Speaker 1: You've finally done it. For so long, the solution alluded you.
Speaker 1: You explored every angle and pursuit the answer in the
Speaker 1: waking world of mathematics and the fragmented landscape of dreams.
Speaker 1: But here it is the Serenian Engine, a functional technological
Speaker 1: means of transporting humanity not only at greater speeds between planets,
Speaker 1: but two other stars. You fall to your knees before
Speaker 1: its golden splendor. You swipe through the air at your
Speaker 1: side and summon a holographic keypad. It's time to tell
Speaker 1: the corporation what you've achieved. But before you can initiate
Speaker 1: the command, the air shimmers with a strange energy. A
Speaker 1: flash of panic burns through you as you fear some
Speaker 1: unforeseen side effect of the engine's power reality parts, and
Speaker 1: a glowing vigor slips through the incision. It speaks to
Speaker 1: you in a voice like a whisper. Professor, Up, what
Speaker 1: are you? I am the messenger from the future age
Speaker 1: come to warn you. Impossible, paradoxical, no more so than
Speaker 1: your engine. It must be destroyed. Then you have come
Speaker 1: to kill me. I cannot, but you can be activate
Speaker 1: this machine, scatter its plans to the four winds, and
Speaker 1: leave the future untarnished by its power. But why should
Speaker 1: I do that? I built it to open up the cosmos,
Speaker 1: to spread humanity beyond Earth, to safeguard us against destruction,
Speaker 1: and in doing so create hell worlds beyond number, places
Speaker 1: with the descendants of humanity writhe and poverty, misery and pain.
Speaker 1: The mass of their collective suffering dwarfs all of humanity's
Speaker 1: achievements in my time, reducing the human experience to a
Speaker 1: median of immoral horror. And I know, for I have
Speaker 1: walked the mire and ruin of each world. I have
Speaker 1: looked into their eyes. And I ask you now, in
Speaker 1: the hope that no one else will retrace your steps,
Speaker 1: to please turn off the machine. Welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey you,
Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about the question of, hey, what if we
Speaker 1: accidentally turned the Milky Way into a living hell? That's right,
Speaker 1: you were getting into this topic um of astronomical suffering.
Speaker 1: And we we tried to make sure the title had
Speaker 1: a spin of far future science fiction to it, and
Speaker 1: we decided to kick things off with a nice hefty
Speaker 1: slice of original sci fi to you know, to firmly
Speaker 1: ground the conversation, because this is going to be a
Speaker 1: conversation that gets into a lot of far future territory,
Speaker 1: speculative science fiction territory, but ultimately wrestling with some some
Speaker 1: real philosophical considerations about the nature of humanity and and
Speaker 1: how we go about our decision making. Yeah. Um, so,
Speaker 1: one thing that this topic makes me think about, maybe
Speaker 1: a good place to start is how much of future
Speaker 1: thinking among people, you know, people who like to think
Speaker 1: about the far future, just assumes space colonization as a given, Like,
Speaker 1: does not interrogate the idea at all, does not say, like,
Speaker 1: you know, would it be good to colonize other planets,
Speaker 1: other star systems and stuff. It just assumes Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: of course that's what you do. Humans. You know, they
Speaker 1: spread over the surface of the Earth, and now they'll
Speaker 1: keep spreading on into other little rocks in space. But
Speaker 1: the science fiction was so concerned with the question of
Speaker 1: whether or not it could it didn't stop to think
Speaker 1: of it should. Yes, the the Ian Malcolm Uh factor
Speaker 1: often uh features into our conversations here, because yeah, for
Speaker 1: for many, if not most, of us, Colonization and of
Speaker 1: other worlds has kind of always seemed humanity's destiny. And
Speaker 1: you know, part of it is simply the extrapolation of
Speaker 1: our terrestrial ideals and ambitions and just the sort of
Speaker 1: flow of of world history. We're just taking that in
Speaker 1: applying it to other worlds. Our species spread from continent
Speaker 1: to continent, finally overtaking every last, uh, you know, truly
Speaker 1: habitable island in the global ocean. And so we've long
Speaker 1: dreamt a voyaging off planet to whatever islands of life
Speaker 1: or potential life we might find or create in this
Speaker 1: cosmic ocean. Now, I know most of you consume science fiction,
Speaker 1: so we don't have to tell you how pervasive the
Speaker 1: dream happens to be. You know, Star Trek continues to
Speaker 1: stand as a towering, optimistic example of how this might
Speaker 1: play out. But we also see it in all manner
Speaker 1: of sci fi visions, you know, from the near future,
Speaker 1: gritty world of something like the expanse or altered carbon,
Speaker 1: you know, to far reaching worlds like Doom, Star Our Wars,
Speaker 1: the Culture series, and many, many, many more. I think
Speaker 1: Dune might be a good example for us to keep
Speaker 1: in mind throughout this episode, though, because while I don't
Speaker 1: recall in Dune there being much of a question about
Speaker 1: the general project of colonizing worlds other than than humanity's
Speaker 1: origin on Earth, um doing at least does present a
Speaker 1: vision of a planet that is both inhabited and completely crappy,
Speaker 1: just completely inhospitable in every way, like we shouldn't be there,
Speaker 1: and yet we're there because we have to be. Now,
Speaker 1: in Dune, that's because of demand for a particular resource
Speaker 1: that's only generated on this planet. But you could imagine
Speaker 1: other scenarios where there could be a planet that's just
Speaker 1: really not hospitable to human life in any way, except
Speaker 1: we just have to be there, maybe because it is
Speaker 1: the only rock that we can stand on within reach. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's also that kind of nietzsche In quality to
Speaker 1: some of the world's too, like because there's of course
Speaker 1: i Racus, and then there's the home world of the Sarticre,
Speaker 1: the the you know, the elite soldiers of the Empire,
Speaker 1: which is described as a quote unquote hell world, the
Speaker 1: idea that it's just so brutal there that it it
Speaker 1: creates the super soldiers, and of course uh Oracus creates
Speaker 1: their own elite um fighting force as well. Uh So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think Dune is a great one to continually return
Speaker 1: to the I think the world of the Sarto Car
Speaker 1: Troops come from. It's supposed to be sort of like
Speaker 1: the planet where the Superman villain dooms Day comes from,
Speaker 1: right where it's just like made stronger and stronger by
Speaker 1: by being subjected to every form of punishment and suffering
Speaker 1: day in day out. Yes, yeah, exactly, and and that
Speaker 1: that idea is covered in I think some other works
Speaker 1: as well. I know, uh in in Banks in the
Speaker 1: Culture series has a has a species it shows up
Speaker 1: that is biologically immortal, and part of that is tied
Speaker 1: to the fact that it emerges from such a hostile
Speaker 1: and competitive ecosystem. Uh that, like natural death was just
Speaker 1: never part of its of its physiology, you know. I
Speaker 1: will say there's another science fiction book that I've talked
Speaker 1: about on the show before. I think I recommended it
Speaker 1: one year for summer reading that I really enjoyed, specifically
Speaker 1: because it asks a question along these lines. It's uh,
Speaker 1: Kim Stanley Robinson's novel Aurora, which is about a generation
Speaker 1: starship that has a colonization mission. Um, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to go to another star system and colonize another habitable planet.
Speaker 1: But a big theme of that book is the question
Speaker 1: of just like how how special Earth might be, and
Speaker 1: ways in which we we don't realize that leaving Earth
Speaker 1: is just abandoning everything that we depend upon and everything
Speaker 1: that makes life good. And so ultimately there is kind
Speaker 1: of a question in the book like, well, maybe should
Speaker 1: we should we actually have our sight set on other planets,
Speaker 1: Maybe there's something inescapably perfect about Earth, and instead we
Speaker 1: should focus on making Earth as habitable as possible for
Speaker 1: as long as possible. Um and and I remember, I
Speaker 1: think reading some reviews of this book that criticized it
Speaker 1: essentially as being like pessimistic and a down er for
Speaker 1: for in some ways being characterized as anti space exploration,
Speaker 1: which I'm not sure the book exactly is, but it
Speaker 1: at least explores possibilities in that space, which I which
Speaker 1: I think is fascinating and very worth considering. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think the and and you know, actually a Christian and
Speaker 1: I record an episode years ago called the Case against
Speaker 1: Space that went into some cases that could be made
Speaker 1: against UH spending time and resources and money on on
Speaker 1: space exploration, you know, just to explore the other side.
Speaker 1: But but I think that one thing we get into
Speaker 1: here is the kind of like soft futurism that we
Speaker 1: sometimes engage in, like without really thinking long and hard
Speaker 1: about the rigors of creating an off world colony of say,
Speaker 1: colonizing and terraforming Mars. You just kind of tuck it
Speaker 1: away in the back of your mind, is like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we have a plan and and and and in reality,
Speaker 1: we we don't really have a plan. B. There is
Speaker 1: no earth to um you were talking about very um
Speaker 1: inhospitable worlds, extreme environments, places that are even the closest
Speaker 1: uh locations we could go to our far far away
Speaker 1: and we've touched on the the like the challenges of
Speaker 1: of Mars on the show before. But it's it's a
Speaker 1: danger to to just sort of categorize that casually in
Speaker 1: the back of your head as like a reason to
Speaker 1: not fully invest in the health of this planet. Yeah, totally. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't want to be going around thinking like, well,
Speaker 1: we gotta backup plan. Yeah, I mean long term, we might,
Speaker 1: but that is in no way a guarantee. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: but I do want to stress that, you know, speaking
Speaker 1: for myself, I certainly still buy into this this future.
Speaker 1: I think it is an optimistic vision for the future
Speaker 1: for the most part. But like all all things, considering
Speaker 1: the of the future, you know, we have to we
Speaker 1: have to have a balance of optism and realism, and
Speaker 1: you have to entertain some of the worst case scenarios
Speaker 1: as well. Oh, totally. I mean, I want to be
Speaker 1: clear that in talking about this today, we're not trying
Speaker 1: to make the case that space colonization is bad. We're
Speaker 1: just saying, here are some questions to consider exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I think a large part of this whole dream's
Speaker 1: vision of expanding to other worlds, it's based in humanity's
Speaker 1: innate desire to explore and expand. It's our scientific zeal, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, and this is part of what makes humanity great.
Speaker 1: Though it also leaches into our vanity and pride, and
Speaker 1: more to the point, it is an eventuality that our
Speaker 1: space programs continue to work towards you know, such dreams, Uh.
Speaker 1: Sci fi visions have animated the best minds among us
Speaker 1: for decades and decades, and it seems ultimately a question
Speaker 1: of when, not if a human being will, for instance,
Speaker 1: ever stand on the surface of Mars. Well, I think
Speaker 1: another reason that the idea of space exploration is so
Speaker 1: popular among like optimistic future thinking people is like it
Speaker 1: seems like it is the half of adventure that is
Speaker 1: not that is not antagonistic and violent. I mean, I
Speaker 1: would say adventure has two main components. One is like
Speaker 1: exploration and discovery, and the other is kind of this
Speaker 1: violent conquest thing. And you know, and we like the
Speaker 1: sense of adventure, but maybe we we want a way
Speaker 1: to have adventure that doesn't involve subjugation and violent conquest
Speaker 1: of whatever you find when you get somewhere. And so
Speaker 1: uh the and so space exploration seems like a perfect
Speaker 1: candidate for that kind of spirit of adventure, right to
Speaker 1: fulfill that drive without doing something harmful. Maybe there there
Speaker 1: are these dead rocks out in the universe that we
Speaker 1: could adventure two and we could explore without having to
Speaker 1: make it into a struggle of conquest in war. Does
Speaker 1: that make sense? Yeah? Absolutely, yeah. Now certainly you know
Speaker 1: there's sci fi visions that that drag those elements in
Speaker 1: and is we'll discussed there are some It's it's not
Speaker 1: that that space colonization is a risk free venture. It's
Speaker 1: not like they're there are not things that we could
Speaker 1: potentially break while out there. But but yeah, it does
Speaker 1: seem an optimiss The idea of exploring Mars, for the
Speaker 1: most part, seems far less full of conflict and horror
Speaker 1: than say, uh, you know Europeans history of exploring the
Speaker 1: New World right now. Another huge angle to this, though,
Speaker 1: is uh, is that there is this idea that humanity
Speaker 1: must eventually leave Earth in order to survive long term
Speaker 1: in a dangerous universe and to thwart various existential risks.
Speaker 1: Stephen Hawking was an advocate of this line of thinking,
Speaker 1: among many others. Yeah, I mean Stephen Hawking is not
Speaker 1: wrong in saying this. I mean there are risks to Earth.
Speaker 1: And uh, here's here's an analogy maybe for for people
Speaker 1: who are trying to like plan the retirement savings or whatever.
Speaker 1: Is it good to put all of your retirement savings
Speaker 1: in the stock of one company. Any any investment manager
Speaker 1: or whatever would tell you don't do that. You need
Speaker 1: to diversify your investments in order to make sure that
Speaker 1: you know your that your money is safe. You've got
Speaker 1: to invest in multiple different things because if something bad
Speaker 1: happens to one company and you're totally invested there, you
Speaker 1: could lose everything. Some people I think, look at you know,
Speaker 1: the planetary habitation of humans in the long term, the
Speaker 1: same way catastrophic things can happen to planets. There there
Speaker 1: can be catastrophic changes to the biosphere of a planet.
Speaker 1: And so if you don't spread out to other planets
Speaker 1: over time, the risk just keeps accumulating more and more
Speaker 1: that something is going to happen that will cause us
Speaker 1: to blink out of existence. Yeah, and and we discussed
Speaker 1: many of these on the show before, you know, things
Speaker 1: such as near Earth objects potentially colliding with the planet.
Speaker 1: Also things bound to human technology like climate change, nuclear war,
Speaker 1: and another. Various exams upolth some some more futuristic than others,
Speaker 1: but most given known potential existential risk. You know with them,
Speaker 1: there are there are certainly ways to attempt to safeguard
Speaker 1: against them, at least as far as as ones that
Speaker 1: are technologically within our limits of control. Uh. Now, can
Speaker 1: we control ourselves? Arguably, Yes, that's possible, even if it
Speaker 1: tends to not be the case a lot of the
Speaker 1: time in human affairs. Can we track and mitigate incoming
Speaker 1: in eos? Yeah, we're continuing to improve our capabilities in
Speaker 1: that department. But as we get into long term concerns
Speaker 1: about say the life of the sun, UH, we'd really
Speaker 1: need to be higher on the Karda Chef scale to
Speaker 1: do anything about it. And then there's also the issue
Speaker 1: of outside context problems, which is a which are problems
Speaker 1: that by definition, a civilization cannot anticipate. As then in
Speaker 1: Banks explained in the in his book Accession, which is
Speaker 1: where the term was coined, most civilizations encounter just a
Speaker 1: one outside context problem, and that is what does them
Speaker 1: in Now you might be thinking, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: what's an example of an outside context problem? I guess
Speaker 1: the definition of it would be that it's something that
Speaker 1: we're not really envisioning right now. But maybe the easiest
Speaker 1: example would be an encounter with a with a totally
Speaker 1: uh incomprehensible alien species or something. Yeah. Yeah, that that's
Speaker 1: that's the big one. UM And certainly like one example
Speaker 1: that is often thrown out. I think Banks made this
Speaker 1: uh analogy as well is if you are one of
Speaker 1: the native people's of say South America, and then European
Speaker 1: show up on your shore in these in these ships
Speaker 1: with horses and all this technology. UM. It is not
Speaker 1: something they anticipated. And there were and there were other
Speaker 1: aspects of that problem that they just could not anticipate,
Speaker 1: say the disease factor. And uh, and they ultimately, I
Speaker 1: mean they it's not that they were completely wiped out.
Speaker 1: But obviously that whole situation was was an apocalypse for
Speaker 1: the people's of the New World. But another thing we
Speaker 1: should emphasize again that you just mentioned a second ago,
Speaker 1: is that, I mean, one thing we can be sure of,
Speaker 1: even if we don't encounter any outside context problems, is
Speaker 1: there's basically an expiration date for life on Earth that
Speaker 1: has nothing to do with like stochastic events like a
Speaker 1: near Earth object impacts or something. It's just gonna be
Speaker 1: the the lifespan of the Sun. Eventually, the Sun is
Speaker 1: going to swell, it's going to turn into a red
Speaker 1: giant and and Earth will get too hot to live
Speaker 1: on there there will be no life here anymore. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and a lot of times this can seem like
Speaker 1: ridiculous to worry about, right, but like, come on, humanity,
Speaker 1: let's let's get through July. Uh about the long term
Speaker 1: survival of the human race and what happens when when
Speaker 1: the Sun burns out of energy. I mean, we think
Speaker 1: the the habitable Earth is already probably more than halfway
Speaker 1: through its lifespan. You know, Earth is about four and
Speaker 1: a half billion years old, probably within um you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard to put an exact number on it, but
Speaker 1: I think something like four billion years from now we
Speaker 1: can be pretty sure that that Earth is just gonna
Speaker 1: be done like that. There will be no more life
Speaker 1: here at that point. It will just be too hot. Now,
Speaker 1: four billion years is a long time, right, you know
Speaker 1: that that was enough time to for single cells to
Speaker 1: evolve into humans who are capable of appreciating the RoboCop movies,
Speaker 1: you know, and so like, uh, it is a long time.
Speaker 1: It's not like something you need to worry about tomorrow.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, if you are trying to
Speaker 1: imagine the far future, something would have to happen if
Speaker 1: we wanted to go on beyond that point. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think that's reasonable though also, of course it is
Speaker 1: we are talking about the far future. Um. So in
Speaker 1: this episode we thought we'd explore some of the moral
Speaker 1: arguments that are ultimately against the colonization of other worlds.
Speaker 1: The concern, again, to to quote Ian Malcolm, is not
Speaker 1: can we do it. But should we do it? What
Speaker 1: would the moral cost be uh to a true Tarran diaspora.
Speaker 1: If we were to expand beyond the earth, what would
Speaker 1: it cost us? And would it be worth it? What
Speaker 1: are some of the philosophical concerns here? Well, maybe we
Speaker 1: should take a quick rake and then when we come
Speaker 1: back we can talk about them. All Right, we're back.
Speaker 1: So one of the key factors in this entire discussion
Speaker 1: it has to do with the morality of human existence
Speaker 1: and what you might think of a sort of the
Speaker 1: media and human condition. Uh So consider this question. Is
Speaker 1: human existence on average a reality worth sustaining and propagating? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know, I know, obviously it's it's not like we
Speaker 1: could do anything but that, I mean, that's what life does.
Speaker 1: And we are we are life, no matter how self
Speaker 1: aware we've become or how you know, self aware we've
Speaker 1: come to believe we are, we are still just we
Speaker 1: are life and life propagates. Yeah, and there are of
Speaker 1: course people who believe, you know, that humans should voluntarily
Speaker 1: go extinct. That is actually a point of view some
Speaker 1: people have. I kind of and I don't mean to
Speaker 1: question everyone who says this, but with at least some
Speaker 1: of the people who say that, I kind of question
Speaker 1: their sincerity. I mean with some of the people who
Speaker 1: say that, I think they're probably just saying that to
Speaker 1: be interesting or to be shocking, not because they really
Speaker 1: believe humans should disappear right, or to sort of ext
Speaker 1: to over express a sentiment, you know, yeah, to to
Speaker 1: sort of drive home a point, like like I think
Speaker 1: I've probably in in the past, I've probably said something
Speaker 1: to the effect that I would I would be totally
Speaker 1: cool with the with the male gender going extinct and
Speaker 1: the species become exclusively female. Um. But you know, now
Speaker 1: I have a son, and uh, you know I can't
Speaker 1: rationally make that argument, you know, um, and it and
Speaker 1: it was, ultimately, you know, not a completely rational argument.
Speaker 1: Maybe you know, a little attention seeking and a little uh,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to to to make a point, I suppose,
Speaker 1: but uh but still, you know, all these sort of
Speaker 1: questions and considerations do get into bigger questions about like
Speaker 1: what are we doing? Like what is the what? And
Speaker 1: what are we doing wrong? And then what is the
Speaker 1: the overall shape of life? This is you know real,
Speaker 1: this is the meat of philosophy and theology. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: why is there so much suffering in the world. Is
Speaker 1: life suffering? Does all the suffering make the good parts
Speaker 1: worth having? Is a miserable life better than no life
Speaker 1: at all? Are their fates worse than death? I mean
Speaker 1: this is These are questions we continue to wrestle with.
Speaker 1: And then there's also the big, big question of inequality here.
Speaker 1: If only a small fraction of the human population, such
Speaker 1: as you know, the much talented one percent, or or
Speaker 1: even some larger percentile, depending on what your parameters are,
Speaker 1: if only this small fraction of the population has access
Speaker 1: to true comfort, health, happiness, or whatever your gage happens
Speaker 1: to be, then what does that say about the overall
Speaker 1: health of the system. If the popular idea of what
Speaker 1: it is to be human is, say the lifestyle one
Speaker 1: season a popular television show, be it Friends or the Kardashians,
Speaker 1: or even like Seinfeld, you know, a nice sizeable apartment
Speaker 1: in all uh, then then how do we square how
Speaker 1: out of proportion these visions are with our reality, or
Speaker 1: sort of the standard reality on earth. And likewise we
Speaker 1: might wonder which ideal we're envisioning UH to be installed
Speaker 1: in an off world colony. What are we spreading to
Speaker 1: other worlds? Beyond basic human presence and just sort of
Speaker 1: the staked flag of empire, or perhaps ideally we envisioned
Speaker 1: that such off world realities would encompass just a vast
Speaker 1: array of emotional states, uh, you know, and that things
Speaker 1: would even out tomorrow will be like today in the
Speaker 1: arc of the moral universe, you know, will will bend
Speaker 1: towards justice and so forth. So at this point I
Speaker 1: wanna I want to turn to this, this subject of
Speaker 1: astronomical suffering. Uh. And this comes from a paper by
Speaker 1: Marco Covid. Uh. Not to be confused with Takeishi Kovaks,
Speaker 1: which we referenced earlier. This is a k O V
Speaker 1: I see, with the last part having a c H
Speaker 1: pronunciation like in chocolate. So uh. So Covid is a
Speaker 1: Swiss social scientist who is the co found owner and
Speaker 1: CEO of the consulting firm Ours Cognitanis, and whose work
Speaker 1: has been featured in Ian Magazine, among other places. He
Speaker 1: also has written extensively in German and the German language,
Speaker 1: and hosts a German language podcast titled Din Cautelier, which
Speaker 1: you can you can actually you can look up. It
Speaker 1: is d E n K A T E l I
Speaker 1: E r dot x y Z. So if you were
Speaker 1: a German speaker, uh, check that out. It's uh, I
Speaker 1: would check it out if my German were not just
Speaker 1: the most basic level ever. Uh. So you wanted to
Speaker 1: do this topic today because you you read an article
Speaker 1: by Covids, right, Yeah, It published in UM. It's an
Speaker 1: open science framework publication titled Risks of Space Colonization. You
Speaker 1: can access the full paper online and I urge everyone
Speaker 1: to do so because it's a thought provoking read and
Speaker 1: it really puts the whole enterprise of off world colonies
Speaker 1: under philosophical scrutiny. Not to say that he doesn't touch
Speaker 1: on ideas that I think are already out there in
Speaker 1: the in the zeitgeist, in the you know, the science
Speaker 1: fiction whole consideration of the future. But but it's really
Speaker 1: a great ride up. We're not going to go through
Speaker 1: everything Covid discusses here, because he certainly discusses the risks
Speaker 1: and rewards of space colonization, including the notion that the
Speaker 1: acceleration of space colonization capability would just increase the existential
Speaker 1: risk coming at us, like all the technological ways that
Speaker 1: we could potentially destroy ourselves or make life worse on
Speaker 1: the planet that being able to to move at great speeds,
Speaker 1: to have orbital you know, supremacy, that these things would
Speaker 1: just uh create more ways for us to hurt ourselves.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like we're doing a bad enough
Speaker 1: job already at avoiding species level risks. Yeah. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: when you consider potential technologies like you know, rods from
Speaker 1: God and the idea that you know, you wouldn't even
Speaker 1: need explosives if you had orbital supremacy, if you had
Speaker 1: enough just mass up there in orbit that you could
Speaker 1: drop down things like that, it's the ultimate high ground. Yeah, exactly. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he also discusses contact with microbial extratractical extraterrestrial life,
Speaker 1: which we've discussed on the show before, secession and independence,
Speaker 1: reactionary colonies, intercolonial conflict, which is another topic we've definitely
Speaker 1: uh produced episodes on, and much much more. But I
Speaker 1: wanted to focus in on some of the other ideas
Speaker 1: the outlines here, such as the risk of moral catastrophes
Speaker 1: quote massively undesirable outcomes of engaging in space colonization but
Speaker 1: without any intent for or complacency towards doing harm, and
Speaker 1: the first of these that he brings up is the
Speaker 1: astronomical populations ethics conundrum. And to better understand that, we
Speaker 1: have to first consider what is known as the repugnant conclusion. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: if if we got any moral philosophy nerds out there,
Speaker 1: you will recognize this immediately. The idea of the repugnant
Speaker 1: conclusion is, uh it's a very popular or question in
Speaker 1: the the domain of population ethics, this sub branch of
Speaker 1: ethics about how to know what's the right thing to
Speaker 1: do when considering the creation and maintenance of populations of people.
Speaker 1: Uh So. The repugnant conclusion is also known as the
Speaker 1: mere addition problem, and it was famously articulated by the
Speaker 1: British philosopher Derek Parfit in his nineteen eighty four book
Speaker 1: Reasons and Persons. As often understood today, the repugnant conclusion
Speaker 1: takes the form of a paradox about our intuitions on
Speaker 1: population ethics. Uh And there are a lot of ways
Speaker 1: of expressing or illustrating this paradox, but to make it
Speaker 1: as simple and as clear as I can, the repugnant
Speaker 1: conclusion is a statement like this, And this is a
Speaker 1: quote for from Derek Parfitt. Quote for any possible population
Speaker 1: of at least ten billion people, all with very high
Speaker 1: quality of life. There must be some much larger imaginable
Speaker 1: population whose existence, if other things are equal, would be better,
Speaker 1: even though it's members have lives that are barely worth living.
Speaker 1: So that that sounds very counterintuitive, right, Like there's some
Speaker 1: number we don't know exactly what it is. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: you know ten trillion people who might have all completely
Speaker 1: miserable lives, But it would be better for all those
Speaker 1: people to exist than for some smaller number of people
Speaker 1: to exist, all having good lives. Now, how on earth
Speaker 1: could you arrive at that conclusion? Well, let's illustrate with
Speaker 1: an example. Um, And of course I'm slightly oversimplifying here
Speaker 1: because this arises in a discussion alongside another complicated issue
Speaker 1: known as the non identity problem. And with respect to
Speaker 1: the repugnant conclusion, Parfitt himself uses an argument with more
Speaker 1: steps and bar graphs and stuff representing hypothetical human groups
Speaker 1: and qualities of life. I'm just gonna try to get
Speaker 1: to the heart of it in a simple and clear way.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're put in a weird experiment by a
Speaker 1: godlike consortium of cardassiev three level alien scientists, who are
Speaker 1: so technologically powerful that they can make realities come in
Speaker 1: and out of being at will. And they they give
Speaker 1: you two options. They give you the option to make
Speaker 1: one of two scenarios a reality. Robert, would you take
Speaker 1: this test? Yes, let's do it. Okay, So scenario one.
Speaker 1: You get to exist, but I do not get to exist.
Speaker 1: Imagine again, not really me. You don't know me. I'm
Speaker 1: just some hypothetical other person yet to be born. In
Speaker 1: your existence, you have a pretty nice life. You get
Speaker 1: really good food, you have a nice house. You get
Speaker 1: to hang out with friends and family. You have free time,
Speaker 1: get to exercise and experience nature. You get to read
Speaker 1: interesting books and pursue creative work. It's pretty great. But
Speaker 1: I don't exist at all. Now here's scenario to both
Speaker 1: you and I get to exist. You keep everything you
Speaker 1: had in the previous scenario. You get good material conditions,
Speaker 1: good relationships and social life, interesting creative projects to explore,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Nothing at all changes for you. I, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, have a less exciting existence. I have
Speaker 1: a few social relationships, but I only get to talk
Speaker 1: to people through a glass barrier, and I live in
Speaker 1: a kind of dank, concrete building that's always dimly lit
Speaker 1: and a little bit too cold, and I get enough
Speaker 1: food to eat, but it's not very exciting. It's basically
Speaker 1: just like microwave frozen fish sticks and tater tots and
Speaker 1: a vitamin supplement to keep me more or less healthy.
Speaker 1: I can still sort of pursue my interests in my
Speaker 1: spare time, but I don't have a lot of spare
Speaker 1: time after all of my shifts at the Hollywood Acid Factory. Now,
Speaker 1: which scenario would you pick? Oh, this is hard because
Speaker 1: with the first one you've kind of had me like, okay, uh,
Speaker 1: this sounds fine. All you know, my life and my
Speaker 1: connections and the things I'm invested in those exist and
Speaker 1: you don't exist. And so like there's you know there,
Speaker 1: you don't really have a dog in a hunt, right,
Speaker 1: you don't have any skin in that. You literally do
Speaker 1: not have skin in the game. But then scenario too
Speaker 1: makes is a lot more difficult because it's like now
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of this question of do you get
Speaker 1: to exist in this kind of like in this you know,
Speaker 1: this more miserable state or not like quite miserable. I
Speaker 1: don't know, depending how you frame it. But yeah, it's like,
Speaker 1: then I feel like I am imposing on you if
Speaker 1: I say you can't exist. Right, So just imagine all
Speaker 1: of that is true. But if you asked me, I
Speaker 1: would say, well, of course I want to exist. I
Speaker 1: don't want to not exist. Yeah, And I do not
Speaker 1: feel it is my place to decide that someone should
Speaker 1: not exist, you know, due to the quality of their
Speaker 1: life in this case, you know, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: a scenario to puts me in a very tough place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think most people's intuition when confronted with this
Speaker 1: problem is that it would be unfair to pick scenario one.
Speaker 1: Even though my existence in scenario two is not ideal.
Speaker 1: You'd assume that if you asked me, I would still
Speaker 1: rather exist than not exist. Right, So scenario too, this
Speaker 1: context is, by most people's intuition, a better world. It's
Speaker 1: a more preferable world. If you had the option, scenario
Speaker 1: two would be the better one to bring about. And
Speaker 1: it's really hard to argue with that reasoning. In order
Speaker 1: to argue with that reasoning, you'd have to say that
Speaker 1: you have the power unilaterally to say that other people
Speaker 1: shouldn't be able to exist and live lives that they
Speaker 1: might not rate as perfect but still would want to have.
Speaker 1: But this opens up a very dangerous logic because it
Speaker 1: means it's possible to increase the desirability of a world
Speaker 1: just by adding to the number of sentient minds that
Speaker 1: want to keep existing in it. Again, this is why
Speaker 1: it's known as the mere addition problem. That you can
Speaker 1: create scenarios where it's better to have a world with
Speaker 1: more minds in it as long as those minds would
Speaker 1: say that they want to exist, even if the average
Speaker 1: quality of human life is drastically reduced. So like, if
Speaker 1: you took the average quality of my existence in your
Speaker 1: existence together in scenario two, then it would be lower
Speaker 1: than the average of your existence alone in scenario one.
Speaker 1: And then if you obey this maxim that you've set out,
Speaker 1: now it seems like you're committed to a chain of
Speaker 1: logic that leads to the conclusion that the value of
Speaker 1: quantity can overwhelm the variable of quality when it comes
Speaker 1: to human life, as as long as most people would
Speaker 1: rather exist than not, some greater number of lives are
Speaker 1: preferable to some smaller number, even if the lives and
Speaker 1: the greater number are pretty abjectly miserable. Now, I think
Speaker 1: we should know that this logic would not apply to
Speaker 1: lives that are so miserable that people would say themselves
Speaker 1: that they would truly rather cease to exist. You could
Speaker 1: think of some kind of like torture, like hell world
Speaker 1: or something, you know, like if hell existed, it would
Speaker 1: just be better for that to not exist. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is the the the option we're talking about here is
Speaker 1: more in line with to bring in us another great
Speaker 1: science fiction example, uh, the Martian cal and he's in
Speaker 1: total recall where most people have it pretty horrible there,
Speaker 1: or at least it's a rough existence, but they would
Speaker 1: still fight to survive. Yeah. Yeah, and they they get
Speaker 1: into how like the the early like the settlers were
Speaker 1: just basically living in caves. You know, it's just this
Speaker 1: this brutal, primitive existence. And yet at the same time,
Speaker 1: like they you know, they're they're not in just constant torture. Yeah, exactly. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear, as we said at
Speaker 1: the beginning, the point of this is not that the
Speaker 1: repugnant conclusion is correct. It's actually you know, Derek Parfitt
Speaker 1: highlights this to say, like this really seems to be incorrect.
Speaker 1: It really seems to go against our intuitions. So the
Speaker 1: problem is figuring out what part of the logical chain
Speaker 1: that gets you there is wrong. Because I mean, most
Speaker 1: people I think would say that this this conclusion is incorrect.
Speaker 1: There are these practical moral implications to it. If it
Speaker 1: were actually correct, If the repugnan conclusion were really did
Speaker 1: have moral force, it would have implications like humans should
Speaker 1: engage in maximal natalism, right, like the idea that humans
Speaker 1: should reproduce as much as possible to create as much
Speaker 1: human life as we possibly can, because to create less
Speaker 1: than the maximum possible amount of human life would be immoral.
Speaker 1: Under this view, if you didn't work to maximize the
Speaker 1: human population, you're denying future people the right to exist.
Speaker 1: And again, you know too many people. That seems intuitively absurd.
Speaker 1: Why would you trade a world with less people living
Speaker 1: fulfilling lives for a world with vastly more people living
Speaker 1: lives you know, at the edge of what resources they
Speaker 1: can get to barely survive. For instance, you could think
Speaker 1: about it in terms of cat ownership, you know, like
Speaker 1: one one cat, in my opinion, is enough. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, I could see myself talked into all right,
Speaker 1: we need to get a second cat. This cat needs
Speaker 1: a home. Let's let's let's do it. But then the
Speaker 1: more cats you add to a house, the more chaotic
Speaker 1: it becomes, the more work has to go into taking
Speaker 1: care of those cats, until you reach a point where
Speaker 1: it's it's just about quantity over quality, right right, exactly. Now, Again,
Speaker 1: this isn't to assume any particular correlation between the number
Speaker 1: of people on Earth in their quality of life. I
Speaker 1: mean I think that, um, there are actually some naive
Speaker 1: assumptions going around about about increasing human populations necessarily always
Speaker 1: leading to bad outcomes. I don't think we should we
Speaker 1: should take those conclusions for granted, but just saying that, like,
Speaker 1: if you assume at some point, you know, if there
Speaker 1: were a hundred trillion humans on Earth, you can definitely
Speaker 1: say that that would that would cause problems for for
Speaker 1: ecosystems and stuff, right right. And and also, just before
Speaker 1: anybody writes me if you have multiple cats in your home,
Speaker 1: I am not judging you. I am just saying that
Speaker 1: multiple cats, uh, does not feel right for me personally
Speaker 1: my personal household. But I know plenty of people with
Speaker 1: lots of cats and they seem quite happy with the situation.
Speaker 1: But but even they, I think, would probably admit that
Speaker 1: there is there is some threshold cat ownership. Right, even
Speaker 1: if you're you're you're a sort of like cat maximalist
Speaker 1: in a practical sense, you're not really because you're not
Speaker 1: trying to get five hundred cats in your house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's when, yeah, that's when law enforcement gets involved. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: But then okay, so so on the on the one hand,
Speaker 1: you're thinking, like, no, that that can't be right, But
Speaker 1: then compare it again to our other intuitions that got
Speaker 1: us there in the first place. Even if you wish
Speaker 1: the quality of your life were much better, most people
Speaker 1: would prefer existing over not existing, even people who are
Speaker 1: in pain, who lack the things that we desire, we
Speaker 1: would mostly prefer to be able to exist rather than
Speaker 1: not exist. And so it would certainly be wrong of
Speaker 1: us to decide on other people's behalf that their lives
Speaker 1: are not worth living. Right. Yeah, I think there's a
Speaker 1: there's a strong argument for that. Um, you know, we
Speaker 1: we do get it. We are getting into I know
Speaker 1: that there are all sorts of lights going off in
Speaker 1: people's heads about varying you know, issues, but but but still,
Speaker 1: I think that is a for the most part of
Speaker 1: rational argument. Well, at least it's it feels that way.
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily mean it's right. So this is a
Speaker 1: paradox we've got. It seems like we must choose between
Speaker 1: two conclusions that both feel morally wrong. So what are
Speaker 1: the ways of resolving this paradox? Because so the conclusion
Speaker 1: is widely considered unacceptable. Parfit himself. Again, he articulates this,
Speaker 1: but not to say that the repugnant conclusion is correct.
Speaker 1: He brings it up to say, like, this is obviously wrong.
Speaker 1: We have to figure out why this isn't the case,
Speaker 1: and uh. Other philosophers have tried to find ways to
Speaker 1: avoid the conclusion by like questioning some of the premises
Speaker 1: or introducing other considerations. So, for example, you could argue
Speaker 1: that maximizing the average quality of human life is the
Speaker 1: ideal and so so not like the number of people,
Speaker 1: but you just want to make the average human life
Speaker 1: quality as high as possible. But under this model you'd
Speaker 1: run into problems. For instance, you could improve the world
Speaker 1: by killing everyone except the happiest person in it, and
Speaker 1: then it would have the maximum average happiness. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: again you could you could go back against that and say, well,
Speaker 1: surely killing everyone else would decrease this person's quality of life.
Speaker 1: But you can imagine like weird sci fi hypotheticals to
Speaker 1: get around this, maybe, for example, that the best possible
Speaker 1: world is the one with just one maximally satisfied person
Speaker 1: living in a simulation of real life for the wind
Speaker 1: howls around the you know waste land bunker that houses
Speaker 1: that that person's real body. Yeah, that that reminds me
Speaker 1: of a There was a Zoom meeting that I attended
Speaker 1: this morning. There was like a like a like a
Speaker 1: dad's meeting. There's a line with the school where my
Speaker 1: son goes, and we were all asked to rate our
Speaker 1: current level of happiness from a one to a kin
Speaker 1: like one being like just I just just absolute misery,
Speaker 1: I guess, and tim being like awesome, and most of
Speaker 1: us put in sevens. I found I put on myself
Speaker 1: put in a seven. There was like a seven point
Speaker 1: to someone had a seven point seven. I think somebody
Speaker 1: somebody was having a tough time, and you know, put
Speaker 1: in like a six or a five. And then one
Speaker 1: person put in a tin and I was I was
Speaker 1: just like wow, like who let let's hand ownership of
Speaker 1: the what are they doing where they have the you know,
Speaker 1: the tins? So in this scenario, it's like, just cut
Speaker 1: out all the sevens and let's just have only the
Speaker 1: guy with the tin and uh, and he shall be
Speaker 1: the uh the population of Earth. Right, So that obviously
Speaker 1: goes against our moral intuitions as well. It does not
Speaker 1: feel right that you could you could improve the moral
Speaker 1: worth of the world just by eliminating all the unhappy people.
Speaker 1: That's obviously wrong. Uh So, yeah, you're still stuck with
Speaker 1: this problem. Is there are a bunch of ways the
Speaker 1: different philosophers have have tried to deal with it. Some
Speaker 1: have introduced like like sort of ad hoc ways of
Speaker 1: calculating life value that's somewhat favor average quality of life,
Speaker 1: but don't totally put that above number of people. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just like, this is clearly a difficult problem to
Speaker 1: resolve some things that we believe in our intent with
Speaker 1: each other. But however you try to deal with the problem,
Speaker 1: it is not hard at all to imagine how this
Speaker 1: thought experiment has an impact on the idea of space
Speaker 1: exploration and space colonization. Because think about it again, Okay,
Speaker 1: imagine you're charting out to futures for humanity, and one
Speaker 1: is a is a future where we stay here on
Speaker 1: Earth and people you know, there there are varying qualities
Speaker 1: of life. But let's say, you know, in a in
Speaker 1: a better future scenario, maybe we we implement some kind
Speaker 1: of social structure that gets basically everybody on Earth's quality
Speaker 1: of life up to a certain level where people have
Speaker 1: the resources they need, they can pursue creative work, they
Speaker 1: can they can hang out in a in a you know,
Speaker 1: unpolluted natural environment, experience nature, have good social relationships. You know,
Speaker 1: take a best case scenario, there still the number of
Speaker 1: people who could live on Earth in that scenario is
Speaker 1: going to be somewhat limited. Meanwhile, you could have a
Speaker 1: lot more potential for human life and human flourishing. And
Speaker 1: especially if you're playing the odds game against like you
Speaker 1: know what, if you know, we get a space impact
Speaker 1: or something really bad happens to planet Earth itself, you
Speaker 1: can have a lot more potential for human life if
Speaker 1: you were to spread out to other objects throughout the
Speaker 1: you know, throughout the Solar System or throughout you know,
Speaker 1: other star systems in the Milky Way. But if you
Speaker 1: take a pessimistic view of what those would be like,
Speaker 1: you can easily imagine how those existences might be pretty crappy,
Speaker 1: you know, like you're you're trying to live on Mars,
Speaker 1: but the exploration of Mars is in one sense exciting,
Speaker 1: but also Mars is a horrible place. It's just horrible,
Speaker 1: Like would you really would you really want to live
Speaker 1: there in say an underground bunker that had to shield
Speaker 1: you from radiation, and you know, you're you're eating these
Speaker 1: kind of bland foods, and you know, there's only a
Speaker 1: couple of other people who you can interact with face
Speaker 1: to face, and you can't go outside, you can't see
Speaker 1: a tree, you know, and and and so forth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you're also looking at a situation where it's
Speaker 1: not even like I'm going to make this this world,
Speaker 1: this Martian world better for my children. If it's more like, well,
Speaker 1: in a thousand years, things will be much better, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it It becomes kind of difficult to imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: getting in the mindset of you know, of of the
Speaker 1: of that particular individual, right, and so this I feel
Speaker 1: like this kind of question, the idea of space colonization
Speaker 1: in a way is one particular scenario for making the
Speaker 1: paradox of the repugnan conclusion kind of concrete. Like imagining
Speaker 1: these different options, both of them feel kind of wrong
Speaker 1: in a way, and this brings us back to uh
Speaker 1: CO budges astro astronomical population ethics conundrum. He writes, quote,
Speaker 1: in the context of space colonization, the repugnant conclusion could
Speaker 1: mean that a dystopian future in which dozens or hundreds
Speaker 1: of billions of humans across different habitats in our Solar
Speaker 1: system and beyond live miserable, brutish, anguish field lives is
Speaker 1: a future that is morble preferable to, for example, a
Speaker 1: future in which there are only a few billion people
Speaker 1: who live happy lives on Earth. Now, Covid points out
Speaker 1: that yes, this is an extreme possibility, but that it's
Speaker 1: not unreasonable to presume that life on the off world
Speaker 1: colonies would indeed be hard. You know, we've just been
Speaker 1: discussing how brutal Mars is. I mean, heck um, I
Speaker 1: think it's a nanio degrass Tyson, for instance, has brought
Speaker 1: up look at Antarctica, and Arctica is infinitely more hospitable
Speaker 1: than Mars, and outside of what a few thousand people
Speaker 1: during the summer and barely a thousand people during the winter.
Speaker 1: We don't have human life on Earth's fifth largest continent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I think about how how uninhabitable not
Speaker 1: just an Arctica like most of Earth is. This is funny, like,
Speaker 1: you know, Earth is the place we can live, but
Speaker 1: we can't even live on most of it. Most of
Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth is uninhabitable. It's either ocean
Speaker 1: is open ocean, or it is you know, desert or
Speaker 1: uninhabitable tundra, ice sheets like they are actually really just
Speaker 1: these kind of slivers of the surface that are good
Speaker 1: for us to settle down on. Yeah, I mean when
Speaker 1: you consider like the hard surface of the Earth, most
Speaker 1: of the Earth's surface is a dark, high pressure deep
Speaker 1: sea environment where where we we have no place. Uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we're clinging to the you know, to the parts
Speaker 1: of the world that we can live and VR technology,
Speaker 1: you know, we're able to to live in a lot
Speaker 1: of places that we wouldn't be able to otherwise. But
Speaker 1: but still yeah, we again, it comes kind of back
Speaker 1: to the Kardashi of scale, like in terms of technology
Speaker 1: and just sort of maximizing our planet, Like we're not
Speaker 1: even on wrong one yet, so you know, and trying
Speaker 1: to imagine people living on an world off world colony.
Speaker 1: People born into life in another world would not exist
Speaker 1: at all if not for the establishment of that colony. So,
Speaker 1: on one hand of the paradox, colonizing other worlds is
Speaker 1: an inherently moral act because you know, because if you
Speaker 1: don't do it, they won't exist. But what if there
Speaker 1: are not places where happiness and peace are going to
Speaker 1: be easily found? What if these are harsh, frontier colonies,
Speaker 1: even hell worlds? Uh in you know, to varying degrees
Speaker 1: that expand the fact of human habitation, but do so
Speaker 1: via the reality of human suffering. So Covac connects this
Speaker 1: to that other standard problem of population ethics that we
Speaker 1: already mentioned, uh, the non identity problem, which just to
Speaker 1: to reiterate that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that
Speaker 1: it quote raises questions regarding the obligations we think we
Speaker 1: have in respect of people who, by our own acts
Speaker 1: are caused both to exist and who have existences that are,
Speaker 1: though worth having, unavoidably flawed existence is that is, that
Speaker 1: are flawed if those people are ever to have them
Speaker 1: at all. Yeah, so on the non identity problem. And
Speaker 1: this is part of the same context in which Derek
Speaker 1: Parfitt's discussion of the repugnant conclusion was described. It's another paradox.
Speaker 1: It's it takes the same form showing that where it
Speaker 1: seems like you have a couple of options and they
Speaker 1: both seem morally wrong due to our intuitions. So so
Speaker 1: he shows that there are three premises that are intuitively true,
Speaker 1: but they're in conflict with each other. Uh So, first
Speaker 1: of all, there's the premise of what's known as the
Speaker 1: person affecting view, and this is the belief that an
Speaker 1: act can only be wrong if it harms someone in
Speaker 1: some way, and actually that does no harm to anyone
Speaker 1: cannot be morally wrong. And of course this doesn't apply
Speaker 1: just a physical harm. This would be, you know, any
Speaker 1: way of making someone's life, for situation worse. And if
Speaker 1: you disagree with this, try to think of something that
Speaker 1: it's wrong to do but that would never hurt anyone
Speaker 1: in any way. The state off marshmallow man um I mean,
Speaker 1: And and so people might have views about that, I mean,
Speaker 1: some people might adhere to, like a what might be
Speaker 1: called a deontological view of morality where there are just
Speaker 1: certain things that are that are moral and immoral and
Speaker 1: it actually does not flow from consequentialism from how it
Speaker 1: affects other people. But but I mean, a very common
Speaker 1: view among philosophers today would be that you know, there's
Speaker 1: something about morality that has to involve effects on people,
Speaker 1: and if something doesn't hurt anyone, it's hard to see
Speaker 1: how it's wrong. So that's the first idea, that that
Speaker 1: there is a person affecting view of morality, that something
Speaker 1: can only be wrong if it harms someone. The second
Speaker 1: premise is that bringing a person into existence is not
Speaker 1: bad for that person, even if their existence is flawed,
Speaker 1: because being caused to exist is not a reduction in
Speaker 1: the quality of one's existence. There is no higher baseline
Speaker 1: from which you are reduced by being caused to exist
Speaker 1: in the first place. Does that make sense? So it's
Speaker 1: not like you were doing great but for you existed,
Speaker 1: and then once you existed, then that was like a
Speaker 1: downgrading of how good you're doing. And then the third
Speaker 1: premise would be that some acts of bringing people into
Speaker 1: existence are wrong anyway. Imagine, for example, creating an underworld
Speaker 1: space colony where the people there are going to be
Speaker 1: haunted by space more locks that hound them every waking second,
Speaker 1: like you would think it would be wrong to create
Speaker 1: that place, right, Yes, yes, I mean I'm try I'm
Speaker 1: trying to envision all the ways that you know, we
Speaker 1: can reach the space more locks and change them and
Speaker 1: and you know, bring space more locks and human colonists together.
Speaker 1: But but it does sound pretty daunting. Yeah, And so
Speaker 1: this is another problem along these lines. To to a
Speaker 1: lot of philosophers, all of these premises seem correct, but
Speaker 1: they can't all be right at the same time. They're
Speaker 1: in conflict with each other. So COVID ways in on this.
Speaker 1: He says, in the case of our dystopian space colonization
Speaker 1: thought experiment, however, the horrible future or is not actually
Speaker 1: bad for anyone. If it weren't for our dystopian space
Speaker 1: colonization activities, all those billions of people beyond Earth who
Speaker 1: live miserable lives barely worth living would not exist at all.
Speaker 1: From the point of view of those future people, then
Speaker 1: their miserable lives are still preferable to the alternative, which
Speaker 1: is not having come into existence at all. The fact
Speaker 1: that they were brought into their miserable existence was therefore
Speaker 1: not morally bad for them. And and this basically is
Speaker 1: the second premise I mentioned a minute ago, that it's
Speaker 1: not bringing someone into existence can't be bad for them
Speaker 1: because it does not constitute a downgrading or reduction in
Speaker 1: their quality of life. They didn't have a baseline to
Speaker 1: start from. Yeah, so covid he ends up contending that,
Speaker 1: via these problems, enabling a future of space colonies is
Speaker 1: at least less morally desirable than other alternatives, but perhaps
Speaker 1: even morally questionable. And this brings us to the next
Speaker 1: phase of his consideration, and that is astronomical suffering in
Speaker 1: off world human populations. All right, well, let's take a
Speaker 1: break and then we can come back and explore some
Speaker 1: suffering than alright, we're back astronomical suffering, deep hurting. If
Speaker 1: you were a centobyte, then you you may have skipped
Speaker 1: forward to this portion of the podcast because you just
Speaker 1: want some good suffering. Uh So Coverage contends the pain
Speaker 1: of the Mars colony will be legendary even in Hell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is where they should have gone in. Uh imagine
Speaker 1: if if we could do a read a redo of
Speaker 1: Hell raised or three um four four, the space one
Speaker 1: three is the one with the with the like disco
Speaker 1: club and is it in England or I think it's
Speaker 1: in the US. Okay, I can't remember. The one with
Speaker 1: the camera head cinebite and the c D cinebyte. Yes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the fourth one is in space and it's largely incomprehensible.
Speaker 1: But imagine if it had decided to explore astronomical suffering instead.
Speaker 1: So Covid contends that increasing maximum total well being is
Speaker 1: questionable if the amount of suffering in the universe also increases,
Speaker 1: but he goes on to argue that the astronomical non
Speaker 1: identity problem is the question of suffering. Quote merely maximizing
Speaker 1: total well being is questionable if at the same time
Speaker 1: the amount of suffering is increased to such a degree
Speaker 1: that average well being decreases. The problem. The increase in
Speaker 1: suffering through space colonization can be understood as a is
Speaker 1: a risk sue, generous or unique one, and that is
Speaker 1: astronomical suffering. So part of the you know, the certainty
Speaker 1: here entails suboptimal conditions for future humans and other worlds,
Speaker 1: worlds where any any of the sci fi scenarios we've
Speaker 1: already discussed uh could potentially come to life. Like anything
Speaker 1: you've ever seen in the science fiction film where off
Speaker 1: worlders have it hard, you know, living in caves, depending
Speaker 1: on ailing or even failing technology, having to live with
Speaker 1: astonishingly eye levels of radiation, sickness, uh, having your health
Speaker 1: impacted by by microbiota on this other world or some
Speaker 1: sort of disrupted microbiota that you've brought with you. You know,
Speaker 1: things are out of sync. Um worlds where humans have
Speaker 1: to endure harsh conditions due to heat, cold or both
Speaker 1: in the case of like a tidily locked world, high pressure,
Speaker 1: low gravity, high gravity, caustic atmosphere, resource scarcity, dangerous native biology,
Speaker 1: electromagnetic field anomalies, and heightened inneo activity, just to name
Speaker 1: a few. And he also mentions the idea of invasive
Speaker 1: biology brought by by the colonists themselves, as well as
Speaker 1: a few technical possibilities. One the future simulations of sentient beings,
Speaker 1: which is something we've discussed on the show before. Uh,
Speaker 1: the idea that you know, you're you're dealing with a
Speaker 1: heightened level of technology to even establish these worlds. So
Speaker 1: does that also bring about all the the problems of say,
Speaker 1: creating sentient life inside of simulation and then putting it
Speaker 1: in a hell box and then copy and pasting that
Speaker 1: hell box, say a million times, you know. Um, like,
Speaker 1: that's that's the horrible idea. I think we got into
Speaker 1: that a bit in the Basilisk episode. And then he
Speaker 1: also brings up misaligned artificial intelligence. UM. So we also
Speaker 1: have to deal with the possibility of of a I
Speaker 1: UH coming online and UH and part of the scenario
Speaker 1: and being part of the the overall uh unhappiness of
Speaker 1: part of the overall UH suffering of the universe. Still,
Speaker 1: the author contends that the scenarios that could lead to
Speaker 1: astronomical suffering are vague and the conclusions we might draw
Speaker 1: not altogether clear. On one hand, it's possible that space
Speaker 1: colonization could result in astronomical human suffering UH, and then
Speaker 1: this would this If this were the case, it would
Speaker 1: obviously be a disvalue. On the other hand, it's possible
Speaker 1: that it that space colonization could result in an increase
Speaker 1: in human well being but huge decrease in non human
Speaker 1: well being in terms of um, you know, the well
Speaker 1: being of of other organisms. UH. This you know, because
Speaker 1: potentially non human organisms, sentient and or non sentient digital
Speaker 1: entities that are denied human status, so I could also
Speaker 1: affect you know, general aies in this universe that we're imagining.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, he also adds that such colonization
Speaker 1: could be a force of good regarding Aiyes, I thought
Speaker 1: this was interesting quote. It is also possible that space
Speaker 1: colonization could result in the reduction of astronomical suffering. If
Speaker 1: humankind were able to, for example, detect and correct misaligned
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial artificial intelligence, that could reduce or prevent enormous amounts
Speaker 1: of suffering. Of course, the existence of extraterrestrial artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: is itself also a highly uncertain proposition, So I guess
Speaker 1: the idea here is like, if we if we were
Speaker 1: to venture out and we discover an alien AI that
Speaker 1: you know, for instance, has created digital hell worlds full
Speaker 1: oft of digital sentient beings that are being suffered, we
Speaker 1: could we could correct that AI. We could wage a
Speaker 1: holy war against that digital hell which is exactly Uh,
Speaker 1: this is actually a major plot point in the Nan
Speaker 1: m Banks novel. Um. Uh that that that that's that's
Speaker 1: really explored wonderfully. I've discussed it on the show before.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, this would be this would be one
Speaker 1: specific and granted, you know, um far fetched scenario in
Speaker 1: which we could potentially, uh improve the state of suffering
Speaker 1: in the universe if we win. If we're there, that's right,
Speaker 1: because yeah, because I do know the idea of encountering
Speaker 1: extraterrestrials much less extraterrestrial aies. There's a lot of factors
Speaker 1: to consider there. Or what if we're the bad guys
Speaker 1: and we win, then then of course, well I guess
Speaker 1: he acknowledges that could go both ways, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we could the other side of his yeahs
Speaker 1: we we we sort of fulfill what has largely been
Speaker 1: the human nature of exploration, and we encounter the other
Speaker 1: civilization and bring misery and horror to it. So he
Speaker 1: contends that there are so many unknowns that to avoid
Speaker 1: such colonization would ultimately be uh, it would be it
Speaker 1: would be Pascal's Wager all over again, right, Uh, the
Speaker 1: idea that Pascal's Wager essentially we discussed in more depth
Speaker 1: than the show before, but essentially boiling down to, well,
Speaker 1: should I believe in God or not believe in God?
Speaker 1: To be on the safe side, I'll just go ahead
Speaker 1: and believe in him just in case. Now Pascal's wager.
Speaker 1: I think people who have boned up on their philosophy
Speaker 1: might notice that there are a lot of hidden assumptions
Speaker 1: and Pascal's wager that uh that make it maybe not
Speaker 1: as forceful as it would have seemed to Pascal's audience
Speaker 1: at the time. Yes, yes, so yeah. He ultimately says
Speaker 1: that we get into similar territory here, but that nevertheless,
Speaker 1: given the dimension of risk, he says, the problem of
Speaker 1: astronomical suffering is certainly something that we should pay attention to,
Speaker 1: we should think about. Uh, you know that that in
Speaker 1: leaving the plan it or you just in considering the
Speaker 1: future of humanity like that is that is one possibility
Speaker 1: that is like one road to stagnation that we have
Speaker 1: to at least consider a few other ideas that he
Speaker 1: raises here. First of all, he says, you know, he
Speaker 1: drives home against space colonization is not a risk free
Speaker 1: venture and shouldn't be approached as such. So yeah, even
Speaker 1: though it is often this kind of optimistic vision in
Speaker 1: the back of our heads that maybe we should we
Speaker 1: should try and counterbalance that with a little bit of
Speaker 1: of of of astronomical suffering. He also admits that it
Speaker 1: might actually be too late in some respects, as this
Speaker 1: dream is just so seductive to already be the implicit
Speaker 1: goal of public as well as private space related ventures
Speaker 1: and ambitions. And also he drives home and this is
Speaker 1: actually I think something he gets into in that Ian
Speaker 1: magazine piec Road that a meaningful governance framework will be important.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, well, I mean in that article he gets
Speaker 1: into the fact that, like, we just really do not
Speaker 1: have a political framework establishing authority in outer space. And
Speaker 1: we see that and even our current headlines stuff where
Speaker 1: we're like, who wow, there's just there's just really no
Speaker 1: rules yet. And on one hand, like I can see
Speaker 1: how this might feel nice, like oh wow, you know what,
Speaker 1: you know, the government's reach stops at the planet and
Speaker 1: and outer space can just be this place of peaceful
Speaker 1: exploration without any you know, like laws and militaries and
Speaker 1: all that. That would be great. But as space becomes
Speaker 1: more populated with you know, people seeking out their their
Speaker 1: own ends and their own goals there, without a legal
Speaker 1: framework for people to understand, you know, what is allowed,
Speaker 1: what they can do, and and you know, predict what
Speaker 1: other people will be allowed to do to them, it
Speaker 1: starts to become you know, less less of a final
Speaker 1: frontier and more of a wild West. Absolutely. Um, this
Speaker 1: is how COVID rounds it all out. Quote the over
Speaker 1: view of risks in the outline of a potential approach
Speaker 1: to crafting governance presented in this article are preliminary at best.
Speaker 1: Both issues, uh, the identification of colonization related risks and
Speaker 1: the work on colonization related governance require more scholarly attention
Speaker 1: before we can begin addressing them in practice. That attention, theoretical,
Speaker 1: though it may seem, is warranted. Space colonization is human
Speaker 1: kind's best bet for long term survival, and today, before
Speaker 1: large scale space colonization efforts are underway, we still have
Speaker 1: the capacity to develop the philosophical and practical guard rails
Speaker 1: that make the worst outcomes of space colonization less likely.
Speaker 1: And and you know, I would agree with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that totally makes sense that, like, space colonization
Speaker 1: is something that that requires a bit of pessimistic forethought,
Speaker 1: Like you know, people should entertain ideas of what could
Speaker 1: go wrong and uh and explore them and plan out contingencies. Um,
Speaker 1: especially you know, like people who aren't doing space exploration themselves,
Speaker 1: because you I think that there there are some cognitive
Speaker 1: and and group cognitive biases probably at work in organizations
Speaker 1: that are personally involved in space exploration and the exploitation
Speaker 1: of resources in space. Yeah. Plus, you know, when we have,
Speaker 1: you know, just sort of casual ideals of what the
Speaker 1: future will be like in the back of our head. Again,
Speaker 1: it kind of comes back to we were talking about
Speaker 1: earlier with its linked to environmentalism and and and and
Speaker 1: and how one could sort of use it as a
Speaker 1: way to excuse harm to Earth's environment. You know. It's
Speaker 1: if you have just a completely optimistic vision in the
Speaker 1: back of your head, it can potentially skew the way
Speaker 1: you look at the real world or consider other political
Speaker 1: or technological issues. Yeah. Um, so, so this has been interesting.
Speaker 1: It's got me thinking that this was a topic that
Speaker 1: that you turned up and wanted to do so, Robert,
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like what your opinion is, like, do you
Speaker 1: do you come down more on one side or the other.
Speaker 1: We obviously we've explored how there seemed to be, at
Speaker 1: least at first glanced strong moral hazards for both of
Speaker 1: the two options, either first staying on Earth or for
Speaker 1: founding colonies on other objects in the solar system and beyond.
Speaker 1: Do you lean one way or the other? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think reading about this has made me lean more towards
Speaker 1: just the idea that we should we should be cautious
Speaker 1: and we should think about the problems, because I guess,
Speaker 1: and you know, you know, through the consumption of science
Speaker 1: fiction and also you know, futurist thought on the subject,
Speaker 1: you know, I'd always just I think I'd always just
Speaker 1: kind of fallen into the category of thinking, well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be rough in many of these cases we
Speaker 1: are talking about harsh environments, but it will be it
Speaker 1: will be worth it, Like, you know, this is just
Speaker 1: this is just what humans do without really stopping to
Speaker 1: to ask, well, you know, why is that the case?
Speaker 1: And does it have to be that hard, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: or or what should we potentially consider to mitigate the
Speaker 1: suffering on these other worlds, like these various sci fi visions,
Speaker 1: and not so much the really pessimistic and nihilistic ones,
Speaker 1: but the more middle of the road ones like does
Speaker 1: it have to be that way? Could it be more?
Speaker 1: Could it be more Star Trek? You know, could you
Speaker 1: lean into Star Trek more? As again, coming back to
Speaker 1: the more utopian vision of the future. And and this
Speaker 1: is something that I feel like we may have a
Speaker 1: false sense that we have explored these problems more than
Speaker 1: we actually have in the practical space, because we now
Speaker 1: have lots of astronauts who have devoted their lives to
Speaker 1: getting into and spending time in space. You know, we
Speaker 1: have astronauts that walked on the Moon. We have astronauts
Speaker 1: that trained to go to the International Space Station, and
Speaker 1: they all do it voluntarily, like they want to go there.
Speaker 1: They're not being forced despite all of the deprivations that
Speaker 1: the experience and and all of the you know, potentially
Speaker 1: negative health effects and so forth that come along with
Speaker 1: these experiences. But those are in the long run, these
Speaker 1: are actually quite limited commitments. These are people committing themselves
Speaker 1: and themselves only to a period of I don't know,
Speaker 1: a number of weeks or months at a time, going
Speaker 1: into these deprived environments, these altered environments. It is a
Speaker 1: very different thing actually to say we're going to found
Speaker 1: a permanent or semi permanent colony within these spaces, where
Speaker 1: you not only commit yourself for much longer periods of time,
Speaker 1: but you're also potentially committing future generations of people born
Speaker 1: there and so forth, and you're creating a a you know,
Speaker 1: a fragmented off new culture in a sense. And in
Speaker 1: that we we have to engage in the sort of
Speaker 1: long term thinking that that you know, generally doesn't come
Speaker 1: naturally to humans, that we have to to work very
Speaker 1: hard at. You know. I also have to say this
Speaker 1: will probably uh factor into how I read uh future
Speaker 1: science science fiction treatments of off world colonies, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and like I said that, some of these
Speaker 1: concerns I think have already been reflected to varying degrees
Speaker 1: in scientific science fictional creations. So um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: not like you know, I'm saying that this is going
Speaker 1: to to change other artists visions in all cases, but
Speaker 1: it is additional, um food for thought. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you would like to check out other episodes of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, well, previously I would have
Speaker 1: directed you to the mothership to Stuff to Blow your
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Speaker 1: heart listing for the podcast. If you gotta suff to
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Speaker 1: Those are the ways you can support those little off
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