Joe Rogan Experience #1130 — Adam Frank Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Five, four, three, two, one. I'm already knocking shit over. Everybody does, but what are your thoughts on actual aliens So you're not a crazy person I brought on here. I've been reading science fiction since I was a kid. that were the only time it's ever happened only you know the only civilization in the entire fucked things up. Well, that's kind of the premise, right? So that's what, when you look at climate

2:46 But the idea that like, it's never happened before it meaning like, you know, you know, Right. Some of the Greeks were like, yeah, it's definitely happening. But then 20 years ago, we discovered our first planet orbiting another star. pretty much everyone, pretty, I mean, the big, the giant ones, maybe not, but they're Right. You know what I mean? Right.

6:09 So we define the habitable or Goldilocks zone as the place where you can have – you can pour water onto the surface and it'll sit there. This is an argument by, I call it like an argument by exhaustion. where you point a radio telescope at a star You know, we're not waiting for them to signal us anymore. I think the big fear for a lot of people is what happens when we find out for sure that there's something else out there. there yeah if we really do find like some other manhattan on some goldilocks planet yeah it's

8:31 You should be believing this one. I know. there were so few of us the discovery, technological, if we had any evidence of just life, right, if we just find a biosphere evidence What are the possibilities of life that exists in a completely different environment than Yeah. And that's how we think life formed on Earth. That's one of the arguments for how life

11:40 Yeah. We are not really concerned with animals. Right, right. even though you only have one example, which is the Earth. And I hated organic chemistry. You know, pretty good for a bunch of hairless apes. Well, everything got hit by comets. That's how we have, you know, we have chunks of Mars here, right? to be like, yeah, we found life. It's like a tiny little squiggly worm looking thing. That's what it

14:30 Like we've been putting the Lego blocks for the argument for life on Mars one piece at a time since the first rovers went there. we want to answer and i you know i mean like you know that argument i was given before is i think it's interesting like how much would that that change you know even if we found like evidence So, you know, the way we discover planets is we look for—when the planet passes in front of the star, you get a little dip in the light, right?

16:37 It would have to be ungodly huge. scale structures Kardashev scale back in the sixties, where he was like, look, there's going to be a natural type one is when you harvest all the energy from your planet, which basically means somehow covering your planet in solar panels or something. And so when he proposed this, people went bonkers over this, right?

18:37 But why is that? you know, and then there's the UFO stuff, you know, which is completely separate. some dudes on a telescope get a little extra time. you know, at a thimble, right? and it's a good point. Like we haven't really looked yet so the idea that you know the stars are silent shit, what if I waste my fucking life and my academic career chasing down something

20:53 It's like cathedrals, right? Like, you know, if you're going to do it scientifically, you're going to have to do it brick by frickin' brick, you know? Right. It wouldn't necessarily have to be radar or radio. People have talked about seeing city lights. 30 years, 40 years. Because one of the things that I'm talking about in my book is like, how long does any civilization last? Right. That's the real question. All of this

23:53 which we're asking like, oh, what kind of chemistry can you have if you don't like, aspect of their being around. a thousand, a hundred thousand years So that's – I mean, of course, that is one of the problems is that when you start pushing – it's just like saying like what are we going to be like in a million years? If civilization does stay around and we figure out how to not melt the earth or boil the oceans or whatever the fuck we're doing wrong.

25:53 Matthew McConaughey. I mean. I mean, The Expanse? science fiction books Or what is it? Because people love this show, man. They're basically like super poor and they're – you know, they got the boot on their necks by either Earth or Mars. All right, good, good. is that this is what it's going to look like. On spinning things, you know, anything. I was like, oh, my God, they got the Coriolis effect right.

28:49 living in space. Well, think about how different Yeah. evolution i think it's chipping away yeah well that would be good if it could i'm you know because If we make it through climate change, you know, with the stuff that Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are doing, man, that's real. What is their big? Under 30 years of science. There's a bucket of stuff that you got out.

31:24 Facts. oh yeah, sometimes, you know, like, I consider myself an evangelist of science. above our heads, you know, 10,000 years ago, climate has been remarkably stable. Yeah. There's dig an ice core and you tap down to 50,000, 80,000, 100,000 years, you see all these bizarre changes and we've learned about, aren't you interested in that? But no, right. They basically

34:08 You can't just like call one group of scientists hoaxsters, you know, and it's all they're only doing for them and not have it slowly infect everything else to the point where like, you know, China will be happy to eat our lunch. I love antibiotics. But either you adhere to the idea that this method has produced miracles for us or give me the cell phone back.

35:16 or what's gonna happen to the environment. or it's just a concept, Yeah. I've been there twice, but I went there for a UFC and we were flying in. People have never been to Mexico City. Before the Clean Air Act, LA would have- Pretty much if you build a civilization, anybody who builds a civilization like we've done is going to trigger climate change, right?

37:22 like, what did you expect? Like we built a world girdling civilization that uses a quarter almost of all the energy the biosphere uses, atmosphere of an entire planet, right? Climate change shows on one level, how freaking awesome You know, I play a lot of video games, right? going to be species that trigger climate change. It's going to happen all the time. And some are

39:02 left or, you know or Republican versus Democrat. the consequences of that for the both the american enterprise and the human enterprise right i mean because you know uh if you if you keep calling one branch of science a hoax then what's to say I think also people think if you somehow or another compromise industry's ability to work, that you're going to kill jobs and you're going to damage the economy.

40:45 Like a girdle wrapping around the Earth? which is the center of the empire, stand in Rochester. I did this for NPR and there's the Erie Canal. I can stand right on the edge of to switch infrastructures. We said climate change is already happening. They took a page out of the cigarette companies, you know, for years, right? That's a great book, man.

43:38 And this is what had been done in the past. ground has a wealth, you know, has a monetary value. you know, sort of make this happen. It doesn't, and you look, other countries aren't doing this, I don't understand. the polar bears may not be able to come along with us on the ride here. You know, we need a healthy yeah and they want to be on the side that's righteous and with virtue and ethics.

46:25 You are the problem. Now you're up and down instead the left and right exactly and now like the questions that so you see this in like revolutions in science right so you look at einstein and what Does it not exist? anymore. So that's what I'm trying to do in the book is say, look, when you look at climate change And the old arguments. Was it Boyan?

48:47 I mean, it's, it's true. I mean, that whole thing, you know, cause that, that's often something that climate Like, there may never be – if humanity is successful and we navigate the Anthropocene, And if we weren't around, yeah, another 1,000, 3,000, 5,000 years would be another ice age. To try to contemplate what species would have existed if we allowed the earth to cool.

50:55 Yeah, right. He said they literally are like, ah, ah, ah, like, right out of the womb, they're looking Yeah. So, you know, you have to, we're going to have to understand like there's this deeper ethical question about what does an earth look like that's been changed by us, that's healthy, but still has us on it. It may not have polar bears, you know, it may have rich

52:38 We didn't have a checklist. Without the compassion, we end up with, saying be like don't care about those species, but you got to have the bigger picture with us. We have two stories. We are like the dinosaurs or the grasslands or the blue-green algae that created the oxygen atmosphere. Uh, you know, I'd be down for seeing a woolly mammoth. And so we inadvertently, climate change was a mistake, you know.

55:44 If we put those particles up there, how do we get them out? or the whole thing falls apart? rains. Well, it's also very difficult to get it up and running. I had a friend of mine who had his done for four or five Right. So there in those models was hope. of those seven people are the ones who know how to make cell phones? Yeah, exactly. That's a dark

58:22 Not enough. Right. And you push them far enough, and they're just going to roll off. That would be one of the major issues with any advanced civilization is it's a matter of time before something happens. certainly the asteroid stuff you can take care of, right? We've already done, we've identified So we couldn't really, like, you know, we're young enough now that if we discovered one

1:00:27 You think so? You just really have to tap on it. Armageddon. at the same time. they both come out at the same time Are you worried about the heating of the actual planet? connections. Like you got your social network. I could take 20% of the people out of your social network It just doesn't function anymore. Most of the wealth in the world is in coastal cities.

1:04:05 of invaders that slowly but surely those are going to either evaporate or evolve and we're a bunch of people in Africa, maybe a few thousand. Right. And then you see this, you know, uh, Will we evolve past that? mars it's going to be the earth's biosphere right i mean really right that's what we are we're the Yes, exactly. Right, yeah. In that way, right. Panspermia, which is always a weird mars it will essentially be ultimate panspermia yes exactly

1:06:36 in a million years what happens to a species that become and you know now we're in the realm of Oh, man. built into us in some sense that we're moving pat like well what did we used to be well we used to but so a while ago how how much does a squid understand about cell phone networks and whether Like, why haven't we seen? don't want to go too far on this because we can come back circle back later um i like it so yeah

1:09:37 Right. the stars, you know, and you're traveling at 0.1% of the speed of light. Is it though because if we did – look, we're already sending robots to Mars, right? Right. it and but not be compromised by its environment in terms of your biology. So they build the colony ship. You terraform it. that would take the economy, like, you know, unless you were,

1:13:17 There is a 400-year-old lake that evaporated in a matter of hours. No more lake, you fucks. Right. Yeah, right. Exactly. Oh, you're crying about your house, but now you got more real It's crazy because you fly over the volcanoes, but you can't now because it's too crazy. We went to the park to see it. Nah. It was a climate change movie. That movie sucked.

1:15:16 Dude, totally believable, man. Yeah, and that eventually, you could get one this. I'll smoke a joint. list of things I'm freaking out about. I have friends in Australia and that's where I'm going. I'm in the danger zone. not gonna be a lot of left standing Jesus oh yeah yeah Seattle you must be I Yeah, you can go and play inside. I mean, it was a baby one.

1:17:44 Yeah. They wouldn't leave. I have two arguments against UFOs. they disappeared you know but they don't really want to be seen i'm like well why do they have them. Well, yeah, they wouldn't have any lights. Memory is horrible. But you think it's possible that there could be life on other planets, and it's possible there could be intelligent life on other planets, and we send probes to Mars.

1:20:24 Right. silicon-created transhuman thing about we're going to download ourselves Have you talked to Kurzweil before? is recreate his father. on your knowledge of them, and they'll be able to come up with some sort of a program where he'll And I think we have a serious misunderstanding. it was 2045 we really meant 2065 you know we went to this 2045 conference me and my friend ari and

1:23:32 Because, I mean, when are we going to get to Ex Machina? He's not beating you over the head with it. What's happening here? Like we are getting, making amazing strides with AI. amounts of computing and statistical reasoning so that like, you know, yeah, the computer, And so that's, of AI, the sense of like right that it's going to replace us yes yeah yeah i think it's inevitable i mean

1:25:55 I like staying down here. It's like we're using Watson to play chess. There's that example of like, if you design something that is an AI system to make paper going and move forward like why would they do? We do it because we came from biology, and biology needs to stay alive. There's a lot of shit that's going on. Why? through the cosmos to view us?

1:27:54 If it actually, you're like, why? Yeah, no, the new version. What'd you think about the ending, though? man. That girl, what's her name? She's so good. she sort of disappeared after that. The way they did the special effects but it kind of opened up How many movies, you know, can you think of that have that? We don't know what's going to happen, but we have to keep telling that story because we can feel it coming.

1:30:31 biological forms but um well we're not we're worried that we're going to be taken over by You can see better with those glasses. I was like, no. i'm i'm really overwhelmed i think i'm in that weird zone where i just don't have i don't i And back in the day, you know, you paid for your, you had to, you know, first of all, you got your ass kicked. Yeah.

1:33:06 It can't be. But I was like, Dad, I'm learning, especially with Marvel, right? For the movie? So I know Scott Derricks. I met Kevin Feige, man. So I never, I was like, oh, that guy uses magic. Yeah. That's awesome. And people are always like, oh, my God, why are you playing video games? I mean, Jamie and I have talked about this many times that we have this deep appreciation for chess and for Go and all these ancient games.

1:36:05 Because I'm so bad at it that, like, I know there's some kid, some 13-year-old in Korea Because I don't like zombie games because I get scared you know you get scared every set when i i saw um what about plants versus zombies And the thing about this thing, it opens up with the zombie outbreak happening. this young girl who is immune. But that was the idea behind it.

1:37:54 Last of Us 2 is just about to come out. Wasn't he the governor? Right. I think the apocalypse is because we kind of feel we're nervous about what's happening with us because we can see sort of. And we're vulnerable to, I mean, there's so many different things that people can get. And it's heartbreaking. Dark Souls is apparently the most hardest game ever.

1:39:25 kind of an elvish you know you're in that kind of world and you're just trying to stay alive And that's what makes being in a game world – you know, there's a whole set of rules. Well, how do you know which asteroid they haven't, like you said, That's what he advertised it as, but it's way more than that. I'm good with third-person shooters. Don't you have me?

1:41:30 And it said, man, look at this. Like claiming yeah, so it doesn't make your streaming Whereas, you know, otherwise you'd be in this castle wall. The left side is not. The left side is just dark. What I'm talking about is like literal flat walls where people turned everything off. No, no, Jamie, pull up Quake, no textures. textures and you realize what an advantage it

1:44:22 what is Quake? I mean, I know I've heard of it, but I've never played and you'd have these death matches. Oh, so that whole idea of first person. Excellent. Oh, well, whatever. How dare you say that? that's what people say listen you can't get any real accuracy with a console that's your problem That's right exactly the guy who's a nerd is because I am

1:46:37 Augmented reality, virtual different you know so it's like oatmeal 80 million bottles of oatmeal happening over there it's not actually has... There was no, you know, there was no, so like I said, I don't usually play sort of these massive multiplayer games. You know what I'm saying? How dare you? I know, man. It's like, you know... What's that mean, HTC Vive? How dare you?

1:48:12 You'll never not have sex again. Jamie went out yesterday and looked, they're all sold out., we tried to get one. Jamie went out yesterday and looked. And these little monsters that look like they could be in South Park. Is this always been my question about? So you always got to be standing, right, in some sense. but it's weird because you punch wrong. So like if I'm holding my hands like this,

1:49:52 That'll be something that'll work out in time. Yeah, yeah. I got to go get a beer. Don't stand right in front of that thing. And you keep going and fight tougher and tougher opponents. Have you read the book? And I went through one with my kids But you feel the heat from the fire. It's awesome. So the question is, what happens How old are you? Or asteroids.

1:52:45 But it was amazing to us at the time. Right. Oh, really? Even with the controller on my crappy PS4, you know, when it vibrates, even that's enough So what happens when, and you know, right, I can be sort of like, you know, grandpa, you know, assholes. Oh boy. It's really cool. world to be in. But I'd be interested Oh, for sure. Right. in real time.

1:55:56 Please do. When they get a million years ahead, what can they do? So are we a – everything – like right now, you and I think this is real. If we keep moving forward in an exponential pace Dude. Right. I'm, you know, I'm not a fan of the people that deny science. and most of them, They think somehow or another that's going to get them in. please give me the mri and then you know as soon as your arm heals you're going to be tweeting about

2:00:10 yeah they're not interested in understanding how they know that the earth is round or how they know in we've nerfed all the a tiger. Oh, there's dumber. As if, like look, there are the powerful, And the idea that like, All over the world. is that, like, you know, but he talks about climate change I mean, which cracks me up because, like, they're fine with this being complex you know their cell phone can be complex because

2:03:35 And then they found out that he flies private jets. Well, he's profited off of it in an extreme way yeah i don't i mean i don't know i don't know Al Gore could be the world's first carbon billionaire. than coal does. How about bring back you never bought to get hurt. when it comes to automation and technology. But man, it's not China. than go to an actual physical place?

2:06:40 So right now, like, so when the, what is it? tapes for people to go to sleep because there'll be some component of it I'll never work you know right you can't learn that from watching a video or something yeah We will because we're just human beings. Like there's a way in which we're going to find, you know, niche places that there will be economies where people make things.

2:09:06 Sort of like, okay, everyone's like, we've got to have self-driving cars. Well, for safety's sake. That's what they say, right? But until it's have to like, okay, yeah, there's, you're telling me there's going to be safety safe. that will work. the car crashes, if wiping out these jobs destroys democracy, right? That's the niche stuff. But like a lot of these things, I think they're, you know, there needs to be a little bit more dialogue.

2:10:53 If you could. And sees the sky, right? Because there's nothing to see. I'll break it. But they have diffused lighting all over the big island, so there's no light pollution. Like I thought you have to have a telescope to see all, They get it when they live next to the ocean. I got my blinders on. in this galaxy alone. Man, I couldn't, you're speaking my language. I mean, you know, the loss

2:13:32 Um, but the, the night sky is it's, it reminds you, it opens that space up, right. next pile of shit. shiniest shit. And that is, that is what's leading us to artificial life. And that all this shiny So, you know, we've got a lot of aggression in this, but we also got the bonobo kind of like, the the shiny thing dangling in front of us is leading us off on this one track.

2:16:14 spiritual or any, you know, any inclination towards mystery is an idiot, you know? And like And then the second thing you learn And that thing is, you know, the earth, earth right of which we are part and you know so this is an feeling you get when you're absolutely not connected yeah and then you see wildlife and Yeah. Because that's what the Earth does.

2:18:43 We need to reintegrate ourselves in a way that we still get our civilization. verifying that information, understanding what's correct and what's not correct and whether or not And they don't have to publish the fact that they ran a hundred fucking studies. That's why we have all this stuff. Exactly. You know, we're like it takes seven miles to turn a supertanker around.

2:21:08 Clearly the fact that we keep getting both answers means we don't know. you're eating grass-fed meat or bad when you're on a vegan diet? And the complexity of the system, right? appreciate it did you read the words I'm sorry When I buy audio books and I know that the guy who's reading it doesn't have a fucking know i didn't i didn't understand part of publishing tell people the title again uh light

2:23:30 And do you have an Instagram as well? I really appreciate it.