Hey, everyone, it's Tristan.

It's Daniel. Welcome to your undivided attention.

So, Daniel, something I think about often is how throughout history society takes a lot of time to confront the harms caused by certain industries.

I think about Upton Sinclair writing about the meatpacking industry in the early 20th century. I think about Rachel Carson talking about Silent

Spring in the 1960s and the problems of pesticides or tobacco in the 1990s. And with social media,

we're seeing it happen again. The can just keeps getting kicked down the road. And with AI moving

so fast, it feels like the normal time that it takes us to react isn't compatible with doing something

soon enough. You know, we can become aware of serious problems, but if it takes too long to

respond, meaningful action won't follow. Totally. And I think this has to do with the way that we

manage uncertainty in our society. You know, with any new thing, with any industry, it's

important that we sit with the uncertainty as we discover what's happening.

But also, uncertainty is scary. And it's really easy for us to react to that fear that we

experience sitting with uncertainty by avoiding thinking or speaking about topics when we feel

uncertain. And then, you know, as a society, I often think about when we're uncertain about

what's true or who to trust. we struggle to make collective informed decisions.

And when we watch experts battling it out in public, when we hear conflicting narratives and strong emotions, it's easy to start to doubt what we think we know.

And it's important to recognize that that's not by accident.

You know, it's because companies and individuals with a lot of money and a lot of power

want to hide growing evidence of harm, and they do so with sophisticated and well-funded

campaigns that are specifically designed to create doubt and uncertainty.

So how do we sit with this?

Our guest today historian Naomi Oreskes

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