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