7 ms·

The Future of Humanity with Elon Musk: Interview by Neil DeGrasse Tyson

79 points by eroo 11y ago

coldpie 11y ago
Direct MP3 link (hopefully): https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/197004056/download?client_id=0f8fdbbaa21a9bd18210986a7dc2d72c https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/197004056/download?client_...
amelius 11y ago
The problem is of course, when Earth becomes inhabitable, who gets to decide who can leave this planet? I think it would be best for humanity if we first try to fix capitalism, giving everybody equal opportunities.
- leeoniya 11y ago
  oddly, the term is "uninhabitable".
  - higherpurpose 11y ago
    Inhabitable is a lot like inflammable.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  While I sympathize, it seems odd to segue from 'total environmental meltdown' to 'scorekeeping in an imaginary game for imaginary points'. Which is what capitalism is - a game for made-up dollar-points to motivate individuals to go to work. Really, almost ever economic system is exactly that thing.
  - loganmhb 11y ago
    Your objection to the segue would make more sense if those "imaginary points" didn't have the potential to e.g. purchase one of a limited number of tickets off the planet (or any number of other life-changing/saving things). There's a sense in which money isn't "real", but capitalism certainly isn't an imaginary game for imaginary points.
    - wavefunction 11y ago
      Capitalism is just a social control system to replace previous control systems like "religion" and "nationalism." It provides a general rules-set for the average person to follow and believe in while allowing for greatly artificial and generally negative social gradients and stratification. For example, why should an ignorant hotel-heiress be afforded one of the limited opportunities to flee the degraded Earth simply because she happens to possess more imaginary points than a skilled technician or competent farmer? Her real-social-utility is quite low compared to someone with functional capabilities and her "great wealth" is directly derived from the environmental degradation she is hoping to flee.
      - Spearchucker 11y ago
        So you're swapping paper currency for intellectual currency. So unless we all get a ticket, one control system or another will be in effect.
      - wavefunction 11y ago
        @spearchucker "Intellectual currency" as you put it, is absolutely necessary on the frontier, along with tenacity and a willingness to put up with physical and mental hardship. If there is a limit to the number of people who can flee a degraded earth, I see no problem limiting it to people who can work together and yield their intellect in service of survival. I'm almost positive that I would be one of the ones left behind on Earth so this isn't some sort of personal superiority complex. I also think it's entirely appropriate for those who have benefited disproportionately from the degradation of a system to use their extensive resources in direct service to fix the problem. Ultimately I'd like to believe that all persons interested in "escape" could be accommodated but I also think most of us would have to remain and deal with or fix the degradation.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      If everyone's life was on the line, no amount of imaginary dollars would get you a ticket. It would be fixed by those in power. Don't fool yourself. The imaginary points are only there to motivate the working class.
- simonh 11y ago
  Before dissing capitalism, try living under one of it's alternatives for a while. Generally speaking, they haven't worked out so well in practice. It's funny how a marginal increase in wealth ratios has people spitting out their Starbucks and throwing down their XBOX controllers in disgust. Meanwhile people in China are clamouring for as much capitalism as they can possibly get, to lift their families out of grinding poverty. That doesn't mean there aren't issues to resolve. Clearly there is some recalibration required in terms of an equitable redistribution of the benefits of our economy, but I think some degree of perspective is in order.
kmeves 11y ago
"houston we have a problem" .... most misquoted line. it is "houston we've had a problem"
- spoiledtechie 11y ago
  source?
  - tarentel 11y ago
    http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/AS13_TEC.PDF http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/AS13_TEC.PDF
dave_sullivan 11y ago
Couple points against humans physically exploring and colonizing space... * Can't go faster than light (or even a large fraction of the limit) * Cost. Look at price per compute vs price to bring something to space and tell me which trend seems more durable. Things will keep getting smaller while space exploration may not. * Space sucks! Very inhospitable. I'd rather live in a biodome on a ravaged earth than mars. --- Alternative things to spend huge amounts of money on: * LHC and other research on very small things * More telescopes in space (light travels at the speed of light at least! Let it come to us instead of vice versa!) * Encouraging trend of cheaper compute (not that it needs it) * Brain to computer interfaces. * Medicine --- What's to say some low mass x-ray binary systems aren't the final stage of life evolution? Super efficient harvesting of the sun and everyone living in a computer/black hole? Transcension hypothesis basically.
- davej 11y ago
  > * Can't go faster than light (or even a large fraction of the limit) That's a valid argument against traveling to other solar systems for sure. We could still travel to any planet/moon in our solar system in easily less than a generation and probably no more than 10 years. > * Cost. Look at price per compute vs price to bring something to space and tell me which trend seems more durable. Things will keep getting smaller while space exploration may not. Space will likely still be expensive for generations to come but reusability of rockets will decrease the expense of space travel by a couple of orders of magnitude. Imagine that we needed to build a new Airbus for each airplane trip, nobody would fly, it would be too expensive. Relative to rockets themselves, rocket fuel is cheap. > * Space sucks! Very inhospitable. I'd rather live in a biodome on a ravaged earth than mars. I don't know if I'd want to live my life on Mars either. That doesn't mean we shouldn't explore Mars and beyond.
- corysama 11y ago
  * Can't go faster than light (or even a large fraction of the limit) It's my weak understanding that because of time dilation & length contraction I could climb aboard a sufficiently powerful ship and travel 10,000 light years before dieing of old age. But, when I got there, I would find that 10,000+ years had passed at the destination while they waited for me. And, that if I made a return trip, Earth would be 20,000+ years older. But, importantly, /I/ would not necessarily be 20,000 years older. So, the speed of light still sucks, but it mainly sucks if you care about returning home. If you give up on that goal, relativity does not say it's impossible to travel to arbitrarily far locations in human-scale timeframes. Am I misunderstanding?
ChikkaChiChi 11y ago
We fleshbags have a pretty big problem when it comes to think outside of ourselves; be it from a humanitarian, horological, or cosmological sense. Our future is going to be pretty dire if we can't figure this problem out first, and stop asking science to panhandle for scraps thrown to it by government budgets that treat it like a monetary plague.
mrfusion 11y ago
Is there a transcript?
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  Literally every other interview on film, audio or in writing he's ever done. This guy literally rehashes interview questions, word for word, in a particular order. It's actually hilarious once you've seen 10 of his interviews, as well as mind numbingly boring. But I keep listening to them hoping he'll say something new, as the things he does say are pretty powerful. Hell if someone took 10 of his interviews and just made a video of the exact same question answered the exact same way, that'd be pure comedy gold. You'd trend on social media with that for sure. Things like 'lived on 1 dollar a day', '5 most important things for humanity' and 'reason from first principles', are just a few of the things he manages to say in every single interview. Anyway here's a quick transcript: http://www.autoevolution.com/news/elon-musk-tunnels-could-make-flying-cars-unnecessary-mission-to-mars-in-11-years-93581.html http://www.autoevolution.com/news/elon-musk-tunnels-could-ma...
  - someotheridiot 11y ago
    Well if the interviewers would stop asking the same stupid questions over and over again he might get a chance to say something different. I felt this interview was a completely wasted opportunity by NGT.
jondiggsit 11y ago
One thing always bothers me about long distance travel in space: You increase speed to get somewhere faster.... What about the slowing down part?!?! Travel at near light speed is great, but how long did it take to accelerate to that speed and how long does it take to slow down?
mentos 11y ago
Rather than solve the problem of not having enough resources to survive on Earth, why not solve the problem of needing the resources to exist in the first place? Life will leave this Earth but not in the form everyone expects.

79 points by eroo 11y ago

Direct MP3 link (hopefully): https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/197004056/download?client_id=0f8fdbbaa21a9bd18210986a7dc2d72c https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/197004056/download?client_...

amelius 11y ago

The problem is of course, when Earth becomes inhabitable, who gets to decide who can leave this planet? I think it would be best for humanity if we first try to fix capitalism, giving everybody equal opportunities.

leeoniya 11y ago
oddly, the term is "uninhabitable".
- higherpurpose 11y ago
  Inhabitable is a lot like inflammable.
JoeAltmaier 11y ago
While I sympathize, it seems odd to segue from 'total environmental meltdown' to 'scorekeeping in an imaginary game for imaginary points'. Which is what capitalism is - a game for made-up dollar-points to motivate individuals to go to work. Really, almost ever economic system is exactly that thing.
- loganmhb 11y ago
  Your objection to the segue would make more sense if those "imaginary points" didn't have the potential to e.g. purchase one of a limited number of tickets off the planet (or any number of other life-changing/saving things). There's a sense in which money isn't "real", but capitalism certainly isn't an imaginary game for imaginary points.
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    Capitalism is just a social control system to replace previous control systems like "religion" and "nationalism." It provides a general rules-set for the average person to follow and believe in while allowing for greatly artificial and generally negative social gradients and stratification. For example, why should an ignorant hotel-heiress be afforded one of the limited opportunities to flee the degraded Earth simply because she happens to possess more imaginary points than a skilled technician or competent farmer? Her real-social-utility is quite low compared to someone with functional capabilities and her "great wealth" is directly derived from the environmental degradation she is hoping to flee.
    - Spearchucker 11y ago
      So you're swapping paper currency for intellectual currency. So unless we all get a ticket, one control system or another will be in effect.
    - wavefunction 11y ago
      @spearchucker "Intellectual currency" as you put it, is absolutely necessary on the frontier, along with tenacity and a willingness to put up with physical and mental hardship. If there is a limit to the number of people who can flee a degraded earth, I see no problem limiting it to people who can work together and yield their intellect in service of survival. I'm almost positive that I would be one of the ones left behind on Earth so this isn't some sort of personal superiority complex. I also think it's entirely appropriate for those who have benefited disproportionately from the degradation of a system to use their extensive resources in direct service to fix the problem. Ultimately I'd like to believe that all persons interested in "escape" could be accommodated but I also think most of us would have to remain and deal with or fix the degradation.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    If everyone's life was on the line, no amount of imaginary dollars would get you a ticket. It would be fixed by those in power. Don't fool yourself. The imaginary points are only there to motivate the working class.
simonh 11y ago
Before dissing capitalism, try living under one of it's alternatives for a while. Generally speaking, they haven't worked out so well in practice. It's funny how a marginal increase in wealth ratios has people spitting out their Starbucks and throwing down their XBOX controllers in disgust. Meanwhile people in China are clamouring for as much capitalism as they can possibly get, to lift their families out of grinding poverty. That doesn't mean there aren't issues to resolve. Clearly there is some recalibration required in terms of an equitable redistribution of the benefits of our economy, but I think some degree of perspective is in order.

kmeves 11y ago

"houston we have a problem" .... most misquoted line. it is "houston we've had a problem"

spoiledtechie 11y ago
source?
- tarentel 11y ago
  http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/AS13_TEC.PDF http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a13/AS13_TEC.PDF

dave_sullivan 11y ago

Couple points against humans physically exploring and colonizing space... * Can't go faster than light (or even a large fraction of the limit) * Cost. Look at price per compute vs price to bring something to space and tell me which trend seems more durable. Things will keep getting smaller while space exploration may not. * Space sucks! Very inhospitable. I'd rather live in a biodome on a ravaged earth than mars. --- Alternative things to spend huge amounts of money on: * LHC and other research on very small things * More telescopes in space (light travels at the speed of light at least! Let it come to us instead of vice versa!) * Encouraging trend of cheaper compute (not that it needs it) * Brain to computer interfaces. * Medicine --- What's to say some low mass x-ray binary systems aren't the final stage of life evolution? Super efficient harvesting of the sun and everyone living in a computer/black hole? Transcension hypothesis basically.

davej 11y ago
> * Can't go faster than light (or even a large fraction of the limit) That's a valid argument against traveling to other solar systems for sure. We could still travel to any planet/moon in our solar system in easily less than a generation and probably no more than 10 years. > * Cost. Look at price per compute vs price to bring something to space and tell me which trend seems more durable. Things will keep getting smaller while space exploration may not. Space will likely still be expensive for generations to come but reusability of rockets will decrease the expense of space travel by a couple of orders of magnitude. Imagine that we needed to build a new Airbus for each airplane trip, nobody would fly, it would be too expensive. Relative to rockets themselves, rocket fuel is cheap. > * Space sucks! Very inhospitable. I'd rather live in a biodome on a ravaged earth than mars. I don't know if I'd want to live my life on Mars either. That doesn't mean we shouldn't explore Mars and beyond.
corysama 11y ago
* Can't go faster than light (or even a large fraction of the limit) It's my weak understanding that because of time dilation & length contraction I could climb aboard a sufficiently powerful ship and travel 10,000 light years before dieing of old age. But, when I got there, I would find that 10,000+ years had passed at the destination while they waited for me. And, that if I made a return trip, Earth would be 20,000+ years older. But, importantly, /I/ would not necessarily be 20,000 years older. So, the speed of light still sucks, but it mainly sucks if you care about returning home. If you give up on that goal, relativity does not say it's impossible to travel to arbitrarily far locations in human-scale timeframes. Am I misunderstanding?

ChikkaChiChi 11y ago

We fleshbags have a pretty big problem when it comes to think outside of ourselves; be it from a humanitarian, horological, or cosmological sense. Our future is going to be pretty dire if we can't figure this problem out first, and stop asking science to panhandle for scraps thrown to it by government budgets that treat it like a monetary plague.

mrfusion 11y ago

Is there a transcript?

IkmoIkmo 11y ago
Literally every other interview on film, audio or in writing he's ever done. This guy literally rehashes interview questions, word for word, in a particular order. It's actually hilarious once you've seen 10 of his interviews, as well as mind numbingly boring. But I keep listening to them hoping he'll say something new, as the things he does say are pretty powerful. Hell if someone took 10 of his interviews and just made a video of the exact same question answered the exact same way, that'd be pure comedy gold. You'd trend on social media with that for sure. Things like 'lived on 1 dollar a day', '5 most important things for humanity' and 'reason from first principles', are just a few of the things he manages to say in every single interview. Anyway here's a quick transcript: http://www.autoevolution.com/news/elon-musk-tunnels-could-make-flying-cars-unnecessary-mission-to-mars-in-11-years-93581.html http://www.autoevolution.com/news/elon-musk-tunnels-could-ma...
- someotheridiot 11y ago
  Well if the interviewers would stop asking the same stupid questions over and over again he might get a chance to say something different. I felt this interview was a completely wasted opportunity by NGT.

jondiggsit 11y ago

One thing always bothers me about long distance travel in space: You increase speed to get somewhere faster.... What about the slowing down part?!?! Travel at near light speed is great, but how long did it take to accelerate to that speed and how long does it take to slow down?

mentos 11y ago

Rather than solve the problem of not having enough resources to survive on Earth, why not solve the problem of needing the resources to exist in the first place? Life will leave this Earth but not in the form everyone expects.