[inaudible conversations] book tv is on twitter and facebook. And we want hear from you. Military force is one of the things think the American Public very often gets impatient about because they really believe they have this trump card, this great military that can defeat anyone. But its not true. It is an extraordinary military, very powerful, but can only win in certain situations and can only real request destroy things. Cant build a new order in its place. Sunday night, journalist and professor mark danner talks about his career and the challenges facing the u. S. War on terrorism in his latest book spiral we dont want to produce more militant organizations. They want us to overreact. They want us to occupy muslim countries so they can build their recutement. They want us to torture people. The want us to do things that is going to allow them to make their case against us. Sunday night at 8 eastern on cspans q a. Next week, beginning monday, december 26th well look at National Security and defense issues, including challenges facing president elect trumps National Security team in the year ahead and the closer look at the career of secretary of defense nominee, james mattis. Then on tuesday, december 27th , its trade and job issues, examining how congress and the Trump Administration could change current trade laws in an effort to eeither creating or save johns. On wednesday, energy and environmental policy and discuss our are in and climate issues my be affected. Thursday, well talk about immigration and how president elect trump and the new Congress Might change immigration policy. And on friday, the december 30th, take a look at the future of the Affordable Care act, now and how the Republican Congress and the Trump Administration will repeal and replace the aca and the key players to watch. Joining us here on our booktv set is author, Steven Johnson. Before we get into your book, what did you were listening to what james flick lad to say. Guest one of my favorite hows. His book chaos, which i reasoned when way yes college what juan the first doppler science books i read that really start me thinking it could potentially be a science writer. I had not been interested in science. If he were talking i would say we need to listen to him. Host your most recent backe is called wonderland. What were you trying to explore in this book . Guest its a history of somethings that human beings have done for the fun of it, for the delight in it, for the feeling of play or amusement. And it came out of the book, how be we got now and the pbs series which is a history of innovation and things in the modern world we take for granted and trying to tell the 500 year or thousand year history behind these things. So what a greet format to work in. I love that kind of historical work. A lot of interesting stories and you can write that book a thousand times over because theres so many things to write about. Es i wanted for this book to have an actual argument about history, theory how change happens in society, and the argument of wonderland is that the history of things we do to are fun, actually ends up triggering much more serious and momentous changes in science and politics and start us as privilege louse change the world. Host where did the concept of this come from . Guest well, one of these books where ive been kind of researching it for 20 years. This it opens up with a chapter after the introduction about the history of fashion and shopping, and i had heard when i was in grad school, more than 20 years ago, well more than 020 years ago, id studied the 19th century metropolitan novel and so it was raiding dickens ands could theres an a story about the First Department stores, the bon marche, immense, shopping wonderland. This extraordinary thing happens where all of these well to do women, who dont need to do this for economic reasons, come into the store and they start dealing from the story. Theres this wave of klepto manian of women in praise from the bon marche and no one can figure it out. These women could pay for the got but to some reason the store environment is causing them to steal and so this provokes this huge moral panic and discussion about it, and it becomes known as the Department Store disease. And eventually the whole theory of mind develops out studying this women which is to say it appears hat newphone figuration of modern life, new commercial environments is actually messing with peoples brains, and at the beginning of the line of talking about the brain when we think but how video games affect the brain or whatever, so i had stories like that, that i have been accumulating for the last 20 years, and once i started to research i could put it together. Host Steven Johnson, you call this our endless quest for delight. Guest yes. If you think about what you learned when you were in school about the forces that drive history. Right . U you would think, okay, theres the quest for power, theres tribalism or nationalism, religious beliefs, theres survival, money. Those are the big fors that drive history, but theres this other side of being human, which is were mused by things. We like to play, like to have fun, like to be surprised and delighted by new experiences, and so that is i think its a lovely side of our history, and it turns out to be filled with all these crazy stories that are fun to read jive you read Steven Johnson in the past you know what kind of books he writes. His most recent is it called wonderland. Well put up the phone numbers so you can call in and participate. 20227488200, east and central time zone, 20274882801 for those in the mountain and pacific time seasons. Go ahead and dial in andll get to your calls very quickly. Steven johnson is a best, selling author, referenced hishe book, how we got to now, six innow vacations that made the modern world and also future perfect, the ghost map, everything bad is good for you as well. Now in wonderland you talk about how our socalled endless quest for delight has changed or led to exploration and stock markets and computers and probabilitybased insurance policies. Guest yeah. Host explain that. Guest well, actually two ways in which the modern insurance business. The first is there was a crazy vigor from 500 years ago, the italian mathematician and and c chronic gambler who had basically spent his whole life doing dice games and near the end of this Police Officer we figured out a way to understand math that include the likelihood of various games of chance outcomes issue like a game of dice. The likelihood you can rowell threesixes in a row, or a 12 versus a 7 and now one has done the math. They understand if youre reeling two device. So he wrote this back that was cheat sheet for how to win at dice and also very advanced math. Ow it became the basis for Probability Theory and that theory got refined and modified over the years and that became then the basis of a whole host of elements of mow modern world. The insurance been iowa probables cant do anything. But the other side of it that connect to the books themes is that the first modern insurance familiar, lloydss of london, took place in a coffee house. Have other wheel other chapter about coffee house culture and tavern culture and Spaces Designed for leisure and hanging out and drinking cover fee or boy so lloyds of london was called lloyds coffee house. So both dice games and coffee houses came together to form the modern insurance system. Host public spaces. Guest in a way, the tavern is the beginning of this. The world is now fueled with just countless look around you and think how many spaces are engineered specifically for you to have fun in some fashion. All around the world. From movie theaters to parks to bars and coffee houses and shopping malls. The world is filled with these things most of which didnt exist 300 years ago even. Much less a thousand years ago. And one of the first spaces to do that was the bar, the tavern. There was this space at wasnt work, wasnt home, it wasnt just nature, it was a space where you could go and its swipples my private and second september public and designed to let you pace a few hours. Bus bars and tamps have played a really momentous role in the histories of politics, in the history of at the country. Cannot tell the history of the American Revolution without taverns. Th every step of the way they were the Key Information node in the network of antienglish sent. During that period. Its possible we ooh have had an American Revolution had bars and taverns not but it would have required a dust path, different set of meeting places for it to happen. So its a big part of our history. Host what do we 2005 in the with the information you shared with it us . Guest its remainder how creative they playful state of mind is. When we are being amused, being delighted by something, it seems to lead to more and more innovation. People just get into that state and theyre like, thats fun, what if weaved this or changed this, and theres something about that state that is really powerful, and as we alluded to with the dice game story, theres a chapter about the history of games, and think about games in the context of education. This is a really interesting field. When you watch kid playing games, whether theyre video games or board games or offed educational games the concentrate the mind. I play these kind of simulation games with my kids, who play them when they were seven or eight and theyll be building an entire geopolitical empire and learn about history and taxation rate when their seven and aim not saying theyre gifted, just the nature of the game. If i tree to teach them about tax reform and industrial development, when theyre seven they would never Pay Attention but the game structure pulls you in and makes you want to learn. Host lets hear from our coolers. Wayne in san diego, youre on tv with author Steven Johnson, go ahead. Caller yes, mr. Johnson has read the [inaudible] if he has read the only transition ive been able to find, what he thinks about the irony of what the bar insists the [inaudible] so. Beginning of world war ii. You have this extraordinary thing writing this epic book about the history of play to the human species as the nazis are marching across europe. Can a tragedy in the middle of a very powerful book. With this approach the basic idea is that obviously we share that. Its a little bit more abstract and kind of philosophical if you get the chance to see wonderland its filled with specific examples of how this instinct or appetite for play came to pass in all the kind of crazy stories of people trying to amuse themselves in ever more inventive ways. The approaches of the book philosophically are very much aligned with the practice. Host lets hea but here frod in rochester new york. Caller thank you. How are you doing . I wonder if you know here in rochester we have a museum that is a history of all play items throughout history, all different kinds of and if bookte ever comes you can visit. Guest i have heard of it but i havent been. This is the thing. How do we think about the role of these objects that play, where do they go and do you think of them something just at the margin but the real history happenetheir realhistory happene battlefield or the parliament or do we recognize these objects that we made have been for thousands of years a reallyars. Important part of the march on progress in advance of civilization. Its good that we have some museums out there celebrating so everyone should go to rochester new york. Host was just a technological innovation . Guest it was a conceptual innovation that led to technological innovation because it was central to the early days of computing. If you look back the first essays written about the idea of Artificial Intelligence for all anchored in this idea could you teach a computer to to play chess. It would be possible. In a way he was a bit pessimistic about it and how they are better than humans but it took a long time and so its a great example of the power of play. All alone in the history of Artificial Intelligence, games have been the way that weve measured and trained theh checke machines. Theres no way to get the computer to play chess and then it turned out they got good. But look at the ibm supercomputer which is arguably one of the most intelligent artificial competitions out there and how did they trained watson, by having it play jeopardy and then eventually when we neede so we need to figa way to train this machine. I think that a game show would be different perfect way to do it. So the connection between gaming and Digital Technology is very rich. Host we were looking at the iphone a little bit earlier. Do you use siri . Guest i do sometimes. Someone should we make space odyssey like im sorry dave, i didnt understand what you saidd host how advanced is siri, and she is kind of a play toy and ascend. Guest we are just at the beginning. There is a chapter in the book on evolution and about how much time we spend trekking our eyes into perceiving things that are not their starting with the perspective and painting and going through these Magic Lantern shows independent cinema. One of the arguments that i needed the chapter is there isat something about just as with an optical illusion, you cant you know that it is an image that you still see the three d. Square and you cant tell your brain otherwise. Thats just the way that we are wired. Host once you get more than 12 per second and a closeup of a human being talking with audio, you feel like you know that person. You feel like theres some kind of an emotional connection. Thats why we have celebrity culture in the age of tv and movies and stuff like that and i think what we are going to experience pretty soon its a similais asimilar kind of emotil illusion where we have these Virtual Systems only they know us a little bit and can engage in real conversations and they change over time adapting to what we say. So after youve been with the system for a year they will have a unique personality and i can guarantee people will develop very intense emotional connections to these devices like the movie her. Lot eas voice is a lot easier to do than facial expressions so we may have these very complicated in the next five years maybe relationships with completely artificial characters. Host kimberly in new york youre on with Steven Johnson. Caller yes, i was calling to see perhaps if his book touches on the philosophy of realism and eli segal because based on the discussion of theou work i look forward to reading they are more so focused with art but you seem to have some similar things going on. Guest its an interesting question in the book how i was going to handle art, because there is a chapter on music, and there is a chapter on illusion which gets into cinema and animation but other than that, i try to steer away from the artar that was representational. It speaks to the higher faculties in a way. Those didnt seem playful enough. We already accept the idea thatp the narrative fiction is an important part of the cultural history so i didnt feel the need to make the case for that since others there is a mystery about music we have no idea what its good for. Think about how much music moves us and why it has no functional value at all there are these forms waiving through our earsfo and should produce these strong feelings. So that was an opening that allowed me to write about music in this book, but i didnt cover the scent of realism and things like that but maybe in another one. Host albert is in texas, go ahead. Lets move on to royal oak michigan. My question is on technology and i just want to know how can we make social media better for the next generation and making it safer for children and kids. Before we hear from Steven Johnson what would you like to see change . We would like to see the social media work faster. What kind of technology do you use . I use my cell phone. Thats an important question and ive written about this in some of the other books but even going back to the book emergence when you move to social media as you move from a system where you have a bunch of gatekeepers andd editors and folks that are controlling the flow ofho are information deciding whats true and whats not, whats appropriate and whats newsworthy and whats not and we distributed the system where the whole network is how everybody is essentially generating news and sharing ideas. I think this has worked pretty well for a while, but we have seen in the last few weeks some significant cracks beginning to appear. So i think because my concern right now is predicted with Something Like facebook, facebook is the size of an entire media. Its almost as big as the web itself and get that medium that has a huge impact over what we read and consume in our children experience, we dont really have any control over how that worksr the web is an open platform people can modify and expand and push in Different Directions and facebook is owned by a private company yet it is the size of the internet or the web in many ways so when we want to change something, for instance Something Like facebook less vulnerable to take news for instance that the topic on the tip of everybodys time we have to go and ask facebook to change it. Its not an open standard we should change that is something we have to wrestle with over the years. Host we have a president elect that flex his twitter account. Guest i have been a longtime user of twitter and i think there is an argument that without twitter he wouldnt have won. He wouldnt have been able to, i think he might not have won the republican race because it gave him this kind of mouthpiece. Host so why does he need a filter today . Guest i think in many ways he decided he doesnt. Its going to be fascinating. As you know, there are very reflected in the race apparently people took his phone away from him so he couldnt anymore. But they think theyve given it back to him. Apparently they will just keep going from the oval office. He puts it in