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Elon Musk Talks about the future of Humanity and Aliens · Elon Musk Podcast

0:00
Well, these lights are bright. See Elon?
0:04
You know, a lot of times you say things, me or you, and they edit
0:09
them. So I noticed this panel
0:11
description was a conversation with Elon Musk.
0:17
The real title of this panel was How to Save the Human Race and
0:24
Other Light Topics, A Conversation with Elon Musk.
0:29
And so before we begin Elon, I thought we might want to go back
0:35
in time. 11 years when you were sitting on this stage.
0:40
That's hot water. And this is regular.
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You can take your choice. Alright, sounds good.
0:45
OK, so eleven years ago, Elon was talking about the things
0:54
that will have the biggest impact on the future of humanity
1:00
that he was thinking about in college.
1:03
And so let's run that video of 11 almost 11 years ago to today.
1:12
I guess, yeah. When I was in college that I I
1:14
thought about things that would most affect the future of
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humanity and. And there were.
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Three areas that I thought would have the biggest impact and
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those were the Internet sustainable energy of which
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solar power is the production side and electric cars the
1:29
consumption side and then humanity becoming a multi tenant
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species. And so we cut that short.
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But there was two others you talked about.
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One was modifying the human genome.
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Yeah, I'm just. I'm not saying we should.
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I'm just saying that that's the thing that would really affect
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the. Future and next AI So a lot of
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people didn't weren't thinking about these same five things
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when they were in school, particularly humanity on multi
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planets at that time. Well, sci-fi was certainly
2:03
thinking about it, but you know, I think at some point we want to
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make science fiction, not fiction forever.
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And yeah, so like let's make life multiplanetary and be a
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space bearing civilization, be out there among the stars.
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You know, I think there there are things that like you have to
2:20
be excited about the future life.
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Life cannot just be about solving one problem after
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another. There have to be things that
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that that really sort of move your heart and that make you
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excited to wake up in the morning.
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And I think being becoming a space bearing civilization is
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one of those things if you ask kids anywhere around the world
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like what is, what are some of the most inspiring things, you
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know, you can ask a like 5 year old, 6 year old anywhere in the
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world and they're going to say, you know, space exploration is
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one of those things. And and we want to make sure
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that we we're we're you know that Apollo is not the high
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watermark. In fact you mentioned at one
3:00
point that that you wrote a letter offering to run the
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Apollo program I believe, but I would have you would have done a
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fantastic job. But the the point is that the
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Apollo program was something that was inspiring to everyone
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around the world and we we don't want the Apollo program to be
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the high watermark of of human exploration.
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And yeah, we want, I think you want to have some, some sense
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that the future is going to be better than the past.
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That we're going to be out there going to other star systems.
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And you know what? What you see in a science
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science fiction, non dystopian sci-fi story, of which there
3:42
aren't many. But like Star Trek I suppose.
3:45
Well, Speaking of Star Trek alone, you know when I think
3:49
about you. Let's look at Sparks from Star
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Trek here. Space, the final frontier.
4:04
These are the. Voyages of the Starship
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Enterprise. Your ongoing mission to explore
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strange new worlds, to seek out new life forms and new
4:15
civilizations. To boldly go where no one has
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gone before. So when I think about you, I
4:25
think about Spock and Captain Kirk, and you're going to take
4:29
us to places we've never gone before.
4:32
Yeah, that's the idea. You know, if we if we send
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probes out there, we might, I mean we might find the remains
4:43
of long dead alien civilizations.
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If physics is correct, the the universe is about 13.8 billion
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years old. Earth is about four and a half
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billion years old so but at 13.8 billion years a civilization
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that even lasted a million years is 3 digits past the decimal
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point. And if you consider human
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civilization I I I dated from like the first writing so that
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first writing was the ancient Sumerians archaic pre pre
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cuneiform around 5500 years ago. So that is 1 millionth of
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Earth's lifespan. That's how long writing has
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existed. So if we were to last as a
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civilization for a million years, that would be incredible
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and we'd actually probably be in every part of the Galaxy.
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So that this is, this causes me to to think that, well, where
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are the aliens? It's the Fermi question.
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You know, the the great physicist, Italian physicist,
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Enrico Fermi, he, he, he's like, where are they now?
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A lot of people think there are aliens among us.
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Well, there was that. There was that movie, Men in
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Black. Yes, Yes, yes.
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Told us. They're among us.
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And Elvis really went back to his own planet.
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Yeah, well, I mean, really, a lot of people think they're
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aliens, but I I get asked that a lot.
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And for for some reason, a lot of the same people who think
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there are aliens among us didn't think.
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We don't think we went to the moon, which I'm like think about
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that for a second. You know, so but I, I, I think I
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would, I mean, if I've not seen any evidence of aliens.
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And SpaceX with the Starling constellation has roughly 6000
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satellites and. And not once have we had to
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maneuver around a UFO. OK, so so we were like, hey,
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what's that? Is that an alien has occurred?
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Never. So I'm like, OK, I don't see any
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evidence of aliens and I'll look at it and if somebody has
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evidence of aliens in a in a, you know, that's not just a
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fuzzy BLOB, then I'd love to see it, love to hear about it and
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but I don't think there is. So which is actually reason for
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concern, Because you could, if if any, civilization in the
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Milky Way in our Galaxy were to last for a million years, even
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with a speed of travel that's far below the speed of light,
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you know, like a few percent of speed of light, they could
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easily have explored and colonized the whole Galaxy.
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So. So they haven't.
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So why not? I think the the the answer might
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be, or perhaps probably is that that civilization is precarious
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and rare, and that we you should really think of human
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civilization as being like a tiny candle in a vast darkness,
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and we should do everything possible to ensure that that
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candle does not go out. Well, Ron, I thought one of the
8:06
interesting things for the people on acts viewing this
8:10
session and the people in the audience here is that maybe I'd
8:15
give you a few of your quotes and you can comment on them.
8:18
OK, let's start with this one. Free speech, freedom of speech
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is the bedrock of democracy. Without it, America ends.
8:31
Yes, it's. It's obviously not possible to
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have democratic elections if people do not have access to the
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information that would allow them to make the right decision
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on a candidate or a party. So if if speech is constrained
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in a fundamental way you you just can't expect people to make
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the the right decision or an informed decision because they
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are prevented from being informed.
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I think it's it's it's a very a foundation element.
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It's, you know, if they're like, why?
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Why is free speech free of speech?
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The 1st Amendment is because people came from countries where
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if you spoke freely, you would be imprisoned or killed.
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That was why they were like, you know what, we should make sure
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that we got that one. And remember that time when they
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tried to try to kill us back in the other country just just for
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saying we didn't like a political candidate?
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Well let's let's, let's make sure that's OK in America.
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So and so actually in a lot of parts of the world, you know you
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can't really say most parts of the world you can't really say
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what you want to say without some bad consequences.
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So as long as people forget like why is the Constitution there,
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the Constitution there is to protect the the people from the
9:48
government. So, like, if if they're it's to
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make it hard to change things. That's why the Constitution
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exists. You know, let's for sure forget
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about that. Let's try now.
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Take it for granted. Let's try the next quote.
10:04
Yeah, the fundamental error of socialism is shifting capital
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allocation from highly effective entrepreneurs to astonishly
10:16
ineffective government. Right.
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I think we'll find Hardy agreement in this room.
10:26
So yeah I think that this is this is definitely a stack deck
10:32
on that front but but yeah the you know there's you'll hear
10:40
this sort of argument like oh we shouldn't have some greedy
10:43
corporation do it. We should have the government do
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it. I'm like well actually the
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government is just a corporation in the limit.
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So if you it it's a government is the government is a
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corporation with a monopoly on violence.
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So if if you're unhappy with a commercial corporation doing it,
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you should be actually very unhappy with the the government
11:02
doing it since it is simply the a corporation, the most
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corporate thing. And you know you can actually
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easily get get more sway in a in a company than you can the act
11:16
of a company than you can in the government.
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So I mean, everyone's experienced this going to the
11:22
DMV. Every said, like, do you want
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the DMV at scale? Probably not.
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OK. All right, let's.
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The government is the DMV at scale.
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Let's try another one. Discrimination on the basis of
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anything other than merit is wrong.
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Yeah, I think. I think we do need to have a
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merit based system because as soon as you you go down the path
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that you're going to discriminate on on non Barrett
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based then then where do you stop.
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So yeah, I think we need to be as rigorous about merit as
12:09
possible and while it is, yeah, to me that seems like it's it's
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a foundational foundational thing.
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So again I also think this room is probably supportive of of a
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merit based situation but but yeah that's that that is yeah I
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think we should be. Yeah, not not discriminated on
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anything other than merit I I. All right, good.
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I'm happy you agree with yourself.
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Yeah, I mean. Exactly.
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I'm like, wait, who is this guy? He really sounds great.
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All right. So let's let's look at the next
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one. Regulation and regulatory
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consistency. Like Gulliver tied down by
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thousands of little strings, we lose our freedom one regulation
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at a time. Yes.
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So this is actually a very important point that I think is
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is not talked about enough that laws and regulations are
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immortal. They don't die, humans die.
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But but laws and regulations can last forever.
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So if over if year after year there are more laws and
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regulations passed and more regulatory bodies created,
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eventually everything will be illegal.
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And that's why you see the the California high speed rail has
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made a a tiny section of that doesn't even have rail on it and
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for, I don't know, several billion dollars because
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everything's at this point, California's made almost
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everything illegal. So you can't make progress.
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Now the the, the historically what has cleared away the
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cobwebs of regulation has been war.
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Now, we'd prefer not to have a war.
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So in order to have civilization function without war, you have
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to have a you have to actively eliminate laws and regulations.
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So you have to have basically a garbage collection process for
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rules and regulations. That is necessary, otherwise you
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get hardening of the arteries and over time nothing can get
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done. The most poignant example that I
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can think of what happened this week was the the sad picture of
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the California high speed rail, which is, you know, it's just
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billions of dollars spent for practically nothing.
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But it'll it'll only get worse year after year.
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So we must have a regulatory sort of clearing house, garbage
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collection process. This is essential, or
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civilization comes grinding to a halt.
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Well, we used to have Sunset that that regulation.
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With Sunset. Unfortunately, it's rare today.
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All right, let's talk about education.
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The more you can gamify the process of learning, the better.
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You do not need to tell your kid to play video games.
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They will play video games on autopilot all day.
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So if you make it interactive and engaging, then you can make
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education far more compelling and far easier to do.
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Yeah, so the yeah, So the way education works today is really
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much like like it's like vaudeville.
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You know before there was radio and TV and movies, you had
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vaudeville where every town would have their their town play
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the town troupe, the sort of acting troupe and that would be
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kind of the the that would be the entertainment.
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So you know some in a in a big city you'd have, you know much
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better players than say in a small city.
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But then along came movies and TV and and and then you say,
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look at video games where you take the the smartest, best
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people in any arena, like whether they're acting, writing,
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directing, special effects. You spend, you know, 10s of
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millions, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars creating a
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great movie or a great video game and and you make it as
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compelling as possible. Now that crushes, vaudeville,
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crushes. Like, imagine you're not in New
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York. Imagine you're in Bakersfield,
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OK? And you and you got instead of
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Batman being like, you know, the Nolan brothers, it's Batman the
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the Bakersfield sort of acting troupe.
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It wouldn't be as good. That's how teaching works today.
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So what you actually want to have is an interactive learning
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experience that is as compelling as possible.
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And you do not want to act. You don't actually want a
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teacher in front of a board doing a board Vol act.
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You want you want it to be engaged.
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Real time feedback. So that and and then you you.
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There are a few other principles in in in teaching you you have
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to establish relevance otherwise your mind will will want to
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forget things. So our our our mind is
17:53
constantly trying to forget as much as possible.
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So you'll only remember things if if if your mind can establish
18:00
relevance or there's a strong emotional element to it.
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Otherwise you're going to basically going to forget forget
18:06
everything. Memory is is very expensive from
18:10
an evolutionary standpoint so it's trying to forget as much as
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possible. So so when teaching a course you
18:15
you you have to explain to kids why it's important and then you
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want to teach to the to the problem instead of teaching the
18:24
tools. So what I mean by that is if you
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said here's a car engine, we're we're we're going to try to
18:33
understand how to how this car engine works.
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We're going to take it apart. So what do we need to do to take
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it apart? Well, we need a wrench, we need
18:40
some screwdrivers, we need a hoist and a pulley and we're
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going to take it apart and we're going to see how it all works.
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That's engaging. And along the way you learn
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about wrenches and screwdrivers and you know all the tools that
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are needed, that's that actually is engaging and compelling.
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But the way teaching more typically works is we're going
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to teach you a course on screwdrivers and a course on
19:06
wrenches. And you're like, why do I have a
19:08
course on wrenches? It's not obvious that would be
19:11
like, say, a course on calculus without explaining what calculus
19:15
calculus is used for. But then you you sort of forget
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it. We have a lot of work to do in
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that area. Let's talk about a non
19:26
controversial issue. Immigration here is Elan.
19:33
On immigration. I'm very much in favor of
19:37
increased and expedited legal immigration for anyone who is
19:41
talented, hard working, and honest.
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Bizarrely, it's difficult and agonizing Slow to immigrate to
19:53
the US legally, but it's trivial and fast to enter illegally.
20:00
This obviously makes no sense. Right.
20:04
I mean, once again, I agree with that guy.
20:08
So yeah, I mean if if anyone here has been through the legal
20:13
immigration process, I I mean, I've been been through it.
20:15
It's only gotten worse since 9:11.
20:19
And with COVID, it's, it's, it's a sort of Kafka Kafkaesque, very
20:27
long, bizarre process to immigrate legally to the USI
20:33
mean, I have friends of mine who, you know, they, they can't
20:35
get their their wife to have a green card.
20:38
It's, like, insane. So on the other hand, it's you.
20:44
You can hop across the border in the South trivially.
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It's just like, very easy. I went to the border myself just
20:50
to see, like, what's going on? Is this real or, like, is this
20:52
propaganda or real? And so I just went there and I'm
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like, oh, it is real. OK, this is crazy.
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You know, we've got situations where people are pouring across
21:03
the the border like it's World War Z and I'm like, it just
21:07
doesn't seem healthy. So I'm like, are we checking
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anyone here or like what's going on?
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And, you know, we don't. This is not say that, I mean I'm
21:19
a big believer in immigration but to have unvetted immigration
21:22
at large scale is a recipe for disaster.
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So I'm I'm in favour of greatly expediting legal immigration,
21:32
but but having a secure southern border, so there's there's some
21:37
betting of who comes into the United States.
21:40
I think this is just sensible. All right, let's let's now link
21:49
Star Link to education. We're basically building the
21:55
Internet in space. Why it matters Starlink is a
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massive enabler for people in remote locations to learn
22:04
anything. You can learn almost anything
22:08
for free on the Internet right now.
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For example, MIT has all of its lessons online.
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That's if you have Internet. If you don't, you're limited to
22:21
books. It might be the number one
22:25
technology then improves people's standard of living
22:29
around the world. Starlink.
22:32
Yeah, absolutely. So once you have access to the
22:35
Internet, you have access to all the world's information.
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But if you don't have access to the Internet or it's too
22:41
expensive or low bandwidth, then you you cannot access the MIT
22:46
lessons, you can't access all the information and you can't
22:49
sell the goods and services that you produce.
22:52
So Internet connectivity I think is, I think it might be
22:57
certainly a candidate for one of the things that would do more to
23:00
lift people out of poverty, out of poverty than anything else
23:04
because they can now sell their goods and services, they can
23:06
learn anything and but without connectivity they cannot.
23:11
So I think, I think, I think Starlink will actually like like
23:17
move the GDP of countries. Like it's going to be that kind
23:21
of thing, because what is, what is GDP as a function of average
23:26
productivity per person. And so if there's a technology
23:29
that improves productivity per person, you would expect to see
23:33
that actually reflected in the gross domestic product?
23:37
All right, civilization is fragile.
23:41
I think it is. We should always regard
23:43
civilization as fragile. Yeah, there is not an inevitable
23:48
upward trajectory. A lot of civilizations have
23:53
risen and fallen in recent years.
23:57
Yes, I suspect most people in this room have actually read
24:02
history, but if you haven't, I strongly recommend it.
24:08
It sounds obvious, but you know, there's there's been so many
24:14
civilizations that have risen and fallen, many that we just
24:20
don't have much of AA record of. You know, like I mentioned the
24:25
ancient Sumerians like their their language was forgotten for
24:30
a long time until it was finally decoded only in the last, I
24:34
don't know, 2-3 hundred years. But like it's not 1800 and
24:38
something right in the 1800s, I think, but it's been very recent
24:43
like so for several thousand years, nobody understood what
24:46
those tablets meant. And because they were the ruins
24:52
of a long dead civilization, and there are many long dead
24:55
civilizations, at some point our civilization will come to an end
24:59
too. We just don't want it to be any
25:01
time soon. So.
25:06
Well, you've been quoted a number of times.
25:08
Elon Ahn You'd like to die on Mars, but not on landing?
25:15
Yes, yes, I was. I was asked that in an interview
25:20
if I wanted to die on Mars, but then I considered the corner
25:22
case of dying on impact and like except for that case, you know
25:28
you've got to consider the various corner cases.
25:31
So I mean if I'm going to, if you're going to die somewhere
25:36
might as well be Mars. I'd like to explore for a bit
25:39
before you know, dying. But yeah, I think we want to be
25:44
a multi planet civilization and like I think.
25:53
I don't know if that's a response from the audience.
25:57
Let's, let's talk about that just for one second then we're
26:00
going to take some questions from.
26:02
The I mean, I could accomplish this actually this year if I if
26:06
I was willing to die on impact. The fundamental invention that
26:14
is necessary for humanity to become a multi planet species is
26:20
rapidly reusable reliable rockets.
26:25
Yeah, I was trying to sound like a pirate.
26:27
RRRRRR. But yeah, rapidly reusable,
26:30
reliable rockets. So space pirates will win.
26:36
All right, here's some questions from the audience Salon.
26:40
Which one would you like to pick here?
26:43
Well I guess let me let me let me just touch upon why I think
26:49
making life multiplanetary is important because I think it's
26:51
one of the things that gets us past one of the Fermi great
26:55
filters. So in in trying to sort of
26:59
explain why do we not see aliens, there are various
27:02
explanations for why we don't see aliens.
27:04
Like what stopped those civilizations from from
27:08
expanding beyond their solar system and and and and and what
27:12
were the what were the sort of the the sometimes called like
27:16
Fermi filters? Well if you don't become a multi
27:20
planet civilization then you're then you're simply waiting
27:23
around until you you die from a self-inflicted wound or from
27:28
some some natural disaster like the dinosaurs you know get hit
27:30
by a big meteorite or something like that.
27:35
The eventually something like that's going to happen and if
27:38
you wait a lot around long enough the sun will expand to to
27:41
engulf earth and will be incinerated so that that for
27:45
sure is going to happen. Now we we've got we've got some
27:49
time before that happens. There are more near term risks
27:52
but we want to try to get past the Fermi filter of being a
27:57
single planet civilization. Now this is going to this is
28:00
also this is going to be somewhat cerebral to many people
28:03
listening but I mean if but like I think this is pretty this is
28:08
actually very important. We want to get past the Fermi
28:10
filter of a single planet civilization.
28:13
The point is not to to move from earth to another planet and let
28:16
earth die. That's not what I'm saying at
28:19
all. We want to be a multi planet
28:20
civilization so that we have planetary redundancy such that
28:24
no single event can end can be the end of our civilization.
28:29
That is the point of making life multiplanetary.
28:32
So let's take a couple questions from the audience.
28:36
How does AI affect and how will it affect our daily lives?
28:49
AI I mean AI might be the most
29:03
important question of all the. I mean the the percentage of
29:10
intelligence that is biological, you know, grows smaller with
29:15
each passing month. Eventually the percentage of
29:18
intelligence that is biological will be less than 1% the that's
29:26
actually not what I mean we we just I guess don't want AI that
29:29
is brutal if the AI is somehow brutal you know Silicon circuit
29:36
boards are don't do well just out out in the elements.
29:41
So I think, I think biological intelligence can serve as a a
29:46
backstop, as a as a buffer of intelligence.
29:50
But almost all in, as a percentage, almost all
29:53
intelligence will be digital. So then it's like, well, what
30:02
role will it be for us? I I don't know.
30:10
I do think. I think it's very important that
30:11
we build the AI in a way that that is beneficial to humanity.
30:20
And there's some important principles here because I've
30:24
thought about AI safety for a very long time.
30:29
I think you want to have a maximum truth seeking AI.
30:33
This is very important. The AI should not be taught to
30:36
lie. It should not be taught to say
30:38
things that are not true. Even if those things are
30:42
politically incorrect, it should still say those that say what it
30:45
believes to be true. I mean, the entire plot of 2001
30:49
Space Odyssey, the reason that that Hal 9000 killed the
30:56
astronauts was because it was forced to lie.
30:58
I don't know if most people realize that that's what Arthur
31:03
C Clarke was trying to say. Don't make the AI lie.
31:09
The AI was told that that the astronauts could not know the
31:14
secret of the monolith, but also that it must take them to the
31:16
monolith. The solution?
31:18
Take them to the monolith. Dead and so so it's very
31:24
important to have a maximum truth seeking AI and and and a
31:29
maximally curious AI and I think that will that's most likely to
31:35
foster human civilization because we are much more
31:39
interesting than a bunch of rocks.
31:41
So although I think Mars, I love Mars obviously but but you could
31:46
render Mars quite easily because it kind of looks like a section
31:51
of the Arizona desert. You know it's like red rocks you
31:53
know. But the rendering complexity of
31:58
human civilization is vastly greater by many orders of
32:01
magnitude. So I think an AI would be that
32:04
is, that is truth seeking maximally curious would foster
32:08
human civilization to see where it where it goes.
32:14
One of the questions here can AI accelerate your efforts in
32:20
space? How do you see it being helping
32:25
you and what you're trying to achieve?
32:29
I mean, oddly enough, one of the the areas where there's almost
32:33
no AI used is space exploration. So SpaceX uses basically no AI.
32:39
Starlink uses does not use AI. I'm not.
32:42
I'm not against using it. I just we haven't seen A use for
32:45
it. I mean with any given variant of
32:50
or improvement in AI, the I mean there's generally, like I'll ask
32:57
it questions about the Fermi paradox, about rocket engine
33:03
design, about electrochemistry. And so far the AI has been
33:08
terrible at all of those questions.
33:12
So there's still a long way to. Go So let's Let's talk about
33:16
one. Here's a question that's near
33:18
and dear to your heart. You have a lot of children.
33:22
Yes, I'm trying to say the. Birth rate is down in the US.
33:26
What needs to change so people start having more children?
33:31
Yeah. So this, this question has
33:35
troubled me for a long time because you can look at, you can
33:39
look at the like demographics, it's a very slow moving ship.
33:44
I mean you know who's going to be an adult in 20 years based on
33:47
who was born last year. So and and now if if you want to
33:54
I think has have a good approximation for population
33:57
really look at how many babies were born last year in a
34:00
particular country. Multiply that, multiply that by
34:03
life expectancy that's that's that's the number of people that
34:07
will be adults in that country that's that's the that's the
34:09
steady state population if birth rate remains constant now birth
34:13
rate is not constant it is dropping.
34:15
So you look at the 2nd derivative of birth rate and
34:18
actually we see an an acceleration in the the the the
34:23
drop in in the in the drop in the fertility rate.
34:27
Second derivative of the fertility rate is very bad.
34:30
So where does this lead? This does not lead to a a grader
34:37
civilization. This leads to a civilization
34:41
that potentially dies not with a bag, but with a whimper in adult
34:44
diapers. That is a sad ending.
34:49
So obviously we have countries that, like Korea, used to have a
34:53
birth rate of 6. It's now 3/4.
34:56
Yeah. Here's a here's a light question
34:59
for you. What do you come pick me up?
35:02
I'll give you a baby, says What do you?
35:03
Think are the. That is one of the things that
35:08
says on the screen. I don't know if everyone heard
35:16
that you want to read it. It says Elon, come pick me up.
35:19
I'll give you a baby. Thank you.
35:28
OK, well. I mean, I certainly encourage
35:30
everyone in this room to have at least three children.
35:34
Like, look, baby's got to come from somewhere, you know, and I
35:40
think we just want to have, I don't know, I think we want to
35:42
have like a slightly increasing population, not a plummeting
35:45
population. You know, and I think this
35:49
applies to all countries and cultures.
35:50
Like I don't, I don't think we want any country culture to
35:53
disappear. We want them to ideally flourish
35:56
and and not disappear. So in fact one of the things
36:02
that is overlooked by probably most historians is the role of
36:07
low birth rate in the decline of civilizations.
36:12
So around like I think it was around 50 BC the Rome passed a
36:20
bill to give a bonus to any Roman citizen that would have a
36:23
third child. So this was a birth rate was a
36:26
problem in Rome in 50 BC. The Romans weren't making
36:32
Romans. The same is true of ancient
36:35
Greece. So the the there was a time from
36:41
about 800 BC to 300 ish BC where the Greeks were had a lot of
36:48
kids and a lot of surviving kids.
36:51
Like the birth rate far exceeded the death rate, which is why you
36:53
had Greek cities popping up all over the the Mediterranean.
36:57
But then I think basically it seems to be that prosperity
37:07
destroys the birth rate. So if when, when a civilization
37:14
feels like it has no meaningful external threat and is very
37:20
prosperous, that is what causes the birth rate to plummet.
37:26
Somewhat counterintuitively, you think, well, if you've got more
37:28
resources, surely that would lead to more, more kids.
37:31
In fact, it is the opposite. The more the more prosperous is
37:35
civilization, and the more the civilization feels that it does
37:39
not need to defend against external threats, the lower the
37:42
birth rate. I'd say that, you know, there's
37:45
a lot of research on there, so there's really been three one
37:48
number one, prosperity, as you've said, #2 improvements in
37:53
healthcare. So in 1900, half the children
37:57
died on the planet before their 5th, and the third was the
38:01
education of women. So we've had some pretty
38:05
interesting questions put up here, but let's try this one.
38:08
What keeps you up at night and what gives you joy?
38:14
Well, I think kids give me joy. So I probably get the most joy
38:18
from my kids. And you know, I'm not saying
38:25
that that's the reason to have kids because we should have them
38:27
anyway. But I, I, I certainly kids are,
38:32
I certainly are the greatest ones of drawing in my life in
38:36
terms of what keeps me up at night.
38:37
I guess it's anything that's like, I think a civilizational
38:40
risk. You know, if if we're the birth
38:45
weights continuing to plummet, I like, I do think about the birth
38:48
weights plummeting as being a civilizational risk.
38:52
I think anything that undermines the foundations of democracy in
38:56
America or elsewhere as a risk. I think anything that's leading
39:04
us away from a merit based system is a risk.
39:12
I actually spend like I I listen to civil I I listen to like
39:19
podcasts about the fall of civilizations to go to sleep so
39:22
peps that's that might be part of the problem here.
39:27
So it's actually a podcast called fall of Civilizations
39:29
which I've listened to a few times and I I'd also recommend
39:36
Hardcore History. If you haven't listened to that,
39:38
that's a great podcast. I I listen to listen to history
39:40
podcast basically go to sleep so that that's probably why I'm
39:44
ruminating on these things as I go to sleep.
39:46
Well, Alana, I want to thank you for joining us today.
39:49
And we couldn't be more excited that you agree with some of your
39:54
own quotes. Yeah, that's great.
39:56
Thank you very much. All right, all right.