[MUSIC PLAYING]
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
MALIK DUCARD: Give
it up for Ken.
All right.
Thanks so much, Ken.
All right.
I Am so excited to be
here with our guest today.
So my name is Malik Ducard.
And I head up the global family
and learning team for YouTube.
And it's my great
honor and pleasure
to introduce the man,
the legend, Bill Nye.
So let's--
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
--give a round of applause.
[LAUGHS] Now, we've
got around an hour.
And I could probably spend the
whole hour introducing you.
But I'll spend the
whole hour doing that.
No, I'll kick off with
a little bit of intro.
So Bill Nye has been the
public face of science
for more than 20 years.
[LAUGHTER]
In his latest book, that
we'll talk a lot about today,
"Everything All At Once--
How to Unleash Your Inner Nerd,
Tap Into Radical Curiosity,
and Solve Any Problem,"
from Rodale Books,
Nye issues a call to
arms meant to encourage
readers to really
become the change they
want to see in the world.
Whether addressing global
warming, social change,
or personal success, there
are certain strategies
that always get results--
looking at the world
with radical curiosity,
being driven by a desire
for a better future,
and being willing
to take the actions
needed to make change a reality.
Best known as the host of Emmy
award-winning PBS Discovery
Channel show, "Bill
Nye, the Science Guy"--
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
--give it up for that--
and the current host of
Netflix show "Bill Nye Saves
the World-- give
it up for that--
Bill is a science educator,
mechanical engineer, and New
York Times best-selling author.
He's also the CEO of
the Planetary Society,
that we'll talk about, and holds
a BS in mechanical engineering
from Cornell, and has
several doctorate degrees.
So let's give a warm
introduction of welcome
to Bill Nye.
[APPLAUSE]
BILL NYE: Thank you, Malik.
Thank you.
Is there any time left?
MALIK DUCARD: That's right.
That's right.
So I had the opportunity to
read your book, "Everything
All At Once," and loved it.
BILL NYE: I appreciate that.
You know, a lot of times,
you get interviewed,
and they haven't read the book.
So that's nice.
Thank you.
MALIK DUCARD: I have
read it, cover to cover.
BILL NYE: And these are your
people here, it looks like.
MALIK DUCARD: These are my
people, my kids, and wife.
BILL NYE: They're
not in school today.
[LAUGHTER]
Well, it's July, I guess.
MALIK DUCARD: So
can you tell us,
what does everything
all at once mean?
BILL NYE: So we have a great
many problems facing humankind.
We have-- oh, when I
was in grade school,
there were three billion
people in the world.
Now there are
almost 7.4 billion.
By 2050, there
certainly will be 9,
but there may be
10 billion people.
And they're all going to
want access to Google.
They're all going to
want to live the way we
live in the developed world.
So this means we've
got to provide
clean water, reliable,
renewably-produced electricity,
and access to the
internet to everybody.
And that's a big job.
So we got to do
everything all at once.
Let's go.
And so along this line,
I just tell everybody,
I'm not much for multitasking.
I think that really, as much
as I love all the young people,
I think there really
isn't any such thing.
Instead, you've got to keep
in mind everything that
has to be done as you
accomplish each task.
Does that help?
Plus, it's a catchy
title, people.
It's catchy.
I'm caught.
MALIK DUCARD: Yeah.
All right, in reading
this book, it almost
seemed like it was a manifesto.
BILL NYE: Yes.
The nerd manifesto.
MALIK DUCARD: A nerd manifesto.
BILL NYE: Yes.
MALIK DUCARD: That's right.
BILL NYE: Do it this way.
MALIK DUCARD: It's
an activist book.
Where does that come from,
and what are you acting on?
BILL NYE: There's two things.
Everybody's responsible
for his or her own actions.
This is something
my dad would say.
And then you want to leave
the world better than you
found that, if you can.
And if we don't
hustle, we're going
to leave the world a lot
worse than we found it.
And so we got to get to work.
So that's why I'm an activist.
I mean, I guess.
When it comes to things
like scientific literacy,
that seems like an obvious
thing to be in favor of,
because it enables companies
like this to change the world.
And it also enables a country
like the United States
to remain competitive
economically,
because innovation, which is
what you guys are all about.
But then, you would think
that climate change would not
be anything to argue about.
It would be something
to get to work on.
Yet, we have this
amazing contingent
or a segment of
our society that's
in denial about
climate change, because
of the success of
the climate deniers.
They've been so influential.
It's really, it's
really amazing.
So that's why I wrote this book.
Let's go.
MALIK DUCARD: That's right.
BILL NYE: When are we done?
At 1 o'clock, you guys will be--
you'll have it all
set by 1:30 or--
MALIK DUCARD: We'll
have all the answers.
BILL NYE: --a quarter to
2:00, it will be done.
MALIK DUCARD: And why do you
think that there are so many
deniers?
BILL NYE: Oh, because of
the fossil fuel industry.
I mean, that's not
rocket surgery, you guys.
The fossil fuel
industry is just really
throwing money at the problem
to influence their congressmen
representatives, not just
tactically, by sending
specious materials and stuff
to the congressional staff,
but strategically,
working statewide
or commonwealth wide, in
Kentucky, Tennessee, and so on,
to the point where
it's no trouble
at all to meet people
who go, well, I
don't know if climate
change is really happening.
Yeah, it really is.
So it's a big problem, and it's
almost unique to the United
States.
There's very few climate
deniers in other-- in the UK,
there's quite a few, I guess.
But at the recent summit of
the 20 largest economies,
the United States was isolated.
It doesn't want to participate
in the Paris agreement,
and so on.
One word for it would be silly.
But another one would
be deeply concerning.
That's two words.
But it's like that.
It's like that.
MALIK DUCARD: And what
do you think the path is?
There's the science
behind the reality,
but then there's
also the reality
of politics, the social
engineering, that
maybe needs to be factored in.
How do we get to the
place that we need to be?
BILL NYE: Well, climate
deniers, in this one case,
not so much anti-vaxxers, but
climate deniers are almost
universally old.
They're almost all older
people, over 50 years, 60,
70 years old, people who
control a lot of the money.
And when those people age
out, as the saying goes--
the other expression
for that is die--
then the young people--
if you've ever seen the map--
maybe you guys generated it.
It was Survey Monkey.
There is a map of the electoral
college of only millennials
that voted, and
it's overwhelmingly
the other way on social issues,
especially climate change.
So I think climate
change deniers, who
are affiliated with the
conservative parties,
are very much aware of that.
And so there's a big hustle to
get very conservative judges
put in place in
the Supreme Court
and to maintain this
denial as long as possible,
to get as many regulations
turned over as possible,
as quickly as possible.
But when you guys get
to be the majority
of the voting of
the electorate, this
will all have to be re-reversed.
And it'll happen.
But for people like
me, my life will
suck a little bit near
the end, but you guys,
your lives will
really suck, because--
[LAUGHTER]
once the carbon dioxide, methane
stuff are in the atmosphere,
you just don't get them out.
Carbon dioxide lasts a
couple hundred years.
Its cycle is about
five years, but it
gets replaced by another
carbon dioxide molecule.
And that's going to go on
for a couple hundred years.
The analogy is you have
a roast in the oven
or a turkey in the
over, or whatever--
I know, OK, this is
use your imagination,
vegans, just imagine.
[LAUGHTER]
After you take it
out of the oven,
the heat is still
working its way
into the middle for a long time.
And that's what's going
to happen to the earth.
So we want to get to work on
climate change as fast we can.
MALIK DUCARD: How
much time do we have?
BILL NYE: Well, everybody
argues about that,
that people will be
around indefinitely.
You can't kill humans.
They're crazy.
But you want to have the
highest quality of life
for as many people as possible.
Santa Monica beach is cool.
Why bury it?
Why put it under water?
Come on.
Let's keep it.
MALIK DUCARD: Can I read
a passage from your book?
BILL NYE: What if I said no?
What would that do?
[LAUGHTER]
MALIK DUCARD: I'd go
to the next question.
BILL NYE: Read the
whole thing, yeah.
Turn it up loud.
Come on, Malik.
Let them hear you outside.
Blow the roof off the dump.
Let's go.
Blast it.
MALIK DUCARD: So you
write, "A lot of what
I've done over the
past four decades,
including writing the book
that you're reading now,
was inspired by the need to
help people understand what it
means to be a global species.
The challenge is taking
responsibility for our actions,
assuming deliberate
control of the change.
We're all in this together.
Nerds don't give up when
there's a problem to be solved.
And so I've kept working
on my climate message,
redoubling my efforts to
try everything all at once."
BILL NYE: Yes!
MALIK DUCARD: What
have you been doing?
BILL NYE: Brilliant.
MALIK DUCARD: It is.
It is.
And thank you for that.
And what have you been
doing all at once?
This has really been your life.
BILL NYE: Well, I come here.
I wrote another book,
which takes time.
I don't know if you've tried it.
And I go to college campuses.
I speak.
I go to US Congress.
I go to the
Astronautical Congress,
which is a huge party
of rocket people.
And we talk about climate
change and Bill's big three--
clean water, renewable
electricity, and access
to the internet.
And for example, at the
Astronautical Congress,
to provide access to the
internet in the developing
world will almost
certainly involve
what we call space assets, what
other people call satellites.
And they're going to have
to be in low-earth orbit,
a constellation of a
few hundred of them.
And they'll hand off the
internet service from one
to the other, the way we do
with mobile phone calls--
and this all seems to
be doable, but doing it
at reasonable cost, and
who's going to pay for it,
and who benefits,
and so on and so on?
So these are issues
that we can solve,
that you guys especially, with
the efficiency of the internet,
are going to be a huge part of.
And I appreciate it, man, woman.
MALIK DUCARD: So let's switch
gears a little bit to--
BILL NYE: Switch gears, an
older reference, for you
electric vehicle operators.
[LAUGHTER]
MALIK DUCARD: That's
right, that's right.
BILL NYE: I know many of
you may have bicycles.
And they're not
Fixies, not singles.
These are gear shift,
17-speed, 21-speed, yeah.
MALIK DUCARD: You talk a
lot about the nerd mindset
and really--
BILL NYE: I know
nothing about it.
MALIK DUCARD:
--and embracing it.
BILL NYE: Yes, it's
not a Fixie, no.
It's a 17-speed, 21-speed.
Yeah, sorry.
I'm sorry.
MALIK DUCARD: So what
is the nerd mindset?
How do you describe it?
BILL NYE: So everybody's
passionate about something,
right?
You guys at Google, especially,
there's a some thing.
You're in the business, right?
There's some thing
that you think is cool
and you're passionate about.
We want to get everybody
to harness that passion,
to accomplish great things,
to save the world for humans.
You know, I remind everybody--
the earth is going to be here,
no matter what we do.
I want to save it
for me, the human.
We're in the sixth extinction.
This is all very serious biz.
We are now not just the
ancient dinosaurs who
were killed by the asteroid.
We are also the asteroid.
We're on both ends
of this thing.
So we can change.
We have free will.
Or nominally, we have free will.
Certainly, we have
the ability to reason.
So I want everybody to
harness their nerdiness
and make the world better.
And my claim, for
your evaluation,
is that the people who wrote
the US Constitution were nerds.
They thought it was cool.
We're going to have a
brand new government
without a king or a queen.
What?
Yeah, it's going to be cool.
And it'll be like
Athens, only on
a whole continent-size scale.
And yes, to be sure, there
were some issues, some issues
with people of your ancestry.
MALIK DUCARD:
Yeah, that's right.
BILL NYE: But they were doing
the best they could at the--
I think, at the time,
doing the best they could.
But they were nerds.
They looked at this, at
running a government,
with an analytic or a
critical thinking perspective.
You know, Article 1,
Section 8, US Constitution,
refers to the progress of
science and useful arts.
That's us, people.
Useful arts, I think
in 18th century speak,
was engineering--
making buildings
and sewer systems,
and stuff like that,
the useful arts.
[LAUGHTER]
No, they are.
You guys, people have said--
Malik, and we'll
get back to work--
but people have
said, hey, Bill Nye,
what's the most
important invention ever?
And you can tell they want me to
say the Google phone, you know,
or something.
[LAUGHTER]
But to me, the most important
invention humans came up
is a sewer, absolutely.
You could not have any city like
this without a sewer system.
And you've got to be thoughtful.
I mean, you've got to
plan on a city-size scale.
So viva la sewer.
MALIK DUCARD: Now, you
talk about the nerd mindset
and how it should really
be applied to big problems.
And you make a distinction
between the big problems
and the trivial problems.
Can you talk--
BILL NYE: What's
a trivial problem?
Like your shoe laces?
See, he has to double
knot his shoes.
And so does she and
the guy next to her.
Not me.
The same knot that stays here
all day doesn't come untied.
You have to double knot,
because they come untied, right?
MALIK DUCARD: They do.
They have.
BILL NYE: The word
that breaks my heart,
the phrase breaks my
heart, does not do enough.
I think it just crushes me.
So every day, I look out
and see the mistied shoes.
[LAUGHTER]
And I realize my life's
kind of been a waste.
It's kind of a failure.
So here's the thing, you guys.
[LAUGHTER]
MALIK DUCARD: Let's get
a close-up if we can.
BILL NYE: Well,
it's just that these
are shoelaces, or bow tie-ins.
Everybody is familiar with this
expression, an overhead knot,
one wrap around
the other string.
If I were to do this--
oh, it's hard to do,
it's so troubling--
where your knot goes up and
down your shoe like this,
as yours does when
you start, right?
The loads on this
knot are uneven.
They're unsymmetrical.
So this knot comes
untied readily.
Yes, it's heartbreaking.
Yes, it sucks.
But what you want is for the
knot to be square, symmetrical.
Now, notice if I pull these--
the way, Bill, dude--
if you pull them
this way, you end up
with a square not, a beautiful,
symmetrical square knot.
For any sailors here, this
is also called a reef knot,
for reefing the sails, for
making the sail smaller
in strong wind.
[LAUGHTER]
No, it's a real thing.
Reefing a sail is a real thing.
MALIK DUCARD: We
do have a close-up.
BILL NYE: Oh, I see, yeah, yeah.
So this is what you want in
your bow, is a square bow.
So you're saying,
that's trivial,
all the shoes walking
around the earth mistied?
Hah, hah-- just
thinking about it.
I'm OK.
Yes, lead on, Malik, yes.
MALIK DUCARD: By the way,
I think you just created
the, what will be the, number
one how-to video on YouTube,
since this will be--
BILL NYE: It's the
same knot here.
MALIK DUCARD: --on YouTube.
BILL NYE: OK, this is the same.
[LAUGHTER]
MALIK DUCARD: Let's
please get a close-up.
[LAUGHTER]
BILL NYE: We'll wait
till you're up and close.
They're probably not listening.
MALIK DUCARD: That's fine.
There we go.
We got it.
We got it now.
BILL NYE: Anyway, so it's
an overhand knot, right?
That's an overhand
knot, overhand knot,
or whatever you want to call
it, one string around the other.
Then you got to make
a loop on your shoe.
Can we?
We can't do this too fast.
On your shoe, you make a loop.
Now, whether you do it this
way or make bunny ears,
it works the same.
But you go around the
loop with the other one.
And then you've got
to poke that through
to create the other
half of the bow.
This is not controversial.
[LAUGHTER]
So here-- don't
worry about that--
here, you've got to
make a loop, same idea.
And then by tradition, the
way I was brought up you
have this one go over the top.
That way, gravity helps, yes.
Well, what if you're
in zero gravity?
I seldom.
[LAUGHTER]
I mean, we can always hope.
So the key to it, you guys,
you have to preserve a place,
so when this is wrapped
around your finger,
there's still space there.
And then you push this
through, like as we do.
And so then you have
to-- with any knot,
you have to dress the knot.
You have to snug it tight.
It's not magic.
It's not rocket surgery.
You just have to
tighten it evenly.
And then you have a bow.
And I'll just with
[APPLAUSE]
everybody.
Thank you.
Bill Nye tied it,
tie his own shoe.
So then, when you
have a bow tie--
I don't see a lot of
ties here at Google--
but when you lean over, it
doesn't slip into the soup.
It does not flip-flop
into your flask.
And so this is why
you wear a bow tie.
I mean, you watch the
Oscars or whatever,
and the guys are all in tuxedos.
They wear bow ties.
Once in a while,
a guy will show up
with a single button,
because he's so cool,
or a black tie on a black
shirt with a black--
OK, whatever.
But when you're
dressed up, you wear
a black tie on a white shirt.
You don't wear a blue shirt when
you're dressed up in a tuxedo.
And everybody-- this is
just, when you're dressed up,
you wear a bow tie, people.
That's alls I'm saying.
OK, now, "bt-dubs," as the
kids say, just this morning,
"Bill Nye Saves the World"
was nominated for two Emmys.
That's cool.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
Don't come running to me.
Although I am one
of the writers,
you're only allowed to
put five names on it.
So we have five names of
some of the other writers--
Prashanth, Venkat,
Cece Pleasants,
Mike Drucker, Sanden Totten.
And did I mention Cece?
I did.
And I mentioned Mike.
I'm fine.
Michael Naidus is not--
nor am I. We're not on it.
So it's going to be--
I mean, you don't
win the first time,
but it's always
cool to be there.
And I'll wear a tux.
And I also wear slacks.
I wear pants.
MALIK DUCARD: It's a great show.
BILL NYE: Everybody
there wears pants.
All the guys wear pants.
The ladies don't, though.
MALIK DUCARD: So we'd
love to talk about--
BILL NYE: Am I going too fast?
MALIK DUCARD: No,
this is excellent.
Bu we'd love to talk
about when you grew up.
Growing up, you tell
so many great stories
about wearing a bow tie and your
parents, your dad, your mom.
BILL NYE: My dad showed me how
to tie a bow tie around my leg,
tie it.
This is about the same
diameter as your neck.
So you can practice
around your leg
during one of your
Netflix weekends.
MALIK DUCARD: And your
mom was an innovator.
She, out of college, I think
it was, went into the military
to crack codes.
BILL NYE: Yeah, well,
she was recruited.
MALIK DUCARD: She was recruited?
BILL NYE: So my dad was a couple
of years older than my mother.
It was very traditional.
And he wanted to build
up the nest egg for them.
And her father would not let
them get married until she
was graduated from college.
I mean, this is in--
my dad went to Johns
Hopkins, in Baltimore,
and my mom went to
Goucher College,
which used to be the sister
school to Hopkins, women only.
But now, they let boys in.
My mom would say, you
know, it's gone to hell.
But--
[LAUGHTER]
--it was all women.
And my dad went--
before the US Navy had the
CBs, before that existed,
they hired contractors,
construction firms,
to do heavy lifting.
So my dad got a job with
a construction company
on Wake Island.
And if you've ever heard
of it, you go to Hawaii,
and then you go that far again,
another 5,000 nautical miles,
out in the middle
of nowhere, there's
an atoll that's
tactically important.
You can refuel a ship there.
And that's where they used
to refuel the flying boats,
the Boeing clipper airplane.
And anyway, they were bombed on
December 8th, 1941, which was
December 7th in Pearl Harbor.
It's the same day because of
the International Date Line.
Wake is beyond on the
International Date Line
when flying east to west.
And so he was a prisoner
of war for four years.
If you get a chance to be
a prisoner of war, don't.
[LAUGHTER]
It just sucked.
But my mom was graduated
in 1942, that spring.
Her boyfriend had disappeared.
They were bombed.
The radio was destroyed.
They had no communication.
They didn't have Facebook
or YouTube or Twitter.
I know, yeah, what
did they do all day?
I don't know.
They did something, yeah.
Excuse me.
And so the head of
Goucher College,
the dean of students at
Goucher, was Dorothy Stimson,
who was the first cousin
of Henry Stimson, who
was the Secretary of War.
And this is back in
the day, everybody.
He apparently said
to her, do you
have any ladies that can
come work on this thing?
I can't tell you what it is.
So my mom worked
on the Enigma code,
which is this notorious
thing in World War II.
And my whole life,
people would ask her,
what did you do during the war?
I can't talk about it, ha ha.
I can't talk about it.
And they had a big party.
They were declassified in 1992.
MALIK DUCARD: Wow, wow, wow.
BILL NYE: 50 freaking years
after they were recruited,
and they still wouldn't-- my
nephew tried to do a report.
And they still
wouldn't, none of them.
There were seven ladies
there at that point.
They would not talk about it.
It was a thang.
It was a thang.
MALIK DUCARD: Wow,
wow, wow, wow.
And then, an incredible
groundbreaker, your mom,
can talk about her influence
on you and science?
BILL NYE: Oh yes.
So my mom-- you know
this expression,
teach a man to fish.
My mom was big on
teach a woman--
give a woman a fish,
she'll eat today.
Teach a woman to fish, she'll
eat the rest of her life.
I can sew.
I can cook.
I can do the dishes.
I can vacuum.
I have some competency,
because she made
us learn to do those things.
I still have two
sewing machines.
But one of them's
really good for zig-zag.
I don't have to tell you.
[LAUGHTER]
But my ladies, my mom marched
in the Equal Rights Amendment
parade in 1973.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you, yes.
I didn't do it.
But no, she did it.
And she tells on
me, and she said
she threw her bra in the fire.
I don't know if she
really did, but that's
what she said she did.
I was not in a position
to verify that.
[LAUGHTER]
And this is before
the women's march.
This is 1973.
And the legacy of those
days is with us now.
I mean, look, half the employees
at Google here are women.
In my parents' time,
that was not the case.
There were very, very,
very few women engineers,
no women computer coders
back then, very, very few.
So she was part
of that vanguard.
And I get it.
I mean, I say all the time, half
the humans are women and girls,
so let's have half the engineers
and scientists be women.
What?
What?
You're twice as
many brains, right?
[APPLAUSE]
So it will better brains.
Women are better at everything.
OK, all right, OK.
I'm playing the hand
I was dealt here.
I'm a guy.
All right.
MALIK DUCARD: I mean, we
still have more work to do.
You know, we're--
BILL NYE: Yeah, I guess.
MALIK DUCARD: We're not at half.
BILL NYE: Yeah, Yeah.
MALIK DUCARD: How
do we encourage
more diversity, more women and
girls, to get into to science?
BILL NYE: Well,
diversity, I mean,
Malik, I'm checking you out.
I think you've probably
been through some things
that I can't even imagine
on account of your ancestry,
right?
Nobody just pulls me over
driving while dorky white guy.
[LAUGHTER]
So anyway, it's a
process, everybody.
We just got to stick with it.
You can have high expectations,
but I encourage everybody
not to let your fury get in
the way of getting things done.
We're all ticked off
about something--
not me, of course.
I'm totally smooth.
So it's a long journey.
But I guess you support
people based on merit,
rather than ancestry or gender.
MALIK DUCARD: That's right.
BILL NYE: Well, thanks, Bill.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Thanks obvious-- "ob-v."
as the kids say, "ob-v."
MALIK DUCARD: So Bill Nye, the
Science Guy, and then there's
Bill Nye, the comedy guy,
BILL NYE: Yes.
MALIK DUCARD: They're
one and the same.
BILL NYE: Sure.
It's not only am I funny.
I'm what, Malik?
That's right, funny-looking.
MALIK DUCARD: Funny-looking,
BILL NYE: Yes.
MALIK DUCARD: There we go.
And I thought it was so
interesting, the comedy.
So can you tell us about your
experience in stand-up comedy?
BILL NYE: So what
happened was a guy I
would have been a freshman
roommate with in college--
I went into mechanical
engineering.
He went into material
science, Dave Laks.
But we still stayed in touch.
We just would go to
school in buildings
next to each other
in the engineering
quadrangle at Cornell.
And one afternoon, he
comes hurrying to my house.
We lived near each other
in Ithaca, New York,
in this area called
College Town.
And he came hurrying--
you got to see this.
You won't believe it.
You got to come see this.
So he had this crazy,
new thing in 1977.
He had cable television.
Whoa, dude.
And so they had on there,
was running in the rotation,
was Steve Martin at
the Boarding House,
which was a nightclub
in San Francisco.
It's still there.
The Boarding House
is still a revered--
it's like Whisky A Go-Go
kind of thing, been there
for years and years.
And so it was Steve Martin.
And I went and looked at it.
And the guy, Dave, said, look,
this guy is just like you.
Look at this.
He's just like you.
His sensibility
is just like you.
MALIK DUCARD: Can
we show slide two?
BILL NYE: Slide two.
[LAUGHTER]
They're distinguishable,
but not by much.
So then the year later,
Warner Brothers Records
sponsored a Steve Martin
lookalike contest.
And by then, I'd been
recruited by Boeing.
I was living in Seattle,
working in Everett, Washington,
for you zip code buffs.
Everett, Washington, right
on, the world's largest volume
building, where they
built, at that time, 747.
Now they build 777, 787.
And so I entered
that, and I won.
I mean, I won.
It was, I claim, as I told
Steve when I met him once--
I have met him--
I strongly believed
that I got what
he was driving at in a way that
the other contestants didn't,
this absurdist
view of the world.
I did not win the national one.
That guy was from Nashville.
He could play the banjo,
for crying out loud.
Steve Martin, if you
know, he's well-known.
He's won Grammys for
his banjo playing.
But he also kind
of looked like him,
which was a step I
didn't really take.
So well, anyway,
after you get laughs,
you know it's very inspiring.
It's addicting.
You want to get
laughs all the time.
So I started doing
stand-up comedy.
And then I met some
people, some guys,
who were being groomed or
recruited by the Seattle NBC's
affiliate station, KING.
Seattle's in King
County, Washington.
And by the way, it's
been retroactively
named King County on account
of Martin Luther King, who
was not around in the 1850s.
But it's charming.
Anyway, they wanted
to have a comedy show.
And so they asked me to
be in a couple of bits.
And it was funny,
or funny enough.
And then I eventually
quit my job
after awhile, October
3rd, 1986, roughly.
[LAUGHTER]
At that time, you guys, computer
aided design and computer
aided manufacturer, computer
machining, were just coming on.
It was like this new thing.
Do you guys, you compete with
CATIA, or do you own them?
Yeah, you probably own them.
Anyway, it was new technology.
And I felt that if I dropped
out of engineering, even
for six months, I wouldn't
be able to rejoin,
to get back in it.
Seattle was not Silicon
Valley, but sort of.
And I worked at Boeing and then
the company called Sunstrand,
what makes all the black
boxes for airplanes
and which is now Honeywell.
They got bought out.
But I took a chance.
And it worked out.
I kept making a living.
And then eventually-- so
I would work part time.
I was one of the last
guys, as far as I know,
one of the last guys to
work on a drawing board,
with the ch-ch-ch, with
the lead holders-- oh,
we don't call them
pencils, oh no--
and an electric eraser and
a little racing shield.
And they lay out
these big things,
like this, big sheets of paper,
to make these tiny instruments
sort of things.
Sorry.
No, you'd lay it out 10
to 1, sometimes 100 to 1,
to make things that
are as big as a watch.
You know how the accelerometer
in a competitive product
can tell you which way
the phone's oriented?
It was the early days of
that stuff, lithography,
on a very small scale.
So anyway, it took a long time.
I quit my job in
'86, and I started
doing the Science Guy Show
in-- we did a pilot in 1992.
So it was six years of
dinking around, trying to--
we did the landmark
and important video,
"Fabulous Wetlands," about
how great wetlands are.
And that was sort of served as
a template for the show with Jim
McKenna and Aaron Gottlieb
and these other producers
I fell in with.
Did that answer your question.
MALIK DUCARD: Yeah, it did.
BILL NYE: Or did you want to
take up the whole hour with me
talking about these details?
This is one of your people.
The guy's like six feet tall.
How tall is that guy?
MALIK DUCARD: Not yet,
but getting there.
BILL NYE: He's got to
be like 5'10", isn't he?
MALIK DUCARD: Pretty soon--
BILL NYE: Look out, Dad.
Look out.
MALIK DUCARD: So
you're probably one
of the only people who has
gotten advice from both Jerry
Seinfeld and Carl Sagan.
BILL NYE: Yes, of course.
I roll with both.
MALIK DUCARD: You roll
in interesting circles.
What was the advice that
you got from Jerry Seinfeld?
BILL NYE: Oh, so, you
guys, on his way up,
Jerry Seinfeld would come
through Seattle on the circuit.
He'd go Portland, Oregon,
Seattle, Vancouver, British
Columbia, San Francisco,
New York, Chicago.
Comedians, comediennes
still do it.
Anyway, when he
was in Seattle, you
could go have brunch with him
on Sunday morning at this place,
either at--
there's two Starbucks
stores in Seattle
that both claim to
be the first one.
At one of the first
Starbucks, you
could go there and have coffee
with him, on Sunday morning
especially.
And he said he liked to dress
better than the audience.
That was his advice.
And you know, if you watch
the Seinfeld episodes,
in the beginning, he has
a little stand-up thing.
He's in a sport coat
and tie and a shirt.
But if you look at
Louis C K, he doesn't
adhere to that rule at all.
But I-- no, I mean, he doesn't.
He's a different deal.
And he's brilliant.
So I embraced that.
Then the other thing he said
is, when you're there, be there.
It's a real-- when you
start doing stand-up comedy,
you're nervous.
You're afraid that
the audience will
hate you, which is very likely.
And so you lose your focus.
You get worried about what
they think of you rather than
your hilarious comedy jokes.
And so that was good advice,
those two little scraps
of advice I have held.
And I attribute it
to Mr. Seinfeld.
He was very nice to us, to
all of us, the young guys.
Like he's 10 years older
than I am, kind of thing.
And maybe he's less
than that, Bill.
And he's a huge success.
You-- and so.
Those are two really
good pieces of advice.
MALIK DUCARD: I would
love to talk about space.
BILL NYE: Space, huge fans.
How many people are members
of the planetary site?
Anybody?
Oh, I suck.
One guy, thank you, yes.
So consider.
Check us out at
planetary.org, advancing
space science and exploration.
MALIK DUCARD: That's right.
That's right.
So that's your day job.
BILL NYE: That's right.
MALIK DUCARD: Can you
talk about your day job
as CEO of the Planetary Society?
BILL NYE: So you guys, I've
worked for a lot of people.
And I make a lot of
jokes about my old boss.
None of the jokes
are flattering.
But my old boss--
and what an idiot
he was-- but there
is no one old boss.
It's an amalgam.
You all work for
fabulous bosses,
and you're always happy,
and there's no conflict here
at Google. no, no, yes.
But now I'm in charge of a
couple, a few dozen people, 30
people.
And I've learned a lot.
You want to work with people
who share the objective so
that you're all trying
to do the same thing.
And you want to work with
people that are competent.
But competency is not all
that difficult to come by.
It's getting the chemistry,
getting the people together,
that can produce.
And so I've learned
a lot doing that.
But we want to do
at the Planetary
Society is advance space
science and exploration.
I submit to you that
we are living at a time
when we may discover
life on another world.
And if we were to find
life on another world,
it would change the
course of human history.
It would be like
Copernicus showing
the earth goes around the
sun instead of the other way
around.
Or Galileo-- I know the moon
looks like a perfect circle,
but if you take this telescope,
you can see it's full of bumps.
Well, we're going to
have to imprison you.
I know.
But it's still full of bumps.
I'm sorry, man.
[LAUGHTER]
And you have to stay home
the rest of your life.
OK, whatever.
There's still bumps.
And so if we found life
on Mars, for example,
or stranger still, on
Europa, the moon of Jupiter
with twice as much sea
water as the earth,
it would change everything.
I mean, I'm not saying--
I said this all the time.
I'm not saying we'd suddenly
drive on the left in the US.
We're not going to
change everything.
But it would change the way
everybody feels about being
alive in the cosmos.
And so that's what the
Planetary Society does.
I was just at the Planetary
Protection meeting.
So it's the prime directive.
You don't want to take
human germs to Mars
and contaminate it
so that you can't
tell if there ever
were any Martian
germs before you got there.
And it's a big-- it's
a non-trivial issue,
getting a spacecraft
sterile enough to do that,
and to get it with
instruments that
will detect something alive.
How do you know if
it's alive or was?
Is it a fossilized mat of
ancient marscrobe bacteria
things, or what have you?
And who's going to pay for it?
That's our business.
I go to the US Congress
a couple of times a year.
And hey, this would
be great, man, I say.
I paraphrase.
Mr. Congressman, I
think this would.
So the other thing
about space exploration
that's really charming
and wonderful,
it brings out the best in us.
It really does.
Do you guys know
who Adam Schiff is?
He's on the news all
the time right now
because he's the head of
the intelligence committee,
some issue with Russia and
some people, some things.
But he's also a huge
supporter of exploring Europa,
because he's a big supporter
of the Jet Propulsion Lab,
in Pasadena.
And then there's John Culberson,
from the Houston area, who
explained to me that really,
the safest place, Bill, probably
in the country, is
the Texas State House.
And Bill, what you do,
get your concealed weapons
permit, and get in the concealed
weapons line, the shortest
line, Bill, much faster.
You get everybody's
got a weapon.
Nothing is going
to happen there.
Good, Mr. Culberson, yes.
Anyway, he and Adam Schiff
disagree about almost
everything except the
expiration of Europa.
And they work to
fund it all the time,
to get what's so-called flagship
mission, over $1 billion
mission, $4 billion mission.
A mission is space talk for
rocket ship thing, mission.
It's a mission.
That's what it is.
You mean it's a satellite?
Yeah, yeah, whatever.
But the mission involves all
the people on the ground,
and so on.
But they agree on this.
And I say to everybody,
in the case of the US,
where we are right now,
NASA is the best brand
the United States has.
You can meet people
in other parts
of the world that hate the US.
They hate me.
They hate everything.
But they respect NASA.
And so that alone is
a worthy investment
of our intellect and treasure.
So I encourage you all to check
out the Planetary Society's--
Is my briefcase
over there, Susan?
Susan's from Rodale Press, the
company that printed the books.
Thank you, Susan, yes.
[APPLAUSE]
Hang on.
This will be worth it.
Hang on.
I injured my leg.
I'm a mess.
Hey, my microphone
works way over here.
Thanks, electronics.
So this is the thing we want you
to check out for the eclipse.
Oh, that's my phone.
Is that good, to throw
them on the floor?
There's the Planetary
Society logo.
Wow, thanks, Bill.
Is it a ringed planet, or is
it the letter P for planetary?
Wait, it's both.
[LAUGHTER]
So these are eclipse glasses--
MALIK DUCARD: Oh, nice.
BILL NYE: Malik.
So you can't see a thing.
MALIK DUCARD: I need an eclipse.
BILL NYE: When you look
right at this light,
do you see anything,
right at them?
No, huh?
MALIK DUCARD: Not much.
BILL NYE: Not [INAUDIBLE].
Anyway, so these are for sale.
Check out I like you.
There's a woman-owned
business I've
done business with for many
years, teachersource.com.
And the company is called
Education Innovations.
And they market them.
For those of you--
is there anybody here who does
not have a Bill Nye bobblehead?
[LAUGHTER]
Wow.
It's so weird.
Anyway, you also get those
at Education Innovations.
And so August 21st, there
will be an eclipse going right
across the world's third
most populous country.
And I encourage all of you to
get out there and get under it.
If you've never seen a total
eclipse, it really is crazy.
It's an amazing experience.
And it's very reasonable,
for most of us,
it will be a
once-in-a-lifetime thing.
Because although there are
two eclipses every two years,
due to [WHISTLES] of
the planets and sun--
except it's in space,
there's no sound--
most of them are not
over accessible land
that's easy for people
in the US to get to.
So I really encourage you.
Drive somewhere
and get under it.
And you can make it a day trip.
You can fly to Omaha, drive
out under the eclipse,
and then go back to the
airport, and come back.
I mean, you don't
have to rent a cabin
in the woods for two years.
I mean, just go out there.
Or if you're in the
Atlanta area just
get-- and Portland, Oregon.
But I recommend you get
east of the mountains,
if you know your way
around the Northwest,
because west of the mountain,
there's a good chance you'll
get weathered out, as we say.
If it's cloudy, you
don't see anything.
And it really is amazing.
The sky goes dark.
You can see stars.
I'm hoping this one is
going to be real annular.
You're going to get the
ring around the sun.
We're hoping to see
these interference bands.
The wavelengths of light
make these gray bands go
sweeping across the landscape.
It's crazy.
It really is something.
I've seen one good
one when I was
in South Africa for a meeting,
and it's really something.
I've been near a couple
of them, but really
been under it is cool.
MALIK DUCARD: August 21st.
BILL NYE: August 21st.
Don't miss it if you can.
And if you don't want
to spend all that money
on the plastic ones,
there's paper ones.
And they're OK.
And they're also
branded for Bill Nye.
And oh yeah, you can see dimly.
Yeah, you can see
the LEDs, right?
MALIK DUCARD: Yeah, exactly.
BILL NYE: Yeah, yeah.
MALIK DUCARD: Just a little bit.
BILL NYE: So these
modern lights,
they're no longer a single
filament or a carbon arc
or anything like that.
There's a mixture of
little dots, right?
Is this your son here,
one of these people?
MALIK DUCARD: All of these.
BILL NYE: Can we have
one of them come up?
MALIK DUCARD: Yeah.
Come.
BILL NYE: Hi, I'm Bill.
What's your name, do you know?
JOHN HENRY DUCARD: John Henry.
BILL NYE: John Henry.
So try those on.
Oh, look at you.
And look at the lights.
Do you see the
many colored dots?
JOHN HENRY DUCARD: Yeah.
BILL NYE: And I
have an eyewitness.
Thank you, John Henry, yes.
MALIK DUCARD: Thanks, bud.
All right.
BILL NYE: Nicely done.
Can I hold on to those?
I only brought one pair.
[APPLAUSE]
MALIK DUCARD: All right.
BILL NYE: Hang on to these.
MALIK DUCARD: So that's awesome.
And we're going to
go to the audience.
BILL NYE: Take questions
from the audience?
MALIK DUCARD: Questions, and
if we can go to slide six.
BILL NYE: Slide six.
MALIK DUCARD: As we go
to audience questions,
I've got a question
for the audience.
What do Bill Nye, Rihanna,
Jennifer Lawrence,
and Elon Musk have in common?
AUDIENCE: It's money.
[INAUDIBLE]
BILL NYE: I don't
play in that league.
But somebody said money.
I don't play in that league.
[LAUGHTER]
Sorry, not yet.
After we sell a few dozen
of these plastic glasses.
[LAUGHTER]
MALIK DUCARD: You are listed
as one of the top celebrities,
along with the other three
in the plural generation, who
are the generation of
13 to 20 somethings.
BILL NYE: Yes.
MALIK DUCARD: You're up
there with those three.
BILL NYE: I mean, I'm
considered a celebrity
among people that age.
MALIK DUCARD: That's right.
AUDIENCE: Woo!
BILL NYE: Wow, right on.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
So that's great to know.
So what I found, as a celebrity
among people of that age,
if I go to a Starbucks and
order a vanilla latte, it's $4.
Without that, it's $4.
So it's just a fantastic thing.
[LAUGHTER]
MALIK DUCARD: All right,
questions from the audience.
SPEAKER 1: So I'm
going to throw you
this thing, if you
want to ask questions,
because it has a
microphone in it.
And that--
BILL NYE: That's a
thing, the blue thing.
SPEAKER 1: Yeah.
We can throw it.
It won't hurt you.
It's foamy.
BILL NYE: Oh, it's
in a bounceable cube.
SPEAKER 1: Yes.
BILL NYE: Well, prove it.
Just roll it on the floor,
and see who picks it up.
Let's just try that.
Not so fast, yeah.
He was making--
SPEAKER 1: Real quick, before
I throw this at people.
We do have a bookseller
right outside.
We have subsidized copies of the
book you've been hearing about.
So please buy one, if
you want to read it.
Who has a question?
BILL NYE: And I
signed them, right?
Those are the ones
we did yesterday.
Yeah, I signed 550
of them yesterday.
MALIK DUCARD: Awesome.
BILL NYE: It took a few minutes.
MALIK DUCARD: And we
can move off the slide.
BILL NYE: With a fountain pen.
Because if you're buying
a book, I love you, man.
Showing some respect.
Yes, so we have a question?
AUDIENCE: Hi, I'm Julian.
BILL NYE: Where are you?
Raise your hand way above--
oh, there you are, Julian.
The blue thing, yes.
AUDIENCE: What do you
think that the government's
role in science should be?
And what do you think it
has been historically?
BILL NYE: Well,
historically, the government,
our government
anyway, has supported
science basic research,
mostly at universities.
And then it trickles down.
Then we have a whole
thing, or we used to,
called the Department
of Education,
[LAUGHTER]
which studies how people
learn and supports
schools, public schools,
which I attended.
So we reason we
invest in science
is to stay competitive,
to innovate,
competitive in two ways--
economically, on the world
stage.
You know-- people
made fun of him--
but when you build
interstate highways that
enable people to come to
work at Google, that is
a form of supporting science.
And then the other thing
is in national defense.
Weapons are almost
continually being innovated,
being modified and improved
and made more effective.
And the big thing
nominally, until recently,
the big thing was to have
cool weapons, not use them.
And that was the big idea.
But it's getting weird, peoples.
It's getting weird.
So the government,
in my opinion,
should invest in science.
And that's what keeps
everybody competitive.
There's a whole thing where--
I was on the TV the other
day with Grover Norquist,
a guy who says he wants
to shrink the government
and drown it in a bathtub.
I don't think that's
what you really want.
After that, do we just drive
on either side of the street?
Is that OK?
And no stop lights?
Cool, really fun.
No fire departments?
You sure about that?
So what happens with
those guys, in general,
they talk a good game
until push comes to shove,
till the sewer backs up, until
the military is not funded.
Then they freak out.
So supporting basic
research is very important.
And whatever
innovations you all can
do to help everybody-- all
the internet or information
technology people around
the world, thank you.
Does that answer your question?
AUDIENCE: Yes,
thank you so much.
BILL NYE: Saying something
like that and doing it
is two different things.
MALIK DUCARD: Let's
throw the mic.
I think we've got a question
over here in the front.
BILL NYE: I want to see it
thrown, because it was-- yes!
MALIK DUCARD: There you go.
A good grow and good catch.
BILL NYE: You could
have played pro ball.
You could have
played pro ball, yes.
AUDIENCE: Since we
know you're an advocate
of the non-useful arts, what
would be your advice to those
who pursue those as a career?
BILL NYE: What's
a non-useful art?
AUDIENCE: Well, you
were making that joke
that the founding fathers
were referring to useful arts
as engineering and science.
BILL NYE: No, but in the 19th
century, the 18th century,
I mean, I don't think they
had the word engineering.
It wasn't used the
way we use it today.
AUDIENCE: Well, I
guess then, just
to clarify the
question, would be, what
would be your advice for
those who are pursuing comedy
or music production art--
BILL NYE: Do it!
AUDIENCE: --in a world that's
more predominately focused
on math, science, engineering?
As our governments clearly
are winnowing and sifting
towards that
direction, for people
who are in the creative fields,
what would be your advice,
I guess is my--
BILL NYE: Is do it.
That's my-- just get started.
That's my advice.
AUDIENCE: And do you
feel like they're just
as important as
those other fields?
BILL NYE: You can't have a world
without art, OK, everybody?
Art improves your life.
I mean, come on.
We are in this architected
space that brings out emotions,
make you feel a certain way.
Yes, you've got to have art.
So what's going on--
so OK.
All right.
Everything's fine.
[LAUGHTER]
I grew up with
the space program.
People my age had
the space program.
So science was imbued,
was embedded, in society.
It was just part of
what went on every day,
along with this crazy optimism
that science scientists
and engineers could
solve any problem.
We're going to go to the moon.
We're going to do this.
The Apollo program was
4% of the federal budget.
NASA's budget now is 0.4%.
It was literally
10 times as big.
So science was just
around all the time.
Cars had fins on them
like rockets, not
for any utilitarian
purpose, just
to remind us all of
how cool rockets were.
And then so that effort
was-- that was really
an informal form of warfare.
When that was resolved,
this went away.
So now, there's been this
emphasis on STEM, STEM, STEM,
STEM-- science, technology,
engineering, math,
STEM, STEM, STEM, STEM,
STEM school, STEM wing,
STEM teacher, STEM [INAUDIBLE].
And then, people
quite reasonably
said, well, what about art?
So now there's STEAM, science,
technology, engineering, art,
and math.
Then I'd come, from time
to time, I mean STEAMAD--
science, technology,
engineering, art, math,
and design.
OK.
Pretty soon, we're
going to call it school.
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]
It's just the pendulum's
going to swing.
You do not want a world without
art, for crying out loud.
But you do not want a
world without science.
So all right, that's
what happened,
my interpretation-- which,
as you know, is correct.
MALIK DUCARD:
Questions in the back?
BILL NYE: Really
his interpret-- yes.
Bill Nye ought to correct this.
AUDIENCE: Hello.
Eric, you-- you go first.
BILL NYE: I love
the flying cube mic.
AUDIENCE: So my
question is around
engaging climate deniers.
In this crowd, you're largely
preaching to the choir.
Most of us have friends where
we're preaching to the choir.
What can you suggest
for us to engage people
to make a difference,
instead of just talking
to people who agree with us?
BILL NYE: Well, so I say
all the time, talk about it,
and ask people why they don't
believe the world's climate is
changing.
And most people you meet
really are nervous about it.
That's my experience.
Climate deniers are
nervous about it.
I was on the radio this
morning in Miami, Florida.
And they're just-- everybody
is talking about it.
The tides are higher every year.
Every full moon, the
tides are higher,
what they call king tides.
And when there's a
low pressure system,
it shows up in Florida
on the 9 o'clock side
of a counterclockwise
weather system.
Then the tides are even higher,
a so-called storm surge.
And they're all
talking about it.
Norfolk, Virginia,
Galveston, Texas--
they're all talking about.
So if you keep talking about it,
eventually, things will change.
I don't think the US government
will be able to keep--
will stay in denial.
I just think they'll
run out of steam--
STEAM.
The professionals--
[LAUGHTER]
--at the Environmental
Protection Agency and US
Geological Survey and
the Weather Service
are just not going
to put up with this.
Eventually, things
will turn around.
Just we want it to be
as fast as possible.
Right?
My wishfully thinking, yeah.
Scott Pruitt, really?
The head of the EPA is a guy
who wanted to shut down the EPA?
Really?
Rick Scott, the
governor of Wisconsin,
won't say the word evolution.
I mean, Scott Walker
won't say evolution.
Rick Scott's the
governor of Florida,
tried to forbid anybody from
using the phrase climate change
in meetings of legislators.
Oh, that will do it.
Yeah, that's all you got to
do is just not talk about it.
Gee whiz.
These are real people
running a real country.
It's amazing.
MALIK DUCARD:
Let's get the cube.
Let's take one or
two more questions.
AUDIENCE: Oh, I do have a--
MALIK DUCARD: Oh, please, yeah.
AUDIENCE: Yeah, sorry.
MALIK DUCARD: Over to you.
AUDIENCE: First of
all, loved your show
as I was growing up, as a kid.
BILL NYE: I love you, man.
I do.
Thank you.
AUDIENCE: This is awesome.
I just wanted to
know, besides science,
if you were involved with
the making of your theme song
that's so iconic--
the Bill, Bill,
Bill, Bill, Bill.
BILL NYE: I know it.
[LAUGHTER]
It's a great song.
AUDIENCE: I just had to hear it.
BILL NYE: I mean,
I did the voice,
Science is a property of matter.
I mean, yeah, I did
the lip sync, I mean.
But I was involved.
But the guy that did
it was named Jim Green.
And he has a company
called 38 Fresh.
He was a producer
here in Los Angeles.
He's a good guy.
AUDIENCE: Were there
any different versions
that you had to choose from
for the show, when you had--
BILL NYE: If there were, you
guys, it was 23 years ago,
and I don't remember any.
I mean, if there were
different versions,
they might be some
scratch tracks that
were sort of the same thing at
a different beats per minute.
But it's just no, I mean,
as far as I remember.
[LAUGHTER]
And then Tyler, the
creator, did this song
for "Bill Nye Saves the
World," saves the world.
He's a good guy.
I hung out with him one morning.
And he's a funny guy.
And we're going to have
him on the new show.
We start shooting
again on Tuesday.
AUDIENCE: Yes.
BILL NYE: Start 12 more shows.
[APPLAUSE]
So he tried to make
it-- or he did make
a derivative of the old song.
But I don't sing the songs.
Does everybody know that?
You hire that out.
[LAUGHTER]
So the example I give you all,
even if you're not of an age--
"Gilligan's Island."
Gilligan doesn't sing the song.
[LAUGHTER]
So Bill Nye doesn't sing
the song of his own show.
There's one exception
in broadcast history--
"Frasier."
Kelsey Grammer sang
the "Frasier" Song,
with the scrambled eggs.
Yeah, I know.
I can't explain it.
MALIK DUCARD: Let's
do one more question.
I thought I saw--
BILL NYE: But "Frasier"
was a derivative bit
from "Cheers," Jimmy Burrows.
Yes?
Some more--
AUDIENCE: I guess--
BILL NYE: You need the blue
mic, the house of blue mics.
AUDIENCE: All right.
I guess I have this.
So I just wanted to
follow up a little more
on the question the
gentleman with the beard
asked before, about
essentially, I guess,
I think it's uncontroversial
that you're not really
like a stranger to debates
that are controversial.
And I guess I find that,
I don't know, sometimes,
I'll argue with people who
I radically disagree with.
And it quickly becomes
clear that in no way
is it going to be fruitful.
For example, I know
all these people
who are right-wing,
populist extremists
from my hometown in Tennessee.
And you talk to them
about immigration.
And you're like, well,
what about the human cost
of that ridiculous
policy you're proposing?
And they're like, oh, yeah,
well, what about the human cost
of what Hillary
Clinton did in Libya?
And I'm just curious.
To what extent do
you think it's worth
engaging with people with
whom you radically disagree?
BILL NYE: Well, I think
it's worth engaging.
What happens, it's wherever
the cities are big enough
to have people cross
paths, they get
over this immigration thing.
I think that'll
shake itself out.
The smaller-- like St.
Louis is an interior city.
It's not a coastal city.
Minneapolis is not
a coastal city.
But you'll find that
the people have lawsuits
or the state attorney
generals have lawsuits
against this policy, because
the big cities have diversity.
And you do business
with your neighbors,
and you just-- my understanding
is you get over it.
So you just challenge
your friends to travel.
You go to New York.
It's a real place.
There are fewer murders
per day in New York
than any major
metropolitan city,
because the city
freaked out after 9/11.
There's a cop on every corner.
And you never get
lost in New York,
because you can ask directions
of all the cops on the corner.
It's fabulous.
And encourage them
to go to Paris
and see what people are like.
Wow, people eat food, cool.
Did not know that.
And I think it's just
we got to get along.
What you all do at Google
is democratize the internet,
you know, democratize
interaction,
social interaction.
So it's a long process.
But I encourage you to
engage people about anything
like that.
And as far as immigration
policies, it is--
OK, no aunts or uncles, no
grandparents, can go-- really?
Have you thought this through?
So we'll see what happens.
I don't think that
policy will last.
Because the court system,
I think, is robust enough.
But we'll see what happens.
I tell everybody-- I
remember when Nixon resigned.
I'm that old.
It took a year and a
half for all that stuff
to catch up with him.
So we'll see what happens
in the coming months.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE]
Well, maybe nothing will happen.
I mean, it's not my idea.
MALIK DUCARD: Can
you talk quickly
about your national
service idea?
BILL NYE: Oh yeah, my national
service idea-- this is great.
So Bill, you chose not
to join the military,
and you've got an opinion?
Yeah!
So people my age, the reason
I did not go to Vietnam
was because, basically,
I'm six months too young.
I missed getting
drafted by six months.
I had to register for the draft,
and your height and weight
and everything.
And you get ready to
be enlisted, and stuff.
But then, the draft was
abolished right before.
I was born in November.
I went to kindergarten
when I was four.
So I didn't turn 18 till
my senior in high school.
So I missed the draft
by a few months.
But my older brother's
friends were deeply
affected by the Vietnam
War in a bad way.
But nevertheless, because
of my parents' experience
with the military, my dad
was, many years later,
declared a veteran, because
they had served with Marines
and prisoner of war camp.
I looked into Air Force ROTC.
And I wanted to fly jets.
I thought that would be cool.
I went to get my
physical, and there
were a bunch of
pilots sitting there
in an Air Force Base
in Rome, New York,
for you rural New York buffs.
And I said, how often
do you guys fly?
Oh, every six weeks,
sometimes every two months.
What do you do the rest of time?
Oh, we memorize procedures.
Wow.
Doesn't sound like much fun.
So I did not join the military.
But if I had been required
to, I certainly would have.
So my proposal is that we
have a national service
akin to the Americorp,
akin to the Peace Corps,
where everybody had to join.
So in my parents' day,
everybody my parents' age,
when they would meet
at any situation--
waiting in line at the grocery
store, when they would go out
dancing, when they'd
go out to dinner
at a restaurant, when they'd
pick up kids at school-- what
they all talked about was
what they did during the war,
World War II.
Because this thing
was such a big deal,
it bound everybody together.
People of all faiths,
of all ancestry,
were all in this thing together.
So my proposal is that we have
a national service that you have
to complete before you turn 26.
And then we would
all be involved.
And if you join
the military, that
would count, of course,
for your national service.
It would be involved here
domestically or maybe overseas,
all in this thing together.
And yes, yes, crazy
Uncle Bill, it
would have to be paid
for with tax dollars.
Ahh, ahhh-ahh-ahh!
But we would get
infrastructure, Bill.
We would get schools connected
to the internet, for example.
And everybody would
be required to do it,
and we'd all take it for
granted that we had to do it.
And I think it would bind
us together and ultimately,
save money.
And we wouldn't have this
red state, blue state,
horrible division,
that we're nurturing
or we're end up with right now.
And it's a crazy idea.
But the idea is, if you wanted
to, you could finish college,
undergraduate, before you
did your national service.
If you, like my dad, didn't
think law school sounded
like all that much fun, you
would do your national service
right after that.
If you were obsessed and crazy,
like a few of you are crazy,
just are interested in
your academic success,
and you wanted to
get your PhD, you
would take your national service
after you got your masters
degree, before you
went back for your PhD.
That's my proposal.
Bill, that'll never fly.
Everybody hates each other.
We don't want to spend
any more tax dollars.
I know, OK.
So what if each state
had a state service?
In California, state service
would put pressure on Nevada
to have a Nevada state service,
and an Arizona state service.
Oregon would sure as heck
put pressure on Washington
to have a state service.
And then maybe this could
become a national service.
It's a proposal.
It's a little crazy.
I'm glad you asked about it.
But the idea is that we'd
all have a common purpose
so we wouldn't have--
you know, there
was 15 minutes after 9/11, where
everybody was rah, rah, US,
in a constructive way,
as horrible as that was.
And so a national
service is just one
of my kooky little ideas.
MALIK DUCARD: Great.
That's great.
BILL NYE: It could be.
MALIK DUCARD:
We're going to wrap
with some quick,
rapid-fire questions.
BILL NYE: Oh yes,
lightning round-
bing, bing, bing,
bing, bing, bing, bing.
MALIK DUCARD: Your
favorite teacher?
BILL NYE: Mr. Lang,
physics, 11th grade.
Don't get me-- I mean, not
that I didn't like Mr. Morrison
and Miss [INAUDIBLE].
MALIK DUCARD: OK,
one of your favorite?
BILL NYE: Yeah, yeah, Mr.
Lawrence, in sixth grade,
freaking changed my life.
MALIK DUCARD: One of
your favorite characters
from fiction books?
BILL NYE: Oh, Captain Kirk.
MALIK DUCARD: Captain
Kirk, there you
go-- beautiful Captain Kirk.
If you could be an
animal for a day?
BILL NYE: Well, I am an animal.
[LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE]
Hey, you know what?
I don't know, a successful
pelican or something
[INAUDIBLE].
[LAUGHTER]
You don't want to
get eaten, you know.
You want to be the eator.
MALIK DUCARD: You've
worked with a lot
of great educational YouTubers--
one that you really
enjoyed working with?
BILL NYE: Physics Girl
Diane, oh yeah, she's great.
Emily Calandrelli is great.
And Derek Muller, Veritasium,
he's really great.
He's a good guy.
MALIK DUCARD: Fantastic.
Self-driving car or
a human-powered bike?
BILL NYE: Well, a
human-powered bike,
if the distances are suitable.
I mean, it's a self-driving
car if I lived in Studio City.
It's 22, 23 miles to get here.
I mean, you could do it.
But then, I got to go to
San Diego this afternoon.
I mean, you have to be
a heck of an athlete.
I'm sure I could do it, sure.
But a self-driving
car, you guys,
I think about my grandfather
went into World War I
on a horse.
Nobody went into World
War II on a horse.
Nobody was serious
about it, I mean,
who wanted to live through it.
So everything
changed in 25 years.
Everything changed.
So I can drive a
stick shift, great.
That and $4 will
get you the latte.
I mean, it's a skill
you don't need any more.
MALIK DUCARD: And
then the last one
for the win, potential
energy or kinetic energy?
[LAUGHTER]
BILL NYE: You know, you
exchange one for the other.
You want to be in
motion if you can.
MALIK DUCARD: There we go.
BILL NYE: There we go, yeah.
MALIK DUCARD: Let's all
give it up for Bill Nye.
[APPLAUSE AND CHEERING]
Thank you so much.
But if somebody can
hold up the book,
let's get a close-up
of the book.
You got to check out the book.
Please buy the book.
It's a great read.
Thank you very much.
BILL NYE: Yes, thank you.
