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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. This is

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Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today it's a

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Speaker 1: vault episode. This one originally aired April. It was called

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Speaker 1: Astronomical Suffering and the Terran Diaspora. I think this one

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Speaker 1: was about a bunch of weird thought experiments about like

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Speaker 1: how many humans there could ultimately be and how miserable

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Speaker 1: it would be okay for them to be in the

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Speaker 1: far reaches of space. Yeah, so it's, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's a darker episode, but it's it's big darkness

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Speaker 1: and not like like like small sort of relatable darkness.

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Speaker 1: For the most part. We hope you enjoy. You've finally

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Speaker 1: done it. For so long, the solution alluded to you.

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

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

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Speaker 1: But here it is this erinny An engine, a functional

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Speaker 1: technological means of transporting humanity not only at greater speeds

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Speaker 1: between planets, but two other stars. You fall to your

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Speaker 1: knees before it's golden splendor. You swipe through the air

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Speaker 1: at your side and summon a holographic keypad. It's time

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Speaker 1: to tell the corporation what you've achieved. But before you

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: and a glowing figure slips through the incision. It speaks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: We're getting into this topic um of astronomical suffering. And

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: we go about our decision making. Yeah, so, one thing

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Speaker 1: that this topic makes me think about, maybe a good

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Speaker 1: place to start is how much of few sure thinking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: of it should. Yes, the the Ean Malcolm uh factor

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

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Speaker 1: if not most of us, colonization of other worlds has

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Speaker 1: kind of always seemed humanity's destiny. And you know, part

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Speaker 1: of it is simply the extrapolation of our terrestrial ideals

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Speaker 1: and ambitions and just the sort of flow of of

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Speaker 1: world history. We're just taking that in applying it to

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Speaker 1: other worlds. Are species spread from continent to continent, finally

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Speaker 1: overtaking every last uh, you know, truly habitable island in

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Speaker 1: the global ocean. And so we've long dreamt a voyaging

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Speaker 1: off planet to whatever islands of life or potential life

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Speaker 1: we might find or create in this cosmic ocean. Now,

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Speaker 1: I know most of you consume science fiction, so we

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Speaker 1: don't have to tell you how pervasive the dream happens

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Speaker 1: to be. You know, Star Trek continues to stand as

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Speaker 1: a towering, optimistic example of how this might play out,

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Speaker 1: but we also see it in all manner of sci

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Speaker 1: fi visions, you know, from the near future, gritty world

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Speaker 1: of something like the expanse or altered carbon you know,

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Speaker 1: to far reaching worlds like done Star Wars, the Culture Series,

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Speaker 1: and many, many, many more. I think Dune might be

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Speaker 1: a good example for us to keep in mind throughout

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Speaker 1: this episode, though, because while I don't recall in Dune

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Speaker 1: there being much of a question about the general project

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Speaker 1: of colonizing worlds other than the humanity's origin on Earth,

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Speaker 1: um doing at least does present a vision of a

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Speaker 1: planet that is both inhabited and completely crappy, just completely

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

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Speaker 1: yet we're there because we have to be now and done.

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Speaker 1: That's because of demand for a particular resource that's only

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Speaker 1: generated on this planet, but you can imagine other scenarios

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Speaker 1: where there could be a planet that's are just really

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: And there's also that kind of Nietzschean quality to some

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

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Speaker 1: and then there's the home world of the Sarticle or

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

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Speaker 1: which is described as a quote unquote hell world. The

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

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Speaker 1: creates the super soldiers, and of course Aracus creates their

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Speaker 1: own eat Um fighting force as well. Uh So, Yeah,

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: the planet where the superman villain Doomsday comes from, right

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: idea is covered in I think some other works as well.

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Speaker 1: I know, uh in in Banks in the Culture series

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Speaker 1: has a has a species it shows up that is

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

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Speaker 1: fact that it emerges from such a hostile and competitive ecosystem.

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Speaker 1: Uh that, like natural death was just never part of

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Speaker 1: its of its physiology, you know. I will say there's

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Speaker 1: another science fiction book that I've talked about on the

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Speaker 1: show before. I think I recommended it one year for

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Speaker 1: summer reading that I really enjoyed, specifically because it asks

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Speaker 1: a question along these lines. It's uh, Kim Stanley Robinson's

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Speaker 1: novel Aurora, which is about Generation starship that has a

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Speaker 1: colonization mission, um, you know, trying to go to another

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Speaker 1: star system and colonize another habitable planet. But a big

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Speaker 1: theme of that book is the question of just like

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Speaker 1: how how special Earth might be and ways in which

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Speaker 1: we we don't realize that leaving Earth is just abandoning

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Speaker 1: everything that we depend upon and everything that makes life good.

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Speaker 1: And so ultimately there is kind of a question in

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Speaker 1: the book like, well, maybe should we should we actually

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Speaker 1: have our sight set on other planets, Maybe there's something

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Speaker 1: inescapably perfect about Earth, and instead we should focus on

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Speaker 1: making Earth as habitable as possible for as long as possible.

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Speaker 1: Um and and I remember, I think reading some reviews

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Speaker 1: of this book that criticized it essentially as being like

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Speaker 1: pessimistic and a down er for for in some ways

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Speaker 1: being characterized as anti space exploration, which I'm not sure

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Speaker 1: the book exactly is, but it at least explores possibilities

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Speaker 1: in that space, which I which I think is fascinating

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

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Speaker 1: you know, actually a Christian and I record an episode

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Speaker 1: years ago called the Case Against Space that went into

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Speaker 1: some cases that could be made against spending time and

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Speaker 1: resources and money on on space exploration, you know, just

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Speaker 1: to explore the other side. But but I think that

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Speaker 1: one thing we get into here is the kind of

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Speaker 1: like soft futurism that we sometimes engage in, like without

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Speaker 1: really thinking long and hard about the rigors of creating

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Speaker 1: an off world colony, of say, colonizing and terraforming Mars.

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Speaker 1: You just kind of tuck it away in the back

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Speaker 1: of your mind, is like, oh, well, we have a

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Speaker 1: plan B and and and and in reality we we

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Speaker 1: don't really have a plan B. There is no earth

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Speaker 1: to um you were talking about very um inhospitable worlds,

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Speaker 1: extreme environments, places that are even the closest uh locations,

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Speaker 1: we could go to our far far away and and

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: back of your head, is like a reason to not

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Speaker 1: fully invest in the health of this planet. Yeah, totally. Uh, Yeah,

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

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Speaker 1: we got a backup plan. Yeah, I mean, long term

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: to entertain some of the worst case scenarios as well.

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Speaker 1: Oh totally. I mean I want to be clear that

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Speaker 1: in talking about this today, we're not trying to make

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Speaker 1: the case that space colonization is bad. We're just saying

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Speaker 1: here are some questions to consider exactly. Yeah, because I

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

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Speaker 1: expanding to other worlds, it's based in humanity's innate desire

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

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Speaker 1: and this is part of what makes humanity great. Though

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Speaker 1: it also leaches into our vanity and pride and more

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

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Speaker 1: programs continue to work towards, you know, such dreams, uh,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: violent on quest thing. And you know, and we like

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

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

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Speaker 1: conquest of whatever you find when you get somewhere, and so, uh,

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

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

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Speaker 1: that drive without doing something harmful. Maybe they're there are

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

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Speaker 1: adventure too, and we could explore without having to make

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

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Speaker 1: make sense? Yeah? Absolutely, yeah, Now certainly, you know, there's

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Speaker 1: sci fi visions that that drag those elements in, and

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Speaker 1: as we'll discuss, there are some It's it's not that

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Speaker 1: that space colonization is a risk free venture. It's not

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

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

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Speaker 1: an optimum miss. The idea of exploring Mars, for the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: Earth and uh, here's here's an analogy maybe for for

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Speaker 1: people who are trying to like plan the retirement savings

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Speaker 1: retirement savings in the stock of one company. Any any

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Speaker 1: investment manager or whatever would tell you don't do that.

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Speaker 1: You need to diversify your investments in order to make

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Speaker 1: sure that you know your that your money is safe.

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Speaker 1: You've got to invest in multiple different things, because if

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Speaker 1: something bad happens to one company and you're totally invested there,

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: over time, the risk just keeps accumulating more and more

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

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

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Speaker 1: of these on the show Before you Know Things such

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Speaker 1: as near Earth objects potentially colliding with the planet, also

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

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Speaker 1: and in other various examples, some some more futuristic than others,

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Speaker 1: but most given known potential existential risk, you know with

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

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Speaker 1: safeguard against them, at least as far as it's ones

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

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Speaker 1: can we control ourselves? Are? Arguably yes, that's possible, even

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Speaker 1: if it tends to not be the case a lot

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Speaker 1: of the time in human affairs. Can we track and

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Speaker 1: mitigate incoming in eos, Yeah, we're continuing to improve our

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Speaker 1: capabilities in that department. But as we get into long

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Speaker 1: term concerns about say the life of the sun, we'd

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: problems that by definition a civilization cannot anticipate. As I

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Speaker 1: and in Banks explained in the in his book Accession,

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Speaker 1: which is where the term was coined, most civilizations encounter

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Speaker 1: just a one outside context problem, and that is what

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Speaker 1: does them in Now you might be thinking, well, wait

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Speaker 1: a minute, what's an example of an outside context problem.

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

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Speaker 1: something that we're not really envisioning right now. But maybe

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Speaker 1: the easiest example would be an encounter with a with

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Speaker 1: a totally uh incomprehensible alien species or something. Yeah. Yeah,

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

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Speaker 1: one example that is often thrown out. I think Banks

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Speaker 1: made this uh analogy as well, is if you are

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Speaker 1: one of the native people's of say South America, and

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Speaker 1: then European show up on your shore in these in

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Speaker 1: these ships with horses and all this technology. Um, it

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Speaker 1: is not something they anticipated. And there were and there

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Speaker 1: were other aspects of that problem that they just could

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Speaker 1: not anticipate, say the disease factor, and uh and they ultimately,

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

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

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Speaker 1: the peoples of the New World. But another thing we

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: near Earth object impacts or something. It's just going to

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

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

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Speaker 1: red giant, and and Earth will get too hot to

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: would the moral cost be uh to a true Taran diaspora,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: And we are we are life. No matter how self

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: species becoming exclusively female. Um. But you know, now I

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: This is the meat of philosophy and theology. You know,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: to be. Then what does that say about the overall

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: and all. Uh, then then how do we square how

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: the staked flag of empire, or perhaps I really we

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: by Marco Covid. Uh. Not to be confused with takishi kovacs,

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: Swiss social scientist who is the co founder and CEO

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: hosts a German language podcast titled din Katalier, which you

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

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Speaker 1: d E K A T E l I E R

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Speaker 1: dot x y z. So if you were a German speaker, uh,

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Speaker 1: check that out. It's uh I would check it out

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Speaker 1: if my German were not just the most basic level ever.

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Speaker 1: Uh So, you wanted to do this topic today because

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Speaker 1: you you read an article by Covids, right, Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: published in UM. It's an open science framework publication titled

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Speaker 1: Risks of Space Colonization. You can access the full paper

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Speaker 1: online and I urge everyone to do so because it's

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Speaker 1: a thought provoking read and it really puts the whole

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Speaker 1: enterprise of off world colonies under philosophical scrutiny, not to

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Speaker 1: say that he doesn't touch on ideas that I think

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Speaker 1: are already out there in the in the zeitgeist and

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Speaker 1: in the you know, the science fiction whole consideration of

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Speaker 1: the future. But but it's really a great ride up.

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Speaker 1: We're not going to go through everything Covid discusses here,

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Speaker 1: because he certainly discusses the risks and rewards of space colonization,

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Speaker 1: including the notion that the acceleration of space colonization capability

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Speaker 1: would just increase the existential risk coming at us, like

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Speaker 1: all the technological ways that we could potentially destroy ourselves

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Speaker 1: or make life worse on the planet, that being able

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Speaker 1: to to move at great speeds, to have orbital you know, supremacy,

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Speaker 1: that these things would just uh create more ways for

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Speaker 1: us to hurt ourselves. I mean, I feel like we're

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Speaker 1: doing a bad enough job already at avoiding species level risks. Yeah. Yeah,

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

430
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: from God, and the idea that you know, you wouldn't

431
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:36,040
Speaker 1: even need explosives if you had orbital supremacy, if you

432
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:38,159
Speaker 1: had enough to just mass up there in orbit that

433
00:24:38,200 --> 00:24:41,159
Speaker 1: you could drop down things like that it's the ultimate

434
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:45,439
Speaker 1: high ground. Yeah, exactly. And he also discusses contact with

435
00:24:45,480 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 1: microbial extratractical extraterrestrial life, which we've discussed on the show before,

436
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 1: secession and independence, reactionary colonies, intercolonial conflict, which is another

437
00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:00,920
Speaker 1: topic we've definitely uh produced episodes on, and much much more.

438
00:25:01,280 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: But I wanted to focus in on some of the

439
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:06,679
Speaker 1: other ideas the outlines here, such as the risk of

440
00:25:06,880 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: moral catastrophes quote massively undesirable outcomes of engaging in space

441
00:25:13,000 --> 00:25:18,600
Speaker 1: colonization but without any intent for or complacency towards doing harm.

442
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 1: And the the first of these that he brings up is

443
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:26,480
Speaker 1: the astronomical populations ethics conundrum. And to better understand that,

444
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: we have to first consider what is known as the

445
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:33,000
Speaker 1: repugnant conclusion. Yeah. So, um, if if we got any

446
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 1: moral philosophy nerds out there, you will recognize this immediately.

447
00:25:36,800 --> 00:25:40,399
Speaker 1: The idea of the repugnant conclusion is, uh it's a

448
00:25:40,480 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 1: very popular question in the the domain of population ethics,

449
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 1: the sub branch of ethics about how to know what's

450
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 1: the right thing to do when considering the creation and

451
00:25:52,160 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: maintenance of populations of people. Uh So, the repugnant conclusion

452
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:59,480
Speaker 1: is also known as the mere addition problem, and it

453
00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:03,199
Speaker 1: was famous articulated by the British philosopher Derek Parfit in

454
00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: his nineteen four book Reasons and Persons. As often understood today,

455
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 1: the repugnant conclusion takes the form of a paradox about

456
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: our intuitions on population ethics. Uh. And there are a

457
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:17,840
Speaker 1: lot of ways of expressing or illustrating this paradox. But

458
00:26:17,880 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 1: to make it as simple and as clear as I can,

459
00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 1: the repugnant conclusion is a statement like this, And this

460
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:28,119
Speaker 1: is a quote for from Derek Parfitt. Quote. For any

461
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:32,240
Speaker 1: possible population of at least ten billion people, all with

462
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:36,160
Speaker 1: very high quality of life, there must be some much

463
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:40,959
Speaker 1: larger imaginable population whose existence, if other things are equal,

464
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:44,679
Speaker 1: would be better, even though it's members have lives that

465
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: are barely worth living. So that that sounds very counterintuitive, right,

466
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: Like there's some number we don't know exactly what it is.

467
00:26:52,200 --> 00:26:56,000
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe you know ten trillion people who might have

468
00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:59,639
Speaker 1: all completely miserable lives, But it would be better for

469
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: all those people to exist than for some smaller number

470
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,480
Speaker 1: of people to exist, all having good lives. Now, how

471
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 1: on earth could you arrive at that conclusion. Well, let's

472
00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,040
Speaker 1: illustrate with an example. Um, And of course I'm slightly

473
00:27:13,080 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: oversimplifying here because this arises in a discussion alongside another

474
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:21,400
Speaker 1: complicated issue known as the non identity problem. And with

475
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: respect to the repugnant conclusion, Parfit himself uses an argument

476
00:27:25,040 --> 00:27:28,879
Speaker 1: with more steps and bar graphs and stuff representing hypothetical

477
00:27:28,960 --> 00:27:31,080
Speaker 1: human groups and qualities of life. I'm just going to

478
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: try to get to the heart of it in a

479
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:35,479
Speaker 1: simple and clear way. Let's say you're put in a

480
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:39,920
Speaker 1: weird experiment by a godlike consortium of cardassiev three level

481
00:27:39,960 --> 00:27:44,560
Speaker 1: alien scientists who are so technologically powerful that they can

482
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:47,120
Speaker 1: make realities come in and out of being at will.

483
00:27:47,600 --> 00:27:50,720
Speaker 1: And they give you two options. They give you the

484
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:54,159
Speaker 1: option to make one of two scenarios a reality. Robert,

485
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:57,359
Speaker 1: will you take this test? Yes, let's do it. Okay,

486
00:27:57,359 --> 00:28:01,280
Speaker 1: So scenario one, you get too exist, but I do

487
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,159
Speaker 1: not get to exist. Imagine again, not really me. You

488
00:28:04,200 --> 00:28:07,120
Speaker 1: don't know me. I'm just some hypothetical other person yet

489
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 1: to be born. In your existence, you have a pretty

490
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:13,399
Speaker 1: nice life. You get really good food, you have a

491
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 1: nice house, you get to hang out with friends and family,

492
00:28:16,280 --> 00:28:19,439
Speaker 1: you have free time, get to exercise and experience nature.

493
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,680
Speaker 1: You get to read interesting books and pursue creative work.

494
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: It's pretty great, but I don't exist at all. Now

495
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: here's scenario to both you and I get to exist.

496
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: You keep everything you had in the previous scenario. You

497
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:38,920
Speaker 1: get good material conditions, good relationships and social life, interesting

498
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:43,600
Speaker 1: creative projects to explore, etcetera. Nothing at all changes for you. I,

499
00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: on the other hand, have a less exciting existence. I

500
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 1: have a few social relationships, but I only get to

501
00:28:50,000 --> 00:28:52,840
Speaker 1: talk to people through a glass barrier. And I live

502
00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:56,120
Speaker 1: in a kind of dank concrete building that's always dimly

503
00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 1: lit and a little bit too cold. And I get

504
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:01,440
Speaker 1: enough food to eat, but it's not very exciting. It's

505
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: basically just like microwave frozen fish sticks and tater tots

506
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: and a vitamin supplement to keep me more or less healthy.

507
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 1: I can still sort of pursue my interests in my

508
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: spare time, but I don't have a lot of spare

509
00:29:12,400 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: time after all of my shifts at the Hollywood Acid Factory. Now,

510
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: which scenario would you pick? Oh, this is hard because

511
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,200
Speaker 1: with the first one you've kind of had me like, okay, uh,

512
00:29:23,200 --> 00:29:25,800
Speaker 1: this sounds fine. All you know, my life and my

513
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:29,959
Speaker 1: connections and the things I'm invested in, those exist and

514
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:34,000
Speaker 1: you don't exist. And so like there's you know, you

515
00:29:34,040 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: don't really have a dog in the hunt, right, you

516
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:37,560
Speaker 1: don't have any skin in that. You literally do not

517
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:41,040
Speaker 1: have skin in the game. But then scenario to makes

518
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 1: things a lot more difficult because it's like, now it's

519
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 1: it's kind of this question of do you get to

520
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: exist in this kind of like in this you know,

521
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:53,040
Speaker 1: this more miserable state or not like quite miserable. I

522
00:29:53,080 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: don't know, depending on how you frame it. But yeah,

523
00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:58,160
Speaker 1: it's like, then I feel like I am imposing on

524
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:02,080
Speaker 1: you if I say you can't exist, right, So just

525
00:30:02,160 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 1: imagine all of that is true. But if you asked me,

526
00:30:04,840 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: I would say, well, of course I want to exist.

527
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 1: I don't want to not exist. Yeah. I do not

528
00:30:10,280 --> 00:30:13,440
Speaker 1: feel it is my place to decide that someone should

529
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: not exist, you know, due to the quality of their life.

530
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 1: And in this case, you know, I mean, this is

531
00:30:19,720 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: a scenario to puts me in a very tough place. Yeah,

532
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: And I think most people's intuition when confronted with this

533
00:30:26,600 --> 00:30:30,080
Speaker 1: problem is that it would be unfair to pick scenario one.

534
00:30:30,320 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: Even though my existence in scenario two is not ideal,

535
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:36,600
Speaker 1: you'd assume that if you asked me, I would still

536
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: rather exist than not exist. Right, So scenario two in

537
00:30:41,200 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 1: this context is, by most people's intuition, a better world.

538
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:48,320
Speaker 1: It's a more preferable world. If you had the option,

539
00:30:48,440 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 1: scenario two would be the better one to bring about,

540
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:53,920
Speaker 1: And it's really hard to argue with that reasoning. In

541
00:30:54,000 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: order to argue with that reasoning, you'd have to say

542
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 1: that you have the power unilaterally to say that other

543
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:02,000
Speaker 1: people shouldn't be able to exist and live lives that

544
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:04,480
Speaker 1: they might not rate as perfect but still would want

545
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: to have. But this opens up a very dangerous logic

546
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:12,640
Speaker 1: because it means it's possible to increase the desirability of

547
00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 1: a world just by adding to the number of sentient

548
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 1: minds that want to keep existing in it. Again, this

549
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: is why it's known as the mere addition problem. That

550
00:31:23,480 --> 00:31:26,480
Speaker 1: you can create scenarios where it's better to have a

551
00:31:26,560 --> 00:31:29,840
Speaker 1: world with more minds in it, as long as those

552
00:31:29,880 --> 00:31:33,640
Speaker 1: minds would say that they want to exist, even if

553
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 1: the average quality of human life is drastically reduced. So

554
00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 1: like if you took the average quality of my existence

555
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 1: and your existence together in scenario two, then it would

556
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: be lower than the average of your existence alone in

557
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 1: scenario one. And then if you obey this maxim that

558
00:31:50,960 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 1: you've set out. Now it seems like you're committed to

559
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:56,640
Speaker 1: a chain of logic that leads to the conclusion that

560
00:31:56,720 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: the value of quantity can overwhelm the very able of

561
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 1: quality when it comes to human life, as as long

562
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:07,320
Speaker 1: as most people would rather exist than not, some greater

563
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 1: number of lives are preferable to some smaller number, even

564
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:16,240
Speaker 1: if the lives and the greater number are pretty abjectly miserable. Now,

565
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:17,959
Speaker 1: I think we should know that this logic would not

566
00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 1: apply to lives that are so miserable that people would

567
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: say themselves that they would truly rather cease to exist.

568
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:27,479
Speaker 1: You could think of some kind of like torture, like

569
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,360
Speaker 1: hell world or something, you know, like if Hell existed,

570
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,320
Speaker 1: it would just be better for that to not exist. Yeah,

571
00:32:33,360 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 1: this is the the the option we're talking about here

572
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: is more in line with to bring in us another

573
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: great science fiction example, uh, the Martian Colonies and total recall,

574
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: where most people have it pretty horrible there, or at

575
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: least it's a rough existence, but they would still fight

576
00:32:49,520 --> 00:32:52,360
Speaker 1: to survive. Yeah, yeah, and they they get into how

577
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: like the the early like the settlers were just basically

578
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 1: living in caves. You know, it's just this this brutal

579
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:00,800
Speaker 1: primitive existence. And yet at this same time, like they

580
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:05,320
Speaker 1: you know, they're they're not in just constant torture. Yeah, exactly. Now,

581
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:07,480
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear, as we said at

582
00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: the beginning, the point of this is not that the

583
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 1: repugnant conclusion is correct. It's actually, you know, Derek Parfitt

584
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:18,000
Speaker 1: highlights this to say, like this really seems to be incorrect.

585
00:33:18,040 --> 00:33:20,720
Speaker 1: It really seems to go against our intuitions. So the

586
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: problem is figuring out what part of the logical chain

587
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,920
Speaker 1: that gets you there is wrong. Because I mean, most

588
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:30,960
Speaker 1: people I think would say that this this conclusion is incorrect.

589
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: There are these practical moral implications to it. If it

590
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: were actually correct, if the repugnant conclusion were really did

591
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: have moral force, it would have implications like humans should

592
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: engage in maximal natalism, right, like the idea that humans

593
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 1: should reproduce as much as possible to create as much

594
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:51,800
Speaker 1: human life as we possibly can, because to create less

595
00:33:51,840 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 1: than the maximum possible amount of human life would be

596
00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:58,040
Speaker 1: immoral under this view, if you didn't work to maximize

597
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: the human population, you're denying future people the right to exist.

598
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,880
Speaker 1: And again, you know, too many people. That seems intuitively absurd.

599
00:34:05,960 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: Why would you trade a world with less people living

600
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:13,080
Speaker 1: fulfilling lives for a world with vastly more people living

601
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,520
Speaker 1: lives you know, at the edge of what resources they

602
00:34:15,520 --> 00:34:18,960
Speaker 1: can get to barely survive. For instance, you could think

603
00:34:18,960 --> 00:34:22,399
Speaker 1: about it in terms of cat ownership, you know, like

604
00:34:23,040 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 1: on one cat, in my opinion, is enough. Um. But

605
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 1: you know, I could see myself talked into all right,

606
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:30,879
Speaker 1: we need to get a second cat. This cat needs

607
00:34:30,880 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 1: a home. Let's let's let's do it. But then the

608
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: more cats you add to a house, the more chaotic

609
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 1: it becomes, the more work has to go into taking

610
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: care of those cats, until you reach a point where

611
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: it's it's just about quantity over quality, right right, exactly. Now, Again,

612
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:52,960
Speaker 1: this isn't too assume any particular correlation between the number

613
00:34:53,000 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: of people on Earth and their quality of life. I

614
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: mean I think that, um, there are actually some naive

615
00:34:58,560 --> 00:35:03,360
Speaker 1: assumptions going around to out about increasing human populations necessarily

616
00:35:03,680 --> 00:35:06,760
Speaker 1: always leading to bad outcomes. I don't think we should

617
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 1: we should take those conclusions for granted, but just saying that, like,

618
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: if you assume, at some point, you know, if there

619
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: were a hundred trillion humans on Earth, you can definitely

620
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:19,279
Speaker 1: say that that would that would cause problems for for

621
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,759
Speaker 1: ecosystems and stuff right right. And and also, just before

622
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:25,399
Speaker 1: anybody writes me if you have multiple cats in your home,

623
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:27,719
Speaker 1: I am not judging you. I am just saying that

624
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 1: multiple cats, uh, does not feel right for me personally

625
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:35,440
Speaker 1: my personal household. But I know plenty of people with

626
00:35:35,480 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: lots of cats, and they seem quite happy with the situation.

627
00:35:39,000 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 1: But but even they, I think would probably admit that

628
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:46,399
Speaker 1: there is there is some threshold cat ownership. Right, Even

629
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: if you're you're you're a sort of like cat maximalist

630
00:35:49,080 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 1: in a practical sense, you're not really because you're not

631
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,839
Speaker 1: trying to get five hundred cats in your house. Yeah,

632
00:35:54,880 --> 00:36:00,360
Speaker 1: because that's when yeah, that's when law enforcement gets involved. Um.

633
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:02,879
Speaker 1: But then okay, so so on the on the one hand,

634
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 1: you're thinking like, no, that that can't be right, But

635
00:36:05,080 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: then compare it again to our other intuitions that got

636
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 1: us there in the first place. Even if you wish

637
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:12,600
Speaker 1: the quality of your life for much better. Most people

638
00:36:12,640 --> 00:36:16,280
Speaker 1: would prefer existing over not existing, even people who are

639
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:19,239
Speaker 1: in pain, who lack the things that we desire, We

640
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 1: would mostly prefer to be able to exist rather than

641
00:36:22,760 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: not exist. And so it would certainly be wrong of

642
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:29,000
Speaker 1: us to decide on other people's behalf that their lives

643
00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: are not worth living. Right, Yeah, I think there's a

644
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 1: there's a strong argument for that. Um, you know, we

645
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 1: we do get it. We are getting into I know

646
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 1: there are all sorts of lights going off in people's

647
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:41,839
Speaker 1: heads about varying you know, issues, but but but still,

648
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 1: I think that is a for the most part of

649
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: rational argument. Well, at least it's it feels that way.

650
00:36:46,560 --> 00:36:48,560
Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily mean it's right. So this is a

651
00:36:48,600 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 1: paradox we've got it. Seems like we must choose between

652
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 1: two conclusions that both feel morally wrong. So what are

653
00:36:56,480 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: the ways of resolving this paradox? Because so the conclusion

654
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: is widely considered unacceptable. Parfit himself again, he articulates this,

655
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,840
Speaker 1: but not to say that the repugnant conclusion is correct.

656
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: He brings it up to say, like, this is obviously wrong.

657
00:37:10,040 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 1: We have to figure out why this isn't the case,

658
00:37:12,960 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 1: and other philosophers have tried to find ways to avoid

659
00:37:16,200 --> 00:37:18,960
Speaker 1: the conclusion by like questioning some of the premises or

660
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 1: introducing other considerations. So, for example, you could argue that

661
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 1: maximizing the average quality of human life is the ideal

662
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: and so so not like the number of people, but

663
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:32,240
Speaker 1: you just want to make the average human life quality

664
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:34,839
Speaker 1: as high as possible. But under this model you'd run

665
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,799
Speaker 1: into problems. For instance, you could improve the world by

666
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,319
Speaker 1: killing everyone except the happiest person in it, and then

667
00:37:41,360 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: it would have the maximum average happiness. Uh. Then again

668
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 1: you could you could go back against that and say, well,

669
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 1: surely killing everyone else would decrease this person's quality of life.

670
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,120
Speaker 1: But you can imagine like weird sci fi hypotheticals to

671
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:58,280
Speaker 1: get around this, maybe, for example, that the best possible

672
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:01,960
Speaker 1: world is the one with just one maximally satisfied person

673
00:38:02,320 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: living in a simulation of real life for the wind

674
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:08,240
Speaker 1: howls around the you know waste land bunker that houses

675
00:38:08,400 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 1: that that person's real body. Yeah. That that reminds me

676
00:38:12,680 --> 00:38:15,000
Speaker 1: of a there was a Zoom meeting that I attended

677
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 1: this morning. There was like a like a like a

678
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: dad's meeting. There's a line with the school where my

679
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:23,799
Speaker 1: son goes, and we were all asked to rate our

680
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:26,960
Speaker 1: current level of happiness from a one to a kin

681
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: like one being like just I just just absolute misery,

682
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:33,200
Speaker 1: I guess, and tin being like awesome, and most of

683
00:38:33,280 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 1: us put in sevens. I found I put on myself

684
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:37,880
Speaker 1: put in a seven. There's like a seven point to

685
00:38:38,080 --> 00:38:40,880
Speaker 1: someone had a seven point seven. I think somebody somebody

686
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: was having a tough time, and you know, put in

687
00:38:42,719 --> 00:38:45,520
Speaker 1: like a six or a five. And then one person

688
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:47,880
Speaker 1: put in a tin, and I was I was just

689
00:38:47,920 --> 00:38:53,200
Speaker 1: like wow, like, who, let's hand ownership of the what

690
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:55,600
Speaker 1: are they doing where they have the you know, the tin?

691
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: So in this scenario, it's like, just cut out all

692
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 1: the sevens and let's just have only guy with a

693
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:05,239
Speaker 1: tin and uh and he shall be the population of earth. Right,

694
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:08,200
Speaker 1: So that obviously goes against our moral intuitions. Swell, it

695
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: does not feel right that you could you could improve

696
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 1: the moral worth of the world just by eliminating all

697
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: the unhappy people. That's obviously wrong. Uh So, Yeah, you're

698
00:39:17,719 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 1: still stuck with this problems. There are a bunch of

699
00:39:20,040 --> 00:39:22,719
Speaker 1: ways the different philosophers have have tried to deal with it.

700
00:39:22,800 --> 00:39:26,080
Speaker 1: Some have introduced like like sort of ad hoc ways

701
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:30,840
Speaker 1: of calculating life value that's somewhat favor average quality of life,

702
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: but don't totally put that above number of people. I mean,

703
00:39:34,320 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 1: it's just like, this is clearly a difficult problem to

704
00:39:37,920 --> 00:39:41,520
Speaker 1: resolve some things that we believe in our intention with

705
00:39:41,560 --> 00:39:45,280
Speaker 1: each other. But however you try to deal with the problem,

706
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 1: it is not hard at all to imagine how this

707
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 1: thought experiment has an impact on the idea of space

708
00:39:51,960 --> 00:39:55,920
Speaker 1: exploration and space colonization. Because think about it again. Okay,

709
00:39:56,080 --> 00:40:00,080
Speaker 1: imagine you're charting out to futures for humanity, and one

710
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 1: is a is a future where we stay here on

711
00:40:02,680 --> 00:40:06,280
Speaker 1: Earth and people you know, there there are varying qualities

712
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:08,040
Speaker 1: of life. But let's say, you know, in a in

713
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:11,719
Speaker 1: a better future scenario, maybe we we implement some kind

714
00:40:11,760 --> 00:40:16,040
Speaker 1: of social structure that gets basically everybody on Earth's quality

715
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,880
Speaker 1: of life up to a certain level where people have

716
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 1: the resources they need, they can pursue creative work, they

717
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 1: can they can hang out in a in a you know,

718
00:40:25,200 --> 00:40:29,640
Speaker 1: unpolluted natural environment, experience and nature have good social relationships.

719
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,719
Speaker 1: You know, take a best case scenario, there still the

720
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:35,680
Speaker 1: number of people who could live on Earth in that

721
00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: scenario is going to be somewhat limited. Meanwhile, you could

722
00:40:40,120 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 1: have a lot more potential for human life and human flourishing,

723
00:40:43,560 --> 00:40:46,000
Speaker 1: and especially if you're playing the odds game against like

724
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 1: you know what, if you know, we get a space

725
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 1: impact or something really bad happens to planet Earth itself,

726
00:40:51,840 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: you can have a lot more potential for human life

727
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:58,640
Speaker 1: if you were to spread out to other objects throughout

728
00:40:58,719 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: the you know, throughout the Solar System or throughout you know,

729
00:41:01,239 --> 00:41:04,440
Speaker 1: other star systems in the Milky Way. But if you

730
00:41:04,480 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 1: take a pessimistic view of what those would be like,

731
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 1: you can easily imagine how those existences might be pretty crappy.

732
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: You know, like you're you're trying to live on Mars,

733
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: but the exploration of Mars is in one sense exciting,

734
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:21,520
Speaker 1: but also Mars is a horrible place. It's just horrible,

735
00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,879
Speaker 1: like would you really would you really want to live there?

736
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:27,680
Speaker 1: And say an underground bunker that had to shield you

737
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:31,239
Speaker 1: from radiation, and you know, you're you're eating these kind

738
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 1: of bland foods and you know there's only a couple

739
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: of other people who you can interact with face to face,

740
00:41:36,600 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 1: and you can't go outside you can't see a tree,

741
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 1: you know, and and and so forth. Yeah, and if

742
00:41:41,960 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: you're also looking at a situation where it's not even

743
00:41:44,680 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna make this this world, this Martian world

744
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:50,279
Speaker 1: better for my children, and it's more like, well, in

745
00:41:50,320 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: a thousand years things will be much better. You know.

746
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:57,279
Speaker 1: It's it. It becomes kind of difficult to imagine, you know,

747
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 1: getting in the mindset of you know, of of the

748
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:05,480
Speaker 1: of that particular individual, right and so this I feel

749
00:42:05,520 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: like this kind of question. The idea of space colonization,

750
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:12,520
Speaker 1: in a way, is one particular scenario for making the

751
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 1: paradox of the repugnan conclusion kind of concrete. Like imagining

752
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:21,480
Speaker 1: these different options, both of them feel kind of wrong

753
00:42:21,600 --> 00:42:23,879
Speaker 1: in a way, and this brings us back to uh

754
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:28,760
Speaker 1: Covidge is austro astronomical population ethics conundrum. He writes, quote,

755
00:42:28,960 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 1: in the context of space colonization, the repugnant conclusion could

756
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,760
Speaker 1: mean that a dystopian future in which dozens or hundreds

757
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:39,080
Speaker 1: of billions of humans across different habitats in our solar

758
00:42:39,120 --> 00:42:43,759
Speaker 1: system and beyond live miserable, brutish, anguish field lives is

759
00:42:43,760 --> 00:42:47,400
Speaker 1: a future that is morbly preferable to, for example, a

760
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:49,800
Speaker 1: future in which there are only a few billion people

761
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 1: who live happy lives on Earth. Now, Covid points out

762
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:56,399
Speaker 1: that yes, this is an extreme possibility, but that it's

763
00:42:56,440 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: not unreasonable to presume that life on the off world

764
00:42:59,560 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 1: colonies indeed be hard. You know, we've just been discussing

765
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:05,600
Speaker 1: how brutal Mars is. I mean, heck um, I think

766
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:08,239
Speaker 1: it's a nanio. De grass Tyson, for instance, has brought

767
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:12,839
Speaker 1: up look at Antarctica, and Arctica is infinitely more hospitable

768
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: than Mars. And outside of what a few thousand people

769
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: during the summer and barely a thousand people during the winter,

770
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 1: we don't have human life on Earth's fifth largest continent. Yeah,

771
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I think about how how uninhabitable not

772
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:30,960
Speaker 1: just an Arctica, like most of Earth is. This is funny, like,

773
00:43:31,160 --> 00:43:33,719
Speaker 1: you know, Earth is the place we can live, but

774
00:43:33,800 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 1: we can't even live on most of it. Most of

775
00:43:36,480 --> 00:43:39,600
Speaker 1: the surface of the Earth is uninhabitable. It's either ocean

776
00:43:39,760 --> 00:43:43,160
Speaker 1: is open ocean, or it is you know, desert or

777
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 1: uninhabitable tundra, ice sheets like they're actually really just these

778
00:43:48,400 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 1: kind of slivers of the surface that are good for

779
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 1: us to settle down on. Yeah, I mean when you

780
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:58,080
Speaker 1: consider like the hard surface of the Earth, most of

781
00:43:58,120 --> 00:44:03,759
Speaker 1: the Earth's surface is dark, high pressure deep sea environment,

782
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 1: where where we we have no place. Uh so, yeah,

783
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 1: we're we're clinging to the you know, to the parts

784
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 1: of the world that we can live and VR technology,

785
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 1: you know, we're able to to live in a lot

786
00:44:15,239 --> 00:44:18,000
Speaker 1: of places that we wouldn't be able to otherwise. But

787
00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,960
Speaker 1: but still, yeah, we again it comes kind of back

788
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 1: to the Kardashian scale, like in terms of technology and

789
00:44:25,040 --> 00:44:28,360
Speaker 1: just sort of maximizing our planet. Like we're not even

790
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 1: on wrong one yet, so you know, trying to imagine

791
00:44:32,200 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 1: people living on a world off world colony. People born

792
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 1: into life in another world would not exist at all

793
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: if not for the establishment of that colony. So, on

794
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:44,400
Speaker 1: one hand of the paradox, colonizing other worlds is an

795
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,399
Speaker 1: inherently moral act because you know, because if you don't

796
00:44:47,440 --> 00:44:50,280
Speaker 1: do it, they won't exist. But what if there are

797
00:44:50,320 --> 00:44:53,200
Speaker 1: not places where happiness and peace are going to be

798
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,959
Speaker 1: easily found? What if these are harsh, frontier colonies, even

799
00:44:57,040 --> 00:45:01,920
Speaker 1: hell worlds in you know, to vary degrees that expand

800
00:45:02,000 --> 00:45:04,520
Speaker 1: the fact of human habitation, but do so via the

801
00:45:04,560 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 1: reality of human suffering. So Coach connects this to that

802
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:11,759
Speaker 1: other standard problem of population ethics that we already mentioned, uh,

803
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 1: the non identity problem, which just to to reiterate that

804
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:20,280
Speaker 1: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that it quote raises

805
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:23,759
Speaker 1: questions regarding the obligations we think we have in respect

806
00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,560
Speaker 1: of people who, by our own acts are caused both

807
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:30,360
Speaker 1: to exist and who have existences that are, though worth having,

808
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: unavoidably flawed existence. Is that is, that are flawed if

809
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 1: those people are ever to have them at all. Yeah,

810
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 1: So on the non identity problem again, this is part

811
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 1: of the same context in which Derek Parfitt's discussion of

812
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:48,880
Speaker 1: the repugnant conclusion was described. It's another paradox. It's it

813
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:51,839
Speaker 1: takes the same form showing that where it seems like

814
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,640
Speaker 1: you have a couple of options and they both seem

815
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:58,360
Speaker 1: morally wrong due to our intuitions. So so he shows

816
00:45:58,440 --> 00:46:01,600
Speaker 1: that there are three premises is that are intuitively true,

817
00:46:01,719 --> 00:46:04,919
Speaker 1: but they're in conflict with each other. Uh So, first

818
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:08,000
Speaker 1: of all, there's the premise of what's known as the

819
00:46:08,160 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 1: person affecting view, and this is the belief that an

820
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:15,560
Speaker 1: act can only be wrong if it harms someone in

821
00:46:15,680 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 1: some way and actually does no harm to anyone, cannot

822
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:22,839
Speaker 1: be morally wrong. And of course this doesn't apply just

823
00:46:22,880 --> 00:46:25,239
Speaker 1: a physical harm. This would be, you know, any way

824
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:28,640
Speaker 1: of making someone's life for situation worse. And if you

825
00:46:28,680 --> 00:46:31,480
Speaker 1: disagree with this, I try to think of something that

826
00:46:31,520 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 1: it's wrong to do, but that would never hurt anyone

827
00:46:34,480 --> 00:46:40,319
Speaker 1: in any way, the state of marshmallow man um I mean,

828
00:46:40,440 --> 00:46:42,560
Speaker 1: And and so some people might have views about that.

829
00:46:42,600 --> 00:46:45,640
Speaker 1: I mean, some people might adhere to, like a what

830
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 1: might be called a deontological view of morality, where there

831
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:51,319
Speaker 1: are just certain things that are that are moral and

832
00:46:51,400 --> 00:46:55,080
Speaker 1: immoral and it actually does not flow from consequentialism from

833
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 1: how it affects other people. But but I mean, a

834
00:46:57,440 --> 00:47:00,880
Speaker 1: very common view among philosophers today would be that, you know,

835
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: there's something about morality that has to involve effects on people,

836
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,719
Speaker 1: and if something doesn't hurt anyone, it's hard to see

837
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: how it's wrong. So that's the first idea, that that

838
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:15,040
Speaker 1: there is a person affecting view of morality that something

839
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: can only be wrong if it harms someone. The second

840
00:47:17,680 --> 00:47:21,799
Speaker 1: premise is that bringing a person into existence is not

841
00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:26,760
Speaker 1: bad for that person, even if their existence is flawed

842
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:30,719
Speaker 1: because being caused to exist is not a reduction in

843
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 1: the quality of one's existence. There is no higher baseline

844
00:47:34,360 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 1: from which you are reduced by being caused to exist

845
00:47:37,600 --> 00:47:39,920
Speaker 1: in the first place. Does that make sense? So it's

846
00:47:39,920 --> 00:47:42,600
Speaker 1: not like you were doing great before you existed, and

847
00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:45,880
Speaker 1: then once you existed, then that was like a downgrading

848
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 1: of how good you're doing. And then the third premise

849
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:52,279
Speaker 1: would be that some acts of bringing people into existence

850
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:56,560
Speaker 1: are wrong anyway. Imagine, for example, creating an underworld space

851
00:47:56,600 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 1: colony where the people they are going to be haunted

852
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,360
Speaker 1: by space more locks that hound them every waking second,

853
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: Like you would think it would be wrong to create

854
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 1: that place, right, Yes, yes, I mean I'm try I'm

855
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,560
Speaker 1: trying to envision all the ways that you know, we

856
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:16,120
Speaker 1: can reach the space more locks and change them and

857
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:19,480
Speaker 1: you know, bring space more locks and human colonists together.

858
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 1: But but it does sound pretty daunting. Yeah, And so

859
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:26,880
Speaker 1: this is another problem along these lines. To to a

860
00:48:26,880 --> 00:48:30,200
Speaker 1: lot of philosophers, all of these premises seem correct, but

861
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:32,399
Speaker 1: they can't all be right at the same time. They're

862
00:48:32,400 --> 00:48:35,719
Speaker 1: in conflict with each other. So Covid ways in on this.

863
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:38,879
Speaker 1: He says in the case of our dystopian space colonization

864
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:42,680
Speaker 1: thought experiment. However, the horrible future is not actually bad

865
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,799
Speaker 1: for anyone. If it weren't for our dystopian space colonization activities,

866
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:49,880
Speaker 1: all those billions of people beyond Earth who live miserable

867
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:52,560
Speaker 1: lives barely worth living would not exist at all. From

868
00:48:52,560 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: the point of view of those future people, then their

869
00:48:55,040 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 1: miserable lives are still preferable to the alternative, which is

870
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 1: not having come into existence at all. The fact that

871
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:04,279
Speaker 1: they were brought into their miserable existence was therefore not

872
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 1: morally bad for them. And this basically is the second

873
00:49:07,520 --> 00:49:10,760
Speaker 1: premise I mentioned a minute ago, that it's not bringing

874
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:13,719
Speaker 1: someone into existence can't be bad for them because it

875
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 1: does not constitute a downgrading or reduction in their quality

876
00:49:17,520 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 1: of life. They didn't have a baseline to start from. Yeah,

877
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 1: so covid he ends up contending that, via these problems,

878
00:49:24,960 --> 00:49:28,760
Speaker 1: enabling a future of space colonies is at least less

879
00:49:28,800 --> 00:49:33,759
Speaker 1: morally desirable than other alternatives, but perhaps even morally questionable.

880
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: And this brings us to the next phase of his consideration,

881
00:49:37,280 --> 00:49:42,000
Speaker 1: and that is astronomical suffering in off world human populations.

882
00:49:42,640 --> 00:49:44,400
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's take a break, and then we

883
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:50,720
Speaker 1: can come back and explore some suffering. Alright, we're back

884
00:49:51,480 --> 00:49:56,200
Speaker 1: astronomical suffering, deep hurting. If you were a centobyte, then

885
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:58,600
Speaker 1: you you may have skipped forward to this portion of

886
00:49:58,600 --> 00:50:02,680
Speaker 1: the podcast because you just wants some good suffering. Uh So,

887
00:50:02,800 --> 00:50:05,640
Speaker 1: Covig contends the pain of the Mars colony will be

888
00:50:05,719 --> 00:50:08,479
Speaker 1: legendary even in Hell. Yeah, this is where they should

889
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:11,400
Speaker 1: have gone in. Uh imagine if if we could do

890
00:50:11,440 --> 00:50:15,799
Speaker 1: a read a redo of Hell raised or three, um no,

891
00:50:16,600 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 1: four four for the space one. Three is the one

892
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:23,480
Speaker 1: with the with the like disco club and is it

893
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:26,920
Speaker 1: in England or I think it's in the US. Okay,

894
00:50:27,080 --> 00:50:29,759
Speaker 1: I can't remember with the camera head cent a bite

895
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 1: and the c D cent a bite. Yes, yeah, the

896
00:50:32,800 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 1: fourth one is in space and is largely incomprehensible. But

897
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: imagine if it had decided to explore astronomical suffering instead.

898
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:46,680
Speaker 1: So Covid contends that increasing maximum total well being is

899
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: questionable if the amount of suffering in the universe also increases,

900
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:53,000
Speaker 1: but he goes on to argue that the astronomical non

901
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:57,680
Speaker 1: identity problem is the question of suffering quote merely maximizing

902
00:50:57,719 --> 00:51:00,319
Speaker 1: total well being is questionable. At the same time, the

903
00:51:00,320 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 1: amount of suffering is increased to such a degree that

904
00:51:02,920 --> 00:51:06,240
Speaker 1: average well being decreases. The problem. The increase in suffering

905
00:51:06,280 --> 00:51:11,400
Speaker 1: through space colonization can be understood as a is a

906
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:16,760
Speaker 1: risk sue generous or unique one, and that is astronomical suffering.

907
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 1: So part of the you know, the certainty here entails

908
00:51:19,640 --> 00:51:23,200
Speaker 1: suboptimal conditions for future humans and other worlds. Worlds where

909
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:26,840
Speaker 1: any any of the sci fi scenarios we've already discussed,

910
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:30,200
Speaker 1: UH could potentially come to life. Anything you've ever seen

911
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:34,000
Speaker 1: in the science fiction film where off worlders have it hard,

912
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:38,040
Speaker 1: you know, living in caves, depending on ailing or even

913
00:51:38,080 --> 00:51:41,680
Speaker 1: failing technology, having to live with astonishingly high levels of

914
00:51:41,760 --> 00:51:47,760
Speaker 1: radiation sickness, UH, having your health impacted by by microbiota

915
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:51,040
Speaker 1: on this other world or some sort of disrupted microbiota

916
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 1: that you've brought with you. You know, things are out

917
00:51:52,960 --> 00:51:56,640
Speaker 1: of sync um Worlds where humans have to endure harsh

918
00:51:56,680 --> 00:52:00,520
Speaker 1: conditions due to heat, cold, or bow in the case

919
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:03,760
Speaker 1: of like a tidally locked world, high pressure, low gravity,

920
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:10,000
Speaker 1: high gravity, caustic atmosphere, resource scarcity, dangerous native biology, electromagnetic

921
00:52:10,080 --> 00:52:14,240
Speaker 1: field anomalies, and heightened ineo activity, just to name a few.

922
00:52:14,600 --> 00:52:17,600
Speaker 1: And he also mentions the idea of invasive biology brought

923
00:52:17,680 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: by by the colonists themselves, as well as a few

924
00:52:21,239 --> 00:52:27,200
Speaker 1: technical possibilities. One the future simulations of sentient beings, which

925
00:52:27,239 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 1: is something we've discussed on the show before. UH, the

926
00:52:30,160 --> 00:52:32,960
Speaker 1: idea that you know, you're you're dealing with a heightened

927
00:52:33,040 --> 00:52:36,759
Speaker 1: level of technology to even establish these worlds. So does

928
00:52:36,840 --> 00:52:40,319
Speaker 1: that also bring about all the the problems of say,

929
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:44,440
Speaker 1: creating sentient life inside of simulation and then putting it

930
00:52:44,480 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 1: in a hell box, and then copy and pasting that

931
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 1: hell box, say a million times, you know. Um, Like,

932
00:52:52,120 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 1: that's that's the horrible idea. I think we got into

933
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:57,040
Speaker 1: that a bit in the Basilisk episode. Sure, and then

934
00:52:57,440 --> 00:53:01,319
Speaker 1: he also brings up a misaligned artificial and eligence. UM.

935
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:04,360
Speaker 1: So we also have to deal with the possibility of

936
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:08,120
Speaker 1: of ai UH coming online and UH the part of

937
00:53:08,160 --> 00:53:12,919
Speaker 1: the scenario and being part of the the overall unhappiness

938
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:16,879
Speaker 1: of part of the overall UH suffering of the universe. Still,

939
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:19,480
Speaker 1: the author contends that the scenarios that could lead to

940
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:22,919
Speaker 1: astronomical suffering are vague, and the conclusions we might draw

941
00:53:23,239 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 1: not altogether clear. On one hand, it's possible that space

942
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:31,200
Speaker 1: colonization could result in astronomical human suffering. Uh, and then

943
00:53:31,239 --> 00:53:32,799
Speaker 1: this would this If this was the case, it would

944
00:53:32,840 --> 00:53:36,680
Speaker 1: obviously be a disvalue. On the other hand, it's possible

945
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: that that space colonization could result in an increase in

946
00:53:39,560 --> 00:53:43,360
Speaker 1: human well being, but a huge decrease in non human

947
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:46,879
Speaker 1: well being in terms of, um, you know, the well

948
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 1: being of of other organisms. Uh. This, you know, because

949
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:55,280
Speaker 1: potentially non human organisms, sentient and or non sentient digital

950
00:53:55,440 --> 00:53:57,839
Speaker 1: entities that are denied human status. So I could also

951
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:01,880
Speaker 1: affect you know, general aies you this universe that we're imagining.

952
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 1: On the other hand, he also adds that such colonization

953
00:54:04,200 --> 00:54:07,479
Speaker 1: could be a force of good regarding AIES. I thought

954
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:11,040
Speaker 1: this was interesting quote. It is also possible that space

955
00:54:11,080 --> 00:54:15,920
Speaker 1: colonization could result in the reduction of astronomical suffering if

956
00:54:16,000 --> 00:54:20,200
Speaker 1: humankind were able to, for example, detect and correct misaligned

957
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:25,160
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial artificial intelligence, that could reduce or prevent enormous amounts

958
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:29,160
Speaker 1: of suffering. Of course, the existence of extraterrestrial artificial intelligence

959
00:54:29,520 --> 00:54:33,640
Speaker 1: is itself also a highly uncertain proposition, So I guess

960
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:35,640
Speaker 1: the idea here is like if we if we were

961
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:39,239
Speaker 1: to venture out and we discover an alien AI that

962
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:43,280
Speaker 1: you know, for instance, has created digital hell worlds fullest

963
00:54:43,480 --> 00:54:46,880
Speaker 1: of digital sentient beings that are being suffered, we could

964
00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:50,040
Speaker 1: we could correct that AI. We could wage a holy

965
00:54:50,120 --> 00:54:53,799
Speaker 1: war against that digital hell which is exactly uh, this

966
00:54:53,880 --> 00:54:57,879
Speaker 1: is actually a major plot point in the Nean Ebanks novel. Um.

967
00:54:58,600 --> 00:55:02,600
Speaker 1: Uh that that that that's that's really explored wonderfully. I've

968
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:04,960
Speaker 1: discussed it on the show before. But but yeah, this

969
00:55:05,000 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 1: would be this would be one specific and granted, you know,

970
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:13,560
Speaker 1: um far fetched scenario in which we could potentially uh

971
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:18,600
Speaker 1: improve the state of suffering in the universe if we win.

972
00:55:19,680 --> 00:55:22,400
Speaker 1: If we're there, that's right, because yeah, because that or

973
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:27,680
Speaker 1: the idea of encountering extraterrestrials much less extraterrestrial aies. There's

974
00:55:27,680 --> 00:55:30,040
Speaker 1: a lot of factors to consider there. Or what if

975
00:55:30,080 --> 00:55:33,160
Speaker 1: we're the bad guys and we win then then of course,

976
00:55:33,239 --> 00:55:36,279
Speaker 1: well I guess he acknowledges that could go both ways, right, Yeah, yeah,

977
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:38,080
Speaker 1: I mean we could the other side of his yeahs

978
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:41,160
Speaker 1: we we we sort of fulfill what has largely been

979
00:55:41,200 --> 00:55:44,439
Speaker 1: the human nature of exploration and we encounter the other

980
00:55:44,760 --> 00:55:48,400
Speaker 1: civilization and bring misery and horror to it. So he

981
00:55:48,440 --> 00:55:51,400
Speaker 1: contends that there are so many unknowns that to avoid

982
00:55:51,440 --> 00:55:54,920
Speaker 1: such colonization would ultimately be uh, it would be it

983
00:55:54,920 --> 00:55:57,759
Speaker 1: would be Pascal's Wager all over again, right, Uh, The

984
00:55:57,840 --> 00:56:01,000
Speaker 1: idea that Pascal's Wager essentially disgusted to more depth than

985
00:56:01,000 --> 00:56:04,040
Speaker 1: the show before, but essentially boiling down to, well, should

986
00:56:04,080 --> 00:56:06,400
Speaker 1: I believe in God or not believe in God? To

987
00:56:06,480 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 1: be on the safe side, I'll just go ahead and

988
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:11,040
Speaker 1: believe in him just in case. Now Pascal's wager. I

989
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:14,239
Speaker 1: think people who have boned up on their philosophy might

990
00:56:14,280 --> 00:56:16,440
Speaker 1: notice that there are a lot of hidden assumptions and

991
00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:19,719
Speaker 1: Pascal's wager that uh that make it maybe not as

992
00:56:19,760 --> 00:56:23,120
Speaker 1: forceful as it would have seemed to Pascal's audience at

993
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:26,799
Speaker 1: the time. Yes, yeah, so yeah. He ultimately says that

994
00:56:26,880 --> 00:56:31,640
Speaker 1: we get into similar territory here, but that nevertheless, given

995
00:56:31,640 --> 00:56:34,279
Speaker 1: the dimension of risk, he says, the problem of astronomical

996
00:56:34,360 --> 00:56:37,480
Speaker 1: suffering is certainly something that we should pay attention to,

997
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:40,400
Speaker 1: we should think about. Uh, you know that that in

998
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:42,760
Speaker 1: leaving the planet or you just in considering the future

999
00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:47,160
Speaker 1: of humanity like that is that is one possibility that

1000
00:56:47,280 --> 00:56:50,160
Speaker 1: is like one road to stagnation, that we have to

1001
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:54,560
Speaker 1: at least consider a few other ideas that he raises here.

1002
00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:56,680
Speaker 1: First of all, he says, you know, he drives home

1003
00:56:56,719 --> 00:57:00,960
Speaker 1: against space colonization is not a risk re venture and

1004
00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:04,319
Speaker 1: shouldn't be approached as such. So yeah, even though it

1005
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:06,919
Speaker 1: is often this kind of optimistic vision in the back

1006
00:57:06,960 --> 00:57:09,719
Speaker 1: of our heads that maybe we should we should try

1007
00:57:09,719 --> 00:57:14,120
Speaker 1: and counterbalance that with a little bit of of of

1008
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:18,120
Speaker 1: of astronomical suffering. He also admits that it might actually

1009
00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:21,600
Speaker 1: be too late in some respects, as this dream is

1010
00:57:21,640 --> 00:57:25,760
Speaker 1: just so seductive to already be the implicit goal of

1011
00:57:25,880 --> 00:57:29,840
Speaker 1: public as well as private space related ventures and ambitions.

1012
00:57:30,360 --> 00:57:32,440
Speaker 1: And also he drives home, and this is actually, I

1013
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:34,720
Speaker 1: think something he gets into in that Ian magazine piec

1014
00:57:34,840 --> 00:57:40,440
Speaker 1: wrote that a meaningful governance framework will be important. Oh yeah, well,

1015
00:57:40,480 --> 00:57:42,560
Speaker 1: I mean, in that article he gets into the fact that, like,

1016
00:57:42,600 --> 00:57:46,720
Speaker 1: we just really do not have a political framework establishing

1017
00:57:46,760 --> 00:57:50,360
Speaker 1: authority in outer space. And we see that and even

1018
00:57:50,400 --> 00:57:53,919
Speaker 1: our current headlines stuff where we're like, wo wow, there's

1019
00:57:53,960 --> 00:57:57,360
Speaker 1: just there's just really no rules yet. And on one hand,

1020
00:57:57,440 --> 00:58:00,600
Speaker 1: like I can see how this might feel nice, like

1021
00:58:00,640 --> 00:58:03,600
Speaker 1: ohh wow. You know what, you know, the government's reach

1022
00:58:03,720 --> 00:58:06,560
Speaker 1: stops at the planet, and and outer space can just

1023
00:58:06,600 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 1: be this place of peaceful exploration without any you know,

1024
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:13,480
Speaker 1: like laws and militaries and all that. That would be great.

1025
00:58:13,640 --> 00:58:17,240
Speaker 1: But as space becomes more populated with you know, people

1026
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:20,360
Speaker 1: seeking out their their own ends and their own goals

1027
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:23,760
Speaker 1: there without a legal framework for people to understand, you know,

1028
00:58:24,200 --> 00:58:27,160
Speaker 1: what is allowed, what they can do, and and you know,

1029
00:58:27,280 --> 00:58:30,760
Speaker 1: predict what other people will be allowed to do to them,

1030
00:58:30,800 --> 00:58:34,320
Speaker 1: it starts to become you know, less less of a

1031
00:58:34,360 --> 00:58:38,440
Speaker 1: final frontier and more of a wild West. Absolutely, um,

1032
00:58:38,560 --> 00:58:40,840
Speaker 1: this is how covidch rounds it all out. Quote. The

1033
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 1: overview of risks and the outline of a potential approach

1034
00:58:43,760 --> 00:58:47,120
Speaker 1: to crafting governance presented in this article are preliminary at best.

1035
00:58:47,200 --> 00:58:51,200
Speaker 1: Both issues, uh, the identification of colonization related risks and

1036
00:58:51,240 --> 00:58:54,560
Speaker 1: the work on colonization related governance require more scholarly attention

1037
00:58:55,440 --> 00:58:59,360
Speaker 1: before we can begin addressing them in practice. That attention, theoretical,

1038
00:58:59,360 --> 00:59:02,480
Speaker 1: though it may see, is warranted. Space colonization is human

1039
00:59:02,560 --> 00:59:05,920
Speaker 1: kind's best bet for long term survival, and today before

1040
00:59:06,080 --> 00:59:09,240
Speaker 1: large scale space colonization efforts are underway, we still have

1041
00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:13,240
Speaker 1: the capacity to develop the philosophical and practical guard rails

1042
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:17,400
Speaker 1: that make the worst outcomes of space colonization less likely.

1043
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:19,919
Speaker 1: And and you know I would agree with that. Yeah,

1044
00:59:19,960 --> 00:59:23,200
Speaker 1: I think that totally makes sense that, like, space colonization

1045
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:27,840
Speaker 1: is something that that requires a bit of pessimistic forethought,

1046
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:30,520
Speaker 1: Like you know, people should entertain ideas of what could

1047
00:59:30,520 --> 00:59:36,120
Speaker 1: go wrong and uh and explore them and plan out contingencies. Um,

1048
00:59:36,400 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 1: especially you know, like people who aren't doing space exploration themselves,

1049
00:59:40,560 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 1: because you might think that there there are some cognitive

1050
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:49,000
Speaker 1: and and group cognitive biases probably at work in organizations

1051
00:59:49,040 --> 00:59:53,120
Speaker 1: that are personally involved in space exploration and the exploitation

1052
00:59:53,120 --> 00:59:56,360
Speaker 1: of resources in space. Yeah. Plus, you know, when we

1053
00:59:56,400 --> 00:59:59,440
Speaker 1: have you know, just sort of casual ideals of what

1054
00:59:59,520 --> 01:00:02,080
Speaker 1: the future will be like in the back of our head. Again,

1055
01:00:02,120 --> 01:00:03,520
Speaker 1: it kind of comes back to what we're talking about

1056
01:00:03,520 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 1: earlier with its link to environmentalism and and and and

1057
01:00:07,600 --> 01:00:09,240
Speaker 1: and how one could sort of use it as a

1058
01:00:09,240 --> 01:00:13,439
Speaker 1: way to excuse harm to Earth's environment. You know, it's

1059
01:00:14,160 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 1: if you have just a completely optimistic vision in the

1060
01:00:16,520 --> 01:00:19,040
Speaker 1: back of your head, it can potentially skew the way

1061
01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:22,680
Speaker 1: you look at the real world or consider other political

1062
01:00:22,800 --> 01:00:26,920
Speaker 1: or technological issues. Yeah. Um, so, so this has been interesting.

1063
01:00:26,960 --> 01:00:29,480
Speaker 1: It's got me thinking that this was a topic that

1064
01:00:29,480 --> 01:00:31,600
Speaker 1: that you turned up and wanted to do so, Robert,

1065
01:00:31,600 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like what your opinion is, like, do you

1066
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:36,280
Speaker 1: do you come down more on one side or the other?

1067
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:40,120
Speaker 1: We obviously we've explored how there seemed to be, at

1068
01:00:40,200 --> 01:00:43,760
Speaker 1: least at first glanced strong moral hazards for both of

1069
01:00:43,800 --> 01:00:46,320
Speaker 1: the two options, either first staying on Earth or for

1070
01:00:46,400 --> 01:00:49,320
Speaker 1: founding colonies on other objects in the Solar System, and beyond.

1071
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:52,160
Speaker 1: Do you lean one way or the other? Yeah, I

1072
01:00:52,200 --> 01:00:56,680
Speaker 1: think reading about this has made me lean more towards

1073
01:00:56,760 --> 01:00:59,960
Speaker 1: just the idea that we should we should be cautious

1074
01:01:00,040 --> 01:01:02,360
Speaker 1: and we should think about the problems because I guess,

1075
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:05,840
Speaker 1: and you know, you know, through the consumption of science

1076
01:01:05,840 --> 01:01:09,280
Speaker 1: fiction and and also you know, the futurist thought on

1077
01:01:09,320 --> 01:01:11,240
Speaker 1: the subject. You know, I'd always just I think I'd

1078
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:13,520
Speaker 1: always just kind of fallen into the category of thinking, well,

1079
01:01:14,120 --> 01:01:16,480
Speaker 1: you know, it's gonna be rough in many of these

1080
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:18,640
Speaker 1: cases we are talking about harsh environments, but it will

1081
01:01:18,680 --> 01:01:20,800
Speaker 1: be it will be worth it, Like, you know, this

1082
01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 1: is just this is just what humans do without really

1083
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:28,160
Speaker 1: stopping to to ask, well, you know, why is that

1084
01:01:28,200 --> 01:01:31,560
Speaker 1: the case? And does it have to be that hard, uh,

1085
01:01:31,600 --> 01:01:34,440
Speaker 1: you know? Or or what should we potentially consider to

1086
01:01:34,520 --> 01:01:39,280
Speaker 1: mitigate the suffering on these other worlds, like these various

1087
01:01:39,280 --> 01:01:42,360
Speaker 1: sci fi visions, and not so much the really pessimistic

1088
01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:44,880
Speaker 1: and nihilistic ones, but the more middle of the road

1089
01:01:44,920 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 1: ones like does it have to be that way? Could

1090
01:01:47,000 --> 01:01:50,160
Speaker 1: it be more? Could it be more star trek, you know,

1091
01:01:50,720 --> 01:01:53,600
Speaker 1: could you lean into star Trek more? As again coming

1092
01:01:53,600 --> 01:01:56,760
Speaker 1: back to the more utopian vision of the future. And

1093
01:01:56,760 --> 01:01:59,880
Speaker 1: and this is something that I feel like we may

1094
01:02:00,000 --> 01:02:04,200
Speaker 1: have a false sense that we have explored these problems

1095
01:02:04,280 --> 01:02:07,080
Speaker 1: more than we actually have in the practical space, because

1096
01:02:07,480 --> 01:02:11,080
Speaker 1: we now have lots of astronauts who have devoted their

1097
01:02:11,120 --> 01:02:15,080
Speaker 1: lives to getting into and spending time in space. You know,

1098
01:02:15,160 --> 01:02:17,120
Speaker 1: we have astronauts that walked on the Moon. We have

1099
01:02:17,160 --> 01:02:20,160
Speaker 1: astronauts that trained to go to the International Space Station,

1100
01:02:20,320 --> 01:02:22,400
Speaker 1: and they all do it voluntarily, like they want to

1101
01:02:22,400 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 1: go there. They're not being forced despite all of the

1102
01:02:25,280 --> 01:02:28,280
Speaker 1: deprivations to the experience and and all of the you know,

1103
01:02:28,480 --> 01:02:31,120
Speaker 1: potentially negative health effects and so forth that come along

1104
01:02:31,160 --> 01:02:35,040
Speaker 1: with these experiences, but those are in the long run,

1105
01:02:35,160 --> 01:02:39,160
Speaker 1: these are actually quite limited commitments. These are people committing

1106
01:02:39,520 --> 01:02:43,000
Speaker 1: themselves and themselves only to a period of I don't know,

1107
01:02:43,040 --> 01:02:45,800
Speaker 1: a number of weeks or months at a time, going

1108
01:02:45,840 --> 01:02:49,800
Speaker 1: into these deprived environments, these altered environments. It is a

1109
01:02:50,120 --> 01:02:53,560
Speaker 1: very different thing actually to say we're going to found

1110
01:02:53,600 --> 01:02:57,959
Speaker 1: a permanent or semi permanent colony within these spaces where

1111
01:02:57,960 --> 01:03:01,720
Speaker 1: you not only commit yourself for much longer periods of time,

1112
01:03:02,040 --> 01:03:06,120
Speaker 1: but you're also potentially committing future generations of people born

1113
01:03:06,200 --> 01:03:09,760
Speaker 1: there and so forth, and you're creating a a you know,

1114
01:03:09,840 --> 01:03:13,720
Speaker 1: a fragmented off new culture in a sense. And in

1115
01:03:13,760 --> 01:03:15,920
Speaker 1: that we we have to engage in the sort of

1116
01:03:16,240 --> 01:03:19,240
Speaker 1: long term thinking that that you know, generally doesn't come

1117
01:03:19,320 --> 01:03:23,200
Speaker 1: naturally to humans, that we have to to work very

1118
01:03:23,200 --> 01:03:25,160
Speaker 1: hard at. You know. I also have to say this

1119
01:03:25,200 --> 01:03:29,360
Speaker 1: will probably uh factor into how I read uh a

1120
01:03:29,440 --> 01:03:33,360
Speaker 1: future science science fiction treatments of off world colonies, you know,

1121
01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:36,600
Speaker 1: and and and like I said that, some of these

1122
01:03:36,600 --> 01:03:40,240
Speaker 1: concerns I think have already been reflected to varying degrees

1123
01:03:40,320 --> 01:03:45,120
Speaker 1: in scientific science fictional creations. So um, you know, it's

1124
01:03:45,120 --> 01:03:47,040
Speaker 1: not like you know, I'm saying that this is going

1125
01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:51,520
Speaker 1: to to change other artists visions in all cases, but

1126
01:03:51,640 --> 01:03:55,560
Speaker 1: it is additional um food for thought. In the meantime,

1127
01:03:55,600 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 1: if you would like to check out other episodes of

1128
01:03:57,840 --> 01:04:00,520
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, well pretty so. I would

1129
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:02,919
Speaker 1: have directed you to the mothership to Stuff to Blow

1130
01:04:02,920 --> 01:04:06,120
Speaker 1: Your Mind dot com. But the mothership crashed and now

1131
01:04:06,120 --> 01:04:09,720
Speaker 1: we only have the off world colony of our our

1132
01:04:09,800 --> 01:04:12,280
Speaker 1: I heart listing for the podcast. If you gotta Stuff

1133
01:04:12,280 --> 01:04:14,120
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com, it will send you

1134
01:04:14,280 --> 01:04:16,440
Speaker 1: over to there, but we have we have colonies in

1135
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:19,320
Speaker 1: other places as well, because you can ultimately find Stuff

1136
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:22,160
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind wherever you get your podcasts and

1137
01:04:22,200 --> 01:04:25,040
Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be, make sure you rate, review,

1138
01:04:25,160 --> 01:04:29,000
Speaker 1: and subscribe. Those are the ways you can support those

1139
01:04:29,040 --> 01:04:32,800
Speaker 1: little off world digital colonies, and in doing so, UH

1140
01:04:33,000 --> 01:04:36,320
Speaker 1: support Stuff to Blow Your Mind itself huge thanks as

1141
01:04:36,320 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

1142
01:04:39,880 --> 01:04:41,320
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

1143
01:04:41,440 --> 01:04:43,920
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

1144
01:04:44,000 --> 01:04:46,000
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hi, you

1145
01:04:46,040 --> 01:04:49,320
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow Your

1146
01:04:49,320 --> 01:04:59,560
Speaker 1: Mind dot Com. Stuff to Blow Your mind. It's production

1147
01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:02,400
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

1148
01:05:02,600 --> 01:05:04,960
Speaker 1: this is the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1149
01:05:04,960 --> 01:05:15,720
Speaker 1: wherever you listen me to your favorite shows.