00. PREAMBLE: NOW WHAT?
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Season 2: Now What? Every day we’re told the world is ending. But what does that mean? And if it is, what can we do about it? Should our hopes lie in the great beyond (outer space) or in the quantum realm of matter itself? Across ten or so episodes, hosts John Holten and Eva Kelley bring listeners on a storytelling journey, from what we can learn from ancient Rome all the way to the far future and to how we might decide to become ‘loud’ or ‘quiet’ aliens.
A little rambly preamble. Welcome! to the second season of The Life Cycle: Now What? Every day we’re told the world is ending. But what does that mean? And if it is, what can we do about it? Should our hopes lie in the great beyond (outer space) or in the quantum realm of matter itself?
Join us as we go on a storytelling journey, as we take an irreverent and curious look at the future of humanity. We interview some fascinating thinkers, creators, inventors, artists and business people as we navigate the past, present and future. Now What? A whole lot, it seems…
[Artemis I Launch to the Moon (Official NASA Broadcast) - Nov. 16, 2022. Broadcaster: Seven, six, five, four engine system start, three, two, one, boasters and (inaudible). And lift off of Artemis 1! We rise together, back to the moon, and beyond!]
Eva Kelley: Are you ready to go on a journey? Into the future? Little did we know when we covered the zombie apocalypse and other fears - and hopes - for the future in season 1 that we would all collectively experience a global pandemic. Three years later we return with season 2 of The Life Cycle - Now What? A podcast about the future of humanity.
[Intro: The Life Cycle, a podcast about the future of humanity]
EK: We want to take you on a journey as we travel to London, Berlin, Oxford and several zoom calls, talking to some brilliant minds about a wide range of topics.
John Holten: So Eva, how are you? It’s good to be back.
EK: Hey John. I’m good how are you?
JH: I’m good! I’m trying to stay optimistic umm, are you optimistic about the future?
EK: Umm I want to be, let’s put it that way. I think in general, I’m optimistic about the future of the people I love and care about, but it’s hard not to get depressed about the future of the earth and civilization when I really start thinking about it, or read too many articles about climate change and politics. But what I’ve learned from this season and the people we’ve spoken to, I think there’s lots to be excited about and there actually is a lot of potential for a very optimistic future.
JH: Yeah. I think it’s interesting, because we ask everyone, and we interview a lot of people from many different disciplines at many different stages in their life, if they’re optimistic, and in general, almost everyone found something to be optimistic about.
EK: Some have their reservations, but yeah, it’s kind of what we do as humans right? We hope for the best.
JH: But Eva, where are we going to go?
EK: We’re gonna start by looking to the past to imagine the future. Because we are going to travel very very far into the future. Oh and we talk with Chris Star about some of the earliest tales of apocalypse.
Christopher Star: Although apocalypse is, in a sense, people argue grows out of prophecy that it ultimately is a form of prophecy. Personally, I think I do feel optimistic, that thinking about the future as either a collapse or as a golden age or a utopia is a very old human practice.
JH: From here, we look at the stories we tell one another, in a way to inspire us to do incredible things like fly to the moon, and more recently plan to get to Mars, and indeed travel beyond our solar system altogether. We talk to astrophysicist Prof Irina Mullins about what she calls ‘Cosmic Hitchhikers’ as one such way we could do so.
Irina Mullins: I would say a mixture. I'm pessimistic and I'm optimistic because we always get ourselves in very difficult situations, but somehow we find our way out of it. So far.
EK: We go from thinking about sending life and DNA into outer space to hearing about loud and quiet aliens through talking with Robin Hanson.
Robin Hanson I mean, clearly, the long term trends are great, right? If you just look at where we came from, and where we are now, over the long run, we are progressing in just so many literal obvious ways, right?
JH: We think about the future of governance including worldwide governance and virtual or meta governance on exoplanets and on digital worlds. We look at AI and the tools of the future with our Berlin neighboor, Sarah Al-Hussaini, from ultimate.ai.
Sarah Al-Hussaini Am I optimistic about the future of humanity? I think. I think we get a lot of bad news. And bad news is very eye catching. I am dazzled by the beauty of humanity. This might sound cheesy, but when you see these people like Greta Thunberg, so young, standing in front of all of us and telling us to wake up, right, can you hear her?
[Greta Thunberg: There is no planet b. There is no planet blah. Blah blah blah, blah blah blah.]
EK: We look at gene editing and CRISPR and then we focus the lens and look at the very small building blocks of the universe, and get sent by our executive producer Mundi to find out what quantum physics is, and like a couple of reluctant students do our best to get our heads around all things quantum. We meet with the physicist and author Prof David Kaiser of MIT. And we talk to Prof David Bnney in Oxford.
EK: Are you optimistic about the future?
Dr. Binney
Absolutely.
EK: Okay.
Dr. Binney: No, we're we all live like Roman emperors, really, because of, I think largely from the gifts of dead physicists, right. But also dead chemists. So we enjoy a standard of living, which is, which is extraordinary.
JH: After such hard work we get some light relief with Dr. David Nutt and talk about how we could replace alcohol with a synthetic, less poisonous alternative.
Prof. Nutt: I think I'm pretty optimistic about the science future, I think we coud put science a little bit further up the hierarchy of decision making than it is the present . Particularly in relation to things like drugs and drug policy.
JH: Let’s go on this jolly old jaunt then. Of science and technology and let’s see what we can find out.
EK: This is season 2 of The Life Cycle - Now What? The Life Cycle is brought to you by Klang Games. It’s hosted by me, Eva Kelley.
JK: And myself, John Holten. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or wherever it is you get your podcasts.
[Artemis 1 ground control and TV broadcast]