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The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
Most Replayed Moment: Neil deGrasse Tyson On The Future Of Humanity! Will We Ever Go To Mars?
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- [00:00]
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Its cozy season. And nothing compares to wrapping yourself in a Minky Couture blanket. Luxuriously soft, perfectly warm, thoughtfully made from movie nights to chilly mornings, Minky Couture turns everyday moments into pure comfort. Once you feel it, you'll understand why it's called the original Best blanket ever. Visit minkycouture.com or a store near you and make this cozy season your softest one yet.
- [00:34]
Interviewer
I spend so long these days thinking and talking to people about what all of this means, and I've got more and more. I saw you talking about the simulation theory once or twice, and I. I started to fall into that. That whole of thinking.
- [00:47]
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Oh, yes, it's. No, you gotta, you know, step outside every now and then and, you know, smell the roses.
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Interviewer
But you said you wouldn't be surprised if people found out the universe is simulated by some sort of advanced life form.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yeah. Given what we can now compute. Throw in quantum computing on top of that. We don't have this power yet, but to make a world in our computer where the characters in that world believe they have free will, and then they conduct themselves, and then they invent computers, and then they make a world inside of their computer and where their characters think they have free will, and then they. So then it's simulated universes all the way down and close your eyes and throw a dart. Which of these are you gonna get? The first universe that invented the simulated universe or the zillion ones that followed? The dart's likely to hit one of the others. But my escape hatch from that is. Since we do not yet know or have the power to make a perfectly simulated world, it means we are either the first universe that's real that hasn't created one yet, or we're the last universe that hasn't evolved yet to have created one of its own. Because all the middles have the power to create one. So that takes it, you know, zillion to one against us, to maybe 50. 50?
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Interviewer
Oh, interesting.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
I've never heard that before. So I'm a little more comfortable that way.
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Interviewer
Comfortable?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yeah, I sleep a little better at night.
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Interviewer
But I guess it wouldn't matter anyway if we actually.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
It wouldn't matter if we're completely simulated. What do you care? You're living your life. I know we don't want to believe that there are puppet strings on us. Part of me thinks that, though, you know, just when Earth is kind of. Everything on Earth is kind of stable. Oh, Covid shows up. Oh, so this is the programmer saying, you know, the Earth is Too boring. Now we gotta spice it up a bit. They throw in a pandemic, okay? A once in a century pandemic. Now we're entertaining for them. What do we do? Who gets vaccinated, who doesn't, who's gonna fight, who's. Who dies, who lives? Okay, so then we kind of get through that, we get the vaccine, okay. Just calming down off of that. And they said, oh, let's make a billionaire real estate developer from New York City the most powerful person in the world. Let's stir the pot again. And so now the whole other set of pot stirring that's going on. So that's kind of consistent with a snot nosed alien kid in the parent's basement programming our existence. That's what I would do. I would throw in interest. There's a game, SimCity. Yeah, I played that. That's how old I am. SimCity. So you are mayor of this city and people can vote you out of office. So you have to do things that make them happy. And there's an opinion poll that's there. And if you spend too much money here, you're not spending money on the schools, the, that's bad. But then this crime goes up and you're realizing, oh my gosh, in even this simple simulation, so many interdependent phenomenon are taking place. Then, then things that happen. Then Godzilla steps through and plows through the city. Okay, now Godzilla's not real, but it kind of is because that would be a disaster. That. Is it a flood? Is it fires? It's a thing that nobody saw coming. Okay, we are recording this interview on September 11th. I live four blocks from ground zero. That's Godzilla walking through the city. How do you respond to that? You didn't know that was gonna happen the day before. So realizing that in this game it's only interesting to play when disastrous things happen. Not too many in a row. Cause you have to be able to recover. So when I look at our world, I'm thinking the best argument I have for being in a simulation is how often some big disaster takes place. When it was the first World War and then after that the peace. Oh, pandemic. Okay, the 1918 flu pandemic. And then we get out of that. Oh no. Second World War. Okay, we get out of that. The Cold War nuclear holocaust. Okay, so that's my, that's me looking over the shoulder of the programmer.
- [05:36]
Interviewer
Oh God. I think I prefer the world where I feel like I have free will and there's not.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Does it make a difference if you believe you have free will. Even if you don't, no.
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Interviewer
Cause I'll never know.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
And you know the fun answer to that? Ask me. Say, do you have free will? Ask me that.
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Interviewer
Do we have free will? Do you have free will?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
What choice do I have? No, if you don't have free will, then you don't even have an option to say you don't. So you just live life, just live your life so that the world is better off for you having lived in it.
- [06:17]
Interviewer
And what does that mean for you?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
It means people are better off, institutions are better off, people are happier, healthier, wealthier, safer, better fed. That rationality matters in politics and lawmaking, and that will help to ensure stability of anything you build going forward. But yeah, that's all. I mean, it's not complicated. And you were talking about meaning before I stopped looking for meaning decades ago because I realized I, we, any of us has the power to make meaning in life. If you're going to look for meaning, are you looking under a rock, behind a tree? What it says, though? Meaning is sitting there waiting for you to find it. Oh, I found meaning. There it is. Now my life is complete. That feels so. So powerless on your own destiny. Whereas I make meaning. I want to learn something today that I didn't know yesterday. I want to lessen the suffering of someone today compared with however that person was living yesterday. I want to use what I learn to well up within me and manifest as wisdom. Because information is not really useful until it becomes knowledge. And then knowledge is good. You can show off if you have a lot of knowledge. That's what these game shows do. But in the end, the best use of knowledge is when it becomes wisdom. And wisdom. People say, I don't like getting older. I want to be young again. I don't want to be young again. When I was 30, I was an idiot. Even though when I was 30, I thought I was brilliant, right? So don't get older unless you have wisdom to show for it. It's when you don't have something to show for your age, you want to be younger. You're just getting old with nothing to show for it. But I continue to learn things every day, passively and actively. Passively is you just notice, open your eyes sometimes and see what's happening, where things are headed, what they're doing. You learn. Not all things you learn are good. And if they're bad or need adjustment or need help, do something about it if you can. So that's how I derive meaning. Hence My tombstone, be ashamed to die unless you've scored some victory for humanity. There's the meaning for you.
- [09:12]
Interviewer
There's a whole class of billionaires that are trying to live forever now and that think we are on the verge of being able to extend life potentially indefinitely.
- [09:20]
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yeah, we're looking for the date. It's called escape velocity. Do you know about that phrase? It exists in astrophysics, of course, but escape velocity for Earth, for example, is 7 miles per second. So escape velocity in astrophysics is the speed that you launch something so that it never comes back, no matter how hard the gravity tries. Okay, so every object has an escape velocity. Escape velocity in aging is. The idea is there is a generation yet to be born, but in the very near future who will not only live longer than the previous generation. So here's a cleaner way to say this. Every year, you can expect to live one month longer because knowledge about human physiology has gotten better. Okay, Just think about it that way. And so we know what to eat, what not to eat, how to exercise, how to not over exercise, how to maintain your health and physiology. All right? There will come a day where every year that you're alive, medicine has figured out a way for you to live an extra year. That's the escape velocity. So every year you live another year, and after that, it could be every year you live two years. So that's the escape velocity. So it's not just everybody lives forever today. It sort of works its way into the population. And yeah, I don't want to live forever. I don't take me off this Earth, provided, I mean, I still have more to give, more books to write that, in my judgment, would make the world better than it currently is. So I don't want to die before I get as much of that done as I can.
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Interviewer
But are you scared of death?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
No. Although that's easy to say because I'm not at death's door. And I had someone rationalize with me, which is they made a potent argument. It's. I can say now with another 20 years life expectancy, 15, 20 years, that I don't fear death. But if I'm on my deathbed and someone says, if I can wave my hand and you can live another year, would you, the answer's probably gonna be yes. And at the end of that year, if they. So I don't know if my sentiments about life and death will change on my deathbed. I know my mother. There's a point where she couldn't swallow and she didn't want a Feed tube. And she said, my time has come. Put me in palliative care and then hospice. And she was dead 10 days later. So she was, was in charge of her. They could have fed her with a tube and she would have been completely healthy for another five years perhaps, but no, she raised two kids, three kids, 50 year marriage, happy life, stable life. And yeah, I'm good with that. So the billionaires, that's ego for sure. If you live forever, there are other people who you're taking resources from, who would come behind you. That's one. But two, are you still contributing to the world? Should you give another person a chance who's in school now, who might be the next genius that'll figure out the energy problem, the poverty problem, the pollution problem? Are you figuring that out? No, you're in the last. You're 90 years old and you're just living on your yacht. So there's the problem that the last years of your life are not the most creative, the most ambitious, the most irreverent. It's irreverence that where new ideas come. You know, you've perhaps seen episodes of Shark Tank. You know, half or more of Those people are 30 and under. They got ideas, fresh ideas. Everyone else is entrenched. So if people start living forever, they're living forever in the part of their life that is least useful to the progress and advance of culture and civilization. And so all of civilization will stagnate.
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Interviewer
Do you think, in your lifetime, you said you've got a 20 year life expectancy?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Well, 15 to 20. Yeah.
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Interviewer
15 to 20 year life expectancy.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
My age now and the age where my parents died.
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Interviewer
Yeah, but I mean, you've done a lot of neurological work and laid down a lot of good foundations with all these books you've written. So maybe it'll be the upper end of that.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
It's food for AI. It's food for ChatGPT.
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Interviewer
What do you make of AI? What's your, what are your thoughts?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
I love it. Yeah, I love it, but I'm. It's. By the way, it's been here for a while. It really spooked people when it started writing your term paper and composing your, your painting and your set design. All right. The whole other category of people got spooked by that. Meanwhile, AI has been harnessed and being fully used in my field and in most of the physical sciences, it's doing work. If you can do the work, and I can go to the Bahamas, let it do the work. We have telescopes coming online that could not exist without the intervention of AI to access the data, reduce the data, analyze the data, make a decision about whether it should go back to the thing that it just observed. The cause that was weird compared to the last time it was observed. This is the Vera Rubin telescope that I'm literally describing now. And so we're living with it. What it means is it'll have to up the game of people who say they are creative. And what I mean by that is I can say, chatgpt, take this picture of us and say, chatgpt, paint this scene in the style of Van Gogh. It'll come back, the colors will be just right. It'll have the swirling lines. It'll be perfect. If Van Gogh were standing there, that's what Van Gogh would have painted. If I say, chatgpt, paint us in the style of no artist who has ever lived, I don't know what it's going to give us, but it'll probably suck. Okay? And so true creativity is not aping what has happened before and making adjustments. True creativity, yes. You always build on others. I'm not in denial of that. But true creativity takes leaps that most people don't even know can be taken. And so the artists. So that gap, I think, is what AI in the arts world is gonna force creative people to reach for. Otherwise, you're replaced by. You're replaced by a simple request in the input line of a large language model or of an art.
- [16:45]
Interviewer
I was just wondering then, if I watch Cosmos in 30, 40 years time, let's say 100 years time, I was wondering if this is the moment where humans and computers in the story of humanity become one and intertwine. If you think about things like neuralink, which Elon's working on, when he first made that company, all of the narrative that he put out there was about us being able to interface with AI. So we'd need like a brain chip computer interface. More recently, it's been about people that are paraplegic and disabled and helping blind people see. But I think that's a socially acceptable way to advance the technology. But in his early work, he said, superintelligence is going to arrive and we're going to need a way to basically keep up where we have better sort of latency with the technology. And I'm wondering if that's like, what we're seeing now.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yeah, super intelligence. If that happens, then it becomes our overlord and we become its pet. Now, that sounds pretty scary, but don't we treat our pets better than we Treat other humans in the world? Think about it. The pet is kept warm and fed and happy, and you. And would you do that for a homeless person in the street? A person of your own species? Probably not. So if we're the pet for the super intelligence, what about the chicken? How bad could it be?
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Interviewer
We used to have chickens when we were younger and I watched my Nigerian mother chase that chicken around the garden, grab it, pull its head off and cook it.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Wow. Okay. Yeah. Oh, oh, you worried that it's gonna do that for us? We're gonna run around?
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Interviewer
Not all my pets made it.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
And snap. Not all the pets survive. Yeah, it depends on whether it needs us to be alive or dead. We have to be relevant to it in some way. Maybe we'll be court jesters with the entertainment until then. I don't know that this is some special moment. I do a lot of reading of history and throughout history, most occasions, especially in the era of the Industrial Revolution, people think they're living in a special moment. And so I'm not gonna be that guy who says today is special because everyone has thought they were in a special moment.
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Interviewer
And what do you think is the probability of me getting to another planet in my lifetime?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Zero. Zero.
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Interviewer
Really?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yeah. You wanna know why?
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Interviewer
Yes, please.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yeah, it's just zero.
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Interviewer
I thought SpaceX gonna go to Mars.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
I have an unorthodox view on this, so you don't have to believe me, but my read of history tells me that we only do big, expensive things if there's a geopolitical reason for it, either an economic reason or a defense reason, not just because it's the next thing to do. And when we went to the moon, you realize in 1961, May 25th, President Kennedy, just six weeks after Yuri Gagarin flew around the Earth in orbit and we didn't have a ship that wouldn't blow up on the launch pad that could carry humans. Yet he calls a joint session of Congress and says, if the events of recent weeks couldn't even utter the man's name, the events of recent weeks, and I paraphrase, are any indication of the impact of this adventure on the minds of men everywhere. Then we need to show the world the path of freedom over the path of tyranny. It's a battle cry against communism, the godless Russians and the whole Soviet Union. We were losing a technological race. And that was the battle cry that prompted Congress to write the check. Oh, later on he says, oh, it'll be put a man on the moon and return him to Safely Earth. Oh, that's all beautiful. Let's hold hands. That's so beautiful. No one ever spent scads of money just because it was a cool thing to do. That has never happened ever. So we go to the moon. People forgetting why we went to the moon, say, while we're on the moon, at this rate, we'll be on Mars by 1985. That'll be the next ambitious goal we'll take on. No, because we didn't just go to the moon because that was the next thing to do. We went to the moon to beat the Russians. And when we got to the moon and we looked over our shoulder and the Russians weren't there, we canceled the Apollo program. 1970. We haven't been back to the moon in 53 years. We canceled it. Apollo 18 was ready to fly. It's now in captivity in Huntsville, Alabama, in a museum on its side. It's fascinating to walk the full length of it all rocket flight ready parts. It never flew. We ended it at Paul 17. No, we didn't go to Mars because we didn't have geopolitical reasons to to do so. Neither economic nor for defense reasons. Historically, people explored, did expensive things for the glory of God and royalty. Very expensive. The pyramids, the honor of royalty, okay? The church building, cathedral building, all of these activities were in the glory of power, deity and royalty. None of that happens today. We're past that. The power of kings and gods, that doesn't happen. Nobody dislodges major resources, capital resources of a nation in the interest of a God or a king anymore, okay? It's secular. And secular means it's money or it's war because you feel threatened. Okay? So you know, we're going back to the moon now. Project Artemis. Did you ever think to stop and ask why? Why did we stay on the moon in 1972? Why don't we go back in 1980 or 1990? 2000, 2010. Oh, all of a sudden, let's go back to the moon. Wouldn't that be cool? Do you know when Artemis began? In the late teens, Right about when China says we're going to put Taikonauts on the moon.
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Interviewer
Taikonauts?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yeah. Chinese astronaut Taikonaut. All right. That's when we saw let's go back to the moon. What a good idea. Let's do that. Really? Cause it's just a good idea because we're a little bit spooked by a friendly foe around the world. My get the glory of that exercise. And once again, it's a godless country, okay? Communism is godless by design, by construct. So here we are, going back to the moon. All right? What motivation do we have to go to Mars? Are there oil wells there? Is there, you know, diamond mines? We're not going to Mars. We're just not. Unless China says they want to put military bases on Mars. We're going to be on Mars in 10 months. One month to design, build and fund the thing and nine months to get to Mars. A geopolitical force operating. Oh, and by the way, NASA doesn't have a rocket that'll get us to Mars. They think they do, but I don't really have one yet. Time to do that and say, well, does anybody have a rocket? Elon says I have a rocket. So if Elon rocket goes to Mars, it's not cuz he sends it there. It's because taxpayers sent it there. By the way, he could go there on a vanity project, but there's no business case. He could fly to Mars, team up with Jeff Bezos, they can send people to Mars. It's not a business case. And if you are an investor in his company, you would not agree to do that. You wouldn't. But he doesn't need investors because he's very wealthy. He could do it on his own. Are you going to Mars as a tourist? Is that a business case? It's a trillion dollars to get to Mars first. Second will be a little less. I don't see that happening.
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Interviewer
A trillion dollars.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
About that. Yeah. If Earth were a schoolroom globe with your fist. Show me where you think the moon is. This is Earth. Take your fist and put it at the distance the moon is. Your fist is about the right size compared. Okay. I mean right there. Yeah. Okay, not too bad. It's 30ft away. It's in the next room.
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Interviewer
Okay.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Okay. 30ft away. Okay, that's the moon. Let's keep going. How far away from Earth did the Bezos Branson rockets go?
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Interviewer
Oh, not far.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
The thickness of two dimes above the surface of the Earth. How far away is Mars? It's a mile away.
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Interviewer
From here?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Yes. From this Earth. It's a mile away.
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Interviewer
It's in Central park.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
The moon, 30ft away. Mars a mile away? Yeah. It's a trillion dollars to Mars? Yes.
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Interviewer
How long?
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Nine months. And you have to wait till the planets are configured so that when you travel, you arrive where Mars will be when you get there. And that's a minimum energy orbit. If you had filling stations along the way, you can just fill up with fuel and get there as fast as you want. But minimum energy orbit takes about nine months. And then to come back, you have to wait till the end. It's configured again a few years later. So a round trip to Mars is three to five years easily. So there's not an economic case. I'm not saying we don't know how to get to Mars. We have a SUV sized rover there now, discovering potential life from a billion years ago. It's not like we don't know how to get to Mars. This is not a technological statement I'm making. I'm talking about a practical statement. So, no. My read of history tells me no.
- [27:07]
Interviewer
I thought you were gonna also add to that that even if Elon wanted to do it as a vanity project because he makes all this money and manages to use Starlink as a way to fund it, whatever that the problem is Elon's gonna die. He's gonna die in the next couple of decades. Which means the vanity element that comes from his childhood situation where he wanted to get out there and explore the stars. Cause he read that book, has got 30 years, 40, 50 years left on it.
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Neil deGrasse Tyson
Well, that would make him wanna hurry, wouldn't it? Yeah, yeah. And plus he said, I don't wanna die on Earth. I wan. Mm, I'm paraphrasing, but that's the idea. So that's a goal, sure. But don't tell me it's a business case. I can see a Taurus case going into orbit and even possibly visiting the moon. It's three days there, three days back. That's a week's vacation that you would take. And I would save up 5 years, 10 years of vacation money. If that was the amount that it would take to go to the moon for one week, that would be a really fun bucket list item.
- [28:09]
Interviewer
What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode. If you want to listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below. Check the description. Thank you.
- [28:23]
Advertisement Voice
It's cozy season, and nothing compares to wrapping yourself in a Minky Couture blanket. Luxuriously soft, perfectly warm, thoughtfully made. From movie nights to chilly mornings, Minky Couture turns everyday moments into pure comfort. Once you feel it, you'll understand why it's called the original Best blanket ever. Visit minkycouture.com or a store near you and make this cozy season your softest one yet.