01x04 - Rise of the Machines

[bunniefuu]

Last time, we saw how
the Renaissance turned Europe

from a load of mud and parsnips into
a posh resort full of paintings,

and how this awakening led to a
string of people-power uprisings

that put the establishment
on its arse.

But the revolutions were
just beginning.

Humankind was about to leap
forward again

by taming metal and electricity.

Progress would usher in a new era
of convenience and entertainment,

but also threaten the existence
of all life on Earth.

So, swings and roundabouts, really.

This week, it's the rise
of the machines here on Earth,

and also here on Cunk On Earth.

For centuries, everything in nature,
from people to cows, ran on this...

..fresh air.

If you haven't heard of air,
it's an invisible blend of gases

so addictive we suffer fatal
withdrawal symptoms

within minutes of our supply
being cut off.

This dependency made air's rival,
water, jealous.

Water needed to up its game.

It needed to become more
indispensable to us,

its natural masters.
It was feeling the heat,

heat that turned
it into something useful.

Steam.

Steam could be harnessed
to power all kinds of machines.

And nowhere went steam bonkers
quite like America,

where it would change the shape
of the country's face forever.

To understand why, I'm afraid
we have to look at a map.

At first, settlers had stuck
to the edges of America,

leaving the middle untouched,
like a frozen pie in a microwave.

But Americans back then weren't
the humble, unassuming people

they still aren't today.

They believed in something called
Manifest Destiny -

the belief that all the land
belonged to them

and that God wanted them to go west

and claim it back from
the Native Americans

he put there first by mistake.

What is Manifest Destiny?

Manifest Destiny is an ideology
that was, in the 1840s and '50s

in the United States, that America
had a God-given right

to take over the rest
of the continent

and sort of spread its values and
its virtues from sea to shining sea.

Right. So, it's God's plan?

That was the idea, yes.

Doesn't this make you God's sl*ves?

Well, I think what the people
at the time would say

is that they were God's
missionaries on Earth,

and so they felt that they were
willingly enacting his policies

rather than being forced to do so.

But at the very least,
you're God's b*tches.

But manifesting your destiny
was dangerous.

You had to trundle across a perilous
landscape in a rickety wagon

on the brink of starvation or
sh1tting yourself to death

with dysentery, getting bitten
by snakes or butchered by Apaches.

Almost as if God didn't want
them to do this, after all.

But the invention of
the steam train changed all that.

The steam train laughed
in the wagon's face.

Not literally. This isn't
a children's book.

The Americans released steam engines
into the wild,

carving routes across the land
and changing the balance of power.

Now, fighting with Native Americans
could be conducted at high speed

and with an accompanying
buffet car service.

Thanks to the railroads, small towns
formed all across the West.

They were tough, lawless places
where summary justice was dispensed

down the barrel of a g*n

as cowboys did whatever it took to
protect their cows and their boys.

So, can you talk us
through what this is here?

So, this is the Colt Single Action
Army revolver, the Colt .45.

And you load it through here.

And you'd have to c*ck the hammer
back for each shot.

Would this only k*ll people
during the olden days,

or could it k*ll modern people, too?

I'm afraid it definitely
could k*ll modern people.

It's so old. It sort of looks
clockwork, doesn't it?

It does. Do the b*ll*ts
come out slowly?

Could you sort of outrun the b*llet?

You definitely couldn't outrun
the b*llet.

You're right to say it
looks clockwork.

It's very like a clock mechanism,
with a ratchet inside.

Rat sh*t? A ratchet.

Where did the b*ll*ts come out?
Do they come out of that pipe bit?

They do. Yeah, that's the barrel.

Can I... Can I hold that up and look
down the end of it?

Or will that sh**t me in the eye?

It's generally frowned upon.

So, would getting shot in the eye
actually hurt?

Because it's just a sort of water
bag, isn't it, your eye?

I bet it would just pop and sting
a bit,

but you'd basically be able
to go about your business.

I don't know. I don't think there's
any good place to get shot.

Why does humankind feel the need
to invent

k*lling machines like this?

And could you keep your answer
to a sort of sound-bite length?

Because we're human, I suppose.

It seems to be built into us
to fight for resources...

Yeah. ..other humans. Yeah.

We can't seem to get away from it.

I don't know. I just
think we're mental.

g*ns played a huge role in shaping
America and also in k*lling people.

Even now, the use of firearms
is an integral part

of their national identity.

How come Americans have the right
to k*ll anyone they want with a g*n?

Well, they don't. m*rder is ill*gal
in the United States,

but they do have the right
to own weapons.

They have the right to bear arms.

Correct. But bears don't have arms.

They do, actually.

Oh, do they? Yes. I thought
they were legs.

Well, I'm not a biologist, but
I suppose that when they stand up,

they're probably arms.

With its cowboys and g*ns
and steam-train rides,

America became known as
the land of the free,

which must have come as a surprise
to all the sl*ves.

The barbaric practice of sl*very
was still prevalent in America,

particularly in the Southern states.

But by finally thinking hard
about the subject,

the people of the Northern states
made a horrifying discovery -

that inside each sl*ve was an actual
human person.

The North asked the South what kind
of America it wanted to live in -

one where white people leeched
off other races

while treating them as inferior,

or one where they pretended
they didn't.

The argument escalated into
a civil w*r,

a time when America was almost
as polarised as it is today.

The Civil w*r tore America
apart, didn't it?

Brother turned on brother.

Did anyone get so conflicted
they turned on themselves?

I don't think so.

There may have been some very strong
debates within individuals

of which side to join,

and I think that could be what
you're perhaps referencing.

How come people say it was the first
modern w*r, when you can see

from the photos it was ages ago?

Well, it's interesting you reference
the photos

because it's the first w*r that
photography really played a part.

It was something where photographs
were part of the conflict

and documenting the violence.

It must have been quite exciting
going to Snappy Snaps afterwards

and seeing which ones had turned out
and which ones hadn't.

After four long years of w*r-related
violence, the North came out on top,

which North is anyway.

It was a victory for the undisputed
King of the North -

Abraham Lincoln.

Who was Abraham Lincoln,

and why did he have all those weird
tattoos on his tummy?

I have no idea what you're referring
to with the tattoos,

but he is a US president, revered
as probably the best US president.

Apparently he had, like, a snowman
and a robin tattooed on his tummy,

and the robin had a moustache.

I genuinely have no idea
what you're referring to.

Now Lincoln was president,
at long last sl*very was abolished

and replaced with simple
racial prejudice.

But Abraham Lincoln's story
didn't have a happy ending.

Five days after the North won,
a terrible fate befell him.

He was forced to go to the theatre
to watch a play.

He was put out of his misery
by a kindly g*nman

but, cruelly, not until
the third act.

Abraham Lincoln was shot
in the theatre box, wasn't he?

Where is that on the body?

Oh, I think you're referring
to the physical location

he was in when he was shot,

which was in the presidential box
at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC.

And why was he shot? Was it because
he wouldn't take his hat off?

Because that's quite annoying
in the theatre, isn't it,

when someone is in front
of you with a hat on?

Well, he was in the presidential
box, so there wasn't anyone

behind him, as far as I know.

But he was shot by a man named
John Wilkes Booth,

who was a believer in
the Confederacy.

How did being shot in the head
affect Lincoln's ability to lead?

Well, it ended it, because he died
about 12 hours after he was shot.

So, he couldn't carry on?

He couldn't, no. Not as
a corpse, unfortunately.

Lincoln's light may have been
snuffed out,

but America's was about to do
the opposite.

Americans had been toying
with electricity ever since

Benjamin Franklin put a key
on a kite string

to unlock lightning from the sky.

Then in 1878, Thomas Edison worked
out how to use that power

to make something extraordinary.

It's hard to imagine a world
where Edison

didn't invent the light bulb,
and even if you did imagine it,

it would be too dark to see
what was in it.

How did people see during the day
before Edison invented light?

Light comes from the sun,

so people could see during the day
because of the sun.

What they needed the light bulb for

was during the night,
when there isn't any sun

and when you can't see.

So, what did people use
before light bulbs?

Well, they used candles
or they used oil.

So, we had daylight during the day
and we had candles at night.

Yes. So, we didn't need light bulbs.

His life's work was meaningless.

Another of Edison's incredible
inventions was the phonograph.

SCRATCHY RECORDING PLAYS

# To my honey I'll croon love's tune

# Honeymoon

# Keep a-shining in June

# Your silv'ry beams... #

Can you make it stop?

Yes, of course.

It's incredible, isn't it,
that we're here now,

but that voice came from years ago?

If I speak into this trumpet bit,
can I ask the person a question

about what it's like where they are?

No, you can't, because the recording
was made over 100 years ago.

But it's a phonograph.
Doesn't it work like a phone?

Phonograph means
"sound writing" in Greek,

so it doesn't mean telephone.

So, they can hear us
but they can't reply.

Erm, I don't...
I wouldn't say they...

They can't hear us. We hear them.
We hear their recording.

They can't hear us and they can't
reply to us.

I would say they can't, no.

So, what's the point of it?

Well, it's so we can hear
music and voice and sounds.

So, can it record sounds
that haven't happened yet?

Erm...

..no. What about sounds that
happened earlier?

If those sounds were recorded
at the time.

It can't capture something that's
been in the past.

It seems quite limited,
to be honest.

Thanks to Edison's pornograph,

classical music could now bore
an audience of millions.

You have to play classical music
on an orchestra.

How do you play an orchestra?

Do you blow into it,

or is it one of those ones where
you rub a stick on the strings?

Yeah. So, the orchestra is not
one particular instrument.

Yeah. So, an orchestra is the coming
together of lots of different types

of instruments. Right.
More than one instrument.

More than one instrument.

So, you need both hands and
your mouth to play an orchestra?

Well, the conductor would need
all of those things...

Yeah. ..but the orchestra itself
is an entity that is made up of

lots of different instruments.

So, you couldn't blow
a whole orchestra?

Thanks to Edison, the worlds
of light and sound

had been beaten into submission,

but another frontier remained
stubbornly unconquered -

the world of sky.

People tried for years to build
flying machines,

but most early pioneers found
it hard to progress

beyond their first experimental
death plunge.

But all that changed when
Orville and Wilbur Wright brothers

mounted the first successful
legal challenge

against the law of gravity.

So, how far was the first flight?

Well, on that day when
the Wright brothers carried out

several flights, they were typically
of the order

of just a few hundred feet.

Well, they could have walked that.

Well, they could, but that wasn't
the point.

When was the first flight that was
long enough to need a toilet?

Once commercial flights developed,
those flights became longer distance

and the passengers would
have then needed some comforts,

like having a toilet on board.

That must have been a real moment,

the first time someone realised
a plane needed a toilet.

That's more impressive
than the Wright brothers.

I've never thought of that as
a particularly dramatic

or exciting development, I'm afraid.

Why don't bicycles have toilets?

You know, it would save you
having to get off.

I might write that down
and copyright it.

Even without a toilet,
the Wright brothers' historic flight

changed transportation forever,

in ways that still aren't
fully understood.

The Wright brothers did the first
proper flight over 100 years ago.

How come we're still not
any closer to working out

how aeroplanes actually work?

But we are. We know how
they work today.

But in reality, how do they work?

Well, it's... We have
mathematical equations

that describe the way the air flows
over the wings of the aircraft.

Can you explain how they work
without resorting to science?

It's difficult not to explain
the science behind it,

but because of the shape
of its wings,

the force upwards is bigger
than the force downwards

so that pushes the plane
up into the air.

That's your theory. Do you want to
hear my theory?

OK. I think they run on belief.

It's just because we believe
planes can fly that they do.

So, the media has to keep up
the pretence

or they're just going to start
dropping out of the sky.

Same with Wi-Fi. There's no way
that's real.

We just have to go along
with this pantomime

or everything grinds to a halt.

The sky had been tamed.

Next it was the roads' turn.

It's hard to say who invented
the first automobile.

Because so many people had a go,

the Wikipedia page is too long
to bother reading.

But luckily it doesn't matter,
because in the end only one man

became synonymous with cars -

the man who made the first
blockbuster automobile.

He was named Henry Model T Ford,

and in a stunning coincidence,
so was his car.

ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

With its four-cylinder,
2.9-litre engine

pumping out 20 horsepower
and a top speed of 45mph,

the Model T Ford was a truly
terrible car,

even worse than whatever it is
your mum drives.

ENGINE RUMBLES

There's nowhere to plug
in your phone,

no sat nav or music system.

It doesn't even have a cup holder.

Nonetheless, it was marginally
better than a horse,

because it didn't kick you in
the head if you went behind it.

And unlike on a train, you weren't
likely to find yourself

seated next to a psychopath.

Unless you stopped to pick
up a hitchhiker

with a screwdriver in their pocket.

But Henry Model T Ford's biggest
masterstroke wasn't his car itself,

but the way it was made.

Instead of employing one person
to slowly make a whole car

on their own, Ford employed
lots of people

to do just one tiny bit of
the car each, over and over again.

It was a revolution in workplace
tedium and human meaninglessness.

Mass production needed
a mass human workforce.

Millions flocked to the USA
for a go on the American dream.

The need for bigger vessels led
to the invention of the Titan 1C,

the world's first
single-use submarine.

For years, man had stared at
the ocean,

longing to sink like a stone,

and the Titan 1C would make
that dream come true.

It was a huge success.

On her maiden voyage, the Titan 1C
sailed straight from Southampton

to the bottom of the sea,

where the brave explorers could live
in the lap of luxury

for the few moments it took for them
to discover

that the atmosphere on the ocean
floor was nonbreathable.

Having conquered light, sound,
the sky, the road

and the bottom of the ocean,

humankind was about to
discover something

it hadn't even heard of before,

courtesy of female scientist
and woman

Mary Curry,
lady-father of radiation.

How did Marie Curie realise
that she'd discovered

radioactivity, if it's invisible?

Marie Curie invented
the word radioactivity.

And radioactivity is when substance
like radium, polonium, plutonium

gives off lots of energy
and disintegrate naturally.

So, it's a real thing,
even though it's invisible.

Lots of real things are
invisible, yes.

So, it's like chakras
and energy fields.

You know, like the ones you get on
the inside of your face

that connect to your star signs and
affect the way you digest gluten.

They're real, aren't they?

Well, I don't think that they
are real.

I think they are real.

Lots of... My Aunt Carol realigns
people's chakras.

She charges 80 quid an hour.

I think, if she was earning
that kind of money,

it's not nonsense, is it?

Tragically, Curie's curiosity
was fatal.

Long-term exposure to radiation

is thought to have contributed
to her death.

It's not fair, is it?

When a male scientist like
Bruce Banner gets exposed

to gamma radiation, he gets to be,
like, a superhero, doesn't he?

He gets his own comic book
and movie franchise.

Marie Curie just gets k*lled.

You know, he got to be the Hulk.

That's not fair, is it? You know,
is it the fault of the patriarchy?

Also, what is a patriarchy?

Meanwhile, other less
female scientists

were working on theories
of their own.

Physicist and professional
tongue model Albert Einstein

came up with his theory of
relativity - E equals McTwo -

which, to this day,
nobody understands,

and I'm only mentioning
it because it turns out

to be important later.

Einstein reckoned nothing is faster
than the speed of light.

But shadows go faster than light.

Like, if I shine a light from
a torch against that wall,

but I hold the torch behind my
head... Yeah.

..my shadow gets there before
the light does.

How would Einstein explain that?

I think he'd say that it's
all happening so quickly

that you can't see it properly.

He's always got an answer,
hasn't he?

The 20th century had got off
to a cracking start,

with science sh1tting out innovation
after innovation so quickly

we can barely edit them together.

But some of these new inventions
had a dark side.

They could be used to k*ll people,

and not in a good way.

The First World w*r was known
as the w*r to end all wars,

although some historians
now argue it didn't.

But it was the first high-tech w*r,
with aeroplanes, machine g*ns

and tanks all rising up to fight
the human beings that made them.

Despite having no beliefs
or ideology or hearts or souls,

the k*lling machines
were victorious.

The final score was
Weaponry 20 million, Mankind 0.

When humans go to w*r,
it always looks quite chaotic.

Is there a lot of shouting involved?

Well, there tends to be an awful
lot of shouting.

I mean, it can either be sort
of commands being shouted,

it could also be, you know,
the screams of people dying.

So, probably a risk of tinnitus
for anyone standing nearby.

It's a real pity we keep doing it.

I'm not trying to be controversial,

but generally speaking,
w*r does seem a bit of a shame.

Well, it does seem to be a
particularly popular human activity.

Mm. Maybe it's just in our nature.

What makes us, as creatures,
turn on each other like that?

And could you keep the answer
to one short sentence?

Because otherwise they get
really pissed off in the edit.

Fear, honour and interest.

Really? Those are the three...?

That's it in a nutshell.

Right.

I don't know who edits this,
but that's going to have to do.

The barbarism of World w*r I
inspired a wide range

of harrowing w*r poems
and pacifist literature,

published decades before the release
of unrelated Belgian techno anthem

Pump Up The Jam.

# Pump up the jam, pump it up

# While your feet are stompin'
And the jam is pumpin'

# Look ahead, the crowd is jumpin'

# Pump it up a little more

# Get the party
going on the dance floor

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

# And you'll find out if you do that

# I don't want a place to stay

# Get your booty on
the floor tonight

# Make my day

# I don't want a place to stay

# Get your booty on
the floor tonight

# Make my day... #

Millions of young men died
during the w*r, but fortunately,

humankind had discovered
a new kind of man -

the woman.

Women had always existed
in the background of history,

largely being used as human pets
for men,

tolerated for their magical
ability to excrete fresh humans

through their front holes.

But in the early 20th century,
social scientists discovered

something incredible -

that a woman could do anything
a man could do

without the need to talk about it.

They also got the vote.

Finally, women could choose which
man would tell them what to do.

Women began to escape
their traditional uniforms,

dressing less like haunted furniture
and more like camp young boys.

They drank, smoked and danced
at high speed,

at an appalling frame rate.

Meanwhile, in Hollywood, a whole
new kind of entertainment

was being invented - movies.

Unlike with a book,
you didn't have to concentrate

or use your imagination
to enjoy a movie.

Anyone, even very lazy or stupid
people, could enjoy themselves

by simply sitting down
and staring at a screen,

like you're doing now.

Nonetheless, early movies were

completely sh*t, as you can see.

But it's thanks to early films

like this that we can see what life

was really like in the olden days.

Everyone moved very quickly

and fell over a lot.

Why do people in old films
move so fast?

Is it because it was their first
time on camera so they were nervous,

or because it was a silent film
so they couldn't hear the director

yelling at them to slow down?

It's to do with the frame rate
of the cameras

was different then to what
it is now.

So, it's our fault. We're playing it
back too fast

and the actors are having
to speed up to make sure

they can get all the story in before
the end credits.

They must be panicking. What happens
if they can't keep up?

Would the film cut to a room
the actors aren't in yet?

Just footage of an empty room.

The actors are going at a regular
speed. It's just...

It's just the speed of the playback
that makes them look like

they're moving very quickly. Oh.

Could we communicate with the actors
in the film

and tell them that it's all right,
that they can calm down?

No, they'd all be dead by now.

Oh.

Early films had subtitles so people
could still watch them

on their phones with the sound off,

but before too long they figured out
how to do sounds too.

What was more satisfactory to you?

Reading was redundant at last.

The written word's
centuries-long era of tyranny

was finally at an end.

But any sense humankind
was embarking on

a hopeful new era was about
to be shat through a binbag.

Dark clouds were gathering
over Europe,

with a reboot of the World w*r
franchise about to be unleashed.

Soon, the world was plunged
into another global w*r.

And since this w*r ran on
even more terrible machinery

than the previous one,
it seemed there would be no end

to the carnage.

Then the Americans had an idea.

Instead of dropping thousands
of little bombs on Japan,

like they did to Germany,

what if they dropped just one
big one?

Using Einstein's theories,
which I cleverly mentioned earlier,

they began the Manhattan Project,
run by men with hats on,

who came up with
something fearsome -

an atomic b*mb called Little Boy,

the most powerful and inaccurately
named weapon ever used.

How powerful was Little Boy?

Put it this way - if that b*mb had
been dropped on

my ex-boyfriend Sean's house
in Westhoughton,

everything from the Chequerbent
roundabout on the A58

to the florist next to
the Hart Common Golf Club

would have been totally destroyed.

The initial blast would
have vaporised Sean,

while the vintage Pac-Man arcade
cabinet he once spent

my entire birthday weekend restoring

would have almost certainly been
rendered unplayable

by the raging firestorm
that followed.

Everything from Wigan to Bolton
would be burnt to a crisp.

I'm talking Middlebrook - gone.

Bickershaw - gone.

Hindley Green? Forget it.

The unspeakable horror of
the atomic b*mb ended World w*r II.

Everyone had had enough,
and the world agreed

for the second time in this episode
to never have a w*r again,

a promise it wouldn't break

for a full 52 seconds
into episode five.

It's comforting, isn't it,
to realise

we don't have nuclear
weapons these days?

Well, it depends who you
mean by "we".

The British have got nuclear weapons
and have recently indeed decided

to increase their...the number of
warheads that they possess.

Yeah, but they're blanks, aren't
they? They're full of blanks.

No, not at all. No, no. These are
fully capable m*ssile systems

with nuclear warheads.
Many other states have them.

I'm afraid that nuclear w*r and
the threat of nuclear destruction

remains very much with us.

All right. Can we talk about
something a bit more cheerful?

Anything you like.

Do you like Abba?

I love Abba.

Yeah. Yeah? Yeah.

What's your favourite Abba song?

Dancing Queen. Dancing Queen, yeah.

Yeah, it's great, isn't it?

Next time, we see how a Cold w*r
between East and West

paved the way for rock and roll,

which paved the way for
countercultural hippies,

who paved the way for Steve Jobs
to pave the way for computers

and smartphones, which paved
the way for social media,

which would pave the way for undoing
all the progress

humankind had made so far.

Social media has been polarising
people, hasn't it?

Like what's already happened
to the bears.

What bears?

Polar bears.