Nicholas Christakis

Yeah, so I think we are going to see the other side of our present dilemma.

I think it is going to take half a generation to really be on the other side of it because I think we've dug ourselves into quite a hole.

I share the opinion, I suspect, with you and certainly with people like John Haidt and others that the kind of technology that we've invented or the turns that our technology has taken, our communication technology has taken in the last 10 years,

have so far been quite harmful to us, whatever other benefits they've had.

I think they've contributed to this polarization.

They've contributed to anomie.

They've contributed to some of the mental health crises we've had.

I think they've also led to a surveillance state, not just abroad, but shockingly in our own

country where these technologies are being used in ways that I would regard as, you know, quasi-totalitarian or at least pose the threat of that.

I had a friend long ago, I still have him, he's still a friend of mine.

And years ago, he told me he didn't use credit cards and, you know, he refused to get a cell phone and he wanted, you know, he was trying to be off the grid because he didn't want to be surveyed.

And I thought he was like a Luddite nut.

Yet now, you know, I'm

Worry that like my every move is being tracked by someone.

So if to the extent that you are arguing, and I think you are, that some of what ails us at present is due to some of these communication technologies and the ways they've been grafted onto very thin,

fundamental human desires and exploit those desires, to the extent that we grow as a society to cope with those threats, I think we will look back at this period as just that, one in which we yielded to and were adversely affected by and ultimately, let's say, overcame some of these threats.

Not dissimilar, you and I remember, when you couldn't swim in the Boston Harbor, the Charles was polluted,

the air was polluted and we sort of cleaned everything up in some sense.

So maybe we'll clean everything up in that way, but it'll take some time.

Well, I got very disgusted with Twitter and I didn't abandon my account because I didn't want anyone to squat on it.