01x05 - w*r(s) of the World(s)?

[bunniefuu]

Last time, in 29 informative yet
accessible minutes, we saw how a

string of breakthroughs led
humankind to build the modern world

and create a weapon powerful
enough to turn it all to

white-hot, boiling sh*t.

But that was only part of the story.

The part after that starts now.

It's 1945.

The atomic b*mb's just gone off.

The world lies in ruins.

Cloning of Hitler has already begun.

The future looked uncertain,

and it was getting closer every
minute, like it always does.

But this was going to be a future
unlike any the world

had seen before -

a future of moon men and rock stars,

big business and free love,

computers and the internet.

And a k*ller robot sent through time
to k*ll Sarah Connor.

Although that bit was just
in a film.

Modern civilisation had arrived,
but a clash of worldviews meant

that the threat of all-out
conflict was never far away.

Could new forms of mass
communication help us all to

get along or totally not do that?

Should there be two social medias?
You know, one for people who are

right, and one
for people who are wrong?

I mean, I know a lot of people
I'd put on the wrong one.

Wankers.

So join me now in the last part
of human existence as I find out

how we got where I am now
and where we'll be tomorrow,

which at the time of filming
is Wednesday.

Whenever the future arrives, it'll
happen here, on a fragile bauble

I've come to know as Earth.

But my hair looks f*cking sh*t.

Russia, a vast land to the east.

It's the first time we've mentioned
it in this series,

but it's been there all along.

At the start of the 20th century,
Russia was a vast empire,

just like the
Marvel Cinematic Universe is today.

The average Russian was a pheasant,
but he dreamt of being a man,

preferably a wealthy one,
because while the Russian pheasants

lived in poverty, the rich
lived in St Petersburg.

The top Russian was called
t'Sar Nicholas,

which is Russian for
t'King Nicholas.

He was allowed to rule the country
like a dictator,

which I've been advised to say isn't
how Russia works today.

A world like this, where the
masses toil for pennies

while a tiny elite grow rich,
seems so obviously unfair and

unthinkable to us today.

We can scarcely imagine
what it must have been like.

One man who thought it was
ein load of scheisse

was German thinker Karl Marx.

It's hard to tell, but if you look
closely at this photograph,

you might notice he had a beard.

Marx also had a vision
which he wrote down in a book called

The Commonist Maninfesto.

Today, it's one of those books that
boffins talk about but no-one

actually reads, like all books.

But back then it was a hit,
particularly popular amongst the

18-to-35 anti-capitalist
revolutionary demographic.

One Russian who read the book
was the man currently starring

in this photograph,
Vladimir Ilyich John Lennon.

Lennon imagined a world with no
possessions.

I wonder if you can.

Nothing to k*ll or die for,
a brotherhood of man.

And he chose to bring it about
with a violent uprising.

In 1917, he got his chance.

Thanks to food shortages,

people started rioting for bread,
like ducks do.

Lennon and his followers hacked
into the Winter Palace and uploaded

a communist government.

Russia changed its name to Usser,

or sometimes Ccccccccpp!

What was the Soviet Onion?

Well, I think you're labouring
under a misapprehension

and you probably mean
the Soviet Union.

No, it's Onion. I saw it
on a bit of paper earlier.

Well, it's probably been misspelt
or you can't read very well,

but I think that you mean in
historical terms the Soviet Union,

or the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics.

Well, I don't want to be rude, but I
think you're mansplaining a bit.

Can we stick to the topic
of the Soviet Onion, please? OK.

What exactly was it?

If you don't know, it's OK to say.
You know, I won't judge you.

Well, if you want to talk
about, sort of,

Russian Soviet vegetables, we can.

I mean, it was a deeply
agrarian country.

And so there were lots of onions,
lots of potatoes,

lots of other things.
Did they have turnips? I think so.

Cheap, easy to grow, hardy -
great in a stew.

So how come you know so much
about vegetables?

Have you got an allotment?

In 1924, Lennon left the band
to concentrate on existing only

in an afterlife he didn't
believe in.

Lennon's place was taken
by Joseph Stalin, who presided

over a ruthless crackdown
that k*lled, starved or exiled

millions of people.

Although, on the plus side,
he had a friendly moustache.

Communism and capitalism are natural
enemies, like men and women,

and cats and dogs.

But Russia and America had put
aside their differences, thanks

to a mutual interest in winning
the Second World w*r.

The end of WWII led to loads
of celebrations in black-and-white

as people put years of conflict
and misery behind them.

But behind these outdated-looking
celebrations, trouble was brewing.

Now they'd run out of baddies
to blow up or sh**t,

East and West grew suspicious
of each other.

It was the beginning of a whole
new conflict -

World w*r Cold.

The Cold w*r is quite complicated,
isn't it?

Should we definitely bother
mentioning it in this,

or could we just give it a miss?

It defines most of the second half
of the 20th century, so I think

you should probably include it.

Oh, right, OK.

As the Soviet Union expanded,
the animosity between

East and West deepened.

The division was symbolised
by the construction

of the Berlin Wall, a sort
of divorce made of bricks.

There was a terrible atmosphere
of mistrust, like I had with my ex

when I saw he had 28 missed calls
from a contact he'd labelled

"Claudia t*ts" on his phone.

He claims she was just a rep
from Fitness First

and that that was her real name.

Well, I'm sorry, Sean.

I didn't buy it then,
and I don't buy it now.

I hope your mum's well.

Soon there was so much paranoia
between East and West,

they started spying on each other,
stockpiled nuclear weapons

and fought a series of proxy wars.

So Russia and America had proxy wars
where they'd use other countries

to fight with.

Is that a bit like picking
a character to do your fighting

with in Street Fighter II?

Well, I think throughout human
history, there's been a tendency to

try and use other forces,
fighters from other lands

to help do the fighting. Right.

So exactly like Street Fighter,
then.

If this was Street Fighter II

and the Americans chose the
character Ken, would the Russians

pick Zangief because he's from
the Soviet Union?

Or would they go for someone
like Dhalsim?

Obviously he'd be a better choice
because he can dive-kick

over Ken's fireballs.

Well, I don't know. I mean, you'd
have to ask, I think President Putin

for the definitive answer on that.

I suppose they'd go for the ones
that had the most chance

of beating Ken.

Meanwhile, East and West were also
competing to be the first

to explore the stars.

The rivalry became known
as the Space Race

because that rhymes, although
probably not in Russian.

We don't know what they called it,
and to be honest, we probably

should have found
out before recording this bit.

The first launches were
considered complete disasters

at the time, but we now know
they make for soothing viewing

when cut to light jazz.

LIGHT JAZZ MUSIC PLAYS

Today, a new moon is in the
sky, a 23-inch metal sphere placed

in orbit by a Russian rocket.

Finally, in 1957, the Russians
became the first to pull off a

successful launch.

Why did the Russians launch
Spunk into orbit?

Well, first of all, when
you're looking at Russian words,

the name of the world's first
satellite was Sputnik 1,

and the Russians launched...
Is that Russian for "Spunk"?

No, it's Russian for "Traveller".

I suppose spunk in orbit
would just sort of float

around in globules, like it does
in a bath. Sorry.

Should I change the subject?

Hot on Sputnik's heels was this
Soviet space dog,

known on Earth as Laika, who blasted
into space in November 1957.

What happened to Laika?

I expect they gave her a bone and a
rub on the tummy when she got back.

Well, Laika, unfortunately,
never made it back to Earth

because shortly after launching,
she overheated and she tragically

passed away just a few hours
after being launched.

You're f*cking joking!

I wish I was. No, this was...
She was launched on

a flight that was
pretty much one-way.

There's a dead dog in space?!

So there's a dead dog somewhere in
the back of a frame of every film

shot in space, like Star Wars?

I wouldn't say...
There are dead dogs in Star Wars?!

Uh... That is unacceptable!

Well, Laika's satellite eventually
burned up in the Earth's atmosphere,

but this was well after
she'd passed away.

As I say, it was just a few hours
after launch

that she died, I think, of heat
stress. Sorry, can we just

have a minute's silence for Laika?

OK.

SHE EXHALES

There's a dead dog in space.

Away from the Space Race,
everyday Russians often had

hard lives,
while Americans, in contrast,

appeared to enjoy a life of
carefree luxury and hats.

Was the 1950s real?

Yes, it was certainly real.
Are we sure?

Because it looks like it was
made up when you see it.

It's all men in hats, and housewives
smiling in kitchens.

Were those people real and was
all that really happening?

Well, a lot of that is
what you see in advertising.

The '55 Chevrolet is lower,

lighter and longer-looking.

The most popular drama on
1950s television

was a show called Adverts.

Adverts told the story of a man
or woman who wanted a thing

and then bought it
and then was happy -

the first-ever example of a
three-act narrative structure.

Why, that's amazing! Right.

Adverts was so influential

it made viewers at home

want to be the sort of person

who bought things too.

They'd work hard
to get money to buy a car

so they could drive to the shops

and buy more things,
which they'd have to pay

for by going back to work,
which made them miserable.

So they'd cheer themselves up
by going out and buying more things

which they'd have to work
to pay for.

Why, that's amazing! Right.

The only time they weren't working
or buying was when they were

watching TV, and it was on these
airwaves that a new kind

of culture was born -
popular culture.

Unlike normal culture, which was
paintings and Beethoven, this was

stuff people actually enjoyed.

For decades, pioneering black
artists had steadily built on each

other's work to develop an exciting
new musical form for white people

to pass off as their own.

Why do people say Elvis Presley
appropriated white music?

They don't say that.

What they do say is that
he appropriated black music.

He was...he was a white man that
sang music of black origin.

Did he have to apologise
on social media?

No, because there was no
social media then.

Why doesn't Elvis apologise now?

Because Elvis is dead.

So he's appropriated dead
people's lifestyles now?

What a f*cking thief!

Having overcome childhood poverty
and a hip impediment, Elvis

benefited from mass media,
which broadcast him to an audience

of millions in sanitised form.

Why was it so dangerous to show
Elvis from the waist down?

Was he naked underneath,
like a pervert on a Zoom call?

He wasn't naked.

He moved his hips around a lot in
a...in a very, sort of,

sexual manner,

and there was a lot of anxiety
that young women

might be...might be a little bit
too turned on by Elvis.

People were prudish back
then, weren't they?

If they saw his p*nis,
they'd probably

have a stroke, wouldn't they?

Probably. I don't think that would
have made it onto the media...!

LAUGHS
Oh, God.

That's not a joke.

What's funny about that?

If they saw his p*nis,
they'd have a stroke.

That's no laughing matter.

We're talking about people's
lives here.

Elvis was so dangerously expl*sive,
he was requisitioned by the US Army

for military use.

And little wonder,
considering what was going on.

Both Russia and America
were building up huge stockpiles

of nuclear weapons, enough
to destroy the entire planet several

times over, in case they missed
the first time.

It seemed the planet was headed for
World w*r III, and in the early

'60s it teetered up to the edge
of the brink of the precipice

and gazed straight into an abyss
of no return.

Crisis.

The word suddenly springs alive
ominously in the newspapers

across America...

In the Cube And m*ssile Crisis,
which was more dangerous -

the cubes or the missiles?

You're thinking of the
Cuban m*ssile Crisis, which refers

to Cuba, which is a country off the
coast of the United States,

near Florida. Isn't a cube a
terrible shape for a m*ssile?

It'd be more like a brick.

In 1959, there had been a
Communist revolution in Cuba.

A man called Fido Castrol rose
to power and immediately made

friends with Russia.

Then, in 1962, America discovered
the Soviets were going to use Cuba

as a base for nuclear missiles,
and those missiles could make

it to Florida in just 20 minutes,

if the wind was fair and they could
find somewhere to park.

American president and pin-up
John Effing Kennedy demanded

the Russians remove the missiles.

Otherwise, w*r was inevitable,

or worse still, possible.

For six days, the world held its
breath, meaning it might die

from asphyxiation before
the bombs even went off.

In the end, Soviet Emperor
Nikita Khrushchev backed down like a

shameful f*cking chicken,
and his missiles went home

with their tails between their legs.

Kennedy was victorious.

John F Kennedy won the
Cuban m*ssile Crisis.

Why did he sh**t himself afterwards?

Well, he didn't.

He negotiated a settlement
to the Cuban m*ssile Crisis

with the Soviet leader,
Nikita Khrushchev.

And then after that, he ended
up being assassinated

in Dallas, Texas, in 1963,
unfortunately.

But he didn't fire the b*llet.
Right.

It's ironic that he was so concerned
about Cuban missiles

when it was a g*n in Texas
he should have been worried about.

I bet he was kicking himself
after he was shot.

Having dodged Armageddon,

the world was hungry for change,
and a young generation who wanted

to give peace a chance rose up.

Their heroes weren't politicians
but countercultural musicians whose

works defined the era.

The Rolling Stones were huge
in the 1960s.

Would it be fair to say
they were the Beatles of their day?

Well, I thought...
They were contemporary.

So there was always a jostle
between the Stones

and the Beatles. Right, but the
Beatles were already

the Elvis of their day.

So there's a spare Beatles.

Can we give that to the
Rolling Stones, even though

they're happening at the same time?

Well, I think people
had their...have their preferences

between the style of the Beatles
and the style of the Stones. OK.

So which of the Beatles
of their day was best?

Beatles 1 or Beatles 2?

I think Beatles 1 is the preferred.
Beatles 1? Or Beatles, the first...

The Beatles. Next question.

Of all the bands of the 1960s,
which ones was The Kinks?

Meanwhile, the Space Race
was still being run.

Nasa had spent billions of dollars
developing a rocket powerful enough

to reach the moon, but not
so powerful it'd blow up

when it got there.

Onboard were Neil Armstrong,
Alan Alda and another man who asked

to remain anonymous.

On July 20th, 1969, the whole world
was watching on television to see

if the moon would blow up,

and also because there was nothing
else on.

The global audience must
have been genuinely astounded

by the appalling picture quality,

which was terrible even
for the time.

I mean, just look at it.

Looks like they've flown
to the blur dimension

to intercept a smudge.

That's one small step for man...

..one giant leap for mankind.

The sound quality
was terrible, too,

but what he said was, "That's one
small step for man, one bionic leap

"for mankind," thereby declaring
the moon for men.

Which is why, to this day, women
have been denied entry to the moon.

With the moon landings,

man had achieved greatness,
transcending earthly limits

and exploring the heavens
themselves -

assuming any of this
actually happened.

A lot of people on the internet say
the moon landings were faked.

How right are they?

They are completely wrong.

No historian has ever questioned
the reality of Project Apollo

because not one piece of so-called
evidence that the

conspiracy theorists put forward has

ever stood up to peer-review
scrutiny.

Right, but obviously it is fake
because how could they have landed

on the moon if the moon isn't real?

What makes you think the moon isn't
real, though, Philomena?

It isn't.

I don't know if you've done your own
research, but my mate Paul sent me

a video that
exposes the whole thing.

Can you prove the moon exists?

You can't, can you?

We see it in the sky.

We have sent spacecraft to the moon.

We've brought samples back to Earth.

No, watch the video.

It'll open your eyes.

You probably believe in night-time,
too, don't you?

I experience it, as do billions
of people around the world,

so, yes, I believe in night-time.

I believe that when the Earth
rotates, then we have a period

of dark that we call night-time.
Wake up. It's all in the video.

They just make us think the moon
is real and that night is real,

just to keep us obedient.

Think about it.

Babies haven't been indoctrinated
yet, so they know there's no such

thing as night.
That's why they wake up screaming.

Right, let's move on.

The Space Race was over,

America had won, and the prize had
turned out to be

the worst holiday destination in
history, which they couldn't even

warn people about because
TripAdvisor didn't exist.

But there was a consolation prize -
the best holiday snap in history,

taken on Apollo 8
and known as Earthrise.

Today, it's too boring to hold
your attention in a landmark

documentary for more
than eight seconds,

but back then, this photograph
made people think.

And not just a small thought like,
"That looks nice,"

but a big thought.

It made us realise
our planet is fragile.

The ecological movement had always
been popular with hippies,

but people ignored them
because of the way they were dressed

and because they were too stoned
to make their point coherently.

But now scientists began to worry
about the state of the planet,

and so no-one would mistake
them for hippies

they wore clean white coats
and glasses

to deliver their warnings.

But we ignored them, too,
because they looked like nerds.

The problem was progress.

All the modern gadgets we'd got
so hooked on ran on electricity,

which came from power stations,
which burn fossil fuels,

which creates a gas called CO-2,

which flies out of chimneys

and stops the sky working properly.

One solution to all this
environmental damage was to build

nuclear power stations,
which don't emit anywhere

near as much harmful material,
unless they blow up,

which never happens.

Until it did in 1986 at Chernobyl.

The radiation from Chernobyl turned
a huge area into

a deadly no-go zone, even worse than
Reigate town centre.

The fallout wafted across thousands
of miles and had one

unforeseen side-effect.

It made the bricks of the
Berlin Wall extremely brittle -

so brittle, it began to collapse.

Desperate locals rushed to the
wall's assistance and tried

to make it better
with hammers and fists,

but it was no use.

As the wall died, so did communism.

Capitalism had won, with financial
markets embracing globalisation

to the toe-tapping sound of Belgian
techno anthem Pump Up The Jam.

Pump Up The Jam
by Technotronic

# Pump up the jam, pump it up
while your feet are stompin'

# And the jam is pumpin'
Look ahead, the crowd is jumpin'

# Pump it up a little more

# Get the party goin'
on the dance floor

# See, cos that's where the
party's at

# And you'll find out
if you do that

# I don't want a place to stay

# Get your booty
on the floor tonight

# Make my day
I don't want... #

Suddenly, everybody, apart from
poor people, was making so much

money that there wasn't room
to store it all in coins.

Instead, it had to be stored
in numbers on a screen, surrounded

by men shouting at it to keep
it inside.

To keep track of all this money,

the world needed a special kind
of mega abacus, and luckily

it had one - the computer.

Today, computers are everywhere
but they used

to be a cumbersome rarity.

In the '50s and '60s, one computer
would take up a whole room.

But in the 1970s, engineers
made a startling discovery.

If they got rid of all those
pointless flashing lights

and spinning tape reels, they could
make computers much smaller -

small enough, in fact,
to fit on the tip of your finger.

This was the microchip
and it was amazing.

Thank you.

Give you the little fella back now.

The microchip couldn't actually do
anything until you shoved it

into a big machine like this.

But in terms of floor space alone,

it was still a big improvement.

Now computers were small enough
to share a house with,

loads more people wanted one.

Silicon Valley was born - a computer
heartland that would be defined

by the rivalry between two men,
Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Their names might have been boring,
but the things they said

were more boring.

Gates founded Microsoft and hit
the big time with a baffling,

unofficial sequel to Ms Pac-Man,
called Ms Dos.

Meanwhile, Jobs created
the Apple Macintosh, the world's

first inherently smug computer.

While their rival systems kept
computer users apart,

something else was trying
to bring them all together -

WWW - the Web Wide World.

The internet was so modern and
interesting, it seemed humankind

might never get up
from its desk again.

Then, in a dramatic and momentous
keynote presentation, Steve Jobs

revealed he'd discovered
how to put the internet

inside a portable rectangle,

changing history forever.

And we are calling it iPhone.
APPLAUSE, CHEERING

Its success inspired tons of
imitators, like that one your

mum uses, and soon smartphones
were so ubiquitous, you're probably

looking at one now instead
of me while I'm saying this.

Smartphones revolutionised
the way humans interact

by providing a socially acceptable
way to ignore everyone around us.

But we're not lonely.

Thanks to social media, it's quicker
and easier than ever to bond

with millions of others over
something as simple as a cat photo

or the ritual shaming of a stranger.

It's easy to see why the smartphone
has become the most popular

invention this century.

It's incredibly advanced,

yet at the same time so simple
a child can make one.

In fact, not just one,
but about 50 of these an hour,

if it wants to avoid another night
in the punishment block.

Sadly, Steve Jobs died before
he could witness Apple's success,

apart from the first few
hundred billion dollars.

On his deathbed, he made Apple
engineers promise to change

the iPhone's headphone jack
every three years,

then uploaded himself to the cloud.

Meanwhile, Gates wasted his fortune
eradicating malaria

in the Third World.

But despite Apple and Microsoft's
total failure, computers continue

to go from strength to strength.

Some believe we're heading
for an event known

as the singularity, where artificial
intelligence becomes too clever

for our own good.

While others believe
this has already happened

and that all of human civilisation
exists only

inside a computer simulation.

How do we know we're not
in a simulation?

We don't know.

There are lots of smart people who
think it is possible that we live

in a simulation.

If this is a simulation,

why is the computer making me
ask you this?

Well...from my perspective,
you are asking a question,

so I could imagine that you are
being controlled by a computer,

but you may well feel that
you have free will and you're asking

those questions yourself.

Why do I have to actually come
and film this?

Couldn't a computer just show
it on the telly in the simulation?

Or is that where I am? You know,
do I exist at all?

Why is this happening?

Why isn't it just me eating
a chocolate eclair in a loop,

like in a gif?
I'd swap for that.

Actually, are people in looping gifs
caught in a simulation?

Is that what's happened to them?

Where do wasps fit into
the simulation?

I'm not quite sure how...

Sorry, there's a lot to unpick,
isn't there?

In this series, we've taken you
from our primitive beginnings

through spiritual awakenings,
cultural explosions

and major scientific breakthroughs.

Now, in the present moment,
humankind sits impaled

on a crossroads, facing
an uncertain future.

Will we rise to the challenge
of climate change...

Or the opposite of that?

Will computers learn to delete us?

And if they do, how will we get
ourselves out of the recycle bin?

Can humankind learn to exist
at peace with itself?

Or are all of us right now living
through the final hours, minutes

and seconds of civilisation?

Or not?

I don't know.

And nor do you.

But whatever happens, it'll
happen right here on Earth.

OK. That was great. We've got that,
Philomena. Yeah? Yeah, all done.

Thank you. Is that it? Yeah, that's
it. Nice one. Is that me done? Yeah.

Great work. Oh, great. So, are you
sure you can actually make it look

like I've been to these places?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry
about that. What, really?

We do all that on computers
afterwards. Oh, OK. All right.

It's amazing these days. Brilliant.
See you, then. Bye.

Cut there, guys. Thank you.
Well done.

That was pretty good, I think.

Great. OK.

INDISTINCT CHATTER

SHUFFLING, RUSTLING

SOUND DROPS