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Speaker 1: You've finally done it. For so long, the solution alluded you.

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Speaker 1: You explored every angle and pursuit the answer in the

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Speaker 1: waking world of mathematics and the fragmented landscape of dreams.

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Speaker 1: But here it is the Serenian Engine, a functional technological

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Speaker 1: means of transporting humanity not only at greater speeds between planets,

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Speaker 1: but two other stars. You fall to your knees before

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Speaker 1: its golden splendor. You swipe through the air at your

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Speaker 1: side and summon a holographic keypad. It's time to tell

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Speaker 1: the corporation what you've achieved. But before you can initiate

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Speaker 1: the command, the air shimmers with a strange energy. A

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Speaker 1: flash of panic burns through you as you fear some

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Speaker 1: unforeseen side effect of the engine's power reality parts, and

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Speaker 1: a glowing vigor slips through the incision. It speaks to

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Speaker 1: you in a voice like a whisper. Professor, Up, what

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Speaker 1: are you? I am the messenger from the future age

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Speaker 1: come to warn you. Impossible, paradoxical, no more so than

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Speaker 1: your engine. It must be destroyed. Then you have come

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Speaker 1: to kill me. I cannot, but you can be activate

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Speaker 1: this machine, scatter its plans to the four winds, and

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Speaker 1: leave the future untarnished by its power. But why should

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Speaker 1: I do that? I built it to open up the cosmos,

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Speaker 1: to spread humanity beyond Earth, to safeguard us against destruction,

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Speaker 1: and in doing so create hell worlds beyond number, places

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Speaker 1: with the descendants of humanity writhe and poverty, misery and pain.

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Speaker 1: The mass of their collective suffering dwarfs all of humanity's

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Speaker 1: achievements in my time, reducing the human experience to a

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Speaker 1: median of immoral horror. And I know, for I have

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Speaker 1: walked the mire and ruin of each world. I have

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Speaker 1: looked into their eyes. And I ask you now, in

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Speaker 1: the hope that no one else will retrace your steps,

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Speaker 1: to please turn off the machine. Welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey you,

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Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk about the question of, hey, what if we

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Speaker 1: accidentally turned the Milky Way into a living hell? That's right,

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Speaker 1: you were getting into this topic um of astronomical suffering.

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Speaker 1: And we we tried to make sure the title had

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Speaker 1: a spin of far future science fiction to it, and

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Speaker 1: we decided to kick things off with a nice hefty

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Speaker 1: slice of original sci fi to you know, to firmly

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Speaker 1: ground the conversation, because this is going to be a

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Speaker 1: conversation that gets into a lot of far future territory,

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Speaker 1: speculative science fiction territory, but ultimately wrestling with some some

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Speaker 1: real philosophical considerations about the nature of humanity and and

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Speaker 1: how we go about our decision making. Yeah. Um, so,

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Speaker 1: one thing that this topic makes me think about, maybe

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Speaker 1: a good place to start is how much of future

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Speaker 1: thinking among people, you know, people who like to think

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Speaker 1: about the far future, just assumes space colonization as a given, Like,

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Speaker 1: does not interrogate the idea at all, does not say, like,

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Speaker 1: you know, would it be good to colonize other planets,

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Speaker 1: other star systems and stuff. It just assumes Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: of course that's what you do. Humans. You know, they

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Speaker 1: spread over the surface of the Earth, and now they'll

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Speaker 1: keep spreading on into other little rocks in space. But

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Speaker 1: the science fiction was so concerned with the question of

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Speaker 1: whether or not it could it didn't stop to think

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Speaker 1: of it should. Yes, the the Ian Malcolm Uh factor

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Speaker 1: often uh features into our conversations here, because yeah, for

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Speaker 1: for many, if not most, of us, Colonization and of

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Speaker 1: other worlds has kind of always seemed humanity's destiny. And

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Speaker 1: you know, part of it is simply the extrapolation of

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Speaker 1: our terrestrial ideals and ambitions and just the sort of

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Speaker 1: flow of of world history. We're just taking that in

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Speaker 1: applying it to other worlds. Our species spread from continent

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Speaker 1: to continent, finally overtaking every last, uh, you know, truly

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Speaker 1: habitable island in the global ocean. And so we've long

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Speaker 1: dreamt a voyaging off planet to whatever islands of life

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Speaker 1: or potential life we might find or create in this

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Speaker 1: cosmic ocean. Now, I know most of you consume science fiction,

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Speaker 1: so we don't have to tell you how pervasive the

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Speaker 1: dream happens to be. You know, Star Trek continues to

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Speaker 1: stand as a towering, optimistic example of how this might

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Speaker 1: play out. But we also see it in all manner

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Speaker 1: of sci fi visions, you know, from the near future,

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Speaker 1: gritty world of something like the expanse or altered carbon,

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Speaker 1: you know, to far reaching worlds like Doom, Star Our Wars,

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Speaker 1: the Culture series, and many, many, many more. I think

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Speaker 1: Dune might be a good example for us to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind throughout this episode, though, because while I don't

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Speaker 1: recall in Dune there being much of a question about

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Speaker 1: the general project of colonizing worlds other than than humanity's

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Speaker 1: origin on Earth, um doing at least does present a

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Speaker 1: vision of a planet that is both inhabited and completely crappy,

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Speaker 1: just completely inhospitable in every way, like we shouldn't be there,

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Speaker 1: and yet we're there because we have to be. Now,

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Speaker 1: in Dune, that's because of demand for a particular resource

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Speaker 1: that's only generated on this planet. But you could imagine

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Speaker 1: other scenarios where there could be a planet that's just

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Speaker 1: really not hospitable to human life in any way, except

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Speaker 1: we just have to be there, maybe because it is

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Speaker 1: the only rock that we can stand on within reach. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And there's also that kind of nietzsche In quality to

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Speaker 1: some of the world's too, like because there's of course

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Speaker 1: i Racus, and then there's the home world of the Sarticre,

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Speaker 1: the the you know, the elite soldiers of the Empire,

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Speaker 1: which is described as a quote unquote hell world, the

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Speaker 1: idea that it's just so brutal there that it it

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Speaker 1: creates the super soldiers, and of course uh Oracus creates

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Speaker 1: their own elite um fighting force as well. Uh So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think Dune is a great one to continually return

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Speaker 1: to the I think the world of the Sarto Car

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Speaker 1: Troops come from. It's supposed to be sort of like

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Speaker 1: the planet where the Superman villain dooms Day comes from,

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Speaker 1: right where it's just like made stronger and stronger by

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Speaker 1: by being subjected to every form of punishment and suffering

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Speaker 1: day in day out. Yes, yeah, exactly, and and that

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Speaker 1: that idea is covered in I think some other works

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Speaker 1: as well. I know, uh in in Banks in the

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Speaker 1: Culture series has a has a species it shows up

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Speaker 1: that is biologically immortal, and part of that is tied

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Speaker 1: to the fact that it emerges from such a hostile

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Speaker 1: and competitive ecosystem. Uh that, like natural death was just

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Speaker 1: never part of its of its physiology, you know. I

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Speaker 1: will say there's another science fiction book that I've talked

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Speaker 1: about on the show before. I think I recommended it

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Speaker 1: one year for summer reading that I really enjoyed, specifically

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Speaker 1: because it asks a question along these lines. It's uh,

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Speaker 1: Kim Stanley Robinson's novel Aurora, which is about a generation

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Speaker 1: starship that has a colonization mission. Um, you know, trying

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Speaker 1: to go to another star system and colonize another habitable planet.

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Speaker 1: But a big theme of that book is the question

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Speaker 1: of just like how how special Earth might be, and

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Speaker 1: ways in which we we don't realize that leaving Earth

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Speaker 1: is just abandoning everything that we depend upon and everything

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Speaker 1: that makes life good. And so ultimately there is kind

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Speaker 1: of a question in the book like, well, maybe should

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Speaker 1: we should we actually have our sight set on other planets,

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Speaker 1: Maybe there's something inescapably perfect about Earth, and instead we

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Speaker 1: should focus on making Earth as habitable as possible for

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Speaker 1: as long as possible. Um and and I remember, I

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Speaker 1: think reading some reviews of this book that criticized it

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Speaker 1: essentially as being like pessimistic and a down er for

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Speaker 1: for in some ways being characterized as anti space exploration,

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Speaker 1: which I'm not sure the book exactly is, but it

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Speaker 1: at least explores possibilities in that space, which I which

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Speaker 1: I think is fascinating and very worth considering. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: think the and and you know, actually a Christian and

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Speaker 1: I record an episode years ago called the Case against

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Speaker 1: Space that went into some cases that could be made

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Speaker 1: against UH spending time and resources and money on on

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Speaker 1: space exploration, you know, just to explore the other side.

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Speaker 1: But but I think that one thing we get into

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Speaker 1: here is the kind of like soft futurism that we

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Speaker 1: sometimes engage in, like without really thinking long and hard

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Speaker 1: about the rigors of creating an off world colony of say,

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Speaker 1: colonizing and terraforming Mars. You just kind of tuck it

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Speaker 1: away in the back of your mind, is like, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: we have a plan and and and and in reality,

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Speaker 1: we we don't really have a plan. B. There is

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Speaker 1: no earth to um you were talking about very um

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Speaker 1: inhospitable worlds, extreme environments, places that are even the closest

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Speaker 1: uh locations we could go to our far far away

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Speaker 1: and we've touched on the the like the challenges of

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Speaker 1: of Mars on the show before. But it's it's a

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Speaker 1: danger to to just sort of categorize that casually in

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Speaker 1: the back of your head as like a reason to

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Speaker 1: not fully invest in the health of this planet. Yeah, totally. Uh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you don't want to be going around thinking like, well,

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Speaker 1: we gotta backup plan. Yeah, I mean long term, we might,

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Speaker 1: but that is in no way a guarantee. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: but I do want to stress that, you know, speaking

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Speaker 1: for myself, I certainly still buy into this this future.

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Speaker 1: I think it is an optimistic vision for the future

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Speaker 1: for the most part. But like all all things, considering

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Speaker 1: the of the future, you know, we have to we

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Speaker 1: have to have a balance of optism and realism, and

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Speaker 1: you have to entertain some of the worst case scenarios

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Speaker 1: as well. Oh, totally. I mean, I want to be

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Speaker 1: clear that in talking about this today, we're not trying

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Speaker 1: to make the case that space colonization is bad. We're

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Speaker 1: just saying, here are some questions to consider exactly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I think a large part of this whole dream's

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Speaker 1: vision of expanding to other worlds, it's based in humanity's

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Speaker 1: innate desire to explore and expand. It's our scientific zeal, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, and this is part of what makes humanity great.

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Speaker 1: Though it also leaches into our vanity and pride, and

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Speaker 1: more to the point, it is an eventuality that our

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Speaker 1: space programs continue to work towards you know, such dreams, Uh.

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Speaker 1: Sci fi visions have animated the best minds among us

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Speaker 1: for decades and decades, and it seems ultimately a question

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Speaker 1: of when, not if a human being will, for instance,

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Speaker 1: ever stand on the surface of Mars. Well, I think

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Speaker 1: another reason that the idea of space exploration is so

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Speaker 1: popular among like optimistic future thinking people is like it

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Speaker 1: seems like it is the half of adventure that is

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Speaker 1: not that is not antagonistic and violent. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: would say adventure has two main components. One is like

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Speaker 1: exploration and discovery, and the other is kind of this

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Speaker 1: violent conquest thing. And you know, and we like the

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Speaker 1: sense of adventure, but maybe we we want a way

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Speaker 1: to have adventure that doesn't involve subjugation and violent conquest

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Speaker 1: of whatever you find when you get somewhere. And so

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Speaker 1: uh the and so space exploration seems like a perfect

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Speaker 1: candidate for that kind of spirit of adventure, right to

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Speaker 1: fulfill that drive without doing something harmful. Maybe there there

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Speaker 1: are these dead rocks out in the universe that we

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Speaker 1: could adventure two and we could explore without having to

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Speaker 1: make it into a struggle of conquest in war. Does

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Speaker 1: that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely, yeah. Now certainly you know

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Speaker 1: there's sci fi visions that that drag those elements in

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Speaker 1: and is we'll discussed there are some It's it's not

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Speaker 1: that that space colonization is a risk free venture. It's

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Speaker 1: not like they're there are not things that we could

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Speaker 1: potentially break while out there. But but yeah, it does

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Speaker 1: seem an optimiss The idea of exploring Mars, for the

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Speaker 1: most part, seems far less full of conflict and horror

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Speaker 1: than say, uh, you know Europeans history of exploring the

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Speaker 1: New World right now. Another huge angle to this, though,

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Speaker 1: is uh, is that there is this idea that humanity

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Speaker 1: must eventually leave Earth in order to survive long term

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Speaker 1: in a dangerous universe and to thwart various existential risks.

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Speaker 1: Stephen Hawking was an advocate of this line of thinking,

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Speaker 1: among many others. Yeah, I mean Stephen Hawking is not

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Speaker 1: wrong in saying this. I mean there are risks to Earth.

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Speaker 1: And uh, here's here's an analogy maybe for for people

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Speaker 1: in the stock of one company. Any any investment manager

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Speaker 1: to invest in multiple different things because if something bad

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Speaker 1: could lose everything. Some people I think, look at you know,

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Speaker 1: the planetary habitation of humans in the long term, the

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Speaker 1: same way catastrophic things can happen to planets. There there

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Speaker 1: can be catastrophic changes to the biosphere of a planet.

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Speaker 1: And so if you don't spread out to other planets

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Speaker 1: that something is going to happen that will cause us

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Speaker 1: to blink out of existence. Yeah, and and we discussed

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Speaker 1: many of these on the show before, you know, things

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Speaker 1: such as near Earth objects potentially colliding with the planet.

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Speaker 1: Also things bound to human technology like climate change, nuclear war,

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Speaker 1: and another. Various exams upolth some some more futuristic than others,

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Speaker 1: but most given known potential existential risk. You know with them,

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Speaker 1: there are there are certainly ways to attempt to safeguard

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Speaker 1: are technologically within our limits of control. Uh. Now, can

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Speaker 1: we control ourselves? Arguably, Yes, that's possible, even if it

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Speaker 1: tends to not be the case a lot of the

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Speaker 1: time in human affairs. Can we track and mitigate incoming

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Speaker 1: in eos? Yeah, we're continuing to improve our capabilities in

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Speaker 1: that department. But as we get into long term concerns

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Speaker 1: about say the life of the sun, UH, we'd really

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Speaker 1: need to be higher on the Karda Chef scale to

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Speaker 1: do anything about it. And then there's also the issue

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Speaker 1: of outside context problems, which is a which are problems

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Speaker 1: that by definition, a civilization cannot anticipate. As then in

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Speaker 1: Banks explained in the in his book Accession, which is

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Speaker 1: where the term was coined, most civilizations encounter just a

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Speaker 1: one outside context problem, and that is what does them

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Speaker 1: in Now you might be thinking, well, wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: what's an example of an outside context problem? I guess

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Speaker 1: the definition of it would be that it's something that

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Speaker 1: we're not really envisioning right now. But maybe the easiest

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Speaker 1: example would be an encounter with a with a totally

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Speaker 1: uh incomprehensible alien species or something. Yeah. Yeah, that that's

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Speaker 1: that's the big one. UM And certainly like one example

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Speaker 1: that is often thrown out. I think Banks made this

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Speaker 1: uh analogy as well is if you are one of

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Speaker 1: with horses and all this technology. UM. It is not

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Speaker 1: something they anticipated. And there were and there were other

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Speaker 1: aspects of that problem that they just could not anticipate,

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Speaker 1: say the disease factor. And uh, and they ultimately, I

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Speaker 1: mean they it's not that they were completely wiped out.

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Speaker 1: But obviously that whole situation was was an apocalypse for

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Speaker 1: the people's of the New World. But another thing we

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Speaker 1: should emphasize again that you just mentioned a second ago,

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Speaker 1: is that, I mean, one thing we can be sure of,

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Speaker 1: even if we don't encounter any outside context problems, is

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Speaker 1: there's basically an expiration date for life on Earth that

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Speaker 1: has nothing to do with like stochastic events like a

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Speaker 1: near Earth object impacts or something. It's just gonna be

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Speaker 1: the the lifespan of the Sun. Eventually, the Sun is

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Speaker 1: going to swell, it's going to turn into a red

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Speaker 1: giant and and Earth will get too hot to live

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Speaker 1: on there there will be no life here anymore. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and and a lot of times this can seem like

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Speaker 1: ridiculous to worry about, right, but like, come on, humanity,

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Speaker 1: let's let's get through July. Uh about the long term

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Speaker 1: survival of the human race and what happens when when

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Speaker 1: the Sun burns out of energy. I mean, we think

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Speaker 1: the the habitable Earth is already probably more than halfway

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Speaker 1: through its lifespan. You know, Earth is about four and

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Speaker 1: a half billion years old, probably within um you know,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to put an exact number on it, but

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Speaker 1: I think something like four billion years from now we

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Speaker 1: can be pretty sure that that Earth is just gonna

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Speaker 1: be done like that. There will be no more life

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Speaker 1: here at that point. It will just be too hot. Now,

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Speaker 1: four billion years is a long time, right, you know

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Speaker 1: that that was enough time to for single cells to

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Speaker 1: evolve into humans who are capable of appreciating the RoboCop movies,

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Speaker 1: you know, and so like, uh, it is a long time.

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Speaker 1: It's not like something you need to worry about tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: But at the same time, if you are trying to

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Speaker 1: imagine the far future, something would have to happen if

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Speaker 1: we wanted to go on beyond that point. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: I think that's reasonable though also, of course it is

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Speaker 1: we are talking about the far future. Um. So in

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Speaker 1: this episode we thought we'd explore some of the moral

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Speaker 1: arguments that are ultimately against the colonization of other worlds.

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Speaker 1: The concern, again, to to quote Ian Malcolm, is not

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Speaker 1: can we do it. But should we do it? What

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Speaker 1: would the moral cost be uh to a true Tarran diaspora.

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Speaker 1: If we were to expand beyond the earth, what would

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Speaker 1: it cost us? And would it be worth it? What

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Speaker 1: are some of the philosophical concerns here? Well, maybe we

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Speaker 1: should take a quick rake and then when we come

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Speaker 1: back we can talk about them. All Right, we're back.

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Speaker 1: So one of the key factors in this entire discussion

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Speaker 1: it has to do with the morality of human existence

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Speaker 1: and what you might think of a sort of the

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Speaker 1: media and human condition. Uh So consider this question. Is

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Speaker 1: human existence on average a reality worth sustaining and propagating? Uh?

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Speaker 1: You know, I know, obviously it's it's not like we

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Speaker 1: could do anything but that, I mean, that's what life does.

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Speaker 1: And we are we are life, no matter how self

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Speaker 1: aware we've become or how you know, self aware we've

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Speaker 1: come to believe we are, we are still just we

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Speaker 1: are life and life propagates. Yeah, and there are of

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Speaker 1: course people who believe, you know, that humans should voluntarily

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Speaker 1: go extinct. That is actually a point of view some

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Speaker 1: people have. I kind of and I don't mean to

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Speaker 1: question everyone who says this, but with at least some

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Speaker 1: of the people who say that, I kind of question

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Speaker 1: their sincerity. I mean with some of the people who

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Speaker 1: say that, I think they're probably just saying that to

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Speaker 1: be interesting or to be shocking, not because they really

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Speaker 1: believe humans should disappear right, or to sort of ext

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Speaker 1: to over express a sentiment, you know, yeah, to to

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Speaker 1: sort of drive home a point, like like I think

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Speaker 1: I've probably in in the past, I've probably said something

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Speaker 1: to the effect that I would I would be totally

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Speaker 1: cool with the with the male gender going extinct and

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Speaker 1: the species become exclusively female. Um. But you know, now

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Speaker 1: I have a son, and uh, you know I can't

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Speaker 1: rationally make that argument, you know, um, and it and

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Speaker 1: it was, ultimately, you know, not a completely rational argument.

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Speaker 1: Maybe you know, a little attention seeking and a little uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, trying to to to make a point, I suppose,

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Speaker 1: but uh but still, you know, all these sort of

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Speaker 1: questions and considerations do get into bigger questions about like

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Speaker 1: what are we doing? Like what is the what? And

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Speaker 1: what are we doing wrong? And then what is the

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Speaker 1: the overall shape of life? This is you know real,

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Speaker 1: this is the meat of philosophy and theology. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: why is there so much suffering in the world. Is

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Speaker 1: life suffering? Does all the suffering make the good parts

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Speaker 1: worth having? Is a miserable life better than no life

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Speaker 1: at all? Are their fates worse than death? I mean

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Speaker 1: this is These are questions we continue to wrestle with.

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Speaker 1: And then there's also the big, big question of inequality here.

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Speaker 1: If only a small fraction of the human population, such

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Speaker 1: as you know, the much talented one percent, or or

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Speaker 1: even some larger percentile, depending on what your parameters are,

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Speaker 1: if only this small fraction of the population has access

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Speaker 1: to true comfort, health, happiness, or whatever your gage happens

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Speaker 1: to be, then what does that say about the overall

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Speaker 1: health of the system. If the popular idea of what

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Speaker 1: it is to be human is, say the lifestyle one

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Speaker 1: season a popular television show, be it Friends or the Kardashians,

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Speaker 1: or even like Seinfeld, you know, a nice sizeable apartment

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Speaker 1: in all uh, then then how do we square how

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Speaker 1: out of proportion these visions are with our reality, or

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Speaker 1: sort of the standard reality on earth. And likewise we

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Speaker 1: might wonder which ideal we're envisioning UH to be installed

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Speaker 1: in an off world colony. What are we spreading to

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Speaker 1: other worlds? Beyond basic human presence and just sort of

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Speaker 1: the staked flag of empire, or perhaps ideally we envisioned

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Speaker 1: that such off world realities would encompass just a vast

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Speaker 1: array of emotional states, uh, you know, and that things

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Speaker 1: would even out tomorrow will be like today in the

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Speaker 1: arc of the moral universe, you know, will will bend

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Speaker 1: towards justice and so forth. So at this point I

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Speaker 1: wanna I want to turn to this, this subject of

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Speaker 1: astronomical suffering. Uh. And this comes from a paper by

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Speaker 1: Marco Covid. Uh. Not to be confused with Takeishi Kovaks,

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Speaker 1: which we referenced earlier. This is a k O V

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Speaker 1: I see, with the last part having a c H

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Speaker 1: pronunciation like in chocolate. So uh. So Covid is a

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Speaker 1: Swiss social scientist who is the co found owner and

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Speaker 1: CEO of the consulting firm Ours Cognitanis, and whose work

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Speaker 1: has been featured in Ian Magazine, among other places. He

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Speaker 1: also has written extensively in German and the German language,

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Speaker 1: and hosts a German language podcast titled Din Cautelier, which

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Speaker 1: you can you can actually you can look up. It

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Speaker 1: is d E n K A T E l I

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Speaker 1: E r dot x y Z. So if you were

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Speaker 1: a German speaker, uh, check that out. It's uh, I

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Speaker 1: would check it out if my German were not just

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Speaker 1: the most basic level ever. Uh. So you wanted to

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Speaker 1: do this topic today because you you read an article

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Speaker 1: by Covids, right, Yeah, It published in UM. It's an

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Speaker 1: open science framework publication titled Risks of Space Colonization. You

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Speaker 1: can access the full paper online and I urge everyone

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Speaker 1: to do so because it's a thought provoking read and

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Speaker 1: it really puts the whole enterprise of off world colonies

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Speaker 1: under philosophical scrutiny. Not to say that he doesn't touch

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Speaker 1: on ideas that I think are already out there in

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Speaker 1: the in the zeitgeist, in the you know, the science

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Speaker 1: fiction whole consideration of the future. But but it's really

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Speaker 1: a great ride up. We're not going to go through

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Speaker 1: everything Covid discusses here, because he certainly discusses the risks

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Speaker 1: and rewards of space colonization, including the notion that the

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Speaker 1: acceleration of space colonization capability would just increase the existential

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Speaker 1: risk coming at us, like all the technological ways that

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Speaker 1: we could potentially destroy ourselves or make life worse on

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Speaker 1: the planet that being able to to move at great speeds,

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Speaker 1: to have orbital you know, supremacy, that these things would

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Speaker 1: just uh create more ways for us to hurt ourselves.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like we're doing a bad enough

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Speaker 1: job already at avoiding species level risks. Yeah. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: when you consider potential technologies like you know, rods from

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Speaker 1: God and the idea that you know, you wouldn't even

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Speaker 1: need explosives if you had orbital supremacy, if you had

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Speaker 1: enough just mass up there in orbit that you could

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Speaker 1: drop down things like that, it's the ultimate high ground. Yeah, exactly. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And he also discusses contact with microbial extratractical extraterrestrial life,

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Speaker 1: which we've discussed on the show before, secession and independence,

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Speaker 1: reactionary colonies, intercolonial conflict, which is another topic we've definitely

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Speaker 1: uh produced episodes on, and much much more. But I

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Speaker 1: wanted to focus in on some of the other ideas

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Speaker 1: the outlines here, such as the risk of moral catastrophes

430
00:24:27,520 --> 00:24:32,879
Speaker 1: quote massively undesirable outcomes of engaging in space colonization but

431
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:37,919
Speaker 1: without any intent for or complacency towards doing harm, and

432
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:40,720
Speaker 1: the first of these that he brings up is the

433
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:45,639
Speaker 1: astronomical populations ethics conundrum. And to better understand that, we

434
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:50,920
Speaker 1: have to first consider what is known as the repugnant conclusion. Yeah. So, um,

435
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:53,800
Speaker 1: if if we got any moral philosophy nerds out there,

436
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,000
Speaker 1: you will recognize this immediately. The idea of the repugnant

437
00:24:57,080 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 1: conclusion is, uh it's a very popular or question in

438
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:05,840
Speaker 1: the the domain of population ethics, this sub branch of

439
00:25:05,880 --> 00:25:08,280
Speaker 1: ethics about how to know what's the right thing to

440
00:25:08,320 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 1: do when considering the creation and maintenance of populations of people.

441
00:25:13,680 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: Uh So. The repugnant conclusion is also known as the

442
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 1: mere addition problem, and it was famously articulated by the

443
00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 1: British philosopher Derek Parfit in his nineteen eighty four book

444
00:25:23,560 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 1: Reasons and Persons. As often understood today, the repugnant conclusion

445
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 1: takes the form of a paradox about our intuitions on

446
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:34,560
Speaker 1: population ethics. Uh And there are a lot of ways

447
00:25:34,600 --> 00:25:37,119
Speaker 1: of expressing or illustrating this paradox, but to make it

448
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:40,560
Speaker 1: as simple and as clear as I can, the repugnant

449
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 1: conclusion is a statement like this, And this is a

450
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 1: quote for from Derek Parfitt. Quote for any possible population

451
00:25:48,400 --> 00:25:52,000
Speaker 1: of at least ten billion people, all with very high

452
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: quality of life. There must be some much larger imaginable

453
00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:00,880
Speaker 1: population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better,

454
00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: even though it's members have lives that are barely worth living.

455
00:26:05,400 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 1: So that that sounds very counterintuitive, right, Like there's some

456
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: number we don't know exactly what it is. Maybe maybe

457
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: you know ten trillion people who might have all completely

458
00:26:16,359 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: miserable lives, But it would be better for all those

459
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:22,639
Speaker 1: people to exist than for some smaller number of people

460
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:25,720
Speaker 1: to exist, all having good lives. Now, how on earth

461
00:26:25,760 --> 00:26:29,159
Speaker 1: could you arrive at that conclusion? Well, let's illustrate with

462
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,920
Speaker 1: an example. Um, And of course I'm slightly oversimplifying here

463
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:37,159
Speaker 1: because this arises in a discussion alongside another complicated issue

464
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: known as the non identity problem. And with respect to

465
00:26:40,840 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: the repugnant conclusion, Parfitt himself uses an argument with more

466
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:48,399
Speaker 1: steps and bar graphs and stuff representing hypothetical human groups

467
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:50,440
Speaker 1: and qualities of life. I'm just gonna try to get

468
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,760
Speaker 1: to the heart of it in a simple and clear way.

469
00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:55,840
Speaker 1: Let's say you're put in a weird experiment by a

470
00:26:55,880 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 1: godlike consortium of cardassiev three level alien scientists, who are

471
00:27:00,880 --> 00:27:04,800
Speaker 1: so technologically powerful that they can make realities come in

472
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,720
Speaker 1: and out of being at will. And they they give

473
00:27:07,760 --> 00:27:10,360
Speaker 1: you two options. They give you the option to make

474
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:13,920
Speaker 1: one of two scenarios a reality. Robert, would you take

475
00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 1: this test? Yes, let's do it. Okay, So scenario one.

476
00:27:18,160 --> 00:27:21,280
Speaker 1: You get to exist, but I do not get to exist.

477
00:27:21,480 --> 00:27:23,920
Speaker 1: Imagine again, not really me. You don't know me. I'm

478
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:27,840
Speaker 1: just some hypothetical other person yet to be born. In

479
00:27:27,920 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: your existence, you have a pretty nice life. You get

480
00:27:31,119 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 1: really good food, you have a nice house. You get

481
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: to hang out with friends and family. You have free time,

482
00:27:36,080 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 1: get to exercise and experience nature. You get to read

483
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:43,120
Speaker 1: interesting books and pursue creative work. It's pretty great. But

484
00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: I don't exist at all. Now here's scenario to both

485
00:27:47,640 --> 00:27:51,679
Speaker 1: you and I get to exist. You keep everything you

486
00:27:51,760 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: had in the previous scenario. You get good material conditions,

487
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:59,400
Speaker 1: good relationships and social life, interesting creative projects to explore,

488
00:27:59,480 --> 00:28:02,720
Speaker 1: et cetera. Nothing at all changes for you. I, on

489
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:05,879
Speaker 1: the other hand, have a less exciting existence. I have

490
00:28:06,080 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: a few social relationships, but I only get to talk

491
00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: to people through a glass barrier, and I live in

492
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:15,439
Speaker 1: a kind of dank, concrete building that's always dimly lit

493
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:18,160
Speaker 1: and a little bit too cold, and I get enough

494
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: food to eat, but it's not very exciting. It's basically

495
00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: just like microwave frozen fish sticks and tater tots and

496
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:27,000
Speaker 1: a vitamin supplement to keep me more or less healthy.

497
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: I can still sort of pursue my interests in my

498
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: spare time, but I don't have a lot of spare

499
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:35,880
Speaker 1: time after all of my shifts at the Hollywood Acid Factory. Now,

500
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:39,120
Speaker 1: which scenario would you pick? Oh, this is hard because

501
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: with the first one you've kind of had me like, okay, uh,

502
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:44,680
Speaker 1: this sounds fine. All you know, my life and my

503
00:28:44,760 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 1: connections and the things I'm invested in those exist and

504
00:28:49,320 --> 00:28:52,560
Speaker 1: you don't exist. And so like there's you know there,

505
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:54,520
Speaker 1: you don't really have a dog in a hunt, right,

506
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: you don't have any skin in that. You literally do

507
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,920
Speaker 1: not have skin in the game. But then scenario too

508
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: makes is a lot more difficult because it's like now

509
00:29:02,920 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of this question of do you get

510
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: to exist in this kind of like in this you know,

511
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: this more miserable state or not like quite miserable. I

512
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: don't know, depending how you frame it. But yeah, it's like,

513
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: then I feel like I am imposing on you if

514
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:21,680
Speaker 1: I say you can't exist. Right, So just imagine all

515
00:29:21,720 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: of that is true. But if you asked me, I

516
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 1: would say, well, of course I want to exist. I

517
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 1: don't want to not exist. Yeah, And I do not

518
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: feel it is my place to decide that someone should

519
00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 1: not exist, you know, due to the quality of their

520
00:29:35,960 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: life in this case, you know, I mean, this is

521
00:29:38,600 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: a scenario to puts me in a very tough place. Yeah,

522
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: And I think most people's intuition when confronted with this

523
00:29:45,480 --> 00:29:48,640
Speaker 1: problem is that it would be unfair to pick scenario one.

524
00:29:49,160 --> 00:29:52,720
Speaker 1: Even though my existence in scenario two is not ideal.

525
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:55,480
Speaker 1: You'd assume that if you asked me, I would still

526
00:29:55,600 --> 00:30:00,200
Speaker 1: rather exist than not exist. Right, So scenario too, this

527
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 1: context is, by most people's intuition, a better world. It's

528
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: a more preferable world. If you had the option, scenario

529
00:30:07,880 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: two would be the better one to bring about. And

530
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:13,080
Speaker 1: it's really hard to argue with that reasoning. In order

531
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:15,000
Speaker 1: to argue with that reasoning, you'd have to say that

532
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 1: you have the power unilaterally to say that other people

533
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,080
Speaker 1: shouldn't be able to exist and live lives that they

534
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: might not rate as perfect but still would want to have.

535
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: But this opens up a very dangerous logic because it

536
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:32,120
Speaker 1: means it's possible to increase the desirability of a world

537
00:30:32,800 --> 00:30:36,320
Speaker 1: just by adding to the number of sentient minds that

538
00:30:36,480 --> 00:30:39,200
Speaker 1: want to keep existing in it. Again, this is why

539
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:42,800
Speaker 1: it's known as the mere addition problem. That you can

540
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: create scenarios where it's better to have a world with

541
00:30:46,240 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: more minds in it as long as those minds would

542
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:53,160
Speaker 1: say that they want to exist, even if the average

543
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:57,120
Speaker 1: quality of human life is drastically reduced. So like, if

544
00:30:57,160 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: you took the average quality of my existence in your

545
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: existence together in scenario two, then it would be lower

546
00:31:03,840 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: than the average of your existence alone in scenario one.

547
00:31:07,680 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 1: And then if you obey this maxim that you've set out,

548
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: now it seems like you're committed to a chain of

549
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 1: logic that leads to the conclusion that the value of

550
00:31:16,520 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 1: quantity can overwhelm the variable of quality when it comes

551
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:23,440
Speaker 1: to human life, as as long as most people would

552
00:31:23,520 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: rather exist than not, some greater number of lives are

553
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:31,000
Speaker 1: preferable to some smaller number, even if the lives and

554
00:31:31,080 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 1: the greater number are pretty abjectly miserable. Now, I think

555
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: we should know that this logic would not apply to

556
00:31:37,520 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: lives that are so miserable that people would say themselves

557
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: that they would truly rather cease to exist. You could

558
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,120
Speaker 1: think of some kind of like torture, like hell world

559
00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 1: or something, you know, like if hell existed, it would

560
00:31:49,760 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: just be better for that to not exist. Yeah, this

561
00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:54,640
Speaker 1: is the the the option we're talking about here is

562
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:57,600
Speaker 1: more in line with to bring in us another great

563
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:00,440
Speaker 1: science fiction example, uh, the Martian cal and he's in

564
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:05,120
Speaker 1: total recall where most people have it pretty horrible there,

565
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:07,880
Speaker 1: or at least it's a rough existence, but they would

566
00:32:07,880 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: still fight to survive. Yeah. Yeah, and they they get

567
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,560
Speaker 1: into how like the the early like the settlers were

568
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 1: just basically living in caves. You know, it's just this

569
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,280
Speaker 1: this brutal, primitive existence. And yet at the same time,

570
00:32:19,360 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: like they you know, they're they're not in just constant torture. Yeah, exactly. Now,

571
00:32:24,440 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear, as we said at

572
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:28,520
Speaker 1: the beginning, the point of this is not that the

573
00:32:28,560 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 1: repugnant conclusion is correct. It's actually you know, Derek Parfitt

574
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 1: highlights this to say, like this really seems to be incorrect.

575
00:32:36,920 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 1: It really seems to go against our intuitions. So the

576
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:42,840
Speaker 1: problem is figuring out what part of the logical chain

577
00:32:42,880 --> 00:32:46,800
Speaker 1: that gets you there is wrong. Because I mean, most

578
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:49,800
Speaker 1: people I think would say that this this conclusion is incorrect.

579
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: There are these practical moral implications to it. If it

580
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:57,160
Speaker 1: were actually correct, If the repugnan conclusion were really did

581
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 1: have moral force, it would have implications like humans should

582
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:03,760
Speaker 1: engage in maximal natalism, right, like the idea that humans

583
00:33:03,760 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: should reproduce as much as possible to create as much

584
00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,680
Speaker 1: human life as we possibly can, because to create less

585
00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 1: than the maximum possible amount of human life would be immoral.

586
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,040
Speaker 1: Under this view, if you didn't work to maximize the

587
00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: human population, you're denying future people the right to exist.

588
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 1: And again, you know too many people. That seems intuitively absurd.

589
00:33:24,840 --> 00:33:28,080
Speaker 1: Why would you trade a world with less people living

590
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: fulfilling lives for a world with vastly more people living

591
00:33:32,040 --> 00:33:34,360
Speaker 1: lives you know, at the edge of what resources they

592
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:37,840
Speaker 1: can get to barely survive. For instance, you could think

593
00:33:37,840 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: about it in terms of cat ownership, you know, like

594
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: one one cat, in my opinion, is enough. Um. But

595
00:33:46,240 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: you know, I could see myself talked into all right,

596
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: we need to get a second cat. This cat needs

597
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:52,440
Speaker 1: a home. Let's let's let's do it. But then the

598
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:55,680
Speaker 1: more cats you add to a house, the more chaotic

599
00:33:55,720 --> 00:33:58,920
Speaker 1: it becomes, the more work has to go into taking

600
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: care of those cats, until you reach a point where

601
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 1: it's it's just about quantity over quality, right right, exactly. Now, Again,

602
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:11,840
Speaker 1: this isn't to assume any particular correlation between the number

603
00:34:11,880 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 1: of people on Earth in their quality of life. I

604
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:17,320
Speaker 1: mean I think that, um, there are actually some naive

605
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: assumptions going around about about increasing human populations necessarily always

606
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 1: leading to bad outcomes. I don't think we should we

607
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:28,719
Speaker 1: should take those conclusions for granted, but just saying that, like,

608
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 1: if you assume at some point, you know, if there

609
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 1: were a hundred trillion humans on Earth, you can definitely

610
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 1: say that that would that would cause problems for for

611
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: ecosystems and stuff, right right. And and also, just before

612
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:44,239
Speaker 1: anybody writes me if you have multiple cats in your home,

613
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: I am not judging you. I am just saying that

614
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:50,719
Speaker 1: multiple cats, uh, does not feel right for me personally

615
00:34:51,360 --> 00:34:54,319
Speaker 1: my personal household. But I know plenty of people with

616
00:34:54,360 --> 00:34:57,520
Speaker 1: lots of cats and they seem quite happy with the situation.

617
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: But but even they, I think, would probably admit that

618
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:05,279
Speaker 1: there is there is some threshold cat ownership. Right, even

619
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:07,919
Speaker 1: if you're you're you're a sort of like cat maximalist

620
00:35:07,920 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 1: in a practical sense, you're not really because you're not

621
00:35:10,719 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: trying to get five hundred cats in your house. Yeah,

622
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 1: because that's when, yeah, that's when law enforcement gets involved. Right. Um,

623
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:21,759
Speaker 1: But then okay, so so on the on the one hand,

624
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:23,920
Speaker 1: you're thinking, like, no, that that can't be right, But

625
00:35:23,960 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 1: then compare it again to our other intuitions that got

626
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:28,720
Speaker 1: us there in the first place. Even if you wish

627
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,479
Speaker 1: the quality of your life were much better, most people

628
00:35:31,520 --> 00:35:35,160
Speaker 1: would prefer existing over not existing, even people who are

629
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:38,080
Speaker 1: in pain, who lack the things that we desire, we

630
00:35:38,120 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: would mostly prefer to be able to exist rather than

631
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 1: not exist. And so it would certainly be wrong of

632
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:47,880
Speaker 1: us to decide on other people's behalf that their lives

633
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 1: are not worth living. Right. Yeah, I think there's a

634
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: there's a strong argument for that. Um, you know, we

635
00:35:53,680 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: we do get it. We are getting into I know

636
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 1: that there are all sorts of lights going off in

637
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: people's heads about varying you know, issues, but but but still,

638
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 1: I think that is a for the most part of

639
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:05,399
Speaker 1: rational argument. Well, at least it's it feels that way.

640
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily mean it's right. So this is a

641
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 1: paradox we've got. It seems like we must choose between

642
00:36:10,560 --> 00:36:15,319
Speaker 1: two conclusions that both feel morally wrong. So what are

643
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 1: the ways of resolving this paradox? Because so the conclusion

644
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 1: is widely considered unacceptable. Parfit himself. Again, he articulates this,

645
00:36:23,080 --> 00:36:25,720
Speaker 1: but not to say that the repugnant conclusion is correct.

646
00:36:25,840 --> 00:36:28,800
Speaker 1: He brings it up to say, like, this is obviously wrong.

647
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,320
Speaker 1: We have to figure out why this isn't the case,

648
00:36:31,840 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 1: and uh. Other philosophers have tried to find ways to

649
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: avoid the conclusion by like questioning some of the premises

650
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:41,720
Speaker 1: or introducing other considerations. So, for example, you could argue

651
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: that maximizing the average quality of human life is the

652
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: ideal and so so not like the number of people,

653
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:50,680
Speaker 1: but you just want to make the average human life

654
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,479
Speaker 1: quality as high as possible. But under this model you'd

655
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:56,400
Speaker 1: run into problems. For instance, you could improve the world

656
00:36:56,480 --> 00:37:00,080
Speaker 1: by killing everyone except the happiest person in it, and

657
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: then it would have the maximum average happiness. Uh. Then

658
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 1: again you could you could go back against that and say, well,

659
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,480
Speaker 1: surely killing everyone else would decrease this person's quality of life.

660
00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:14,000
Speaker 1: But you can imagine like weird sci fi hypotheticals to

661
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: get around this, maybe, for example, that the best possible

662
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,840
Speaker 1: world is the one with just one maximally satisfied person

663
00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 1: living in a simulation of real life for the wind

664
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,120
Speaker 1: howls around the you know waste land bunker that houses

665
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:31,480
Speaker 1: that that person's real body. Yeah, that that reminds me

666
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:33,880
Speaker 1: of a There was a Zoom meeting that I attended

667
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:36,279
Speaker 1: this morning. There was like a like a like a

668
00:37:36,360 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 1: dad's meeting. There's a line with the school where my

669
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:42,680
Speaker 1: son goes, and we were all asked to rate our

670
00:37:42,800 --> 00:37:45,839
Speaker 1: current level of happiness from a one to a kin

671
00:37:46,040 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 1: like one being like just I just just absolute misery,

672
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: I guess, and tim being like awesome, and most of

673
00:37:52,160 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: us put in sevens. I found I put on myself

674
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:56,719
Speaker 1: put in a seven. There was like a seven point

675
00:37:56,719 --> 00:37:59,320
Speaker 1: to someone had a seven point seven. I think somebody

676
00:37:59,440 --> 00:38:01,399
Speaker 1: somebody was having a tough time, and you know, put

677
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 1: in like a six or a five. And then one

678
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 1: person put in a tin and I was I was

679
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 1: just like wow, like who let let's hand ownership of

680
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:14,200
Speaker 1: the what are they doing where they have the you know,

681
00:38:14,239 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: the tins? So in this scenario, it's like, just cut

682
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:18,880
Speaker 1: out all the sevens and let's just have only the

683
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: guy with the tin and uh, and he shall be

684
00:38:21,640 --> 00:38:25,040
Speaker 1: the uh the population of Earth. Right, So that obviously

685
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:27,360
Speaker 1: goes against our moral intuitions as well. It does not

686
00:38:27,560 --> 00:38:30,520
Speaker 1: feel right that you could you could improve the moral

687
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: worth of the world just by eliminating all the unhappy people.

688
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 1: That's obviously wrong. Uh So, yeah, you're still stuck with

689
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 1: this problem. Is there are a bunch of ways the

690
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:41,839
Speaker 1: different philosophers have have tried to deal with it. Some

691
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 1: have introduced like like sort of ad hoc ways of

692
00:38:45,160 --> 00:38:49,680
Speaker 1: calculating life value that's somewhat favor average quality of life,

693
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 1: but don't totally put that above number of people. I mean,

694
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 1: it's just like, this is clearly a difficult problem to

695
00:38:56,760 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 1: resolve some things that we believe in our intent with

696
00:39:00,440 --> 00:39:04,160
Speaker 1: each other. But however you try to deal with the problem,

697
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:07,480
Speaker 1: it is not hard at all to imagine how this

698
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:10,800
Speaker 1: thought experiment has an impact on the idea of space

699
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:14,800
Speaker 1: exploration and space colonization. Because think about it again, Okay,

700
00:39:14,960 --> 00:39:18,960
Speaker 1: imagine you're charting out to futures for humanity, and one

701
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 1: is a is a future where we stay here on

702
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:25,120
Speaker 1: Earth and people you know, there there are varying qualities

703
00:39:25,160 --> 00:39:26,920
Speaker 1: of life. But let's say, you know, in a in

704
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 1: a better future scenario, maybe we we implement some kind

705
00:39:30,640 --> 00:39:34,920
Speaker 1: of social structure that gets basically everybody on Earth's quality

706
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,719
Speaker 1: of life up to a certain level where people have

707
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,359
Speaker 1: the resources they need, they can pursue creative work, they

708
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:43,960
Speaker 1: can they can hang out in a in a you know,

709
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 1: unpolluted natural environment, experience nature, have good social relationships. You know,

710
00:39:49,480 --> 00:39:52,200
Speaker 1: take a best case scenario, there still the number of

711
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: people who could live on Earth in that scenario is

712
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 1: going to be somewhat limited. Meanwhile, you could have a

713
00:39:59,320 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 1: lot more potential for human life and human flourishing. And

714
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: especially if you're playing the odds game against like you

715
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,320
Speaker 1: know what, if you know, we get a space impact

716
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:10,799
Speaker 1: or something really bad happens to planet Earth itself, you

717
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,919
Speaker 1: can have a lot more potential for human life if

718
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: you were to spread out to other objects throughout the

719
00:40:17,760 --> 00:40:20,000
Speaker 1: you know, throughout the Solar System or throughout you know,

720
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:23,279
Speaker 1: other star systems in the Milky Way. But if you

721
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: take a pessimistic view of what those would be like,

722
00:40:25,640 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 1: you can easily imagine how those existences might be pretty crappy,

723
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: you know, like you're you're trying to live on Mars,

724
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:36,520
Speaker 1: but the exploration of Mars is in one sense exciting,

725
00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:40,400
Speaker 1: but also Mars is a horrible place. It's just horrible,

726
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:43,439
Speaker 1: Like would you really would you really want to live

727
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 1: there in say an underground bunker that had to shield

728
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,879
Speaker 1: you from radiation, and you know, you're you're eating these

729
00:40:49,960 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 1: kind of bland foods, and you know, there's only a

730
00:40:52,640 --> 00:40:54,959
Speaker 1: couple of other people who you can interact with face

731
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,359
Speaker 1: to face, and you can't go outside, you can't see

732
00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 1: a tree, you know, and and and so forth. Yeah,

733
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: and if you're also looking at a situation where it's

734
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 1: not even like I'm going to make this this world,

735
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:08,720
Speaker 1: this Martian world better for my children. If it's more like, well,

736
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:12,000
Speaker 1: in a thousand years, things will be much better, you know,

737
00:41:12,480 --> 00:41:16,160
Speaker 1: it's it It becomes kind of difficult to imagine, you know,

738
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:20,400
Speaker 1: getting in the mindset of you know, of of the

739
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:24,400
Speaker 1: of that particular individual, right, and so this I feel

740
00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,440
Speaker 1: like this kind of question, the idea of space colonization

741
00:41:27,800 --> 00:41:31,359
Speaker 1: in a way is one particular scenario for making the

742
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 1: paradox of the repugnan conclusion kind of concrete. Like imagining

743
00:41:37,040 --> 00:41:40,360
Speaker 1: these different options, both of them feel kind of wrong

744
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: in a way, and this brings us back to uh

745
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 1: CO budges astro astronomical population ethics conundrum. He writes, quote,

746
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:51,399
Speaker 1: in the context of space colonization, the repugnant conclusion could

747
00:41:51,480 --> 00:41:54,640
Speaker 1: mean that a dystopian future in which dozens or hundreds

748
00:41:54,640 --> 00:41:57,960
Speaker 1: of billions of humans across different habitats in our Solar

749
00:41:58,000 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 1: system and beyond live miserable, brutish, anguish field lives is

750
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: a future that is morble preferable to, for example, a

751
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 1: future in which there are only a few billion people

752
00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:12,399
Speaker 1: who live happy lives on Earth. Now, Covid points out

753
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,279
Speaker 1: that yes, this is an extreme possibility, but that it's

754
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,439
Speaker 1: not unreasonable to presume that life on the off world

755
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: colonies would indeed be hard. You know, we've just been

756
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:24,239
Speaker 1: discussing how brutal Mars is. I mean, heck um, I

757
00:42:24,280 --> 00:42:27,080
Speaker 1: think it's a nanio degrass Tyson, for instance, has brought

758
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: up look at Antarctica, and Arctica is infinitely more hospitable

759
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:35,399
Speaker 1: than Mars, and outside of what a few thousand people

760
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 1: during the summer and barely a thousand people during the winter.

761
00:42:38,239 --> 00:42:42,120
Speaker 1: We don't have human life on Earth's fifth largest continent. Yeah,

762
00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I think about how how uninhabitable not

763
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:49,839
Speaker 1: just an Arctica like most of Earth is. This is funny, like,

764
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:52,600
Speaker 1: you know, Earth is the place we can live, but

765
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:55,279
Speaker 1: we can't even live on most of it. Most of

766
00:42:55,320 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth is uninhabitable. It's either ocean

767
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 1: is open ocean, or it is you know, desert or

768
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: uninhabitable tundra, ice sheets like they are actually really just

769
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 1: these kind of slivers of the surface that are good

770
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:12,839
Speaker 1: for us to settle down on. Yeah, I mean when

771
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 1: you consider like the hard surface of the Earth, most

772
00:43:16,840 --> 00:43:21,839
Speaker 1: of the Earth's surface is a dark, high pressure deep

773
00:43:21,880 --> 00:43:25,879
Speaker 1: sea environment where where we we have no place. Uh so, yeah,

774
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,959
Speaker 1: we're we're clinging to the you know, to the parts

775
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:31,480
Speaker 1: of the world that we can live and VR technology,

776
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 1: you know, we're able to to live in a lot

777
00:43:34,120 --> 00:43:36,840
Speaker 1: of places that we wouldn't be able to otherwise. But

778
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:39,839
Speaker 1: but still yeah, we again, it comes kind of back

779
00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: to the Kardashi of scale, like in terms of technology

780
00:43:43,719 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: and just sort of maximizing our planet, Like we're not

781
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:50,479
Speaker 1: even on wrong one yet, so you know, and trying

782
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:53,320
Speaker 1: to imagine people living on an world off world colony.

783
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: People born into life in another world would not exist

784
00:43:56,719 --> 00:44:00,120
Speaker 1: at all if not for the establishment of that colony. So,

785
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: on one hand of the paradox, colonizing other worlds is

786
00:44:03,160 --> 00:44:06,080
Speaker 1: an inherently moral act because you know, because if you

787
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: don't do it, they won't exist. But what if there

788
00:44:08,760 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: are not places where happiness and peace are going to

789
00:44:11,960 --> 00:44:15,319
Speaker 1: be easily found? What if these are harsh, frontier colonies,

790
00:44:15,560 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 1: even hell worlds? Uh in you know, to varying degrees

791
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:22,960
Speaker 1: that expand the fact of human habitation, but do so

792
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:26,360
Speaker 1: via the reality of human suffering. So Covac connects this

793
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: to that other standard problem of population ethics that we

794
00:44:29,560 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 1: already mentioned, uh, the non identity problem, which just to

795
00:44:33,760 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: to reiterate that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that

796
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 1: it quote raises questions regarding the obligations we think we

797
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 1: have in respect of people who, by our own acts

798
00:44:44,680 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 1: are caused both to exist and who have existences that are,

799
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:52,799
Speaker 1: though worth having, unavoidably flawed existence is that is, that

800
00:44:52,840 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: are flawed if those people are ever to have them

801
00:44:56,160 --> 00:45:00,040
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, so on the non identity problem. And

802
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:02,400
Speaker 1: this is part of the same context in which Derek

803
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 1: Parfitt's discussion of the repugnant conclusion was described. It's another paradox.

804
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 1: It's it takes the same form showing that where it

805
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:12,879
Speaker 1: seems like you have a couple of options and they

806
00:45:12,920 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: both seem morally wrong due to our intuitions. So so

807
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:20,480
Speaker 1: he shows that there are three premises that are intuitively true,

808
00:45:20,560 --> 00:45:23,840
Speaker 1: but they're in conflict with each other. Uh So, first

809
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,879
Speaker 1: of all, there's the premise of what's known as the

810
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: person affecting view, and this is the belief that an

811
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:34,479
Speaker 1: act can only be wrong if it harms someone in

812
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:37,960
Speaker 1: some way, and actually that does no harm to anyone

813
00:45:38,400 --> 00:45:41,439
Speaker 1: cannot be morally wrong. And of course this doesn't apply

814
00:45:41,600 --> 00:45:43,879
Speaker 1: just a physical harm. This would be, you know, any

815
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 1: way of making someone's life, for situation worse. And if

816
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:50,319
Speaker 1: you disagree with this, try to think of something that

817
00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:53,280
Speaker 1: it's wrong to do but that would never hurt anyone

818
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:59,200
Speaker 1: in any way. The state off marshmallow man um I mean,

819
00:45:59,320 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 1: And and so people might have views about that, I mean,

820
00:46:01,760 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 1: some people might adhere to, like a what might be

821
00:46:04,920 --> 00:46:08,360
Speaker 1: called a deontological view of morality where there are just

822
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:10,880
Speaker 1: certain things that are that are moral and immoral and

823
00:46:11,080 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 1: it actually does not flow from consequentialism from how it

824
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 1: affects other people. But but I mean, a very common

825
00:46:16,920 --> 00:46:20,240
Speaker 1: view among philosophers today would be that you know, there's

826
00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 1: something about morality that has to involve effects on people,

827
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,600
Speaker 1: and if something doesn't hurt anyone, it's hard to see

828
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 1: how it's wrong. So that's the first idea, that that

829
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:33,879
Speaker 1: there is a person affecting view of morality, that something

830
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 1: can only be wrong if it harms someone. The second

831
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 1: premise is that bringing a person into existence is not

832
00:46:41,120 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 1: bad for that person, even if their existence is flawed,

833
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 1: because being caused to exist is not a reduction in

834
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:53,160
Speaker 1: the quality of one's existence. There is no higher baseline

835
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 1: from which you are reduced by being caused to exist

836
00:46:56,480 --> 00:46:58,759
Speaker 1: in the first place. Does that make sense? So it's

837
00:46:58,800 --> 00:47:01,040
Speaker 1: not like you were doing great but for you existed,

838
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:03,840
Speaker 1: and then once you existed, then that was like a

839
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: downgrading of how good you're doing. And then the third

840
00:47:07,080 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 1: premise would be that some acts of bringing people into

841
00:47:10,520 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 1: existence are wrong anyway. Imagine, for example, creating an underworld

842
00:47:15,080 --> 00:47:17,799
Speaker 1: space colony where the people there are going to be

843
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:21,240
Speaker 1: haunted by space more locks that hound them every waking second,

844
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:24,000
Speaker 1: like you would think it would be wrong to create

845
00:47:24,080 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 1: that place, right, Yes, yes, I mean I'm try I'm

846
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:31,440
Speaker 1: trying to envision all the ways that you know, we

847
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 1: can reach the space more locks and change them and

848
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:38,360
Speaker 1: and you know, bring space more locks and human colonists together.

849
00:47:38,560 --> 00:47:42,000
Speaker 1: But but it does sound pretty daunting. Yeah, And so

850
00:47:42,239 --> 00:47:45,759
Speaker 1: this is another problem along these lines. To to a

851
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 1: lot of philosophers, all of these premises seem correct, but

852
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:51,279
Speaker 1: they can't all be right at the same time. They're

853
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,560
Speaker 1: in conflict with each other. So COVID ways in on this.

854
00:47:54,719 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 1: He says, in the case of our dystopian space colonization

855
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: thought experiment, however, the horrible future or is not actually

856
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 1: bad for anyone. If it weren't for our dystopian space

857
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:08,040
Speaker 1: colonization activities, all those billions of people beyond Earth who

858
00:48:08,080 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 1: live miserable lives barely worth living would not exist at all.

859
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:13,439
Speaker 1: From the point of view of those future people, then

860
00:48:13,640 --> 00:48:17,040
Speaker 1: their miserable lives are still preferable to the alternative, which

861
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:19,919
Speaker 1: is not having come into existence at all. The fact

862
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: that they were brought into their miserable existence was therefore

863
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 1: not morally bad for them. And and this basically is

864
00:48:25,960 --> 00:48:28,719
Speaker 1: the second premise I mentioned a minute ago, that it's

865
00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:32,120
Speaker 1: not bringing someone into existence can't be bad for them

866
00:48:32,160 --> 00:48:35,799
Speaker 1: because it does not constitute a downgrading or reduction in

867
00:48:35,800 --> 00:48:38,520
Speaker 1: their quality of life. They didn't have a baseline to

868
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:42,440
Speaker 1: start from. Yeah, so covid he ends up contending that,

869
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:46,680
Speaker 1: via these problems, enabling a future of space colonies is

870
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 1: at least less morally desirable than other alternatives, but perhaps

871
00:48:51,120 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: even morally questionable. And this brings us to the next

872
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:58,880
Speaker 1: phase of his consideration, and that is astronomical suffering in

873
00:48:59,000 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 1: off world human populations. All right, well, let's take a

874
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:05,000
Speaker 1: break and then we can come back and explore some

875
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:13,359
Speaker 1: suffering than alright, we're back astronomical suffering, deep hurting. If

876
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:16,000
Speaker 1: you were a centobyte, then you you may have skipped

877
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: forward to this portion of the podcast because you just

878
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:23,239
Speaker 1: want some good suffering. Uh So Coverage contends the pain

879
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 1: of the Mars colony will be legendary even in Hell. Yeah,

880
00:49:26,520 --> 00:49:29,280
Speaker 1: this is where they should have gone in. Uh imagine

881
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:31,719
Speaker 1: if if we could do a read a redo of

882
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:37,919
Speaker 1: Hell raised or three um four four, the space one

883
00:49:38,760 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: three is the one with the with the like disco

884
00:49:41,160 --> 00:49:44,359
Speaker 1: club and is it in England or I think it's

885
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:47,359
Speaker 1: in the US. Okay, I can't remember. The one with

886
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:51,359
Speaker 1: the camera head cinebite and the c D cinebyte. Yes. Yeah,

887
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: the fourth one is in space and it's largely incomprehensible.

888
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:59,960
Speaker 1: But imagine if it had decided to explore astronomical suffering instead.

889
00:50:00,800 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 1: So Covid contends that increasing maximum total well being is

890
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:08,880
Speaker 1: questionable if the amount of suffering in the universe also increases,

891
00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:11,799
Speaker 1: but he goes on to argue that the astronomical non

892
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:16,560
Speaker 1: identity problem is the question of suffering. Quote merely maximizing

893
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:19,080
Speaker 1: total well being is questionable if at the same time

894
00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:21,640
Speaker 1: the amount of suffering is increased to such a degree

895
00:50:21,680 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 1: that average well being decreases. The problem. The increase in

896
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:30,080
Speaker 1: suffering through space colonization can be understood as a is

897
00:50:30,120 --> 00:50:34,160
Speaker 1: a risk sue, generous or unique one, and that is

898
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: astronomical suffering. So part of the you know, the certainty

899
00:50:37,680 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: here entails suboptimal conditions for future humans and other worlds,

900
00:50:41,400 --> 00:50:44,600
Speaker 1: worlds where any any of the sci fi scenarios we've

901
00:50:44,600 --> 00:50:48,360
Speaker 1: already discussed uh could potentially come to life. Like anything

902
00:50:48,400 --> 00:50:51,080
Speaker 1: you've ever seen in the science fiction film where off

903
00:50:51,160 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 1: worlders have it hard, you know, living in caves, depending

904
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 1: on ailing or even failing technology, having to live with

905
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:03,600
Speaker 1: astonishingly eye levels of radiation, sickness, uh, having your health

906
00:51:03,719 --> 00:51:07,880
Speaker 1: impacted by by microbiota on this other world or some

907
00:51:07,920 --> 00:51:11,239
Speaker 1: sort of disrupted microbiota that you've brought with you. You know,

908
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:14,279
Speaker 1: things are out of sync. Um worlds where humans have

909
00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:18,919
Speaker 1: to endure harsh conditions due to heat, cold or both

910
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:21,960
Speaker 1: in the case of like a tidily locked world, high pressure,

911
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:27,919
Speaker 1: low gravity, high gravity, caustic atmosphere, resource scarcity, dangerous native biology,

912
00:51:27,960 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field anomalies, and heightened inneo activity, just to name

913
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:35,440
Speaker 1: a few. And he also mentions the idea of invasive

914
00:51:35,520 --> 00:51:39,640
Speaker 1: biology brought by by the colonists themselves, as well as

915
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 1: a few technical possibilities. One the future simulations of sentient beings,

916
00:51:45,840 --> 00:51:48,759
Speaker 1: which is something we've discussed on the show before. Uh,

917
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:51,440
Speaker 1: the idea that you know, you're you're dealing with a

918
00:51:51,480 --> 00:51:55,319
Speaker 1: heightened level of technology to even establish these worlds. So

919
00:51:55,440 --> 00:51:59,160
Speaker 1: does that also bring about all the the problems of say,

920
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:03,319
Speaker 1: creating sentient life inside of simulation and then putting it

921
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:06,160
Speaker 1: in a hell box and then copy and pasting that

922
00:52:06,239 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 1: hell box, say a million times, you know. Um, like,

923
00:52:11,000 --> 00:52:13,080
Speaker 1: that's that's the horrible idea. I think we got into

924
00:52:13,080 --> 00:52:16,400
Speaker 1: that a bit in the Basilisk episode. And then he

925
00:52:16,440 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: also brings up misaligned artificial intelligence. UM. So we also

926
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:23,800
Speaker 1: have to deal with the possibility of of a I

927
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 1: UH coming online and UH and part of the scenario

928
00:52:27,920 --> 00:52:31,920
Speaker 1: and being part of the the overall uh unhappiness of

929
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:35,759
Speaker 1: part of the overall UH suffering of the universe. Still,

930
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:38,320
Speaker 1: the author contends that the scenarios that could lead to

931
00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:41,799
Speaker 1: astronomical suffering are vague and the conclusions we might draw

932
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:45,520
Speaker 1: not altogether clear. On one hand, it's possible that space

933
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:50,080
Speaker 1: colonization could result in astronomical human suffering UH, and then

934
00:52:50,120 --> 00:52:51,680
Speaker 1: this would this If this were the case, it would

935
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: obviously be a disvalue. On the other hand, it's possible

936
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:58,240
Speaker 1: that it that space colonization could result in an increase

937
00:52:58,239 --> 00:53:02,240
Speaker 1: in human well being but huge decrease in non human

938
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:05,719
Speaker 1: well being in terms of um, you know, the well

939
00:53:05,760 --> 00:53:09,360
Speaker 1: being of of other organisms. UH. This you know, because

940
00:53:09,360 --> 00:53:14,200
Speaker 1: potentially non human organisms, sentient and or non sentient digital

941
00:53:14,320 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 1: entities that are denied human status, so I could also

942
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:20,759
Speaker 1: affect you know, general aies in this universe that we're imagining.

943
00:53:21,080 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 1: On the other hand, he also adds that such colonization

944
00:53:23,080 --> 00:53:26,279
Speaker 1: could be a force of good regarding Aiyes, I thought

945
00:53:26,360 --> 00:53:29,880
Speaker 1: this was interesting quote. It is also possible that space

946
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:34,759
Speaker 1: colonization could result in the reduction of astronomical suffering. If

947
00:53:34,840 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 1: humankind were able to, for example, detect and correct misaligned

948
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial artificial intelligence, that could reduce or prevent enormous amounts

949
00:53:44,040 --> 00:53:48,000
Speaker 1: of suffering. Of course, the existence of extraterrestrial artificial intelligence

950
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:52,480
Speaker 1: is itself also a highly uncertain proposition, So I guess

951
00:53:52,520 --> 00:53:54,520
Speaker 1: the idea here is like, if we if we were

952
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:58,120
Speaker 1: to venture out and we discover an alien AI that

953
00:53:58,280 --> 00:54:01,959
Speaker 1: you know, for instance, has created digital hell worlds full

954
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:05,400
Speaker 1: oft of digital sentient beings that are being suffered, we

955
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:08,480
Speaker 1: could we could correct that AI. We could wage a

956
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:12,440
Speaker 1: holy war against that digital hell which is exactly Uh,

957
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:14,919
Speaker 1: this is actually a major plot point in the Nan

958
00:54:15,040 --> 00:54:19,879
Speaker 1: m Banks novel. Um. Uh that that that that's that's

959
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:22,640
Speaker 1: really explored wonderfully. I've discussed it on the show before.

960
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 1: But but yeah, this would be this would be one

961
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 1: specific and granted, you know, um far fetched scenario in

962
00:54:29,719 --> 00:54:35,280
Speaker 1: which we could potentially, uh improve the state of suffering

963
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:39,719
Speaker 1: in the universe if we win. If we're there, that's right,

964
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:42,759
Speaker 1: because yeah, because I do know the idea of encountering

965
00:54:42,840 --> 00:54:47,280
Speaker 1: extraterrestrials much less extraterrestrial aies. There's a lot of factors

966
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:49,840
Speaker 1: to consider there. Or what if we're the bad guys

967
00:54:49,880 --> 00:54:52,520
Speaker 1: and we win, then then of course, well I guess

968
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:55,160
Speaker 1: he acknowledges that could go both ways, right, Yeah, yeah,

969
00:54:55,200 --> 00:54:56,960
Speaker 1: I mean we could the other side of his yeahs

970
00:54:57,040 --> 00:54:59,920
Speaker 1: we we we sort of fulfill what has largely been

971
00:55:00,080 --> 00:55:03,319
Speaker 1: the human nature of exploration, and we encounter the other

972
00:55:03,640 --> 00:55:07,279
Speaker 1: civilization and bring misery and horror to it. So he

973
00:55:07,320 --> 00:55:10,280
Speaker 1: contends that there are so many unknowns that to avoid

974
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:13,799
Speaker 1: such colonization would ultimately be uh, it would be it

975
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:16,640
Speaker 1: would be Pascal's Wager all over again, right, Uh, the

976
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:19,759
Speaker 1: idea that Pascal's Wager essentially we discussed in more depth

977
00:55:19,760 --> 00:55:22,239
Speaker 1: than the show before, but essentially boiling down to, well,

978
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:24,959
Speaker 1: should I believe in God or not believe in God?

979
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:26,839
Speaker 1: To be on the safe side, I'll just go ahead

980
00:55:26,840 --> 00:55:29,800
Speaker 1: and believe in him just in case. Now Pascal's wager.

981
00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:32,879
Speaker 1: I think people who have boned up on their philosophy

982
00:55:32,960 --> 00:55:35,240
Speaker 1: might notice that there are a lot of hidden assumptions

983
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,360
Speaker 1: and Pascal's wager that uh that make it maybe not

984
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:41,840
Speaker 1: as forceful as it would have seemed to Pascal's audience

985
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:45,600
Speaker 1: at the time. Yes, yes, so yeah. He ultimately says

986
00:55:45,600 --> 00:55:48,879
Speaker 1: that we get into similar territory here, but that nevertheless,

987
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:52,520
Speaker 1: given the dimension of risk, he says, the problem of

988
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:56,359
Speaker 1: astronomical suffering is certainly something that we should pay attention to,

989
00:55:56,400 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 1: we should think about. Uh, you know that that in

990
00:55:59,360 --> 00:56:01,279
Speaker 1: leaving the plan it or you just in considering the

991
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:05,920
Speaker 1: future of humanity like that is that is one possibility

992
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:08,799
Speaker 1: that is like one road to stagnation that we have

993
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:12,800
Speaker 1: to at least consider a few other ideas that he

994
00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 1: raises here. First of all, he says, you know, he

995
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:19,040
Speaker 1: drives home against space colonization is not a risk free

996
00:56:19,160 --> 00:56:22,919
Speaker 1: venture and shouldn't be approached as such. So yeah, even

997
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 1: though it is often this kind of optimistic vision in

998
00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:28,080
Speaker 1: the back of our heads that maybe we should we

999
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:32,000
Speaker 1: should try and counterbalance that with a little bit of

1000
00:56:32,000 --> 00:56:36,319
Speaker 1: of of of astronomical suffering. He also admits that it

1001
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:39,880
Speaker 1: might actually be too late in some respects, as this

1002
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:43,640
Speaker 1: dream is just so seductive to already be the implicit

1003
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:47,560
Speaker 1: goal of public as well as private space related ventures

1004
00:56:47,800 --> 00:56:50,799
Speaker 1: and ambitions. And also he drives home and this is

1005
00:56:50,800 --> 00:56:52,879
Speaker 1: actually I think something he gets into in that Ian

1006
00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:58,239
Speaker 1: magazine piec Road that a meaningful governance framework will be important.

1007
00:56:58,680 --> 00:57:00,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, I mean in that article he gets

1008
00:57:00,680 --> 00:57:02,680
Speaker 1: into the fact that, like, we just really do not

1009
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:08,400
Speaker 1: have a political framework establishing authority in outer space. And

1010
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:11,799
Speaker 1: we see that and even our current headlines stuff where

1011
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 1: we're like, who wow, there's just there's just really no

1012
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:17,280
Speaker 1: rules yet. And on one hand, like I can see

1013
00:57:17,320 --> 00:57:20,680
Speaker 1: how this might feel nice, like oh wow, you know what,

1014
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:24,320
Speaker 1: you know, the government's reach stops at the planet and

1015
00:57:24,320 --> 00:57:27,240
Speaker 1: and outer space can just be this place of peaceful

1016
00:57:27,320 --> 00:57:30,840
Speaker 1: exploration without any you know, like laws and militaries and

1017
00:57:30,880 --> 00:57:33,960
Speaker 1: all that. That would be great. But as space becomes

1018
00:57:34,000 --> 00:57:37,640
Speaker 1: more populated with you know, people seeking out their their

1019
00:57:37,640 --> 00:57:40,760
Speaker 1: own ends and their own goals there, without a legal

1020
00:57:40,800 --> 00:57:43,880
Speaker 1: framework for people to understand, you know, what is allowed,

1021
00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:46,800
Speaker 1: what they can do, and and you know, predict what

1022
00:57:46,920 --> 00:57:50,160
Speaker 1: other people will be allowed to do to them, it

1023
00:57:50,200 --> 00:57:53,520
Speaker 1: starts to become you know, less less of a final

1024
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:57,480
Speaker 1: frontier and more of a wild West. Absolutely. Um, this

1025
00:57:57,560 --> 00:57:59,920
Speaker 1: is how COVID rounds it all out. Quote the over

1026
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:02,600
Speaker 1: view of risks in the outline of a potential approach

1027
00:58:02,600 --> 00:58:06,000
Speaker 1: to crafting governance presented in this article are preliminary at best.

1028
00:58:06,080 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 1: Both issues, uh, the identification of colonization related risks and

1029
00:58:10,080 --> 00:58:13,440
Speaker 1: the work on colonization related governance require more scholarly attention

1030
00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:18,240
Speaker 1: before we can begin addressing them in practice. That attention, theoretical,

1031
00:58:18,240 --> 00:58:21,360
Speaker 1: though it may seem, is warranted. Space colonization is human

1032
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:24,800
Speaker 1: kind's best bet for long term survival, and today, before

1033
00:58:24,920 --> 00:58:28,080
Speaker 1: large scale space colonization efforts are underway, we still have

1034
00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:32,120
Speaker 1: the capacity to develop the philosophical and practical guard rails

1035
00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:36,280
Speaker 1: that make the worst outcomes of space colonization less likely.

1036
00:58:36,720 --> 00:58:38,800
Speaker 1: And and you know, I would agree with that. Yeah,

1037
00:58:38,800 --> 00:58:42,080
Speaker 1: I think that totally makes sense that, like, space colonization

1038
00:58:42,200 --> 00:58:46,720
Speaker 1: is something that that requires a bit of pessimistic forethought,

1039
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:49,320
Speaker 1: Like you know, people should entertain ideas of what could

1040
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:55,000
Speaker 1: go wrong and uh and explore them and plan out contingencies. Um,

1041
00:58:55,280 --> 00:58:59,360
Speaker 1: especially you know, like people who aren't doing space exploration themselves,

1042
00:58:59,440 --> 00:59:02,880
Speaker 1: because you I think that there there are some cognitive

1043
00:59:02,960 --> 00:59:07,840
Speaker 1: and and group cognitive biases probably at work in organizations

1044
00:59:07,880 --> 00:59:12,000
Speaker 1: that are personally involved in space exploration and the exploitation

1045
00:59:12,000 --> 00:59:15,400
Speaker 1: of resources in space. Yeah. Plus, you know, when we have,

1046
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:18,480
Speaker 1: you know, just sort of casual ideals of what the

1047
00:59:18,520 --> 00:59:20,959
Speaker 1: future will be like in the back of our head. Again,

1048
00:59:20,960 --> 00:59:22,360
Speaker 1: it kind of comes back to we were talking about

1049
00:59:22,400 --> 00:59:26,480
Speaker 1: earlier with its linked to environmentalism and and and and

1050
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:28,080
Speaker 1: and how one could sort of use it as a

1051
00:59:28,120 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 1: way to excuse harm to Earth's environment. You know. It's

1052
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:35,360
Speaker 1: if you have just a completely optimistic vision in the

1053
00:59:35,400 --> 00:59:37,920
Speaker 1: back of your head, it can potentially skew the way

1054
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:41,600
Speaker 1: you look at the real world or consider other political

1055
00:59:41,680 --> 00:59:45,800
Speaker 1: or technological issues. Yeah. Um, so, so this has been interesting.

1056
00:59:45,800 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 1: It's got me thinking that this was a topic that

1057
00:59:48,360 --> 00:59:50,440
Speaker 1: that you turned up and wanted to do so, Robert,

1058
00:59:50,600 --> 00:59:52,960
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like what your opinion is, like, do you

1059
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:55,120
Speaker 1: do you come down more on one side or the other.

1060
00:59:55,320 --> 00:59:59,000
Speaker 1: We obviously we've explored how there seemed to be, at

1061
00:59:59,040 --> 01:00:02,640
Speaker 1: least at first glanced strong moral hazards for both of

1062
01:00:02,640 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 1: the two options, either first staying on Earth or for

1063
01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:08,200
Speaker 1: founding colonies on other objects in the solar system and beyond.

1064
01:00:08,760 --> 01:00:11,040
Speaker 1: Do you lean one way or the other? Yeah, I

1065
01:00:11,080 --> 01:00:15,560
Speaker 1: think reading about this has made me lean more towards

1066
01:00:15,640 --> 01:00:18,840
Speaker 1: just the idea that we should we should be cautious

1067
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:21,240
Speaker 1: and we should think about the problems, because I guess,

1068
01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:24,680
Speaker 1: and you know, you know, through the consumption of science

1069
01:00:24,720 --> 01:00:28,840
Speaker 1: fiction and also you know, futurist thought on the subject,

1070
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:30,480
Speaker 1: you know, I'd always just I think I'd always just

1071
01:00:30,520 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 1: kind of fallen into the category of thinking, well, you know,

1072
01:00:33,200 --> 01:00:35,760
Speaker 1: it's gonna be rough in many of these cases we

1073
01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:37,680
Speaker 1: are talking about harsh environments, but it will be it

1074
01:00:37,720 --> 01:00:40,040
Speaker 1: will be worth it, Like, you know, this is just

1075
01:00:40,400 --> 01:00:44,479
Speaker 1: this is just what humans do without really stopping to

1076
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:47,480
Speaker 1: to ask, well, you know, why is that the case?

1077
01:00:47,640 --> 01:00:50,680
Speaker 1: And does it have to be that hard, uh, you know,

1078
01:00:50,880 --> 01:00:54,640
Speaker 1: or or what should we potentially consider to mitigate the

1079
01:00:54,920 --> 01:00:59,080
Speaker 1: suffering on these other worlds, like these various sci fi visions,

1080
01:00:59,400 --> 01:01:02,320
Speaker 1: and not so much the really pessimistic and nihilistic ones,

1081
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:04,360
Speaker 1: but the more middle of the road ones like does

1082
01:01:04,400 --> 01:01:06,479
Speaker 1: it have to be that way? Could it be more?

1083
01:01:07,120 --> 01:01:09,880
Speaker 1: Could it be more Star Trek? You know, could you

1084
01:01:09,960 --> 01:01:12,720
Speaker 1: lean into Star Trek more? As again, coming back to

1085
01:01:12,760 --> 01:01:15,920
Speaker 1: the more utopian vision of the future. And and this

1086
01:01:16,000 --> 01:01:19,120
Speaker 1: is something that I feel like we may have a

1087
01:01:19,160 --> 01:01:23,600
Speaker 1: false sense that we have explored these problems more than

1088
01:01:23,680 --> 01:01:26,640
Speaker 1: we actually have in the practical space, because we now

1089
01:01:26,680 --> 01:01:30,640
Speaker 1: have lots of astronauts who have devoted their lives to

1090
01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:34,080
Speaker 1: getting into and spending time in space. You know, we

1091
01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:36,680
Speaker 1: have astronauts that walked on the Moon. We have astronauts

1092
01:01:36,680 --> 01:01:39,240
Speaker 1: that trained to go to the International Space Station, and

1093
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:41,560
Speaker 1: they all do it voluntarily, like they want to go there.

1094
01:01:41,560 --> 01:01:44,960
Speaker 1: They're not being forced despite all of the deprivations that

1095
01:01:45,040 --> 01:01:47,800
Speaker 1: the experience and and all of the you know, potentially

1096
01:01:47,880 --> 01:01:50,120
Speaker 1: negative health effects and so forth that come along with

1097
01:01:50,160 --> 01:01:54,280
Speaker 1: these experiences. But those are in the long run, these

1098
01:01:54,320 --> 01:01:59,120
Speaker 1: are actually quite limited commitments. These are people committing themselves

1099
01:01:59,160 --> 01:02:01,880
Speaker 1: and themselves only to a period of I don't know,

1100
01:02:01,920 --> 01:02:04,640
Speaker 1: a number of weeks or months at a time, going

1101
01:02:04,680 --> 01:02:08,880
Speaker 1: into these deprived environments, these altered environments. It is a

1102
01:02:09,000 --> 01:02:12,440
Speaker 1: very different thing actually to say we're going to found

1103
01:02:12,480 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 1: a permanent or semi permanent colony within these spaces, where

1104
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:20,600
Speaker 1: you not only commit yourself for much longer periods of time,

1105
01:02:20,880 --> 01:02:25,000
Speaker 1: but you're also potentially committing future generations of people born

1106
01:02:25,080 --> 01:02:28,640
Speaker 1: there and so forth, and you're creating a a you know,

1107
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:32,600
Speaker 1: a fragmented off new culture in a sense. And in

1108
01:02:32,640 --> 01:02:34,800
Speaker 1: that we we have to engage in the sort of

1109
01:02:35,120 --> 01:02:38,080
Speaker 1: long term thinking that that you know, generally doesn't come

1110
01:02:38,200 --> 01:02:42,080
Speaker 1: naturally to humans, that we have to to work very

1111
01:02:42,080 --> 01:02:44,040
Speaker 1: hard at. You know. I also have to say this

1112
01:02:44,080 --> 01:02:48,640
Speaker 1: will probably uh factor into how I read uh future

1113
01:02:48,800 --> 01:02:52,240
Speaker 1: science science fiction treatments of off world colonies, you know,

1114
01:02:53,680 --> 01:02:55,480
Speaker 1: and and and like I said that, some of these

1115
01:02:55,480 --> 01:02:59,120
Speaker 1: concerns I think have already been reflected to varying degrees

1116
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:04,000
Speaker 1: in scientific science fictional creations. So um, you know, it's

1117
01:03:04,000 --> 01:03:05,919
Speaker 1: not like you know, I'm saying that this is going

1118
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:10,400
Speaker 1: to to change other artists visions in all cases, but

1119
01:03:10,520 --> 01:03:14,440
Speaker 1: it is additional, um food for thought. In the meantime,

1120
01:03:14,480 --> 01:03:16,720
Speaker 1: if you would like to check out other episodes of

1121
01:03:16,720 --> 01:03:19,440
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, well, previously I would have

1122
01:03:19,520 --> 01:03:21,920
Speaker 1: directed you to the mothership to Stuff to Blow your

1123
01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:25,080
Speaker 1: Mind dot com, but the mothership crashed and now we

1124
01:03:25,160 --> 01:03:28,720
Speaker 1: only have the off world colony of our our I

1125
01:03:28,880 --> 01:03:31,200
Speaker 1: heart listing for the podcast. If you gotta suff to

1126
01:03:31,200 --> 01:03:33,360
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com, it will send you over

1127
01:03:33,400 --> 01:03:35,520
Speaker 1: to there. But we have we have colonies in other

1128
01:03:35,520 --> 01:03:38,280
Speaker 1: places as well, because you can ultimately find Stuff to

1129
01:03:38,320 --> 01:03:41,440
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind wherever you get your podcasts and wherever

1130
01:03:41,480 --> 01:03:44,919
Speaker 1: that happens to be, make sure you rate, review, and subscribe.

1131
01:03:45,400 --> 01:03:48,400
Speaker 1: Those are the ways you can support those little off

1132
01:03:48,400 --> 01:03:52,680
Speaker 1: world digital colonies, and in doing so, UH support Stuff

1133
01:03:52,720 --> 01:03:55,640
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind itself huge thanks as always to

1134
01:03:55,640 --> 01:03:59,000
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would

1135
01:03:59,040 --> 01:04:01,080
Speaker 1: like to get in touch with with feedback on this

1136
01:04:01,160 --> 01:04:03,720
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1137
01:04:03,840 --> 01:04:06,000
Speaker 1: or just to say hi, you can email us at

1138
01:04:06,400 --> 01:04:17,160
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com. Stuff

1139
01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:19,360
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.

1140
01:04:19,720 --> 01:04:21,840
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i

1141
01:04:21,880 --> 01:04:24,720
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to

1142
01:04:24,760 --> 01:04:34,240
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.