Loving your child's mind: Could kids recreate the modern world?

How are you doing?

I'm good, how are you?

I'm well, I'm well. So I was just explaining that I had to install a software update on my computer, which is why I was a little bit slow or late today. And I was asking Sankara if he knows why computers need to have software updates. Do you have any idea why computers need to have soft— software updates?

Maybe so the device can— well, maybe it's because they made a new version of whatever update they need because maybe they found a bug, a really bad bug in one, or maybe the device just needs to catch up with all the updates. So maybe that's why I need to update.

Okay, um, let's play around, uh, with what is software. Do you guys know what software is? What is software?

Not really.

Um, so, um, well, it looks like that means um, told me, um, it's like this thing like, um, software. I mean, wait, it's like, like, um, like, um, it's like apps and stuff.

It's like what and stuff?

Apps.

Apps, okay. Um, do either of you know at all about how software works or how computers work?

Well, I think, um, computers run off the code, but other than that, yeah, I don't know.

Okay, and when you say— do you have anything in addition to that, Sankara, that maybe computers run off of a code?

Um, what did I— didn't understand what you say.

We're trying to see what you know about how software works and how computers work. And Alana says all she knows about it is that maybe they run off a code, and I'm wondering if you know anything beyond that.

Our computers work. Ooh, I know. Every time you type, then like in the computer goes like 0 and 1s. 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 1, 0. I know some of it. That's some of the codes.

Okay, and do you know what those 0s and 1s are called?

Um, um, no.

Okay, sometimes people call that binary because binary is, you know, binary is like two things, so there's either off and on. 0 and 1 corresponds to off and on, and so it's like a light switch. Light switch can be off and on. Um, go ahead, Ankara.

With the light switch thing, there's something called Morse code, and, and, um, so basically it, um, it, um, you do something with the light and there's some codes that come up if you know Morse code. I know how to do SOS.

So, um, okay, and Morse code is, is a different kind of thing, but It is a code. Have you ever heard of Morse code, Ilana?

I have.

Okay, so I'm kind of— one of the things I'm wondering, a thought experiment, and I've actually read novels like this, where suppose kids have to recreate the world. So suppose, you know, you guys are on an island, you know, maybe, maybe you're leaving Hawaii and you get stuck on an island just off of one of the Big Islands and you're alone and there are no adults there, do you think that you guys could recreate the modern world?

Yeah, maybe. Yeah, yeah, we could if we had enough materials.

Okay.

Yeah, because it is about what happened again.

So the hypothesis is, and I mentioned Hawaii because, because Alana is from Hawaii, and Hawai i has— there's the Big Island and then some smaller islands. And so I was saying, suppose there's a small island— I think actually all the islands around Hawai i have some people— but suppose there's a small island just off Hawai i and, you know, your plane goes down there. And so maybe you've got the plane, but maybe the pilot dies, and so it's nothing but kids. So you've got nothing but kids on an island. Basically, go ahead.

Um, the stuff that's left over, like the black box, I can use that to recreate, um, to see what happens. And then if I can see that, um, there's some metal scraps left over, I can go and create a building and something, and then I can create a boat and go to a different place.

I got it. So you've got a great big plan. So what about you, Alanna? What do you think that you guys could create if you had, say, 30 to 40 kids on an island together? What could you create or recreate?

Um, yeah, like Jen-Cara said, we could just use scraps and we could use like wood and leaves and stuff like that. And then, yeah, we just make, um, homes, maybe like mini caves, or I don't know. And then, yeah. Try and go somewhere and ask for help.

So let's figure out the homes. How would you build a home?

Well, I actually don't know. It'll have to, um, have to depend on the— on what landscape we'd be at. But if there— well, yeah, it would have to depend on which landscape we were at.

Go ahead, Sankara.

Well, if you need to build a home, you need to dig really, really deep. Yes, except where do you get the material, I mean, the material that won't melt before you've even gone down the second half? Because aluminium is very fragile compared to other metals.

So you're saying that the aluminium from the plane would not allow you to dig deep? Is that the problem? So, you know, and the reason I mentioned Hawai i, Ilana, is because you know, you kind of know the kinds of trees and the kind of ground and, you know, you kind of know the stuff there. So do you think that assuming it's a Hawai i-style island, do you think that you could build a house?

Maybe.

So how would you start? I mean, you're on the beach, you know, your plane went down, you know, maybe for some reason you don't want to stay in the plane, Maybe it's even been washed out to the ocean. Yeah, go ahead, Sankara. What do you do?

It's been washed out and you don't have any metal scraps or anything.

Yeah, does that make it a lot harder if you don't have any metal scraps?

And this person be good at swimming?

Well, that's a question. So you would say the metal is essential, Would you say without the metal you really don't know what to do?

No, basically it's basically impossible for full 100% of a plane, even while it's fine, for it to stay in water. So some of it would have popped up, and, and, and if you get one and put all them all together, you can make a life raft.

Okay, but let's start with a house because maybe you don't know how far away the other islands are, and so it could be really dangerous to try to go in a life raft because you could get lost at sea. So if you have to stay on the island and build a house, what are you going to do? Go, Sankara.

Um, if you find the pieces of metal, um, and you find some palm trees and actually this one's something I bought once.

So with palm trees, you'd build something with palm trees, is that what you're saying?

Yeah, and then you put it on top of the metal and then With the leftover— and when the rain comes, you can put it onto the leaves and put it onto the metal, let it rust, and then later flip it so the leaf is under the metal, and then put And then build a house out of palm trees and then make and cut down some wood and then make like a type of tube with a leaf wire kind of thing and then connect it to this the thing with the leaf on, and then when it's sunny, all the heat that comes from the sun will go down into the rusting metal and then go into your house, and then you get power, and that's how you survive for the rest of your life.

So thank you. Alana was waiting to jump in. Go ahead, Alana.

Okay, um, my idea is definitely not as advanced as Sankara's, but if you were just like in a regular rainforest or something like that, you could just try and get like dead pieces of wood or anything like that and stack it against maybe like a rock or a firm tree.

Okay, um, and do you— I guess one of the things, so the dead wood makes sense. Um, I'm still— I don't, I don't understand 100% of what you explained, Sankara, but I got part of it. But I want to focus on the palm leaves. So I can imagine putting palm leaves kind of over the roof. So we've maybe got wood on the sides and palm leaves over the top. But what if— do you think you could make it rainproof with palm leaves? Or do you think that— because personally, I don't like to sleep when it's raining on me. And so I'm thinking one problem with palm leaves is maybe the water is dripping. Imagine lying and trying to sleep and drip, drip, drip, drip. Not cool. So can you make sure there are no raindrops coming through?

Yeah, but you can use wood to make the house then. And also the thing I was saying earlier was trying to build a solar panel.

Right, and before going to the complexity of a solar panel, I'm just stuck on I just don't want to be sleeping in the rain. And so when you say you can build wood, you know, when I— what I picture, if I have a picture in my mind, you know, in most kind of forests or jungles or whatever you want to call it, there are pieces of wood, but they're all kind of round and crooked and everything. And so you don't have straight walls, you just kind of have these kind of crooked sticks sort of thing. And then on top maybe you have palm leaves, but then there are between the palm leaves water flows. And so the palm leaves could stop the sun. I get it, they would provide protection from the sun, but I still don't see how If Sankara builds my house, I'm afraid that I'm gonna have rain every night, or, you know, if it rains at night, I'm gonna be sopping wet. So how do you keep the rain from going through the palm leaves?

So, um, if there are other trees in Hawaii, like, like, um, big trees, like palm trees, There are a bunch of different kind of trees.

Alana, you want to say something about the different kinds of trees?

Um, I don't know much actually, but I think I know a few. I know there's a lot of palm trees there, like Sankara said, or I think. And I think there's some— actually, yeah, I don't know much. I probably couldn't pull it out right now.

So, but do you agree that there might be a problem in terms of crooked You could have crooked sticks on the side and you can have a palm tree on the top, but do we have a way yet to stop the water from coming through?

You could cut down the trees, most all of the trees, and then cut it into little bits, like about the same width and length of concrete, and you can build them up and use some of the paste or something from the trees to stick them together.

So the paste is an interesting idea to stick them together, that is an interesting idea, but when you say you cut the trees, what exactly are we cutting the trees with?

Um, I didn't think of that.

Maybe you could cut it down with, if you had some extra pieces of maybe really sharp metal, or you would pack for something like that, like maybe an axe or something like that, or hatchet.

So Alana is hoping that we have an axe.

If somebody stole his dad's or mom's phone, then he can call some people if there's Wi-Fi and let them drop down some a chainsaw.

So what I'm getting is that maybe even creating a little shed or a little lean-to or something might be kind of hard. Go ahead, Sankara.

Actually, we should scrap the idea about houses and everything. You could build a giant thing saying SOS and then wait for a plane to come by and then you can go home.

Well, and while Sankara is doing the SOS and waiting for the plane, uh, uh, you know, the rest of everybody else has to sleep in these sopping wet things where the water is leaking through every night. Um, so I don't know that we have a solution yet, but does this sound like kind of a hard problem, even figuring out how to get a shed or a place to sleep?

It kind of does, yeah.

So some time ago, Ilana, I remember you read Island of Blue Dolphins. Um, she had a cave, is that correct, that she had a cave?

Well, well, she already had a village there, and then some, I think, Russians or something like that, they stole everyone except for her. So she had some caves and dens and stuff like that.

Got it. So she didn't have to build everything from scratch. No, that's what Crusoe did, right? Did Yeah, okay, um, go ahead, Sankara.

I have a good idea about what we could do.

What?

Um, so, um, but we're using the wood, um, the way you're gonna cut the wood is using a scrap metal and cutting it down and then they could use the wood to build. I mean, you actually, you should take the seeds off the palm trees, wait a couple of years, then until the palm trees— actually, you should put it into a house shape, wait a couple of years until the palm trees have grew. That could be decades. And then Decades?

Decades?

Yeah.

That's what I'm thinking. You guys are going to be old by the time you have much going on there. And even just the metal, you know, so you're hoping that there's a sharp piece of metal, and— but you mentioned already aluminum is soft. I don't know how hard the trees are, but some wood is very hard. And so part of this is how hard of the wood is the wood there. Then maybe there's a piece of iron, but if it's not sharp I don't know if you guys have ever tried to saw through, even with a good saw, with a really good saw and softwood, sawing is not too hard. But if the wood is hard and/or the metal is not sharp, it's really hard to cut wood. So you develop really strong arms because you guys' arms are going to be so sore from trying to cut this wood.

My dad used to cut down trees. And they had really hard wood, and he told me it took forever. He was doing it not with an electric chainsaw, with like a manual one.

Uh-huh. Well, we're not going to solve that problem this morning, but maybe I'll check on a scale to 1 to 10, with 10 being the most. Yeah, I'm gonna kind of wrap it up because I don't want these to be too long. Something quick, Kankara?

Yeah, it's not morning.

For me it's morning.

For us it's morning. Oh, remember you're in a different time zone. You're across the world. You're across the world from us. It's actually— Alana is 2 hours earlier from me, so it's 10:25 in the morning my time.

For me it's 8:25.

Yeah, so we're all over the world.

And here is, um, um, 4:25 in the afternoon.

There you go. We're in different types. But a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being most interesting, 0 being least interesting, how interesting was it to try to think about building a shelter if we're on an island? Maybe we'll start with Alana. 0 to 10, how interesting was that?

Maybe 7 to 10— 7 to 9, maybe.

OK. And, uh, Sankara, totally a 10 for you?

Yeah, 10.

Okay, all right, in which case, uh, have a good week, you guys, and we will talk again next week. Have fun.

See you next week. Bye.