Build The Future
Build The Future shares the compelling visions of the future and the stories of those building it. We explore frontier technologies, innovative research, and ambitious projects from around the world that will shape our future. Our guests are entrepreneurs, thought leaders, researchers, and anyone else actively working to build the world we want to live in.
Build The Future
Isaac Arthur - From Physics to YouTube
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Isaac Arthur is a physicist turned YouTuber and science educator.
Join us as we discuss the roots of progress and its potential into post-scarcity futures, the challenges of building in practice, Isaac's favorite science fiction media and his vision for his channel, his personal journey studying physics to becoming a YouTuber, and what innovation and future utopian scenarios may be possible, including space colonization and virtual reality.
Isaac's story is proof that passion and optimism can blossom into a lasting career. We hope you find inspiration in his story to go build your own visions for a positive future!
Chapters
00:00 Long-form conversation and the changing media landscape
02:25 Fiction we enjoy and worlds we would choose
03:35 Progress, recurring ideas and everyday needs
07:01 The everyday benefits of progress
10:48 What post-scarcity means
12:31 Information abundance and trust
14:53 Science fiction and the complexity of governing
19:05 Communities, housing and different preferences
22:32 Space habitats and movable communities
25:14 Social needs, entertainment and abundance
29:33 Favorite science fiction and guilty pleasures
32:09 A playful idea for a manufacturing parody
34:40 From physics and the Army to YouTube
38:14 Choosing topics and telling science stories
39:35 Colonizing the Sun and challenging intuitions
43:44 How art, science and fiction reinforce each other
50:02 Different visions of utopia and virtual worlds
54:04 Turning future ideas into immersive experiences
57:46 Space progress and what to build next
01:00:44 Patience and long-term progress
01:02:19 Where to find Isaac’s work
Links
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Build the Future Podcast. This is a project by World's Fair Co. You can learn more at worldsfair.org.
Long-form conversation and the changing media landscape
Speaker 1But I was fun . Like when you kick off the conversation it's just like there's so much good stuff , oh , yeah , I think it was it's .
Speaker 2I'm on tomorrow with my friend John Michael Goody and he and I will talk for like four hours . Not going to do an interview that long , which is because we chat so much , is you know what . Let's just start the recording now and I'll add it out . Anything if we say something stupid or unbearable private .
Speaker 1Exactly , exactly . It's been so exciting to me to see like the podcast movement kind of kind of grow , because it's the best way to just have like an in depth , nuance , complex and interesting conversation with people in a way , like you know , most people aren't aren't used to right where everyone's used to this like 30 second sound bites , quick stuff on TV , it's like well , it's actually getting to the meat of it . Yeah .
Speaker 2Like back in the fifties and sixties . There are a lot of old black and white interview shows where they're basically bottle shows , where you got one guy on the stage and one guy here and then the camera over here and they just kind of change with the children angle the whole time and there's nothing on the stage except for a glass of water , a little table of chairs and , of course , an ashtray . Because it was the fifties , of course , and you know , in depth policy discussions that even like the six o'clock noon started kind of no feeling with , because even you only have a minute to discuss news item , it's just not much to do with , but they go into detail . So I think that's what we see .
Speaker 2The revival of now is because when you have a limited amount of bandwidth to actually be talking to people , like three TV , three channels for instance , you can only put your top quality in there . Now we can relax a little bit just what people enjoy doing to the length they want to do it at , so you don't see 26 episode long shows anymore every year . You see , we're going to go . Next season it might be a year and a half and it might be eight episodes . The next season might be 11 episodes , maybe 20 months long or 50 .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah , and it's just there's huge variance . But like even stuff , people , people wait for the new season of Game of Thrones , the new season of Westworld . They're like I'm waiting for it and then the minute it drops it just binge . Well , they do kind of see that .
Speaker 2And I was not really waiting for the next season of Westworld . I was disappointed with the beating of season three , so I kind of felt like two was built up to kind of a I hate to use Tom , it's kind of like the lost in the , the classic . We have a spot in front of you , like Baskinok Ladgiger did too . There's a plan . We don't know what it is as the vitals , but we're going to come up with one in the meantime and keep him playing it .
Fiction we enjoy and worlds we would choose
Speaker 1It's like it seems like Westworld and a lot of similar from something like Ready Player One and Snow Crash , just like more recently , have played a role in kind of they like shape what the public wants . Like do you think it's ? It's like , what do you think the relationship is between these ? Like , do we watch Westworld and be like , oh , that's the role we want to create ? Or is Westworld kind of stemming from , like you know , rna desires , for you know this feature that we imagine ?
Speaker 2I'd say it's kind of like Game of Thrones and the House of the Dragon situation in influence of what people want to watch but not what they want to live in . Nobody wants to live in Westworld , so that would be . You know , that's not a setting you choose Like . If all the places you might choose to live in fancy universes , that would not be on my top 10 list ever . It's not quite on my top 10 worst list . People tend to like well , in Georgia Mountain stuff , characters die so often it's like in the fancy genre the exact she kind of low on the surprise killings should be black company by Glenn Cooksome died . That's everybody dies , Even feeling like harder ones like Brandon Sanderson . More of the cast died than in , you know , game of Thrones .
Speaker 1Yeah
Progress, recurring ideas and everyday needs
Speaker 1, yeah , yeah , I mean like just on the , you know the like kind of the 50s , 60s , you have these kind of longer form interviews . It's interesting , like it seems like there's a lot of stuff that we're kind of returning to from that era , right Like we have the World's Fair , you know is kind of encapsulated , encapsulated in that era . You have like Boom , super Sonic , building Super Sonic , jets , you know like the Concord , like we had in that era , like the podcast returning like didn't that era , like what was it about that time ? And like any , any thoughts .
Speaker 2It's fascinating because it's right . After World War Two is a period of hardship and people are suddenly booming . But I never liked the idea of cycles of history . People , you know , say , well , things spin . America , we are like , well , we was all natural , and they spin when we want them to get from point A to point B . They saw a purpose . That's where they spin . You know you don't have cycles , but you have these .
Speaker 2Like I have an end goal I'm actually trying to achieve and you tend to come back and forth on various ways to approach that . So how do you get your groceries ? Well , in the 50s you were still getting a milkman delivering the stuff . You know , a guy brings by your big ice gear and so well , now it's so much more convenient to go to the gigantic warehouse store . There's a lot of steps in between to you know , your local pop shop , your convenience stores , the 80s , then the gigantic warehouse store and now , you know , even pre COVID , I was really upset . We had to come out right for COVID hit .
Speaker 2I said , within 10 years people are getting their groceries delivered most of the time . They got to accelerate a little bit by by that , but you know that's where that's going . Well , you know the end is I want the groceries I want in my , in my refrigerator when I want them . Easy , easy , no problems . And the by part of that is that what you end up with eventually would be some robot that goes and put your groceries away for you and at the time you don't even have to ask to order so say you're getting low on milk , to have mission auto order at low and that's what people want . So you'll see the cycles . Do I go out to the side of them or do I have to live with to me because catalogs , because it's for this Amazon's not new totally , totally yeah .
Speaker 2That was a great joy . The postal service , you know back in the oh what was . It must have been after the , after the Civil War , but the when you had the postal service everywhere you know they get a letter to you in another state in just a couple weeks it was amazing . You could order clothing from the other side of the continent and it would arrive and probably fit you to .
Speaker 1Could you imagine , like , like , just the shock of that . You know you go from not having the post , like something like the postal service , and then you know , one day some someone shows up your door and like , hey , here's this letter from someone 1000 miles away . It's like , yeah , the shock of that would be just like . I think there's so many of those things that we just don't appreciate .
Speaker 2You know I avoid using Facebook for years when I first got back , but it was like the only microtestering state , especially my friends who were deployed . You couldn't call them up on the phone . They were off and have gas in Iraq . I was way to contact them and that's what's cool about this . I can contact them that way Because there's so much better than telephones , especially long distance rates . If you don't remember , you would MCI 18 t battles in the 90s and before that you know you will operate , or you please patch me through this number let's see if they're available , or the telegraph or the letter before that . And then you go back just 200 years for the thousands of years of human history . For that , if your kid moved two towns over , you'd be lucky . If you have a son again , let alone . They went to another country and they might come back on some massive pilgrimage that cost them half what they own to come visit you for a year .
Speaker 1They took months to travel , even for gun business , yeah
The everyday benefits of progress
Speaker 1and I think there's this whole story to be told around . I mean , this is Jason Crawford and Patrick Carlson , like the progress studies . They have a hard time thinking about these things . How much better is life now than it was 50 years ago , 100 years ago ? And all these little things , these nuances we take for granted , like , oh yeah , like I have my groceries or my letters , I can communicate , I can see my friends , I can see my family , and it's just like this weird arc of history where , like , oh , everything just keeps getting better and better and better and better .
Speaker 2I use the example . It's like the stock market because that's not the best moment , but you know in the whole but I was looking at was it 1972 day , 93 day I want to see what the $6 million man cost in modern money . So I think , well , you know that's an example of expensive things to you , boss , the $6 million man I looked up the inflation was before $2 million in modern cash in 2022 . If you watch this in 2023 that might be a little bit more . So you buy like seven or eight tanks for good tanks to not like crappy one , would you , and say that's a lot of money . But you know that's the kind of same other stuff markets got that time to .
Speaker 2You get this inevitable role of progress and technology from stability and it feeds into and then you know it's not just technology , it's innovations . You know you think about how much better we got things like garbage pickup . Yes , there's technology involved in that , but so many of things we have in in life that we enjoy , they're innovative , but they're not really technology based on science and God deep way that we tend to think of as high tech . They're just techniques , which I guess is kind of the same thing , but then that's just any time you have a bunch of people sitting around who can put together long time studies , records . Chat with each other , learn about things and not be afraid someone's going to cut their head off the next day and say progress towards your life .
Speaker 1I think I got on the six million dollar man . The another interesting parallel is like he had rock someone did the study on Rockefeller like the quality of life that he was able to buy as the world's wealthiest man pales in comparison to what , like , everyone has today . So , even though he was the wealthiest , like he had , you know , even the money , just adjusted for a place it's like he didn't have , yeah , access to like all the antibiotics people have today , the medical service , the transportation , like it was . Like nobody would nobody today would trade places with Rockefeller .
Speaker 2I mean many would , but it depends what your motivations are , what you're looking for . Before COVID , one of my favorite analogies to use was what I love about our society is at three o'clock in the morning , I can walk into a Walmart and pick from 100 different cereals . It doesn't matter that I'm going to get the same when I always get . I have that option . It doesn't matter that I'm going shopping at three o'clock in the morning too often than I did the time I had that option , and I hate that the big box stores are closed down now at night , but still you have that option available and that's , that's that difference . It's not so much what new technologies we've got as what are your new options for satisfying your wants and needs , and we were talking about are we a spoiled society ? And I don't really think so .
Speaker 2I mean , compared to our ancestors , we were tougher in some ways , softer on others , but it's more that these aren't luxuries .
Speaker 2These are things that we've always wanted as humans and we just didn't have the option for , like , it's a luxury not to have half your children died for their 20 .
Speaker 2That's a luxury in the eyes of people from 100 years ago or 200 years ago , and I don't think we can call that a luxury , though that's , that's something we just had to put up with before not died of cancer will probably be a luxury to us in another 50 years , or hopefully less , it probably won't be .
What post-scarcity means
Speaker 2And so we're just trying to you say what qualifies as post scarcity or utopia and say , well , you can't ever really completely fill everything , you're not even . We can have not just the solid gold house , but that house on that one important piece of property , because only one person can own it . Only one person can own the last copy of Action Comics number one or whatever . But you can lower people's anxiety about their basic wants and needs and that's just the basic ones either , because those are not even the most important . You know these post scarcity things , we have them already . Air , air quality can be bad in some places you've got to LA or China but as a whole air is post scarcity . Not really worried about your next practice coming from water .
Speaker 2Maybe you're not sure you have one of the future crops , but you got enough water to drink , Not everywhere , but a lot more than we used to . So society becomes post scarcity , not across the board , but individual little things , and we say it gets the point . We are this fundamental need . You know it's not . Do I have an iPhone it's . Do I feel like I can find information on anything at a moment's notice ? Do I feel like I can contact the people I love to talk to them ? That's the actual want or need that gets filled up .
Speaker 2So if you're just measuring by the raw piece of technology and would you do this sometimes to say , well , if there's iPhones 20 years from now , they probably won't be , they probably will not be smart phones 20 years from now , they won't . 20 years ago , maybe a little longer , but maybe it'd be implants , maybe something where you're , maybe contact lands , who knows ? But the technology will go away . That doesn't mean that we've gone backwards . There are probably fewer books in people's houses these days than they used to be . We are not a less literate society .
Speaker 1But the access information has
Information abundance and trust
Speaker 1has expanded . I think it's just like how do people find , like how do they kind of come like find the agency to realize , oh , wait a minute , like I can't go learn anything . You no longer are constrained to the 20 books you have on your shelf , you have the unlimited access to anything , which , then , which imposes interesting challenge like how do you actually share it and find information streams that are going to , like , give you the right information or enable you to go , like do things to them ?
Speaker 2I still never come a good answer on that one . I mean , you know it's one of those who watches the watch or situations you put people in charge of . Your job is determine what is good , clean , proper or relevant information and phrase it . And I mean I've never particularly thought people in the journalism industry were a great source of information . The first place , that's a science bias it'd be like . Well , we created something in the laboratory that absorbs all the light of one frequency of this radiation , kind of like a black hole . You made a black hole in the lab , no , black hole in the lab .
Speaker 2I was like , wow , what ? Oh boy , they were very trust . It's the only source of information I find something a couple of years ago , if I was an enemy general , I would probably send guys on foot with real fake accents the enemy's territories and have them run through the town screaming real crate , run , run the enemy's advance , yes , run , tell anybody run and just see what happens , because that's the only bit of information access . More is not always better , but it's better to be out of those multiple sources , and we are getting that . We used to only have a few new sources , and the problem was that , whatever their biases were , whatever they are institutional , otherwise , whatever their focus is for and these are not necessarily politically speaking there's what do they think was important .
Speaker 2But you've got a dog , you know . Let's say , you have three reporters who are on doing the six o'clock news who , like dogs , not cats , you'll see a lot less cat has cheeseburgers moments on them , and that's not really all that important in the grand scheme of things , but that's really simple example of how bias can be in there . We have limited sources , and the other problem , though , is now we are so many of them that you know we have to figure out a way to reconstitute . You know who writes the encyclopedias that we trust Wikipedia . It's a garbage sheet . It's the most valuable goal to keep out there as a world , but it's a garbage sheet . No , we trust the media anymore . Why would you so ? What places
Science fiction and the complexity of governing
Speaker 2that I mean ?
Speaker 1like . What can we learn from , like , science fiction ? Are there any , any kind of authors , any books that have painted a vision for how we , how we solve this particular problem , like the information access , I think ?
Speaker 2George Orwell and I T , for there's been a lot of suggestions on how not to solve it . I think you know , sometimes sci fi gives us good ideas . I think gives us very good ideas for what to avoid or what mistakes to make , because and this is a problem A lot of sci fi authors are not really experts on the real world and they're often right opinion pieces though I very strong andy and very much what their perspective is . And therefore he was the way and I'd say Robert Heinle , I love his work . But there's something he was prone to doing is he always had a character who knew everything right , ethically , morally , and was super intelligent , and everybody else was an idiot , a truly idiot , who not really can point to say the lie , and I would do that to , as would I mean , there's endless list of folks who do that as much as a great writers .
Speaker 2But that was the bias that was in . There was so often the problem seemed really simple , but he actually think it was like this would have happened in the real world . The bad guys can't be this stupid . And so they talk about . Here's how I would run civilization fires run . I say Well , that's good , but based on your practical skills here . I don't think you'd be able to sit on a village council the alone a glad to get , and I'd invite you , if you ever think running things easy , just start the very basic bottom , go , you know , find out what your township trustee means , or your village council , your local scoreboard , and get involved and you just attend and you'll soon realize it's not that people are particularly corrupt or incompetent , it's just that things are complicated .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's always a good reminder . You know it's . What is that quote . Like you know how to attribute to malice what can be attributed to . Maybe , maybe , maybe the quote is incompetence , but there's like the complexity of systems , like Everyone's like oh , my mayor's doing this or my city's doing that's like I Good luck getting anything done . Like people like have households to manage , and like that's complex . Now Imagine like a neighborhood and then a city .
Speaker 2HOA's or COA's . Those are a good example that answers . You know , we have this idea . I can't what . It was those over the over the hedge as cartoon that my wife's are going to walk kids and it's just , it's set in a HOA that spun up overnight With cartoon animals running around trying to steal food . But they are . You'll make the HOA head out as quite the dictator and they are certainly no shortage of tin pot Dictators in the lower echelons things . They usually that's what you find the most often , but a lot of times it's because Trying to run something like a neighborhood to anyone else's different code , it's like trying to hold cats and nobody wants you .
Speaker 2You know this is my yard . Don't tell me how to run it . So well , you know you signed the contract . I don't care , that's what other people would follow . I thought that was to protect people , while the stupid stuff they would do and that's like even worse , like the township level is a . We need you to stop boarded tires on your front lawn . This is an actual problem . I won't say where from , but in my county that came up was a multi-city . I'm marketing your problem . We need you to stop boarding tires on your front lawn and this was going to be like a daily event . We had a free recycling these in the county level . They even offered to transport them , though they probably should have , is like but the person had decided to ticket their heels and and it's what I think had no enforcement value over that .
Speaker 1Oh my goodness , what time is it ? Oh , it's five o'clock . Time to go burn the tires .
Speaker 2Hey , these are like is you can't really go ahead and call up like the sheriff , like , could you come down here ? I make this guy stop . He's trying to make a point . I don't know , it might be protected speech at this point . If it's a political statement , you make him sounds like well , no , we've got these drug dealers down the road that we're busy trying to spot right now . They're right by a score . I could stop doing that and come , guy , put the tires out , or I could arrest these drug dealers , which we like we do .
Speaker 1Yeah , let's
Communities, housing and different preferences
Speaker 1the HOA , complexity it's . It's like it's funny because you think that , okay , if you make a system , that's kind of like often Right , that that solves all of your problems . But the HOA is our perfect example , like , okay , well , hey , you , you moved here , you moved to this neighborhood . This is , these are sort of the constraints and the requirements . Like are you on board or not ? I was like sure , sure , sure , yeah , I'm on board . But the minute that , like when push comes to shove , they're like oh yeah , you're right , like that , those aren't for me , like that's that's . Other people like I don't want to do that , and so it's it'll be the same thing .
Speaker 2You know there's also the generational cap on . It was like well , I know my parents wouldn't be in this HOA and I am now stuck with the house Because the equity is down and I have to pay it off for them and I don't really want to follow any of these rules .
Speaker 2I'm going to follow then , I'm trying , but no , I'm not really there , and you know all examples like plan communities right , we love this idea , but while it sounds great to say let's go have the one where everyone follows this set of rules we all agreed to , they don't have a last one generation . And whether you're like a group of you know Religious missionaries of pioneers , when we do an area to set up your new Jerusalem or whatever it is for your community , well , one generation later , people are saying I love you guys , but I don't want to do things quite the same way as you . No , we Don't want to move , though . This is my home , more than yours . I was born here .
Speaker 1How much of that do you think is is tied to this like weird incentive structure that we have around , like home ownership is like the main store of value .
Speaker 2I was watching something on there just the other day from something and I didn't have a chance to finish it , so I don't know if I agreed with the off or not . It was this Something towns that's not very helpful is it was like rough towns or small towns , but and it was . It was on the idea that the Suburb and sprawl from cities , this that we got in the 50s , the idea only on car , only your own home on your lawn , was , you know , kind of a I think he phrases a Ponzi scheme , though my ask the fraud and this idea that was costing too much to set these things up and after a couple of generations or iterations of road repair , you're basically burying the place financially if they won't cost the growing and we do see that like I'm in the bus , but area of Ohio we definitely see that happy a lot of places where they Community spot a bit too much . At the same time , you know I try to question what people think of as their ideal setup too much they might influence it . But if that's what you want and I don't fit the acre fall in the middle of nowhere , I keep like four acres of grass , I'm not really gonna complain too much people . I have to drive 10 minutes to get to the convenience store and I love it . Yeah , I guess it's . It's , it's the lives that I want to have and Obviously you know you're willing to sacrifice those other in priorities , including the community's priorities .
Speaker 2But if what we decide is we all want to have the split level suburb and picket fence , oh , that's to me of those anymore , you know , um , I kind of want to find ways to accommodate that as much as possible . But you know there is a limited amount of land . So my answer is usually let's go build more of it . A lot of farmland we have . We , you know , farm more on less and we can keep doing that . You go so much more under like a cover of our greenhouse . We don't have the robots yet for intensive agriculture in a greenhouse kind of environment , but we're getting there and when we do , we could get away with turning , you know , one thought of the farmland into farms under a greenhouse and robots , one thought back in the forest and one thought of the More suburb and spa . There's a long-term fix to find long-term . There is no infinite one on that
Space habitats and movable communities
Speaker 2.
Speaker 1So but you know , eventually we to the point where you know We've got the long-term on on earth , and then you know we're up and we're up in space .
Speaker 2We have space habitats and like and what I love about space habitats is is the one they're buildable to a certain scale . I mean , the bigger you want to build in , the more convenience against . But you build one size for county . But you can build them theoretically bigger . But that's economical , theoretically for a given value toward economical , and you can move it because it's a spaceship too , you know , or at least you can tug it with a space tug , and now you don't like your neighbors anymore , you take your whole community and move so your county-sized space habitat size .
Speaker 2I don't want to be one of Ohio's you know , 88 counties plus its 12 orbital counties . I want to be part of Wyoming or screw it . We're gonna go ahead and join Switzerland . They do better deals on this one and you might get some micro countries that actually have like tons of space assets Just because they are offering that Diplomatic and and high-level federal , you know , incentives without that much taxation . But even then you can take that open step forward and say why can't I move my house ? I mean , that is potentially technology . We get some point in time Even on a space habitat . Maybe we just disconnect your chunk of it , seal the .
Speaker 1Oh , that's interesting . Yeah , the idea is like you have like the ultimate portability , ultimate modularity of like even down to the space habitat level , ok , cool , hey , you know , I'm done . But perhaps at that point , like when the technology that would enable us to build space habitats also enable us to just completely reconstruct , like brick by brick , whatever is in that plot somewhere else , and you're like OK , cool , I'm done , just gets you know .
Speaker 2I mean , you probably would be cheap and move the existing one if it depends on how you build it right . So you have a case where it's like , well , this is going to be a lot easier to knock over when we build some horse brick by brick or even with the individual bricks . But this one was built with the ability of modulating mic as more like an RV . You know , it depends on any of these styles . I know I'm not going to move this place Now that I've found it . I ain't going anywhere Paying the extra 10% to have my RV style house . Or you limit how many basketball courts I can have and is a guy who likes to play basketball ? I don't , but I need to have at least three basketball courts in my house , as opposed to 40 percent .
Speaker 2We don't really know what they'll start , meer , but the thing is probably not that overtop of crazy . You know we certainly wanted to go for bigger house styles , but it's not . I guess goal is to have a 10,000 square foot house . You know that's what you do with it as well . You can have your own private movie theater , or I could have a 70 inch one in my bedroom , or I could just have my phone , you know , and the little thing to lean up is I can watch it or a VR headset
Social needs, entertainment and abundance
Speaker 2Do you really want your own boy out ? And the answer is maybe to practice off . I got that much money but I really am really impressed and so I can go play at my bowling league with my fellow humans . And I think that we are an innately social species so we always have to look at communities , compromise together .
Speaker 2But you could have some scenarios where people say I'm tired of all this . I'm going to take you in with my , you know , mr Fusion , on my personal spaceship , with my Star Trek style replicator or , more realistic , very awesome 3D printer and I'm gonna fly off into space and go random , random asteroids 10,000 light years from here and , you know , refuel every so often . But I'm not talking about humanity . I've got a database full of your prototypes and maybe more technology to pop up , but who cares ? I've got everything I could ever want to need already in the database .
Speaker 2You know I got 50 million years of movies just from last year alone that I haven't got around to watching yet . I think there's like here , during Doug Sam's hitchhike was guided by Galaxy wall-back , or the infinitely prolonged who , through an accident was made immortal . And after the first you know few million years he's realized he's watched a movie like 30,000 times and he's just bored and I said , well , you're not really gonna actually run out of those . You know You're not gonna run out of new movies or new books because they're putting them faster than you read them these days . But I love some Glantic Empire .
Speaker 2On the other hand , how many times do you have to read variations of JR or Tolkien before you're kind of bored of them ? You know , it's like if you go back , if you start off reading fantasy series and you didn't read Shakespeare or your Tolkien or whatever , and you go back and read the original , it often seems kind of cliche because it was just set up . You know tropes in the first place , but you can only have so many times that you've heard some character pull a sword out of a stone , even when you're talking to the meadow of fourth wall variations of that , where it's boring , you know , and I think that might be a case where people find they don't really wanna enhance their intelligence too much because it's probably some bored fast-aught , you know .
Speaker 1Oh , that's an interesting point . And then , like then you start to pick up on the like , the parallels between all the stories , like wait a minute , this is the same story being told like a thousand different , like slightly different variations . Like okay , I got to get the underlying kind of concept here . What's next ? Like I'm .
Speaker 2Oh , zombies or orcs are different . Oh , Knights are different . This is a samurai story . They're all limits but you don't really ever run out of a desire to do eating at all . This is between boredom and temporary boredom with something else . But I also thought it was kind of funny is because when I got Netflix , I was late to Netflix and the Prime and all that stuff . I could watch whatever I wanted , whatever I wanted , and yet and I grew up on the three networks plus PBS , where you got what you got , we got it period . And I remember the oil , the cable days was like 40 channels , wow , awesome . And yet I don't like look through things to try to decide what I want to watch and then we like , okay , after five minutes of flipping through these , I want to watch nothing . You know , I got to read instead . I think part of that is a time commitment . Like there was like eight seasons of this show . I know if I want to start watching it because I might like it , and then I'm a week of my life to it .
Speaker 1And you , you emerge on the other side , you know kind of disheveled , and you're like oh well , I got to step into a time machine . I got through eight seasons of like how I met your mother , the office or whatever the new thing is , and well why .
Speaker 2Reality TV is something that I kind of missed out on . I was very new when I was in college and I went overseas for years , so I was just not connected to television . And I got back and I was talking about reality TV and I had no idea what they're talking about . And then took 2016 , everyone's talking about . Well , there's the exact case with Trump . I was like , okay , I should watch this apprentice show , Maybe it will tell me more about this guy who's running . And I watched this thing called Hell's Kitchen with Gordon Ramsay . This is good too . A lot of .
Speaker 2I don't see what people are complaining about . This is junk , but it's entertaining junk . And I realized there was no end to this . You're just watching people have , you know , kind of Jerry Springer style involvements with themselves are very fake when she's starting to notice the pattern , and that's kind of the junk , that there's no real storytelling there and , again , there's nothing . It's either those producers or shows that they're making where somebody that people would like to watch and they do it well , but you know , it's not really how does it say ?
Speaker 2I don't like to be snobby about it , but you don't really come away feeling like you just got done watching like Masterpiece Theatres or something like that .
Speaker 1Yeah , yeah ,
Favorite science fiction and guilty pleasures
Speaker 1so perhaps not as like intellectually stimulating or like in that , in that fashion .
Speaker 2I mean it's it's it's probably allowed to have stuff that we all have the like . There's that movie you know from an objective standpoint is crap and yet it's still on your top five list .
Speaker 1What's , what's what's that for you ? You know , share with the world , isaac . What's your , what's your top five crap movie , if you're like you know , in ?
Speaker 2two recently . Still , my favorite movie was Blade Runner , which is good , and my second favorite movie was Dune , the David Lynch version from 1983 or 84 . And that got replaced , finally , by the new Dune . I'm really loving the I don't know how to pronounce his name the new Dune film by Dennis V we were V so and it replaced the David Lynch version and I love that film . I even defended on a podcast one time , and it was the only time I lost . I almost swung the jury over . I was , it was just , you know , defend this film . And then you say , well , objectively it's , it is bad . In me ways , this is not a great film , but there's other parts that are just wonderful and , as I say , I can know this subjectively crap , but it was still good .
Speaker 2And there's a lot of ones like that in science fiction . You know they're just classically bad . Star Trek , the next generation , season one and two well , oh , garbage , but I grew up on them . They're good . They're not season three or not season four or five , but they're . They're Star Trek . You know they're episodes of Star Trek that should never have been made , especially in season one , but you know they are . They'll guilty pleasures and again , they don't have to be that good , they could just be rip off somebody else . A lot of cartoons like that , you know childhood cartoons and it's like you go back and you watch one of them once and back . Then I mean bugs , money , but any any children's cartoon . Almost each of those cartoons it was Crap , but it catches simulators .
Speaker 1They you would , you know , wake up . Wake up Saturday morning , you know , run downstairs , you know Sitting in front of the TV and watch , and watch all the way through the new Last cartoon run .
Speaker 2Sometimes you get only enough to watch the how things are made . That would run a vibe , for the channel actually came on . We'll be like let's go and show you how to make Toothpicks . They actually had an episode that was on toothpicks .
Speaker 1Yeah .
Speaker 2It was nothing like it . The cartoons , those I show you to drop the one whole log down there . Just told us the whole log in one tooth .
Speaker 1Imagine if that's how like everything was made just horribly inefficient . Oh hey , these hundred toothpicks came from a hundred trees . People would be outranged . You think you're wasting all that wood like
A playful idea for a manufacturing parody
Speaker 1They'd be like a good , like revival series on , like like a YouTube channel . It's like how things are , like how things are made , but with this like bent where it's , it's fake , but it's done in a way there's like overly dry . That's a good idea . You get people to be like wait a minute , are you serious ?
Speaker 2How things over you might get sued on that one . I was like oh , thanks , all made the the . The address was motion .
Speaker 1What it's great is like you could probably run it under like a parody , like I don't know . There's this guy who did this like parody Starbucks Nathan Felder or something is some comedian but he created a store called fake Starbucks and it literally had like fake is someone like was all the Starbucks branding , but slightly like tweet to be like , oh , fake Starbucks , fake Starbucks , and it was enormously popular . Starbucks tried to sue him but they they couldn't because it was , it was a parody , it was art , and so there may be , there may be like . If anyone listening is like I need an idea that may be the path to follow , I go go build a how it's made , but you know , oh , yeah , when I got on YouTube it was already still fairly full , but you could still break out .
Speaker 2These days you really need a very innovative idea to break into the market . So that sounds like one . You know how things are made the parody so you could show some factory they're making sauce and so was just knitting very fast like 5,000 little guns on .
Speaker 1Man , yeah , so some someone have fun with that was um , mechanically separate chicken .
Speaker 2I saw that on the back of an ingredient . So before Slim Jim , when I was a kid , I thought I don't know how this walks at it . I'm afraid of what mechanically separate chicken is I ? This image of again the acne scene where they got like the things going now to convey about you get those little skinny little robin arms , the white gloves on , it's gonna be chat . We got and then I watched a video on that and it was Disturbing , especially because it was all done . It was . It was a machine that did it from some company in Japan and had the worst English ever and it was playing very upbeat and like techno music . What was going on . So you're just impressed by the process of watching them show how they mechanically separate out meat .
Speaker 1But then the music keeping it going . So you like stop watching because you're curious , and the music's like , oh no , this is a good thing , they're like you almost show me the idea that this is what the great hallmarks for our time .
Speaker 2This is the best thing since sliced bread .
Speaker 1It's spam . Sliced bread , mechanically separated chicken , you know ? Oh , my goodness ,
From physics and the Army to YouTube
Speaker 1what ? Um , how's like tell me this , like the story of how your , how your YouTube channel came to be like oh , like I think I , you know , actually like first came across your work as a result of kind of the the event we're both at like I've never seen this before , and then when we're sort of watching yourself , like this is insane , like I can't even pinpoint like one or another episode that I'm like just enthralled by because it's all so well thought through and so like Research like this is awesome , like this is such a cool thing and you're telling stories and your painting visions for the future that Just it's draw from all the science fiction books and all the stories that people are told , but it's like condensing into a specific frame that makes it accessible for people . So like , how does thing come together ? Like is the you know ?
Speaker 2I mean there's a lot of ways that kind of got started in terms of where my background it was . But when I was , I was about halfway through grad school for physics but I decided , you know what I do not want to do the same war I was . I was done working on the doctorate so I went and joined the army I , which ironically , was less stressful even in the war zone . Sometimes when I got back from there I was like I don't want to make a career out of the army after . I was good to do , for I think I did seven years there and I was like well , get involved in local government and sit me out local cities and things like that . But that really wasn't appealing to my like science . Yeah , I did not want to go back to college . I did not want to be a professor . I did not want to stay in the military for the rest of my life . Loved both those times of my life , but they were periods . But I missed the science event . So I was hanging out on some science forums . I didn't really want to write the great novel with some sci-fi forums where the writers were at and they'd have ideas they want to kind of check the realism of which eventually gave me the realization don't worry about realism for sci-fi . But I would tell them you know things like . You don't need to have everything set on a planet , especially when playing having one village there . There's so much more to the universe , so much more cool technologies are available and and after a pee myself once I was like why don't I just do is like a PowerPoint and put it up on YouTube so I can just Lengthen that instead . So I did an episode called mega structures in science fiction and science and just showed images of the various Mega structures and discussed what they were space habitats and so on and post that up to my YouTube channel , which I always say I founded them . But I actually had one just was my like Gmail account and it was a couple photographs like the core and election information , because I'm also the chairman of the board of elections in my area and you like what's levies are gonna be on , and the photographs of Raccoons I had coming to my porch . So I eventually deleted those all off , but I put that video up there and I got a note and it's FM YouTube said you have a subscriber . And so what's a subscriber ? I never subscribed anything on YouTube . I was soon was the paid money for and so well , that's , that's neat .
Speaker 2So a few months later I did another episode , kind of looking at like the realism of aliens in the universe , and After a conversation I had doing New Year's Eve , that one did . Well , okay , a couple hundred views , like wow , a couple hundred views . I only had a couple of times I thought why had that bigger audience and that kind of result ? Another episode , not another episode . And then the Hobby turned into an all-consuming passion . That turned into a job . But it was one of those things where it just kind of evolved out of . I never meant for to happen and it's the example your folks is . Don't you know if you're trying to be a famous writer or a famous YouTube or famous , you know musician . Don't try to be these things . Figure out what is it you actually like to do to show other people and just be really good at doing that Product before .
Choosing topics and telling science stories
Speaker 1And it like what's been your , what's been your favorite , like Like fill , or like in an episode to pull together , like which I'm sure they're all like , they're all special to you , but like they all have their own little story .
Speaker 2Actually , that's not true , sometimes I forget about an episode . I'll start writing episode on topic . Yeah , this is a cool one , I shoot an episode on that and one of the others . But didn't you do one on this , like four years ago ? Yeah , what was the title ? The exact same thing , damn . We changed this title in the contents different though , because any of the other topics like well , we can do 30 minutes on an episode If you need 30 minutes , usually like 30 years , there's that much content or something like that .
Speaker 2But the ones that I really tend to enjoy are tend to be the more existential , weird ones or the storytelling ones where it's like let's follow a , you know , let's . We always use science fiction to highlight science , because it's a science channel for us to foremost . We'll explain them in terms of science fiction , and so we'll do little sci-fi stories to present the concept . Some of those have been my favorites to do . A lot of the episodes that did really well in terms of views were always favorites too , of course , so they were often ones I really enjoyed making too , which is over the years .
Speaker 2I'll make an episode of the enough the audience requested , but usually my policy is I'm going to make an episode if it's a topic I really want to make an episode about , otherwise it doesn't come out as well ,
Colonizing the Sun and challenging intuitions
Speaker 2and I think maybe my favorite one to do , though , was colonizing the sun , because we've been doing all these was like colonizing malls , colonizing Venus , colonizing Titan , colonizing comments , and someone said could we do one on colonizing the sun ? It was a , it was a joke . You say , well , you couldn't do that as a oh yes , I could , and we have a rule on this show we never do a clickbait episode if it says whatever the title is . You know how overhyped it sounds , how crazy it sounds . That is the topic .
Speaker 1So okay , so it's all , all , all , all off the watch this one and all link to it , like how might we in a quick , just like , how might we colonize the sun ?
Speaker 2Well , it depends on which star you want to colonize . There are actually ones that are cool enough to have metal floating on the surface of them . If it weren't so thick , like tungsten wouldn't melt on most stars , our stars . One of the bigger , harder ones . Strangely enough , we call it a dwarf , but it's just a dwarf compared to all the giants we could foresee . The brightest ones are the easiest spot , but you have options like highly meered surfaces . If you could make a mirror that is 100% reflective , then it's actually all that hot . The sun is like hot like a bakery is .
Speaker 2You stick your head in the oven . You don't instantly catch on fire and that thing's twice as hot as a pot of boiling models . Take your hand , bubble or water , you're really going to feel it one second . Yes , you're bored . And oven , you could probably weigh your hand around there for five , 10 seconds at least . What got hot ? The sun is really thin . You see , in science fiction they could crash something into the sun and it looks like it's just found a lava . The photosphere of the sun is thinner than air , much thinner than air . It's thinner than the air up at the International Space Station . It's really thin and there's hundreds of kilometers thick of that . You have to fall through the forest , so if you're reflecting most of the light away , you're still getting heat in there , but very little . You could actually run up space ship through something like a red giant , because that's even thinner . This thing's like 100 times wider and a million times less dense than a star . That's already incredibly thin , so you could slow down that way .
Speaker 1Wait , wait , wait . So like a red dwarf , like as a star Red giant sorry , red giant , red giant , red giant , like you could like , drive , like , fly a spaceship through it .
Speaker 2Yeah , not right through the center . That's still going to be very dense . But you know , the center is a teeny , tiny , little pea sized object in the middle of a beach ball and that beach ball is much , much thinner than air but it's thick enough that you could slow a ship down by going through it , you know , or you could potentially refuel us . And when it comes to space travel is not leaving as slowing down your destination . So there's a lot of ways you can speed a spaceship up to get an ava system , but you have to be able to do just as much to get to slow down and those little cheats let you slow down . Same thing for going on black holes .
Speaker 2People say black holes must be very dangerous Like they're . They're a lot safer than the star that used to be there . If you are near a black hole , it's got about one stellar mass and you read your episodes on colonizing black holes , living onside them out . You're right around them . They're great places to get power from . But a black hole made out of a star that was , you know , 20 times the mass of our son , you couldn't get within 100 built . You know 100 million kilometers from that . You'd be dead Before you got near it , and that's in its main phase , not in the giant phase , but even once . But that black hole , you could be a couple hundred kilometers off and be safe .
Speaker 1There's so many things that like actually , like you know me reading science textbooks or you know , having you know fifth or sixth grade , like astronomy , like give me these like ideas and like , oh , the sun is just like very like a lot of these stars are like the very thick and concentrated , so it's like a lot of stuff . Oh yeah , like why do I believe that to be true ?
Speaker 2Like I actually don't know that it's that these things are this way and it's I couldn't even call them black holes until Disney put a movie out in the seventies about them . Before that the common term was usually like a dark star or black star , and we've been thinking these might exist even way back in the 1670 hundreds . But we didn't know the details of relativity . But we knew the speed of light was a number and then things were dense out they wouldn't be able to escape . Because we build that number and
How art, science and fiction reinforce each other
Speaker 2you know these things get shipped a lot in our hands because we is the . It is the two edge sort of sci fi . On the one hand you have this constant creative triangle between , like art , science and science fiction that just feeds on to each other and builds these ideas up . We get so many of our scientists by sci fi . The best message I give them people I get a few a week these days of saying you know , I just graduated from college and I major this field at watching episodes . That's amazing . That's amazing . It makes you feel better for all my professors who put time into me and then go into research . I went to Indian entertainment and edutainment but it's , you know , that's a great feeling . But I had that in my background too .
Speaker 2Sci fi grew up on the stuff Artists . They get inspired by some , some article , they draw a picture , somebody makes a story about it and that was gets read by someone and feeds and also keeps the public . You know it's where we recruit scientists . But it's also a recruit , the enthusiasm people have . Where do we get to believe that the future is going to be better ? You know , I mean history would tell you that based on looking backwards . But that doesn't seem to be what people do .
Speaker 2They look at sci fi and say look at these cool things down the road that we could have , these that we saw in Star Trek are very real to us . And you know you try to explain to people look , the warp drive stuff ain't never going to happen . There's not going to be fast line travel . You're not going to have a replicator . That just makes you all gray hot like that . But we have other options that are actually even more cool under no science and excuse me , you know that's one of the things we aim for on the show is say we want to show why a piece of technology you see on sci fi might not work . We want to just cynically say and nope , can't do that . We say , even though you can't make a war , war , travel to the other side of the universe , etc . Even though you cannot travel faster and light , you can still colonize the whole galaxy or even other galaxies , and you know the reality . That is , in many ways , way more impressive than in the space opera .
Speaker 1What is the role that , like science fiction and science and all this and like art , should play in shaping kind of our vision of the future ? Because it seems to be one of the things that that is clearly lacking . I mean like I mean lacking to , I guess , like on a broad scale . Like I mean you're you're putting out incredible stuff on this . There are lots of other people working really hard on like telling start , like talking about science and science fiction and in pairing with art in a way , focus more on the sci fi and try to bring realism to it .
Speaker 2Others are more specifically science and don't really do the sci fi as much . But it you know there was way more creative sources than there used to be on this and when you know the science shows used to be . You know Mr Wizard and Coliseum , and there was amazing there was . The whole generations got inspired by those . Now we got 10 , 20 million times much . I don't know what was inspiring about the war fail . That's the other example there . What do people see there and say this is a future I want to pursue , I want to make this happen , or something like that . You see this costume , cool , new visage for the future and that's what you want . It's that you want to make that happen . This is the you say you become a missionary for that , that constant More or less yeah .
Speaker 2Because there's zero involved . You don't get a science degree in any science , let alone the hard stem ones , by , you know , turning your thumbs for a couple years you walk . Look at those . It is hard , it is headaches , it is , you know , unless you're one of those people who just doesn't have a new physical label . It is usually much more lasting to your physical label than to sit and be a state for two or three hours straight like that , over the day , repeatedly , throughout the day , over and over and over again .
Speaker 2It changes your outlook on life and knowledge better in terms of how you look at problems . Things that used to be very comfortable for you can suddenly become very uncomfortable because you realize that there was parts that you never used to see before . That that also okay , you know , and we do that because we really believe in this idea , and some people did it by show curiosity . They were scientists who , I know , couldn't care about the world around them all . They're just very monotonically focused on that one bit of science for some reason or now . And you know the great some of those are . Some of our best scientists would be like that , but a lot of them want . A lot of them were people who they had a vision for the future and that was their way of adding to it . And , yeah , changes . It's not really the doctor who , tom Baker in 1970 , stuff that a lot of us got all vision from , or the world classic Star Trek , but it's there , it's an emerging idea and it's what we just pursue . In that regard , every you know every sci fi cartoon like future drama , every gorgeous painting by someone like Don Davis , right With the giant only or so , knows we all grew up on a frontiers in space from , or high frontiers , excuse me , and you know those things . They they are what inspire you scientists on and they're also what inspire people to be like .
Speaker 2You know what . I'm willing to dump insane amounts of tax money to building a $10 billion superglider . I'm willing to spend so much money on , you know , going to the moon , going to Mars , going to Europa , going to El Fusantale . Eventually , these things require , you know , even if you had a vast amount of money that was just freely available to use for this , you still have all that like around a rocket pad in good old Florida . There's like a six mile region where you couldn't possibly live at comfortably because it's that loud and rockets go off . Other people appreciate how well those really all , and you know it disturbs local ecology . There are things required new technology , that require sacrifice by us , you know , money , time , et cetera , and that require the whole civilization paying off .
Speaker 2And if you don't have that , that art , that fiction , that vibe from when it says this better world is on the horizon , you know , and that can include the opposite cases to your dystopian sci-fi , which I a good story is usually not set in utopia . You kind of have to have conflict . But sometimes people watch sci-fi . It's a little bit too depressing , too dark and it makes them have a bad image of the future . It's not a place they want to go . But just often , if it's good story telling , to say , well , this is an avoidable future , this
Different visions of utopia and virtual worlds
Speaker 2is not the place you want to go to ?
Speaker 1I think I don't know . I try and challenge this idea that you can't have like conflict and like utopia , like pro-topian , I guess you know because , like , if everything's perfect , there's no conflict . But you could have like this the scenarios or the settings take place in places that are a bit more beautiful , like , imagine , like , obviously Blade Runner wouldn't work if it was set in a , like if you took away the neon and the city and the darkness , because , like , that's part of the you know your , your mega cities video . This is a film .
Speaker 2No , look , although I would say it was cleaner in that movie than in actual LA in the year 2019 . I saw a timeline of all the movies from the 70s that were happily set right in the last few years , like Soaring in the Green . But you know you can have conflict in utopia . You know it's not necessarily paradise and it doesn't have to be . What's utopia ? We all know the answer to that one is it varies on the person . We don't have to be utopian , we just have to be better than we used to be and just be , and that doesn't mean you don't have to have every planet be the same .
Speaker 2If you go out and colonize a billion worlds , that's a lot of room for a lot of options . Some of those might be really weird places . You know utopia might be some place that looks like a sleazy version of Vegas for a whole planet . And yet you know you might have a place where utopia is an untouched rainforest , whole plants , one untouched rainforest or one untouched . You know Jurassic Park , because and this is the cool thing about things like Dyson Swarms we are using all the sun's light not just all the lights on your planet and giant space habitats .
Speaker 2You can build two billion times the living surface the Earth has just around our sun , from available materials . You have to do the routine , the hand dance now . But let's say you decide you want to devote just 1% of all that space to nature . Posaurs , that is 20 million planets worth of living area in which you can build . You know every epoch of the previous planet . You can , you know , clone or make up in the meantime and have versions of it and backups . You could have a planet devoted to kill . You know wide sand warms , you know yeah .
Speaker 1How I don't know if you're such a fascinating feature to live in where , yeah , you literally do have like the Dune planet and or you are like you can go to Arrakis and like you can even I think what . What an interesting concept to think about like an entire , like a planetary scale film , set right where you go to Iraq and you can like participate in like that story .
Speaker 2And that will probably happen too , because we see , when a movie comes out , you get the books to the company . It's the , you know , made the novelization of it . You get the games that come out and so in the whole multiplayer community that brings up around it . That's part of the really good world where it's what I like about things like Star Wars , EU Trek or Warhammer or something other ones , it's a whole setting built by thousands of people that you know that this has so much depth , even the crazy bits that don't make sense or contradictory , add to it because it's like the real world . Then it doesn't make sense , you know . But you know you don't just have the option of real space , things like space habitats or the planets , you do have the virtual options too .
Speaker 2What does a world look like where you've been running a server ? That's a planet made up . Planet like Iraq is with , you know , limited AI , where in some wars and people coming in to visit in others , where they've been there for , you know , hundreds of years , consistently and in detail . That's a . That's a real planet at that point , isn't it ? They involve practical purposes . People might even live there , maybe not all the time , they might live there . They might be uploaded there and stay there , you know , and that's one way to colonize the universe too . You say well , you know what ? We're going to build ? Some giant computers and giant solar collectors and lots of virtual worlds where the rules don't apply as normally fit in the universe . Because I want to live in the world that ashore made , I want one where the sky can float between two seas .
Turning future ideas into immersive experiences
Speaker 1One of the two other things I want to I want to just rip on with you is what I'm kind of thinking about when we design the like , obviously with the design of the fairgrounds , like we want to have kind of design around all the , all the core themes space , energy , food . But it's interesting , it'd be interesting to just kind of hear your perspective on what sort of ideas from science fiction or some of the videos that you've produced would be would make for really good like conversions into , like physical immersive experiences . So like what , what stories we tell through physical place . That would imbue people with a sense of like possibility and curiosity about , you know , a certain topic .
Speaker 2I mean , there's a lot of options there that you know in terms of some set that someone can actually be inside , something like the part on our space elevator as it goes up and you simulate that with a little bit of maybe a swing and then it's going up and you're seeing . You know the screen showing you what the world looks like as you go away from it . Or what it'd be like on a rotating habitat which you have the upside . You could just project the ceiling because you already have the gravity in place , or we'll walk you out on an overrowing in space , or even just here's a slice of an oncology , you're inside it and here's the outside view screen and the inside view screen of the main hand with the gardens , all that . These kind of things give people a chance to walk inside , feel , touch and smell something that's still fake , it's not the real deal , but that opens their eyes up in a way that just seeing on the screen doesn't help . You know it's that step beyond even IMAX .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I think that's the whole point of the fair is to take these ideas like people are already talking about , but how do we turn them into things that are like really kind of incorporate all the other senses ? Because there's something like imagine just walking through like a space habitat , like wow , this could be , and then it makes it feel even more real and more achievable than just having like just kind of watching or reading about it .
Speaker 2Yeah , it's an experience into it and then a motion , and then someone comes out of that place and says , well , you know what I love this thing , but that part there didn't make sense . You go , oh wow , you're right , that didn't , and now you can make it more real . You know , a lot of stuff that was in the warfare obviously didn't actually come to be in the same way I mean , most of us can sing the monorail song from the Simpsons these days . The monorail's were always in those , but a lot of it did in one form or another or it didn't come out because we got something better . You know , we never got the flip phone communicators from Star Trek , Although I guess we did have flip phones for a while . We got something better . You know there's not going to be the tap on thing that we use like you know , bridge come in . No , you got the smartphone and they're taking photographs and walk around and easier . We got something even better and we got that because people will inspire to pursue it . You know things like that .
Speaker 2When you put all those ideas together , it means that when someone's trying to find you , you take a bunch of school kids , something like that . Right , oh well , they went to the one thing that saw , the one exhibit , and that kid didn't care about that one , but the next one just latched on . And maybe that doesn't mean they run off and become a geologist or , you know , a physicist or an engineer . Maybe that means they go on to go in the marketing and that . But the opportunity comes up to help show that they were so impressed by the presentation , or maybe it's just a hobby for them , or maybe it's something that they take their own kids to and one of those kids turns up the next time . We connect the things , we give them that feeling that this can be made real and because they've seen it and touched it , even as a model , they know that that potentiality is there and they can help that come along
Space progress and what to build next
Speaker 2faster .
Speaker 2You know what was so soul question about the 80s and 90s , about not going back to the 90s ? The knots was like until SpaceX you know , take it or leave it in terms of the other personalities evolved came around . A lot of us felt like that moon thing was just not happening . And I also tell people well , be patient , we're going to get things to replace it . And I was right about that . We were , but I never expected SpaceX to succeed in that way . That did , and it was .
Speaker 2You know , one of those examples of things got moving very quickly . Why ? Because it was a whole bunch of researchers and engineers who came from that same generation that watched that happen and then watched what didn't happen and they were willing to invest their whole life into making that happen because it mattered that much to them . And , you know , the public has loved this , the public's all for it , and they , they , would like to see us move forward , and we maintain that by giving them lots of actual examples and say here is what we can potentially give you . It won't look quite like this , so if you don't like it , that's okay too . This is the options that might be out there , but I hope we'll make that a reality . And what most people are going to say is yeah , yeah , I will help you make that a reality .
Speaker 1If you had to pick , like you know , just a few things that you would want people to be inspired to go build over the next you know couple of decades , I know if we , if we kind of look pretty far out , obviously we want the cloud cities , we want the mega structures , we want the like , the we want all the things , but in the , in the shorter term , it's called like 20 , 30 years , like what do you what ?
Speaker 1do you want people to be inspired to go build Like that may that makes ? There may be pieces of it that are out there , but , like you know , we tell stories about certain things that would galvanize people in the same way the space race did . Like what would ? What might some of those be ?
Speaker 2I like to see some walk in our colleges as a kind of a concept , the idea that you can , inside cities , actually have green spaces in buildings that are not purely ceremonial titles of displays . Although there's a way better than it used to be when I was a kid , I like the idea of people feeling like green is something that can exist in a city , and not just as a master subsidy , which comes from working a lot more . I really like to see a lot more usage of comfortable level robots and AI , with people becoming more glued into their assistant role to people Not replacing us , just augmenting us . There's just a tool , and that's what I encourage people kind of focus towards is the idea that life gets a lot easier when you have small assistance .
Speaker 2In terms of things I just like to see built , though . I would love to see somebody try to build an orbital ring or a skyhook or a mass driver , you know , a space catapult , and I would love to see a moon base , a permanent moon base that , just you know , only had a few people at any given time and didn't really do too much to produce things , was just there to run experiments , and I'd be happy with that too , but I feel like that's on the horizon too , like we could
Patience and long-term progress
Speaker 2get there , yeah .
Speaker 1Have you ? Have you seen ? Have you seen ? For all mankind ?
Speaker 2Yeah , only the first bit of it , though . It was inspirational , but you know , so , keep on this . I was going to have to go out the door , yeah .
Speaker 1Yeah , it's , it's . Yeah , that's just slight tension . I think like that paints a pretty interesting picture for like what I guess , like what could have been and like what could be , like what might a moon base look like ? And kind of exploring explain all that .
Speaker 2And it could have . Like patience is . The big thing on this is is we . We took so long to get back to the moon and when we sort of actually gotten back yet , but at the same time we had people walk on the South Pole more than a century ago . The first base that was built in Antarctica . That was 50 or 60 years before the first one that was permanent . We had a permanent one there for 50 or 60 years and there are thousands of people living there now , though they don't technically live there because of treaty , you know , in all but fact , and that took time , took time .
Speaker 2You know it takes a lot of time to get these things done sometimes , but the other folks who had to build cathedrals , if they could do it back when they'd walk you , they lived with 30 or 40 years old and they were willing to spend centuries building things like that . Then we can be patient . You know we've gotten good at these things . That's the biggest . One is just just because you didn't get the , the hover call with a jet pack doesn't mean you didn't get the smartphone and the Nintendo , so other things came on in the meantime . We can't just keep walking towards the goal .
Speaker 1And in progress . Progress in humanity just marches onward . Awesome
Where to find Isaac’s work
Speaker 1, Isaac , this is fantastic . Thank you for coming on and sharing your brilliant , brilliant wisdom and excitement for the future with us . Where can people find you and where can they support all of your incredible work ?
Speaker 2Well , you can find us on YouTube , patreon , audible , amazon , itunes , spotify and almost everywhere else out there . Search for science and futurism with Isaac Arthur , or just Isaac Arthur . You'll usually come right up and then find an episode whose title or picture looks appropriate to you . They'll never clickbait it is what says it is , and just go ahead and try it out .
Speaker 1I can attest to it and highly recommend it . It's a fun deep dive Like oh man , there goes , there went my afternoon on more than one occasion , but hey , you know it's , it's stimulated my imagination , which I think is something we could use a little bit more of in the world . So yeah , thank you for the great work you're doing . Again , thanks for thanks for coming on , thanks for having me Cam .
Speaker 2It was awesome .