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0:58

Hello, and welcome to a bonus episode

1:01

of New Scientist Weekly. I'm Leah

1:03

Crain, and this episode I'm speaking with

1:05

As show physicist, Erica Nesbald, who's

1:07

spent a long time as a physics researcher and

1:10

is now a developer for universe sandbox.

1:12

One my very favorite programs, which lets

1:14

you build systems and space, and if you

1:16

want, smash them together. And

1:18

she's written a book called Off Earth

1:20

ethical questions in quandaries for living

1:23

in outer space. And we're gonna talk about

1:25

some of those questions in quandaries today.

1:27

Erica, thank you so much for joining us.

1:29

Before we get into the quandaries, can

1:31

I ask sort of what inspired you to

1:34

to write this book?

1:35

Sure. I think if you go back long in our

1:37

really what inspired me was too much

1:39

science fiction as a child, so would say. Okay.

1:41

But more recently than that, I

1:43

was working as a post doc in DC.

1:45

I was an astrophysics researcher.

1:48

And I got a great opportunity to go out

1:50

to Silicon Valley for a six week NASA

1:52

program at NASA Ames.

1:54

Working on planetary defense, which was just

1:56

cool. And they introduced us to a lot of people

1:59

in the private spaceflight industry, which

2:01

was exciting. But then as I started talking

2:03

to them, I started to get the impression that they

2:05

were really focused on solving technological

2:08

problems and economic problems,

2:10

but were not that worried

2:12

about what I saw as potentially really

2:14

important human rights and ethical

2:17

problems like like labor rights or

2:19

how to avoid contaminating the moon if

2:21

you go up there to do lunar mining. They

2:23

just kept saying things like, oh, we'll we'll worry about

2:25

that later. And I recognize that

2:27

I don't have the background or the education to answer

2:29

this sort questions either. So I came

2:32

back and made a podcast called

2:34

Making New World where I interviewed actual

2:36

experts and things like colonial history

2:39

and sociology activists in

2:41

various

2:42

fields. We should talk about all these issues. And

2:44

that's what got me into the idea in the first place.

2:46

What do you think is the biggest

2:48

ethical issue facing

2:51

us if we do wanna start a society

2:53

in

2:53

space? Oh, man. Well, the

2:56

first question and first

2:58

and last, the question we have to keep asking ourselves,

3:01

I think, is whether we should be doing this.

3:03

And if so, why are

3:05

we doing this? A lot of people will stop

3:07

right at the shit question and say, you know what? No. We shouldn't.

3:09

We're not ready as a species or maybe we just

3:11

shouldn't at all. don't necessarily agree with

3:13

those points, but I think it's worth having those conversations.

3:16

And then if you're still sure after that conversation

3:18

that we should be going off into space and

3:21

building permanent settlements out in

3:23

space. You have to ask yourself, why?

3:25

Why do you think we need to do those

3:27

reasons make sense? Are they based just

3:29

an emotion? Or a misunderstanding of

3:31

history, perhaps, and

3:33

ideas about human destiny that you need

3:35

to examine a little more. And The

3:38

reason you need to do that is because all of those questions

3:41

and answers will determine all the

3:43

ethical problems that you face after that.

3:45

How you handle conflict and how

3:47

you handle environmental justice. All of that

3:49

comes from why are you doing this in the first

3:51

place? Yeah, and I have to admit

3:53

that I've thought about this a lot and I

3:55

continue to be really torn about human

3:57

space exploration because on the

3:59

one side, I can't personally

4:03

really think of a reason why that

4:05

convinces

4:06

me. And on the other hand, it's so

4:08

cool. Yeah.

4:11

It's a it really it's amazing how

4:14

you can take the most rational, you

4:17

know, stem educated, tech

4:19

focused person who wants

4:22

to dedicate their lives to space and you ask them

4:24

why? And you do not get rational, tech

4:26

focused answers. You start to get

4:28

really poetic language about our future

4:30

relies and the stars and things like that because

4:32

it really does tap into an emotional part of

4:34

all of

4:34

us. Can I ask you personally?

4:37

What do you think about if we should?

4:40

I am not convinced by

4:42

the arguments that we're not ready as a species.

4:44

And couple reasons for that.

4:46

One is that I do think that

4:49

we need to figure out

4:51

how to live places beyond the

4:53

earth because the earth will not always be

4:55

habitable for humans. Now that is a

4:57

really long time scale to work with, so don't

4:59

feel quite the same level of urgency as

5:01

some people because earth is by far the most

5:03

habitable place in the universe

5:05

right now and will be for a long

5:07

time. When

5:07

you say a long time, you mean, like, bill

5:10

years. Right? Billion years. Yeah.

5:12

Okay. Which which is a log tech.

5:15

But but it's, you know, it's worth

5:17

starting to think about that now. And the other is

5:19

that I I'm not convinced that we're ever going to be

5:21

able to all agree on

5:23

what it would mean for us to be ready

5:25

to go to space. What what it would mean to be mature

5:27

enough as species. And so I

5:29

I don't think it's necessary that we

5:31

we wait around for that. But I do

5:33

think that that doesn't mean we just get to run

5:36

and follow our our hearts and do

5:38

this without without thinking about what we can

5:40

do tomorrow. We need

5:42

to we need to do this deliberately. We

5:44

need you have a lot of conversations like this

5:46

175. you know, we we need to

5:48

think about human history and and

5:50

how to not repeat the mistakes of our past.

5:52

Yeah. I know one thing that I've been

5:54

thinking about quite a bit is who

5:58

and how we get to these

6:00

places if we're going to because there's

6:02

no regulation saying, you know, if

6:04

I happen to have a really,

6:07

really dope spaceship, which I

6:09

don't, I could just go to Mars and start

6:11

my own society with my own laws

6:13

and do whatever I wanted.

6:15

And I know there's been some talk by certain

6:18

billionaires about setting up a sort of

6:20

indentured servitude where you work

6:22

on Mars to pay your way. Do

6:24

you see a way to prevent these

6:27

issues that we've seen in the past on earth

6:29

from repeating themselves off

6:31

world? So a lot of this gets

6:33

into space laws space policy,

6:35

and and I'll be clear, I'm not a space lawyer.

6:37

But I talked to a lot of space lawyers. There's

6:40

a little thing called the outer space treaty

6:42

of nineteen sixty seven, which is kind

6:44

of a miraculous treaty when you look at what it

6:46

says and when it was signed. It says things

6:48

like no nuclear weapons and space, for

6:50

example, and this was signed by the USSR

6:53

and the US in the sixties, which is

6:55

amazing. And it also says things like

6:57

nations can't appropriate territory

6:59

in space. So CANADA COULDN'T

7:02

DECIDE TO GO TO THE Moon AND SAY

7:04

THE Moon IS ARDS NOW. IT'S NOT

7:06

THAT EXPLICIALLY CLEAR ABOUT WHETHER

7:09

your eye could go to the moon and say

7:11

the moon is mine now. It

7:13

it does say that that individuals, private

7:16

companies, etcetera, we're we have to have oversight

7:18

by the launching states. So if we launch

7:20

from Canada, then Canada gets

7:22

to set the rules on what we can do there. So

7:24

A lot of this is kind of remains to be seen

7:26

how it's gonna be tested in court, and

7:28

that includes all the billionaires who who wanna

7:31

go up and and start mining. But

7:33

we're we're gonna find out. And one

7:35

worry that I I've heard from

7:38

people working in the policy world is

7:40

that the huge super

7:42

fast growth of this private

7:44

space industry is really outpacing

7:47

regulation. You can see this especially

7:50

in low earth orbit where just

7:52

tens of thousands of satellites are going up in these

7:54

mega constellations and people are starting to really

7:56

get concerned about orbital debris. But regulations

7:58

just can't keep up because regulation just moves

8:00

slower. Right? And I know there's been some

8:02

issues even with people sending up

8:04

things that are against regulations and

8:07

there's not much they can do about that

8:09

after it happens. So

8:12

in terms of solutions, do

8:14

you think it's time for us to start

8:16

thinking about that kind of regulation now

8:19

or I guess yesterday? So

8:22

so some people are thinking about it. The US

8:24

is moving forwards with things like they

8:26

had a space act in twenty fifteen that

8:28

the artemis accords are meant to sort of

8:30

have lots of countries come together and say,

8:33

okay, we're all gonna agree on these same sets of

8:35

behaviors that we're gonna agree to in

8:37

in space. But it's not going

8:39

to cover everything. And and eventually,

8:41

I I don't think we possibly can predict

8:43

everything that's going to lead

8:45

to conflict in space. And so the other we'll

8:47

have to do is make sure that

8:49

we learn from mistakes. We respond

8:52

to conflict as as rationally and

8:54

calmly as possible and fairly as

8:56

possible. And just keep trying

8:58

to do better as we go. I'm

9:00

wondering if you have any ideas on how

9:02

we make those regulations enforceable.

9:04

Because I know the big problem

9:07

in my experience talking to people with the outer

9:09

space treaty is that it's wording

9:11

is incredibly vague and it basically says don't

9:13

do bad stuff. Without lot

9:15

of explanation of what that means. And,

9:18

you know, on the other hand, if I launched

9:20

myself at Rocket and went and stole

9:23

the moon buggy on the moon. Who's gonna arrest

9:25

me? Right.

9:27

So so this is one big question is, you know, when

9:30

so far away from, let's call it,

9:32

the rest of civilization. How does the rest of

9:34

civilization even notice that you're breaking the law?

9:36

Right? So so monitoring in the first place

9:38

is an issue But we all have our

9:40

telescopes pointed at

9:41

space. So think it'll depend on what you're trying

9:43

to get away with

9:44

of how long you're riding on the moon.

9:46

Yeah. The other thing I'll point out, so so

9:48

I'll I'll stay away from the International Treaty

9:50

Law part of this because there are better experts to

9:52

talk to you

9:52

there. But I was I talked to

9:54

a space lawyer named Laura Montgomery, and I asked

9:57

a similar question of

9:58

how do we even enforce she is great.

10:00

I said how do we even enforce this stuff? And she pointed

10:02

out that for long long time, the people who

10:04

are trying to get away with bad

10:06

behavior and space, for example, will

10:09

still have most of their assets back

10:11

here on earth. Right? Like, no one's gonna

10:13

pack up their entire net worth and

10:16

sell all of their belongings and

10:18

move to no no decision

10:20

makers anyway. And and move to space

10:22

and then say, well, you know, nobody I

10:24

care about, nothing I own is back on earth, so

10:26

I can just sit here and and do what I want. Most

10:28

people are gonna have most of their assets back

10:31

on Earth, and that's gonna be things that

10:33

the government in charge of them can step in

10:36

and do enforcement through through

10:38

means like that.

10:39

At this point, it seems like pretty

10:41

clear that the law has a

10:43

bit of a long way to catch up regardless

10:46

of what law we're talking about, national,

10:48

international, at this point,

10:50

does anyone even know what they need to

10:52

do to catch up? Or is this is

10:54

this sort of a situation where we're gonna have to

10:56

think on our feet as someone like

10:58

Elon Musk says, hey, I'm launching to Mars

11:01

next month, and then we think, okay,

11:03

now we have to make some regulations for

11:05

Mars. I think it's a little bit

11:07

of both. There's a ton of

11:09

really smart people who are working on these problems,

11:12

policymakers, and and have been working on these problems

11:14

for a while. Ever since they were working on the outer space treaty

11:16

in the sixties. And since

11:18

then, all of those regulators and policymakers

11:21

have been watching as things

11:23

evolved, as the private space industry grew. And

11:25

they recognized that that we're gonna need regulation

11:27

for that. So they're all working really hard. They're trying

11:29

to anticipate the problems. It's just that it

11:31

takes time to write policy and then convince

11:33

everybody that those policies are are good ideas.

11:36

So it's not like they're sitting around not

11:38

thinking about those issues. They at least are not

11:40

saying, oh, we'll worry about that later. But they are

11:43

always going to be a little far behind. And

11:45

like I said, you can't anticipate everything. So

11:47

I think we'll also need a

11:49

sort of attitude of flexible

11:52

response to figure out how to

11:54

respond to

11:56

unexpected things to come up. Related

11:58

to that, one of the interesting examples that

12:00

you talk about in your book is

12:03

when there was a stabbing in Antarctica. Which

12:05

is sort of as close to the isolation

12:08

and lawlessness of space that you can

12:10

get without actually going the space

12:12

What do we do if someone does a stabbing

12:14

in space? Is there any framework

12:16

now of if someone on the ISS

12:19

murdered someone else in the ISS? What would happen?

12:23

Well, the ISS at least is very close

12:25

to home. In fact, I'm pretty sure

12:27

you could get back to Earth from the International

12:30

Space Station faster than the

12:32

attacker in that Antarctica case got

12:34

back to state. Petersburg to stay in trial

12:36

because it takes a long time to get back from Antarctica

12:38

especially in the winter and the ISS is

12:41

actually closer. It's when you get

12:43

to to places like the moon or or far enough

12:45

out on a spaceship that you can't turn around and come back.

12:47

Crime in space is a question that people

12:49

are starting to talk about a bit more in individual

12:52

level crime, not, oh, this person is

12:54

running an indentured servitude empire, which

12:56

is its own kind of behavior we'll have to deal

12:58

with. But just individual person on person

13:01

crime is something that will happen in space

13:03

because we're humans, and and we'll need

13:05

to decide what to do about this. And

13:07

I talk about it in the book because it turns out

13:09

though a lot of the systems

13:12

that we have set up to do with those sort of things

13:14

here on earth, especially in the U. S. Are

13:16

incredibly impractical in

13:18

space and are already

13:21

ethically really being questioned on

13:24

Earth today. So things like

13:26

police and prisons are both

13:28

just really hard to set up

13:31

in a in a place where you're really living

13:33

on the edge of survivability. Right?

13:35

You know, you -- Right. -- have really scarce

13:37

resources, really a scarce amount of labor

13:39

and you're gonna decide to take a couple

13:41

of people out of the labor pool because one of them

13:43

needs to be locked up and the other one needs to guard

13:45

them. That's that's just gonna be a a

13:47

tough sell. And so it's sad.

13:49

Got six people. Right.

13:51

And and what if the person who needs to

13:54

be if you decide who needs to be locked

13:56

up, what if they're the only ones who know how to

13:58

do something crucial for the

14:00

settlement? Right? They they can work the life support

14:02

system or something that that could just be

14:04

really impractical and lead to

14:06

some tough choices. So I think it is

14:08

really important now to look

14:10

at what has worked and what hasn't

14:13

worked in small isolated communities

14:15

here on Earth in the past. But that includes Antarctica,

14:17

that includes ships at sea, but I I

14:19

think it also includes just small

14:22

communities in in non western cultures

14:24

around the world who don't have prison

14:26

systems and yet managed to address

14:29

you know, violent interpersonal crime

14:31

in other ways. So I

14:33

hope that there's more conversations about that sort

14:35

of

14:35

thing. Yeah. It's it's I can't

14:37

imagine that we're gonna having people walk the

14:39

plank. But at the

14:42

same time, it's hard for me to think about

14:44

what you do actually. If your only

14:46

doctor murders your only

14:48

minor. Yeah. One thing I've noticed

14:50

when people talk about this online, So

14:53

first of all, don't read the comments. But one thing

14:55

I've noticed in the comments of of stories I've written

14:57

about this is because of science

14:59

fiction people are really eager to

15:01

jump to the idea of air locks, which is

15:04

basically walking the plank, but in

15:06

science fiction. And and there's a lot

15:08

of talk about Frontier Justice,

15:10

and I will just show them to the airlock because that's

15:12

what people do in sci fi stories. But

15:14

that's just awful. That's an awful place

15:17

to start when you're proposing criminal

15:19

justice system in space

15:20

is, oh, you know you know what? We'll just we'll just

15:22

execute everyone. We'll manage them, I'll

15:25

send you one to

15:25

two. In your development. Yeah. I I don't

15:27

think that's a good place to start if

15:29

you're trying to create a new society

15:32

that you're proud

15:33

of. Or just in general. Yeah. Or just

15:35

in general. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta

15:37

start less extreme than

15:39

just murdering everyone. Yeah.

15:41

Do you have any examples in

15:43

the book or or through your research of

15:46

how these small isolated communities do

15:49

deal with crime in a

15:51

way that's more sustainable

15:54

for the community and and maybe more

15:56

ethical. So I include

15:58

a really lovely story from Walida

16:00

Imarisha, who's an activist who works on produce

16:02

and evolution, and I won't give

16:04

it entirely away here also I don't have a right

16:06

in front of me. I wanna quote it correctly. But she

16:09

talks about a man she was talking

16:11

to from a community, I think,

16:13

in Aritria, who who explained

16:15

that when somebody did something in

16:18

the community that was against

16:20

the community in some way, rather

16:22

than banishing the person or kicking

16:24

them out of an airlock, they would all gather

16:27

with that person and say, do you remember

16:29

when I broke my arm and

16:31

you helped me gather my crops? Do you remember when I was

16:34

can you help to me? Do you remember

16:36

what you've done for this community? We love you. We want

16:38

you to be better. And that sounds cheesy

16:40

in kumbaya, but it worked it worked for

16:42

that community. And I don't think we

16:44

should dismiss it just because we have such a cynical

16:47

attitude. And more broadly

16:49

from that anecdote, I've talked to a lot of

16:51

criminologists and activists working on something

16:53

called restorative justice or something

16:56

similar which is transformative justice, which

16:58

are movements within the US. To

17:00

provide alternatives to the

17:02

cultural prison system that

17:05

criminologists have found that the victims

17:07

are actually more satisfied at

17:09

the end of these processes than they are at

17:11

the end processes where they're a saltor

17:13

is just locked up in prison. It

17:16

involves actually finding

17:18

justice in a way that makes the

17:20

victim whole at the end rather

17:22

than just a completely punitive

17:25

approach that frankly just costs everyone

17:27

money and and begets more violence because

17:29

prisons are violent places.

17:31

Yeah. It sounds like we're

17:33

gonna wanna send a lot of

17:36

therapists and social workers, which

17:38

is, I don't know, equivalent to regular

17:40

society. And what we

17:43

might in my opinion, need in

17:45

regular society, but it sounds like we're gonna

17:47

have to have people whose job it is

17:49

to mediate

17:50

rather than people whose job it is

17:52

to be a prison guard? That certainly

17:54

sounds, number one, more pleasant as a place

17:56

to live. And number two, if you're just in

17:58

it for the practical things, It just

18:01

sounds more efficient to

18:03

include someone who can get

18:05

everyone to be happy at the end of the

18:07

process and keep working for the good community.

18:09

Instead of just feeling, oh, Justice

18:11

has been served because this guy got thrown out of

18:14

an airlock.

18:14

Well, that's that's not useful. It's not actually gonna

18:16

help your community thrive. Right.

18:18

So it seems like there's there's sort of upsides

18:21

to doing it in a way that considers

18:23

what's right and wrong, even if your

18:26

only actual goal is

18:28

mind the ass trying to get the

18:29

money. Yes. Yes.

18:31

Absolutely. Even if you're if you're listening

18:33

to to discussions like this or reading my

18:35

book and thinking, I don't care about how

18:38

nice we are to people. don't care about ethics. I

18:40

just care about, you know, can we make

18:42

the colony survive? Can we make money

18:44

off of this? There's still so much evidence

18:46

that thinking about these

18:48

perspectives

18:49

can get you a better result in the end even

18:51

if you don't care about how nice people

18:53

are to each other. Yeah.

18:56

But I don't know that I wanna live in a society

18:58

where nobody cares about if people are nice

19:00

to each other. That's good point

19:02

too. Yeah. Well

19:04

Which goes to the very squishy thing to say, but

19:06

Yeah. That goes to the bigger question that I kind

19:08

of touched on in my book is If

19:10

you're just concerned about making sure

19:12

the colony survives or making sure that you're

19:14

making off money enough money off of of

19:16

it, you have to step back and ask yourself, what

19:18

is the point of all this? Like,

19:21

am I are we just why are we bothering

19:23

to make sure the human species survives?

19:26

If we're gonna make it just a really brutal

19:28

and unpleasant existence. Shouldn't

19:30

we be reaching for a little bit more

19:33

than

19:33

that? Shouldn't we be trying to make

19:35

space and earth in the future

19:37

better places for our descendants instead

19:39

of just there being more of us around?

19:42

Yeah. I mean, I I can't agree

19:44

more. And I think that's part

19:46

of goes back to the original

19:49

question of what

19:51

do you hope to accomplish with your space

19:53

settlement because if you're just trying

19:55

to save humanity in

19:58

four billion years when the sun expands or

20:00

however long before climate change gets us

20:03

all, It seems like going to another

20:05

planet is, for now,

20:07

the really dumb way to do that, not

20:11

to not to be negative. But for now,

20:13

if you're just trying to save humanity, it's

20:16

super hard to save humanity on Mars

20:18

and it's a lot easier to save humanity

20:20

here.

20:21

Yeah. And and either way, you're gonna have to

20:23

figure out more than just,

20:25

oh, we need more real estate or more

20:27

resources. We're all what we're all struggling

20:30

for today is figuring

20:32

out better ways to live with each other and

20:34

with our

20:34

environment.

20:35

And we'll have to do that no matter

20:37

where we're standing, whether it's on our third

20:39

space. Yeah. It reminds me of there

20:41

was this very viral clip a couple

20:43

years ago of someone saying, oh,

20:45

well, these people living in these flood areas will

20:47

just sell their houses. The response

20:50

was sell their houses to

20:51

who. Yeah. And

20:54

it feels a little bit like, oh, well, we're on

20:56

Earth and we'll just We'll just

20:58

up and leave. It's up and

20:59

leave. Yeah. At what?

21:03

Climate change in space are both interesting because

21:05

there are a lot of people who are and

21:07

good for them. 175 way that they're trying to

21:09

address these big issues is to

21:12

just invent better technology. And that's

21:14

great. We need technological innovation. However,

21:16

we can't solve any of these problems with

21:18

technology alone. So we

21:20

also need to be developing better

21:22

sociological observations

21:25

about human how humans live together and

21:27

better policies and and better, you

21:29

know, legal systems. So I think

21:31

that'll help us survive both here

21:33

and in space.

21:35

Right. Considering these ethical questions for

21:37

space also means we're considering them

21:39

in general. Exactly.

21:41

So I guess that sort of precludes my

21:44

other question, which was how long

21:46

you think it's gonna be before these questions

21:49

in space. Start to become

21:51

urgent because lot of it feels

21:54

very future looking. You know,

21:56

you mentioned earth is gonna be not habitable in

21:58

billions of years. Right. I

22:00

don't think despite what people are claiming,

22:03

I don't think that people are gonna be having

22:06

a society in space anytime

22:07

soon. don't know if it'll happen in my lifetime.

22:10

Right. I'm I'm are being urgent.

22:12

I'm skeptical that we're gonna have permanent

22:14

human habitation in space in

22:17

my lifetime. I I try to stay away from any

22:19

time estimates at all because future

22:22

that at guessing time when it comes to

22:24

technology. But I'm skeptical about it happening in

22:26

my lifetime, which then leads to

22:28

the question of, okay, well, why am I worrying about any of

22:30

this stuff? Couple answer to that question. One

22:32

is that we don't need permanent habitations

22:35

in space to worry about things like environmental

22:37

justice and space because we're already damaging

22:40

the space environment when it comes to low earth orbit.

22:42

As soon as we start doing things like mining,

22:44

we're gonna be damaging those environments and

22:46

and we need to to think about what we're doing

22:48

there and learn from the environmental

22:51

protection and justice movements on Earth.

22:53

And we it's not too soon to

22:55

be thinking about labor rights because there are already

22:58

concerns about labor rights abuses in

23:01

the private space industry, you know,

23:03

the the companies that are working in in the private industry

23:05

as they exist here on Earth have already had some

23:07

labor rights concerns. So we might as well

23:09

start thinking about that now even if those workers

23:12

are not technically in space. Other

23:14

things like crime and space, I don't

23:16

know when that's gonna happen because hopefully

23:18

not anytime soon, but You're not telling me, like,

23:21

come in again. So Right. Well, but then there's

23:23

people in space, so I can't promise it won't

23:25

happen soon. But crime in

23:27

space and things like

23:29

reproductive rights I talk about, a lot about reproductive

23:31

justice, reproductive rights in space.

23:33

That's going to be probably a long time coming

23:36

because we don't even know whether it's possible. To

23:38

have children in space. But I

23:41

think it's still worth thinking about these

23:43

issues and talking about them because Not

23:45

only does that always seem to lead back to

23:47

our present day troubles on earth, which it's

23:49

worth talking about, but I find that

23:51

it and me at least It

23:53

lets me imagine solutions

23:56

to these problems that are way more radical

23:58

than I would come up with

24:01

if I was thinking about Earth. I mean, we were just talking

24:03

about criminal justice. And as you can hear, I've

24:05

really leaned into prison abolition, which

24:07

I had not thought about before I started working

24:09

on this because when you grow up

24:11

in the US, you know, even if you think, well, it'd

24:13

be nice to live in world than no prisons. It's really

24:15

hard to imagine how you'd get there from here.

24:17

But if you start in this sort of sci fi

24:20

context of, okay, imagine I was starting

24:22

a community from scratch on Mars,

24:25

I don't have to have prisons there if I don't bring

24:27

them there. So how would I do it instead? You can

24:29

have those conversations and

24:31

use that to maybe imagine

24:34

better visions and better solutions for

24:37

earth that you wouldn't come up with otherwise.

24:39

So I think it's a useful exercise even

24:42

if our grandchildren aren't even living in

24:44

space.

24:44

Right. It's interesting. It's like a cheesy

24:47

HR speak, but it's presenting

24:50

not so much a problem as an opportunity. That's

24:52

right. We're starting fresh. We can

24:54

we can do it the right way. And then

24:57

what's left is people agreeing

24:59

on the right

24:59

way, which is its own barrel of monkeys.

25:03

A lot of people have argued for a lot of space

25:05

colonization advocates in particular going back

25:07

to, like, the the seventies have argued that one of the

25:09

nice things about space colonies is that

25:11

they'll be like little sociological laboratories

25:14

where we can try all these different political systems

25:16

to see what works and what doesn't. Which

25:18

sort of makes me concerned because

25:20

what happens to the people in the failed experiments?

25:23

don't think we should just that sounds

25:25

like fyftoms to be. Right. Right.

25:27

There's there's a lot of ways that could go wrong and unpleasantly

25:30

for the lab rats. But in terms

25:32

of imagining space

25:34

settlements and right making plans and talking about

25:36

how you would and this is where science fiction comes in,

25:38

of course. You can perform these thought

25:41

experiments in the context

25:43

of space. And I think that can lead to some really interesting

25:45

results that wouldn't have come up if you were

25:47

just trying to figure out how to make things better

25:50

in the US on Earth. For seven.

25:54

That was Erica Nesvold, author of

25:56

off Earth, ethical questions, and quandaries

25:59

for living in outer space. Thanks for

26:01

listening to this bonus episode of the show

26:03

and do subscribe wherever you get your

26:05

podcasts. We'll see you soon. Bye for now.

26:11

This podcast is produced by o g podcasts.

26:13

Find out more at o g podcast dot

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