Simon Waller (00:01)
Welcome to the Future With Friends. It’s so good to have you here. So when I introduce you to people, I often introduce you as a business storyteller. And I do really feel that when I do that, I almost like don’t do you justice. Okay, maybe, okay, is that easy? Is that what you just go, if you were introducing your people at a party or something like you’d say, I’m a storyteller, what would you, how would you describe what you do?

Michelle Newell (00:08)
Thank you.

Yeah, take the word prisoners out.

I have started calling myself a story teacher because when you call yourself a storyteller, people expect certain things from you. They want you to be like the life of the party or to have all the best anecdotes and stories. And my background is actually teaching. So I was an English teacher. So I’ve started calling myself a story teacher. If I’m in public online, it’s called narrative strategist.

Simon Waller (00:56)
narrative strategist.

Michelle Newell (01:00)
Kinda made it up.

Simon Waller (01:02)
That’s great. Strategic narratives. Well, that’s how I know you, right? So we have collaborated a bit in the past. Actually, we’ve collaborated a lot. Actually, probably more than anyone else that I collaborate with, given the timeframe over which we have done that collaboration. So my…

Michelle Newell (01:04)
Yeah. Absolutely.

lot.

Yeah.

Yeah, you call it a collaboration,

but you’re being kind to me. I feel like I’m the little goblin in the background writing some stories for you, but you’re the sage on the stage who’s kind of, you know, delivering it all. That’s how I feel. think collaboration is very kind. You are the expert in futures. Thank you.

Simon Waller (01:43)
I see I see fully seeded as a collaboration. And the

great joy is actually when we get to do those events together. I think so we met only a couple of years ago, it was at an event called sunshine lollipops and rainbows run by our friend Mykel Dixon. What’s your memory of that first encounter?

Michelle Newell (01:51)
Mm.

you.

Actually, I think that was not our first encounter. I think we met this now us or rather that’s when you came onto my radar. I had never heard of futurists before. Like a futurist? What the heck? Who is that? What does that person do? Like I want to know more about that person. So you came onto my radar then and I think I might have reached out to you to have a coffee date. I thought I’m just going to be brave and catch up with this guy.

And we caught up in a cafe in South Yarra. And we just, do you remember? Oh, I was worth it. Yeah. And we just talked for like two hours and I was so fascinated by your work. And then I think, yeah. And then we saw each other again. We sort of reconnected again at Myke’s third event. And you, you’re part of this ecosystem of really interesting people doing

Simon Waller (02:38)
We did, I remember getting a parking ticket that day while we having coffee. Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Yeah.

Michelle Newell (03:05)
very interesting work in change. And I’m really interested in change, changing people’s minds in particular. How do we get people to think differently? And now more than ever, my God, do we need it? So yeah, and then when we started working together, I was just blown away. It was this whole fascinating world of futures that opened up before me. And yeah, I’ve done my own research.

Simon Waller (03:27)
Yeah, and so on that over the last little bit,

you’ve been on a bit of your own journey as well, haven’t you? Like you’ve kind of like, gone out and you’ve actually done a fair bit of kind of learning and self development in this kind of futurism space, which I think is super cool. We might touch on that again in a little bit. But for now, as I said, like that was like you were the I couldn’t wait to have you on the show because one we’ve had this collaboration around writing scenarios in the past. I know you had this deep interest in it.

Michelle Newell (03:32)
I have.

Mmmmm!

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Simon Waller (03:58)
You’re a very good friend. And I was like, I couldn’t really be a great guest to have. And then when I approached you about it, you had a very, I think, enticing topic as well. Do want to share the topic that you’re going to be exploring today?

Michelle Newell (04:04)
Thank you.

Mmm. Mmm.

So Simon today my topic is the future of death and dying.

Simon Waller (04:23)
Which we don’t. Yeah. so you can see my guy like, Okay, what what do we think about what we think the future of death and dying,

we probably see on the screens behind me the Terminator. But your take on this is actually very different. That is not the future of death and dying that we will be discussing today, thankfully. But then also, when you told me not just the topic, then I asked you about, look, you’re have to write this scenario, you have to choose a point in time that your scenario is set.

Michelle Newell (04:36)
Yes. No.

I’m on mute.

Simon Waller (04:53)
in the future that’s at least five years away and straight away you go 30 years. And I was like, yeah. And it was like, yeah, why would that why that timeframe?

Michelle Newell (04:57)
Yep, when I think I’m gonna die.

It’s interesting, right, because I’ve started to think more and more about my own old age. I’m at a point in my life where I’m thinking, gosh, what age am I gonna be when I die? And so I’ve been looking at my grandparents and when they died and thinking, okay, I reckon it’s gonna be 85 for me. So that’s what I’ve picked. I picked 2062 as my point in time for my story.

Simon Waller (05:26)
2062 as in your point in time, which I thought was so cool. one, obviously, and this is one thing I love about, I mean, scenarios are a learning experience to me. The whole point of writing scenarios is for us to kind of dive into a topic, think about different ways it could play out, but it’s about something that we can learn ourselves from the process. And it was interesting that you chose something that was so personal and that you are exploring.

Michelle Newell (05:27)
Yep.

Mmm.

Simon Waller (05:54)
And how, this scenario is often maybe a chance for you to kind of learn something about that as well, which we’ll come to a little bit in the analysis of it. But for now, perhaps you would like to share with our audience your scenario.

Michelle Newell (06:08)
Okay, here we go, the future of death and dying. You wake up early one Monday morning in 2062, a week before your death. This is not the conceit of the writer, knowing when you’ll die while you go blissfully about your business. No, in exactly seven days, you’ll turn 85 and it’s the day you’ve chosen to die. Death has become a hyper-personalised and government mandated experience in Australia.

Each person is legally required to plan their own death journey once they reach the age of 70, while those who were younger can opt to plan earlier at their own cost if they wish. Today, all Australian residents are offered the option of euthanasia after the age of 80, whatever their health status. A few of your friends plan to wait it out and accept death whenever it arrives. You’ve chosen a home passing using new drugs and it’s now time to put the finishing touches on your life celebration and body disposal plans.

The nation breathed a collective sigh of relief when the Australian government took over death and dying laws from the states a decade ago. Overpopulation, housing pressure and land shortages saw the prices of cemetery plots soar past the annual average income. While the rich paid big bucks for their second chance plot atop older caskets, the middle classes were forced into alternative disposal methods like cremation, even if it went against their religious, cultural and family preferences.

Now cemeteries are full and no new space will be opened for them. Cremation has also been outlawed as part of stringent global environmental carbon targets. Even natural burials have been paused with rock headstones deemed a tripping hazard in local parks. Death has really become the ultimate leveller with all Australians being offered a choice of the exact same disposal options, aquamation, promission or composting. Aquamation has never been an option for you.

You’ve been terrified of the water since an older boy almost drowned you in the local swimming pool when you were five. Although you like the idea of your bone remnants being passed to scientific institutions for stem cell research, it’s got to be a hard no. That leaves human composting or freeze drying with permission. Human composting freaks you out. You’re squeamish and the thought of those microbes feasting on your flesh for a month sends shivers down your spine.

but you’re on the fence about it because your remains would be used as fertiliser. Restoring the earth naturally is a noble ending and you’ve always considered yourself a selfless citizen. Promission is a new attack that holds promise. You’ll be freeze-dried and shattered into a bazillion pieces of dust, which seems like a metaphor for your whole life, although you’re not quite sure what that is or whether it’s positive. As you consider the pros and cons of the two, you absentmindedly twirl the ring on your finger.

It’s a huge diamond made from your fur baby Zoom who passed in the mid 2020s pinned on either side by two smaller diamonds made from your parents’ remains. You’ll be sad to imagine it going to the local charity shop once you’re gone but you’ve got no kids or close family left to pass it on to. This idea of being forgotten, picturing the total erasure of your importance to the world is what has influenced your plans for your future memorialisation. You’re about to meet with Janet from Funeral Fame.

You never made it big in life, but Janet has promised that funeral fame can make you a superstar from beyond the grave or the dust bowl. Last week you recorded multiple messages from the afterlife and this week you’re doing a green screen recording in her studio to create your holograph. You’ll be popping up as your 35 year old self, your hottest age, all over the city at your favourite haunts, literally. You’ve only been able to afford funeral fame services as you put down your ring as collateral.

You know funeral fame has plans to divide the diamonds and sell once you’ve died and they’ve activated your plan. You feel a nudge of doubt. Should you keep on going with the memorialisation package, knowing the price of fame is your beloved Zoom ring? What guarantees are there that funeral fame will activate the plan once you’re dead anyway? Or should you keep the memorialisation and disposal more low key and opt for composting and acquire digital tribute in the Australian Human Archive instead?

Thank you. Thank you.

Simon Waller (10:23)
This is excellent. What a great scenario. I love this. And I love the fact that it’s is yours, right? Like this is actually a bit

of a window into who you are, Mich, as well. Yeah. Because I do happen to know you do have a fur baby called Zoom. Yeah.

Michelle Newell (10:35)
It really is. It really is. Yeah.

I do love my life and

he will be made into a diamond. I’ve looked into it. are two Aussie companies I can use to do it.

Simon Waller (10:52)
Yeah. So tell us a little

bit about, we’ll dissect this in a second, but like, tell me a little bit about the process of creating this. Like it’s such a rich, it’s such a rich scenario. And as it also very deeply personal, how do you go about like, I give you the brief of like, hey, you know, choose whichever topic you want, you’ve chosen death and dying, choose a timeframe, go ahead and write us a scenario, Mich. What, what is the process that you took from that brief to create something like this?

Michelle Newell (10:55)
Yeah.

mmm yeah mmm

Hmm.

So the first thing I did was to ask myself why I love death and dying so much and to really question how much do I actually know about this? Am I actively out there looking for signals? You taught me about signals as a futurist and I sort of am. I just naturally gravitate to death and dying as a theme. I find it very interesting. So I started writing down everything I already knew that’s already on my radar about death and dying.

Do you want me to just mention what they are or do want me to give you high level first of what I did with that?

Simon Waller (11:53)
You

can answer this question however you like, Mich.

Michelle Newell (11:56)
Okay, so

I first got interested in it as a theme through the idea of death cafes. So I lived in the UK for 12 years and I’ve been back in Melbourne now for 10 years but but back then death cafes were starting to pop up where people would get together and talk about death. And then when I came back to Australia I found this great book called Death, No, Dying a Memoir by Corey Taylor and

She was a Brisbane woman, a writer who tracked her journey through dying. She wrote a book about it. Actually, there’s a play coming out soon. I booked my ticket to it here in Melbourne. And so as I started listing all these things that are on my radar, I thought, yeah, wow, I am keeping track of it. And then I asked myself, what is it about death and dying that that fascinates me? Because what I really had in my mind to do for this story was I’ve got to write it. I’ve got to draw up a futures wheel.

Right, so this is one of the tools you mentioned earlier that I’ve been going and doing my own sort of looking into it training a little bit and I’ve learned about futures wheels where we kind of it’s basically like a big mind map with you you sort of start planning out what does this mean if there’s hmm yeah

Simon Waller (13:08)
Yeah, so just for the people who are listening to this online, then Mich just held up a bit of a diagram and a futures

wheel, where you kind of almost have your central theme in the center. And then you kind of talk about like, first degree kind of interactions or influences or shifts or changes in my experience. And then you start thinking about, then what would be the secondary ones? What happens at the intersection of those different changes? So you’re kind of trying to build out some possible outcomes, starting from a single premise. Is that a fair way of describing the process?

Michelle Newell (13:24)
and

That is it. Yeah.

And that single premise had me a bit stumped. thought, what is my single premise? I can’t just put future of death and dying in the middle. And so I picked what was a bit of an easy one, which is disposal. How do we dispose of the bodies? And you might have noticed or you might not have. I tried to use the words dying all the time and death. didn’t say passed on. You know, I wanted to use

I’m really interested in the power of words and the way the words we use shape the way we think about topics. So one thing that fascinates me about death cafes is that we’re trying to normalize conversations about death and dying because it’s going to happen to us all. And I’m so I tried to use those words. So my thing in the middle of the wheel was how will we dispose of our dead? And I went to a great conference last year. It was a symposium called Six Feet Under the and Dying in Australia.

and learn some really interesting trends there. So I started putting those around my wheel and you know, there’s things like environmental concerns about, you know, cremation with the carbon emissions. And then we’ve got the problem of our cemeteries have run out of space basically. And so there’s the Greater Metropolitan Cemetery Trust in Melbourne who are looking at, well, what do we do next with our cemeteries? We’ve also got a shortage of space for housing, which means we’ve therefore got a shortage of space.

in Australia for civic space, for spaces to play and meet and leisure. So some of the work the Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust is doing is looking at how do we turn our cemeteries into parks. So I sort of had some ideas around that. And then I thought, well, what are these options for disposing of bodies? So I got onto my good friend, ChatGPT, and asked her. And I already knew about natural burial. Have you heard anything about natural burial?

Simon Waller (15:26)
No, I haven’t. I this is some of the

stuff I like even some of the things that you came up with here. So I had to like, are these things that mish has made up? Or are they real things? So I found out that things obviously like acclimation is actually a very real technique. It was really interesting when I dug into it. Because one of the things that really struck me about as an as a technique, and so effectively, you get put into a vat with some liquid under pressure and some heat and basically it breaks down your body into kind of sludge effectively.

Michelle Newell (15:29)
Wow!

Yeah. No. Yeah.

It is. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

well it breaks down all your tissue into sludge. Then you’re left with your bones. So then there’s the question of what do we do with the bones?

Simon Waller (15:58)
The sludge. Yes.

Yeah, but even then, one of the things that struck me about when I was reading about it was it actually leads to the breakdown of the DNA itself. So all your DNA is gone. And then I was like, Oh, what, what a total erasure, right? Like, it’s not like even it’s like almost like not just the program was deleted, the code was erased, like, it that sounds like such a completeness of going and disappearing. That was what really struck me about it. But tell me more about so natural

Michelle Newell (16:06)
No,

I didn’t… this is interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, wait a minute.

Simon Waller (16:34)
Yeah, go.

Michelle Newell (16:34)
want to know I want to I want to riff off this idea because this is what fascinates me about death. It’s really about life and what it means to be human and what mark do we leave with these little lives we have this short moment on the planet and you’ve just said, know, DNA total erasure that that idea is a little bit scary for many of us to think that there’s no no trace left of us.

at all and that’s where the memorialisation comes in is how do we create these memories so that there is some kind of tangible presence of us left, there’s something left behind. One of the reasons I’m interested in death and dying is because I used to be a history teacher, I was an English and history teacher but I’ve always been fascinated by history and I love old junk and I used to, I’ve always worn charity shop clothes, ever since I was a little girl both my parents, grandparents had charity shops.

And my sister used to say to me, oh, that’s disgusting. You’re wearing dead people’s clothes. And we’ve come a long way since then. Attitudes have changed. But I used to think, yes, I am. And that’s incredible because there’s stories in these clothes. Somebody lived a life in that. And so for me, it was almost like the story, the memory. it’s yeah. What happens if you totally erase like I don’t.

Simon Waller (17:48)
Mmm.

Michelle Newell (17:54)
If I didn’t do anything amazing, I didn’t write a book that’s stored in a library and somehow all my online presence gets wiped, which is again another interesting tangent we could take about online presence.

Simon Waller (18:04)
Yeah, so let’s get we’ll jump into a little bit more about the dissection some of that content because I think the memorial

memorialization aspect of this is super interesting. But just go back in terms of the process itself just for a second because one thing that I know you are a big fan of generative AI. Love it. And there has been some some some LinkedIn threads where we have been participants in where our difference in opinion about generative AI has has been like clear.

Michelle Newell (18:12)
Yeah, yeah, yes. So, okay.

Love it.

Yes. Yes.

Simon Waller (18:34)
Whereas it’s

not that I have some questions around the ethics and legality of it that I think is unresolved. I think part of that, you know, I’m the chair of a library business, a library services organisation that runs 20 libraries. And one of the challenges I gave the library was the same type of question around like, what is our policy around AI, given that we know it is trained on the people who wrote the books that are in our library.

Michelle Newell (18:38)
Mm.

Yes.

Mmm.

Simon Waller (19:03)
So our

community we’re meant to be supporting has had their work taken away from them without their permission and being used to train something that actually is in competition with them. And I feel some of that ethical stuff is unresolved for me until it’s resolved. It’s not that I don’t use it, but I kind of find that every time I do it, I feel like a little bit of guilt around it. But also it’s kind of, suppose, also using the opportunity to voice the other side of this, right? So you have a very different view of generative AI, you love it.

Michelle Newell (19:15)
completely.

Mmm.

I love it.

Simon Waller (19:33)
And yet

you chose in this scenario to not use it. Was that just for me or why did you feel that that was the right course of action?

Michelle Newell (19:38)
I did!

It was partly for you because I knew you’d think I was cheating.

Another reason I don’t, I didn’t use it. And I tell my clients this, I have a lot of one-on-one thought leader clients and I work with them and I talk about different kinds of content. There’s some content where you should feel no guilt over using it. And that’s when you’re using it as, for example, your paid marketer, your paid copywriter. If you’re gonna pay a human to do that work, why not save your pennies? We probably don’t have extra pennies at the moment, none of us do, and use AI.

Simon Waller (20:16)
We

actually stopped using pennies a long time ago, Mich. We use dollars and cents now, yeah.

Michelle Newell (20:19)
sorry, ex history teacher, I just time travel for a moment.

But I think when you write your pieces that are thought leadership, it needs to be you and your voice. And that’s not just because it’s cheating to use AI. I think that in the act of writing, something different happens in your brain. You go off on these tangents that that AI just can’t take you off on.

your brain sparks this other idea and your story goes in a different direction. So I wanted to write it as myself because I wanted to see where almost this subconscious part of my brain would take me. And this is where it took me. I mean, I wrote this in a probably 10 minutes, maybe. I mean, I am a writer, so it’s easy for me. I find it very easy to write. But I was surprised at some of the stuff that came up and the and

And I made these connections that I wouldn’t have made otherwise about the memorialization and that the disposal of my body was connected to the fact that I don’t have kids and who’s going to be around to remember me and what about the memory of my dog that’s also going to be lost when I die. And it just triggered a different chain of thoughts. So that’s why I only use GPT to ask it was more I used it for research. I wanted to check up on some of these things like permission, which is the freeze where your body is freeze dried and then it’s

Simon Waller (21:33)
Yeah.

Michelle Newell (21:44)
Like you see in a movie, right? And then somebody drops something like the baddie gets free and then drop and then just shatters. Yeah.

Simon Waller (21:53)
So yeah, a couple of things I take away now, which I think is really interesting.

And so in creating this podcast, I did actually, or have kind of created a set of prompts and instructions for people who wanted to use generative AI to help them with the stories. of my fears is they’ll all end up sounding the same or very much the same because if you same a similar set of prompts, but even with a different topic in different timelines.

Michelle Newell (21:59)
Hmm.

Yes.

Simon Waller (22:16)
There are some I think you’re going to find maybe some of them sound a bit sameness and I think yours really stands out for different nurses. The first thing perhaps more importantly, though, and I think this is really, really powerful learning from this is that what we get out of it is proportional to what we put into it. And so if we talk about what did we learn from this experience and what did we learn from this scenario, it is very dependent on what brain power did we exert in its creation? Where did we find

Michelle Newell (22:20)
Yep. Yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

Simon Waller (22:46)
the nuances and the conflicts and have to resolve those conflicts because there was logical fallacies in the story that we created. And then I think the third part of it is, that there, you know, these are a very, this is a very personal story. And it’s about very personal learning. And I don’t think generative AI can give you general stories with general messages and general learnings that is kind of crafted by amalgamating the thoughts and ideas of a million people across the planet.

Michelle Newell (22:53)
Yeah.

you

Simon Waller (23:14)
But in terms of your situation with your dog, Zoom, it can’t tell you that. And I think that so I really, I I think the proof is in that the app put of it, but I think that’s a really interesting takeaway from how sometimes we can lean on these tools, but then actually the value that we create is less as a result.

Michelle Newell (23:18)
Yeah. No.

The other thing, there’s another nuance in here and you notice it as you keep on reading or as I was reading the story. Whenever I write, it’s almost like this warming up phase where I’m a little bit formal and we’re all trained to write in certain ways because we all went to school. And so gradually as I warm up, it becomes more me. there were points where you were laughing and I wrote those for you because I knew you would laugh because I’ve written stories with you before.

and you always have these little quirks in your stories that you want. And so I threw some of them in for you, but it’s my sense of humor, but I knew you’d laugh. And so that’s another thing ChatGPT she just can’t, can’t Yeah.

Simon Waller (24:17)
Yeah, yeah, yeah,

it doesn’t do well with that stuff when you start to talk about a little bit of satire and a little bit of other things and throw in there. I shared with Steph, it might have been on episode one, when she came in, one of my favorite sci fi authors is actually Ben Elton. I don’t know if you’ve ever read Ben Elton’s work, but he was the creator of The Young Ones and Blackadder. And so a lot of his stuff is based in satire and his sci fi stuff, which he wrote more of early in his writing career, I think he’s now written 16 books.

Michelle Newell (24:23)
Yeah. Yep.

No, I haven’t.

Okay, yep.

Simon Waller (24:46)
He just actually happened to be in Melbourne this past weekend, but I couldn’t go but there’s a book called This Other Eden. And there’s also Stark, there’s gridlock, there’s a handful of books that kind of look at this kind of near term speculative fiction, but the way he writes with that kind of with a satire, I think that that really engages the audience. People love a little bit of humor and stuff in there. But thank you for doing that for me. I appreciate that.

Michelle Newell (25:05)
Yes.

Welcome. And also, you know, it was funny because you said to me, I think we spoke a couple of days ago and you said, Oh, I imagine it’s going to be quite dark. And I, I paused for bit and I was like, No. And then I thought, you know, I thought, no, it’s not. I don’t think it’s a dark story. It’s sort of, it can’t be too dark because it’s come from my mind and I’m quite, I guess I have quite a black sense of humor. So it was always going to have a few little funny things in there.

Simon Waller (25:33)
Yeah, and I think with that, that darkness again, you know, we’ve talked about this a lot in the work that we’ve done together about the concept of almost like, you know, practical dystopianism is like sometimes there’s lesson to be learned from the dark side of a story. And, and it’s a it’s a clue to us about maybe how we need to change our own behaviors or what we might want to do differently. There’s almost a lesson to be learnt from the dystopianism.

Michelle Newell (25:41)
Yeah.

Mm.

Simon Waller (25:58)
as

opposed to it’s not just gratuitous dystopianism, if you know what mean. it’s, yeah.

Michelle Newell (26:02)
Yeah, yeah,

Simon Waller (26:04)
Now we’re getting into the story

Michelle Newell (26:04)
yeah.

Simon Waller (26:05)
But I want to say, can I tell you the first reaction I had when I read this was a story that I tell about my grandma, who everyone refers to as Omar, though she is not Dutch at all, but she just didn’t want to be called grandma, or granny. Oh, you have an Omar, right. So I do have some on my own, like, only by marriage.

Michelle Newell (26:06)
okay. Yes, yes.

I have an Omar and she is Dutch.

Simon Waller (26:27)
like so my uncle by marriage is Dutch. And so there is some Dutch in the family. But Omar made this choice by herself. As I said, she didn’t want to be called grandma or granny. But everyone referred to her as Omar. So all my friends called her Omar. And she was like always at our house having dinner with all my friends was wonderful. And she has what I think is or describe as the best death ever. And so she

Michelle Newell (26:27)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Well.

Simon Waller (26:53)
She had a little unit and a spare room a unit and she was a mad keen cards player. And the week or the day that she passed away, she was hosting bridge with her friends. And so she kind of got dressed up in her best outfit with her pearls and she had her hair done the day before and she looked just absolutely perfect. And literally they were playing cards and having some little sandwiches and she’s gone to the fridge to get another bottle of champagne. And on the way to the fridge, she’s had a heart attack.

And her friends have kind of called the ambulance, the ambulance has turned up, and she’s literally on the trolley, like in her best outfit. And her words as she leaves the door is, don’t worry, there’s more sandwiches in the fridge. And then passed away on the on the way to the hospital. Right. And I go like, man, if you’re gonna go, what a great way to go. And so when the first thing that crossed my mind when I read this is this interesting about you choose your birthday, your 85th birthday.

Michelle Newell (27:36)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Simon Waller (27:53)
to be the day. And I my immediate thought when I wonder what you’ve got planned for the day. Like, do you do you kind of like is this at the end of the day? Do you do it with your friends around? Do they know in advance that this is the choice that you’ve made? Or, you know, like, what is it like? So just tell me like, if you were gonna, how would you plan your day your last day given this? you been thinking about this for years, clearly?

Michelle Newell (27:55)
Yes.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yes, do you know I’m a pragmatist. I wouldn’t want my friends there. I just want it done and dusted. The end. yeah. I think.

Simon Waller (28:29)
So it’s right after breakfast. Do you hang

around for lunch? what?

Michelle Newell (28:34)
Yeah,

no, I don’t think I would. wouldn’t want to do it on a on a full stomach.

Maybe I do it at midnight, you know, as the clock hits 12.01, I do it then. Yeah, I didn’t give much thought to that actually. I just put it in because I’m a really passionate advocate for euthanasia. I’ve always been fascinated by the Dignitas Clinic, which most people don’t know is not really a physical place. They have to move around a lot because it’s actually sort of in a legal gray area.

And so I just wanted to put that in at the beginning to say that I think everybody should be allowed to choose. For me it was more about choice rather than thinking, what would I want my final day to be like? Yeah.

Simon Waller (29:19)
Yeah, so interestingly, as you share with your wheel, the centre of your wheel, the centre

of your explanation was around disposal. And I think that’s kind of there’s a there’s something in that to be learned from this process, which is obviously when we talk about the future, the future is a very, very big place. And at some point, if we want to get meaningful answers about something, we need to narrow down where our focus is. And so it’s probably unrealistic to get meaningful answers around the different options about how we dispose of the dead.

Michelle Newell (29:26)
Yes, disposal.

Mm. Mm.

Yeah.

Simon Waller (29:47)
in the future and also get answers around how we’re going to spend our last days. So perfectly fine that you didn’t do that. But it was immediately and again, it goes partly I suppose, shaped by the experience of my my Omar. It was like the immediate thing that I went to. And again, this is this is a sign of like how you’re the use of story and narrative when we talk about the future allows or gives us a way for people to connect.

Michelle Newell (29:51)
Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah.

Simon Waller (30:15)
with the topic in a way that we may not otherwise do if this was just listed as some facts and figures and a graph and some statistics.

Michelle Newell (30:15)
I

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I also think it’s interesting because it’s not just when you talk about death and dying or any topic, you’re sort of seeing trends in that particular topic area. But then there’s all these other things happening out there. So like, how is it? How are we going to be? How will death and dying be impacted if we have more right wing government, which it seems that we’re trending towards that area?

at the moment. And then we’ve got this epidemic of loneliness. Well, what’s that going to mean? Just before I jumped on the call, I was doing a bit more reading and there’s actually an organisation in Melbourne who scatters the left ashes that have been just left behind by after people have been cremated. There’s been nobody to even take the ashes and do something with them. So they do these mass sort of scattering of ashes out in the water off the Bay of Melbourne. So

Simon Waller (31:16)
Mmm.

Michelle Newell (31:21)
There’s, sorry, I don’t quite know where I was going with all of this, but there’s just so many, there’s so many factors at play. It’s not just about, say I’m seeing like there’s more personalisation in the death and dying industry and the funeral industry is worth so much money. I actually wrote it down. How much do you think it’s worth? Would you estimate?

Simon Waller (31:23)
No, that’s okay, yeah.

So we’re talking obviously,

it’s a figure with a billion in it, and we’re talking annually. And I would have thought, are we talking 50 billion?

Michelle Newell (31:44)
Yeah.

No, it’s actually a lot smaller. It’s 1.7 billion. Which is still a lot.

Simon Waller (31:50)
1.7 billion. cool. I tell you another interesting billion figure like

this is something that came up I read a while ago now, which literally leads into one of the trends that I was curious about what you explored with it. But the story is around, you know, about mongo man and mongo woman, which were the some of the earliest full skeletons found

Michelle Newell (32:02)
Yeah.

Mmm.

Simon Waller (32:15)
of human remains in Australia and I think they’ve been dated at somewhere around 40,000 years ago. They were found at a place called Lake Mungo, I think which is in either Northern Victoria or kind of up in the New South Wales area. But the reason that they were found, I believe, was that there was quite a big storm and it washed away a lot of dirt around the banks and then these skeletons literally appeared. one of the things around it is though is that if they don’t

Michelle Newell (32:18)
Okay.

Yes, yes.

in a moment.

BLEUGH

Simon Waller (32:44)
intervene in the moment. These, these skeletons are so old that they literally just disintegrate and turn into dust. And so one thing that really struck me about this is when, when indigenous people talk about that their ancestors are in the land around them, it’s actually quite literal. It’s not a figurative thing. It’s literally they are in the land around us. And one of the things in this book I was reading was around how many, how many

Michelle Newell (32:47)
Yes.

Yeah.

Mmm.

Simon Waller (33:12)
people do you think have lived and died in Australia before European settlement? I have a guess of what you reckon that would be.

Michelle Newell (33:21)
I have no idea. a hundred thousand? Yeah gosh there’d be hundreds of thousands. What? Whoa okay. Wow.

Simon Waller (33:25)
It’s almost like how many bodies are there?

They guesstimate it’s a billion.

a billion,

right? So you think about that a billion bodies that have disintegrated and become part of the land again.

Michelle Newell (33:43)
And not only that,

when you think of that cycle of renewal, they’ve then, they’re still here with us, right? Because they just get renewed into different kinds of cells and organisms and whoo. Yeah, it’s pretty potent, isn’t it?

Simon Waller (33:53)
Yeah. Yeah. So when it’s like

the ancestors are in the trees, they are literally in the trees, they are literally in the water, they are literally in everything around us. And so, so one one thing that I, I was curious, as I think is interesting statistic about it, but also how we think about that concept of renewal, but also one of the options that didn’t appear in there was I was surprised it wasn’t a trend around, you know, connection with indigenous approaches to burial and things like that.

Michelle Newell (33:59)
I literally are. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Simon Waller (34:23)
You mentioned the concept of natural burial, which is that like, what does that look like? Is that something related or is it an entirely different thing?

Michelle Newell (34:27)
Yes.

No, it’s not.

It’s an entirely different thing. Just on the Indigenous theme though, when I went to this conference last year, the Greater Metropolitan Cemetery Trust did talk about they’re now working with Indigenous people to make the cemeteries more respectful of local Indigenous customs and to be more responsive to the land.

I mean, I don’t know further details of that, but I thought that that was important and about time. But the natural burials, it’s when your body, so they don’t use any embalming fluid. They use sort of natural oils and your body’s usually put into some kind of a sack, like a Hessian sack, and you’re buried in quite a shallow grave, say in the bush or in parkland. And they usually use a tree as a marker. So you’d be either have a tree buried next to you or be buried under.

existing tree. There are some cemeteries that have natural burial areas already in Victoria but it’s very much a state by state thing at the moment. Natural burial is much more common in the UK at the moment but it’s a rising trend. There’s actually an organisation dedicated to it here in Melbourne. And then your body just is naturally broken down over time. I think it takes a full year for a body to be sort of

disposed of by all the little critters and the creatures that are underneath underneath the earth.

Simon Waller (35:58)
Yeah. Yeah, it feels like though that yeah, I think there’s

probably some I suppose maybe similarity not so much in process so much as in intent. You know, I think that when you talk about indigenous merely is very much that you are you are being returned to the earth. You know, and you are part of the cycle of life that you will be a part of our future environment. You know, like there’s probably some and again, I quite like personally, I quite like the concept of natural burial is like,

Michelle Newell (36:09)
and

Mmm.

Yeah.

Yes.

Simon Waller (36:25)
And again, the premise that you could be part of a cycle of life seems really positive. And some of the other ones are pretty like the one the other one that you

Michelle Newell (36:30)
It does, but then, hang on, I want to throw in some wild cards.

aren’t even wild cards. Flooding, Australia’s flooding problem, right? Imagine if we have all these natural burials and then we have this huge flood and then you’ve got all these bodies being unearthed. So if natural burial then becomes…

Simon Waller (36:49)
Mmm.

Michelle Newell (36:54)
manageable, undoable, what’s the next thing? So that’s what I was, that’s where my thinking was going. Sorry to interrupt you but you, yeah. Yes.

Simon Waller (36:58)
Yeah. And then on a but even that example, like shared before about like mongo and where they found the skeletons literally because it was a storm that washed away the sediment on the banks and it

exposed these. Now those skeletons have been buried for, you know, 30,000 years or something crazy. But quite rightly, yeah, we could what happens if if suddenly those skeletons are only relatively fresh, you know, and how do we feel about the idea? I do love though, this this premise in this scenario, which you meant, which you touched on before, I think it’s really powerful.

Michelle Newell (37:13)
Mm.

Yes.

Simon Waller (37:28)
is that this is a future whereby we have become much better at talking about death and dying, which in theory, the concept of a skeleton is also not as confronting as we currently see it. We’ve somehow become much more okay with the concept. And I think that there’s a maturity around it that I feel like, that’s interesting in this scenario. And then we give these choices.

Michelle Newell (37:36)
Mmm. Yeah.

Yes.

Simon Waller (37:55)
And some of the choices are a little bit brutal, it seems like the acclimation, but then also the composting. I don’t know if you read, by the way, have you read Tim Winton’s book, Juice, his new book?

Michelle Newell (37:59)
Yeah. Yeah.

No, I haven’t. You’ve mentioned it before. I need to put it on my list.

Simon Waller (38:08)
Yeah, and

it’s one of those ones where I’ve always been a fan of Tim Winton’s writing. He’s never done sci fi before. He’s West Australian based. And so a lot of the books that he writes about, he writes about places that I literally know, like one of them talks about what doesn’t use the name Lancelin, but it’s about a town or said in a place called Lancelin, which is actually right next to where I grew up, which about three hours north of Perth, this little fishing village there. But he writes around stuff that was very deeply personal to me. And I do love his style.

Michelle Newell (38:15)
Yeah, it’s brilliant.

Okay.

Simon Waller (38:38)
This is his first attempt. Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle Newell (38:38)
Oh, he’s one of Australia’s best. And I love that he’s,

I’m just gonna throw, he’s so blokey. I love that he just refuses to be anything that he’s not. Like he hasn’t, I used to work in the book world, in the literary world in London and we brought him over actually for Australian Literature Festival when I used to be a co-curator. I, yes, but he, oh, his writing is just, and I love that he’s, it’s very Australian, isn’t it? Yeah.

Simon Waller (38:46)
Yeah.

there you are.

Yeah. So this is the

first attempt I think he’s made at sci fi. And look, what I find interesting reading sci fi because I find almost invariably, there’s lessons to be learned from every sci fi that you read. Sometimes, it’s hard to get the whole premise of what they’re talking about. But there’s certainly there’s, there’s almost like they touch on these truisms that you kind of go, Yeah, I can see how that evolves.

Michelle Newell (39:09)
And has he hit the mark? Is it working for you?

Simon Waller (39:34)
And I can see how we may choose to respond to it. One of them though is around the composting of it whereby, you know, because of environmental damage and loss of topsoil and things like that, basically we cannot waste any nutrients at all. And so in these communities and on kind of even on individual properties, they will compost like everything, any organic material.

Michelle Newell (39:36)
Yes.

Okay.

Simon Waller (40:02)
including dead animals and dead people, but they kind of put them through a chipper.

Michelle Newell (40:06)
Mm, okay.

my God, speaking of.

Simon Waller (40:11)
And so to

try and speed up the process to get chipped, first of all, and, but then that kind of then becomes a basis of, I suppose, what you describe as blood and bone or something like that. But then that’s used to feed the crops and all the rest of it, right. But it’s kind of like, there’s a there’s a brutality to it. But there’s also, like the way that he describes his society in the future, it’s almost like, yeah, but we’re living on the edge of existence. You know, like,

Michelle Newell (40:21)
Yes.

Mmm. Mmm.

Mmm.

Simon Waller (40:38)
And so it’s kind of almost like I just a deeply pragmatic, like it’s actually a deeply pragmatic decision. and in some ways because of that, that deep pragmatism, doesn’t seem as brutal. And I kind of think about that in the context of this is, you know, like if you grow up on a farm and have had firsthand experiences of animals having to be killed either for food.

Michelle Newell (40:43)
Yes.

Yeah.

Simon Waller (41:07)
or because they’re sick or injured. And you just kind of go, yeah, killing animals is just a brutal but pragmatic thing that we do. Versus you live in the city and you’re expected that your sausages and your meat come out of a cryobacter container from the supermarket. Your acceptance of this be very, very different. And I kind of wonder about where that plays out in this future. Like, where you almost could have some really real diversity around people’s acceptance of some of the

Michelle Newell (41:09)
Yep.

Yeah

Simon Waller (41:36)
brutality.

Michelle Newell (41:38)
It’s so interesting because when you first mentioned the wood chipper, it freaked me out and I thought, no, there’s no way we could get people over the line to get to the compost thing because there’s some, I mean, I’m an atheist, but there’s some sort of spirituality in all of us, think. whether that’s just, gosh, this is going to take us on a huge tangent. I don’t think I’ll take us there. But I thought,

Simon Waller (41:45)
You

Michelle Newell (42:04)
I don’t think we can get people over the line on that. But then like you said, if we’re on the edge of survival, and one of the other futures tools I did use quickly, just you taught me how to sort of do this thing, was this four quadrants of change. And I thought, well, what if we had a huge population decrease? So yeah, potentially there could be this huge population decrease because of environmental pressures. We really are living on the edge.

people might just become pragmatist because you do what you have to do to survive and and on the wood chipper night when I told my friend I was writing this scenario on death and dying she said have you been have you listened to the noble podcast and it’s a story of a guy who literally Was was paid at his crematorium to cremate people and instead he put them through the wood chipper for real. So it is already happening in places

Simon Waller (42:55)
Wow. As I say that, yeah.

Hi story doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. And yeah, so that’s interesting. So just to for the audience, you did share before, like you held up a little diagram, little quadrant model, where we talk about the critical uncertainties, some of the high impact things that could happen. But because we don’t know which way that will happen, or what exactly will happen, we kind of think about what happens at the extremes. And so you’ve got one of the axes there was around population. So one is population.

Michelle Newell (43:05)
Mmm

Yes, I did.

in this.

increases, population decreases. I had greater government control over death and dying and then I had more personal freedom and personal personalisation of the death industry.

Simon Waller (43:26)
In increases? And what have you got on the other axis there?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that’s interesting. Because you could

also imagine a future where, where like, do we almost end up with some type of a Soviet approach to death and dying where your body and its nutrients are owned by the state effectively, you know, and I think that that almost is what is touched on in the Tim Winton book, I don’t think it’s quite that level. But it’s almost implied it’s implicit that you’re a cause you have such a deep responsibility to your local community because you rely on each other to survive.

Michelle Newell (43:53)
Yeah.

Yes.

Mm.

Simon Waller (44:06)
that’s almost like you would do whatever’s required to supply, you know, to support that community. I want to get into the last the memorialization bit because I know on one hand, that’s the bit that really is most like meaningful for you. And there’s some things that came up in this so interesting. The idea that yes, you have already looked into how do you turn Zoom your beloved four legged friend into a diamond. And that’s something that could happen.

Michelle Newell (44:09)
Yes. Yeah.

Yes!

Mm.

Yep.

Simon Waller (44:34)
And in this story, you have your Zoom diamond and potentially diamonds from your parents as well. And I thought, yeah, yeah.

Michelle Newell (44:34)
Yes.

For my, yes. Because the diamonds are made from carbon, right? So that’s,

yeah. But I removed that as my option. I wasn’t gonna become a diamond because there’s nobody to wear me. And potentially that’s also no longer an option if perhaps the burning process, you know, is releasing too many chemicals. So, yes.

Simon Waller (44:52)
Yeah.

Possibly, but I do. So something really struck me about this is

and I think that you the lens you looked at this through from was who would like an even the story you shared before about the ashes that get shared on mass is based on the premise but who turned up to the funeral. So it’s almost like but I think there’s another lens on this, which was but who was important to you in your life, whether they turned up or not.

Michelle Newell (45:17)
Yes, it is, you’re right.

Mm.

Simon Waller (45:28)
And

some people may not have known it might have been a teacher you had a high school. It could have been a friend that you’re no longer even close to anymore, but they were there at a point. It could have been the nurses or the doctors that were there to support you through your end of life. Right? It could be a whole bunch of things. It could be the neighbor. It could be like there’s so many different people that could be right. So what if it’s the other way around? What if is it that at the end of it, like you get you get the diamond

Michelle Newell (45:33)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah.

Simon Waller (45:55)
Or you basically say, want to be turned into 10 diamonds. And one gets sent to each of those people. And it’s your last gift of saying, thank you. This is my thank you to you, you’re one of the people that at the end of it all, I realized had this that I was grateful for. Right. And then they have the diamonds, right. And they, but almost like the diamonds become a symbol of our importance to other people in society.

Michelle Newell (46:03)
Mmm.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah.

Simon Waller (46:25)
It’s almost like it’s a it’s almost like one of the things we really struggle with in society at the moment is to measure meaning or purpose in other ways than non monetary. Like if we want to assess how we’re going, if I want to go like, just kind of say, how am I going in life? And I want to compare myself to my friends. The only real ways I can do it is things like the size of my house, the age of my car and how big my paycheck is, you know,

Michelle Newell (46:37)
Yeah, yeah

Yep. Yeah.

Simon Waller (46:55)
Like, it’s like, can kind of get it like, they’re the only like metrics available to me to go in, how am I going to life? And kind of they’re all shitty metrics, right? Because first of all, you don’t know, yeah, like, you don’t like they’re very financial in nature. But they’re also self like how you go when about getting that money or whatever is also not really kind of addressed.

Michelle Newell (47:01)
Yeah, absolutely. What do they mean?

Yes!

And there’s a smoke and mirrors element

too, because you don’t know if they’ve mortgaged to the hilt, if the car’s on a lease, because they’re doing something dodgy with their business. So they might actually be poorer than you and therefore you are better than them, but you just don’t know it.

Simon Waller (47:20)
Correct. Yeah.

Yeah, but do you think like so so this though,

I love the idea that we would have this other metric. Like the other metric of your value to society is through how many people on their deathbed said you were one, you were one of the people who’s important to me. And you walk around with these rings that are made up of all these little diamonds of all the people and again, maybe it’s a diamond like diamonds have other you can get them from elsewhere right but like

Michelle Newell (47:36)
Yeah.

Mmm.

This is, yeah, I love it, it’s beautiful.

Simon Waller (47:58)
but we could have a specific thing that is only a memory of, yeah, like these were the people that.

Michelle Newell (48:02)
Yeah, no in this

future we’ve stopped mining for diamonds Simon because we don’t do mining anymore. So if you have a diamond it shows that some you were special to somebody. I love it.

Simon Waller (48:12)
Yeah, so the moment we can get I did actually

just go and buy. So it’s my wife’s 50th birthday on Friday, we’re recording this on Tuesday. This won’t go live until after but so I can tell you I did buy her some diamond earrings for her birthday. But I also refuse to buy mines diamonds, but you can get manufactured diamonds, which are not called manufactured diamonds. They are just called diamonds because they are from a

Michelle Newell (48:23)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Simon Waller (48:39)
chemistry perspective, identical, there is no difference in them. But we can do manufactured diamonds now, which are indistinguishable from mines diamonds, but without the ethical concerns. So but again, maybe there’s something around this whereby, yeah, even that is like, we decide that the only real input for diamonds is going to be bodies, like human bodies. But it’s a memorialization thing. But then ultimately, I love the idea that clearly, when you were young, there wouldn’t be an expectation that you have any diamonds.

Michelle Newell (48:41)
Yes. Yeah.

you

Mm-hmm.

Simon Waller (49:09)
because you wouldn’t have been around long enough to earn them yet. But at some point in your life, you know, you will have maybe accumulated some by the time you were 40. And maybe by the time you were 60 or 70, you’ve actually got like three or four rings. But every time you look at them, you have this memory of all those people that you were important to.

Michelle Newell (49:12)
Yeah.

Yeah, I can, you know, people could be getting them in their teeth. They could be these tiny little, I’m seeing these people walking around shimmering like diamonds and you’ve just created a whole new sort of social system where people give back to the community and people do good in the community because they want to get their diamond, right? So it’s a way of incentivising people to be good humans. You’re to get these beautiful diamonds.

Simon Waller (49:51)
Yeah.

It was how different our concept of bling would be.

You’re at the moment when you see someone walk around with lots of bling on, you’re kind of like, my God, what an ostentatious type of show off or whatever. So tacky. Now in the future, if you saw someone that much leaner, you’re like, my God, that guy is an absolute hero. They are a hero. Who would thought that they could have given so much to society to be literally just dripping in diamonds.

Michelle Newell (50:00)
Yeah!

Yes, so tacky.

Yeah. Yeah.

Mmm… Yeah!

Simon Waller (50:22)
You

Michelle Newell (50:23)
Do you know what I think is funny though is that we’re still talking about the tangible stuff. We haven’t even dived into the digital and you and I are both obsessed with tech from different viewpoints and we haven’t even talked about the digital bit, yeah.

Simon Waller (50:32)
Yes. So let’s talk about the digital bit then. Yeah. I love that. So

again, I love the funeral fame and I know you. Yeah, it’s like

Michelle Newell (50:41)
Yeah,

I was like, damn, this, this name isn’t funny enough to make side laugh because I know you always love your acronyms. It’s like, ff, it’s not that much of an acronym. Anyway, I did my best with Janet, Janet from funeral fame. But this was inspired by the death tech research that’s currently happening. There’s a whole sort of field called death tech and the University of Melbourne has their own death tech team.

Simon Waller (50:45)
I’m sorry.

Yeah. Yeah.

Michelle Newell (51:08)
And they’re working on things like apps where you can stand over your loved one’s grave and using near field communication, you’ll hear their voice and whatever. And so obviously that industry is only going to grow. That’s really untapped money there for somebody who wants to start a new business.

Simon Waller (51:27)
Yes, I love

the bit about the holograms and stuff. I love the idea that that you kind of like they do the green screen, they get the hologram, but obviously they would kind of recreate you as your 35 year old best self. Yeah. And I’m just imagining that in these places, there’s these nightclubs where literally there’s podiums. And you basically get projected doing your moves on the podium at your favorite places. You know, like, and it’s just like,

Michelle Newell (51:30)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, please. Yes, please.

Yes!

Mm-hmm.

Simon Waller (51:57)
that it would be almost like,

yeah, that to me is like, yeah, that’s how I want to be remembered. want to be dancing on the podium at my favorite nightclub. It’s like, dude, that guy had some moves at 35.

Michelle Newell (52:03)
Yeah.

Yeah

God, that is the difference between you and us. don’t actually, I wouldn’t want to be on a podium in a nightclub. I’d want to be like in the state library going, now young people, here’s the Ned Kelly armor. You know, I’d want to be teaching or doing something serious, even though I’m not really a serious person, but I, I still have that sense that I want to leave a legacy and be seen as having been important and done something important. And I think I’m nearly 50. So it’s.

Simon Waller (52:27)
Ha ha ha ha!

Michelle Newell (52:42)
It’s funny how you think I’m never going to get to that point where I start thinking about my legacy. But you do. It’s just sort of this human instinct to think, what did I do? What did I achieve? I’m running out of time. It’s that whole running out of time piece, I think, that makes you start to…

Simon Waller (52:56)
Yeah, and it feels like just with friends who kind of that

that 50 seems to be one of those very much a trigger point for a lot of people as like, wow, now I know to actually start thinking about this. I haven’t thought about this before. But now I really I can’t pretend anymore that this isn’t happening.

Michelle Newell (53:02)
BOOM

Yeah. Yes. And it’s scary,

but it’s, you know, your parents start to get old and you’re starting to have conversations with your mates about how are we caring for our parents? And then you start again, that then means that you start thinking about it for you. it’s, yeah, death comes for all of us.

Simon Waller (53:29)
Hmm, I do think another one that I worry about like with this is that at the moment there is almost like, you know, the the the anti-death movement, you know, people who want to have their bodies cryogenically frozen. There’s a whole movement in Silicon Valley around like almost like maximizing life and believing that death is just another problem for technology to solve. I could almost imagine a little bit of a conflict between those two different because they’re quite almost like

Michelle Newell (53:41)
yes.

Yeah, I know.

Yeah.

Simon Waller (53:59)
they’re almost like, philosophically divergent in terms of that, that death is a natural part of life, and that it should be embraced. And that our role on the planet, at some point, we should make space for the next generation to come through. And that the same thing exists even in workplaces and stuff. And then you’ve got another people who, as I said, like from a philosophical perspective, believe that this is a problem to be solved, that we should be able to live forever.

And we should never have to give up our place on the planet. And so I kind of almost wonder what type of tension we might see between those two groups. But that may be something for another podcast, because we’re almost out of time. And before we go, I did have one more question for you, which I that’s for me. And I think we kind of picked up a little bit on the way but I’m very curious. For me, these exercises is around learning through contemplation.

Michelle Newell (54:35)
Yeah, that’s… Absolutely. I think… Yes. Yes. Okay.

Simon Waller (54:55)
that in in in both the writing of the story or the research that went into it in the writing of the story, and even the analysis and the dissection of it that we’ve just gone through, like what did you learn? Like what is it that you got out of this experience yourself? And possibly what would you do differently in your life now as a result of this?

Michelle Newell (54:55)
yeah.

I learned so much and it’s really telling you’re talking about the value of the just the process itself of engaging in this process, whatever the topic might be. And by the end of yesterday, because I spent a lot of time yesterday on this, was in such a good mood after researching death and dying. I felt so alive as a human because I’d used my brain and I was thinking about the big questions. I think it doesn’t matter what scenario you’re playing with. You’re really asking big

questions about what does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be part of a community? What does it mean to see our political system shattered into a million pieces potentially? So that the process alone is fabulous. And then for me, what would I do differently? I don’t know because.

It’s still, think death and dying is a space of such contradictions and it’s, you you just raised one then about the cryogenics versus the people who say, let go, death is coming for you. And there’s so many contradictions in this topic. And although I love death and dying and I’m fascinated by it, it still freaks me out. And I still really, yes, I don’t want to think about it. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

Simon Waller (56:27)
because you quite like being alive.

Michelle Newell (56:37)
So as much as I deep dived into the topic and I did have a few teary moments yesterday, especially thinking about my dog dying, I keep forgetting that he’s going to die. When you asked me, I think we’re talking about something about my funeral and who would be there or who would be there when I died and how would I go? I was thinking, what would I do with my dog on the day? And then I was like, he’s not gonna be alive in 40 years, 30 years. So I can’t tell you what I do differently now other than.

just keep my eyes open for more signals and particularly for more tensions. I’m really interested in biohacking as well. I take my resveratrol every day, which is one of these new longevity drugs and it’s not to live longer, it’s just to live more healthily. So I think I’m just gonna be more alive to what’s happening out there in this space rather than thinking about it for me personally. I’m still gonna keep my distance.

Simon Waller (57:26)
Mmm.

Yeah, I think again, it might be some of those things like unfold over time as well. You know, one of the things that kind of happens when you kind of look at these scenarios is you start to see, you know, because of the analysis around things like the signals that could be kind of indicators that we are going down a particular path. It’s like, it’s almost like it’s that, that foresight to be able to go, Oh, I’ve pre thought this, I know now kind of what happens next. One thing that I really took out of it is I want to really love about it. already hope

Michelle Newell (57:34)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Simon Waller (57:57)
transpires like I’m afraid they the the utopian aspect of this is the sense of intentionality that we can create around this is like we start to think earlier about well What is it that I want to leave as a legacy? How do I want to be remembered? and and Hopefully if my mom’s this into this she might clean out her closet and her attic in advance because that won’t be the legacy that she wants to leave for her three kids

Michelle Newell (58:05)
Yeah.

No.

It is every…

Simon Waller (58:27)
She already knows this by the way because she’s already

had to deal with it with her own mum.

Michelle Newell (58:33)
conversation

with my parents, my partner has had this conversation with his mum and it’s just they value these objects and yet they know, we’ve told them we’re gonna get a skip and we’re gonna chuck it all in there. If you really love this stuff and it’s important to the memory of you, set it aside, just keep that, chuck the rest out now so we know what what is of value to you as we memorialise you. Yeah.

Simon Waller (58:57)
Yeah.

Michelle Newell (59:00)
Come on, mums. Come on, mums everywhere need to step it up. Do you know, there’s just one more thing I want to say about this scenario. It is that you and I are both obviously white and we’re Australian. And this is very much one perspective of what death and dying is like, I think in Australia for people of the middle class and of a certain ethnic background. But I think the conversation becomes so much richer and more nuanced when we consider other cultures.

Simon Waller (59:03)
Yeah.

Michelle Newell (59:28)
And what’s permissible in other cultures as well. You think about Mexico’s, what is it called? The day of the dead and India with their funeral pyres. My partner’s mom actually wants to go to India and be burnt on a pyre in the rivers. India’s her favorite country in the Ganges. So yeah, just wanted to put that out there that we probably do, yeah.

Simon Waller (59:37)
Mmm.

Yeah. No, no, no, I think that’s a really valid point. And

again, and so these explorations are useful in and of themselves, but they obviously sit within a much bigger spectrum of possible futures that we face. This is not a prediction as an exploration. And I think that the exploration is useful as an exploration, not as a prediction. Mich, it’s such a joy catching up and chatting with you. I’m so glad that you could be a part of this.

Michelle Newell (59:56)
Mm.

Yeah, yeah.

Mm.

You too, Si.

Simon Waller (1:00:17)
Because we have these conversations, you know, in, in and around the work that we do and just on the phone to capture something like this for others to listen to. think it’s brilliant. So thank you so much for being a part of it. And we’re definitely going to get you back to do another episode at some point in the future.

Michelle Newell (1:00:17)
Yeah, me too.

Yum.

Thank you.

It would be my pleasure. I’d love to. Thank you.

Simon Waller (1:00:36)
All right. Well, that’s the end of episode three and we will look forward to speaking to you again in the future. Bye.

Michelle Newell (1:00:44)
Thank you. Bye, Sai.

Bye.