WEBVTT - Dune: The Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:15.000 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.280 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.400 on this podcast we never stopped doning. So it's Dune 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:24.040 yet again. This is part two of the Dune series 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:26.880 that we started earlier this week. So in the last 0:00:26.880 --> 0:00:29.320 episode we talked about the Bennie Jessert and a bit 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.920 about the neuroscience of pain, and today we're here to 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:36.720 talk about what more Bennie Jesser, maybe some Spacing Guild stuff. Yeah, 0:00:36.720 --> 0:00:39.280 that's right. We're going to pick up where we left 0:00:39.320 --> 0:00:40.720 off with the Bennie Jesser and then we're going to 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.959 move on to the Spacing Guild. Um. And I think 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:47.040 the place I'd like to start is to come back 0:00:47.080 --> 0:00:49.400 to something we touched on in last episode, and that 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.960 is the idea that the Bennie Jesser are chiefly concerned 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:57.520 with politics right now. We offered some caveats about that 0:00:57.560 --> 0:00:59.760 in the last episode, and that we often hear the 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:03.840 word politics and think of like electoral democratic politics. Uh, 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.840 the political situation in the Done universe is is not 0:01:06.959 --> 0:01:10.880 so lucky to have democratic electoral politics. They've got some 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:16.760 kind of weird um hybrid uh technological feudalism that has 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:19.960 like an an emperor on top. And then there are 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:24.760 there's like an aristocracy of of landed nobles essentially houses 0:01:24.760 --> 0:01:28.479 who control planets as their fiefdoms. And then there's also 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:34.399 a pretty large input from trade guilds, primarily the Spacing Guild, 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:40.640 which controls the monopoly over the the economy of interstellar travel. Yeah. So, um, yeah, 0:01:40.640 --> 0:01:42.760 if you need a if you need a refresh. Uh. 0:01:42.880 --> 0:01:45.200 Certainly we went over the world of Done in the 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:47.680 last episode. Uh, so go back and listen to that 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:50.800 one if you you didn't have a chance to. So. 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:52.640 One of the books that I was looking at for 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:58.760 this was that was another fun um collection of Done essays. Uh. 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.520 The book titled un in Philosophy and in it philosophy 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:06.480 professor Jeffrey Nicholas who also edited the book. He examines 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.919 the topic of the benegessriate in facing the gom Jabbar Test. 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:13.640 He touches, you know, on the point that they that 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.959 they make in this you know conversation between Paul and 0:02:17.000 --> 0:02:20.160 the Reverend Mother that the Benigessa are concerned with politics. 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:22.800 But uh, Nicholas points out that that what we're talking 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:28.200 about here with politics is politics in Aristotle's sense of 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.600 the world word um, political science one of the three 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:37.960 sciences he outlined, alongside contemplative science, which would have included 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:41.960 both physics and metaphysics, and practical science. So there's a 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:44.920 lot of talk about tripods uh in you know, in 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:49.000 the the order of things in Dune um and and 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:50.720 so in a way that kind of matches up I 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:54.880 guess very loosely with with Aristotle's three prompt approach to 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.760 understanding the universe. Man, I have not looked at that 0:02:57.800 --> 0:03:00.760 philosophy of Dune book, but that sounds interesting. So does 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.680 it get into like the what is the philosophical outlook 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:08.960 of Baron Harconan and stuff? You know? And there's a 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.080 lot of fun stuff and they there's definitely some hobbs, 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:13.120 I know, I'll touch on some hobs here in a bet, 0:03:13.840 --> 0:03:16.920 but there's also, um, there's also one let's see what 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:20.680 is it? Uh? I think it's something like, you know, 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.680 basically like one article walks through the various houses and 0:03:23.720 --> 0:03:25.720 factions and talks about how they would have been thought 0:03:25.760 --> 0:03:29.400 off by uh say Socrates or whoever. So it's it's 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:32.799 a fun read. So you know, one of the things 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.920 about Aristotle is is that there is a there's a 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.000 quote that's often attributed to him, Uh, pretty famous to 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:43.600 the Aristotle quote, man is by nature a political animal. Yeah, 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:46.760 And I think this is an interesting quote, partially in 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:49.880 how I think it is often misunderstood because I think 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:52.480 a lot of times people take that quote to mean 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.320 that that Aristotle was saying that man is the only 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.880 political animal, which he does not mean. He actually mentioned 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.640 other animals as political animals as well. Yeah. He he 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:06.240 also refers to, you know, use social insects and so 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:10.200 forth as as being political animals. Again, one of the 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:12.000 reasons this is interesting to come back to this is 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:14.800 because the Benegestra are big about talking about the difference 0:04:14.800 --> 0:04:18.760 between humans and animals, and given their focus on politics, 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.479 we can't help it go in this direction. Okay, but 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.080 so what did he mean by saying this? Then? Well, 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:25.560 I was reading a little bit more about this, and 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:27.240 apparently this is this is an area where you can 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.640 get into some amount of debate and we're not going 0:04:29.680 --> 0:04:33.520 to go uh, there's this a certain amount of philosophical 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:35.880 back and forth on this. But I was looking at 0:04:35.880 --> 0:04:38.880 a paper from Cheryl E. A Body, Uh and it 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:43.400 was the article Higher and Lower Political Animals, published in 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:47.039 the Journal of Animal Ethics in two six and she 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:51.039 writes that that Aristotle considered man's impulse towards partnership with 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:53.200 others to be the most important, and that it is 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.200 only through these partnerships that happiness is possible. Uh So, 0:04:57.320 --> 0:04:59.280 I mean it sounds to me like you know, that 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:02.560 means that, uh, the beneagess are all about happiness obviously, 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.200 um right right right right up there out and uh, 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:11.800 Aristotle broke this down across the different dimensions, um of 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.880 of our interactions with other people, at the household level, 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.760 at the village level, and then at the what he 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.560 considered kind of the ultimate level. The Polish a collection 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:24.640 of human beings who lived together through the creation of 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.720 laws allowing them all to survive and flourish. And this 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:31.200 is where we get politics. As the word politics. I 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:32.960 think there's a pretty good case to be made that 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:36.599 the Aristotle is onto something here about the fundamental nature 0:05:36.640 --> 0:05:41.040 of humankind that sort of um, that what makes us 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:45.400 really special is our ability to cooperate with one another. 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.680 And it's not that other animals lack the ability to 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:50.839 cooperate with one another. I mean you might say that 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.040 it is say like a youth social insect colony coordinates 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:58.279 their activities even better than humans can. But humans have 0:05:58.279 --> 0:06:02.720 have much richer is of cooperating with one another than 0:06:02.880 --> 0:06:05.720 even say you social insects do, because we have things 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:10.920 like language, which allows us to very very minutely coordinate 0:06:10.960 --> 0:06:15.279 our behaviors and cooperate in ways that are have levels 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:20.960 of complexity you couldn't really imagine without something like language. Yeah. So, 0:06:21.320 --> 0:06:24.919 Nick Nicholas, coming back to his paper, rights that Aristotle 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.680 considered politics a place for human practical reason to flourish. 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.240 So it was the ideal place not for everyone, but 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:35.960 for the best minds to busy themselves. And um, you know, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:39.839 thinking thinking again to the done universe. It's easy to 0:06:39.839 --> 0:06:45.000 to focus on all the at times dystopian aspects of 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.920 it and the war and the intrigue, but you know, 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:54.440 it is a pretty cooperative interplanetary empire when you look 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:56.400 at it from a certain perspective, you know, I mean, 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.760 they have managed to not annihilate each other with the 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:03.279 tom weapons. They have this uh this you know this, this, um, 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:07.320 this treaty in place, um even though there's a great 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:12.239 deal of inequality in the Dune universe. Um, they're all 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:16.360 all these factions are working more or less together. Well yeah, 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:19.280 and I think you can see those dualities all throughout 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:21.920 real history as well. I mean, look at any number 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:24.480 of empires. You can think of the Roman Empire or 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:27.040 the British Empire. I mean, all of these are at 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:31.440 the same time kind of marvelous achievements of cooperation and 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:34.920 coordination at the same time that they are brutal engines 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.080 of oppression. Yeah. Now, a body discusses the same thing 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:40.120 that you mentioned that you know, some that we've discussed 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.600 just a second ago. That you know, some take Aristotle 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.600 to mean that non human animals cannot be political. Others 0:07:45.640 --> 0:07:48.080 see it as the view that humans are merely more 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:52.800 political than any non human animal. But again, Aristotle puts 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:57.720 a great deal that emphasis on language. Um and uh, yeah, 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:02.840 it is. Language is key to the human realm of politics. 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.440 Um in in good ways and bad ways. Well, yeah, 0:08:06.480 --> 0:08:10.600 a language allows for a complexity of coordination. That is, 0:08:10.960 --> 0:08:13.480 uh that that of course can serve both good and 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:17.480 bad end. So it allows for extremely complex coordination to 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.320 service of the greater good and helping one another, but 0:08:20.440 --> 0:08:24.760 also to uh, you know, ever richer layers of deception 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:28.480 than than could be imagined by any other kind of animal. Yeah, 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:30.160 I mean, I've seen him pointed out that one of 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.719 the things that our language does is it allows us 0:08:32.760 --> 0:08:37.120 to share uh, particular points of view with others, perceptions 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.960 of of of what's working, what's not working, of what's 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:44.000 bringing us pleasure and what's bringing us pain. Now, I 0:08:44.000 --> 0:08:47.240 want to come back to the benegested distinction of humans 0:08:47.240 --> 0:08:49.840 and animals again, This is, you know, they're very much 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.440 of of the mindset. Don't be an animal, be a human? Uh. 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:57.320 And the reverend mother tells uh Paul that the test 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:01.240 is about seeing if he is human or not um 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.040 and the ben adjested training seems to a larger degree 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.080 revolve around the high application of reason in a way 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.920 that overpowers animal instincts. Again that the example that is 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:13.600 thrown out as the animal choose its leg off if 0:09:13.600 --> 0:09:16.640 it's cott in a trap, but the human, the political 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:21.760 animal par excellence, plots and practices politics over the fact 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.920 of it's entrapment. Well, in fact, the very example she 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.480 gives is one of deception. Remember that he would feign 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:31.520 death in order to attract the trapper and then and 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.160 then strike out and kill him. Yes, and of course 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.840 this is uh in a way this foreshadows what is 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:42.920 to come UH in the novel Dune, because the trades 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:47.720 acquisition of Aracus is widely seen as a trap. And 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:52.360 and Paul's father um to to, not not entirely by 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:55.400 his own choice, ends up in the position of the 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.600 animal that must strike out from the trap in an 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.640 attempt to punish his oppressor. Uh. It ends up not 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.640 quite working, but it's It's again one of the great 0:10:05.679 --> 0:10:08.960 scenes in the book. And and I thought a wonderfully 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:13.960 um recreated scene in the recent film adaptation. Now coming 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.160 back to the philosophy of of Dune book, Nicholas uses 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:21.000 the com Jabar awareness test to make a point about 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:23.760 the current state of humanity in our world, the real world, 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:28.120 in particular the environmental pair al we face. UM. He says, 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:30.360 you know this, this is the trap. We are the trap. 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.040 But we are arguably not actually human enough, not aware 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.080 of our place in the world and our connections to 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:39.240 one another. Uh to act in the best interests of 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:43.800 the city. Uh. Quote Herbert's Philosophy of the human warns 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:48.040 against two things being animal and being a slave. As animals, 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:50.720 we may be enslaved by our animal desires, but there 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:53.560 is a different slavery being a slave to the machine. 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.920 The Butallerian Jahad freed humanity. It freed beings from enslavement 0:10:57.920 --> 0:11:00.520 to machines, and it freed us to devote up our 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:04.160 human talents. Herbert isn't asking us to abandon our favorite 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:08.560 playthings iPod, computer and game systems. He's challenging us to 0:11:08.679 --> 0:11:11.000 find out how to use those toys to live a 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:15.040 human life. The warning is not to stagnate. Now, if 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.559 we're thinking about environmental catastrophe, you know it. It may 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:22.560 also seem counterintuitive to think of politics as the answer, obviously, 0:11:22.640 --> 0:11:25.040 but but you know, there are more than enough examples 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.640 in our modern world of political barriers to environmental action. 0:11:29.640 --> 0:11:32.120 But of course it is through politics, certainly in the 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.800 Aristotle sense of the word, that anything is done for 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:37.320 the greater good of humanity. Yeah, and a very crude 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:41.000 since I think this analogy works. Doing something about, say, 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:45.240 environmental problems, which will eventually cause harm to do lots 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:48.840 of people or to everyone, may require some kind of 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:52.040 initial investment. It's it's sort of like the marshmallow test. 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:55.320 But for you know, but for people as a whole, like, 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:58.080 can can you actually do the thing that's going to 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:00.800 get you a better outcome in the long run if 0:12:00.840 --> 0:12:02.560 it hurts you a little bit in the short run? 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:06.400 A lot of times the answer is no. Now, right 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.600 after I UM was looking at this material, I just 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:13.480 happened to be watching a ted X talk for for 0:12:13.559 --> 0:12:17.040 other reasons, UM, and it's one from Jill Bolt Taylor, 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:21.280 author of My Stroke of Insight, a brain scientists personal journey. UM. 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:24.320 I think we've mentioned her on the show before. She 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:27.920 had this UM this journey to recover from a stroke, 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:33.120 and wrote about it quite interesting. But this particular talk 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:37.079 was the nero and anatomical transformation of the teenage brain 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:42.360 from and Taylor's main points in this concern what happens 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.760 to the teenage brain, but also just the development of 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:46.520 the brain in general. And I thought some of her 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.839 points lined up with a lot of this Benedjester at 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:53.960 thinking in the concept of Aristotle's politics, she points out 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:58.199 that we are feeling animals that think, not thinking animals 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:01.880 that feel, uh, and we we are all neuro circuitry. 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.520 That's something that she drives home, and as such, we 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.840 think thoughts. We then feel emotions based on those thoughts, 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:12.760 and then we run physiological responses to those emotions. And 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:18.000 for sustained or recurring psychological responses, such as anger, we 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:20.720 wind up running the same thoughts over and over again 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:25.120 to reproduce those same results. And she drives something that 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:26.880 you know, we have we have an ability to pick 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:29.720 and choose what's going on inside of our heads. Uh. 0:13:29.760 --> 0:13:31.959 And she sums it up by saying, you know again, 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:34.880 we are we are feeling creatures who think, uh. We 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.240 tend to be more concerned with the me rather than 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.160 the we uh. And and in this we fall short 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.280 of the idea of that polus of the of the 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:47.040 city uh that Aristotle writes about. So I think it's 0:13:47.400 --> 0:13:53.359 interesting to think about like political action coming together, communal responses, 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:58.720 planning towards um, you know, future problems. Is that these 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:02.160 are things that one hand, they're difficult for individuals to 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.040 do at times, but on the other hand, like this 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:07.480 is this is something that humans do excel at. I mean, 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:09.800 we're not We're not you know that we don't have 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.640 the same level of of efficiency compared to you. Social 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.959 insects certainly but um, but it is one of the 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:19.280 strengths of humanity that that you know, virtually anything that 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:23.600 we consider great in in human culture, uh, you know, 0:14:23.640 --> 0:14:25.960 and and um and in the history of our civilizations 0:14:26.680 --> 0:14:29.880 it has been is due to people working together and 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:32.920 bringing things out of that. But it's also interesting the 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:36.320 way that um, the use of politics and the Benny 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:41.080 Jesser it since I guess reflects both types of both 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:44.400 ways of thinking about the words. So on the one hand, 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:48.000 you have them sort of executing long term plans through 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:51.840 massive cooperation of they're they're they're coordinating activities on a 0:14:51.840 --> 0:14:55.800 galactic scale, uh, to try to serve some goal in 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.680 the end. But you could also see them, as I 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:03.440 think quite accurately rue fless power seekers within a ruthless system, 0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:07.600 and that those are both true at the same time. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:13.360 they're they're definitely you know, engaging in shadow government conspiracies. 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:17.600 They are they're manipulating uh, pretty much anyone they come 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:19.800 into contact with to certain degrees. But the end then 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:23.120 then they also have these goals of creating some sort 0:15:23.120 --> 0:15:28.720 of a human supercomputer that will you know, bring about 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:31.200 some sort of balance. Uh. And if you know, long 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.200 term success for the human species. But then again, I 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:36.640 guess that's that is often if you if you if 0:15:36.680 --> 0:15:40.080 you look at at today's politics, I mean that is 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:42.680 often the case, right, I mean there's you'll see politics 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.600 who yeah, have some sort of a a particular aim 0:15:45.680 --> 0:15:47.880 or goal that they talk about that lines up with 0:15:47.880 --> 0:15:51.840 other people's estimations of what could make the world a 0:15:51.840 --> 0:15:54.960 better place. Um, but then they've also got to play 0:15:55.000 --> 0:15:57.680 that political game. Uh. And you can, I can, you know, 0:15:57.720 --> 0:15:59.600 you can argue, well, they have to play that political 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.320 game in order to to do this thing or to 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:04.680 attempt to do this thing. But then you also wonder, 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.880 like what is the actual driving force? Is it? Is 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:09.880 it the the good thing you want to do for 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.600 the world, the change you want to you want to enact, 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:17.160 or is it that game and that that's that continual 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:21.000 you know grasp for power. Well, you know, on on 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.880 on one hand, I uh, I feel a draw towards optimism, 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:26.920 you know, I want to be optimistic about that kind 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:31.440 of project. But I also think that people's real motivating 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:36.160 priorities are often determined largely by their habits, by what 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:39.560 they do day after day. And so if you get 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:41.160 in the mindset of, well, I got to play the 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:44.560 game in order to achieve some lofty goal that would 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:46.760 be for the good of humankind or something. I mean, 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:49.440 in a way, I guess that is what people must 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.920 do if they want to achieve those goals through say 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:55.120 mass action, which has to be coordinated through politics probably, 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.720 But there I think there's always a risk of by 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:02.520 playing the game, you're real values become the playing of 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:04.960 the game. What is in further into of playing the game, 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:06.840 because that is what you have to do day in 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.199 and day out, right, right, And so like in the 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.320 doone University, you're a member of a great house. You 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:14.360 you don't want to just be trying to assassinate your 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.080 rivals just for the stake of assassination. It's just because 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:19.720 it's just this is the way politics works. But if 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:21.840 that is what you spend day after day doing all 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:25.520 the time, I think that ultimately will end up defining 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:28.159 your main priorities. You know, when when you're forced to 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.240 choose between one thing and another, you'll probably choose what's 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:34.280 in service of the projects you pursue day after day 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:43.840 all the time. All right, well, why don't we move 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:47.800 along to the Spacing Guild and to uh, to set 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.159 the stage, I thought we might do, uh, one of 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:52.720 these little readings here. Perhaps we can drop a little 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:58.200 ambience into the audio bed here, and uh, we'll hear 0:17:58.240 --> 0:18:04.280 from the Spacing Guild handbook. Any path that narrows future 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:09.479 possibilities may become a lethal trap. Humans are not threading 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:13.080 their way through a maze. They scan a vast horizon 0:18:13.119 --> 0:18:17.520 filled with unique opportunities. The narrowing viewpoint of the maze 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:21.439 should appeal only to creatures with their noses buried in 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:26.440 the sand. A point of order, wouldn't burying your nose 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:28.880 in the sand actually be a good way to inhale 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:33.679 significant amount of spice and thus broad horizons. Yeah, that's 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:35.359 why I thought this is a great quote to start with, 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:37.840 because on one hand, that's the sand, that's where all 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.000 that spices, and uh, you know, that's that's what the 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:42.760 Guild is all about. And then on the other hand, 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:46.480 the thing they're saying don't do is the main thing 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:51.000 that Paul accuses the Spacing Guild of doing, of um, 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:55.560 you know, of of not considering the vast horizon, but 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.320 but considering the narrow viewpoint of how to avoid catastrophes 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.240 in the near future, and of course how to maintain 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:04.760 that spice. You know, this quote actually reminds me of 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:06.720 something that's brought up in in an essay I'm going 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.280 to get into in a bit by by a NASA 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:13.320 JPL navigator who has written about the Guild navigators in 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:18.200 uh in Dune, and one of the concepts he talks 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:22.760 about in his essay is the difference between calculating a 0:19:22.800 --> 0:19:26.159 solution to a problem in a best fit fashion or 0:19:26.200 --> 0:19:29.520 in a first fit fashion. Uh. You know, these are 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.119 very different approaches you can have. So one says you 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.720 you keep trying to solve the problem until you find 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.919 the first solution that actually works, and the other is 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:42.560 you keep trying to solve the problem, going through all 0:19:42.640 --> 0:19:47.040 possible solutions until you have identified the optimal one. And 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:49.560 of course people think, well, you know, going for the 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:51.680 best fit path has got to be better, right, because 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:55.160 some even some successful paths are better than other successful paths. 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.720 But he outlines the fact that for a lot of 0:19:58.800 --> 0:20:00.919 real world types and air areos, even if you have 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:06.720 supercomputers involved, calculating best fit pathways is sometimes such a 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:11.960 monumental calculation task that it's functionally impossible. So you know, 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:16.040 they're saying, we'll be aware of all possibilities. But there's 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.680 also the possibility that being aware of all possibilities puts 0:20:19.720 --> 0:20:22.560 you in a paralyzing state of inaction and in decision 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:25.560 because you can never finish doing all the calculations, and 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:27.639 maybe you would be better to just sort of bury 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.360 your nose whenever you figure out one path that works, 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:32.720 just do that. Anyway, I guess we can keep that 0:20:32.760 --> 0:20:36.479 in mind as we talked about the Space and Guild. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Well, 0:20:36.560 --> 0:20:39.240 let's let's refresh though in the Space and Guild, um 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:42.080 be because certainly you haven't read the book in a while, 0:20:42.119 --> 0:20:44.639 you might have forgotten some of this and the Space 0:20:44.720 --> 0:20:48.000 and Guild that they are present in Dune Part one, 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:50.720 the movie that that just came out last month, but 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:55.040 they're not maybe not in the forefront of things. So 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:57.919 first of all, as we mentioned earlier, um, this is 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:01.560 one of the great mental physical train schools, uh, the 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:05.800 Spacing Guild, and we're told in Dune that they constituted 0:21:05.880 --> 0:21:09.959 one leg of the political tripod, maintaining the Great Convention. 0:21:10.040 --> 0:21:12.159 This is the truth among all the great houses and 0:21:12.200 --> 0:21:16.280 the imperium that bans atomic weaponry and permits these kind 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:20.480 of formal wars of assassination against rulers and key figures, 0:21:20.480 --> 0:21:23.200 so that way, you know, it's members of great houses 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:27.679 that get strategically murdered as opposed to whole populations and 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.960 planets due to you know, a catastrophic use of weapons 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:33.719 of mass destruction. The other legs of the tripod are 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.199 the Imperial House and the Landstrade. The Landstrade is the 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.159 body representing all of the great houses. Now, by the 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:43.040 time of the of the events in the novel Dune, 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:47.119 the Spacing Guild is immensely powerful. They control a monopoly 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:51.760 on space travel and transport, as well as interplanetary banking 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:55.199 and so some elements you know, you know, like everything 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.000 and doing. You can easily think of parallels in history. 0:21:58.440 --> 0:22:00.800 Uh for instance, the non military are aspects of the 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:03.840 Night Templars is there, as well as of course, the 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:06.920 the East India Company, the Dutch East India Company, UM 0:22:07.080 --> 0:22:09.400 and and various other monopolies you can you can turn 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:13.920 to like what happens when one group controlled something absolutely 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.520 or near absolutely. So there's something interesting about the fact 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.639 that the Spacing Guild has this monopoly on interstellar travel 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:24.120 in the Dune universe, which is that, if I understand 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.639 it correctly, this monopoly is handled in a way that 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:31.120 that's different than a lot of real world monopolies, which 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:34.119 are maintained in some cases by by force, you know, 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:38.080 by by like military or paramilitary force, saying like no 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:40.440 one else may may try to compete with with us, 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:45.480 or sometimes by just like wealth inequality, by saying like, 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:48.119 you know, we're the only kind of company that that 0:22:48.280 --> 0:22:51.600 can afford the infrastructure to do this. But in the 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:54.639 Dune universe, it seems to be that the monopoly is 0:22:54.680 --> 0:22:58.280 maintained not by any of these conventional methods, but by 0:22:58.280 --> 0:23:03.760 having a monopoly on the navigators themselves, a monopoly on expertise, 0:23:04.680 --> 0:23:07.480