Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur

We contemplate colonizing planets, but what about the stars themselves? Containing virtually all the mass and resources of the solar system, the Sun, the Sun is the ultimate asset for a growing interplanetary civilization. While typically assumed too hot to touch and so out of our reach, we will challenge that notion today.

The End of the World is nigh... how do you escape? This episode will look at many of the potential ways the world might be destroyed, from supernova to asteroid strike, as well as looking at how we might survive such disasters and go about saving civilization.

A discussion of various theories for the End of the Universe. How the Universe began and why is a question that's obsessed humanity for at least as long as civilization has existed, at the same time, how it will end has equally fascinated us. Today we are joined by Astrophysicist Paul Sutter for a two-part episode looking at the science and history of how the Universe came to be and may end.

Ever since we started finding fossils of long extinct species we've dreamed of getting to meet them, either by finding some secluded group of survivors, using a time machine, or resurrecting them. As our knowledge of genetics grows, this last option is fast approaching as a possible reality and raises many additional concerns about the technical and ethical challenges, not least of which is where to put them, with their former environments now used by people or other critters. We will examine these challenges today.

We explore the history and future of missions to Mars. For years following the Moon landings it seemed liked Mars would be our next step and sooner than later, but the costs and risks discouraged interest for around a decade after that. We pick up from part 1 when renewed interest arose and examine many of the more recent plans and what options they give us for manned missions to the Red Planet in the next decade.

We return to the Upward Bound Series to look at spaceports, giant structures dwarfing the modern International Space Station, with a focus on the Gateway Spaceport design.

The idea that alien civilizations may exist but be hiding or asleep is a popular explanation for the Fermi Paradox, the apparent contradiction between the immensity of the Universe and the seeming absence of civilizations in it. Today we exam the concept that civilization may hibernate and what their motives for doing so would be.

A journey out to the stars to colonize Alpha Centauri. We've looked at colonizing our own solar system, from Mars to Venus, and all the way inward to the Sun itself and out to the dark edges of the Oort Cloud. In this episode we conclude the Outward Bound Series by heading to our nearest neighboring star system, Alpha Centauri, and look at the trials and tribulations of colonizing binary star systems and red dwarves.

To explore space and expand beyond Earth we will need a robust orbital infrastructure to serve as our beachhead. Today we will explore the necessary components for that, how we will go about creating them, and threats to them like Kessler Syndrome, a potential cascade destruction of all our space-based assets.

A look at the future of warfare in the void between the stars. Today we will examine the concepts from science fiction of how such conflicts might occur and see how realistic they are under known science.

This episode begins an in-depth look at Post-Scarcity Civilizations, seeming Utopias where virtually anything is available to its citizens at the snap of their fingers. One of the exceptions to that may be privacy, which might be inherently impossible in such a society, and we will explore that challenge as we begin our series on such civilizations..

To see deeper into space, we will need much bigger telescopes. Visit our sponsor, Brilliant: https://brilliant.org/IsaacArthur/ As astronomy seeks to find and study distant planets and peer further and more accurately into space and time, the limitations of ground based telescopes, especially optical telescopes, represents our largest barrier. Today we will examine what those limitations are, and ways to make vastly more enormous telescopes and arrays.

The possibility that ancient civilizations might have encountered or even been influenced by extraterrestrials has fascinated us for as long as we knew there were distant suns they might visit from. Today we will examine the evidence and consider the numerous scenarios form the perspective of the Fermi Paradox, to see how reasonable the Ancient Aliens hypothesis is, and ask if the evidence of UFOs visiting us in the past is credible.

The ability to be able to copy or upload the mind has been discussed much in science fiction, and increasingly in science in recent years. Today we will examine many additional uses of Mind Uploading, along with how it works and some of its implications for concepts like Consciousness, Identity, and Individuality. We will also explore how these themes appear in Dennis E. Taylor's newest novel, The Singularity Trap, our Book of the Month.

Today we take a trip inward, to explore Sun-Scorched Mercury. Mercury is the nearest planet to the Sun, a seeming airless wasteland little discussed in conversations about colonizing our solar system. Today we will challenge that, and show that Mercury may be one of the most promising places for humanity to make new homes on.

A look at the possibility of future civilizations rising and falling. It's long been observed that empires tend to rise and fall in a seeming cycle, never identical but sharing many similarities. Today we will examine the idea that this may be the reason that we have encountered no advanced civilizations in our own galaxy, and that the solution the Fermi Paradox, as to why we have seen no alien civilizations, may be that they are caught in a perpetual loop. Unable or unwilling to use technology which might allow them to travel the cosmos. We will also consider if such a loop may await us, or that we are already in it.

Try out Ecosia and support reforestation: https://ecosia.co/isaacarthur Technology may one day grant us a Utopia in which virtually all tasks are performed by robots and artificial intelligence. In such a post-scarcity civilization, people may have difficulty finding a purpose to existence. Today we will explore how this may come about, what the consequences of this existential threat might be, and what purposes people may find for themselves in such a future. Visit our Website: http://www.isaacarthur.net Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/IsaacArthur SFIA Merchandise available: http://signil.com/sfia Social Media: Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/15839... Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/IsaacArthur/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Isaac_A_Arthur on Twitter and RT our future content. SFIA Discord Server: https://discord.gg/v5UKTsz

Ceres, a dwarf planet amid the Asteroid Belt, hold the potential to be the hub of a vast mining and manufacturing network in the Belt, as well as potentially growing the food to support future colonists. Today we'll look at colonizing Ceres and asteroid mining, faming in space, and a potential distant future of a developed asteroid belt.

Today we will begin our look at the spaceships we might use for colonizing interstellar space in the future. In order to cover the vast distances between even the nearest stars in our galaxy within the boundaries of known physics, we need vessels able to voyage at high speeds for very long periods of time while carrying everything they need to colonize another solar system, a concept typically known as a space ark or generation ship. We will explore the challenges and options for such a vessel, as well as some alternative approaches to the problem.

For today's 2-part episode we team again with John Michael Godier to discuss the future of humanity should we head out to colonize the galaxy and find it empty, and how we might end up encountering aliens even then.

Beaming energy down from satellites in orbit to replace the production of electricity on Earth may solve many of our problems, and avoid a potential economic or ecological crisis such as energy bottlenecks or global warming. Today we will explore how wireless microwave transmission of energy down to rectennas may not only be possible, but could be massively profitable in the near future and spur our exploration and colonization of space.

In order to colonize the galaxy, we are going to have to spend huge times on board equally huge spaceships. To move thousands of people, and our ecosystem, to distant planets, will require not only giant ark-like starships, but entire fleets of them. Today we will examine how we could do this even if physics never offers us any superior methods in the future for covering the void of interstellar space faster.

Today, we're discussing 5 plausible ways that the world could end, and I'm thrilled to be doing this as a 2-part collaboration with the one and only Isaac Arthur. Check out his video here:

Today we team up with Joe Scott to discuss 5 catastrophes that might threaten humanity in the future, and what we can do to prevent or mitigate them. Here in part 2, we will look at ways of dealing with those threat, which will include artificial intelligence, global warming & climate change, asteroids & comets, gamma ray bursts, and the eventual death of the Sun.

Since the advent of technology, there have been concerns about it replacing jobs and leaving people without an income. Technological disruption has often eliminated entire industries. However, new fields of employment have always arisen to replace those, typically focusing more on training and skills, as machines have no minds and little flexibility. While artificial intelligence may one day change that, today we will examine what sort of jobs might be available to people in the future.

In order to do serious exploration and colonization of space, we will need a source of food beyond Earth. But can we go beyond simply small hydroponic gardens to entire vast space farms in orbit of our planet, and could those farming on satellites and space stations eventually replace earth-based agriculture as our main food source at home?

Alien puppeteers arriving on UFOs, body snatchers, and mimics are a staple of science fiction, but are they realistic? Today we'll examine these concepts and see if they might be possible under known science, or what similar scenarios extraterrestrial evolution or technology might be produce.

In order to terraform new planets, we will need to be able transport entire ecologies & ecosystems through interstellar space in the future. Today we will examine how we could build and maintain such environments inside vast arks, generations ships able to colonize our galaxy, and the challenges these starships will face maintaining not just stores of DNA and genetic material but living organisms which depend heavily on other members of their species and other species to survive and thrive, not least of which is human ourselves.

Drones are becoming more common for military, commercial, and recreational purposes, today we will explore how these will impact us in the near future and far, for peace and warfare, on Earth and in the void of space. We will also examining the fundamental differences in the problems and challenges drones represent compared to more mentally sophisticated artificial intelligences or robots.

The Icy Giants, Neptune and Uranus, are often overlooked for as candidates for colonizing our solar system. Even when noted, the focus tends to be on their larger moons like Triton. Today we will challenge that notion by looking at way we might place a colony on the planet itself, and how Orbital Rings and Chandelier Cities might let us colonize any gas giant. We will also look at how helium-3, a core ingredient of aneutronic fusion abundant on Neptune, might serve as the fuel of future starships, and the physics behind some other starship drives future science might give us access to, such as laser propulsion.

We often worry about the possibility of a civilization developing methods of brainwashing to indoctrinate its population and turning into a totalitarian dictatorship. We will examine both existing and possible future methods and technologies for mind control, such as neuro-hacking and genetic programming, as well as the possible defenses against such brainwashing or conditioning and implications it has for civilization.

Our first end-of-the-month livestream Q&A session, with hopefully minimal technical glitches. Join us 2pm EST, Sunday, Sep 30, and get you questions about the channel and episodes on chat to be answered!

Our seas and oceans have long been central to human civilization, while at the same time we built dikes and islands to reclaim land. As technology improves, we may see even more ambitious efforts in the future. In the episode we will explore the options, both for ways we may extend our civilization to the sea and the motives of doing so. We will also look at seasteads and seasteading, artificial islands built in international waters with the intent of being new, sovereign nations.

As we continue our look at Generation Ships, vast vessels designed to carry many thousands of colonists to distant and alien worlds centuries away, we must ask just how far and how long such ships can be made to last? Can space ships be made that will endure even longer voyages of thousands or even millions of years in the void of interstellar or even intergalactic space? Will ships, and their crews, fall apart or turn into Cargo Cults who no longer remember how their technology functions or what their mission was?

Our seas and oceans have always been central to our civilization, but only the thin layer at the top. In many ways the ocean depths remain more of a mystery to us than distant worlds. And yet, they may be of great value to us as future homes for humanity.

A look at environments and ecology on truly massive space stations. As we expand in space and build ever large space stations, true space habitats, we will need to incorporate ecosystems into them. However, such space habitats will have their own weather and cycles unlike those of Earth, and we will need to adapt to those unique conditions, which will vary by size and type. Today we will look at everything from smaller rotating habitats like Kaplana One and O'Neill Cylinders to vast structures such as Ringworlds, Supramundane Planets, Mega-Earths, and see the unique challenges each of them will offer us in the future.

Our second end-of-the-month livestream Q&A session. Join us 2pm EST, Sunday, Oct 28, and get your questions about the channel and episodes on chat to be answered!

Lifespans have been slowing increasing as medical technology improves, but could they extended massively or even indefinitely? We will explore the science of aging and Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, SENS, the field looking at how to improve geriatric medicine to extend our lives and possibly even makes us biologically immortal.

Our deserts have been slowly expanding, consuming arable land and neighboring ecosystems. Can we push them back, or even turn them into lush oases and fertile farmland? We will investigate the available options, and consequences, with both modern technology and those which may emerge in the future.

The Fermi Paradox asks us where all the alien civilizations are? Today we will ask if the might be hiding in the Voids, from those between the stars to the massive Supervoids like the Boötes Void. Could they be home to Extraterrestrial Empires so large they dwarf even Kardashev-3 Civilizations?

A Moon Base may be built within a generation, but long term colonization will take many more. As more people travel and immigrate their, establishing more lunar colonies, tension between them and Earth could lead to conflicts and possibly even warfare.

To journey across the stars requires voyages of centuries or more, ensuring the crew will be long dead by the time they arrive. If you want your crew available to colonize new worlds after their interstellar voyage, you either have to extend their lives, train their descendants, or freeze them till they arrive. We will examine the third option day, freezing people with cryonics, using hibernation, or suspended animation, or some other form of stasis the future might offer.

Our planet is so enormous that it can often appear flat to those living on it, as time went on and we determined it was a sphere, many still chose to assume it was a flat disc. While this notion is outdated, it is possible to construct an artificial planet as a discworld, and such worldbuilding shapes may have some advantages over a sphere. In this episode we will examine a number of Flat Earth models and some variations on the theme, and see what advantages and disadvantages they have, along with the challenges in constructing them

Our third end-of-the-month livestream Q&A session. Join us 7pm EST, Friday, Nov 20, and get your questions about the channel and episodes on chat to be answered!

So often expanding into space can seem like a Catch-22, where every proposed idea for development can only be practical if space is already developed. Today we'll take a look at some potential options for pushing forward our orbital infrastructure such as asteroid mining or power satellites, and take a look at what other technologies and industries might start the avalanche to our future in space and on other planets.

Humanity has long had outposts in the barren tundra lands of the arctic, but only in recent times have we visited the poles or the entire continent of Antarctica. In this episode we will explore how me use technology in the future to make cold permafrost into verdant farmland through greenhouses, solar mirrors, geothermal, or other techniques, as well as how we might follow a different path, and adapt our civilization to prosper among perpetual winter and ice.

To ring in the New Year, we're joining up with Kaspersky Lab's Earth 2050 project to make some predictions about how our world will change over the next generation as we make improvements in technologies on medicine, data storage and manipulation, and robots & AI.

Revolutionary improvements to automation and production may one day create machines able to produce almost anything, quickly and cheaply, and far faster and more varied than modern 3D Printers. Such devices are sometimes known as Santa Claus Machines, Cornucopia Devices, or Clanking Del-Replicators, and today we will examine how likely such technology is, how far off in the future they might be, and what impact they would have on society.

The galaxy is a vast place with billions of potential new worlds for humanity to colonize, but interstellar space is so enormous that reaching even the nearest stars and planets by spaceship would take decades at best, and maybe many centuries. Even on arrival terraforming those barren planets would take just as long. Two options for overcoming the immensity of space and time are the Seed Ship and the Data Ship, automated vessels able to colonize the worlds for us. We will examine those today, their advantages, limitations, and misconceptions, and variations of them we might use to seed the stars.

35 years ago, Science Fiction's Grandmaster, the late Isaac Asimov, made some predictions for 2019. As we head into the New Year, we'll take a look at those predictions and see what he got right, what he got wrong, and what it tells us about trying to predict our own future, 35 years from now.