Benedict Cumberbatch reads a letter from Kurt Vonnegut

Here's Benedict Cumberbatch reading a letter the acclaimed writer Kurt Vonnegut wrote in 1988 to people living in 2088, giving seven very prescient pieces of advice.
Originally read at the Union Chapel, London in 2019.

[@johngpendleton]

Having met Kurt Vonnegut once, I can report he was as wonderfully prickly and genuine as you'd expect -- and this was while he was tired and taking a smoke break, so I know I got the real Kurt Vonnegut. But this speech also reminds me of a George Carlin line, which I believe I have mostly right: "Don't worry about Mother Nature. Mother Nature can take care of herself. She's a MEEEEEAN mother."

[@rachelbhall]

I would of loved to have to privilege of meeting him. When I read him it feels like I’m sitting down with an old friend and I can hear him talking to me about everything that matters and nonsense too.

[@21centdregs]

@@rachelbhall would "have" or "would've" loved to have the privilege. sorry but this is constantly showing up of late and im sure as an avid reader you won't be offended that i pointed it out. my favorite vonnegut is slapstick btw :)

[@Serai3]

@@21centdregs When I realized Neil Gaiman had picked up that loathsome habit, I wanted to smash a window.

[@21centdregs]

@@Serai3 oh no are you kidding me? maybe he has an assistant that wrote the social media post with that awful faux pas? had to be social media right? i love neil gaiman's work :(

[@Serai3]

@@21centdregs No, it's in his BOOKS. I was flabbergasted. "Would of", "should of" - jeez, I was literally SCREAMING at him on the page.

[@nubojin]

Standing ovation for both Kurt and Benedict for the writing and delivery.

[@mh605]

Amazing that he does an American accent so well; it seems effortless. And he mimics Kurt Vonnegut's speaking voice pretty well, too.

[@iulianastanciu6602]

Brilliant American accent! Brings authenticity to the letter!

[@martinstent5339]

“... sit around all day punching the keys of computer terminals, connected to everything there is, and sip orange juice through straws like astronauts.” From the perspective of 1988, when the world wide web wasn’t even invented yet, that was an astonishingly accurate prediction!!!

[@rayjennings3637]

The whole thing was, "... an astonishingly accurate prediction!!!".

[@victoriapollard6995]

The Internet was around - solid predictions but not like it was all dreamed up.

[@matthewotto8322]

Listened to this on my phone, drinking a Sunkist orange soda

[@DanielNorton]

@@victoriapollard6995 Commercial Internet service would not be available until the following year, and although “invented” by 1988, the first WWW browser wasn’t widely available until 1990.

[@victoriapollard6995]

@@DanielNorton I'm no Kurt Vonnegut but I sure knew about AI before it was widely available. I am aware of the breaking of the space/time continuum; shall I make a prediction to be deemed astonishingly accurate in 30 years because I can read? I mean credit where due but don't pretend like things that are not widely available are forbidden knowledge to those that do research for a living.

[@misswildlife7905]

That was a stunning piece of writing by a fabulous human being!!

[@kevinbirge2130]

God rest his soul. I loved him. I miss him. We still need him.

[@izangmarkus2223]

'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.’

[@margotputnamdelaney4927]

That is a prayer written by Reinhold Niebuhr, an American theologian and Christian realist

[@Taxy04]

Amen

[@marycerrone3281]

I say this to myself alot, and its is so helpful.

[@undinia]

@@margotputnamdelaney4927 Max Ehrmann of Terre Haute, Indiana, wrote the work in the early 1920s. he didn't copyright it so it was reproduced by many others.

[@habliutfish]

John Milton - say no more.

[@bluekitty3731]

Remember people, the earth doesn't need people to survive, but people need the earth to survive, actually the earth will do better without people, life will find a way.

[@SheilaR.08]

Yes, and every other species will breathe a sigh of relief in our absence.

[@tommyhayes8702]

@@SheilaR.08 Agreed.

[@EL-gu8fv]

I agree entirely, we're long overdue for extinction, having been the only animal to destroy its whole planet.

[@Lunar_Equinox]

He could read the yellow pages, I'd still love Benedict. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

[@Dr.A.Wattson]

These words are relevant NOW. P.S. Happy birthday to a wonderful actor, Benny!

[@Serai3]

And we're just as unlikely to listen as we've always been. Our fate has been written in our DNA from day one.

[@thestinkywhistler]

Except for the malthusian overpopulation nonsense. There has been an excess of food produced in the world compared to the need of it's population since before ai was born, capitalism just dictates we throw it out if it doesn't make someone money for it to be eaten.

[@ronwade5646]

Kurt sure as hell knew about the world wide web as it was well established on colleges, hospitals and research laboratories as well as the CDC in Atlanta and other US government offices including the President. My own Uncle had access to the WWW in the 1970s and 1980s both before and after he worked at CDC.

[@m0k0n4sama]

Happy birthday to my favorite celeb crush, such a great gentleman and actor. Thanks for sharing.

[@ravensdotter6843]

Miss you, Kurt!

[@karolineboje]

Happy birthday to the man who saved me

[@susanfehr4073]

I was listening to tapes of Kurt Vonnegut speaking a few weeks ago on an interview about his life on the BBC. Benedict Cumberbatch is astonishingly accurate - if a little less angry. How right Vonnegut was, is and probably will still be in the future as we fail to move forward with some of the most important things to face up to in our time on this small blue planet.

[@DavidDel88]

How apt and how sad that 33 years later we’re still heading straight into his predictions…

[@FigaroHey]

How absurd that thirty-three years later someone can say we are 'heading into his predictions.' If he was any good at predicting, we'd have got there already. He was a fiction writer. I don't know why people take fiction (DaVinci code, anybody?) as though it is fact and fiction-writers as being capable of accurately predicting the future. I can remember reading old magazines in family basements and attics when I was a kid - magazines dating back to the 1920s and 1930s - and they always had these predictions about the world in ten years, the world in 50 years, the world in 100 years. None of the predictions was accurate. It was all FICTION - leading us neatly back to Vonnegut, who also wrote fiction.

[@FasterFaster196]

@@FigaroHey Ah. You're a very silly person, and you're wrong. Good fiction writers, as Vonnegut was, present the world to us as it is. They have the gift of truth telling.

[@mzmadmike]

None of his predictions have happened. Nor have any of the doom and gloom predictions all the way back to the alleged Apocalypse of the year 1000. The Population Bomb was bullshit. The elimination of the polar caps hasn't happened and isn't going to. Food didn't run out with a population of 4 billion. Nuclear war hasn't happened, despite a weekly scare. No Arquilian Battle Cruisers, Corrillian Death Rays, or Intergalactic Plagues. We just got done losing our collective shit over a cold with a morbidity about 3X that of plain old flu, not even on par with the 1968 flu, nothing like the 1917 flu, and irrelevant compared to the Black Death. What happened, as Kurt touched on and then stopped thinking, is that the entire universe exists despite us, and cares not one whit what we do. He almost reached a conclusion, and then he descended into PC virtue signaling.

[@notme222]

Not really. His main prediction is overpopulation exceeding the food supply. That's a bit of doom repeatedly predicted since Thomas Malthus in 1798 and not in any way true. What Vonnegut is really demonstrating here is the power of pessimism. He even decries "over-optimistic" politicians. When was the last time you heard a politician run for office by saying things are great? Even incumbents insist everything is going to hell and they're the only one holding it together. Two things are true: The world is getting better and people think it's getting worse. My prediction is that these will still be true in 2088.

[@nicklaskowalski]

No wonder why Wall-E was so good. Kurt Vonnegut came up with the plot!

[@AGDinCA]

I came to the comments section to write the same thing. WALL-E makes even more sense now.

[@raya.b]

Happy Birthday, Benedict!! 🥳

[@AmandaInEly]

This man can do anything well.

[@user-zj7cs2bc2i]

Brilliant speech👏👏👏👏❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[@kindabatooni9314]

Benedict Cumberbatch is phenomenal as usual ❤

[@mariamartamarcolinocava1551]

Parabéns Mr Cumberbacth... Pelo seu aniversário, pelo seu trabalho, pelo seu cuidado em ajudar outras pessoas. Congratulations!!

[@stevenjbeto]

I suddenly realize that all of my KZbin surfing has been a waste of time save for that it has led me to Letters Live.

[@EL-gu8fv]

Spot on!

[@saragiraldin7953]

Ben's face at 4:10 is priceless

[@shirleynitka5030]

thanks for spending your birthday with us. Benedict. Some of what he read sounds like we're already there. Not 2088. Glad to see you're OK after London's recent flood. Godspeed.

[@vincent9656]

happy belated birthday of a wonderful actor and a great person 🤍

[@monaangela4667]

Happy Birthday to the greatest magnificent actor, kind hearted pure soul Benedict. 🎂

[@rdgist]

Simply brilliant!

[@ellenchavez2043]

I believe it was an interview with Dick Cavett, where Kurt said (paraphrased): "The Earth is a living organism and we are bacteria on the organism. And right now, we are being very, very bad bacteria. The Earth will deal with us in it's own way."

[@roydunn2865]

When ever I hear a speech about all our problems I think we are focused on what people say our problems are as they can be cited from just about any era.

[@m53goldsmith]

Shared -- worth 6 1/2 minutes of anyone's time!

[@volkerschmitt]

KV is smiling down on this great performance from his space ship.

[@tuachoudhury4067]

Happy Birthday to my favorite actor 💙

[@gomezaddams4347]

Boy, did Kurt hit the nail on the head. This video should have been played before every meeting and panel discussion at the recent climate change wank fest.

[@AnnBearForFreedom]

The American accent, though not perfect, is remarkable and impressive.

[@PUAlum]

it surprised me. i was expecting him to sound English.

[@micherunnett5492]

its perfect

[@Nomoredrama2000]

A lot of Kurt's predictions have turned out to be true.

[@f_holmes5385]

His voice is a amazing relaxing voice ASMR

[@Jantonov1]

The hundred years from now that Vonnegut is talking to turned out to take only 30 years.

[@mr.mrs.d.7015]

YES!!! Love this! All correct!

[@416dl]

I wish Kurt V could have lived long enough to have seen what pessimism can do.

[@user-mp8ti3pc8y]

Happi birhday my favorite actor great genhleman !!!👑👑👑

[@ZacandDora]

Oh Benny Happy Birthday buddy 🎂😘🙏

[@Holmesbee2]

Happy bday legend

[@SincereSentinel]

Fascinating

[@edwardcrocker4015]

this one hit hard

[@mariaetheridge8343]

Nailed it!

[@raskov75]

My heart aches from the loss of Kurt but I am glad he has finally found the peace that is so elusive in this life.

[@faezehmohammadi-hs2iw]

👏👏👏👏👏👏 I'm proud of you dear

[@ponderingprachiti]

Happy Birthday

[@pnaroner1621]

happy birthday Benedict Cumberbatch ❤

[@SN-sz7kw]

So spot on and prescient.

[@maria-gr2cz]

So strangely powerful. Keep 'em going Letters Live!

[@HeIsNakedLunch]

This is a good one. And, sounds like there’s another one, too. Possibly more. There is one, though, but, I’m not sure if it’s you who’s read it; but, it was a gawd awful one. Well, I’m pleased to know you’ve nailed one, for sure: this one. And, maybe, another one… seg (shit eating grin) …Live Letters with Jude Law reading in a phony (not believable) accent of some insurance or other letter just popped up in my KZbin recommendations. THAT’S the one I don’t like.

[@donikajorgo5612]

Excellent! And the Tharos*it's Agapi*

[@nardo218]

oo ben's gone mining those rhotic rrrrrrs again. Every american is from Minnesota if you ask Ben. :D

[@neilwilson5785]

The 8 downvotes are the oil comapnies who sent the biggest delegation to COP

[@redsoxu571]

"...everybody will sit around all day punching the keys of computer terminals, connected to everything there is..." Joke is on KV - thanks to cell phones, we get to wander around all day with our heads down punching the keys of our mobile computers! He was so very off on that one 😉

[@KootFloris]

Well, leaders in Glasgow! Got the message?

[@rebecca2401]

It might be because of regional differences but I find his accent here much nicer/natural sounding than e.g. during the latest Tom Hanks letter.

[@joelstein4657]

Vonnegut has always been one of my favorite people.If you're familiar with him, please top off your knowledge with his play "Happy Birthday Wanda June". The opening line is among the best; "This is a simple-minded play about men who enjoy killing, and those who don't." A Cynical, funny and wise story and typical Vonnegut.

[@mariag.8242]

Thanks for the recommendation 👍

[@johnmason6443]

WOW.👍♥️

[@faunaflage]

"And so it goes."

[@Tilion462]

Well... That wasn't scarily prescient, was it?

[@johnswanson217]

I, punching the keys of computer terminals, connected to everything there is : ( Sips orange juice with surprised Pikachu face )

[@timothybell5698]

I almost started crying at 5:35

[@timothybell5698]

Oh, nope, here it comes.

[@udbhavseth799]

Six minutes already?

[@BearOnTheMoon]

As with other good advice, everyone pretends to listen to it & no one actually puts any of it to good use. Cheers to those who have tried though.

[@elainebeal811]

Appropriate for today

[@RobertShaverOfAustin]

... and we're half way to 2088. How are we doing?

[@stokebailey]

Wow

[@meikereuter3924]

This is scary😢

[@xscale]

Overpopulation is no longer a problem here in 2021. Projections are our population will peak at less than 10 billion and then decline. If we hope to avoid it declining to zero, we will certainly need the scientists, dear Kurt.

[@nairocamilo]

Kurt is dead.

[@xscale]

@@nairocamilo not to me, he ain't.

[@tomfreemanorourke1519]

Postscript: "All sentient's are born innocently ignorant with no instruction manual and innocence dies first therefore all sentient's die ignorant because there is no manual, and when sentient experts say they will find the answers to all our problems, the manual, who among this sentient packed isolated earth would know?" Tom O'Rourke b: 1953 ....? Love always

[@daniellemurphy9755]

Love, love, love Kurt Vonnegut! He is sorely missed 💔

[@Serai3]

Good gods, that man was prescient. And he got that way by never giving in to the childish bullcrap of optimism and "positive thinking".

[@plexus]

Prescient

[@lazovkalazovovska5119]

03.4.2022

[@travisdsimmon]

Kurt fing Vonnegut

[@kimsherlock8969]

Nature gave us life You will never understand Surrender to living. Nature will bag you and recreate without the human Ego

[@jayweekes77]

tight

[@KatharineOsborne]

Well this is especially poignant in March 2022, well into existential man-made crisis after existential man-made crisis.

[@kimsherlock8969]

How violent Human nature can be.

[@franvarga709]

Great American accent.

[@lazovkalazovovska5119]

11:40 03.4.2022

[@blitzkrug]

Shall the world go to hell, or shall I have my tea. I say let the world go to hell, but I shall always have my tea.

[@nitramluap]

This is all pretty obvious for people who bother to stop and look at the bigger picture... and has been so for decades.

[@christopherbedford9897]

Yes but why the mid-atlantic accent?

[@anshuecon]

Beautiful, but why is Cumberbatch reading this in an American accent? It would have sounded so much better in his natural speaking voice and accent. This is a minor quibble, however, beautiful words, and movingly, beautifully read out by BC.

[@nicolafaull4551]

I guess because Kurt Vonnegut was American

[@cbboyle5117]

Yep, he’s reading a letter written by an American… !!🤦🏻🙄

[@cmlazar]

They read in the accent of the original author. Vonnegut was an American author.

[@tuss1252]

The amazing BC gave it away each time he pronounced "glacier" as a Brit by saying glay-see-err. We Americans say glay-sherr, as I imagine KV did as well. BC was spot on though when he said "water" without any Ts! 😄

[@tomcloud54]

Boko-maru!

[@ox8833]

Well he wasn’t wrong

[@gm9075]

'White hot boulders from outer space'. Uh oh, are we sure he's not channelling Majorie Taylor Greene..?

[@sandytrunks]

Agog! More more more!!! Oh.... Kurt's dead. RIP

[@liamneely8893]

Cumberbatch's accent deserves admiration indeed but here and elsewhere, a word or two slips through. "Been" is wrong here and he only gets "glacier" half right. He needs to watch for schedules, laboratories, garages, patriots, vitamins, etc.

[@a_diamond]

*sips SunnyD*

[@juulcy]

Mmmm Cumberbatch doing the American accent… I don’t know. Part of his charm is the deep British voice. It is very well done anyway.

[@teddnagurski5583]

I thought Benedict Cumberbatch is british.

[@iansullivan9738]

*sweats in Elon Musk*

[@inkmothstudios]

Poo-tee-weet.

[@oikkuoek]

It only takes a sh!t ton of nature and labor force to be able to create an environment where one can sit around punching keyboards and sip orange juice all day long.