naive, even impossible. But this idea of building on our desire for
15:35connection and cooperation can begin anywhere.
15:38And that's what's led me to Nashville, where Reverend Jennifer Bailey is working to create new forms of community to
15:44reach across what feels like a growing divide.
15:47It used to be, you know, we kind of find some common ground and kind of live together. We broke
15:53bread together. Now it just seems ripped apart.
15:57What do you attribute that to? It's feeling, it feels very strong right now.
16:02Yeah. People are experiencing in the U.S. context, at least higher rates of loneliness and isolation than ever before.
16:08And where they find community can often be in these online pockets where they're getting talked to by the same
16:15folks.
16:16And so the world becomes, rather than becoming bigger and having spaces where people can hear more in the marketplace
16:22of ideas, it becomes smaller and more rigid.
16:25And then you, like, make the fool's errand of believing everybody thinks like you.
16:29And the person who doesn't, then, must be my enemy.
16:32Tell me about the work that you're doing and how you kind of got started in it.
16:35Yeah. So the People's Supper was a project that I co-founded with two friends after the 2016 U.S.
16:42presidential election.
16:43We wanted to create spaces around dinner tables for people to begin having conversations across lines of difference, whether that
16:51be political, ideological, religious, racial difference.
16:54We've hosted thousands of suppers around the country.
16:56And I think at the core of those suppers and our time together is really an ability for people to
17:04hear each other and to not just deeper speech, but different, deeper personhood.
17:09To be reminded of the fact that we are not just how we vote or how we look, but that
17:14we are a collection of stories and that our story is not individual, but the continuation of other stories and
17:20the prologue to the stories that are to come, even if it's just for one meal.
17:25While I was in town, Jennifer invited me to one of these dinner parties, joining a small group of people
17:32from various walks of life and different backgrounds to sit down together for a shared meal.
17:40We're going to have a fun conversation tonight.
17:45I like to say you all are joining, whether you knew it or not, a movement of people who've been
17:49gathering around the country over the past six years almost.
17:53Well, just as host, you all, thank you for being here.
17:57So grateful for this time together.
17:59That night, I experienced something so simple and yet profound.
18:03I witnessed a group of strangers who in some ways have nothing in common come to see the common humanity
18:10they all share.
18:11Our past and our stories are unique.
18:13And yet what we want to see unfold in the future for ourselves and for those we love is so
18:19much more alike than what we often stop to consider.
18:21I really feel like we're at a period of rebirthing and remaking the world.
18:25And we see that with the intensity of the climate crisis.
18:30We see that with threats to the notion of democracy globally.
18:33We're at a real inflection point in global history.
18:37I find myself asking, what does it mean to be human in the future?
18:42What are the things that aren't replaceable?
18:46And care for one another feels like something that we will never be able to fully replace.
18:55For tens of thousands of years, even for centuries, we would live kind of collectively in relatively dense accommodation.
19:03Even just in the past 150 years, many of us began living in cities.
19:07But something happened, especially in America after World War II.
19:11We had returning GIs and a rapidly expanding population with not enough housing.
19:17A lot of these people needed to be close to cities for jobs.
19:20And so the cities gave way to surrounding suburbs.
19:23You and I live in a period of tremendous growth with many problems.
19:28Across the United States, new homes are springing up by the thousands for our rapidly growing population.
19:34Modern shopping centers satisfy most of the material needs of suburban dwellers who no longer depend on the city as
19:42a retail center.
19:43Now, the suburbs could only happen in America with the advent of the vehicle.
19:48We needed vehicles to live in these new kind of communities.
19:51And as they continue to expand, the newly needed roads did as well.
19:56In some cases, paving roads right through the heart of existing neighborhoods, separating what had been thriving communities.
20:04American suburbs were held up as a symbol of a thriving middle class, but they had a distancing effect on
20:09people as well.
20:11Common areas for human connection were replaced by individual spaces and separated by greater and greater distances.
20:19What ends up happening is a sense of separation between people right in the midst of their own communities.
20:26How does architecture, how does urban planning, and how do the neighborhoods we live in today impact how we relate
20:33to each other?
20:42How can we build futures where we design for more human connectedness?
20:46And is that even possible in a moment that feels more deeply divided than anything in our lifetimes?
20:52I came to Washington to sit down with the Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, someone who thinks a lot about
20:58how we are shaping not only the social fabric, but the actual infrastructure of America.
21:04You're leading the Department of Transportation.
21:06That's real infrastructure.
21:08It's bridges, it's tunnels, it's airports, it's roads.
21:11That being said, what are the takeaways to build other types of kind of social infrastructure?
21:16In a sense, more that human connective tissue.
21:18Well, there's a very real relationship between how we connect to each other physically through transportation and how we connect
21:25to each other socially.
21:26Even in an era where we are discovering remote and hybrid and virtual interaction, we're also seeing how important it
21:33can be to just be around each other or to literally walk the streets of one another's communities to travel
21:39and understand through travel how other societies work.
21:42One finding that I think is very powerful is when people get to know each other better, they tend to
21:48trust each other more, not less.
21:50It's 30 years from now, and you're talking to your children about this era, this moment in human history.
21:57How do you describe it?
21:58Well, I'm going to tell them that this was a moment when a lot of changes happened in our society,
22:03certainly in transportation.
22:05And those changes led to their lives getting better.
22:08I think that we need to be in a season of building, not just because we have a backlog and
22:13there's a bunch of stuff we should have been doing the whole time,
22:15But because the projects that are ahead in this century, the big shared national and human projects like confronting climate
22:23change, staying a step ahead of the next pandemic, preventing nuclear conflict, will require levels of cooperation that in turn
22:32require a lot of good infrastructure.
22:35Are we able to rebuild to that kind of golden era of community that we once had?
22:42Yeah. I believe we can, and I believe we must.
22:45This is not just important because of some vague and romantic conception of neighborhoods and communities.
22:52It's also about life and death consequences.
22:54There's evidence, for example, that the survivability of tornadoes, all other things being equal, goes up in neighborhoods or communities
23:03where neighbors know each other.
23:05So a simple principle or test, whether you're designing a suburban subdivision or a dense city block, would be, does
23:13this design encourage or discourage people from knowing who their neighbors are?
23:18I really believe in so many of these dimensions, political, social, even technological.
23:25Our salvation will come from the local, and we need processes that empower local decision making.
23:43We spend a lot of time these days separating ourselves into groups based on ideas and identity.
23:48But I want to see what's possible when a local community decides to build together around a shared sense of
23:54belief and belonging.
23:55In Amsterdam, Marjan de Bloch decided to do just that, when she helped create a floating village right here in
24:02the heart of the city.
24:03Usually when I show up to a village, I just take like a path and I just, you know, start
24:08walking among the homes.
24:09But here I immediately walked onto a dock on the water.
24:12So tell me, tell me where we are.
24:14You are in the north of Amsterdam, in the John van Hosselt canal, and I'm the founder of this village
24:21that you are in right now.
24:22One school is, one school is here.
24:26So we have a big jetty connecting all the houses.
24:28There are actually 46 households living here.
24:31We are a community, so we share a lot together and we try to live as sustainable as possible.
24:38All our houses have solar panels, all our houses have a heat pump, we have a green roof, and all
24:45the houses are built with sustainable materials.
24:48All houses are really well insulated, and we have a smart grid, which is quite special.
24:54By the smart grid we are all connected, so we can exchange the surplus of the energy we generated.
25:00And all the houses have a battery, and in this battery we can also save energy that we don't need
25:07at that moment.
25:08If one house generates more electricity and another house needs more electricity, you can share electricity among the homes.
25:14Yeah, that's how it goes.
25:16So what was the motivation for starting a community like this?
25:20Well, it actually started 15 years ago.
25:22At that time I was living in a small house in Amsterdam.
25:24I hardly knew my neighbors, and it was all really kind of lonely and individualistic.
25:28And I just completely fell in love with the concept of living sustainable underwater.
25:33But also to live a more social life, because that was something that I was really missing at that time.
25:38I had this idea of starting a group, build a couple of houseboats together, make them sustainable.
25:45And living underwater makes you feel closer to nature, and the fact that you would generate your own electricity
25:52gave me this really great sense of freedom, a feeling that I would never have in the house that I
25:58was living in.
26:11So tell me more about what it's like living in community.
26:16Yeah, it's uncomparable. It's uncomparable. It's a feeling. You're never alone.
26:23You have like-minded people around you.
26:27If you have to do everything by yourself, it's not fun.
26:31And so then the community makes it nice to try all these new sustainable technologies.
26:38So I really think that the community is needed for a transition to a more sustainable society.
26:44Hi.
26:46When I started this, or when I had this initial idea, I had no idea how important it was what
26:52we were doing.
26:52Oh, yeah.
26:53And that it's also about what can you do instead of what you can't do.
26:59Or what is, you can't eat meat, you can't drive a car, you can't fly. It's all like negative.
27:05And of course those things are important to keep in mind and to adjust your behavior, but there's also another
27:10side to it.
27:12And I think that's the side that we touched and realized here with this community.
27:17Because it's all positive. It's all about connection.
27:21Connection to your neighbors, but also connection to your environment.
27:24If you are connected to your environment, you will think twice before polluting it.
27:29There's a lot of respect for one another.
27:32And I think everybody realizes that it's not just a jetty with some houses.
27:37I feel that it's an organism that is still growing and it's almost an organism in itself.
27:44Like a life thing. It's not just a project.
27:49And I think people realize that. So they know it's special what we have.
27:54That's a really nice feeling if you have that in your daily life.
28:01It's so exciting to think about the futures we can create when we design with human connectedness in mind.
28:08Collaboration and cooperation is how we got to this point.
28:10And it's our only path forward.
28:12And yet, in so many ways right now, it feels like we're moving further away from these primary human traits.
28:19What makes us special? Why have we humans conquered the globe?
28:24Why not the Neanderthals? You know, the Neanderthals were pretty smart as well.
28:28Actually, they had bigger brains than us.
28:30Why not the bonobos? Why not the chimpanzees? What distinguishes us as a species?
28:34All of us are individuals. And we have individual needs, wishes, wants, desires, and so on.
28:40But we also are part of social groups that can mean a lot to us.
28:45Being human is this team sport.
28:48Is this collective, collaborative endeavor that we actually have to bring ourselves to.
28:53This whole story of evolution that may the best man win, that's not what Darwin was saying at all.
28:59Page after page, what he's actually doing is marveling at the way different species communicate and collaborate for mutual survival.
29:07There's a really old idea that's deeply embedded in our culture and in our history, which says that human beings
29:16are fundamentally selfish.
29:19So what scientists now believe is that the secret of our success is not our intelligence.
29:25It's not our strength. No, it's our ability to work together.
29:29It's our friendliness.
29:30So this is what they call survival of the friendliest.
29:34And it's basically the secret of our whole story.
29:41These ideas matter more than ever because we have important, unfinished things to do right now that we can only
29:47do together.
29:49One of these things is creating enough housing for everyone who needs it.
29:53In Austin, Melody Yashar and her team at ICON are working on ways to meet this challenge by building 3D
30:00printed homes that can be printed in a matter of weeks.
30:02Okay, so tell me, where are we right now?
30:05We are in House Zero.
30:07House Zero is a project that we both designed and built in collaboration with the architect Lake Fileto.
30:15And it is intended to showcase what is possible using 3D printing.
30:19It is a project that we took on as a research and development effort to show what's possible and to
30:26introduce to the general public what it's like to live on the inside and be on the inside of a
30:313D printed home.
30:32Give me a sense of the problem.
30:34Like, how many people are we talking are unhoused in the U.S. and globally?
30:39It's close to a billion people, a billion homes that we need to deliver to address the global housing crisis.
30:46The way that we've been building using sticks and bricks of the past and steel is just not getting us
30:52there fast enough.
30:54And so to really address and make a true impact in this problem, automated technologies can get us there.
31:02And 3D printing, of course, is one of them.
31:04Take me through what actually happened here and in general, right?
31:09We'll start off with a concrete slab.
31:12So you have level ground.
31:13Now what happens?
31:15Once a slab is poured, we deploy our 3D printer, which is a 9,600-pound gantry-based robot.
31:22We deploy it on rails adjacent to that slab.
31:26So the Y rails run back and forth in parallel to the slab.
31:30And then we have two towers, as well as an X-beam that goes across those towers, which essentially comprise
31:37the overall gantry system.
31:39We have a material handling system that travels through a very long hose and gets deposited at the nozzle of
31:46the printer.
31:47And layer by layer, the structure is fabricated.
31:55We are at the Wolf Ranch Development.
31:58This is a 100-home community.
32:00This represents the largest 3D-printed community that we're aware of in the world.
32:05And as you can see, it's well underway.
32:08We have multiple printers printing simultaneously adjacent to slabs that have been poured by Lennar.
32:14And we're delivering the vertical wall system, which is the 3D-printed walls of these houses.
32:19And how long does it usually take for one of these homes to go up?
32:22Roughly two weeks, on average, assuming that we have continuous 24-hour-a-day printing.
32:29But that's essentially the idea, is that we deploy the printer within a day.
32:33The printer prints the home.
32:35And the home is finished traditionally.
32:37You put on a traditional roof, you're plumbing, and all of that electrical happens still traditionally.
32:44I also know in your bio, you're an architect for both on-world and off-world architecture.
32:50So the on-world I get, we're here.
32:52Tell me more about the off-world work.
32:543D printing is a leading contender in in-space construction.
32:58Because the premise for 3D printing in space is that we would use local and indigenous materials on the surface
33:06of the planet rather than bringing anything with us from Earth.
33:11That's a really high-impact concept because it is prohibitively expensive to launch heavy materials from Earth to space.
33:19And it's not going to enable us to create the kinds of infrastructure, small cities, and settlements that we've seen
33:27in science fiction images for decades in the past.
33:31So NASA's really interested, and other airspace companies are really interested in this idea of using the soil that is
33:37local to the moon and Mars.
33:39And sending up a single 3D printing robot that can leverage that soil and those materials to 3D print really
33:47any kind of infrastructure, any kind of surface element that would be beneficial to the crew.
33:54The collaboration and innovation at work here is beautiful.
33:58And it's inspiring to see how solving problems with creativity and concern for the here and now is the same
34:04work as building far-off futures as well.
34:06Our story is about you and me, and why we are alike in some ways, and yet why each person
34:14is different from every other.
34:18Cynicism is another word for laziness.
34:21Because if things are lost anyway, and you don't have to do anything, you can just sit back and, I
34:27don't know, make the best of your own life, and that's it.
34:30If things are not lost, if we can do so much better as a species, then that gives you a
34:35certain responsibility.
34:37If you want to call human beings the most evolved species, it's because we've evolved the most elaborate means of
34:42collaboration and communication, letting us do stuff together.
34:46When you start to understand that nature is a collaborative dance of different things, you start to understand, oh, well
34:52being human is that too.
34:54We are not alone, we are in one big connected nervous system.
34:59We become the stories that we tell ourselves.
35:02What kind of society are you going to create?
35:04So, for example, I think we should get into that problem-solving mindset and think about, like, what are the
35:12really big challenges that we face as a species today?
35:16And what are the most effective solutions?
35:23I'm often asked, how new tools will enable us to solve these challenges?
35:27But the truth is that all too often, what we lack are not the technologies, but rather the collective will,
35:33to act together on behalf of our neighbors and communities, rather than just ourselves.
35:38One of these challenges is around food, a constant source of unnecessary suffering all over the world, including right here
35:46in this country, where a shocking amount of us are still hungry and food insecure.
35:50In upstate New York, a farmer named Karen Washington has spent her life fighting for a different future, one in
35:56which healthy, affordable food for everyone is seen as an essential human right.
36:01Here we are, beautiful kind of upstate New York.
36:04Tell me, did you grow up here?
36:06Uh, no. Believe it or not, I grew up in the concrete jungle of New York City. As a matter
36:11of fact, I grew up in the projects, Lower East Side, so those were my roots.
36:15I started really growing food back in the city, back in the 1980s.
36:19Wow.
36:19And then came a time where my friends and I decided, let's try something bigger. And so we landed here
36:26back in 2014.
36:29You're here in Riseru Farm, which is in Chester, New York, Orange County. We are in the black dirt region
36:35of Orange County. So what does that mean, the black dirt region? Well, if you look at soil, normally it's
36:42between one, maybe two percent of organic matter. But here, soil is 40 percent.
36:46Wow.
36:47So Green Thumb is the organization in New York City that runs the community gardens. So we grow for them.
36:53There are over 400 community gardens in New York City.
36:56And so we've been asked the task of growing their starts. And so each community garden will get a tray
37:04of flowers and herbs and a tray of vegetables. And so yesterday we did all the flowers and herbs and
37:14today we're doing all of the vegetables.
37:17When they leave the farm, these plants are sent out to community gardens across New York City that are working
37:23to fight hunger and food poverty by equipping local communities in underserved neighborhoods to grow their own food.
37:31What's the role of food in America today?
37:35I think it has been co-opted. If you think of food, food is the essence of nourishment for human
37:43beings.
37:43But I think that has now been made more of a profit sort of thing. And it has divided the
37:49human race for the haves and have nots.
37:51You know, people in low income neighborhoods have food that is cheap. It's processed food, it's fast food, junk food.
37:58And people who are more affluent have, quote, quote, healthy organic foods. Back in the day, it was a small
38:05farmers. It has been industrialized.
38:07And so what happened is that this sort of commercialization of farmers started swallowing up small farmers.
38:15The emphasis was on that mighty dollar, you know, on a capitalist system to produce food at a rate that
38:24we wind up producing so much food and wasting so much food.
38:28Yet that food is not getting down to the people that need it the most.
38:30Why is that? Why is it that just the healthiest stuff goes to one group and the overly processed goes
38:37to another group?
38:38I think for so long we've been complacent as a society. We have gone home in our nice houses with
38:43our nice cars and closed the door and said, you know, that's not my problem.
38:47That's someone else's problem. Why in the greatest country in the world where we grow enough food and we waste
38:53enough food yet that food is not getting down to the people that need it the most?
38:55Why is it it's based on race, the color of your skin? Why is it based on where you live?
39:00Why is it based on how much money you have?
39:02And start having those hard conversations that we don't have.
39:07The challenges in food systems here and around the world can easily feel insurmountable.
39:12But Karen's work reminds me that real, scalable and lasting change is going to start in our own communities.
39:20What can it look like from where we are right now to where we want to be?
39:25Tell me where where do we want to be?
39:27I think where we want to be is that everybody, everybody, and not only here in the United States, but
39:33globally, but everybody has to understand that food, clean water and shelter are human rights.
39:43And we're not there yet.
39:45To create a future where all people have access to good, nutritious food isn't just going to happen.
39:52Better futures are not easy or inevitable, but together we can look around at the systems across our societies and
39:59decide they are not sufficient for the world we're building.
40:03That's the story of all progress throughout our history.
40:06People coming together to decide the injustices of today have no place in our tomorrows.
40:13I think of history as essentially two steps forward, one step back.
40:18Resistance to change is part of what it means to be human for better and worse.
40:23We grow up in a world and we're socialized to see the way things are as essentially the way things
40:30should be.
40:31And most of the adults in our lives are telling us this, literally.
40:35Our teachers, our parents, and so on are all doing things that make us experience the reality that we're growing
40:41into as natural, perhaps even inevitable.
40:44We want to feel good about the social, economic, political institutions and arrangements on which we all depend for our
40:52livelihoods, for our lives.
40:53And it's painful to believe that you're living in and operating in an unjust social system.
41:01Every single milestone of civilization that we are used to right now, whether it's democracy or the welfare state or
41:09equal rights for men and women,
41:11all these milestones were fantasies once.
41:14It's ideas that really govern and determine our trajectory as a species.
41:20And that idea in itself that progress is possible is probably one of the most powerful ideas we've ever had.
41:36Being here, you see on the one hand, just kind of cutting edge infrastructure, high speed rail, just things that
41:45are just so amazing.
41:48And on the other hand, you see folks who are carrying drinking water on their heads back to their home
41:54because they don't have indoor plumbing.
41:55And so when I think about what does it mean to live sustainably and regeneratively, it can't just be for
42:01the richest countries.
42:04We won't have the futures we want for everyone until we can run basic electrical lines into homes and allow
42:12for indoor plumbing.
42:13The project of moving forward to a more sustainable way of living on planet Earth is going to require electrification
42:20of everything for everyone.
42:32I'm here to visit a community that made news around the world by becoming the first village in India to
42:38become completely powered by solar energy.
42:40Thank you for inviting me to your village today. So I thought we would start by you letting me know
42:46who you are and what your role here is in the village.
42:58What is the kind of historical and spiritual significance of the sun here in India?
43:21Saphir explained to me how this new form of energy is especially meaningful here in a place with such a
43:26long, rich history with the sun.
43:29What were the challenges that you were facing as a village that led you to have to and want to
43:35take on a project like this?
43:48How many panels are there here in this entire village?
44:04How does it feel to see children playing in a community that isn't using dirty energy sources, that's using the
44:18sun to power, you know, their homes and their sources?
44:21For schools and their way of life what does it feel like?
44:49When you think about the future of India,
44:54potentially moving to all solar how do you feel being such a kind of pioneer village
44:58for the entire country seeing countries take very small steps like you see in a very small village
45:16saying you know what here's how we're going to contribute to the solution we're not going to
45:19wait for something to come from brussels or from washington even necessarily just from delhi
45:23we're going to do it here locally and you know they say all politics are local all energy is local
45:30all
45:31everything is local even even a sense of community right we talk about the need for there to be more
45:37community it's sometimes talked about almost at a national or a nation state level but you come to
45:42a village like this and i walk the town and that's community that's how futures are made really at this
45:48much more ground level be it about how you're going to make your electricity how you're going to power
45:52your homes or how you're just going to act as a community towards one another and it's beautiful
45:57to see that happening in a place that to be honest has been getting really just the exhaust from all
46:03these other countries who've been contributing to the problem they're actually showing us another way
46:12forward what must we do as active and informed citizens we must decide now for how well we live
46:22tomorrow will depend on the action we take today i do want people 50 years 100 years 200 years from
46:31now to know that people were really trying hard to leave the world in a in a better place for
46:36them
46:37and i don't know whether we'll succeed but we have to we have to try in order for us to
46:42look at the
46:42future you got to understand the past i have real hope that these young people are looking for a more
46:49just
46:49system if we're not tapping into shared humanity then we're not going to be finding the best answers the
46:56best answers the ones that allow everybody to prosper and to succeed and to belong we all have to have
47:03a common goal we all have to know what the other person wants it's a collective experience it's a state
47:11of mind how can we take what we see as some of the worst of humanity's propensity towards violence
47:20isolation and exclusion and transform that into an opportunity but also cast a new way forward
47:27this distrust is hurting us as a society humans have evolved to connect with one another
47:35we need to connect we need our friends we need our family members we need our co-workers we need
47:40the
47:40strangers in the streets right but if society keeps telling us that we can't trust them that they're
47:46dangerous that we should be wary of one another and that's tearing us apart we are not supposed to
47:53be alone you have to be connected and happiness comes from connection people don't realize that enough
47:59i think
48:08i thought people will would want to talk about the future through a kind of almost individualized
48:13lens they would want to talk about the careers that they're going to have or they're worried
48:18about artificial intelligence is going to come for their job or for their children's job but what i
48:23keep hearing is a desire and a hope for community everyone i'm speaking to when i ask them what do
48:31you
48:32want the future to look like inevitably the idea or just the term of community comes up this idea of
48:38human connection then sometimes it's more deeply with their friends and sometimes it's more deeply
48:43as a town or a village or as a state or really just as a kind of human family you
48:50know as almost
48:51something post nation state something bigger uh and that's both been surprising and unbelievably delightful
49:00as we move forward as we kind of rethink these baseline assumptions about how we order the world
49:05that can no longer be an i win you lose mindset or mentality no one flourishes until everyone
49:12flourishes as we move forward we have an amazing opportunity to do that for ourselves and for our
49:18species
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