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My Letter to the Future

2024-08-02 · list · Hank · 4:38 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Science & nature (also: History & curiosities, Internet & YouTube) · mode: Curiosity & trivia · tags: self promotion

Writing to people a century from now, Hank lists what he predicts they will find weird about today: catching colds, killing animals for food, farmland use, racism, worrying about overpopulation, breathing exhaust, purely biological relationships and Twitter; he bets geothermal power helps solve climate change, then plugs the new Complexly store.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — What America 100 years ago got right and how bizarre it now seems; why imagine what today will look like in 100 years

  • ★★ Hank says America a hundred years ago seems bizarre: women had only just voted in their first presidential election, children often died of infectious disease, and getting from New York to Los Angeles in less than a week took luck. — 00:00:00 · New York City, Los Angeles, United States
  • ★★ Hank says that even with pressing immediate needs it is worth imagining what about today's society will seem ridiculous, or normal, in a hundred years. — 00:00:00

00:00:30 — Predictions one to six: no colds, little killing of animals for food, wild land and bison, racism, geothermal over fusion, overpopulation worries

  • ★★ Hank predicts that in 100 years otherwise healthy people's immune systems will be optimized so they simply do not get colds, and the future will find past sniffles adorable. — 00:00:59
  • ★★★ Hank predicts we will not kill many animals for food and will look back on it with horror; chicken products especially will be replaced by nutritionally and ethically superior ones. — 00:00:59
  • ★★ Hank bets people will oddly still eat a bit of beef, because culture is harder to change than technology. — 00:01:28
  • ★★★ Hank predicts today's agricultural land use will be seen as outrageous, much of the American interior will be wild, and America will have more than 10 million bison. — 00:01:28 · United States
  • ★ Saying a good prediction takes real risks, Hank bets a non-zero number of some animal (word unclear) will range over that wild area. — 00:01:28
  • ★★ Hank tells the future it will look back and call us so racist, while still being somewhat racist in its own different ways. (playful) — 00:01:57
  • ★★★ Hank thinks the future will figure out climate change, and makes a risky bet that geothermal power will be a big part of it, which people will then call obvious. — 00:01:57 · climate change
  • ★★ Hank says everyone now expects fusion to be the answer; he bets fusion will exist but be a niche technology. — 00:02:27
  • ★★★ Hank predicts people will find our worry about overpopulation crazy, as they struggle long to move to an economy not fueled by constant population growth. — 00:02:27

00:02:51 — Predictions eight to ten: engine exhaust, relationships with artificial minds, Twitter forgotten but phones and YouTube remain

  • ★★ Hank predicts the future will find it disgusting and ridiculous that we inhaled internal combustion engine exhaust all our lives. — 00:02:51
  • ★★★ Hank predicts artificial minds will be a huge part of daily life; he does not know what the relationships will look like, but people will find them normal. — 00:02:51
  • ★★ Hank predicts Americans in 100 years will not know what Twitter was and barely know Facebook or TikTok, but will still carry phones and watch YouTube videos. — 00:03:20 · Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube

00:03:49 — Complexly launches its own store with a sale; jokes to future viewers about the ended sale and dollars

  • ★★★ Hank announces that Complexly, maker of SciShow, Crash Course and Eons, has launched its own store, with products up to 50% off to kick it off; purchases help Complexly keep existing. — 00:03:49 · Complexly, SciShow, Crash Course, Eons
  • ★ Hank tells future viewers that if Complexly still makes things in 100 years, it is partly because people bought a mug today. (playful) — 00:03:49 · Complexly
  • ★ Hank tells future viewers that eight dollars will probably seem impossibly cheap, and bets they still have dollars. (playful, hedged) — 00:04:18
  • ★★ Hank asks present-day viewers to go to complexly.store before the stock runs out and before they die of old age. (playful) — 00:04:18 · Complexly

In the description and comments

  • ★★ In a comment, challenged on calling population not a problem, Hank recommends the book 8 Billion and Counting, saying he relies on clear demographic trends, not his bubble. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Complexly · geothermal energy

Also: Projects: Crash Course · Eons · SciShow

Organizations: Facebook · TikTok · Twitter · YouTube

Concepts: agriculture · American bison · animal ethics · artificial intelligence · Beef · chicken · climate change · common cold · human overpopulation · immune system · infectious disease · internal combustion engine · mobile phone · nuclear fusion · racism · suffrage

Places: Los Angeles · New York City · United States

Events: Independence Day (United States)

Only in the description or credits: 8 Billion and Counting

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