Latest / Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe / The Science Fiction Universe of "A Half Built Garden" by Ruthanna Emrys

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The Science Fiction Universe of "A Half Built Garden" by Ruthanna Emrys · Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Hey, Kelly, I have kind of a basic question about
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: your science farm operation over there. Your questions make me nervous,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: but as long as it doesn't involve anything that might
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: scare the kids, I'm willing to answer. All right, Well,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: if it's a science farm, then what are you farming science?
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Do you harvest like raw science? Are you making organic
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: farm to journal science? We do actually do science right
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: here on the farm, but it's not all that we farm,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: That's right. You also have some humans growing in the farm, right, Okay, Look,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: we have children, but we are farming them. There's no
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: harvesting of the children going on. I mean, have you
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: checked with Zac about that? I know he can be
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: quite literal, you know. I'll admit I never thought to say,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: please don't harvest the children while I'm recording the podcast. Well,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: they're probably fine, I mean at least fifty. Hi. I'm Daniel.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I'm a particle physicist and a professor at UC Irvine,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: and I am not much of a gardener. I'm Kelly
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Weener Smith. I'm an adjunct professor at Rice University, and
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: I too am not a gardener, and I once killed
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: a cactus. But you run a whole farm. I hear well,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Zach does the planting. I mostly just sort of mow
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the hay when it gets too tall, which is fun
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: because I love the tractor. So I'm more of a
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: destroyer than a builder. I see well. In my marriage, also,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: the gardening responsibilities are on the other spouse. Even in
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: the clay soil of our backyard in southern California, my
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: wife has managed to plant greenery which has thrived all
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: over our backyard. WHOA good for her? That's awesome. What
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: was she planted? She's planted a bunch of pretty hearty stuff,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: mostly secculents. In our first year's here and Irvine. We
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: went back and forth between California and Geneva several times,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: so we abandoned all the plans so she would just
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: planted a bunch of stuff, and then we come back
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: nine months later and see what was still alive. Nice.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Let natural selection run its course. I like it. I
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: can get behind that exactly, though it doesn't produce very
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: much edible stuff. Are you guys actually producing things on
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: your farm that you can eat? Like technically we are.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: We're trying to do that. But what usually happens is
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Zach starts the garden, and then we get totally bobbed
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: down by a project and almost everything dies. So very similar,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: except we're not leaving the country. We're just being neglectful.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: But this year our loofa gourds grew and so we
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: have a lifetime supply of squash based sponges if anyone's
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: in need of some more sponges. So that but that
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: was kind of fun. Well, welcome to the podcast. Daniel
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: and Jorge explain the universe in which we try to
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: grow a garden of ideas in your mind, playing ding
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: seeds of understanding about black holes and quantum physics, hoping
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to nurture your understanding of how the universe out there
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: works and to grow your mind. So that's large enough
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: to incorporate all of these vast cosmic ideas. How many
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: of these do you have? I could go on and on,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: but my regular co host, Horror Hey, can't be here today,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: and so I'm delighted to be chatting with one of
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: our regular guest hosts, Kelly. Kelly, thank you very much
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: for joining us again today. I'm delighted to be back.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: I had a ton of fun reading this book. That's right.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Sometimes on the podcast, we talk about the real universe,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the mysteries of nature, how far back we can explore
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: with our minds all the way back to the beginning
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: of the universe, or how black holes work and what's
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: inside of them. But sometimes we think about artificial universe,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: is universe is created within our minds and explored by
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: science fiction writers, because we think that the creativity found
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: in science fiction is actually a vital element of science,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: that thinking about the ways that the universe might be
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: is a very important way of actually doing science. And
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: so sometimes on the podcast we will read a science
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: fiction novel and talk about the science of that universe,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: along with interviewing the author of that book to get
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: an insight into his or her mind. And so on
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: today's episode, we'll be talking about the science fiction universe
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: of a Half Built Garden. This book is by Ruthanna
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Emery's and one of the things that I love about
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: her book is that I feel like when we talk
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: about climate change, we're often so negative that sometimes it
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: feels like it's not even worth trying to turn the
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: ship around. But her book is about a near future
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: humanity in three that is starting to turn the ship around.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: They figured out some ways to start recovering from climate change.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: That involves some new political organizations, new ways of people
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: sort of learning to work together. But no like amazing
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: tech that just pulls all of the carbon out of
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: the atmosphere, Like some hard work that needs to get done.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: But I appreciated that that was sort of like a
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: take on climate change that was, you know, a little
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: bit positive, like we can do this sort of attitude. Yeah,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: this book takes place in about twenty eight three, and
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: clearly there have been some disasters between now and then,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: some real climate change and probably some suffering. But to
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: write the book is not like a mad Max in Thunderdome.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Everything is destroyed and a few humans are scrabbling for
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: survival in a new harsh world. It really describes the
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: situation where we have adapted to it. We have come
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: up with new political and social organizations that do allow
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: large populations of humans to exist and even to thrive
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: and like have fun and chill out totally. And and
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: those humans sort of work together and exist in slightly
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: different ways than what we have now. So like you
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: still have corporations, and the corporation still sort of have
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the like let's use all the resources sort of attitude.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: They're not totally on board with turning the climate change
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: ship around, which isn't too surprising. You still have nations,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: but the nations have a little bit less power than
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: they used to. And now it seems like most of
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the activities that happen in people's lives are happening at
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the watershed level. So within your watershed you make decisions
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: about you know, working together and what you're going to do,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: and so you're sort of linked globally, but most of
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: the action is happening locally. And fun fact, I believe
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the word for that is global, which is a great word.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Can you spell that word for us? What was that? Global? Global?
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Like glocalization, it's when you've get like lots of exchanges
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: of information and stuff, but like at the local level,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: it's sort of is interacting in people's lives and those
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: people are taking what is helpful for them and sort
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: of mixing it with their own culture to make something
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: that's a little bit new and sort of a little
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: bit localized. Well, it's fascinating to me to think about
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: the future of sort of human organization, and you know,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: you can look in the past and you can see
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: that overall there's this trend towards sort of larger and
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: larger and more and more global organizations. The nations that
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: we have now are really vast compared to you know,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the city states of two thousand years ago, for example.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: But there also is this sort of periodicity as we
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: build up large empires and then they collapse, and then
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: we build up new empires and then they collapse, And
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: so it's interesting to think about an alternative where we
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: don't just collapse into total disaster and have to scrabble
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: our way through five dred years of dark ages, but
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: instead we sort of fracture where things become a little
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: bit more local, and we can have like different priorities
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: in different areas and people organizing themselves from the bottom up.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I thought this book is really clever in the way
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: that it imagined like this middle ground for humanity not
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: total disaster. I thought that was a unique take on
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: it also and was very cool. And so, Daniel, do
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: you ever wonder are you living in an era where
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: there's going to be a break and a collapse? I
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: do wonder about that all the time, and I look
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: around at our lives and I think It's easy to
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: imagine us looking back in fifty years and being baffled
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: at how we lived, you know, just the sheer wealth
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and the ibulance and the resources that we consume every
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: day without even thinking about it very much, you know,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: gas and electricity and money and the food waste. It
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: does seem like it would be easy to look back
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: at this as sort of like the peak of the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Roman Empire, just before the fall. I hope you're wrong,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: but yes, I I think about that too. Sometimes I
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: think about how I might be living in a cave
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: talking to my grandchildren about you know, what television was
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: or what running water was. You'll be kicking the stone
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: around the old cave to play soccer. Maybe the solution
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: for us will be the same as a possible solution
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: presented in the book, which is aliens. And I also
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: really liked the take on aliens. They were sort of
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: like a fresh look at aliens, and she had a
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: very interesting take on their biology. And these aliens were friendly.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: They had I thought, a very clever way of of
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: letting us know that. But I'll sort of leave that
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: to be unveiled to the reader when they read the book.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: But they have kind of a scary message. What is
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: their message? Yeah, I thought this was a really cool
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: way to sort of put a pin in the issues
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: of climate change and how to live long into the future.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: These aliens in the book, when they arrive, they are
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: very friendly, You're right, but their messages you have to
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: get off the planet. They think about planets as a
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: way to like incubate a new species. They're like planets
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: are like nests. You know, you can create a new species,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: you can evolve, but they're not a place to live,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: right Like, you basically got to move out of mom
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: and Dad's house eventually and go off into space. And
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: they come with a warning, you know, to say that
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: everybody who tries to live long term on a planet
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: eventually kills themselves. And they even say how they tried
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: to help for other species, but they got there too
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: late before those species basically exterminated themselves through climate change disasters.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: And so they're coming with a warning saying get off
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: planet A S. A P. And not only get off planet,
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: but get off planet, and then you're gonna need to
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: dismantle that planet for rees sources that you're gonna need
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: to keep going in space, which to me was the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: point where I was like, oh, man, like I could
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: imagine if the messages get off planet, you could be like, okay,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: but like you know, of us are going to stay
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: because Earth can totally handle it. But it's like, no, no, no,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: that's not even an option for a variety of reasons,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: one of which is we need your parts or you know,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: we need the parts of the Earth to build stuff.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting, Yeah, how do you how do you
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: convince the aliens that you should get to stay or
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: and you know, of course humans never agree on anything,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: and sort of seeing how the human species comes to
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: terms with this ultimatum is an interesting problem to watch
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: get solved throughout the course of the book. Yeah, and
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I thought it's especially fascinating because it's a question that
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: we have now, like should we change that we believe
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: should we try to get off planet? Even if aliens
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: don't come and tell us that they think it's necessary.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of people who think that the
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: long term solution to human survival is to get off
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: the planet and establish basis on Mars, or build dyce
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: in Speares or these kinds of things. I know that
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: you're a skeptic though about survival in space and space settlement.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: What do you think about not just moving out into
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: space but also dismantling this complex ecosystem that we use
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: as the like the foundation of our society. Well, you know,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: so in the nineteen seventies, the idea was really popular
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: that we need to go out into space because you know,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: a population numbers are expanding like crazy, We're gonna run
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: out of space, We're gonna run out of resources. We
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: need to move into space. And you know, they like
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: war induced famine over not having enough resources and the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: millions and millions of people dying from starvation, like those
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: things never came to pass. And so I think, no
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: doubt there have been famines and there have been problems,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: but I don't think that space is going to be
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: the solution to these problems the way that a lot
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: of people think. And also, you know, so yes, I'm
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I'm a skeptic. I think we can move into space
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: and we can have space settlements, but it's gonna take
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: us a lot longer than I think a lot of
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: people would probably guess or would probably expect. There's a
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: lot of problems we still need to solve, and so
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I suppose I think we need to figure out the
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: problems down here and not expect on moving people off
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: into spaces the solution, because I just don't think we
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: can do it fast enough to make content. Did I
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: answer your question? I sort of went off on a tangent. No,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: absolutely you did. But now I wonder what is Kelly's
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: timeline for human space colonization. You think it's going to
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: take a while, and we're talking a hundred years, a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: thousand years, Just like with soon ish, I always hesitate
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: to make like estimates for when such and such is
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: going to happen, because it depends not just on how
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: long it takes to make the technology, but like how
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: many politicians want to fund the project to make it happen,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: And so you know, your estimate for how long it's
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: going to take depends on so many things that you
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: can't control that you're destined to be wrong. But what
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I can say is I think it's a project that
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: if we force to happen quickly, we might regret because
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: you know, for example, we don't know if humans can
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: have babies in space safely, and I think we want
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: to figure that out before we, you know, move to Mars,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: for example, and then discover that actually there's a bunch
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: of problems and we're, you know, not happy with how
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: things are going. So I think it would be better
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: if it took longer. Let's say, but I don't know
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: how long it would take for you to like meet
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the bare minimum standards to move out into space, but
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: I think you should be way past that before we
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: go ahead and start that project. Well, I was hoping
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: to trick you into giving a specific number so that
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I could call you up in and say, see, Kelly,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: we're not yet in space. You were wrong. Nope, Nope,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: there's no trick. In main, there's no But I do
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: think you bring up a really interesting issue, which is
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: that a lot of our technological bursts and development do
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: come in response to a crisis, you know, or for example,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a nationalistic race, which essentially is a crisis you know,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: that we see an astory coming and then we scramble
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: to develop a technology necessary for that. And in this book,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I think it's quite interesting that the humans have like
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: kind of figured it out. You know, by the time
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the aliens do arrive and say, hey, you've got to
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: get off planet, the humans have sort of threaded the
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: needle and figured out how to live maybe sustainably on
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: the planet. It's a really fun conversation they have both
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: internally within the humans and with the aliens about hey,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: do we actually need to get off planet or are
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: we doing okay? Yeah, and and and you know, of course,
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: it being a discussion involving humans, there's a lot of disagreement.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: But but yeah, it's interesting to argue, like, how do
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: we know, you know, when we get a handle on
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: this climate change thing, and hopefully it's when, not if,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: How will we be able to convince ourselves that we've
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: really got things going in a better direction and we
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: don't have to worry anymore. And that's yeah, that's sort
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: of an interesting question that doesn't have a clear answer yet. Yeah,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: something else I really enjoyed about this book where the disagreements.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Often when aliens arrive, they're like monolithic in culture and
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: in politics and in opinion. You know, they all sort
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of speak with one voice, but here they disagree with
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: each other, they have different personalities, they undermine each other.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I thought that was really fascinating and probably much more realistic. Yeah.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I think so often in the movies that I've seen
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and the books that I've read, you have sort of
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: aliens with the hive mind where they all can sort
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: of like I guess it's not that different than the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: humans sort of coming to a consensus with their technology,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: but like you know, they even still disagree. And yeah,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: like you said, the aliens are think very realistically portrayed
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: and that they don't all agree even and it's yeah,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: it's it's very good writing. Yeah, often in science fiction
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: you meet like some species and it was like a
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: president of the planet, and I'm like, a president of
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: the planet. Really, like there's no way humans would ever
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: know elect the president who could then also act boldly right,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: like it'd be so bogged down in you know, disagreements
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: among the planets. And so it's really nice for me
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: to see aliens that you know, don't always get along
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and make decisions together. I thought that was really fascinating.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: But I want to dig more into the science of
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: this universe that Ruth Anne Emers has created in her novel.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. Okay, we're back
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: and we're talking about the science fiction universe of the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: novel I have built. Garden by ruth Anna Emiress whose
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: background is in cognitive psychology and sociology, and she's written
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a really fascinating book, not just about aliens though, of course,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: and we love the aliens, but also about the future
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: of human civilization, how humans come together to solve the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: climate crisis and reorganize their own lives. Yeah, and so
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: one of the aspects of the technology that I thought
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: was really interesting is that everybody has this mesh that
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: they can put on their head and they can sort
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: of network ideas and so like, if you are about
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: to make a decision that could impact the whole community,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: you can send that information out to the network, and
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: people can like add their input and vote up or
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: down on solutions. And if anybody has sort of like
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: research that's relevant, they can summarize it. And so the experts,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: I think the experts have like extra weight. And it's
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: like having sort of like a Reddit all the time everywhere,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: which which strikes me as being like kind of overwhelming,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: you know, to be honest. Part of my like, well
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I was reading it, one of my thoughts was like
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think I could handle that. Like just when
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: my phone vibrate in my pocket and I'm having a conversation.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I'm distracted, and I'm like, oh, this isn't good. If
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: like my brain were constantly working through threads of information
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: about decisions, I think that would be overwhelming. But you know,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: maybe that's something you get used to. You what do
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: you think? I don't know. I was sort of amazed.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: First of all, I love the richness of the experience
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: that she imagined. She really seems to have thought about
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: what it would be like to have read it in
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: your head all the time and to have these sort
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: of constant communal discussions and debate. I'm not sure I
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: would enjoy it also, but you know, it's really hard
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: to know whether you would appreciate a completely different human experience.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: And the thing that made me wonder was, you know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: would people really be so well behaved? I imagine if
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people had access to like injecting ideas
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: into my brain, it might just be dominated by like
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the loudest, meanest voices, the bullies. Basically, it sort of
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: requires everybody to be civil in a way and to
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: agree to the rules and to be moderated. And I
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: was wondering because you know, in today's society, we were
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: struggling with exactly just that, how much speech to allow
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: on social media platforms and how much to moderate it.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I was sort of wondering how they figured out that
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: balance in a way that we could all live with
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Reddit inside of our brain. Yeah, I know, that's that's
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: a good question. It would be interesting to talk to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: software engineers about how they're tackling that problem right now.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's easy, but sociologically, I think it's
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: really fascinating, this idea of devolving control, rather than having
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: it be centralized in some distant foreign government, having it
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: be more local and community oriented people making these decisions themselves.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: And in some sense that seems empowering because maybe you
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: want the people on the ground to be the ones
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: who are like taking care of the wildlife and understanding
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: really the water flow issues. But it could also really
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: lead to issues of like inequality. You have a bunch
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: of wealthy people get together and build their own school
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and have their own fire department and their own police force,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: and pretty soon they're living in like a literal bubble,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and if the wealth is concentrated there, it can be
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: very difficult for people without those resources to have access
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: to it and have opportunities, and then where you live
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: determines basically the course of your life. So I think
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: there's definitely pluses and mindsets to that sort of reorganization
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: of society. I agree completely. Yep, this stuff is super complicated,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: but in her book she takes all of this on
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and she talks about the ups and the downs. The
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: network crashes at one point, which creates, you know, maybe
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: literal headaches for people trying to make decisions, So you know,
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: she doesn't shy away from all of this. She really
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: seems to have done a lot of research into how
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: this would actually operate. Tell me what your impressions were
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: of the biology, because her aliens were really quite inventive.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Did you find it realistic? Yeah, I mean I really
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: enjoyed reading about the aliens. So I'm I'm not usually
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: a great person to talk to about, like critiquing the
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: science of a sci fi universe, because I'm pretty much
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: willing to accept anything as long as the person is
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: consistent with the rules that they lay out. But I
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: will say that she had some really interesting aliens. One
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: was kind of like an insect and one was kind
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: of like a spider, and seeing how you know, those different,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: you know groups, since there are environments in very different ways,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and you know, how figuring out how they learned to
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: communicate with one another and appreciate the ways that they
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: were different and learned how to complement one another, and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: how they how they essentially ended up living in symbiosis
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: and we're reaching out with humans to try to make
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: them another symbiotic partner. I thought that was really interesting.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: And additionally, how they engineered their environments so that, you know,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: both species could interact even though their you know, their
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: body plans were really quite different. She thought it through
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: quite a bit. What did you think of the aliens? Yeah,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: super creative. I had never thought about having two aliens
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: and symbiosis come and visit and like invite us to
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: join their little club, you know. I thought that was
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: a really cool way of thinking about things. I also
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed our insights into the alien culture. You know.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: On one hand, it was very easy to talk to
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: the aliens because by the time they arrived that already
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: heard a bunch of English in our broadcasts and train
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: themselves on it, so we could just like chat with
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: them immediately. On the other hand, they were important cultural
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: differences like the Aliens were weirded out when people didn't
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: bring their children along to you know, diplomatic meetings, because
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: apparently in their culture, that's a real sign of trust,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: right that you brought your children. So I thought that
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: was really clever. So much in this book of that
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: was just really different from anything I've ever seen before. Yeah,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: I definitely found myself thinking afterwards, like, oh, what, I
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: what I want to live in that world? Like it
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: certainly would have made being a mom and maintaining my
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: career much easier if it was just expected that my
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: kids would come with me everywhere. On the other hand,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I find it really hard to think sometimes when my
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: kid is getting up, you know, when my kids were
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: getting upset and I had to make a big decision.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: But she has her characters deal with that kind of
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: stuff too, and so yeah, it was it was an
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: interesting way to imagine the world that I think would
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: have some big benefits but would be difficult to implement.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Something she described in her novel as sort of an
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: eventual end point for civilizations is not just moving out
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: to space, but also constructing sort of like mega projects,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: things like Dyson spears, which capture a large fraction or
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: all of the energy of a star, allowing realizations to
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: like vaporized planets or or construct enormous other technologies that
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: require so much energy. I thought it was really interesting
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: to think about whether that's actually possible, you know, whether
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: that's the only way to live as an interstellar species,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: or whether there are other ways to do it. Yeah,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: I mean I found I found it to be a
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: very depressing prospect, the idea that you would have to
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: like grind up the Earth in order to make a
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: dicense fear to keep a subset of these species alive
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: right now on Earth, you know, alive in space stations
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: or something. I hope that's not the direction of things.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: What and it sounds complicated? What did you think of it?
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I think that is an interesting question. And you know,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: if we were to build a dicense fear here in
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: our Solar system, I wouldn't start with grinding up the Earth,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I would start with like mercury. Mercury has
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of really heavy metals in it, and we
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: don't really need it for anything else. We could like
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: lose mercury and not really notice. But it's a good
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: point that if you wanted to build a full dicense fhere.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: If you wanted to capture like all of the ten
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: to the twenty six watts of energy that the Sun
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: puts out, you would need a lot of material. Right
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: If you built like a sphere at the radius of
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the Earth like radius of one AU, then the internal
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: surface of that sphere would be like mind bogglingly large.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: We're talking about five hundred million times the surface of
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the Earth. So we've never built anything the size of
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: the Earth. Now we're talking about building something like hundreds
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: of millions of times the surface area of the Earth.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: It's like, we're not even close to doing that. So
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I think I'm more realistic. Trajectory is that you build
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: a bunch of stations in space that are capable of
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: absorbing the power of the Sun and you use that
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: for your space based infrastructure. You don't necessarily need to
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: go from zero to complete dicensphere in an afternoon. Where
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: where would you live in the dicensphere. So, like you
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: build the dicensphere, do you live on like the outside
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: part of it? Are you just floating around inside of
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the sphere. It's a tricky question, right, Like you could
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: imagine living on the inside of this mega project. But
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: there would be no gravity, right, You're not going to
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: be able to like walk around in the inside of it.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: And then you might think, oh, let's spin the thing.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: Right now, you have this enormous thing which is also spinning,
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: and it would be really unstable. You know, a Dyson
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: sphere that surrounds the Sun, you can stay there stably,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: just sort of in orbit, but as soon as he
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: gets off center a little bit, now the part that's
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: closer to the Sun is going to feel more gravity
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: towards the Sun and it's going to very quickly fall
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: into the Sun. And so this thing would be very unstable.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: And now you're spinning it also, which makes it less stable,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and it would need to be much much stronger. Right,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: this thing would require like a tensile strength that exceeds
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: any known material that we can even imagine building it
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: out of. So it would be very hard to build.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: It'd be very unclear to know, like where you would
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: live on it. I think instead, much more realistic is
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: not to build a huge Dicen sphere that encircles the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: whole star, but just to build a bunch of satellites
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: that like roughly circle the Sun, don't block it entirely.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: That just gather a bunch of energy. Because the Sun
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: has so much energy, we don't even need all the
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: energy that the Sun puts out. What would we even
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: do with that other than building like giant space lasers.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I don't want to live in a world with giant
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: space lasers. I don't think would you have to like
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: replace these satellites regularly that would be an incredible job.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: Or do you you just imagine that these satellites are
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: gonna work forever. No, you definitely need to replace them.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: And I think the most realistic plan I've ever heard
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: for building this kind of system is that you build
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a few of them manually out of materials from like mercury,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: and then you build robots that make more, and you
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: power those robots using the system that you built. So
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: you sort of build a few bespoke ones yourself using
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: human mining and industry, and then you use that as
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a launching point for your like automatic self replicating robot
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: arm that can make more of these things. And then
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: it basically like devours mercury and turns it into a
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: whole network of these things. And yet some of them
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: will go offline, but you just keep building them where
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: you can recycle the materials somehow, and then you beam
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: it to the Earth or to your I guess, to
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: your stations because you're living around the sphere. You and
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: I've talked about the prospect of getting solar power in
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: space and beaming it down to the Earth. That's tricky, right,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: because you've got to get it down to the Earth,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: But you don't want to fry people, and you don't
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: want to build a giant space laser and handed over
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to politicians for so many reasons. But instead, if you
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: build it in space for use in space, then you
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: know that mitigates some of those issues. You don't need
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: to beam it down to the planet. Um, you can
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: just sort of beam it around space. I suppose do
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you feel like there's any ethical argument against destroying a
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: planet just because we're not personally super interested in it
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: right now? I think there's definitely a question of you know,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: colonization and treating it like a resource. We don't know,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: for example, whether there's life on Mercury, and we also
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: don't know the sort of spectrum of post some whole life.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Potentially there is life on mercury that we don't even notice,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: we don't even recognize, and we just like devour it
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and turn it into our battery system essentially without even
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: being aware of it. Or maybe life would have evolved
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: on mercury in another hundred million years, just sort of
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: like slow going chemistry, and we've prevented that from happening.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: So there are definitely important questions about how we treat
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: resources in space, and also who in our society gets
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: access to those resources, you know, should it be corporate
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: barons who are launching their own satellites, Should it be
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: national governments, or should it be like decisions made by
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: a bunch of local communities with Reddit in their brain?
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: You know? These are important questions, they are, And I've
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: been reading a bunch of papers by philosophers about, you know,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: conservation of things in space, and you you know, you
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: mentioned mercury's value if it has life on it, But
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I think they would argue that, like, I mean, it's
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: a whole planet that you know, has scientific value, and
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: even that even if it doesn't have scientific value, it
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: might be nice to look at. And should we, you know,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: should we value it just because it's a giant thing?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: That its cysts, and I think that's a very popular
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: argument with many people. But it's interesting to think about. Yeah,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: that is interesting in the same way that you might say, hey,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: let's not demolish that mountain because of the coal inside
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: of it. It's kind of nice to look at and
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: to hike around on. We prefer it in mountain form, right,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: And what are we going to do with all the
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: acronyms that we use to memorize the planets if there's
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: no M at the beginning and we're gonna have to
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: start over, and that's going to be tough. That's really
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: an ethical issue. All those children we've taught this acronym
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and now they have to start again. Ye, not fair?
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: What are we doing to our children? Think of the children?
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: Think of the children. Indeed, all right, wonderful. Well, we
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: have a special tree coming up for you. After the break,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk to the author of a Half
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: Built Garden and hear about how she came up with
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: these ideas and why she is so fascinated by thinking
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: about them. But first we're gonna take another break. Then
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: it's my pleasure to welcome to the program ruth Anna Emiris.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: She is a prolific author of many novels and has
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: been shortlisted for several awards, including being a finalist for
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: the Locust Award for Best First Novel, and she's here
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: to talk to us about her recent science fiction book,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: A Half Built Garden. Ruthanna, thank you very much for
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: joining us, and welcome to the program. Thank you for
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: having me so First, we'd like to get to know
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: you a little bit before we ask you in detail
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: about your process of writing the book. Tell us a
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: little bit about your background and how you came to
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: write a book about aliens. I've really come to write
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: a book about aliens? I don't know. I've been writing
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: about aliens honestly most of my life. It's always been
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite sub genres of science fiction. How
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I came to write book about climate mitigation that had
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: aliens in it is that I've lived in Washington, d C.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: For about ten years, and one of the first things
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: that happened when I came here was that I got
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: involved in the local citizen science movement, and I got
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: involved people who were running projects that were bringing ordinary
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: people into the process of planning science, collecting data, analyzing data,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: and seeing the way that that changes the way that
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: people think about the world and the ecosystems around them.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So when I started to think about, well, what sort
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: of governance structures could be really different from what we
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: have now and maybe do better at dealing with the
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: huge existential problems that we face as a species, I
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: started to think about that sort of crowdsource system. And
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: because I am always interested in what challenges systems, and
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about the ways that our current systems
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: are challenged by these problems, I started thinking about, Okay,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: here's a system that works much better for these problems.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: What makes this system break? And the answer was aliens?
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Because why would it not be aliens? That's a good answer.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: When I was reading the book, I found myself wondering
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: if you have a background in either ecology or political science,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: because both of those sort of themes were done so
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: well in the book, And so do you have a
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: background in either of those topics? Thank you? My background
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: is in the social sciences more generally. I'm an experimental
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: cognitive psychologist by training, but I spend a lot of
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: time working with anthropologists and political scientists, and I also
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of time working with ecologists and other
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: people who are working on other disciplines involved in solving
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: climate issues. So I'm always working on the how can
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: humans screw this up end of things? But I love
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: talking with and looking with the people who are working
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: on the how do we get carbon out of the atmosphere?
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: How do we improve the resilience of our systems from
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: uh energy standpoints? And then I'm coming back with, okay,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and how do we get people to actually implement the
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: solution now that you come up with it. Something I
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: really enjoy in science fiction novels and in particular in yours,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: is imagining other ways that we can live, other ways
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: that we might organize ourselves. And your book describes a
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: pretty novel political and social organization, the watershed. Can you
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: explain this concept to our listeners? So, the dandelion networks
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: in a half built garden are they are built around watersheds,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: and a lot of that was trying to think about
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: what sort of geographic boundaries would have some basis in
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: shared interests and shared problem solving, and it would make
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: people think more deeply about the world around them. They
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: are also technological system The networks are sort of many
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: internets that are based around watersheds or in some cases
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: around just you know, knitting or other shared interests as well,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: and people can belong to more than one of them.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: But the central thing they do is decision making. So
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: they include both systems set up for people to provide
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: input into a problem like how do we reduce level
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: of run off into the Anacostia River. And then they
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: also include algorithms that, if you think about the way
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: that modern machine learning algorithms often unintentionally bring in biases
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: from their data sets, the dandelion algorithms deliberately bring in
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: biases that we want to have. So they include algorithms
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that bias problems solving towards human rights or towards advocacy
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: for the local ecosystem. And so those algorithms also contribute
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: to solving problems and weighting solutions. One of the things
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: that I really enjoyed about the book, in addition to
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: the things I've already mentioned that I enjoyed about the book.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: So you talk about a law, you know, there are
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: people who are arguing that living on Earth isn't a
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: viable long term solution. And I just finished reading a
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: bunch of books about space settlements, and it was interesting
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: to hear some of those arguments or of coming back
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: and being heard from different characters in your book. So
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: what is your feeling about the future of humanity? Can
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: we eventually make civilization work here on Earth or are
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: we going to need to move out to the stars
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: to solve our problems? You know, I kind of wrote
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: the book to argue with myself about that. If I
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: had to take an end to say, I think that
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: we ought to get both. I love to see us
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: going out and colonizing space. At the same time, I
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: think that a lot of science fiction that valorizes the
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: destiny of humans in the stars tends to underestimate the
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: value of having a complex ecosystem that you evolved to
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: live in and the distance that we are from actually
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: being able to make other places more amenable to human
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: life when we're currently in the process of making this
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: one less amenable to human life. I probably did come
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: down on the side of the characters saying, you know,
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: we need to maybe figure out how to make this
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: work on easy mode in order to do it right
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: anywhere else. Is that the viewpoint you had when you
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: started writing the book or through the process of writing
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: the book, you sort of formed that more like solid viewpoint.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Like I said, I wrote the book in part to
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: argue with myself that is srequitely why I write books. Well,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: something I thought was really fascinating are these political structures
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: that you described with this Dandelion network. It seems to
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: me like sort of an opposite trend of what we're
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: seeing today where we're lurching towards globalization. In your book,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: you have sort of these smaller, more local communities that
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: operates am I independently Do you think that that's a
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: future for humanity, that these larger national governments and international
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: corporations are going to break up in favor of more
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: local solutions. I think it depends on the direction that
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: we choose to go. Um, but I really see trends
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: in both directions. In the modern world. We get anything
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: that pushed towards greater globalization, but we also you know,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: over the course of this last couple of weeks, I've
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: been anxiously watching Twitter breakdown and started up Mastodon account
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: just to make sure that I still had something. And
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: there's something much more granular and localized about the Mastodon instances.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: And you know, people talk about that as both drinks
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and a weakness, just as the globalization of Twitter has
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: been a great strength and also turns out to make
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: it kind of griddle. I also see a lot of
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: the best, quietest work towards sustainability and resilience happening at
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: the local level, you know, in towns and cities where
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: people really have concretely shared needs that let them negotiate
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: politics locally in a way that can be more challenging
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: at higher scales. Do you think we're gonna need like
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: a major political realignment, like having little watershed governments before
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: we can actually start to address some of these bigger
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: problems like climate change. I don't think it's the only way.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: As I said, I live in the DC area. I'm
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: felt way person, and I have uh fondness for the
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: executive branch agencies and the hard work that people do
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: in them. The NASA people who are running around trying
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: desperately to be relevant in the book are kind of
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: a love letter to all the people that I have
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: seen around here working utterly thankless jobs and trying desperately
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: to solve problems while people detegrate them in you know,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: xt door And I hope that we figure out how
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: to solve problems with the nation states we currently have,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: because it's honestly easier to do things with systems that
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: you've already got in place. But I also think that
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: having subsidiarity and overlapping systems provide some really important ability
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: to address problems in different ways. In a different level,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: I'd like to hear more of your thoughts about how
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: technology plays a role in allowing that to happen. I mean,
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I know that in the early days the Internet, we
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: all imagined that the internet would be a powerful force
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: for direct democracy, and now we see there's another side
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: to it that can also amplify hate speech and connect
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: pockets of extremism. And in your book, it was fascinating
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: how the networks and the discussion seemed to be the
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: core of this like communal, bottom up style government. It
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: was almost a utopian at the same time as being
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: a little bit topian. Because we're facing this crisis. Do
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: you think that Twitter or Mathadon or these other social
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: networks are going to be sort of a framework for
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: reimagining our priorities and government strategies. I mean, I think
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: they have been. You know, Twitter has changed the way
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: that we do some types of governance. I have a
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: friend who is currently completely freaking out because Twitter has
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: been the backbone of vastly improved disaster response over the
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: last decade, and she's fairly certain that when uh new
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: natural disaster happens in the next few months, people are
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: going to die because Twitter is broken, and as we
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: will be losing infrastructure that we were depending on to
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: you know, put people in touch with resources and to
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: get help quickly where it's needed. Most technologies, they can
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: be used in many different ways, but they also have
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: affordances that make some things easier and somethings harder. Twitter
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: unfortunately makes some good things easier and some bad things easier,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: and I think that as we design new technologies, we
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: want to think very deeply about what affordances we're building
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: in and trying actively to prevent or mitigate the worst
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: of the negative law. I also tend to think about
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: technology in a way that I think a lot of
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: people don't. It's not just the circuits, it's the social structures.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: And for the dandelion networks, there are algorithms involved, but
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: there are also new modes of social organization and new
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: ways of teaching people to expect and be incentivized by
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: certain types of engagements. And then I'm also very fond
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: of whole idea of humans as natural side works that
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: built into our neurology is the expectation of being slow used.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: So literally, when you pick up a stick, you change
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: the way you represent space around you, in your occipital
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: lobe where you normally represent space, because the distinction that
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: you actually make and representing space is places that I
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: can reach and manipulate in places that I can't reach
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: and manipulate. So every time we take on a new technology,
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: it changes our representation of ourselves and of our ability
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: to impact the world. And that was something else I
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: was thinking of with the Dandelion Networks, was deliberately designing
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: something too create that cyborgness in a way that was
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: good for the world and good for the people who
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: use it. I really appreciate the considering technology in the
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: long term from both the perspectives of how it can
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: go well and how it can go poorly. And I
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: had a project that I did once and I interviewed
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people working on emerging technologies, and I
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: was really surprised by how many of them didn't have
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: the answer to well and explain to me all the
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: ways your technology could be bad. And I can't tell
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: if they just didn't want me to know, or if
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: they really hadn't blowed it through, But I do feel
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: like in general, we tend to be a little bit
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: rosier about technology and we try not to think about
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: the negative implications until they sort of hit us in
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: the face. What people do have answers, they go in
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: very interesting directions. So I was involved in I think
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: a similar project many years ago now, I think about
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: fifteen years ago. I got involved with with people who
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: were trying to do foresight work around nanotechnology and to
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: come up with policy recommendations in advance of actual capability.
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: And after a while in these rooms you would find
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: that everyone wanted to think about the grade youth problem,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: which is, you know, very specialtive nanotechnology that reproduces itself,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: optimizes for pagano clips and turns the entire planet into
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: paper clips and zero. People wanted to think of about
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: inhaling nanoparticles, which was in fact a actual problem with
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: actual nanotechnology at the time, for you know, what what
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: happens if there is UH bug in your paper clip
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: optimizer with there will be and how does it break down?
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: People love the big dramatic and I love the big
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: dramatic futures still on the science fiction writer, but it
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: also got very interesting to me psychologically the types of
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: futures that people wanting to think about and the type
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: that they found uncomfortable to think about. I have a
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: question about the sort of emotional side of it. In
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: your story, humans and aliens have like really big and
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: important cultural differences, but they can also successfully empathize with
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: each other and in some cases understand each other's social
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: and political issues. There's even a thread where we get
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: a sense that one character develops romantic feelings for an alien.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's something we can expect to happen
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: in our universe when maybe aliens or is it more
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: just that in the hard realistic take where aliens are
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: incomprehensible emotionally doesn't make for a very satisfying science fiction story.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: I mean, certainly that's part of why I choose to
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: write aliens who are somewhat comprehensible emotionally. But I think
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: it's you know, it depends on the species. If you
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: look at be more intelligent to other species with whom
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: we share our planet. Currently, humans get along better with
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: some of them than others, and when we get along
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: with them, we have very weird and unexpected places of
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: breakdowns and communication. And the things that humans can agree
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: on with adolphins are very differus to the things that
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: humans can agree on with a part and the relationships
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: that we go with them are also very different. And
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: I said, tool even for something where we could learn
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: to speak each other's languages better than humans and Paris do.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: So then if aliens do arrive, do you think that
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: we should send cognitive psychologists to go talk to them first?
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: Are you volunteering? Yes, yes, I'm totally volunteering. Oh my gosh,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: most people ask that question backpedal rapidly, so I'm glad
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: for your enthusiasm. So I have sort of a light
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: question here. So what alien in either you know, literature
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: or movies or TV is the best done alien? Are
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: the best written alien that you've come across? And what
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: was your thought process as you went through and like
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: designed your aliens for the book? It depends on how
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: you defined I know I've said it depends a lot.
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: I I am very annoyingly sent there. I really love
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: the aliens in Mary Deriyah russell Sparrow and the mix
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: of you know, understanding and horrible misunderstanding that happens there,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: and the interesting relationships between the different species there. And
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: I'm sure that that was part of my own influence.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: I'm wanting to write two species that have relationship and
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: then come to those contest with humans together. I was
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: also thinking about my first two books are in fact
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: deconstructive love crafty and historical fantasy, and they use aliens
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: that love Crafts made up. And Lovecot had many serious
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: issues as a person, some of which my books are
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: about arguing with. But he was really good at coming
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: up with not even remotely humanoid aliens. And then, you know,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: having whole slide bars of those years, all the biology
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: that I just made up, It isn't this fun oh
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: look funnest. And so when I went to create my
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: own aliens, I did set myself the bar of that
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: they have to be at least as interesting in terms
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: of body plans. And the aliens that I got to
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: borrow for my last actually I really enjoyed, you know,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: all the biology that you incorporated into the aliens lives.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: They were, They were very interesting aliens to think about.
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: Speaking of aliens, why do you think we haven't been
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: visited yet? You know, what's your personal answer to the
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: Fermi paradox? Even how old the galaxy is and how
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: common rocky planets seem to be, why have we not
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: yet been visited by aliens? We've been looking for a century.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: That is a minuscule amount of time us working what
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: the fact that we haven't found aliens yet is very
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: much like my kid looking for her stuffed animal for
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: two seconds and then mean that she hasn't sarned her stuff.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: You make us sound very immature as a species. At
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: least hope we're immature as a species. If we're mature
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: as a species, then I have a whole new answer
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: for the Fermi paradox. Yeah, I could even art your
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: in any of the answers from you know we we
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: missed them to everyone killed themselves a climate change to
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: be accurate. But I also feel like we just haven't
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: been looking that lot. And also I do feel and
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: this is one of the things I was arguing with
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: myself about in the book, Like a lot of the
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: why haven't we found the people who colonized the galaxy
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: already A lot of the answer to that is, I
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: think the sort of mindset that it takes to try
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: and grow endlessly is the sort of mindset that it
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: takes to kill yourself off climate change. And I did
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: ask myself that I was writing it, was what would
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: it take for someone to build a licensephere and still
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: be worth talking too? Because I personally think that most
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: species you can imagine building dicenspheres, you hope they stay
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: very far way from your solar system. Agreed. So, speaking
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: of far off tech, what tech that's either existing in
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: your book or other sci fi books would you like
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: to see made real? Most of all, I really like
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: the part of the networks that involves making it easier
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: and more organic for people to sense the details of
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: the boom around them. So the sort of augmented reality
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: where it's not going to block your ability to hear
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: bird sell when you go out for a walk, but
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: you can also you know, dive into the health of
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: the trees or find out what kind of a burden
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: is if you're you know, not circlers who already has
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: that memorized. I'm also very fond of the sensory substitution
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: stuff that exists that I gave Judy. I just like
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: the idea of being able to have more senses. That
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: would be awesome. I like to be able to see
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: the universe and all sorts of new ways. I think
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: that would really fundamently change our view of it wonderful. Well,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: thanks very much for telling us about the process of
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: writing your book and giving us a little bit of
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: insight into how you think about aliens and humans and
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: the prospects of their interactions. It's been a pleasure. Thank
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: you for having me up And can you tell our
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: listeners about any upcoming projects of yours? If they've enjoyed
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: your book as much as we have, what can they
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: look out for. I don't have any upcoming publications at
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: the moment. I have a novella that is sitting with
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: a couple of publishers, so I hope there will be
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: a publication date on a couple of things soon. You
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: can also find me on a regular basis at the
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Reading the Weird column on tour dot com, where I
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: am pull Worth and I do commentary on two hundred
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: years of your fiction with equal parts we and criticism,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: nothing being published, just now hoping to have more stuck
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: out soon. Well, best of luck and very nice to
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: chat with you. Yeah, thanks for being on the show,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening, and remember that Daniel and Jorge explain
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: The Universe is a production of I Heart Radio or
• 53:21
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• 53:24
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• 53:27
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