WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Spacing Guild of Dune 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.200 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:11.520 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:15.440 Time for an episode from the Vault. This one originally 0:00:15.520 --> 0:00:19.840 aired on November eleven, and this was about the Spacing 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.640 Guild of Dune, following up on the last week's Vault 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:26.280 episode about the Benny Jesserit. That's right, more Done content. 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:28.360 This one, of course, was a lot of fun to 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:31.400 put together and these I should also point out this 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:33.680 is also mentioned in these episodes, but there were a 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:36.200 pair of older episodes that we've done many years before 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:39.000 about the science of doone, where we talked about things 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:41.400 like still suits and sand worms. So this was kind 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:43.400 of a return to that series. And who knows when 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.280 Done Part two comes out in theaters eventually, maybe we'll 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:49.640 we'll find a good excuse to dive back into the 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.400 Done universe. Hey, maybe your listeners out there have ideas 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.920 about what we could tackle. Listen to these episodes and 0:00:56.000 --> 0:01:01.560 let us know. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:11.160 the production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:13.880 to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.600 I'm Joe McCormick. And on this podcast we never stopped doning, 0:01:17.680 --> 0:01:20.200 so it's done yet again. This is part two of 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.400 the Dune series that we started earlier this week. So 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:25.679 in the last episode we talked about the Bennie Jessert 0:01:25.800 --> 0:01:29.280 and a bit about the neuroscience of pain, and today 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.800 we're here to talk about what more Bennie Jesser. Maybe 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.000 some spacing Guild stuff. Yeah, that's right. We're going to 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.199 pick up where we left off with the Bennie Jesser 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:39.120 and then we're going to move on to the Spacing 0:01:39.160 --> 0:01:42.880 Guild um. And I think the place I'd like to 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.200 start is to come back to something we touched on 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:47.760 in last episode, and that is the idea that the 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:52.640 Bennie Jesser are chiefly concerned with politics right now. We 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.560 offered some caveats about that in the last episode, and 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.200 that we often hear the word politics and think of 0:01:58.240 --> 0:02:02.320 like electoral democratic politics. Uh. The political situation in the 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.360 Done universe is is not so lucky to have democratic 0:02:06.360 --> 0:02:10.359 electoral politics. They've got some kind of weird um hybrid 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:16.040 uh technological feudalism that has like an an emperor on top, 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.520 and then there are there's like an aristocracy of of 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:24.160 landed nobles, essentially houses who control planets as their fiefdoms. 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:29.560 And then there's also a pretty large input from trade guilds, 0:02:29.639 --> 0:02:33.799 primarily the Spacing Guild, which controls the monopoly over the 0:02:33.800 --> 0:02:37.800 the economy of interstellar travel. Yeah. So, um, yeah, if 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.280 you need a if you need a refresh. Uh, certainly 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.560 we went over the world of Doune in the last episode. Uh, 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:45.240 so go back and listen to that one if you 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.360 you didn't have a chance to. So. One of the 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:50.480 books that I was looking at for this was that 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:56.160 was another fun um collection of done essays. Uh. The 0:02:56.160 --> 0:02:59.960 book titled Dune in Philosophy, and in it philosophy professor 0:03:00.120 --> 0:03:03.679 Jeffrey Nicholas who also edited the book. He examines the 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:07.959 topic of the benegessriate in facing the gom Jabbar test. 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:10.680 He touches, you know, on the point that they that 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:14.000 they make in this you know conversation between Paul and 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:17.200 the Reverend mother that the Benigessa are concerned with politics. 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:19.840 But uh, Nicholas points out that that what we're talking 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:25.240 about here with politics is politics in Aristotle's sense of 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.639 the world. Word um. Political science one of the three 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:35.000 sciences he outlined alongside contemplative science, which would have included 0:03:35.040 --> 0:03:39.000 both physics and metaphysics and practical science. So there's a 0:03:39.000 --> 0:03:41.960 lot of talk about tripods uh in you know, in 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:46.040 the the order of things in Dune um and and 0:03:46.080 --> 0:03:47.760 so in a way that kind of matches up, I 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:51.920 guess very loosely with with Aristotle's three prompt approach to 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.800 understanding the universe. Man, I have not looked at that 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.800 philosophy of Dune book, but that sounds interesting. So does 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.280 it get into like the what is the philosophic fickle 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:05.920 outlook of Baron Harconan and stuff? You know, And there's 0:04:05.920 --> 0:04:08.120 a lot of fun stuff, and there's definitely some hobbs. 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:10.000 I know, I'll touch on some hobs here in a bit, 0:04:10.880 --> 0:04:13.960 but there's also, um, there's also one let's see what 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.719 is it? Uh? I think it's something like, you know, 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.719 basically like one article walks through the various houses and 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:22.760 factions and talks about how they would have been thought 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.440 off by uh, say Socrates or whoever. So it's it's 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:29.839 a fun read. So, you know, one of the things 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:32.960 about Aristotle is is that there is a there's a 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.040 quote that's often attributed to him, uh, pretty famous to 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:40.600 the Aristotle quote man is by nature a political animal. Yeah, 0:04:40.640 --> 0:04:43.800 And I think this is an interesting quote, partially in 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.920 how I think it is often misunderstood because I think 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:49.520 a lot of times people take that quote to mean 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:53.360 that that Aristotle was saying that man is the only 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.039 political animal, which he does not mean. He actually mentions 0:04:57.120 --> 0:05:00.680 other animals as political animals as well. Yeah. He he 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.280 also refers to, you know, use social insects and so 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:07.240 forth as as being political animals. Again, one of the 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.039 reasons this is interesting to come back to this is 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:11.480 because the benegestent that are big about talking about the 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:15.800 difference between humans and animals, and given their focus on politics, 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:18.520 we can't help it go in this direction. Okay, But 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:21.120 so what did he mean by saying this? Then? Well, 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:22.599 I was reading a little bit more about this, and 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:24.280 apparently this is this is an area where you can 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.680 get into some amount of debate and we're not going 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.560 to go, uh, there's this a certain amount of philosophical 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:32.920 back and forth on this. But I was looking at 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:35.920 a paper from Cheryl E. A Body, Uh, And it 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:40.440 was the article Higher and Lower Political Animals published in 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:44.080 the Journal of Animal Ethics in two six and she 0:05:44.160 --> 0:05:48.080 writes that that Aristotle considered man's impulse towards partnership with 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:50.240 others to be the most important, and that it is 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:54.280 only through these partnerships that happiness is possible. Uh So, 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.320 I mean it sounds to me like, you know, that 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.760 means that the benegestion are all about happiness obviously, um 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:04.839 right right right right up there out And uh Aristotle 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.960 broke this down across the different dimensions um of of 0:06:08.960 --> 0:06:12.520 our interactions with other people, at the household level, at 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:16.159 the village level, and then at the what he considered 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.680 kind of the ultimate level. The Polish a collection of 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.320 human beings who lived together through the creation of laws 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:24.919 allowing them all to survive and flourish. And this is 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:28.440 where we get politics. As the word politics. I think 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:30.080 there's a pretty good case to be made that the 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.479 Aristotle is onto something here about the fundamental nature of humankind, 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:38.920 that sort of um that what makes us really special 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:43.159 is our ability to cooperate with one another. And it's 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.440 not that other animals lack the ability to cooperate with 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:48.279 one another. I mean you might say that is say, 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:52.080 like a youth social insect colony coordinates their activities even 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:56.839 better than humans can. But humans have have much richer 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.479 ways of cooperating with one another than even say, you 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.840 social insects do, because we have things like language, which 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:09.400 allows us to very very minutely coordinate our behaviors and 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.680 cooperate in ways that are have levels of complexity you 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:19.080 couldn't really imagine without something like language. Yeah. So, Nick Nicholas, 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:22.880 coming back to his paper, rights that Aristotle considered politics 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.920 a place for human practical reason to flourish. So it 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:28.600 is the ideal place, not for everyone, but for the 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:33.800 best minds to busy themselves. And um, you know, thinking 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:36.960 thinking again to the Done universe. It's easy to to 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:42.160 focus on all the uh at times dystopian aspects of it, 0:07:42.280 --> 0:07:46.360 and the war and the intrigue, but you know, it 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:51.600 is a pretty cooperative interplanetary empire when you look at 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:53.960 it from a certain perspective. You know, I mean, they 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.640 have managed to not annihilate each other with atomic weapons. 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.480 They have this uh this, you know, this this, um, 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:04.360 this treaty in place. Um. Even though there's a great 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:09.280 deal of inequality in the Dune universe. Um, they're all 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.400 all these factions are working more or less together. Well yeah, 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:16.320 and I think you can see those dualities all throughout 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.960 real history as well. I mean, look at any number 0:08:19.040 --> 0:08:21.520 of empires you can think of the Roman Empire or 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:24.080 the British Empire. I mean, all of these are at 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:28.480 the same time kind of marvelous achievements of cooperation and 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:31.960 coordination at the same time that they are brutal engines 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.120 of oppression. Yeah. Now, a body discusses the same thing 0:08:35.160 --> 0:08:37.160 that you mentioned that you know, some that we've discussed 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:39.640 just a second ago. That you know, some take Aristotle 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:42.640 to mean that non human animals cannot be political. Others 0:08:42.679 --> 0:08:45.120 see it as the view that humans are merely more 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:49.840 political than any non human animal. But again, Aristotle puts 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.600 a great deal that emphasis on language. Um and uh 0:08:54.080 --> 0:08:59.079 yeah it is. Language is key to the human realm 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:03.480 of politics. Um in in good ways and bad ways. Well, yeah, 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:07.640 a language allows for a complexity of coordination. That is, 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:10.520 uh that that of course can serve both good and 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:14.520 bad end. So it allows for extremely complex coordination to 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.360 service of the greater good and helping one another, but 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:21.800 also to uh, you know, ever richer layers of deception 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.520 than than could be imagined by any other kind of animal. Yeah, 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.199 I mean I've seen him pointed out that one of 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:29.760 the things that our language does is it allows us 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:34.160 to share uh particular points of view with others, perceptions 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.000 of of of what's working, what's not working, of what's 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:41.040 bringing us pleasure and what's bringing us pain. Now, I 0:09:41.040 --> 0:09:44.280 want to come back to the Benigested distinction of humans 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.880 and animals again. This is you know, they're very much 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.439 of of the mindset. Don't be an animal, be a human? Uh. 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.360 And the reverend mother tells Uh Paul that the test 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:58.280 is about seeing if he is human or not UM 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.520 and the Beniegestor training seems to a larger degree revolve 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.200 around the high application of reason in a way that 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:08.200 overpowers animal instincts. Again that the example that has thrown 0:10:08.200 --> 0:10:10.800 out as the animal choose its leg off if it's 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:15.800 cotton a trap, but the human, the political animal par excellence, 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:20.400 plots and practices politics over the fact of it's entrapment. Well, 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.439 in fact, the very example she gives is one of deception. 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.200 Remember that he would feign death in order to attract 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:30.560 the trapper and then and then strike out and kill him. Yes, 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.480 and of course this is uh in a way this 0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:37.160 foreshadows what is to come. Uh. In the novel Dune, 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:43.120 because the trades acquisition of Aracus is widely seen as 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:47.920 a trap, and and Paul's father um to To as 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:51.160 not not entirely by his own choice, ends up in 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.920 the position of the animal that must strike out from 0:10:54.920 --> 0:10:59.000 the trap in an attempt to punish his oppressor. Uh. 0:10:59.040 --> 0:11:02.040 It ends up not quite working, but it's it's again 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.600 one of the great scenes in the book. And and 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:09.120 I thought a wonderfully um recreated scene in the recent 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:12.320 film adaptation. Now coming back to the philosophy of of 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:16.520 Dune book, Nicholas uses the com Jabar awareness test to 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.400 make a point about the current state of humanity in 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.800 our world, the real world, in particular the environmental pair 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.920 al we face. Um. He says, you know this, this 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:27.920 is the trap. We are the trap, but we are 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.640 arguably not actually human enough, not aware of our place 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:34.280 in the world and our connections to one another. Uh 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:37.960 to act in the best interests of the city. Uh. Quote. 0:11:38.320 --> 0:11:42.360 Herbert's philosophy of the human warns against two things, being 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.480 animal and being a slave. As animals, we may be 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.320 enslaved by our animal desires, but there is a different 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.280 slavery being a slave to the machine. The Butalerrian Jahad 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:55.720 freed humanity. It freed beings from enslavement to machines, and 0:11:55.800 --> 0:11:59.560 it freed us to develop our human talents. Herbert isn't 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:03.960 asking to abandon our favorite playthings iPod, computer and game systems. 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.160 He's challenging us to find out how to use those 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.160 toys to live a human life. The warning is not 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:14.720 to stagnate. Now, if we're thinking about environmental catastrophe, you 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:17.480 know it. It may also seem counterintuitive to think of 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.000 politics as the answer, obviously, but but you know, there 0:12:21.000 --> 0:12:23.280 are more than enough examples in our modern world of 0:12:23.400 --> 0:12:27.600 political barriers to environmental action. But of course it is 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:30.520 through politics, certainly in the Aristotle sense of the word, 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.640 that anything has done for the greater good of humanity. Yeah, 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.120 and a very crude since I think this analogy works. 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.839 Doing something about, say, environmental problems which will eventually cause 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.640 harm to do lots of people or to everyone may 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.800 require some kind of initial investment. It's it's sort of 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:51.120 like the marshmallow test, but for you know, but for 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:54.080 people as a whole, like, can can you actually do 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.480 the thing that's going to get you a better outcome 0:12:56.520 --> 0:12:58.720 in the long run? If it hurts you a little 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:01.200 bit in the short run, A lot of times the 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:05.680 answer is no. Now, right after I UM was looking 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:08.440 at this material, I just happened to be watching a 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.320 ted X talk for for other reasons, UM, and it's 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.720 one from Jill Bolt Taylor, author of My Stroke of Insight, 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:19.560 a brain scientists personal journey. UM. I think we've mentioned 0:13:19.559 --> 0:13:23.080 her on the show before. She had this UM this 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:26.239 journey to recover from a stroke and wrote about it 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:31.600 quite interesting. But this particular talk was the nero and 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:37.760 anatomical Transformation of the teenage brain from and Taylor's main 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.320 points in this concern what happens to the teenage brain, 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.720 but also just the development of the brain in general, 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.160 and I thought some of her points lined up with 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:47.800 a lot of this Benedjester at thinking in the concept 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:52.280 of Aristotle's politics. She points out that we are feeling 0:13:52.400 --> 0:13:56.839 animals that think, not thinking animals that feel uh, and 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.440 we are we are all neuro circuitry. That's something that 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:02.600 she drives home. And as such, we think thoughts, we 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.839 then feel emotions based on those thoughts, and then we 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:11.240 run physiological responses to those emotions and for sustained or 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:16.080 recurring psychological responses such as anger. We wind up running 0:14:16.080 --> 0:14:18.840 the same thoughts over and over again to reproduce those 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.560 same results. And she drives something that you know, we 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:24.520 have we have an ability to pick and choose what's 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.680 going on inside of our heads. Uh. And she sums 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:29.480 it up by saying, you know, again, we are we 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.360 are feeling creatures who think, uh, we tend to be 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.480 more concerned with the me rather than the we. Uh. 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:37.960 And and in this we fall short of the idea 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.440 of that polus of the of the city uh that 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.880 Aristotle writes about. So I think it's interesting to think 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:52.720 about like political action coming together, communal responses, planning towards um, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:56.480 you know, future problems. Is that these are things that 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.720 on one hand, they're difficult for individuals to do at times, 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:02.680 but on the other hand, like this is this is 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:04.840 something that humans do excel at. I mean, we're not 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:07.440 we're not, you know, we don't have the same level 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:11.920 of efficiency compared to you social insects certainly, but um. 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:14.400 But it is one of the strengths of humanity that 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:18.520 that you know, virtually anything that we consider great in 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:21.440 in human culture, uh, you know, and and um and 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:25.120 in the history of our civilizations, it has been is 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.240 due to people working together and bringing things out of that. 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:32.200 But it's also interesting the way that um, the use 0:15:32.240 --> 0:15:35.080 of politics and the Benny Jesser it since I guess 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:39.640 reflects both types of both ways of thinking about the words. 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.720 So on the one hand, you have them sort of 0:15:42.960 --> 0:15:46.840 executing long term plans through massive cooperation of they're they're 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:51.200 they're coordinating activities on a galactic scale, uh, to try 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.200 to serve some goal in the end. But you could 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.760 also see them as I think quite accurately, ruthless power 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.320 seekers within a ruthless system, and that those are both 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:05.080 true at the same time. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, they're 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:10.640 they're definitely you know, engaging in shadow government conspiracies. They 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:14.800 are they're manipulating uh, pretty much anyone they come into 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.640 contact with to certain degrees. But then then they also 0:16:17.680 --> 0:16:21.720 have these goals of creating some sort of a human 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:26.680 supercomputer that will you know, bring about some sort of balance, 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:29.360 uh and if you know, long term success for the 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:32.000 human species. But then again, I guess that's that is 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.640 often if you if you if you look at at 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:37.840 today's politics, I mean that is often the case, right, 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:40.440 I mean, there's you'll see politics who yeah, have some 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:43.680 sort of a particular aim or goal that they talk 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.800 about that lines up with other people's estimations of what 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:51.080 could make the world a better place. Um, but then 0:16:51.120 --> 0:16:53.640 they've also got to play that political game. Uh. And 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:55.480 you can, I can, you know, you can argue, well, 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:58.320 they have to play that political game in order to 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:00.400 to do this thing or to attempt to do this thing. 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:02.960 But then you also wonder, like, what is the actual 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.159 driving force is it? Is it the the good thing 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.040 you want to do for the world, the change you 0:17:08.080 --> 0:17:11.520 want to you want to enact, or is it that 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:17.320 game and that that's that continual you know grasp for power. Well, 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:20.000 you know. On on on one hand, I uh, I 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:22.840 feel a draw towards optimism, you know, I want to 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.159 be optimistic about that kind of project. But I also 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:31.560 think that people's real motivating priorities are often determined largely 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.480 by their habits, by what they do day after day. 0:17:35.680 --> 0:17:37.440 And so if you get in the mindset of well, 0:17:37.480 --> 0:17:40.440 I gotta play the game in order to achieve some 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:42.960 lofty goal that would be for the good of humankind 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.320 or something. I mean, in a way, I guess that 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:47.639 is what people must do if they want to achieve 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:50.359 those goals through say, mass action, which has to be 0:17:50.400 --> 0:17:54.440 coordinated through politics probably, But there I think there's always 0:17:54.480 --> 0:17:58.360 a risk of by playing the game, your real values 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.119 become the playing of the game. What is in furtherance 0:18:01.200 --> 0:18:03.199 of playing the game, because that is what you have 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:05.679 to do day in and day out, right, right, And 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:07.679 so like in the doone University, you're a member of 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.119 a great house. You you you don't want to just be 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:13.440 trying to assassinate your rivals just for the sake of assassination. 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:15.959 It's just because it's just this is the way politics works. 0:18:16.280 --> 0:18:18.280 But if that is what you spend day after day 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.840 doing all the time, I think that ultimately will end 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:24.800 up defining your main priorities. You know, when when you're 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:27.520 forced to choose between one thing and another, you'll probably 0:18:27.600 --> 0:18:30.800 choose what's in service of the projects you pursue day 0:18:30.800 --> 0:18:40.560 after day all the time. All right, well, why don't 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:44.280 we move along to the Spacing Guild and to uh 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:46.919 to set the stage, I thought we might do uh 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:49.400 one of these little readings here. Perhaps we can drop 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:54.440 a little ambience into the audio bed here, and uh 0:18:54.800 --> 0:19:00.359 we'll hear from the Spacing Guild Handbook. Any path that 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:05.920 narrows future possibilities may become a lethal trap. Humans are 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:09.080 not threading their way through a maze. They scan a 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:14.080 vast horizon filled with unique opportunities. The narrowing viewpoint of 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.720 the maze should appeal only to creatures with their noses 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:23.000 buried in the sand. A point of order, wouldn't burying 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:25.320 your nose in the sand actually be a good way 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:30.600 to inhale significant amount of spice and thus proud horizons. Yeah, 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:32.080 that's why I thought this is a great quote to 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.560 start with, because on one hand, that's the sand, that's 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:37.800 where all that spices, and uh, you know, that's that's 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:39.320 what the Guild is all about. And then on the 0:19:39.359 --> 0:19:42.959 other hand, the thing they're saying don't do is the 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:47.000 main thing that Paul accuses the Spacing Guild of doing 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:51.560 of you know, of of not considering the vast horizon, 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:55.560 but but considering the narrow viewpoint of how to avoid 0:19:55.600 --> 0:19:58.879 catastrophes in the near future, and of course, how to 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:01.639 maintain that spice. You know, this quote actually reminds me 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:03.639 of something that's brought up in in an essay I'm 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:05.760 going to get into in a bit by by a 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:10.280 NASA JPL navigator who has written about the Guild navigators 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:14.800 in UH in Dune, and one of the concepts he 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:18.520 talks about in his essay is the difference between UH 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.359 calculating a solution to a problem in a best fit 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:25.959 fashion or in a first fit fashion. UH. You know, 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:28.680 these are very different approaches you can have. So one 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.240 says you you keep trying to solve the problem until 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:36.359 you find the first solution that actually works, and the 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:39.120 other is you keep trying to solve the problem, going 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:43.440 through all possible solutions until you have identified the optimal one. 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:46.480 And of course people think, well, you know, going for 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:48.439 the best fit path has got to be better, right, 0:20:48.440 --> 0:20:51.160 because some even some successful paths are better than other 0:20:51.200 --> 0:20:55.399 successful paths. But he outlines the fact that for a 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:57.960 lot of real world type scenarios, even if you have 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:03.800 supercomputers involved, calculator best fit pathways is sometimes such a 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:09.000 monumental calculation task that it's functionally impossible. So you know, 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:13.080 they're saying, we'll be aware of all possibilities, but there's 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:16.720 also the possibility that being aware of all possibilities puts 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:19.600 you in a paralyzing state of inaction and in decision, 0:21:19.600 --> 0:21:22.600 because you can never finish doing all the calculations, and 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:24.680 maybe you would be better to just sort of bury 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.400 your nose whenever you figure out one path that works, 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:29.760 just do that. Anyway, I guess we can keep that 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:33.520 in mind as we talked about the Spacing Guild. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Well, 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.280 let's let's refresh though in the Space and Guild, um 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:39.120 be because certainly you haven't read the book in a while, 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:41.800 you might have forgotten some of this and the Spacing 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.560 Guild that they are present in Dune Part one, the 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:49.680 movie that that just came out last month, but they're 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:52.480 not maybe not in the forefront of things. So first 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:55.120 of all, as we mentioned earlier, um, this is one 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:59.800 of the great mental physical training schools, uh, the Spacing Guild, 0:22:00.160 --> 0:22:03.440 and we're told in Dune that they constituted one leg 0:22:03.480 --> 0:22:07.359 of the political tripod, maintaining the Great Convention. This is 0:22:07.400 --> 0:22:10.280 the truth among all the great Houses and the Imperium 0:22:10.320 --> 0:22:13.800 that banns atomic weaponry and permits these kind of formal 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:18.359 wars of assassination against rulers and key figures. So that way, 0:22:18.440 --> 0:22:21.879 you know, it's members of great Houses that get strategically 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:25.560 murdered as opposed to whole populations and planets due to 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:28.879 you know, a catastrophic use of weapons of mass destruction. 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:31.720 The other legs of the tripod are the Imperial House 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:35.360 and the Landstrade. The Landstrade is the body representing all 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:37.960 of the great houses. Now, by the time of the 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:41.520 of the events in the novel Dune, the Spacing Guild 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:45.320 is immensely powerful. They control a monopoly on space travel 0:22:45.359 --> 0:22:49.840 and transport, as well as interplanetary banking and so some 0:22:49.920 --> 0:22:52.600 elements you know, you know, like everything and doing. You 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:56.360 can easily think of parallels in history. Uh for instance, 0:22:56.359 --> 0:22:59.560 the non military aspects of the Night Templars is there, 0:22:59.600 --> 0:23:02.080 as well as of course that the East India Company, 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:04.880