Instant Genius - Are Generation Z our only hope for the future? – John Higgs

Episode Date: August 21, 2019

If you grew up on a steady stream of Hollywood blockbusters filled with killer robots, alien invasions and apocalyptic natural disasters, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the future looks pretty bleak. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be that way. In fact, according John Higgs, a writer who specialises in finding previously unsuspected narratives hidden in obscure corners of our history and culture, the group of adults of school-leaving age might be just the sort of individuals we need if we’re going to avoid the dystopian future science fiction would have us believe inevitable. In his book, The Future Starts Here (£20, Orion), he explains why this Generation Z have inherited a world apparently on the brink of self-destruction, and why their enthusiasm for wider social networks will be key to a brighter future. He speaks to BBC Science Focus Online editor Alexander McNamara about what Star Trek can teach us about generational attitudes, the desire for meaning over stuff, and why life on Mars would be rubbish, and who kicks things off by asking him why he decided to write a book about the future. We now have more than 75 episodes of the Science Focus Podcast, each of which is still well worth a listen. Here are a few that you might find interesting: How can we save our planet? – Sir David Attenborough There is no Plan B for planet Earth – Lord Martin Rees What we got wrong about pandas and teenagers What does a world with an ageing population look like? – Sarah Harper Can we really predict when doomsday will happen? – William Poundstone Is body positivity the answer to body image issues? – Phillippa Diedrichs Follow Science Focus on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Flipboard Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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delivering digital precision with analogue warmth. So you can experience exceptional sound at home. Music just as the artist intended. Visit name audio.com to learn more. On many levels, I'd say their generation coming through are exactly the hope that we need. Now, that's not to say it's going to be easy. That's not to say we haven't left it too late for them in things like climate change, as I say biodiversity to collapse, these are big, big problems.

But it's worth pointing out that we do know how to solve them. You're listening to the Science Focus podcast from the BBC Science Focus magazine team. With the UK's best-selling science and technology monthly, available in print and in several digital formats throughout the world. Find out more at ScienceFocus.com or look out for us in your app store. Hello, I'm Jason Goodyear. commissioning editor at BBC Science Focus magazine. If like me you grew up on a steady stream of Hollywood blockbusters,

filled with killer robots, alien invasions and apocalyptic natural disasters, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the future looks pretty bleak. But that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be that way. In fact, according to John Higgs, a writer who specialises in finding previously unsuspected narratives hidden in obscure corners of our history and culture, the group of adults of school leaving age might be just the same. the sort of individuals we need if we're going to avoid the dystopian future science fiction would

have us believe. In his book, The Future Starts Here, he explains why this Generation Z have inherited a world apparently on the brink of self-destruction and why their enthusiasm for wider social networks will be key to a brighter future. He speaks to BBC's Science Focus online editor Alexander Mactamara about what Star Trek can teach us about generational attitudes, the desire for meaning over stuff, and why life on Mars would be rubbish. Alexander kicks things off by asking him why he decided to write a book about the future. Well, what started it was the realisation that at some point in the 1980s, every single image of a positive future seemed to drop out of our culture.

Well, I don't think there's been a single positive mainstream Hollywood film that depicts a future that you'd actually want to go in, that you'd actually want to live in, since around the mid-80s. And this stuck me as worrying, you know, because if it's true that, you know, before we can build a future, we have to first imagine it, then, you know, the lack of anything other than zombies or apocalypsees or collapse civilizations isn't good. It isn't good. So I kind of wanted to sort of explore that issue. And the thing I discovered quite quickly is that when we think about the future, say we think about what things will be like in, say, 2050 with climate change. with biodiversity collapse, with inequality, with all these things,

we automatically imagine that the people then will see the world in the same way that we do now. They'll have our same baggage, our same prejudices, our same ideas. And that really isn't the case. You know, just from generation to generation, there's very, very significant shifts in how we understand the wider picture. and that's never been as strong as in the marked division between the millennial generation. You know, everyone knows the millennial generation.

But the kids that follow them, this is Generation Z. This is people born after the sort of late 90s who are now just starting to go to university, who are now just starting to enter the electorate. The divide in how these two groups think is quite extraordinary. And when you speak to demographic researchers, they've never seen a profound shift like this in any of their data going back centuries. And so you have to take this on board. You have to understand that how people think will affect the future that we're about to create. So what is the main difference then between?

So in the book you talk about all the different generations, you say there's a marked difference between. the millennial generation and the next generation on. What is the, you know, what's the big difference between those two generations and how does that differ from the different generations before that? Well, the easiest way to put it would be that millennials are the most individualistic generation that we've ever had. It's been a trend that's been building through the baby boomers through Generation X, to the millennials.

this sense that understanding the world through the metaphor of yourself, yourself is the focus and the most important thing, has been getting stronger and stronger and stronger. Suddenly, we have a generation who were raised with smartphones in their hands, who are going to school, you know, with an iPhone or something like that, who understand that an individual is not a good enough metaphor for understanding things. It's the network that's important. It's their relationships. You have to understand the importance of what you're connected to

before you can understand, you know, what you can do, what's possible, what sort of person you are. Your own set of relationships is as much a part of who you are, you know, as this sense of the individual. And so the generation coming up now, it's why you see things like the, well, obviously the climate kids is a, obvious example, all the climate strikes, all the kids leaving school and forcing the issue onto the national agenda in a way that millennial school kids didn't. There's been an understanding that they're not powerless individuals. You know, they're a force to be reckoned with. They're such a large, connected network group.

And I think a lot of people are very dismissive of them. They're usually described as like snowflakes. people focus on their anxiety, their worries, they think they're sort of weak. But there's again, this is the shifts, the huge changes that have come. There's been a massive increase. Yes, in anxiety, but also in empathy, because these are very, very closely connected. You know, if the walls you build around you break down, you get both anxiety and empathy. And the greater level of empathy that this generation, are showing is going to become a very, very significant factor in politics going forward as they

enter the electorate and the later baby boomers start to start to die off. So these baby boomers are the people that are essentially the ones in power now? Yes, absolutely, yes. And they sort of see the world through the eyes of the 20th century. And that's just not how people are going to be seeing the world in just a few decades. I think what we're seeing now, it's kind of like the last thrash of the dragon's tail, really. So it's like, you know, sometimes a virus has to run its course before you can build up the antibodies to it. A lot of people are very horrified by the state of the world at the moment and think everything's just going to part and everything's sort of terrible. But they're not seeing this sort of change that's sort of coming in and the realization that,

that while baby boomers and Generation X like myself, while we did absolutely nothing about, say, climate change, you know, we knew about it, we heard about it. But there was a sense of, well, I don't see why I should, you know, have to do anything about it. And if I'm not going to, then other people won't. So if other people won't, then nothing will happen. So we'll just sort of ignore it. That's kind of the reason why nothing has happened for decades with climate change. this generation coming through, they just don't think like that at all. You know, they think obviously we have to do something.

What's going to work? You know, that's, it's a very, very different shift. And seeing the future, when you factor in things like this, it suddenly becomes, you know, a very, very different perspective to, you know, what the mainstream Hollywood films have been telling us. And so why do you think it is that these, this, sudden change? What makes this new generation? I don't know what this sort of post-millennial generation is called. Yeah, Generation Z is what they're usually called. People are still squabbling about

the name. But I think that's the one that doesn't make any sense, but it seems to be sticking. So what is that, you know, where has that shift been? That's gone, you know, I think I sit firmly in the millennial bracket. Yes. And so, you know, what is it that's made this Generation Zed so different? You know, Has there been a catalyst in there? Well, I mean, a large part of it is being raised networked. It is being raised with the internet only not, it's, they've never known a world without it. And you can see the shift in how people say, think about selfies.

You know, if someone, if an older person sees someone taking a selfie, holding the phone out, photographing themselves, they immediately think, oh, well, that's vain. You know, they're taking a picture of themselves to look at themselves. They're sort of self-absorbed and vain. but to Generation Z, they see someone communicating with their friends. They see someone sharing a moment with the wider group. They don't see it as just one person alone because it's not. That's just not what it is. That doesn't explain what's sort of going on.

And that automatically always thinking in terms of how this connects to others and how that thinks clearly must be connected to this rise in the smartphone. In fact, when you look at the demographic change, It's usually around 2012, maybe 2011, 2012, was this huge shift in all these different attitudes. And that, coincidentally enough, is the same place where smartphones became ubiquitous. So although the generation said, hate the idea that they're formed by their smartphones. We can blame their smartphones for their anxiety and things like that. I think there's a good argument for it.

So that was more of a catalyst to what made these changes and what made it happen? I think so, yeah. I mean, there's many other factors. I mean, they've grown up, you know, after 9-11 and after the 2008 global financial collapse, they've sort of grown up in an era where there's, it's not really worked. Nothing's really worked. There's been no sort of great sort of moments. I mean, when I grew up, I was born in 1971. We'd see things like Saturn 5 rockets on the TV. Or we've watched poems like Bionic Man. would just think, oh, you know, there was those exciting positive things and the West seemed to be, seemed to be unstoppable. The West seemed to be doing all sorts of extraordinary things. This is a generation that's seen the West sort of fail in many, you know, many aspects since. And I'm much keener to criticise or look for ways to improve things than we were. What you say there, it reminds, makes me think back to sort of when I think, of the future, the vision of the future from the past. So, you know, you look at science fiction

from the 60s and the 70s and they're very different to the science fiction that we have now. Is that sort of like an accurate, accurate representation? Very much so, very much. And if you look at science fiction franchises, I guess is the word, that have run from the 60s onwards, things like Doctor Who, things like Star Trek, you get a really interesting mirror of how society is changing. And Star Trek is a great example I go on about at length in the book because there was a sort of a key moment in the early 80s when they were making the second Star Trek film, Rath of Khan.

And it was this big argument between the director, Nicholas Meyer, and Gene Roddenberry who'd invented Star Wars. And it was his baby sort of thing, but it was being taken off him. And the argument was about no smoking signs on the bridge of the US Enterprise. And Roddenbury was like going, you cannot, there's no point in putting no smoking signs because in the 23rd century astronauts aren't going to be smoking. The whole point of Star Trek is that it recognises that people are getting better. And Nicholas Meyer, the director, was having none of it.

He was just like, no, people never change, people are always the same. say, people always get into fights and so forth. Of course people will be smoking. And he won. And that was the argument that sort of won. And Star Trek lost the idea that we were as people getting better. And it became much bleaker and darker, especially after, you know, Roddenberry died. But he was right.

You know, you can't imagine, you know, astronauts in the 23rd century having 20B and H in their pockets or something like that. They may vape. I'm not saying they won't vape. But, you know, we can. see that, you know, there are improvements that are progress, just in things like gay rights in civil rights, in, you know, feminist issues, trans awareness. All there's hundreds of ways that's over the past 30, 40, 50 years, you can see clear progressions where humans are behaving better, you know, to other humans.

So it was interesting to see the loss of that belief playing out in science fiction. I love the fact that you brought up, you know, I'm a Trekkie and I've watched them all, and there's definite, you know, there's definite changes in the style and tone of the programs as there as you go on, like, through time. Do you think that, you know, you've got your 60s Star Trek, which is very colourful and bright? The reason why the second Star Trek film, The Wrath of Khan, that was darker, was that just because the new generation was coming in with their opinions and the way how they, their worldview. I think it was because they let Jane Roddenbury make the Star Trek film he wanted to make, which was the very first one, which, as you recall, was quite long and ponderous. And it was successful, but it could have been a lot more successful if it had been much more of a straight 80s adventure sort of yarn,

which is what the second one was, which is, again, it was much more naval. It was Star Trek, it was a military thing, which was something Gene Roddenby argued against. But it's interesting because one thing I talk about is how in the 21st century Star Trek has even stopped looking forward and everything has been looking back to earlier sort of points in its timeline

in its history. It had things like Enterprise which is a prequel series or they've redone the Kirk and Spock films and Discovery is set in the past and things like that. But since I wrote that, they've started to look forward again.

They're talking about things like this Picard series. The next series of discovery is going into the future. So there is a shift changing even in Star Trek. There's this sort of this belief in the future again is starting to appear. And I know it seems daftar to read too much into things like that. But they are little bellwethers of larger cultural trends. Do you think that's because the people who are writing the Star Trek now

are probably the millennials as opposed to the Generation X's? Yeah, I mean, I think, I'm seeing it since I wrote that book, the future starts here. Even, it's almost since I handed it into the publisher. I've started to see things that I was predicting sort of occurring. In fact, in the period between handing it into the publisher and hitting the bookshelves, there was things like I talked earlier about, you know, Greta Thornberg and the climate change march and the kids, you know, coming together and putting this big, you know, incredible, incredible campaign together. And it's been sort of predicting that things like that would happen, thinking I was being all

clever and smart. But by the time the book came out, it just looks like I'm stating the obvious. It's changing so much so quickly. We're very much at the darkest hour, you know, culturally and politically on many, many sort of different levels. And this is always when you start to see. dawn, I think. So, you know, coming back to that Star Trek analogy of Gene Roddenberry thinking that we're always getting better, are we at the point now where we genuinely are,

this generation coming through, is genuinely getting better? On many levels, I'd say their generation coming through are exactly the hope that we need. Now, that's not to say it's going to be easy. That's not to say we haven't left it too late for them in things like climate change, as I say, biodiversity, to collapse. These are these are big, big problems, but it's worth pointing out that we do know how to solve them. The problem hasn't been, how do we solve these? The problem has been that we just didn't think we would. We just didn't think we would solve them, so we didn't make the effort. That change in belief from we're not going to do this to we are going to do this. It's going to make such a difference.

And is this generation coming through that have the power to do that? It's this, and we have to help them as much as possible, you know, for the sake of our grandchildren. We have to get behind them and support them and do everything we can, I guess. So does that mean that we're looking at a, you know, for me, the future has the appearance that it might be a bit bleak. Should I, you know, spun out? You know, there's never a straight utopia and there's never a straight dystopia. There's always change. and some change is good and some change is bad

and there's darker times that we have to come through and things like that. And there are times in culture which were great for some people and not for others. It's always going to be a big crazy sort of mismatch. What we've got to lose is the idea that we don't have a future, you know, that we are all doomed, that it will all clap. So it doesn't matter.

You know, we do have to at least try, at least see what we can do personally to make things better in our own. lives around us. We've got to have that hope. I think what it comes down to, it's quite interesting. It comes down to the subject of what makes a meaningful life. And the answer to that seems to be enthusiasm.

If you have enthusiasm, it doesn't really matter what for, but it gives you purpose and it makes life self-evidently worth while and, you know, a reason to get up in the morning. And a lot of it is about arranging our political world to allow people to explore their enthusiasms to build. Because everybody's got something they want to do. You know, everyone's got something that they're interested in. But normally, you know, the reality of working two or three little gig economy jobs or the cost of your rent or things like that, just completely drain your energy and drain any time you have for dedicating to those things that, you know, you really know what you should be doing.

You know, if we can politically move to allow people more time and more freedom for their own enthusiasisms, which does, I think, start, appear to be happening. Then we've got quite an amazing future ahead, I think. I mean, it's going to be difficult. It's going to be a lot of adapting to climate change because we've left it too late. You're looking at things like basic income, you know, political changes like that. I talk a lot about the importance of rewilding in the book and our relationship with planet Earth and realizing that, you know, our future is not in space.

It is here. And we do have to look after this place. And our relationship with AI and our technology and all these different various factors are all sort of there's kind of interesting things ahead is what I'm saying. Yeah. No, no, that is. There's a lot to take in there. So I was just wondering if maybe you could explain, you know, why is it that?

It's only now that we're feeling this level of enthusiasm, whereas before, you know, the different generations have felt sort of this nihilistic approach to things. It really is this huge wave of individualism that mark the 20th century, which those were raised and brought up in the late to mid-20th century, just assumed was normal. We just thought that, well, this makes total sense and this is how things could be. And it sort of started from the end of World War I onwards, really, because there was a collapse in the way we understood the world as this hierarchical thing

where everybody had their place. And it was your place in the hierarchy that was more important than what you're actually like as a person. And that was the old way of seeing things. That all broke down with World War I and then gone into World War II. And the second half, we had this huge rise in the idea of, no, it's the individual that's important. In the 20th century, we'd have heroes like a Clint Eastwood character in the spaghetti westerns, the man with no name, right? He was such an individual.

He was so isolated from everyone else. He didn't even have a name. And in the 20th century, we looked up to that. We thought, oh, that's so cool. You know, he's so isolated. He doesn't even have a name. He thought that was a great, great thing. Obviously, to people being raised now in the networked world, that's just ludicrous.

You know, that's awful. You know, we need each other. You know, that's a vital part of what makes life worthwhile and necessary, you know. And so this new generation, which have a lot more empathy and enthusiasm for, everything. What are they going to do that's going to make the future, you know, workable and a far more pleasant place to be? Well, that's quite a big question. It's sort of harking back to the other pets. It is. I mean, it's going to be a big, big political change as they spill into the electorate. They have so much more concern for others. This, the important

of being woke is a lot to do with the importance of, you know, thinking, hey, hang on, how is this going to affect other people, having concern for others and not trying to hurt people and treat others, you know, with decency and their respect. How it, you know, how it's all going to play out. We've yet to see. But that certainly the qualities that you be hoping to see at this point, definitely. You know, certainly the qualities that, you know, certainly the qualities that, you know, that are exactly what we need at this point in time, I think.

And so those, you know, it sort of feels like that there's, there's bigger changes that we can do sort of grand things that only this generation are going to be able to push through that will, that will enable them. Yeah, I mean, as I mentioned a basic income earlier, I think, I think that there's such as ground, spell, ground swell of support for that idea across the political spectrum with the exception of the centre, you know.

Would you be able to explain what a basic income is? Oh, sure, yes. A basic income is a system where everyone is given enough money to live and house themselves and feed themselves. But not enough money that's all they sort of need in the world. It's a level of security, which means you don't have to take the terrible jobs. It means you can care for sick relatives if you need to. There's a long history of research into this idea. It goes to people like Richard Nixon.

Richard Nixon were very sort of keen on this idea. But now we get people like, you know, oh, everyone from Mark Zuckerberg to Caroline Lucas to people, well across different spectrums arguing in favor of this on the grounds that when you first hear it, you just go, that's ludicrous. You know, you can't give people free money. It'll be far too expensive. The more you look into it, the more you realize. is that, no, hang on, this actually makes a lot of sense. People on the left like it because it sort of puts an end to poverty and people on the right like it because it allows people to be much more entrepreneurial

to sort of set up the businesses they want to make. They're not sort of trapped in the welfare state. They're not sort of, you know, everybody's sort of given freedom with this level of security that sort of comes with it. And I'm not sure Britain will be the first country to go. for it. It's a bit harder here with our massively expensive property and things like that.

But I do think it is something we will start to see being tried out in various places around the 21st century. And yeah, that would be very interesting to see. And so how will having this basic income enable that future? Is it the fact that

people will have more time and more resources to be able to go out and make positive changes? Yeah, I mean, you have to factor in all this what we're going to have to do just about the climate, you know, the idea of, oh, well, we just want economies

to expand and expand and expand and GDP to keep growing and growing and growing ever and ever. It's really not going to last. You know, there's a quote I use a lot in the book. I think it's Stein's Law. You know, something that can't go on forever, won't.

And that's really where we are with that. We're going to have to find a much more sustainable economy. But there is already this move between in the 20th century. It was all about getting things. It was about wanting stuff. You know, that was what we strive for.

We strive for stuff. Now, I think, the move is much more to we don't need stuff. You know, we need meaning. You know, we need purpose. We need enthusiasm. And there's an infinite supply of that. You know, that's not really going to, you know, trash their climate to the level of stuff.

So, so this, this, this, this shift into, into doing what we, what we, what we should be doing, you know, which is, you know, having a rich, full, meaningful, you know, joyful life. That's where it sort of has to go. and finding ways to do that that aren't carbon intensive, you know, that don't, that allow us to, you know, preserve large amounts of wilderness and to keep biodiversity thriving, you know, to get rid of the growing inequality, the massive sort of level of growing inequality, which is something that would be easily done if the political will was there. You know, if people voted for it to be done, it would be done. It's not something that can't be done, you know, for all the, the, you know, the imbalance in the media of the voice of the billionaire class, for want to a better word. These things, I'm not saying they're definitely going to happen, but, you know, if we're pushing in the direction, it's the right direction to push, I think.

Yeah, that makes me think about the, you know, the, we're recording this shortly after the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. Oh, yes, yes. And, you know, there was a lot of enthusiasm, and that very much drove a nation towards the goal which was to land on the moon. And there's a lot around, there's a lot to talk about going to Mars in popular culture at the moment. Now, you know, there's the argument there that that could bring about a lot of enthusiasm for space travel, but whereas, you know, we've also got the problems of climate change to solve first.

Yeah, I mean, the big problem we're going to Mars on mass, and this is on mass I'm talking, I mean, Elon Mass talking about getting a million people on Mars. I mean, obviously I'm pretty hopeful and pretty confident that we're going to get one or two people, you know, traveling there and getting on there. And I can't wait to see it. But the idea of going there en masse really runs into the idea that being on Mars would be rubbish. It would be absolutely awful. You know, if you can imagine what it would be like to spend your entire life,

like at the bottom of the ocean, at the bottom of the Atlantic and a little sort of sea, sea base on the bottom of the Atlantic, you would be desperate to return out of it after a few months. You'd be going stir crazy. You wouldn't be able to go outside with that special pressurized suits. That would be a thousand times better than being on Mars with the radiation and the thin atmosphere and the percolates poisoning the soil and the sub-zero temperatures. It would just be a terrible, terrible, you know, place to be. Because we're sort of brought up in the shadow of the space age. And, you know, space just looked exciting and fun and wonderful and stuff.

I think I've always had this belief that, yes, that's our future. We will go out into space. But the reality is, you know, we've evolved so that we can only survive in this thin band of atmosphere around this one particular damp rock with all the flora and forms. that we need. You know, we can't, we can't build a big enough ecosystem that we'd survive in to take out into, you know, in a bubble in space. Our future is on this planet. And once you realize that, you know, then you have to start thinking about it differently. You know, you have to go to, you know, make this work. You know, you're going to have to find a sustainable way to

to not trash your own home, when you're going to be living there for good. Do you think that's something that the Generation Zeds will understand they'll be less enthusiastic about going to Mars and more positive about staying on this one? Yeah, I think so. I mean, see, it's things like the rise in things like veganism, which you never really have,

I never would have predicted this year they would have such a fuss over, you know, Greg's vegan sausage rolls. But no, it's this, this, this, this generational shift sort of coming in. They're not just going, oh, we should be more vegetarian. They're just going, they're going straight for their whole sort of vegan sort of thing. And there's, I won't go into it here, but there's been a shift from a postmodern society

into what they're starting to call a meta-modern society. We've sort of left that postmodern 20th century thing behind. And the general understanding now is that, you know, all models are flawed, but some are useful. and it's about going for what's sort of useful, which means people are using much more sort of extreme ideas. We're seeing this playing out politically, and it can be quite a scary and troubling thing, especially if you're naturally a sort of more of a centrist-minded person

who's not sort of keen on change. But there's suddenly a huge jump to things like the increase in, you know, vegan milks and things like that are not things anyone would particularly have predicted and slightly taken us by surprise and their sort of good evidence of the changes that are happening without was really kind of taken on board what's sort of going on. I think the whole trans rights thing is very interesting

because it used to be that, you know, if you're looking at sort of like gay rights or feminism or civil rights, there would be like decades of campaigning to raise awareness in the society or in legal terms before change would start to happen. That's how these things usually saw what happened. But there really wasn't any of that for the whole trans rights thing. It's just like this generation just got it and sort of explained it to the rest of us.

And I'm sort of like going, oh, now my prints records make sense. I see. I never realized that. Now that's okay, I get it. And you know, you see people like Eddie Isod now describing themselves as trans, even though it wasn't a word they knew or campaign for, you know, beforehand. It was, these shifts are occurring. And they're worth keeping an eye on, I think, yeah.

So ultimately there's what the drivers for our future, whatever that may look like, it might just happen without us really knowing or understanding why. Yeah, but I think we have to have a lot more sense of personal responsibility. I think a lot of books about the future, They either, I don't know, they're either from some big Silicon Valley insider or some great academic in an ivory tower. And they very much sort of declare that this is what the future is going to be. It's sort of like tablets are laid down.

This is what your future will be. I don't think that's the case at all. I think a future is very much something that we're all building now, person by person. And having that knowledge and being and taking that responsibility. for your own life and how that life interacts with other people and impacts on other people. That's what's building the future. It's much more ground up than top down, I think. It's not set in stone, you know.

We could all be awful people and have a terrible future, but we might not. That's certainly not definite. That's certainly not set in stone, you know. it's worth thinking about better places we could be heading because we go where the focus is. And that's how we're going to get there? That's how we're going to get there, yes. Brilliant. I just have one more question that I desperately need to ask you.

Yes. Why did you have to ruin the breakfast club for me? Yeah. Well, I feel obviously very apologetic about that. But it's probably the best example I can find for people raised in the late 20th century to understand the shift in generations that's having is to take members of generations there and sit them down in front of the breakfast club and have that horrible sinking realization that the whole thing makes no sense at all to them. and that the character that, you know, we thought was the baddie, you know, the schoolmaster, the figure of authority who was making these teenagers life hell, you know, isn't the baddie to them at all. You know, he's just someone who's doing his job. He's just coming in at the weekend because he wants the school to be running better.

You know, he's a bit of a fool, but he's light relief. He's comic relief at sort of best. we all thought that the hero of the breakfast club was the bender character, the Judd Nelson's character because he was so cool. You know, he did everything on his own terms, on his own rules. He didn't sort of bend for no one. He was this real individualistic sort of, you know, self-declared 80s sort of person. And to watch it with teenagers who just see that he's just a horrible person. He's just deliberately making other people's lives worse.

He's just miserable to them. Sure, he's got a sad backstory, but that doesn't explain the cruelty that he shows to people. For them, the emotional tart of this thing is the nerd character, is a guy called Brian, who, towards the end, and confesses that he made a suicide attempt in the previous week. And it's sort of played for laughs because he used a flare gun, And our generation don't really give that character much attention.

We just don't really think of him. We're just so impressed by Judd Nelson. So when you watch it with Generation Z, and the film ends with, you know, John Nelson marching across the playing field and punching the air, they just can't understand what the hell they've just watched. It makes no sense at him. Because their values have shifted so significantly

that the film makes no sense at all. And the horrible thing is, you know, they're right. You know, they're absolutely right. We were, why didn't we see it at the time? You know, he's a horrible character. He's a horrible person. That was John Higgs talking about his book, The Future Starts Here, which is available to buy now. If you want a little more optimism about the future, pick up a copy of BBC's Science Focus magazine,

which this month looks at the miracle microbes that could be the key to your health and well-being. And this loads more inside. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and listen back to some of our previous episodes, like the one where I interviewed paleontologist Steve Brissate about dinosaurs. If you like it, please rate and review wherever you listen to podcasts.

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