I watched connections all the way through...twice. James Burke is the only person I've ever seen say that romans calling other europeans barbarians was highly ironic. I think the reason it had the impact on me it did is because it was so contradictory to what i had otherwise been told. He explained it so clearly that you didnt doubt the truth of it. It changed my perspective on everything and bumped my brain over into a place where doing your own thinking was not only necessary...but by now i realise is actually contrary to what the narrative makers want from you. Things have changed unbelievable quickly since then. These days people are lauded for thier deceptions and people who tell the truth are marginalised. James Burke is a brand that isn't dying...its gone extinct. Even much of science has become a lie...
Actually not the bbc's fault. People, especially the people who only watch tv unfortunately are, to be very blunt, quite stupid and the bbc along with other providers of television, have to cater for the majority of their audience. So at least Radio 4 and 4 Extra are convenient refuges.......for now.
“BBC Local Radio in the South” is a conglomerate of generic neighbouring generic stations which cover County districts which by definition aren’t ‘Local’ in size nor their editorial remit to cover “how national & world events affect our listeners” - whilst their local affairs amount to repeating headlines of regional newsrooms usually consisting of 1 County Council decision & a crime - generally a stabbing committed by a working class or homeless young man plus endless updates on rush hour traffic & roadwork traffic controls which have failed 50 miles away from the listeners. Any space is filled with “ I’m still standing “ & “ when the going gets tough “ & an interview with a national tv celebrity. The ethos of national BBC Local Radio in Southern England at least with its ‘diversity’ of white 40 year old clone presenters called Matt or Katie is an expensive luxury that serves very few taxpayers.
This guy is bloody brilliant. I think of Sagan, Asimov and Clarke watching him; the flawless delivery of an enlightened mind. So rare and so precious, this shit should be required viewing...
His programs have ALWAYS been amazing. All three series of Connections are good, but I especially like the two-part "After the Warming" on climate change. Even now, about 30-35 years later, it's one of the best intros to global climate systems. It's set in 2050, looking back at what happened to Earth's systems. Part one reviews how climate affected what humans did up until the industrial revolution, then part two reviews how what humans since the industrial revolution did to the climate.
so glad for this comment... he was joking about President Bush... he was talking about President George Bush the First, not George Bush II. We only got to laugh at George Bush II much later. Prescient or what?
We should have a building, school, plaza or planet or sun named after him. Pure genius. He talked about the end of the intermediaries to solve issues in 2001. And now in 2022 that is completely true.
The greatest communicator of how applied science leads to our modern world. With Carl Sagan and David Attenborough the people who have most influenced my interests and career,
I’ve been watching James since the early’ 70’s.A wonderful inspiring,incite full educator. He predicts all the internet issues correctly. Even ticking off the person sneezing!
I have been admirer of James Burke since his TV series , The Day the Universe Changed, which I watched almost all of them. I still have TAPES of some of them.... What a brilliant man with a pleasant way of stringing sentences like a fine jeweler creating a masterpiece befitting royalty. He does it for the masses..... Thanks for posting this video....
I just learned of James Burke from a recommended video by CZcams. What an intelligent man and I’m so thankful that he created all of the series that he has. I’ve got hundreds of hours of his work to watch now. Thanks for the upload.
Burke is so polished, compelling story telling interspersed with crowd pleasing comic timing, with that reassured voice of authority. Like his audience, I’m held in the spell of his narrative. Only after the end do you wonder on the other multiple stories of intersecting technological innovations that led from flint to Facebook.
Facebook doesn't depend on technological innovation. It depends on common and crude prurience. After all, its original use was to rank how ''hot'' college students were.
1:02:23 -- THIS on the other hand, absolutely happened. Online echo chambers, computers who know exactly what to sell you. "Will it be a world of home videos and illiterate scribblings?" Yes Mr. Burke, I'm afraid it is, but happily your lecture will also be here amongst the cat videos -- Chautauqua will coexist with Vaudeville, as it ever has.
The incredible amount of information in this 90 minute lecture/question session---it's like the full 12 course first class meal on the Titanic. Compared to 95% of the other "informational" videos on CZcams. Which are more like a McDonalds hamburger.
For reference, this lecture took place October 5th, 2001 in Oregon. Less than a month after the September 11th terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
This talk was in Portland sometime in early 2000. He must like Portland I saw him there in the 1980's. One of my sons met him in an elevator a few years ago and he was delighted that he was remembered for his "Confections" and talks. If our schools taught History and Geography and social science using his videos and talks I know the subjects would be favorites instead of hated.
When I saw for first time Connections with the Trigger Effect it was a glorious night that introduced me to be more aware of the effects of Engineering and Society. The Trigger Effect still makes me resonate with curiosity about the ever changing world. James Burke is a social scientific genius. He opened the path for others after to create intelligent and entertaining scientific and engineering TV shows. Cosmos 1980 with Carl Sagan, Cosmos 2020 with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Congratulations 🎉
At the one hour point of the lecture, Burke rattles me with the questions that haunt me from my own reductionist box (as it were). What will happen...as he is speaking circa 2000...when we all star in our virtual reality paradises? When we all read and listen to only that which we want to see and hear? What happens to our culture when we all mix and mingle "distant learning" style? I realize these are somewhat common questions we grapple with, but Burke has carried us along in this lecture to this very point and left us both excited for and afraid of the future...and in some ways his lecture's future is now.
You are inventing fictional problems. If humans like digital isolation, then such advances enabling digital isolation will be terrific, for those folks. If people do not like being more & more digital, then provided governments do not force us to be isolated individual islands we will not ever need or organize ourselves to be isolated and digital. There will always be isolationist libertarians, but many more collectivist socially minded folks, and there need be no competition for cultural supremacy between us, civilization has shown a capacity to tolerate diversity. If virtual reality really is a paradise, then getting VR will be heaven for those who want it. But if you ignore the social dimension you will not have it for long, some other poor sod has to still run the factories to make the computer chips and whathaveyou, to run your VR servers, at least until all _that_ can also be machine automated. When all the drudgery is automatized then it will still be a society. You cannot easily breed out the desire of most for human contact. All you do is free up people to do much more creative things. There is no downside to that. If you can breed out us all the desire for human contact, then fine, no need for human contact, but then you are so far ahead in the future you are in fantasy land.
Just as his original "Connections" series asked the question "what will happen when being in debt, all the time, is the normal way to live?" In the 70's, when that aired, the concept of students graduating with $100k or more in debt, or of insured people going bankrupt from medical debt in a country that considers itself the global leader in everything, was beyond comprehension. Yet, here we are.
What can one say about James Burke? Two phrases: (1) Unbelievably brilliant; and (2) Next time you (or I) think that we're smart, bright, intelligent etc. let's BE HUMBLE and add, "of course, I am not________ in comparison to James Burke. Almost nobody is." This was truly brain achingly MAGNIFICENT! Thanks again & again.
When you see and understand the history of connections, future predictions can be far more accurate. "I am Criswell, I know all." (Psst, no he didn't.)
James Burke has a brilliant mind. Most of this is still relevant today (as are his various series' of "Connections"). He is an absolute legend and injects quite a bit of humour into the proceedings. He is up there with the late great Carl Sagan.
Thrilling, as usual, thank you, Dr Burke. My concern: a possible lack of a desire for excellence. Some words of de Tocqueville about democracy ring frequently in my mind, and can be more broadly applied; to paraphrase, 'it will work only if the participant is well informed.'
What a privilege to listen to this man. I recall watching much of his tv work as a child and young adult and was enthralled . Nigh on 20 years ago he predicted so much. I have had no TV for two years and have spent my time learning QED to Jung's synchronisty to Dr Peterson's psychology and so much more. Brilliant visionary man, how many more will his foresight reveal to us!
James Burke I remember his programmes from the 70s. A time when folks expressed themselves fully, without self imposed stupidity, and insincere rules. James is a living example of excellence of those times. One thing he has wrong is folks ARE dumbed down
What a stunningly perceptive lecture. And as for the after dinner questions...... the answer to that last one was truthful and, above all, correct and I wonder how many people believe it.
Burke wouldn't get a look in on the BBC these days- he ticks no boxes, is well educated , highly knowledgeable and thought provoking, none of which sit well with the Beeb's current obsessive drive towards dumbed down 'inclusivity' and woke 'journalism'
What the reply below said, plus: you mean the BBC that has a mandate in place, most recently applied in a warning to Nish Kumar, to repress left speech by invoking "balance"? To which Kumar said something like, "Boris is smart and diseases are good. Happy?" Look, I'm a big fan of Burke within his limits. And it serves no one including him to place him at one end of a hyped up culture war, a war that is always so much less what the powerful have on their minds than the class war. Burke became a sort of postmodernist, a gentler, more humanist version than those i ran into in sociology. He is neither narrow nor a points scorer. I suggest following his example.
That's why we have to make him a part of an interdisciplinary approach to education. If you're an educator, introduce him or his books in your plans or courses.
It's a way of learning. Not so much the content, but a different way of thinking. In the way he explained the way Bartolli , Copernicus and Galileo sheshow gravity would have made my understanding of algebra much better especially if they included Kepler!
@@Tsar_NicholasIII Nick: You can convince those on the right with stuff like truth. Their first principle is that their feelings matter more than any pesky facts.
Been watching this guys documentaries since the 80's. He makes things so clear and easy to understand that even the phylum Cnidaria among us could understand him.
The problem with "internet knowledge" is that there is no quality control. Any piece of garbage can be presented as well-wrought fact, and, good research can be demonized into obscurity (if even being allowed to be seen..... there are, after all, community standards..
This is where Critical Thinking Skills come in handy. Of course, I fully realize that probably 19 out of 20 internet users do not possess these skills. (ΘεΘ;)
All forms of communication have exactly the same problem. One half of the solution is therefore exactly the same: Call it critical thinking, skepticism, bullshit detection or whatever. The other half doesn't quite exist yet: The automation of critical thinking, fact checking, intellectual caution etc. That would be _real_ artificial intelligence.
Quality control is where you come in - you measure everything in relation to your own prejudices. Facebooks and googles attempt to qualify what they will allow on their platforms will end in their biasses as a filter of truth where your experiences tells you something else and so on and so on.
James Burke has always been amazing. All three series of Connections are good, but I especially like the two-part "After the Warming" on climate change. Even now, about 30-35 years later, it's one of the best intros to global climate systems. It's set in 2050, looking back at what happened to Earth's systems. Part one reviews how climate affected what humans did up until the industrial revolution, then part two reviews how what humans since the industrial revolution did to the climate.
I always loved his Connections series, and his witty sense of humor. Still timeless. Unfortunately, today's internet/smartphone dummies probably won't understand Burke...
I wish these lecture videos gave us the dates when they were recorded. It's difficult to put a person's thoughts in context if you don't know what year they spoke them.
Right. We asked too. Looks like this was broadcast October 5, 2001 on PBS/BBC. Someone mentioned the location was Oregon - thanks. Can someone explain why where and when does NOT MATTER?
03:21 - In the real world, the right thing never happens in the right place at the right time. It is the task of journalists & historians to rectify this error. -- Mark Twain
Interesting how he is referring to subjects he covered in his Connections series. And having seen those programs, makes the understanding of this lecture easier.
"Knowledge" is just getting more specific, gargantuan and ponderous. As we are inundated with factoids, opinion and speculation, the task of carrying and managing all of this flood pushes us towards allowing bots and such like to shore up the dam of our conscious awareness. "Knowing" on the other hand, is as ephemeral and as intrinsic as it ever was. Genius is created through the application of endeavour. Knowing how to do something is vastly more useful and infinitely less taxing than the knowledge of its existence and effect. This is why how we learn is much more important than what we learn. Efficiency is energy's enigmatic eulogy.
Connections is both smart and silly. So many of the connections are partial or skewed... but it informed my youth and helped me to think in a similar method of pattern and connections
There is a gracious niceness, and optimistic push the whole way through this as he appears to manage to demystify in simple terms how we got here, and where it all may, in it's widest likeliest sense, amongst all the often terrifying variables. And really refreshing that cultural diversity may be enhanced and supported better. Any information as to when this talk was?
His documentaries have set me on an irreversible path of never thinking in a straight line when it comes to considering something. It hurts the brain, but when taken in the shape of a story, surprisingly entertaining.
LOVE James Burke, he one of my heros. one thing, the "high rates of innovation today" are nothing more than subtle changes example: Sonet and Eithernet, combustion engine vs electric, how many pixels you can fit is just and expansion of an existing science. our rate of expansion has be more like refinement - not expansion. example analog data transfer, now is fiber optic, it works on the same principal, one was sound frequencies (analog) the other is light frequencies (fiber optic) - the principal is the same.
I wanted to hear the end of his last answer... and everything else he says too. I saw him once in a London street. I was in awe, I could say nothing. Now I'm a teacher and podcaster - and Green politician ( in waiting ) - still in awe. All he says in this video is true today.
IMO: Interesting to hear a view from 2002. Who would have thought at the time that the internet would be commercially, and cynically, driven to corrode the very idea of agreed knowledge or truth? Eg. You Tube changing from a star-based rating system to a like-unlike rating system because conflict generates clicks; generates income...for a few...at a terrible cost.
1:01:27 - 1:03:15 James just summed up the biggest challenge for nations of our age. Globally there are other issues but for the nation state, he called it over 20 years ago.
Who ever watched the BBC Connections series and didn't become a fan? We have never stopped connecting? Now the BBC is a mere shadow of itself!
I watched connections all the way through...twice. James Burke is the only person I've ever seen say that romans calling other europeans barbarians was highly ironic. I think the reason it had the impact on me it did is because it was so contradictory to what i had otherwise been told. He explained it so clearly that you didnt doubt the truth of it. It changed my perspective on everything and bumped my brain over into a place where doing your own thinking was not only necessary...but by now i realise is actually contrary to what the narrative makers want from you. Things have changed unbelievable quickly since then. These days people are lauded for thier deceptions and people who tell the truth are marginalised. James Burke is a brand that isn't dying...its gone extinct. Even much of science has become a lie...
Yeah f the pedo BBC. Buncha quntz. Jimmie Saville etc. .
Actually not the bbc's fault. People, especially the people who only watch tv unfortunately are, to be very blunt, quite stupid and the bbc along with other providers of television, have to cater for the majority of their audience. So at least Radio 4 and 4 Extra are convenient refuges.......for now.
@@chrismcmullen4313 I'd like to see you back those last statements with some Burkian facts!
“BBC Local Radio in the South” is a conglomerate of generic neighbouring generic stations which cover County districts which by definition aren’t ‘Local’ in size nor their editorial remit to cover “how national & world events affect our listeners” - whilst their local affairs amount to repeating headlines of regional newsrooms usually consisting of 1 County Council decision & a crime - generally a stabbing committed by a working class or homeless young man plus endless updates on rush hour traffic & roadwork traffic controls which have failed 50 miles away from the listeners. Any space is filled with “ I’m still standing “ & “ when the going gets tough “ & an interview with a national tv celebrity.
The ethos of national BBC Local Radio in Southern England at least with its ‘diversity’ of white 40 year old clone presenters called Matt or Katie is an expensive luxury that serves very few taxpayers.
Mr. Burke is an international treasure. Absolutely brilliant and inspirational.
I cannot agree more!
He destroyed his own franchise along time ago by pandering to the environmental libtards. How many of his sweeping predictions came true? Zero
The problem is loss on concesus.
anyone know what year this lecture was given? 2020?
2003. @@silentperson233
"Persuasion is a lot harder when the audience is well informed."
James Burke: Time Lord.
I was about to ask if he has a time machine ! 😁👍
I can listen to Burke 24/7. Never a boring moment. A real treasure. A true Brit sophisticate.
This guy is bloody brilliant. I think of Sagan, Asimov and Clarke watching him; the flawless delivery of an enlightened mind. So rare and so precious, this shit should be required viewing...
Ooh, yeah, Stephen J Gould, too...
And Daniel Boorstein.
His programs have ALWAYS been amazing. All three series of Connections are good, but I especially like the two-part "After the Warming" on climate change. Even now, about 30-35 years later, it's one of the best intros to global climate systems. It's set in 2050, looking back at what happened to Earth's systems. Part one reviews how climate affected what humans did up until the industrial revolution, then part two reviews how what humans since the industrial revolution did to the climate.
Sagen was a fraud
OMG 😱!! I just found James Burke again! 🤗👏👏👏👏
I attended this lecture! So cool to hear it again, 18 years later and see how things have progressed. Major James Burke fan!!
so glad for this comment... he was joking about President Bush... he was talking about President George Bush the First, not George Bush II. We only got to laugh at George Bush II much later. Prescient or what?
Glad to know when this was produced. I was wondering what was causing the dolts to chuckle at every thought.
What year was this lecture?
@@Valhalla.Studio 2002 .... ish.
@@Valhalla.Studio October 5th, 2001
I grew up watching Tomorrow's World, and this chap. Absolute legend. Fields ploughed, etc. 10 / 10.
We should have a building, school, plaza or planet or sun named after him. Pure genius. He talked about the end of the intermediaries to solve issues in 2001. And now in 2022 that is completely true.
As a amateur historian, James Burke changed my way of research! He opened many doors, to be sure!!
The greatest communicator of how applied science leads to our modern world. With Carl Sagan and David Attenborough the people who have most influenced my interests and career,
You can add Jacob Bronowski to that list
@@petercasey6938 yes, yes, yes !
@@petercasey6938 who is that? Some polish bloke?
And Richard Dawkins!
Oh yes, just so. This man is bloody brilliant.
I’ve been watching James since the early’ 70’s.A wonderful inspiring,incite full educator. He predicts all the internet issues correctly. Even ticking off the person sneezing!
I have been admirer of James Burke since his TV series , The Day the Universe Changed, which I watched almost all of them. I still have TAPES of some of them....
What a brilliant man with a pleasant way of stringing sentences like a fine jeweler creating a masterpiece befitting royalty. He does it for the masses.....
Thanks for posting this video....
Agreed, though for me it was Connections & The Neuron Suite. The man could make bubblegum card collecting seem like the most fascinating subject ever.
A one of kind individual
I just learned of James Burke from a recommended video by CZcams. What an intelligent man and I’m so thankful that he created all of the series that he has. I’ve got hundreds of hours of his work to watch now. Thanks for the upload.
Myself included....So easy to listen to..funny and so smart
This was 20 years ago and I can't believe how prescient it was, predicting things I can see coming down the pipeline even from today. Amazing.
40, not 20,.
@@colinmalcolm2422
Nor 40 years for the talk. A bit less than 20.
2003 @@colinmalcolm2422
Some 22 years later, Burke's comments give context to and explain so much of what's going on today.
Burke is so polished, compelling story telling interspersed with crowd pleasing comic timing, with that reassured voice of authority. Like his audience, I’m held in the spell of his narrative. Only after the end do you wonder on the other multiple stories of intersecting technological innovations that led from flint to Facebook.
Facebook doesn't depend on technological innovation. It depends on common and crude prurience. After all, its original use was to rank how ''hot'' college students were.
1:02:23 -- THIS on the other hand, absolutely happened. Online echo chambers, computers who know exactly what to sell you. "Will it be a world of home videos and illiterate scribblings?" Yes Mr. Burke, I'm afraid it is, but happily your lecture will also be here amongst the cat videos -- Chautauqua will coexist with Vaudeville, as it ever has.
James Burke is such a great science historian, philosopher, intellectual and if these don't work out for him, a stand up comedian
The incredible amount of information in this 90 minute lecture/question session---it's like the full 12 course first class meal on the Titanic. Compared to 95% of the other "informational" videos on CZcams. Which are more like a McDonalds hamburger.
His career is summed up as this . . . .'Just plain old good work'. Thanks from Philadelphia.
Such a pleasure to let that perfect English just wash over you and soak it all in! Wonderful
For reference, this lecture took place October 5th, 2001 in Oregon. Less than a month after the September 11th terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center.
This talk was in Portland sometime in early 2000. He must like Portland I saw him there in the 1980's. One of my sons met him in an elevator a few years ago and he was delighted that he was remembered for his "Confections" and talks. If our schools taught History and Geography and social science using his videos and talks I know the subjects would be favorites instead of hated.
Oregon, right?
When I saw for first time Connections with the Trigger Effect it was a glorious night that introduced me to be more aware of the effects of Engineering and Society. The Trigger Effect still makes me resonate with curiosity about the ever changing world. James Burke is a social scientific genius. He opened the path for others after to create intelligent and entertaining scientific and engineering TV shows. Cosmos 1980 with Carl Sagan, Cosmos 2020 with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Congratulations 🎉
It’s very clever, like 6° of separation somebody knows somebody who knows somebody and that somebody get stuff done!
At the one hour point of the lecture, Burke rattles me with the questions that haunt me from my own reductionist box (as it were). What will happen...as he is speaking circa 2000...when we all star in our virtual reality paradises? When we all read and listen to only that which we want to see and hear? What happens to our culture when we all mix and mingle "distant learning" style? I realize these are somewhat common questions we grapple with, but Burke has carried us along in this lecture to this very point and left us both excited for and afraid of the future...and in some ways his lecture's future is now.
You are inventing fictional problems. If humans like digital isolation, then such advances enabling digital isolation will be terrific, for those folks. If people do not like being more & more digital, then provided governments do not force us to be isolated individual islands we will not ever need or organize ourselves to be isolated and digital. There will always be isolationist libertarians, but many more collectivist socially minded folks, and there need be no competition for cultural supremacy between us, civilization has shown a capacity to tolerate diversity.
If virtual reality really is a paradise, then getting VR will be heaven for those who want it. But if you ignore the social dimension you will not have it for long, some other poor sod has to still run the factories to make the computer chips and whathaveyou, to run your VR servers, at least until all _that_ can also be machine automated. When all the drudgery is automatized then it will still be a society. You cannot easily breed out the desire of most for human contact. All you do is free up people to do much more creative things. There is no downside to that. If you can breed out us all the desire for human contact, then fine, no need for human contact, but then you are so far ahead in the future you are in fantasy land.
Read ' Ferinheit 451 ' by Roddenberry to get a clue.
Read 'Alone Together'. Yes, we are all very much "digitally typical". Not a choice anymore.
@@Bacpakin Fahrenheit 451 by *Ray Bradbury
Just as his original "Connections" series asked the question "what will happen when being in debt, all the time, is the normal way to live?"
In the 70's, when that aired, the concept of students graduating with $100k or more in debt, or of insured people going bankrupt from medical debt in a country that considers itself the global leader in everything, was beyond comprehension. Yet, here we are.
From 1993? James now 84..great presenter.Connections was inspirational.
Excellent and thought provoking as usual for Mr Burke
What can one say about James Burke? Two phrases: (1) Unbelievably brilliant; and (2) Next time you (or I) think that we're smart, bright, intelligent etc. let's BE HUMBLE and add, "of course, I am not________ in comparison to James Burke. Almost nobody is." This was truly brain achingly MAGNIFICENT! Thanks again & again.
The wise man listens, while the fool chatters.
"People are what they are because of what they don't know." James Burke
Oh man, I’m hanging on to that one.
1:03:30 Spot on!!!! Predicted in 2001 exactly what's happening on the internet now. Amazing.
Damn
When you see and understand the history of connections, future predictions can be far more accurate.
"I am Criswell, I know all." (Psst, no he didn't.)
Kudos to the BBC for hiring these guys and then allow them to go out there and inform us brilliantly for decades👍🏼
Well done 🏆!
James Burke has a brilliant mind. Most of this is still relevant today (as are his various series' of "Connections"). He is an absolute legend and injects quite a bit of humour into the proceedings. He is up there with the late great Carl Sagan.
James Burke made something completely incomprehensible comprehensible. Truly brilliant TV presenter and serie(s)
Although he couldn't make the Tories comprehensible or pleasant...
Thrilling, as usual, thank you, Dr Burke. My concern: a possible lack of a desire for excellence. Some words of de Tocqueville about democracy ring frequently in my mind, and can be more broadly applied; to paraphrase, 'it will work only if the participant is well informed.'
Amazing...as we always expect from James Burke!
What a privilege to listen to this man. I recall watching much of his tv work as a child and young adult and was enthralled . Nigh on 20 years ago he predicted so much. I have had no TV for two years and have spent my time learning QED to Jung's synchronisty to Dr Peterson's psychology and so much more. Brilliant visionary man, how many more will his foresight reveal to us!
Such a delight, fun to relive his perspective.
James Burke I remember his programmes from the 70s. A time when folks expressed themselves fully, without self imposed stupidity, and insincere rules. James is a living example of excellence of those times. One thing he has wrong is folks ARE dumbed down
Always a pleasure to hear James Burke explain how we got to where we are today.
Loved watching this again. Never ages!
Не потеряло актуальность даже сейчас!! Отличный спикер!! Благодарю за это видео!! =))
I was a fan of connections even before I lived In England! Oh yes the BBC is indeed a meer shadow of itself! The news is the prime example!
How can this only have 166k views? James Burke is an absolute treasure.
Because change has happened to attention span and nobody has the time to watch a video over an hour.
👍😊
The inimitable James Burke at his best.
Most enjoyable.
.
I admire James. There aren't many people like him around anymore.
There was never many like him.
I love how the toilet paper remains front and center for the whole thing.
What a stunningly perceptive lecture. And as for the after dinner questions...... the answer to that last one was truthful and, above all, correct and I wonder how many people believe it.
Burke wouldn't get a look in on the BBC these days- he ticks no boxes, is well educated , highly knowledgeable and thought provoking, none of which sit well with the Beeb's current obsessive drive towards dumbed down 'inclusivity' and woke 'journalism'
He worked for them last year.
What the reply below said, plus: you mean the BBC that has a mandate in place, most recently applied in a warning to Nish Kumar, to repress left speech by invoking "balance"? To which Kumar said something like, "Boris is smart and diseases are good. Happy?" Look, I'm a big fan of Burke within his limits. And it serves no one including him to place him at one end of a hyped up culture war, a war that is always so much less what the powerful have on their minds than the class war. Burke became a sort of postmodernist, a gentler, more humanist version than those i ran into in sociology. He is neither narrow nor a points scorer. I suggest following his example.
That's why we have to make him a part of an interdisciplinary approach to education. If you're an educator, introduce him or his books in your plans or courses.
It's a way of learning. Not so much the content, but a different way of thinking.
In the way he explained the way Bartolli , Copernicus and Galileo sheshow gravity would have made my understanding of algebra much better especially if they included Kepler!
@@Tsar_NicholasIII Nick: You can convince those on the right with stuff like truth. Their first principle is that their feelings matter more than any pesky facts.
He really nailed it. Great lecture.
Intellectual caviar. Or intellectual smoked salmon. both wonderful. Thank you James Burke.
All his programs are here archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke
That was amazing. I loved the after dinner questions.
Been watching this guys documentaries since the 80's. He makes things so clear and easy to understand that even the phylum Cnidaria among us could understand him.
He is the absolute best ever . Brings back great memories. There was a lot of programs he presented , brilliant
Superb and so prescient .
I love James Burke. He's an inspiration who I rely on when I lose faith in human beings. I would love to share a few pints with him.
James Burke would say that you're a Low IQ knob for having faith in humanity.
The problem with "internet knowledge" is that there is no quality control. Any piece of garbage can be presented as well-wrought fact, and, good research can be demonized into obscurity (if even being allowed to be seen..... there are, after all, community standards..
This is where Critical Thinking Skills come in handy. Of course, I fully realize that probably 19 out of 20 internet users do not possess these skills. (ΘεΘ;)
@Jeffery Amherst : I would suggest that it's showing up in this very video.
All forms of communication have exactly the same problem. One half of the solution is therefore exactly the same: Call it critical thinking, skepticism, bullshit detection or whatever.
The other half doesn't quite exist yet: The automation of critical thinking, fact checking, intellectual caution etc. That would be _real_ artificial intelligence.
Quality control is where you come in - you measure everything in relation to your own prejudices. Facebooks and googles attempt to qualify what they will allow on their platforms will end in their biasses as a filter of truth where your experiences tells you something else and so on and so on.
@@StefanTravis: Artificial wisdom perhaps? :)
A guy once said to me, “well, things are looking up.” I look at him in shock and replied, “why!What’s falling on them?!”
Great lecture. Would've been nice if the poster told us when and where it took place.
James Burke 20011005 Is the Internet Redefining Knowledge
James Burke has always been amazing. All three series of Connections are good, but I especially like the two-part "After the Warming" on climate change. Even now, about 30-35 years later, it's one of the best intros to global climate systems. It's set in 2050, looking back at what happened to Earth's systems. Part one reviews how climate affected what humans did up until the industrial revolution, then part two reviews how what humans since the industrial revolution did to the climate.
I always loved his Connections series, and his witty sense of humor. Still timeless. Unfortunately, today's internet/smartphone dummies probably won't understand Burke...
I wish these lecture videos gave us the dates when they were recorded. It's difficult to put a person's thoughts in context if you don't know what year they spoke them.
it a month after 9/11 I found it their website
October 5th, 2001
Loved his show “Connections” !
This smart man was a presenter on the TV programme Tomorrows World in the 1970s. He’s come so far today, a great speaker and raconteur and historian.
When did he do this lecture? It would have been nice if that were part of the description.
5th Oct 2001
Right. We asked too. Looks like this was broadcast October 5, 2001 on PBS/BBC. Someone mentioned the location was Oregon - thanks. Can someone explain why where and when does NOT MATTER?
Simply great
03:21 - In the real world, the right thing never happens in the right place at the right time. It is the task of journalists & historians to rectify this error. -- Mark Twain
"Many internet quotes are fallacious" - Abraham Lincoln. Twain/Clemens NEVER said that.
@@stevealexander8010- James Burke was just joking. Of course Mark Twain never said that.
James Burke has three brains in his head.
Burke was hoarding toilet paper twenty years ago! He really could see the future...
Most excellent.
Interesting how he is referring to subjects he covered in his Connections series. And having seen those programs, makes the understanding of this lecture easier.
James Burke and David Attenborough enthralled me as a boy.❤
Brilliant Man
I so longed for James Burke's take on the Coming Wave. Connections, indeed.
Schools should teach history as James burke dose. You can't separate history and science.
Burke’s speech at 33:00 is prescient of Large Language Models like ChatGPT
"Knowledge" is just getting more specific, gargantuan and ponderous. As we are inundated with factoids, opinion and speculation, the task of carrying and managing all of this flood pushes us towards allowing bots and such like to shore up the dam of our conscious awareness. "Knowing" on the other hand, is as ephemeral and as intrinsic as it ever was. Genius is created through the application of endeavour. Knowing how to do something is vastly more useful and infinitely less taxing than the knowledge of its existence and effect. This is why how we learn is much more important than what we learn. Efficiency is energy's enigmatic eulogy.
The only constant in the universe is change.
This lecture was delivered October 5, 2001.
Superb!
Was listening to his BBC programmes Tomorrow’s world. His memory programmes were excellent
The punchline around 1:06:00 "Kick with lunar boot" is (seriously) a classic Aussie repair technique.
I remember watching this episode long ago and wondered how old it was since Burke showcased rotary dial telephones as modern technology.
Amazing
Connections is both smart and silly. So many of the connections are partial or skewed... but it informed my youth and helped me to think in a similar method of pattern and connections
It's difficult to cram that much information into 56 minutes, but he does it nicely.
the Columbo of reality. AWESOME. ❤
There is a gracious niceness, and optimistic push the whole way through this as he appears to manage to demystify in simple terms how we got here, and where it all may, in it's widest likeliest sense, amongst all the often terrifying variables.
And really refreshing that cultural diversity may be enhanced and supported better.
Any information as to when this talk was?
October 5th, 2001
Logic connection is everywhere . And he can prove it.
Beautiful.
I would like to hear an update to the "information overload" question to see if he changed his mind.
His documentaries have set me on an irreversible path of never thinking in a straight line when it comes to considering something. It hurts the brain, but when taken in the shape of a story, surprisingly entertaining.
LOVE James Burke, he one of my heros. one thing, the "high rates of innovation today" are nothing more than subtle changes example: Sonet and Eithernet, combustion engine vs electric, how many pixels you can fit is just and expansion of an existing science. our rate of expansion has be more like refinement - not expansion. example analog data transfer, now is fiber optic, it works on the same principal, one was sound frequencies (analog) the other is light frequencies (fiber optic) - the principal is the same.
I wanted to hear the end of his last answer... and everything else he says too. I saw him once in a London street. I was in awe, I could say nothing. Now I'm a teacher and podcaster - and Green politician ( in waiting ) - still in awe. All he says in this video is true today.
IMO: Interesting to hear a view from 2002. Who would have thought at the time that the internet would be commercially, and cynically, driven to corrode the very idea of agreed knowledge or truth? Eg. You Tube changing from a star-based rating system to a like-unlike rating system because conflict generates clicks; generates income...for a few...at a terrible cost.
"Television is dead and doesn't know it"😮
Man nailed it
What a beautiful man. He is what I thought ALL Britishmen were like.
I love James Burke!
1:01:27 - 1:03:15 James just summed up the biggest challenge for nations of our age. Globally there are other issues but for the nation state, he called it over 20 years ago.
Hadn't all wished that they would loved to have him as a history prof in college ?