Modern WisdomA 500-Year Plan To Reach Other Worlds - Christopher Mason | Modern Wisdom Podcast 357
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
135 min read · 27,081 words- 0:00 – 1:00
Intro
- CMChristopher Mason
... if we only have a finite time in this solar system, well, what are we doing to eventually get ready that at some point we'll have to go? It's not if we go, it's when we go. And so I wanted to think about what can we do technically, ethically, and really sociologically to do to make that happen. (wind blows)
- CWChris Williamson
Christopher Mason, welcome to the show.
- CMChristopher Mason
Pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you know how I knew that me and you were going to get on just fine?
- CMChristopher Mason
Uh-
- CWChris Williamson
It's when I found out that you are also a fan of Neal Stephenson's Seveneves.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yes. Uh, the five books review probably you read, I imagine, yeah. Yes. Which was, uh, i- i- if your audience hasn't read it, it's really a phenomenal book, but is also terrifying in a lot of ways. But I think it, it is related to some of the things that I just wrote in my book, yeah, in terms of thinking about what happens at the cusp of survival for our species and what do we do and how do we survive. So yeah, it's a great book. Uh, I'm sure it will be a movie at some point too. It has to be. It's basically written as if it is already a movie.
- CWChris Williamson
It's so good. The, the first line, the moon explodes.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
- CWChris Williamson
The first line of the book, the moon explodes. So anyway, like how,
- 1:00 – 6:00
A Roadmap to Leave Earth
- CWChris Williamson
how do you get started thinking about creating a roadmap for us to leave Earth?
- CMChristopher Mason
It comes from really a, a place of hope. I actually think the... I'm a humanist. I, I like people. There's a lot of things that people do bad, but there's a lot that we do that's great in terms of poetry and music and science and the ability for humans to create things that will exist long past their own lifetime. And so, I mean, the most obvious example is people have kids all the time. But even historically, when people have built cathedrals that we knew would take generations to build, uh, and also even just having science projects that can sometimes be multi-generational, climate change is a good example. We, you know, we're not doing it that well yet, and we could do it wrong there too. But, uh, there are many places where humanity has a lot that I think that is extraordinary, and I think it's worth preserving as long as possible. So I've always thought that. And as I became a scientist, I thought, well, if we're really gonna exist as humans for a long, long time, we have to think about what is that time, and then how do we do it? And the timeframe I think about a lot is the end of the earth, because once you read about that, it's going to happen. That's something I never forgot. So I think, well, if we only have a finite time, uh, in this solar system, well, what are we doing to eventually get ready that at some point we'll have to go? It's not if we go, it's when we go. Uh, and so I wanted to think about what can we do technically, ethically, and, uh, really sociologically to do to make that happen.
- CWChris Williamson
The timeline has actually been moved up a little bit sooner as well, right? Originally, most people think that we've got about 4 billion years until the sun's going to expand and engulf-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... the Earth, but in less than 1 billion years, it'll be getting pretty hot. A lot of oceans will evaporate-
- CMChristopher Mason
More.
- CWChris Williamson
... and life's going to be very, very difficult. So the timeline has been hurried along, to say the least.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah, absolutely. So thi- this is... And I actually got really sad when I was writing the book. At the end, I thought, "Well, I'm writing kind of like what happens in the far, far future for humanity or what could happen, what I hope happens." And it... I always have that number in my head, like, well, we have, you know, four and a half billion years is a long time. And a billion years is still a pretty long time too, but it was the equivalent of imagining that you might live to be 100 years old and someone telling you one day, "No, you're only going to be to 20." That's... You're going to have about a fifth of the lifespan you thought you would have, because by then the... as you just said, the oceans will begin to boil. The luminescence of the sun gets so, so much more that it gets probably too hot to live here. We could maybe live underground, but it's going to be tough. So I got really sad. I came downstairs and told my wife. I was like, "Oh, I just..." And she's like, "What's wrong?" And I said, "Well, I just thought we had more time." And she said, "You know, a billion years is still a long time." I said, "Yeah, it is, but it's certainly a lot less than I thought we had." So I was a bit sad finishing the book and thinking about it. But it underscores the fact that that's the maximum time, right? It assumes we don't have an asteroid hit us, some other global calamity, um, you know, some plague, for example. We just had a plague. So something else could happen and really decimate humanity before then. And I find that sad because as I state, I think we have an ethical obligation to preserve not only our species, but all life that we can see, because we're the only ones that knows it can become extinct. And so this gives us a unique, uh, responsibility because we're the only ones that is aware of it.
- CWChris Williamson
Just dig into that a little bit more for me, please, because you talk about ecosystems and there's these typical sort of three groups of, of animals, and then you kind of class us as this fourth species, sort of a guardian-
- CMChristopher Mason
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... of the Earth galaxy type thing.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yes, it is kind of like a Guardian of the Galaxy. So I recognize that is a great comic book that's been around for decades and now movies. And it is... But it's interesting in the original comic books, I've actually never read them, but I've seen some of the movies, but I've now since read some of them, uh, after my books come out and after seeing some of the movies. They, uh, it's similar concept is that they're guarding, you know, truth and justice and, and sort of the na- nature of the universe and life. But some of the concepts are the same where we need, in some sense, protectors o- of life in the universe and quite literally guardians of the galaxy. So I actually really wrestled with what would be the best term when I was writing it, is that, well, are we, are we shepherds? Are we Sherpas? Are we guardians? Are we protectors? What's the best word? And guardian's the best thing I could come up with because it describes what our role is, is to really serve as protectors, uh, of life itself and the complexity of life too, which again, as far as we know, is unique in the entire universe so far. And so I think, you know, those three, the three things people normally think of are producers, consumers, uh, and decomposers. Like in the environment, there's either something eating you or you're eating it or it's decomposing you basically. And throughout all of history, that's what we kind of view all ecosystems as. But I think, uh, for us, we are... we, we can see the ecosystem, we understand its fragility and we can actually protect it, which no other entity can do that's been previously described. So I think we are distinct, and I would hope that even if AI takes over someday, they would also have sentience and might view the value, see the value of complexity of thought or life or in any matter really, whether it's carbon-based or otherwise. So I talk about that a little bit too, that I'm, I'm agnostic towards matter's complexity. If it's carbon-based, silicon-based, hopefully they all have the same sense of guardianship.
- 6:00 – 13:38
Our Duty as Conscious Beings
- CWChris Williamson
It's interesting because the hubris that can be qui- quickly attributed to thinking that we're supposed to be in charge of this little corner of the universe i- i- is quite an easy accusation to make. Who do we think that we are? The planet was fine before we got here. The planet will be fine after we leave. Well, no, it won't. There's a lot of existential risks for us to get past. And even if we make it past all of them, there is this huge full stop coming at the end of the sentence, and that's going to be the sun. Uh-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's, it's really interesting to think about whether or not ... Well, I, I, I just like the fact that we are the only corner of the universe that appears to have illuminated it with consciousness-
- CMChristopher Mason
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... and we are not cargo aboard spaceship Earth. We're crew, and we can actually-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... direct its, uh, uh, uh, and everything else that's on it, right? We can save the rest of the cargo. And I think-
- CMChristopher Mason
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... f- from that, naturally, you run forward with this is a, a, a compulsive duty. This provides us with a level of responsibility that we need to bear, uh, seriously.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep. Yeah, uh, because we're the only ones that can. And, and, and to your point, some people say, you know, uh, thing, uh, "We're, we're just gonna screw it up," is the most common response I get, is the, the sort of this lack-
- CWChris Williamson
We're gonna do it better than the fucking tigers do. Give me a break.
- CMChristopher Mason
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Come on.
- CMChristopher Mason
Or, (laughs) or be- or better than, you know, the, the sun is not gonna be a good shepherd. It'll engulf the whole planet, right? So it, it is, uh, that, that's the thing that, to me, it derives from a sim- it's a cosmological fact. Like, it's not my opinion that we need to eventually leave this planet. Like, until we can survive in a s- a fusions, you know, state with the sun as entities and if ... Unless that happens, we have to leave. So it's not a might we, should we, can we. We and everything else on here is, is gone. And so I think ... And, and there's even some people who push back on that more and say, "Well, maybe it should just be extinguished. Maybe all life should be extinguished anyway." Uh, and they, and they're not even taken by the, uh, this ... I mean, because it presupposes an inherent value of life, right? Which some people still could reject and say, "Well, life is ... There's matter over here, and there's matter over there. Is life really that special?" And, and I still, uh, which I d- I think is, is somewhat axiomatic that I shouldn't have to, you know, make that obvious to someone. It seems pretty straightforward. But even there when I've debated this with some philosophy professors and other s- people just on the street sometimes, to convince them, I say that th- there is an ability to sh- you know, serve as this self-awareness and serve as these caretakers that no other matter can do. Like, I think it actually ... The reason I think it's hopeful is 'cause it pushes away this indifferent state of most of the matter in the universe-
- CWChris Williamson
Yep.
- CMChristopher Mason
... and it's something that does have a concern, which I think has value at the very least for survival. Uh, it's just self, uh, self, um, interest, but it is, it, it's, you know, it's projecting our, you know, our ability on other species. And it does involve hubris, but the hubris doesn't obviate its necessity, I think.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, we locally reverse entropy, right, in our current state.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep. Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
We actually make a little bit of order from chaos.
- CMChristopher Mason
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
And that's really cool. Like, if, even if you were to take a, a, a really fundamental view and say there's nothing particularly special about life, you would say, "Well, we tend to take care of more unique environments because we understand that there is something inherently special about that by its very nature. There is more that-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... isn't that than that, that is."
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
So therefore, you look a- across the entire galaxy as far as we've seen-
- CMChristopher Mason
Everything.
- CWChris Williamson
... and as of yet-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... we have to presume that we are the only section of the universe that has a green planet, that's got life, that's able to be intelligent, and so on and so forth. So yeah, I mean, it can be as axiomatic as you want and, and try and take it back to first principles. But, like, regardless-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- 13:38 – 16:57
500 Years in the Future
- CMChristopher Mason
.
- CWChris Williamson
All right. So, what, what, what's the end goal? Go... Take me 500 years into the future, what are you hoping that we're able to do?
- CMChristopher Mason
So, if all goes well, and as described, you know, in, in fun and, and l- qu- this, parts of the book are kind of playful where I talk about green humans that have chloroplasts in their skin and could be big huge plants, which is fun to write about and the, and the calculations that would nee- would necessitate the changes to cells. So, at the end of all that, uh, I'm hoping that we have... What's interesting, in the book, I don't presume any advances in necessarily propulsion or en- or genetics beyond what we know today, with things that actually work today that we've deployed in clinical trials that exist, uh, in, in astronaut studies that we're doing as we speak. So, just small extensions of what we're doing or small tweaks and then project reasonably 500 years out. I believe that we would have enough knowledge of the risk to the body and ways to mitigate them and even to repair cells or to even genetically protect the cells, but we'll come back to that, that you could survive the trip out through interstellar space to another planet. And actually, we'll have enough exoplanets discovered that we would be able to know where to go. And so, at the end of 500 years, I hope that we will have done testing and then begin to send people out on what are called generation ships, which actually is a, uh, a 100-year-old idea. What if multiple generations live and die on the same ship on their way towards a new star? But 100 years ago, or even 20 years ago, it was pure science fiction 'cause we knew of... we had no good, uh, substrate of genetics to, uh, understand or we only had a handful of exoplanets discovered, all of them impossible for life as we know it today. But today, we already have several hundred planets that are likely habitable exoplanets, meaning they're outside of our solar system. We have a pretty in-depth knowledge of human genetics and microbial genetics and ways to modify cells to keep them alive, to resist radiation, to maybe get new tweaks and even new a- uh, abilities. And I describe a lot of them in the book. And so, it means after 500 years, I think we would have really... And, and we're basically on phase two of the 500-year plan. The first 10 years just finished. And I wrote about kind of, this is a template about when I started my lab. And, uh, we just finished phase one, which, which went quite well, I'd say. The first 10 years have, have gone quite swimmingly. I'll be dead for the vast majority of that 500-year plan. I'll probably die around somewhere between age 80 to 110 maybe, somewhere in there, I'm guessing, if all goes well, you know. Uh, but, but then at that point, we'll be able to head towards a new star and, and hopefully then become not just interplanetary, but interstellar in our state.
- CWChris Williamson
Who's the architect that built that cathedral in Barcelona that's still being built now?
- CMChristopher Mason
Um, you know, I don't know which one. The, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, it's huge. It's this huge, beautiful cathedral. Anyway, it's this really famous artist whose name escapes me. I went to go and see it and do the tour, which shows how bad my memory is. Uh, and, and he's done the same thing that you've done. He created this ridiculously long elaborate plan. And then 100 years after his death, everyone's still having to adhere to it, and they're all still away doing the work, and he's, he's long gone.
- CMChristopher Mason
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
He's, he's chilling. Um-
- CMChristopher Mason
Or even the fir- the first, uh, the lease for the land where the Guinness Brewery was, the first lease that was signed, uh, by Ale- uh, by, by son Ale, by Guinness, uh, the first brewer was for 9,000 years. He said, "I want a 9,000-year lease." And they gave it to him. They said, "Okay. Uh, sure." (laughs) . So, you know, the bre- the beer is still being brewed there. Still, uh, uh, we've only been, you know, 150 years or so.
- CWChris Williamson
I was gonna say, like, 8, 8,850 years still to go. Yes. (laughs)
- CMChristopher Mason
Right. It's a lot of Guinness. A lot of Guinness.
- CWChris Williamson
Well done. Well done, granddad. Uh, all right. So what, h- how much does space wreck
- 16:57 – 31:32
Space’s Impact on Human Bodies
- CWChris Williamson
the human body?
- CMChristopher Mason
It's, it's unpleasant, especially in the first few days, and where they, where the astronauts get what's often called puffy face, where they look, uh, a lot... Basically, 'cause your body is built to push fluid, you know, essentially, uh, up, because you're used to having gravity trying to push it down, so it has to keep circulation going. Suddenly, you don't have that downward force. So generally, about two liters of fluid goes from your legs and lower torso to your upper body, which makes you kind of puffy. And, uh, you know, essentially, eventually, the lymphatic system in the body adapts and you get mostly back to normal. But there, there's, you know, just l- uh, lymphatic and sort of fluid shifts changes as soon as you get up into space. The radiation-
- CWChris Williamson
Sorry, just to interject there, man. Like, isn't that crazy?
- CMChristopher Mason
What?
- CWChris Williamson
The fact that no human in all of history ever went to space, ever existed in zero gravity-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... and yet our body is able to adapt itself. Like, y- it takes a bit of time and y- you look like a basketball for a little while or whatever.
- CMChristopher Mason
Right, right, right.
- CWChris Williamson
But that's so fucking cool.
- CMChristopher Mason
It's amazing. And I think we, uh... and, uh, y- the adaptability and plasticity of the body is extraordinary. And, and so that at writ large, it's rough on the body, but the body recovers. We saw this with Scott Kelly, with other astronauts. We published a study on 59 astronauts just a few months ago.... and, you know, e- everyone has a different reaction to it. We can see some people have huge spikes of cortisol as soon as they get into space, and you can see the body kind of freaking out, saying, "Holy crap, I'm in space," having... hence that notion of, "I'm used to gravity, the history of my entire species is used to gravity, (laughs) and I don't have any right now, so what the heck?" But, uh, the body adapts. And then we can see some people have the spike in cortisol, and then it comes right back down. And actually, Scott Kelly was cool as a cucumber after the first couple days. But other astronauts have the spike and it stays pretty high, so they actually, uh, are, are still kind of adapting. And, you know, Scott is a veteran. Uh, the astronaut, Kelly, has been up there four, five times now, and he, uh, you know, so the plume of this, I think, he's gotten used to it. But it is extraordinary that the body can get into a situation it's never seen before and adapt quite well. A great example of this, though, is even our adaptive immune system. Like, we can see a pathogen that our body, by definition, is new and has never seen before, and, you know, will essentially interact with it, engage it, digest it, create T cells and antibodies that will recognize it, and then be ready for when they see it again. So, it's really this beautiful component of bio- of human biology, and many other species that have adaptive immune systems to be so responsive to the environment. Uh, and we did it because we had to be, 'cause there's, 'cause the microbes, uh, reproduce faster than we do, and they're mutating faster 'cause they have crappier, uh, polymerases that copy their DNA or RNA. So, uh, we kind of had to make it that way. But in any case, so what the, what the day, the question of what happens to the body, you have a lot of the fluid shifts, and the body, uh, adapts to that. There is increased radiation. There is, of course, uh, you're in a more isolated space, you're in a place with less people, so there's changes in your microbial environment. There are just hazards, uh, cognitively. You're in a, a very stressful environment, again, far from friends and family, and, and it, it's, uh... So it's, it's, it's tough on the body. The, but the two biggest things we worry about are the change in gravity fields and then also the, um, uh, the radiation. So... and it's important to say, it's not that there's really technically zero gravity, 'cause there's still plenty of gravity, you're just at the place where you're falling with the Space Station at the same rate. Uh, so it feels like zero gravity, but you still have gravity, you're just falling. So, uh, technically it's called change in gravity fields, you could say, uh, as I was experienced. So those are the two big things that drive a lot of the changes, and so what happens is, your microbes change in your gut. We see a lot of spikes in the genes that activate for the immune system especially. As soon as you get up there, the body, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
They just think that you're under attack.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah. See, it, it, it... basically, all this molecular signatures appear as if the body's on high alert, thinks it's maybe attack of an infection, it's not clear. But a lot of the same signatures for those medical events spike up when you get into space and even more so when you get back to Earth. And, and they... a lot of these same what are called cytokines, which are these molecular kind of signals that cells send to each other about what's happening and should they launch a response, an immune response, for example, these are heavily activated in flight and then also when you get back to Earth. So th- that is a consistent feature we've seen for all the astronauts is this kind of immune sort of, uh, signature and stress. And even, you know, there's... because of that stress, it's not necessarily good or bad, it really depends on the astronaut, 'cause your immune system being on high alert could be good, because then you actually, uh, could, could, you know, adapt and be aware for any potential pathogen. The bad thing, though, is if your immune system starts to attack itself, essentially. This is what autoimmune dise- diseases, uh, can do, uh, and, and really wrack- wreak havoc on the body. We don't see that for astronauts, but just, just to make the point that just having, uh, activation of everything is not necessarily a good thing, but it's not necessarily bad either. And we've seen for a lot of the things that change in flight, they almost all went back to normal within a few months being back on Earth, in terms of the genes, the microbes, these cytokines, these things that changed, they all were pretty relatively quickly back to normal, uh, in a matter of either days, li- or, or, uh, or weeks, and in some cases, a few months. But the other thing that changed, for example, telomeres got longer in space. So the- these little, these, these little basically bookends at the end of your chromosomes that keep your DNA packaged and safe, they actually got longer in space, which at first we thought was maybe just something weird about astronaut Kelly, but now we've seen it in every astronaut we've looked at. There's work by Susan Bailey, uh, uh, so far, it's 12 out of 12 for the astronauts that we've looked at, their telomeres get longer in space. We think it's two things that are driving this, is that they- there is a little bit of consistent low-dose radiation that they're experiencing, which we've seen if you do this for other organisms like, uh, uh, malaria, Plasmodium falciparum, their telomeres also get longer if you do low-dose radiation, uh, which has been-
- CWChris Williamson
Do they live longer?
- CMChristopher Mason
... uh, they d- well, it... they don't li- no, they did not, 'cause eventually it went away. But after the radiation was stopped, it went back. So it's two things. You're, it's an, uh, a bit of a response to the cells to, uh, turn on telomerase to elongate, elongate the, the actual telomeres, and also we think it's killing out... the low-dose radiation is gonna kill out and remove some of the cells that were close to dying anyway, so that your average telomere length goes longer 'cause you're getting rid of the cells that were about to... that had the shorter telomeres anyway. Uh, so it's those two things together, uh, but then it goes back to normal, you know, once you get back, uh, from space then, you know, th- then it goes quickly right back to normal.
- CWChris Williamson
That's an interesting one. That's like a radiation hormesis effect thing that you've got going on there-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... almost, that you, you're stripping away the, the unused ones. All right.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
What's the longest anyone's ever spent in space in a single go?
- CMChristopher Mason
In a single go, it was a cosmonaut who did it, I believe it was 540 days is the record. I have to double-check that, uh, but I believe it wa- it was a cosmonaut. So the, the record holder... so Scott Kelly went up for 340 days. There was, uh... the longest is about a year and a half, or was around 540 days, if I recall, was a cosmonaut. And so that is the, the human record so far, but there are plans afoot to try and break that record in the next four or five years if all goes well.
- CWChris Williamson
Roll the clock forward for me. What you've identified so far and the challenges that those astronauts have faced, and cosmonauts, uh, I don't want to be Anglo-centric, um-
- CMChristopher Mason
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... that these-
- CMChristopher Mason
... and Thai co- there's some Chinese astronauts now, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
For fuck's sake.
- CMChristopher Mason
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, that these people that go into space have had to face, that's limited to a year and a half. Let's double that or say three years to sort of 10 years. Is there something that you can predict that's going to be a challenge for people to face in space there that doesn't manifest within a year and a half?
- CMChristopher Mason
This is a great question, something that's, like, endlessly debated at NASA meetings, um, uh, aerospace meetings, medicine meetings.... is because, uh, you know, the short answer is I think, I think we'll have seen already most of the significant changes that occur in flight or to the body from these year and year and a half long missions. Uh, truth be told, we don't know. There might be something that only gets really bad when you've been in zero G or, or, you know, loss of gravity for, uh, two years or three years and it's just there's some unique feature. You know, I don't, I don't... I can't think of what that would be, but it's hard to speculate on something we've never observed before. So, uh, i- it is a, it is a extrapolation and it's imperfect, but I think we've seen most of what the body does, uh, in space flight and what we'll likely see again for longer missions. But we just think we'll see more. We do see damaged DNA, for example, coming out in urine. So you can see fragments of the DNA come out. You can see calcium, you can see the loss of bone density in... It's coming out of the body almost if it's, you know, being, um, you know, just, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Excreted away.
- CMChristopher Mason
... excreted. Like just you can see the loss. So it's really striking to see that loss just coming out of the body. So I think we'll just see more of those. I don't think we'll suddenly see dramatically new differences in, in the urine that we're getting, uh, and the molecules in the urine. I, I hope. But we'll, we'll find out soon enough.
- 31:32 – 36:19
Evolving in Space
- CWChris Williamson
I've got in my head around people that may have a challenge to do with gene editing is a combination of ignorance about the fact that we're already doing it. Um-
- CMChristopher Mason
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... an anchoring bias against what we have right now and not understanding what could be. It, it... That fixing something that's wrong, i.e. a change of the status quo, isn't the same as improving something that we don't have, but that just comes down to how do you judge welfare.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
And then it's just scope neglect. It's just not understanding what the outcome could be if we don't get this right. And this is something from reading Toby Ord's The Precipice that really sort of force-fed me an understanding if you fully see yourself as a steward of humanity and as someone that's supposed to leave the world in a better place than when you found it, you can't-
- CMChristopher Mason
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... just be thinking globally. You need to think pan-generationally.
- CMChristopher Mason
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
So it's not just about everybody on the planet right now, it's everybody on the planet forever-
- CMChristopher Mason
Correct. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... and everybody that could then come from the planet thereafter as well.
- CMChristopher Mason
Correct. Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
So yeah, I, I think when you, when you fully internalize that, any argument that isn't, "We need to do everything that we can to gobble up as much galactic real estate as is possible and to make ourselves right for that kind of by whatever means we can." And I- it's interesting that the sort of deontogenic argument, um, y- you need to have something more concrete to hold onto because you get into questions of what are we saving?
- CMChristopher Mason
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
You know, how far can we change ourselves whilst still being ourselves-
- CMChristopher Mason
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... is a question that you inevitably end up encountering. And I suppose that sort of human values, the fundamentals of what we are to be human, the genetics, so on and so forth, kind of that's the, the ground, th- the foundation upon which everything else grows out.
- CMChristopher Mason
It, it is, but also it can change. I, I would say, I mean, the, the idea that there's a, a perfect state that humanity is now, uh, is, is fallacious, right? And it's just not true. The humans, uh, are in a state where we are now, whatever this is, but it's more, it, by, it always changes and, and it will continue to change. Evolution is not static. So it, it... Uh, we're all evolving as we speak, right? The best example recently is that now we can drink milk as adults, but 20,000 years ago, we probably, probably couldn't anyone could or barely could. So the selection for a pretty interesting adaptive trait for adults based on diet is, is really recent and interesting. Even just, uh, you know, how people have different hair, eye, and skin color is a reflection of a few 100,000 years of migration around the planet has already led to really dramatic changes. So we're continuing to evolve, and I think that even if we evolve to a place where there's literally a different species, like say someone... There's people on Mars for 20,000 years and so at some point, they can no longer reproduce with people on Earth. That may happen, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. There're just more people. And also, uh, I describe in the book a concept of planetary liberty or even that cellular liberty is that you're no longer subject to the whims of the genetic, uh, deal that you got as an embryo. You can fix things that are broken or even modify things, uh, that you want improved very much as a right, as what your genetic rights are as an individual is that you should have full autonomy and control over your DNA, which doesn't really exist, uh, in most legislatures or in sort of any laws anywhere. But we, we have versions of this. We have reproductive rights, we have, uh, rights about privacy. We think about this a lot i- in, you know, in current laws, but nothing about the right to do something with your own cells or your own DNA. But I think that very much is your right, and this includes the ability to live on more than one planet. So if you do your genome editing accurately and, and correctly and broadly, you'll increase your planetary liberty. I would actually think it would be sad if you had to engineer humans so much that you send them to Mars and like, "Okay, good. Congrats. You can live on Mars now. We've made it so you're perfectly suitu- suited for it, but you can never come back to Earth." I would find that to be a technological failure. We would, we should, if possible, expand the number of places on which you can live, including planets. Uh, that's an expansion of liberty. Liberty gives you a choice to do anything you'd want. And so if we do it right, you could, you know, uh, expand the planetary liberty, I say, or cellular liberty of which planet you can live on.
- CWChris Williamson
Why should we take a bath in yogurt?
- CMChristopher Mason
Ah. So I, um, (laughs) find it to be very soothing. I describe that... There's some little nuggets in the book that come up, uh, here and there like taking a bath in yogurt. I, uh, I have coated myself in yogurt, uh, at sometimes be- um, obviously only once.
- CWChris Williamson
Is this a recreational thing?
- CMChristopher Mason
(laughs) I do it when I'm hungry and I want to sit in a bathtub full of something, I find a bathtub full of yogurt is great. You can, uh, you know, dip a spoon in and then just eat it. A bathtub full of barbecue sauce is even better. I highly recommend it. Or maybe, uh, I could think of, you know, um, other sauces maybe in the UK you could think of, um, you know.
- CWChris Williamson
Not hot sauce, though. I imagine that's probably uncomfortable after a while.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah, yeah, hot sauce is t- it's tough on the mucus membranes. I, I don't remember that. Uh, don't, don't, don't recommend that. Yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- 36:19 – 44:00
Ethics of Long-Term Space Travel
- CWChris Williamson
So, you talk about humans that could have green skin and about this other different ways that we could try and modify our DNA so that we can survive in space. What I think is a more interesting question than that, or at least for me, are the ethics around what it means to travel for a long time. Is it ethical to say that you can make a decision to go on a generation ship and impound the-
- CMChristopher Mason
The children.
- CWChris Williamson
... next 20 generations of your progeny to live, to be born, to live, and to die all within a metal can that's floating?
- CMChristopher Mason
From deontogenic ethics framework, it is 100% ethical because it is what enables us to survive long term along those goals. So that it's easy, easy for me to say yes, and that assumes, though, that that's what the goal of the generation ship is. There's a chance that maybe the ship would fail and you'd get to the new planet and it turns out not to be as good as you think, and then everyone perishes. Uh, that would be really unfortunate, would, but would still represent an ethical decision to have made that choice on that mission with the information you had at the time. So, I think... but it, it raises questions of consent, and by definition, the children and grandchildren in that mission get zero consent over 20 generations. But, you know, but, uh, here too, we, uh, we, there's two, two things I'd say to that, is that, you know, when people say, "Well, how, how can you do this?" One is I'd say, uh, "It's ethical," but the two other responses I'd add to that are, is, we... Ch- people do this all the time, parents move across the world to find a new place when their, when children are babies, and the babies didn't give consent to move, say, from, you know, Tennessee to Alaska and live up in, in a cold tundra. Uh, the parents, at some point, just have to decide. That's part of what parents do. Uh, and, you know, the other thing is, we're already kind of on a big generation ship now. Like, you can't go to another planet right now. We're just on Earth. It's a really big generation ship that's wonderful and nice and has lots of features, but this is a big ship that you can't leave that you're on right now, and it's just called Earth. And, uh, so it's not really that different in terms of type of, of trip that we're taking, it's just a difference of, uh, of the size of it, I'd say.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I agree. It, it isn't a different of kind, it's a difference of degree.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
But the difference of degree from an individual's level is, it's a very, very large price to pay, yeah, for sure, you know? You didn't ask to be here, you didn't ask to be put on this ship, you know, we need some serious advances-
- CMChristopher Mason
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... in entertainment technology in order to be able to make a ship as fun-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... as Earth is. It's likely-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep, yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... that there's going to be some suffering. In the, on, on the grand scale, when we think about how human civilization is going to work, even if you sort of add a utilitarian, uh, sort of stint to this, and you think, "Oh, well, maybe this particular generation ship with, let's say, 20,000 people..." Probably not, but let's say 20,000 people suffer on this generation ship in order to facilitate a trillion people on a new planet-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... you go, "Well," like, th- that's a, a fair point.
- CMChristopher Mason
Mm-hmm. Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
But still uncomfortable for 20,000 people for, whatever, 400 years.
- CMChristopher Mason
But you would maybe hope that they, like if you... And I do the math on the, on the sort of trajectory and the, uh, mechanics of space flight, it would be about, you know, 20, 400 years or so, hopefully, but what if, you know, those people on the ship felt like they were, you know, the chosen ones, if you will, or the ones that really were the vanguard of humanity and were enabling an entirely new epoch? And, and maybe they would be excited by it. And, and I think you're right, also. I described it there, again, 20, 20 years ago, 20, 30 years ago, it'd be really hard to imagine having the totality of all human culture on video, like Netflix, for example, or these ways where you can watch almost any video that's ever been made or listen to any song that any human has ever created and have that indexed and with you. And you'd also still get updates because you can still send, of course, radio waves to the generation ship and get the latest episode of whatever comedy might be coming out or something. So, you could still get updates while you're traveling farther from Earth, but you could be pretty well entertained with VR, you know, AR sort of systems.
- CWChris Williamson
But dude, if, if the transhumanists get their way, you're going to be able to be in hereto unforeseen states of bliss constantly from the moment that you're born until the moment that you die. And if all that you need to be is this sort of vessel-
- CMChristopher Mason
Vessel, yeah. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... to, to continue human civilization, or, or if David Sinclair gets his way, you only need one generation.
- CMChristopher Mason
Maybe two, maybe two, and that's not so bad, right? Yeah, yeah, that would be fabulous. Um, yeah, he just posted a picture earlier today or he's, uh, sent me a message with some turtles. So, he's like-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, I've seen that as well. He's on holiday, the bastard.
- CMChristopher Mason
... 300 years old and he's, uh, you know, so there's precedent that life can live pretty long. I just, humans have not quite done it beyond 122 yet. Uh, so I, I, um, so I ma- again, in the book, it's very conservative. I make no assumptions that we will live to be twice as long or that we'll have, you know, fusion reactor propulsion technology, which would, of course, make it shorter. There's a lot of things that would make it easier, faster, shorter, better, uh, but I just take what we have, what we know today and then run with it. Um, so it's very conservative in that regard, I'd say.
- CWChris Williamson
How are we going to get somewhere in 400 years? What's the propulsion technology that you put into your models that exists?
- CMChristopher Mason
Most of it's on either existing liquid propulsion systems, at least to get us to orbit and off and running. There's a solar sail technology that over time, you know, could pick up a fair amount of speed. Uh, and there are some, you could imagine, I described some of the, the Starshot initiative or the, the, the break, uh, the ability to, like, have lasers basically shoot at a target and propel you, but it doesn't quite work yet, but it's a cool idea. Um, so I described all the options that are currently, but it'd probably be liquid propulsion plus some solar sails, uh, would get us, you know, once you get up to speed, because those are speeds, again, that exist today that we know we've had probes, like the Parker Solar Probe, can actually get to a speed that would get us to the closest star in about 4 to 500 years.
- CWChris Williamson
Has anyone had sex in space yet? Do you know this?
- CMChristopher Mason
Officially, no. Unofficially-
- CWChris Williamson
Do you reckon they have?
- CMChristopher Mason
... it, uh, I think it's-
- 44:00 – 47:09
Social & Mental Issues in Space
- CWChris Williamson
in space? Let's say that we're not doing the transhumanism, like, just strap yourself into an IV of MDMA for 80 years and give birth. (laughs)
- CMChristopher Mason
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Like, David Pearce is going to be upset, but it doesn't really matter.
- CMChristopher Mason
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Um, what about social issues? And anyone that's read Seveneves, it's fucked, man. Like-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... you know, the-
- CMChristopher Mason
It's 100, like-
- CWChris Williamson
... President ends up with a- a stake between her- her lip, her tongue, and she can't speak, and everyone starts end up being cannibals and eating each other's legs. Soft cannibalism, they call it.
- CMChristopher Mason
Soft cannibalism, that- that section of the book freaked me out totally because it- but it freaked me out because it seemed, you know, not too far from what might actually happen. If you put people in these little capsules and say, "You're stuck up there, and we- you might be able to get somewhere in a few hundred years, and we're not sure, and the- the moon exploded, and the Earth is being bombarded, and you can't even live on it. So, we don't know." The- the description in the book of the social breakdown and just the cognitive loss- loss of being tethered to any kind of reality. It could vary. It was- it was haunting because it seemed pretty- pretty pro- probable. Like, you're like, "Well, I could really see this happening." And also, it was a bit of a critique on the social media world in which we live today, is that you can have people end up getting so caught up in- in concepts that they lead- lead them to do really insane things. For example-
- CWChris Williamson
That they literally eat their own legs.
- CMChristopher Mason
... eat their own legs 'cause someone said it was a good idea, and say, "Well, okay, maybe that is a good idea," and like-
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- CMChristopher Mason
... ʻWell, I've got nothing else to do.'” Or even like the Pizzagate scandal. The guy who heard that there was a sex ring that was out at a DC pizza restaurant, went there with an assault rifle just 'cause he read about it and said, "I'm gonna go and start to threaten people with a gun." And you're like, "What's wrong with you?" Like, how do you, at some point, you know... But- but people- y- you can't underestimate, um, the ability for people to get, you know, to get lost, to get, uh, confused, to get angry, get frustrated, despondent, and- and it's more pronounced in space for sure. So, I- I think that is one of the- it's one of the- listed as one of the key hazards by NASA of long-term space flight. It's just this- this cognitive, uh, challenge and isolation. Uh, Matthias Bosner studies this a lot at Penn, and he's- you know, we know it's a- it's for sure a challenge that, um... You know, entertainment is one way to address it. MDMA, I'm not sure what- you know, we'll need... You know, I talk a bit in the book about games. You know, games are as old as humans are. So, maybe we can think about, like, new games that people can play with each other, uh, in- in flight. Uh, some sort of space football. I'm not sure what- what it'll be, but it's one of the biggest challenges, and we'd have to either entertain people, keep them distracted, or somehow keep them sane. But one of my favorite examples of this is there's these old underground cities in Turkey. A lot of it was even before the Ottoman Empire, where when there would be essentially wars back and forth across the- the sort of these steps of Turkey, people would go underground, and they'd have these huge underground cities so they could hide from the army that was attacking. They'd have two, three, 5000 people sometimes living underground. But what that- when I did this tour a couple years ago in Turkey, one out of every about ten rooms was actually a distillery to make wine. And the reason was 'cause they had to figure out some way just to basically sedate the population so they wouldn't go insane, 'cause they're all living in caves for like two years. And I thought that was just, you know, for a couple of years. But, you know, so one solution is just keep everyone drunk the whole time. We've tried that as humanity before, and it seemed to work in that context.
- 47:09 – 55:56
Preparing to Colonise the Galaxy
- CMChristopher Mason
- CWChris Williamson
Talk me through the Mars expedition that hopefully probably within, what, the next maybe 20 years we're gonna have boots on Mars?
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep. By 20- 2035, 2033, maybe? So it's soon. Pretty soon, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think that we are further ahead technologically or further ahead genetically in terms of our preparation for this? Like, if the technology was available right now, could we go genetically? And if the gene- if the genetics was available right now, could we go technologically?
- CMChristopher Mason
I think technology is ahead right now in terms of, um... We- we can definitely get there, uh, and the landing will be hard. There's, of course, a really rough track record for- for anything that's been sent to Mars. A lot of them have crashed or not made it. It is far away, but the JPL, the group at NASA that designs a lot of the rockets and rovers, has done an extraordinary job. So, I think we can get there, land there, and even survive there. Uh, but the genetic- you know, deploying genetic technologies for protection or novel therapeutics or- or pharmaceutical agents are all still really being tested because we just have so limited data. There's only about 585 people that have ever been to space, including these new suborbital flights, right? So, it's really not that many people, and most of them we don't have molecular data on, right? That was why it was so exciting to write. I called them the first genetic astronauts 'cause we actually know what happened to them genetically and molecularly, cellularly when they went to space. But before these recent missions, we did- we just didn't know. So, I think we're pretty far behind, but we'll- we'll catch up pretty fast if-If all goes according to plan, there'll be a private space station by 2024 by Axiom where we can do really long-term missions and do entirely new science. There will be, if all goes well, by the late 2030s, a, a station around Mars called Mars Base Camp by Lockheed Martin. So there might even be ways to actually have, uh, more pop-
- CWChris Williamson
That's in orbit rather than on the Earth? Uh, on the-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... surface?
- CMChristopher Mason
On the surface, in orbit. And it's planned, so it's projected. We'll see if it happens. But that, that is planned right now. And, you know, the, I think in the next 10, 20 years, we'll see a lot more expansion that's not just coming from Russia and the US in a cold war fighting each other sense, but from private industry, many country... India, Israel, uh, the UAE has a, uh, orbiter. Uh, the Chinese are really expanding quickly. So I think we have this, uh, space race 2.0, which has a lot more players and a lot more tools, and the genetics will, will be part of that.
- CWChris Williamson
Ethically or politically or socially or technologically, is there anything that you're still concerned about? Are there any sort of real big questions that you haven't got answers to yet with regards to our potential to colonize the galaxy?
- CMChristopher Mason
I think, uh, I think it, uh, not nothing b-... I think it's just a question of, of will and of, of coordination. I think we have a lot of the tools that exist already. Some of it's even just, uh, is, is framing it. Like even the term "colonizing the galaxy", we, there's such a loaded word to colonize, and even settlement is a, is a loaded word. So we should almost say like explore the galaxy or to, uh, you know, to, uh, to serve as guardians or to expand life. But it effectively, it's colonization, but we wanna have all the good of colonization of the... which is just the exploring part, but remove all the parts that were exploitative, that were disruptive, that were destruct- th- that were disruptive and destructive, that decimated entire ecosystems, you know, brought pathogens, um, w- did the opposite of deontogenetic ethics, right? That basically just destroyed everything in its path. And so what I'm excited about is I, I think we've learned as a s- as a species, right? We have a, uh, a greater awareness and consciousness of, of how we deploy technologies and tools, not just on Earth, but also how we, when we go into space. So I'm, I'm a, I'm an optimist because I think, uh, there's evidence for it. We've learned from it. Infant mortality is lower than ever. Illiteracy is higher than ever. By most quantitative measures, humanity is really learning and doing better. Of course, we're heating the planet. We have other things we're doing that, uh, we're trying to get a handle on, uh, with mixed success. But I think, um, we're even bringing species back from extinction potentially. So we're even correcting injustices of, that we, uh, the woolly mammoth-
- CWChris Williamson
Wasn't it a ferret? Didn't we bring a ferret back?
- CMChristopher Mason
The, yeah, the black-footed ferrets. Yeah, we just sequenced the genome of some of the clones, uh, last couple weeks and confirming that they're just as, as, as okay and genetically diverse as some of the other ones. And what's amazing is a lot of times with cloning, you worry about lack of genetic diversity, but you can expand the divers- diversity of the clones. You can actually, you know, have a smaller population size, but it increased genetic diversity with the tools of genetic engineering. So what's extraordinary is we can begin to even resolve and rectify some of the genetic injustices of our species past, uh... You have to do it carefully though, because if you bring a woolly mammoth back, uh, you know, might have problems. We'll, we'll probably do it on an island, you know, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
Does... Could it not have been cooler than a ferret?
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah (laughs) . For some-
- CWChris Williamson
Like, come on.
- CMChristopher Mason
The black-footed ferret. Well, we had, we had a surrogate, don't we? We had a, you know, we had a f-
- CWChris Williamson
It's a ferret with socks on, like I don't care.
- CMChristopher Mason
(laughs) It's, it's... But it's a really cute, you know, the cuteness factor was really (laughs) ...
- CWChris Williamson
Ah.
- CMChristopher Mason
... for the Revive & Restore Project with Ben Novack and all the team. It's a great group. It's really... It's, it's conservation brought to the molecular and genetic level. And so I think that same ethos is what's described a lot in, in... It's the deontogenic principles, is that what, what is our duty? What is our, our, our goal? And, and what's the duty for our species? Everyone... You know, the duties that you normally have in life, you could, you could abrogate or give up on, like to a marriage, to a country, to a family. Uh, but this is something that I think is actualized upon awareness that's an inherent duty for our species.
- CWChris Williamson
Do you think that we are spending too much or too little attention on capturing gala- galactic real estate?
- CMChristopher Mason
Um, I would... Uh, we were doing it. It's slow. So I think, I think that one of the big challenges, the Space Act pro- prohibits people from owning any land out- outside of Earth, uh, including the moon, but it doesn't prohibit mining it. So you could actually create these hollow asteroids where you've mined everything out. And you didn't ever own it, but you extracted everything out of it, and that would still not violate the space, uh... the, you know, the Outer Space Treaty, I should say. Uh, and, and so what's interesting is I think the real estate so far is prohibited, but the, uh, extraction and complete exploitation, so far fine. So I, I think (laughs) there's... Uh, there's actually every year the... a Harvard Law, a Harvard Space Law meeting where you just talk about issues in space law, which is a small group of lawyers, but nonetheless, uh-
- CWChris Williamson
If... Y- are you familiar with Mara Cortona? Do you know who that is? She's the director of the Astropolitics Institute.
- CMChristopher Mason
Oh, no, no. Okay.
- CWChris Williamson
So she looks at the politics of space. And, uh-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yeah, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... she's been on the show and f- like, dude, I am fascinated by that, by what does it mean to own an area of space? What does it-
- CMChristopher Mason
Yes, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... mean to... Yeah, that, that stuff's amazing.
- 55:56 – 59:17
Death of the Universe
- CMChristopher Mason
- CWChris Williamson
I'm sure you'll be familiar with Nick Bostrom's thesis that he says, "Every second that we spend not capturing the stars, we're losing forever a, uh, part of our bubble," right? We have this expansion and it means that-
- CMChristopher Mason
Correct.
- CWChris Williamson
... over time, we get less and less that we can have that.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
Anders Sandberg also working out of the Future of Humanities Institute. His new book, which i- isn't gonna come out till next year, is about how we would landscape solar systems and different galaxies by moving, physically moving stars and planets around.
- CMChristopher Mason
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
So, we're getting towards sort of the real limits of, of what's possible, at least in theory, as opp- where our theories are at the limits of what's possible. Uh, and then-
- CMChristopher Mason
Clear.
- CWChris Williamson
... you take that to the Nth degree. You go all the way to the very, very, very final moments of the universe and make a justification for why changing-
- CMChristopher Mason
It would.
- CWChris Williamson
... the, the fundamental substrate that we are built on would be a good idea. Just let's finish with that.
- CMChristopher Mason
Yep, yep. And, and it's, and, uh, there was the depressing part of the book, again, reading to the very end of the universe 'cause I ... 'cause it begs the question. You say, okay, you move to a new star. Like, well, congratulations, but then the same thing's gonna happen to that star. You go to the next one, the next one, the next one, onward to another galaxy. Inevitably, you say, well, either the universe is gonna collapse back in on itself, or there'll be a big rip, or there'll be, you know, a heat death, an entropy, uh, of the universe. In some way, the universe at some point will end, uh, or change in a way that we probably w- wouldn't necessarily live through. But I make the argument that if we know, for example, it's going to continually, uh, move in on itself in a big crunch where all the matter recoalesces and maybe makes a new Big Bang, what if the next Big Bang, the next version of the universe, th- life doesn't emerge, or if it doesn't emerge in the next five, five hundred or thousand iterations of the universe? What if, what if this is it, and what if this uniqueness of life is really not just unique in this universe, but in all universes that ever could be or will be? And so I make the case that if it's a deontogenic question, the, uh, answer is clear. You would prevent the d- the death of the universe or the ... in any version of it to preserve life. And so you would ... If we had the tools and the technology to actually fundamentally restructure spacetime, I think we should do so because there's no guarantee that any- anything else will serve as a shepherd for the universe. I think if we could have a universe that has an ability to make and preserve universes, that would be something I think a universe would want. I kind of anthropomorphized the universes, but if I was a universe, that's what I would like, right? I'm saying. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that's real big picture thinking. Christopher Mason, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, The Next 500 Years: Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds will be linked in the show notes below. Uh, where else should people go? Any other stuff that you wanna plug?
- CMChristopher Mason
Uh, there, there's a ... We have a ... The Twitter handle is, uh, @mason_labs, or Mason Lab is the lab at Cornell. Also, uh, th- the, you know, the ... just buy the books everywhere, everywhere books are sold. You can get it obviously on, like, Amazon and, and Barnes & Noble and other websites, MIT Press. And then, um, also I'd say, you know, a lot of the work is on, uh, NASA's websites for the exoplanets are fun to, to dig around in, and also on Instagram, Chris- christopher.e.mason. Some of that includes family random photos. But, uh, yeah. My Twitter feed is the most common science feed, I'd say.
- CWChris Williamson
I love it. Cheers, Chris.
- CMChristopher Mason
Thanks so much. Pleasure.
- CWChris Williamson
Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few months. And don't forget to subscribe. It makes me very happy indeed. Peace.
Episode duration: 59:17
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