Exploring Lightbulb Moments in Human History with Author Scott Williams

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There were some really interesting parts and all the interesting

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parts were the parts about sort of the ideas that people had and and those things

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that changed, people's perspectives and after about a year of struggling with

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this , I realized where the story was, and I realized what I needed to write.

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And the thing was, it had been there all along.

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Welcome to Talk With History.

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I'm your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian, Jen.

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Hello.

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On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels,

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YouTube channel journey, and examine history through deeper conversations

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with the curious, the explorers, and the history lovers out there.

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Now, today, we are joined by Scott Williams, the author of Lightbulb Moments

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in Human History from Cave to Coliseum.

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Welcome, Scott.

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Hey Scott, how are you doing?

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Now, before we get into chatting with Scott about his book, I want to

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remind our listeners that you can find Scott's book on Amazon in various But if

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you can't remember the exact title after you're done listening to today's episode,

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as we say in our past episodes, you can always find links to light bulb moments

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over at our website, talkwithhistory.

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com.

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So just go to talkwithhistory.

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com, search for light bulb moments.

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That's talkwithhistory.

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com and search for light bulb moments and you'll be able to find

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links directly to Scott's book.

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Fantastic.

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We try to share history as much as we can.

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now, as I mentioned earlier, we're joined today by Scott Williams,

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the author of Lightbulb Moments in Human History from Cave to Coliseum.

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Now, Scott is a self described optimistic smartass, writer,

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humorist, and history nerd.

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His fascination with humanity's lightbulb moments began as a child

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while watching the first moon landing.

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I appreciated your opening in the book.

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He also has his own podcast that he hosts with his friend

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CJ called What's My Age Again.

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Now, thank you again for joining us tonight, Scott.

Scott: 00:02:11

I, I really do appreciate it.

Scott Williams: 00:02:13

thank you for having me.

Scott Williams: 00:02:14

And just, just back on the moon landing, I don't know if you can see over the

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back of me, obviously the listeners can't see this, but I've got a, a signed

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Neil Armstrong photo up there, as so I'm Definitely a history in space nerd.

Scott: 00:02:27

Yeah, no, I, I actually really appreciated the, the opening.

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I didn't get to read the whole book.

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I poked around a little bit.

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But you sharing that kind of drew me right in to, to your perspective

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and why you wrote this book.

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So maybe we can jump right into that.

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So was that moon landing, was that really something that kind of sparked

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the flame of your interest in history and these kind of large historical moments?

Scott Williams: 00:02:48

Oh, absolutely.

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I mean if you're six years old I mean I used to get up obviously in Australia

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the the the launches and landings were totally different times for what it was

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for you guys and Often I'd get up in the morning at like in the morning with my

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dad and we'd sit there watching launches.

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We actually saw the moon landing at school because we were actually at school

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and they rolled out the TV set and we watched the moon landing at school.

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And I mean, those kinds of things really stick with you.

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I, I fully understood the import of it.

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I knew it was a, a moment in history that was possibly, may never be, never

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be surpassed the way we're going.

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But it's, it's it was incredible.

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And certainly it sparked a love of those kind of big moments, big historical

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moments and big breakthroughs that I follow through now, obviously.

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Yeah.

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So, so for, I mean, that, that was obviously when you were younger, was

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there something else and you as you went through school, I mean, I know you

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joked in that opening okay, now I got to start training to be an astronaut, but I

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mean, that's, that's a little different.

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Track , it's more of a, , go fly and learn engineering and all that stuff.

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Then, then end up writing about history.

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What kind of led you down the path of, eventually writing a book?

Scott Williams: 00:04:10

Look, I think it's just one of those things that

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I've been fascinated with history.

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I only really wrote, started writing in my late fifties, so I wanted to write

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but I could never work out an angle.

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And finally the angle was the hardest thing for me.

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And it turned out that the angle was there all along.

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I just had to recognise that this, these big moments were the things

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that fascinated me, and the things that made me realise that the

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world continues to get better.

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I think, I hear a lot of people being very negative.

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And I know that the world, there are lots of problems in the world at the

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moment, obviously we can see in Ukraine, and in the Middle East and everything.

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But, in the end, if you, if you sort of went to any other time in

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history, things were still worse.

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And think where we've continued to iteratively get better and

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better by building on all the developments of people before us.

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And I think people have lost track of that.

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And I really wanted to to sort of bring that back for people to see

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that, hey, things aren't that bad.

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And I think my experience of things I've read over the years and my

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fascinations with all these things just made me realize that this is

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a lens to look at that through.

Jenn: 00:05:32

You're very optimistic and I appreciate that because I think that's

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where we have to be with history And I'm I'm very much I don't like that

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term history repeats itself because I'm like You're never gonna be in the

Jenn: 00:05:43

exact same place exact same time for history to actually repeat itself It

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can echo in some ways, but it will never actually repeat itself What would you

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define a lightbulb moment as like how big of a aha moment does it have to be?

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What what is?

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When you're writing a book like what did what do you

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constitute a lightbulb moment as?

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Okay, they can be, they, they don't have to be massive,

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but they have to be things that are unprecedented and eventually lead

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to something like the first caveman who chipped the first stone tool.

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Hitting two rocks together is not a big deal.

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But that iteratively led to machines, to all sorts of things.

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Just it took.

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Millions of years, but the, so it doesn't have to be a big thing, but one of the

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reasons why it seemed for so long humans in our current form have been around

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for hundreds of thousands of years, yet it's only in the last, probably

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two or three hundred years that things have really started to change big time.

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And that's because it took so long to get all the little building blocks in place.

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I mean like, they had to, cavemen had to learn how to communicate with each other.

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They had to make tools, they had to do all these things that, that took a long time.

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These things didn't happen overnight.

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And once things started to, to build, once we started to get these

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little sort of sparks of ingenuity.

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Building one upon the other, then things start to speed up to the point where

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we're now sort of, can't keep up with it.

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There's no one person could be Leonardo da Vinci now because there's just

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no one could keep all the different strands of knowledge in their head.

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a Lightbulb moment is just something that sparks.

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Some kind of paradigm shift.

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Yeah,

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remember in a grad school learning about what constitutes

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a civilization, right?

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When do anthropologists give the The term civilization to a group of people

Jenn: 00:07:50

and it's when they can find proof that there have a bone that is healed So if

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there was a broken bone and it has healed they prove civilization because there's

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a group of people that can Set a bone.

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They're taking care of someone.

Jenn: 00:08:06

They're helping someone to mend So they're they're doing all of those things

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you said it's like the result of the lightbulb moments It's the result of

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the communications result of learning about medicine it's the result of

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learning and being together as a group that the bone heals and they can see

Jenn: 00:08:24

that on a skeleton and that's when they can tell that that was a civilization.

Jenn: 00:08:28

So I can see what you're saying.

Scott Williams: 00:08:30

Yeah, it's like collective learning.

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I mean, once we start to get a body of knowledge, we have to somehow pass it on.

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Now, for thousands and thousands of years, there was no writing.

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So the only way they could pass it on was by speech.

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But if someone got old and they died, they lost their information, and

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they were, like you were saying, when they can look after somebody who is

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unwell, that means they're beginning to appreciate what they bring to the group

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in knowledge, and that, that appreciation from knowledge then sort of, they then

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get a chance to pass that knowledge on.

Scott Williams: 00:09:05

It just, it just shows, like you say, it's civilization building.

Jenn: 00:09:08

Like you said, we're at this point now where AI, it's so fast.

Jenn: 00:09:12

No one person can do it.

Jenn: 00:09:14

It has to be like these collective, like now you can, maybe, maybe

Jenn: 00:09:18

you can specialize in your one.

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area, your one field of study and have something great happen

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and you put the face of it.

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But if there's nobody who's going to be like a Thomas Edison today, like

Jenn: 00:09:31

you just don't have the capacity to do it to people moving so fast as

Jenn: 00:09:35

2000 Thomas Edison's living right now that are working really fast.

Scott Williams: 00:09:39

I totally agree.

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And in fact, I see a problem with the fact that that one person can't

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monitor everything because I think a lot of the big ideas that I write

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about are things that are different strands of knowledge brought together

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by people who understood that this could be relevant to something else.

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But if you've got people who are so focused in their field, they don't

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know about another field, they can't see the connection, they can't see the

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relevance, you're not going to have.

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Transcribed Some of those big lightbulb moments, unless there's someone who

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is like a polymath who can just look at everything and say, Hey, hold

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on, that that's pertinent to that.

Scott Williams: 00:10:19

So it's, it's difficult.

Jenn: 00:10:22

Yes.

Jenn: 00:10:23

And you, you've taken your light bulb moments and you've categorized them.

Jenn: 00:10:27

You've put them into four groups.

Scott Williams: 00:10:30

yeah, that's.

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That was I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's legit but I'm not a, I'm not

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a historian as such, and I'm not, it's not an intellectual book.

Scott Williams: 00:10:40

I wanted to try and have something, a framework to hang it off, and I

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did characterize them into different groups, but that was more for anyone

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who was reading it who wanted to have something to, to sort of, just

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to look at and see what See how it, things related, but also my editor had

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said to me, you should do something a little bit more intellectual here.

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So that wasn't a part of the original book.

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And I, I chafed at that a bit because it made it seem like I was more

Scott Williams: 00:11:10

of a theorist than I really am.

Scott Williams: 00:11:12

So.

Jenn: 00:11:12

I appreciate it.

Scott: 00:11:13

I appreciated that.

Scott: 00:11:15

I mean, I, so I appreciated, again, that was kind of in the, in the early part

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of your book, you say, okay, here's the categories, but you do caveat listen,

Scott: 00:11:23

I'm not a huge fan of these cats.

Scott: 00:11:25

You poke, you poke fun at yourself right away.

Scott: 00:11:27

And so I appreciate the humor, the humor right up front.

Scott: 00:11:31

And I'm actually looking forward to digging deep, dig digging deeper into

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the, into the book, because I feel like your book is one of those ones

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that I could, someone could pick up at any given time and just flip to

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a chapter or flip to a certain spot.

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They can either read it all the way through, or they could just say, Hey,

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this is an interesting, this caught my.

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Caught my eye on TV.

Scott: 00:11:51

Oh, yeah, that's one of the chapters in this book.

Scott: 00:11:53

I mean, is that kind of how you intended this was to, to be easy

Scott: 00:11:57

to read, either front to back or pick it up whenever you, you could.

Scott Williams: 00:12:07

I tend to be one of those people who pick, pick things

Scott Williams: 00:12:09

out of books and, and read what I can.

Scott Williams: 00:12:11

So, but I didn't, I wouldn't say I intended that to happen.

Scott Williams: 00:12:15

What I intended was to have, I mean, like we were talking before about an

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overarching view of like technology and things that I wanted to have an

Scott Williams: 00:12:23

overarching view of history, which I mean there's, there's actually a kind

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of history called big history and it's basically just pulling back from all

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the minutiae and, and, and looking at trends and looking at things like that.

Scott Williams: 00:12:35

I didn't want to get quite that far away, but I wanted to be able to pull back

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enough that you could see the patterns.

Scott Williams: 00:12:42

I know, I know that there's not.

Scott Williams: 00:12:44

History doesn't repeat itself.

Scott Williams: 00:12:45

I I agree totally with what you said there, but there are patterns that

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recur, that are dealt with in different ways by different civilizations.

Scott Williams: 00:12:53

And the, the, when you do that, when you pull back and do what I've, I've

Scott Williams: 00:12:56

done, even for me, I didn't realize until I started to write what I was

Scott Williams: 00:13:02

looking at here, where there was a lot of patterns and a lot of things that,

Scott Williams: 00:13:06

that echoed in even present day stuff.

Scott: 00:13:10

And that's, and that's where I could see your, the categorization.

Scott: 00:13:14

that you, we, we joke about earlier, that would probably help you from a writing

Scott: 00:13:18

perspective, at least for me, right?

Scott: 00:13:19

That's the way my brain works, is I gotta outline something, I gotta have some

Scott: 00:13:22

categories, and then, okay, I can pick and choose, okay, if, if it's a religion,

Scott: 00:13:27

okay, this is when this religion came to the forefront, or that religion came to

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the forefront, or that concept came out.

Scott: 00:13:33

With that, I mean, when you're researching a book like this, there's, there's

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no kind of One single source aside, if you just say the internet for all

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of history, if we interviewed someone who is, who is, writing on John Quincy

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Adams the other day, and he had a very specific source and one place he could

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go to for some personal journals.

Scott: 00:13:50

But for you, what were you using for your, for your research for this book?

Scott Williams: 00:13:54

Oh, look, it was, it was, I say the internet, but

Scott Williams: 00:13:59

I would also, I would look at the internet and then I'd go, okay, I

Scott Williams: 00:14:01

would, I would pick something up.

Scott Williams: 00:14:03

I wanted to look for big ideas.

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But I wanted odd angles on big ideas too.

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I wanted, I wanted there to be stories involved.

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So I would look to see if there were stories involved with something.

Scott Williams: 00:14:12

And I would, I would even look at Wikipedia.

Scott Williams: 00:14:14

And then I would, once I saw that, then I'd go, okay, deep dive

Scott Williams: 00:14:18

on their sources then on other sources to see the veracity of it.

Scott Williams: 00:14:22

That's why I don't regard myself at any stretch, by any stretch of

Scott Williams: 00:14:25

the imagination as a historian.

Scott Williams: 00:14:27

I am not a historian because I don't do the proper groundwork

Scott Williams: 00:14:31

a historian would do.

Scott: 00:14:33

Yeah.

Scott Williams: 00:14:34

I, I mean, I, I, and I would I would be loath to, people

Scott Williams: 00:14:39

sometimes say, oh, you're a historian.

Scott Williams: 00:14:40

No, I'm not.

Scott Williams: 00:14:42

And that's not because I, I respect historians too much to

Scott Williams: 00:14:45

equate myself with a historian.

Scott Williams: 00:14:48

But I also, I respect history and I don't write stuff that's not true or that isn't

Scott Williams: 00:14:54

any that hasn't been reported as true.

Scott Williams: 00:14:57

If any history I've written is debated, I will then put a caveat

Scott Williams: 00:15:03

on that and say, hey this is a great story, but it's debatable.

Scott Williams: 00:15:08

But I will go with the great story, if there's one there,

Scott Williams: 00:15:11

purely for entertainment's sake.

Scott Williams: 00:15:12

It's an entertainment book.

Scott Williams: 00:15:13

It's not, it's not, it is informative, but it's meant to be entertaining.

Scott Williams: 00:15:22

, Jenn: see it as inspiring.

Scott Williams: 00:15:24

It's one of those inspiring books, right?

Scott Williams: 00:15:27

It's one of those If this person could do that, maybe I could do that.

Scott Williams: 00:15:30

If that person was in this situation, I'd like to think I

Scott Williams: 00:15:33

would do that in that situation.

Scott Williams: 00:15:34

I think that's what history, we want to hear these, these history makers that

Scott Williams: 00:15:40

made these hard decisions and did things that we can look at and be like, wow, I,

Scott Williams: 00:15:44

I'm inspired to do something like that.

Scott Williams: 00:15:47

Like Neil Armstrong.

Scott Williams: 00:15:48

Right?

Scott Williams: 00:15:48

I'm inspired to reach for the moon and then have a really

Scott Williams: 00:15:53

great line once I hit the moon.

Scott Williams: 00:15:57

Yeah, yeah.

Scott Williams: 00:15:59

Absolutely.

Scott Williams: 00:16:00

A glitch in the recording.

Scott: 00:16:02

exactly.

Jenn: 00:16:04

So how long did it take you to write the book?

Scott Williams: 00:16:11

When I started, I started writing it as a history of education.

Scott Williams: 00:16:14

That was, that, it began as that.

Scott Williams: 00:16:16

And I spent probably about a year putting together as a history of education.

Scott Williams: 00:16:20

And then I started to go There were some really interesting parts and

Scott Williams: 00:16:23

all the interesting parts were the parts about sort of the ideas that

Scott Williams: 00:16:27

people had and and those things that changed, people's perspectives and

Scott Williams: 00:16:35

I'm a, I'm a teacher by, by trade.

Scott Williams: 00:16:37

I, I, and so that was why I thought education was good.

Scott Williams: 00:16:40

I was looking for an angle, education was the angle I was going for.

Scott Williams: 00:16:43

Then I realized that A, not many people would be super interested and

Scott Williams: 00:16:47

B, there was a better story there, or there was a better book there.

Scott Williams: 00:16:51

And so.

Scott Williams: 00:16:52

After about a year of struggling with this history of education, I

Scott Williams: 00:16:55

realized where the story was, and I realized what I needed to write.

Scott Williams: 00:16:59

And the thing was, it had been there all along.

Scott Williams: 00:17:03

Ever since, like I say in the book, I don't know if you got that far, but my dad

Scott Williams: 00:17:08

would read to me at night, and I wanted to be read non fiction books, so he'd

Scott Williams: 00:17:11

read to me about ancient Egypt, he'd read to me about all these history things.

Scott Williams: 00:17:15

And it started all back then.

Scott Williams: 00:17:18

And then over the years I've just always touched base with, with

Scott Williams: 00:17:22

history things, and even my my love of science fiction, to me science

Scott Williams: 00:17:28

fiction is the history of the future.

Scott Williams: 00:17:30

The history I'll never get to see.

Scott Williams: 00:17:33

So I, I love science fiction because obviously I'll be dead, but that gives

Scott Williams: 00:17:37

me a bit of an idea as to what history might be like, so it's, it, everything

Scott Williams: 00:17:41

for me is about Historical moments.

Scott: 00:17:44

SO what, what are some of your.

Scott: 00:17:46

If I'm gonna tell a friend about this book, and, and even just the quick reading

Scott: 00:17:51

that I did of the first, 20 or 30 pages I, I actually really started getting into it.

Scott: 00:17:56

And then my kids, yelled at me about something and I had to go warm

Scott: 00:18:00

up a hot dog or whatever it was.

Scott: 00:18:01

But so what are some of your favorites that, as you were writing this or

Scott: 00:18:06

that kind of stood out to you the most in this, particular book?

Scott Williams: 00:18:13

Okay, some of the things that, I mean, not all of

Scott Williams: 00:18:16

them are life changing moments.

Scott Williams: 00:18:19

One of the ones I really like is the beer, beer before bread hypothesis,

Scott Williams: 00:18:23

which is a hypothesis that humanity didn't band together in cities and,

Scott Williams: 00:18:28

and farm and everything to, to, to grow food and to make bread.

Scott Williams: 00:18:35

They, they needed to make beer.

Scott Williams: 00:18:37

And so one of the reasons that they they sort of develop farming was to create a a

Scott Williams: 00:18:43

reliable source of grain for making beer.

Scott: 00:18:46

Grain for making beer.

Scott Williams: 00:18:47

and that's, that's actually a, a bona fide theory.

Scott Williams: 00:18:50

That's not someone off the internet.

Scott Williams: 00:18:52

That's actually, there's a scientific paper that, that, that, it's only a

Scott Williams: 00:18:56

theory, but it's still an interesting one.

Scott Williams: 00:18:58

And it certainly,

Scott: 00:18:59

fun one, yeah.

Scott Williams: 00:19:00

it's a fun one.

Scott Williams: 00:19:00

And when you see how important beer was to early civilizations,

Scott Williams: 00:19:05

the Mesopotamians loved beer.

Scott Williams: 00:19:06

Although the beer they drank wasn't exactly like what

Scott Williams: 00:19:09

we would drink, apparently.

Scott Williams: 00:19:10

It was more like porridge and they had to drink it with a straw because of all

Scott Williams: 00:19:13

the bits and pieces that were in it.

Scott: 00:19:14

Oh my gosh.

Scott Williams: 00:19:16

the,

Scott: 00:19:16

Hardy

Scott Williams: 00:19:17

yeah, the Egyptians loved beer.

Scott Williams: 00:19:19

The Chinese love beer.

Scott Williams: 00:19:21

So it was a, it was one of those things that, it's universal.

Scott Williams: 00:19:25

And it's conceivable that, that, that beer before bread

Scott Williams: 00:19:29

hypothesis was true, was true.

Scott Williams: 00:19:31

The fact that writing was pretty much invented by accountants.

Scott Williams: 00:19:36

So even though we see writing now as literary, literary sort

Scott Williams: 00:19:40

of pursuits and all that kind of stuff, it was the accountants of

Scott Williams: 00:19:43

Mesopotamia that that really started to sort of put things down on.

Scott Williams: 00:19:50

Not paper, obviously on clay, but they start to make marks in clay.

Scott Williams: 00:19:53

Those marks became more important, more complex and then a bit length,

Scott Williams: 00:19:59

a written language came out of that.

Scott Williams: 00:20:01

That was interesting.

Scott: 00:20:03

I mean, that, that makes sense.

Scott: 00:20:04

That it, it's, it's useful for money.

Scott: 00:20:06

Useful for money.

Scott: 00:20:07

That's right.

Scott: 00:20:07

Right.

Scott: 00:20:07

Yeah.

Scott: 00:20:08

Leave it, to leave it to the accountants and, the IRS types,

Scott: 00:20:10

here, at least here in the States.

Scott: 00:20:12

Mm-Hmm.

Scott: 00:20:12

, that, to, to invent the system that would that would track all

Scott: 00:20:15

the taxes that, that I gotta

Scott Williams: 00:20:16

Oh, yeah.

Scott Williams: 00:20:22

Yeah.

Scott Williams: 00:20:22

I mean, what, and that's, that's definitely a lightbulb moment.

Scott Williams: 00:20:26

Some of them, there's a story in there about Sun Tzu, the,

Scott Williams: 00:20:30

the famous Chinese general.

Scott Williams: 00:20:32

And I wouldn't say it's a lightbulb moment other than the fact that he codified some

Scott Williams: 00:20:36

of the, sort of the ideas to do with war.

Scott Williams: 00:20:39

But there was a story in the, in the book about how his emperor had challenged

Scott Williams: 00:20:44

him to get a a group of, like female I think concubines to, to act like an army.

Scott Williams: 00:20:52

So he he divided them into two groups and he made one of the king's, of

Scott Williams: 00:20:56

the emperor's concubines, the leader of each group, and then basically

Scott Williams: 00:21:02

taught them some manoeuvres.

Scott Williams: 00:21:04

And when he brought the king out, or the emperor out to watch, they

Scott Williams: 00:21:08

mucked it all up, they fell about laughing, and thought it was hilarious.

Scott Williams: 00:21:13

And so, he executed both of the concubines who were the leaders, and

Scott Williams: 00:21:18

then retrained the ones that were left, and they performed perfectly after that.

Scott: 00:21:23

Absolutely.

Scott: 00:21:24

It's motivation.

Scott: 00:21:25

Yeah, that, that, that, that'll teach you to learn the art

Scott: 00:21:29

of war very, very quickly.

Scott: 00:21:31

Oh, my goodness.

Scott Williams: 00:21:32

So yeah, there's loads of stuff like that.

Scott Williams: 00:21:34

A lot of, a lot of the stories to do with mythology and ancient

Scott Williams: 00:21:39

Egypt and Rome and Greece.

Scott Williams: 00:21:42

I mean, I, I won't give away, there's, there's a lot in there and obviously

Scott Williams: 00:21:46

and this one could be a little bit controversial in the States, but there's

Scott Williams: 00:21:48

some interesting stuff about Christianity too, but we might not go there right now.

Scott: 00:21:53

Yeah I mean, there's lots of things.

Scott: 00:21:55

I mean, and that's a great point.

Scott: 00:21:56

And that's why I appreciated you setting the stage of hey, there are categories.

Scott: 00:22:00

If you, the reader, wants to think of things in a certain category,

Scott: 00:22:04

you're giving us the tools.

Scott: 00:22:05

And then you say, hey, you don't have to use them because

Scott: 00:22:07

I don't even like using them.

Scott: 00:22:09

But to your point, religion, politics, the idea of government

Scott: 00:22:13

and all that, that kind of stuff.

Scott: 00:22:15

I mean, I'm sure a lot of those things are those, those light bulb moments.

Jenn: 00:22:20

And I think that it's important to know your, the history.

Jenn: 00:22:23

No matter if you like it or not, or if it sits well with you, you need

Jenn: 00:22:27

to, you should know it because if you're going to have a conversation,

Jenn: 00:22:31

a critical thinking conversation about something, then you need to know what's

Jenn: 00:22:34

the other side and what's the evidence and let's have a conversation about it.

Jenn: 00:22:38

So I think that's good that you put that in there.

Jenn: 00:22:40

Don't shy away from that.

Scott Williams: 00:22:42

Oh, absolutely.

Scott Williams: 00:22:43

And I think one thing we have done recently, and I, I suppose we're

Scott Williams: 00:22:50

looking at the dumbing down of society the people don't tend to quick think

Scott Williams: 00:22:54

critically, and they don't look at the past, they don't look at science

Scott Williams: 00:22:57

and so many of these things that we really need to move forward.

Scott Williams: 00:23:01

And I mean, I've, I've hear my saying that I think the world keeps getting better.

Scott Williams: 00:23:06

But.

Scott Williams: 00:23:07

We're in a bit of a downturn now.

Scott Williams: 00:23:09

I'd say if, if, if I always say that it's like the stock market.

Scott Williams: 00:23:13

We're on a steady uptick, but there are corrections along the way.

Scott Williams: 00:23:17

And right now I think we're in a correction.

Scott: 00:23:19

Is there anything when you were studying kind of these

Scott: 00:23:21

lightbulb moments, and I think you alluded to it, like even writing,

Scott: 00:23:25

it depends on what's done with it.

Scott: 00:23:27

Writing could have been positive, like the Bible, or it could have been negative

Scott Williams: 00:23:30

Mein Kampf.

Scott Williams: 00:23:31

Yeah.

Scott: 00:23:33

That's what you wrote in the book.

Scott: 00:23:35

I mean, was there other things like that, in, in your book for lightbulb

Scott: 00:23:39

moments that were could have, that were both, I guess, positive and negative?

Scott Williams: 00:23:42

Oh look, tools can be used for multiple, multiple things.

Scott Williams: 00:23:45

You can use a knife to, to sort of butter bread.

Scott Williams: 00:23:48

You can also stab someone with a knife.

Scott Williams: 00:23:50

There's lots of, there's lots of alternate uses for seemingly good things.

Scott Williams: 00:23:56

Free speech is a great thing, but free speech can be abused.

Scott Williams: 00:24:01

And I think I'm, no one's calling for the, for free speech to be curtailed, but.

Scott Williams: 00:24:06

You do wonder why people can get away with saying blatant untruths and, and

Scott Williams: 00:24:13

changing Like basically changing people's outlook on history based on untruths.

Scott Williams: 00:24:19

That, that to me is, is wrong and shouldn't be allowed.

Scott Williams: 00:24:23

But then how do you police that when free speech is so important?

Scott: 00:24:31

Now, I think I saw when I was poking around on Amazon,

Scott: 00:24:35

that do you have another another, like a volume two coming out here

Scott Williams: 00:24:39

I do, I do have volume two coming out.

Scott Williams: 00:24:42

There's, there we go.

Scott Williams: 00:24:44

There's volume one, volume two.

Scott: 00:24:46

Oh, there you

Jenn: 00:24:46

go.

Jenn: 00:24:47

There you go.

Jenn: 00:24:47

There was just so many that you found that you had another book.

Scott Williams: 00:24:51

well, basically what I'm doing is I'm, I'm, I'm

Scott Williams: 00:24:54

just moving through history.

Scott Williams: 00:24:55

The first book goes from the first humans up to the end of the Roman Empire.

Scott Williams: 00:25:02

And then I'm picking up from, yeah, from the middle ages up

Scott Williams: 00:25:06

to the scientific revolution.

Scott Williams: 00:25:07

Right now I'm working on book three.

Scott Williams: 00:25:09

which is the Enlightenment.

Scott Williams: 00:25:11

In fact, it's that the working title at the moment is Revolution to

Scott Williams: 00:25:14

Evolution, which is going to pick up on the the French Revolution, American

Scott Williams: 00:25:17

Revolution, and then up to Darwin.

Scott Williams: 00:25:21

And then I'm going to keep on going basically.

Scott Williams: 00:25:23

But the idea is to, is to, to do it chronologically.

Scott Williams: 00:25:27

So you can iteratively, iteratively build.

Scott Williams: 00:25:31

And the fact that the first book.

Scott Williams: 00:25:34

Covers probably two million years of history.

Scott Williams: 00:25:37

The second book covers a thousand years.

Scott Williams: 00:25:39

The third book is going to cover 200 years maybe.

Scott Williams: 00:25:43

And, and that

Scott Williams: 00:25:44

how fast things are growing.

Scott Williams: 00:25:46

Yeah.

Scott Williams: 00:25:47

So in fact, the original idea was to do three books.

Scott Williams: 00:25:50

It's probably going to end up being five.

Scott: 00:25:52

Wow.

Scott: 00:25:53

That's

Scott Williams: 00:25:53

I'm, I'm, I'm sort of, making it, stretching

Scott Williams: 00:25:56

it out to try to do whatever.

Scott Williams: 00:25:58

I'm basically, I'm struggling to fit it all in.

Scott Williams: 00:26:02

And in fact, I'm sure any, I'm sure anyone could look at the first book and go, why

Scott Williams: 00:26:07

didn't you put this, this, this, or this?

Scott Williams: 00:26:09

And the further I go along.

Scott Williams: 00:26:11

The more there's going to be.

Scott Williams: 00:26:12

So I think if you've read in the introduction I'm putting in

Scott Williams: 00:26:17

ones that I think are important.

Scott Williams: 00:26:19

They're not the only important lightbulb moments.

Scott Williams: 00:26:21

I think I can't possibly do it It's just a way of me sort of showing this

Scott Williams: 00:26:28

iterative building and how how the world is getting better and how we

Scott Williams: 00:26:32

need to appreciate that our lives are You know, immensely better than the

Scott Williams: 00:26:39

lives of people even 200 years ago.

Scott Williams: 00:26:42

So I think sometimes we just don't appreciate what we've got.

Jenn: 00:26:52

I like that

Scott: 00:26:52

gratitude.

Scott: 00:26:53

Yeah.

Scott: 00:26:54

And, and that's one thing.

Scott: 00:26:55

And if you've been listening, if you have been listening to podcasts and you,

Scott: 00:26:58

you would know that, that I tell people all the time, I'm not the history nerd,

Scott: 00:27:02

but I've learned a lot doing all this stuff with Jen and learning about the

Scott: 00:27:06

lens that we look at things through.

Scott: 00:27:08

And you even mentioned that in the very beginning, right?

Scott: 00:27:11

As long as, as you can.

Scott: 00:27:13

Be curious and be open enough to know that you are looking at something

Scott: 00:27:18

through a lens and you can be willing enough to be open to that conversation.

Scott: 00:27:21

You can be grateful and studying history and even knowing just a little bit

Scott: 00:27:26

about history, whether it's watching one of our videos or reading your book

Scott: 00:27:30

about those big light bulb moments that will give you that perspective

Scott: 00:27:34

and help you understand like, Hey, I really don't have it that bad.

Jenn: 00:27:37

Yeah.

Jenn: 00:27:38

And I like it's that Scott like this is your book.

Jenn: 00:27:41

So you're going to choose the light bulb moments, right?

Jenn: 00:27:44

If someone else has other ones, and they can go write their book.

Scott: 00:27:46

No,

Scott Williams: 00:27:50

I saw something and went, Oh my God, why

Scott Williams: 00:27:52

didn't I put that in the book?

Scott Williams: 00:27:55

Then I just, I just stopped being hard on myself and going, I did the

Scott Williams: 00:27:57

best I could, and there's loads of things I could have put in that I

Scott Williams: 00:28:01

haven't put in, and I know that.

Scott Williams: 00:28:03

But yeah, I'm, I'm really happy with how it's come out.

Scott Williams: 00:28:06

I'm happy with The feel.

Scott Williams: 00:28:09

I think the, the feedback I've got is, it meant I'm trying to make

Scott Williams: 00:28:12

history appealing, interesting.

Scott Williams: 00:28:15

A bit funny 'cause there are funny parts in history.

Scott Williams: 00:28:17

I wanna, I want to tease those things out so people get to see the

Scott Williams: 00:28:22

interesting, fun parts of history.

Scott Williams: 00:28:23

It isn't all just dates and things like that.

Scott Williams: 00:28:27

It's, it's a living thing that, that these people were alive.

Scott Williams: 00:28:31

I mean, they, they had lives like you and I, they.

Scott Williams: 00:28:35

were, they lived, they died, they had problems, and to see them as real people

Scott Williams: 00:28:41

who were stupid and did dumb things and, but also did amazing things, it's

Scott Williams: 00:28:47

and that people like say Churchill, who was incredible, but also had a really

Scott Williams: 00:28:52

bad side to him, and I think you can acknowledge that You could acknowledge

Scott Williams: 00:28:57

the greatness and still say, hey, this person wasn't, he was a bit of a

Scott Williams: 00:29:01

racist and he was a bit of this and a bit of that, but he also was inspiring

Scott Williams: 00:29:05

and did all these amazing things.

Scott Williams: 00:29:07

I have a real problem with people trying to revise history in a way which

Scott Williams: 00:29:12

takes away the, that greatness factor and say George Washington's our own

Scott Williams: 00:29:17

slaves, therefore he was a bad person.

Scott Williams: 00:29:19

And and not looking at The way things were at the time.

Scott Williams: 00:29:23

You can't judge people by today's standards.

Scott Williams: 00:29:26

That's not how history works.

Scott: 00:29:34

not at all.

Scott: 00:29:34

And I think we were just talking about that

Jenn: 00:29:36

earlier.

Jenn: 00:29:36

I think that's the whole point, I was they just took down that

Jenn: 00:29:41

they removed the Thomas Jefferson statue from the New York city hall.

Jenn: 00:29:45

It's been up there for a hundred and it's been in there for 187 years.

Jenn: 00:29:48

And I say, we're not doing our jobs as historians.

Jenn: 00:29:52

If that stuff is happening, because if people can, can dumb people down

Jenn: 00:29:56

to one thing about them and it's a bad thing and then remove everything

Jenn: 00:30:02

else that they've influenced and done and created and changed.

Jenn: 00:30:07

Then we're not doing job as historians to provide context.

Jenn: 00:30:10

And that is what historians do because nothing is happening today.

Jenn: 00:30:16

That is 200 years ago that we live off of today.

Jenn: 00:30:21

And so I, I totally agree with you.

Jenn: 00:30:23

I find it very, It's fascinating that people want to just take all the past

Jenn: 00:30:29

and judge it today and then put it on a side and I really dislike the former

Jenn: 00:30:35

President Obama had used this right and wrong side of history and I really

Jenn: 00:30:38

dislike those terms because there is no right and wrong side of history.

Jenn: 00:30:43

It's all the accurate side of history.

Jenn: 00:30:47

It's all the truth side of history.

Jenn: 00:30:48

If you're looking for a right side, it's the side that's the truth.

Jenn: 00:30:51

That's the right side.

Jenn: 00:30:53

The wrong side is.

Jenn: 00:30:54

changing it or saying something different or, or making something else more

Jenn: 00:30:58

important than what it is for an agenda.

Jenn: 00:31:00

That's the wrong side of history.

Jenn: 00:31:02

So I have a hard time with this, this trying to judge history and

Jenn: 00:31:08

and, and clean it out from what.

Jenn: 00:31:10

People had to have done in the past because nobody was perfect.

Scott Williams: 00:31:14

No, it doesn't mean you can't look at history through different

Scott Williams: 00:31:17

lenses and say like I, I use the example of my grandmother who was born in 1895.

Scott Williams: 00:31:22

She was born when Australia or before Australia even was a country, but she

Scott Williams: 00:31:27

grew up during what was called the time of the white Australia policy where

Scott Williams: 00:31:30

basically, no one who wasn't white and Anglo Saxon could come into the country.

Scott Williams: 00:31:36

She was a terrible racist.

Scott Williams: 00:31:39

But, she was a lovely person, but she was a terrible racist because of the era she

Scott Williams: 00:31:44

grew up in, and everyone was racist then.

Scott Williams: 00:31:46

I mean, Australia wasn't that far away from South Africa, in many respects.

Scott Williams: 00:31:51

So, you gotta look at it in that respect.

Scott Williams: 00:31:53

And, she, she grew up through the World War I, Great Depression, World War II.

Scott Williams: 00:32:00

She ended up, she saw the moon landing.

Scott Williams: 00:32:02

I mean, society changed so much in that time.

Scott Williams: 00:32:06

And I'm sure some of her attitudes change, but there's a certain point

Scott Williams: 00:32:10

where when you're a person of a certain age, there's only so far you can change.

Scott Williams: 00:32:15

And I think, I look at her, I remember the good person she was, but I acknowledge

Scott Williams: 00:32:21

that There were problems, but I also know why those problems happened.

Scott Williams: 00:32:25

And I don't, I don't, I don't sort of say she's not my grandmother anymore because

Scott Williams: 00:32:28

she said mean things about black people.

Scott Williams: 00:32:30

I mean, she did, she was awful.

Scott Williams: 00:32:32

I, I was actually quite shocked at some of the things she said, even as a child.

Scott Williams: 00:32:37

So that was, it was a wake up call.

Scott Williams: 00:32:41

There's no doubt about that, but she was also a good person in other respects,

Scott Williams: 00:32:44

but she came from a time when the default position was everyone was a racist.

Scott Williams: 00:32:50

. Scott: And that's why I always appreciate our conversations on talk

Scott Williams: 00:32:53

with history because, I think our guests, have that perspective of,

Scott Williams: 00:32:57

of learning about history and being willing to say yes, that that wasn't.

Scott Williams: 00:33:02

By today's lens those actions back then weren't right.

Scott Williams: 00:33:06

However, people have gotten better and we have to understand where they

Scott Williams: 00:33:09

came from And so again, that's what I appreciate about books like yours

Scott Williams: 00:33:13

that bring some humor into this and make it a little bit more accessible

Scott Williams: 00:33:15

for the non history nerds like myself.

Scott Williams: 00:33:17

And it, it's something that I, I can, I would mention to my friends at work

Scott Williams: 00:33:21

and say, Hey, if, if you want a good, kind of coffee table, history book, or

Scott Williams: 00:33:26

if you want to check out a history book, this one's super fun because it talks

Scott Williams: 00:33:29

about all these, these larger concepts that most people will, be familiar with,

Scott Williams: 00:33:34

but maybe not the details behind them.

Scott Williams: 00:33:36

And then you interjecting your humor.

Scott Williams: 00:33:39

Throughout the book, is, is great.

Scott Williams: 00:33:41

So for for those listening, Scott, what's the best place that you would

Scott Williams: 00:33:45

want them to come to you if you, they wanted to look for your, your current

Scott Williams: 00:33:49

book or your book that's coming out?

Scott Williams: 00:33:51

I think in the spring is what I saw.

Scott Williams: 00:33:53

Yeah, look, it's if you come to my website

Scott Williams: 00:33:59

lightbulbmomentshistory.

Scott Williams: 00:33:59

com, it's got links to all the places you can get it, but you can, the other thing

Scott Williams: 00:34:03

is I've just released a, an audio book of the first book that came out this month.

Scott Williams: 00:34:08

Okay.

Scott Williams: 00:34:08

So for, for listeners who don't like sitting down reading books,

Scott Williams: 00:34:12

but like to listen to things cause, Hey, I'm a podcast listener and

Scott Williams: 00:34:16

I'm an audio book listener too.

Scott Williams: 00:34:18

Like I, most of my reading is done.

Scott Williams: 00:34:20

while walking or doing housework.

Scott Williams: 00:34:22

And I don't get time to sit down and read as much as I'd like.

Scott Williams: 00:34:26

So that's there.

Scott Williams: 00:34:27

It's there now.

Scott Williams: 00:34:27

It's it's available.

Scott Williams: 00:34:29

It's not quite there and audible for some reason yet, but everywhere else, Spotify,

Scott Williams: 00:34:32

it's the audio books available out there.

Scott Williams: 00:34:36

I think it's quite accessible.

Scott Williams: 00:34:38

I'm not reading it.

Scott Williams: 00:34:39

So but I engaged a professional person to do that But as far as yeah everywhere else

Scott Williams: 00:34:46

The books are the first books available everywhere Amazon and everywhere else.

Scott Williams: 00:34:51

The second book will be available everywhere as well but certainly my

Scott Williams: 00:34:55

website's a good place to come and I can you can sign up for my mailing list.

Scott: 00:35:00

awesome.

Scott: 00:35:00

No, that's, that's great.

Scott: 00:35:01

And, and we will we're, we're actually planning on putting

Scott: 00:35:04

together like a little kind of holiday gift guide, we're going to.

Scott: 00:35:08

Put out maybe on our channel or something like that.

Scott: 00:35:10

So we're absolutely going to include your, your book in that.

Scott: 00:35:12

Cause I think it's a great one.

Scott: 00:35:13

It's fun.

Scott: 00:35:14

It's got, got a little bit of a different tone compared to some of the, some of

Scott: 00:35:17

the active academic book that Jen reads that I, I can't, I just can't pick up.

Scott: 00:35:21

It's just not my thing.

Scott: 00:35:23

It's okay.

Scott: 00:35:23

I

Jenn: 00:35:23

like the fun ones too.

Jenn: 00:35:24

I like, we learn in all

Scott: 00:35:27

different ways.

Scott: 00:35:28

Yeah.

Scott Williams: 00:35:28

my book has lots of pictures too,

Scott: 00:35:30

perfect for someone like me.

Scott: 00:35:31

It's perfect for someone like me.

Scott: 00:35:38

As Scott writes in his foreword quoting Sir Isaac Newton, if I have

Scott: 00:35:42

seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

Scott: 00:35:47

If you want a book that will inspire you by learning about the light bulb

Scott: 00:35:51

moments of history, I highly encourage you to check out Scott's book,

Scott: 00:35:54

light bulb moments in human history.

Scott: 00:35:57

yOu can find Scott's book.

Scott: 00:35:58

book, Pretty Much Anywhere, and for those listening, thank you for

Scott: 00:36:01

listening to the Talk With History podcast, and please reach out to

Scott: 00:36:03

us at our website, TalkWithHistory.

Scott: 00:36:05

com.

Scott: 00:36:07

But more importantly, if you know someone else that might enjoy this

Scott: 00:36:10

podcast, especially if you think they'd be interested in this book,

Scott: 00:36:13

please share this episode with them.

Scott: 00:36:15

We rely on you, our community, to grow, and we appreciate you all every day.

Scott: 00:36:19

We'll talk to you next time.

Scott: 00:36:20

Thank you.