Discussed: What If We Lived in a Galactic Zoo?

we asked ourselves what if we lined up some of the world's top minds in science astronomy technology academia and futurism and got them to ponder some of the most popular what-ifs this is what if discussed here are Teddy Wilson and Richard Garner welcome to what if discussed specifically the beginning of what if discussed our first ever episode I'm Teddy Wilson and I'm Richard garner today's episode and question is what if we lived in a galactic Zoo Richard have you pondered this question in your life a lot today today we're gonna ponder the heck out of it I've pondered it to be honest the the first time I saw the the what if video what if we lived in a galactic Zoo I had not ever put those two words together galactic and Zoo you not so so I had not pondered living in a galactic Zoo I had but however I'd pondered the idea of it the you know I mean we've seen it a lot in a whole bunch of different sci-fi treatments about yeah this idea that we're either animes or an experiment or in a zoo or whatever it is not knowingly and then of course there's somebody sort of Truman's show style on the other side of that watching us or observing us so but the interesting thing about the zoo part is it it implies that right it implies a few things that we know from animal zoos it means we sort of went out and hunted some I don't know creature species cage them put them into some facility so we could kind of a scientifically observe them but be from a society standpoint just go and get you know eat some popcorn and watch the gorillas and the Zebras and if that's the case and if we're in a quote-unquote Galactic Zoo obviously in this analogy we're the Zebras and where are the Apes and I don't know how well that sits with most people right now it's certainly humbling yes it's certainly humble it should be humbling well it's interesting because to me the notion of you know could we be in a collective zoo or that question rather is has a couple different prongs one of those prongs or one of the possibilities could be that we were actively put in the zoo put in some sort of pen or cage that cage of course being earth or maybe being our solar system or maybe being the Milky Way galaxy who knows but that's one possibility another possibility is less than where we were put in this position or in this reality by an alien race by some sort of super being and rather we are being observed by an alien race or a super being but we weren't necessarily put here and that that kind of lesser idea that we are just being observed as animals in a zoo are goes way back in science fiction so does the notion that we were put here but for me I was first attracted to this idea and first started to really contemplate this idea that we could be being watched specifically by aliens I was first turned on to that by arthur c clarke childhoods end of course arthur c clarke one of the great sci-fi authors of all time you mentioned them in the same breath as Isaac Asimov or Ray Bradbury Ursula K Le Guin and of course others and childhoods end posits the question what if we were being watched and what if that alien race one day revealed itself to us in childhoods end I won't get into spoilers but the alien race reveals themselves when were on the verge of spaceflight that's a very similar plot point that we saw in Star Trek first contact where aliens in that case it was Vulcans revealed themselves the first time we used warp drive so there's usually something that prompts our galactic zookeepers to reveal themselves and sometimes it turns out well sometimes it doesn't but certainly it's a well-worn trope within sci-fi and I've actually been thinking about this question since I was a teenager and I find it and lessly intriguing and I do too in terms of the like again the zoo thing not so much I hadn't necessarily thought of it from that because again there's there's a there's another level of implication of what being the zoo from our experience here on earth implies but the idea being observed let's say this is what I would have used I would have used the wordix oh right for me that that's been something I've thought about for for a long time and again partially because you're you're kind of steered towards that through some of the great sci-fi and and literature that you do read or watch growing up of course movies like The Matrix was a you know for a lot of people was like a massive awakening to even the idea of and you know that gets into a whole bunch of other areas but just the overall idea that you know and you use the word humbling when you get outside of the idea that we are at the you know a we're all that there is be that we human beings are with undoubtedly at the top of the food chain and then you start to to postulate the ideas of both those things not being the case well it changes your entire perspective on things and that obviously brings into what you were talking about is it aliens is super beings is it us from the future watching us you know what I mean is it god what is it if god and that's and that's probably as old as the question of god yeah yeah what I mean I mentioned a few examples of this being tackled in fiction South Park also kind of addressed if it's 2002 episode felt canceled it's been represented in video games will write who of course famously created the Sims and SimCity did a very well on video game called Spore which kind of looked at this question as well so it's well represented in fiction and it's also well represented in terms of real-world thinkers and we're gonna have one of them on the show later and he is probably one of the only people on earth who could say that they have an informed opinion on this matter because he's been at the top of the pyramid in the search for alien intelligence for decades Douglas vac odds will be joining us later in the show but first let's take a closer look at what if we lived in a galactic Zoo imagine being trapped in a zoo well if we really do live in a galactic Zoo then you'd already be in one a lien could be out there watching your every move they may want to study the human race or learn from our technology or maybe they're planning to attack us but are we sure that intelligent life is even out there well the odds are pretty good the existence of alien life could be explained by the Fermi paradox we have our Sun but in the universe there are billions of other Suns and they're billions of years older than our solar system orbiting these other Suns could be earth-like planets and on earth-like planets there's a good chance of there being highly intelligent life with so many worlds out there there's an even better chance that at least one of them has developed interstellar travel the Fermi paradox suggests that with interstellar travel it would take a few million years to travel through the entire Milky Way galaxy you may think that sounds like an incredibly long time but if there's a civilization that is billions of years older than us it would just be a tiny fraction of their history so if all this is true which is very likely the aliens may have already found us and apart from us being a pretty violent species we may not be interesting enough for them to make contact with us we may just be another life-form out of the thousands or millions that the aliens have seen after all if you see an ant colony on the ground do you try to make contact with it you most likely go along with your day to other life-forms out there we may just be a simple group of ants ants they don't want to hurt or bother just observe another thing we have to keep in mind is how we communicate with the aliens ants in our world might be trying to communicate with us but unless they send the right signals we'll never know the same goes for the aliens and us we may not be communicating with the aliens the right way they may not even know that we want to make contact with them so they just leave us alone what is the best way to communicate with aliens we'll leave that story for another what-if well to paraphrase a well-worn trope I for one welcome our new alien overlords at the talk with Richard and I about whether he would - is jamun senior researcher with the what-if team Jay how are you are you doing good when you're not busy sucking up if you will to the alien overlords yeah my fantasy is all I have so why did this come up as a as a what-if video idea well you know it's it's trying to sort of expand on that idea or try to get people to think outside of the box that everything about this universe is about humans we always use us as the barometer let's measure everything out there against our accomplishments right so but we wanted to put a spin on that and sort of put the question out there well what if we're somebodies hiccup what what if were the kind of the stench they can't quite get out of the room so they've just sort of set it off to the side and we're just kind of spinning around doing our thing well it speaks to like I mean the one thing about the zoo analogy it's quite powerful and this be hard to find a person that's never been to a zoo or doesn't know what a zoo is there's a couple of things that are implied from that right I'm in a zoo in the end is us who are better or let's say the highest on the food chain going to look at and amuse ourselves let's say with the lesser species right and they're and they're caged and they're you know they have some freedom but they're not free if we extrapolate that concept and apply to this there's a lot of people would be like wait a sec that that's a terrifying thought because that definitely puts us lower on the food chain if you will of other species out there how does the idea for you guys putting this together address that idea that you know we're just I don't want to say sheep and you know animals but in that and that's an area we are mm-hmm if we're in a Galactic Zoo you know if that's the case because if you look at it by the numbers we still have explored less than or we know about even zero percent of what's out there so not one percent not tubers not even we're not even but we're at zero yeah yeah we're not even a blink on that chart for for what's out there so it's that idea it's like okay there certainly must be something out there that's kind of checking in on us but what would we do if we knew it was happening what would we do if some people thought it was happening and others didn't fall in line with that train of thought and what we what would be need for the proof how do we prove somebody is watching us if we did actually know that that was going on what does that do to society in general right you know just to society changed as a religion gets thrown out the window if we think there's somebody up there looking at us do we up the efforts to try and reach out to them do we start to even look at ourselves in words and wonder why they're not trying to contact us what are we doing wrong that they want to avoid well it's interesting because we I mean that is kind of the basis of religion is that there we there is somebody watching weather watchers are the creator the watchers are the creators going back to whether it's on Mount Olympus or in heaven or whatever you but let's try this from another perspective because we we often either default to one of those two possibilities the god concept or the alien concept but a third possibility here could be a lie west world for instance right and it I love if you if you watch West world and it's not a spoiler to say that they're literally standing over a miniature version of the park and watching their children there's their creations operate and obviously intervening when necessary etc and it to me it's a really strong visual of the idea of the Galactic Zoo what if that's the case what if it's what if we are AI and there whoever created us is watching us from a from a different perspective so we've sort of taken the singularity and jumped it into space vo so they're so they're coming down with that well then then you start to get into if we are the the AI well good for us look how much we've accomplished is just as just the AI feel like if I was in space watching humanity I'd be freaked out by a lot of what we do and entertain or a lot of it depends on the soundtrack yes that's a good good soundtrack can make all the difference Jay thanks so much for being here and after the break we're gonna be joined by someone we're very very lucky to have on the podcast Douglas vaca who is one of Earth's leading figures in our search for extraterrestrials who may or may not also be our galactic zookeepers that's coming up since his time in high school back in rural Minnesota Douglas Vikash has attempted to communicate with interstellar beings as an American astrobiologist researcher and psychologist he spent some time at SETI search for extraterrestrial intelligence specifically working on interstellar message composition now as founder and president of Medi messaging extraterrestrial intelligence he continues his quest along with other scientists and astrobiologists to communicate with interstellar life welcome back to what if discussed today's question what if we're living in a galactic Zoo and joining us to discuss further as astrobiologists SETI researcher and founder of the organization Metis or messaging extraterrestrial intelligence Douglas package hello there how are you very well thanks glad to join you today well we're really glad that you've joined us and you are an amazing guest to be talking to about about this subject we've got a lot to dive into with you but right off the top let's pose that question to you because this is your life's work so what if we were living in a galactic Zoo well you know if we're living in the Galactic Zoo it could seem pretty quiet I mean imagine that you and I went out to the zoo and we're looking at a bunch of animals we might we would know they're there and you know they would be looking at us and know we're here but there wouldn't be a lot of conversation going on you know if we're looking at a bunch of zebras and they're just talking to one another and kind of doing their zebra thing we would tend to move on to the gazelles but what we really are wondering when we asked that question about the Galactic Zoo if there's anything about that scenario that we could tweak a little bit that could actually lead to interspecies communication because that's the whole goal of SETI the search for extraterrestrial intelligence which has been going on for over half century and the more recent project Mattie messaging extraterrestrial intelligence where we actively send messages of our own trying to make contact so I would I would say the most obvious follow-up question and this is maybe my personal opinion that if we were to conclude that we are living in a galactic Zoo my next question would be who are the zoo keepers and I'm sure that would come up a lot in your work how would you answer that question the civilizations that we want to make contact with our civilizations that have been around a long long time we humans have had radio technology for about a century but if that's the norm across the universe then we're not going to be around at the same time as another civilization so our universe has existed for a bit over thirteen billion years in a universe that old if two civilizations each lasts a hundred years one pops up at one point one pops up at another point what's the likelihood they're going to overlap in the course of that thirteen billion years it's virtually zero so the only way we'll make contact is if the other civilization is much older than we are and so in that case they would be like the Galactic zookeeper the ones who have been around perhaps they have been observing us but they're simply out there listening and and observing us almost like we observe animals in a zoo and so at first glance that seems like it's a pretty pessimistic scenario for us making contact if they already know we're here if they're already watching us then it's and they've decided not to be sending us messages because we've been looking at a lot of stars then it sounds like we're in this zoo or were the caged animals and they're observing from afar but that's it and we can never know that they're there but again let's imagine that we all go to the zoo and we're like the Galactic zoo keepers where the zoo keepers but all of a sudden instead of that zebra just looking around and you know chumming around with other zebras it turns toward us looks us straight in the eye and starts counting out a series of numbers with it's tough I mean that would establish a radically different relationship between us and the zebra and you can bet I'm not going to go down and check out the hyenas at this point I'm gonna really try to establish some relationship and really understand better what in the world is going on in the mind of the zebra that it's no longer content just to be in its own environment but it's reaching out to me and so that's the hope of Metis messaging extraterrestrial intelligence that instead of just passively waiting for the signals to come in we reach out to them to let them know we want to make first contact and you know it may be that some civilizations out there are sending us signals we just haven't come across them yet but at least for some civilizations maybe they require us to take the initiative so in a sense adding many to the mix of strategies is growing up as an interstellar civilization that we're adding another way that we might make contact for any civilizations out there that are looking at us like animals in the Galactic Zoo but animals that if they start speaking back might be interesting enough to engage in conversation that that's a really interesting way to frame the question and so let's assume we are the animals in a Galactic Zoo and there is an another type of being watching us and observing us let's talk about making contact because I know you say that time scale is the the biggest obstacle in terms of sending and receiving Anna plot a reply you said before that in a best-case scenario it takes around four to five years for a message to get there and get back and that's that's assuming that we're messaging potential alien life in a very closed star system but let's say we can get that message out there I know that you've said previously that Trappist one is one of your favorite targets for you and your colleagues at messaging extraterrestrial intelligence tell us a little bit about Trappist wall on and why you think it could be the home of our galactic zookeepers what Trappist is a wonderful star system and first of all it is closed on a galactic scale remember the our our a Milky Way galaxy is a hundred thousand light-years across so takes a hundred thousand years from light to go from one end of the galaxy to the other so that's a incredibly big distance on that galactic scale Trappist is right in our own backyard it's only 40 light-years away at but within this single star system there are at least seven planets and three of them are at just the right distance from the star to be potentially habitable and so when we try to determine whether a planet that's orbiting another star is habitable we look at how far away from the star it is and what it's made up of is it a rocky sort of planet like the earth or is it more of a gaseous planet like Jupiter or Saturn and so there are three planets orbitting Trappist one that are rocky source and planets like our earth so they would have the kind of chemicals kind of elements that would be necessary to support complex biologies but just as importantly they are not so close to the star that they're going to be scorched by the fire of the star they're not so far out away from that star that they're going to be frozen but they're in what we call the Goldilocks summer where it's not too hot not too cold but just right to support liquid water so again sort of taking this let's say to the next level there's plenty of fiction movies etc where you know the concept of humanity living in a world that they believe is quote-unquote real and ultimately discovering you know whether you take something like the maze hunter or even the Truman Show or whatever it is that there's actually somebody watching observing and again you would take that as somebody who's watching and observing for a reason that is a matrix a matrix and you know an experiment if you will but what you can also sort of extrapolate from that idea potentially is that the watcher is also the creator and that doesn't necessarily mean that you made it that it is the case but I've got to believe that that's come up before when people are talking about the Galactic Zoo concept that in fact if somebody is watching it that they were more more than likely part of our prehistory how do you where do you fall on that well it that certainly makes sense when you think about the zoos that we have created here on earth so it intuitively makes sense the big difference though when we are talking about the possibility of being on a galactic scale Zoo is that it really does take a quite a bit of energy to travel between the stars I mean I'm not saying that's impossible but it's certainly a lot easier to communicate with radio and laser signals they can you we can send signals at interstellar distances very rapidly very cheaply as compared to being a pretty owners process to travel between the stars and really if they have already come here up well we certainly haven't seen evidence there are some people who think UFOs are an unidentified aerial phenomenon her evidence of aliens I haven't seen anything that's convinced me I mean no one's brought me any any material object that has not been already created here on earth so I I don't see credibility in the claims that the aliens have already come in so it's it's certainly I guess a possibility that earth could have been seeded from life in space maybe it is a an element of a lot of science fiction stories where you know the aliens came here's to you dearth and now they'll they'll go away for a number of years and see what has developed but typically it's it's a an interesting mindset within the SETI and métis communities that we attempt to be really quite open-minded about new possibilities always exploring alternative ways of making contact but also as much as we can be grounded in the constraints of science as we know them right now so you know I I can't rule out the possibility that if there are galactic zookeepers that you know they populated our world all I would say is that if they did it it seems like they went back pretty early in the process because what evolutionary biology has shown us is that there is a is clear evidence of the complexification and diversification of life from the most primordial life single-celled life over three billion years ago so there's no evidence of any sort of interventional so if the aliens seeded life they had to be pretty early off so here's a curveball of a question though I think on this topic most questions are our curveballs that obviously very speculative and hypothetical but if we are at a galactic Zoo and the Watchers have ability to make contact with us but they've not yet made contact they've chosen to not yet make contact what do you think could prompt them to make contact one of my favorite depictions of this idea in science fiction is from the film Star Trek first contact and in that film a character named dr. Zefram Cochrane invents warp drive uses warp drive on earth for the first time and that is the impetus for aliens in this case I believe it's um it's Vulcans to make contact with Earthlings to make first contact so what do you think could prompt our galactic zookeepers to make contact if they're out there and watching us well following up that Star Trek universe first contact scenarios one reason that it's okay to break the prime directive so the prime directive is don't interfere with a less technologically advanced civilization unless and then unless what unless they already have warp drive in which case are they're on the verge of going out into the universe and exploring but we've also seen a number of cases in other episodes especially in the original series with Kirk kind of violating the prime directive frequently the idea that that maybe this is a civilization on the brink of its annihilation and providing a little bit of information could help avoid that now again some strict definition of the prime directive I don't know that you're going to get everyone at the Federation to agree that it's appropriate to break the prime directive but their individual starship captains that will do that and so I think it depends to how you would interpret that sense of when do you let another civilization know that there is life out there if you're the Galactic zookeeper I have to say my real fear might might when I the thing that keeps me up at night it gives me nightmares is that the aliens in fact are like hyper intelligent cats just like my own cat he knows that I'm here he really just doesn't care and so in that case the question is what could I possibly do that would intrigue him enough get him interested enough in something like me that's not that interesting in his world and similarly for the Galactic zookeepers well we're just you know other animals in a zoo what's interesting in that the prompt to reply so like with my cat it's the question is what's the analog of an interstellar yard something intriguing enough to make them want to know a little bit more and I think sometimes it's really intimidating to imagine contact with the civils maybe a million years more that's I mean what do we have to teach that if they are really the Masters of this galactic Zoo they know science a million years beyond our science what do we have to teach them and I think the key then is to really put ourselves in the proper perspective the nasty what is it that a civilization so we young on the Galactic scale could teach someone so old and so our natural emphasis when we meet a stranger is to show how strong and wise and powerful we are admittedly we're not going to be any of those things compared to a million year old civilization maybe instead we should emphasize just the opposite what perspective can we bring as a civilization that really is uncertain about our future are we going to survive global warming are we going to survive the threat of nuclear war how do we as individual get through our lives knowing that someday inevitably we're going to die so I think it's these fears these insecurities related to our own finitude that may actually be the most interesting things things that a civilization far in advance of us may have really forgotten I mean if they're stable enough to have been searching for a million years they're likely going to continue to exist another million years but for us that's not at all the case and so I think what we can really teach them is almost it's a it's a chance to let them remember their own history a history they've long since forgotten but now that they can see living itself in front of them through us that is a deeply interesting way to wait way to put it like they're looking into the past yeah I think so I think so and you know I think that's the big thing that we really have to gain you know there's some who would say oh it's dangerous to transmit to the aliens they're gonna come to earth and annihilate us or you know maybe they will send us all of the secrets up to overcoming all of the conflicts we have here on earth I think when we imagine aliens it's natural to project our our greatest fears and our deepest desires out there realistically I don't think we'll get either of those but maybe what we most get is a chance to hold a mirror up to ourselves and so in the same way I think we can hold a mirror up to the aliens well Douglas I'm pretty sure I speak for both Richard and I when I say that if aliens if our watchers in this galactic zoo are akin to hyper intelligent cats I hope they don't treat us like a ball of string or yarn and just add us around the living room of the universe that's right that's right but the trick is maybe we can tie something onto the end of that but put something in the middle of that ball of yarn that they'll at least bring the connection back to us I see a meme developing Douglas thank you so much for chatting with us this has been really really really really fascinating as a discussion we appreciate your time and wanted to ask you how should people find you and Medi messaging extraterrestrial intelligence online if they want to read more about what you and your colleagues do just come to our website wwm a DME TI org Douglas package thanks for joining us take care more of what if discussed coming up after this hey everyone Richard here we are having so much fun making the show for you we wanted to find the most knowledgeable experts and people to interview for this podcast we hope you're enjoying it so far we're currently creating the next season of what if discussed and we'd really appreciate your help if you like what we do here support us on patreon by contributing to our show you will get exclusive access to our behind the scenes episodes you'll get your what-if questions answered and you'll receive a personal voice message head over to our show notes and sign up to become part of our patreon community this is what if discussed here our Richard Garner and Teddy Wilson again another fascinating discussion as you would I guess hope to expect when you're tuning into an episode of what if discussed but especially when that's that episode is called what if we are living in a glass do and you have again arguably the most knowledgeable person about this subject matter on the earth or in the area code is on the short list that's a short list as somebody like Douglas vac watch and if you haven't had a chance by the way and maybe we'll we'll send some links out on the Facebook or in the what if discussed group but there's a lot of great TED talks that he's done on this subject matter and actually most of our guests have those types of things but he's a really fascinating dude I mean one of the first things that I took away from that is just again somebody that's been at this for a long time who is so passionate about the the you know the search the exploration that sounds like somebody who he could he could be teaching a grade seven chemistry class and addressing NASA right like he's he's somebody it's very accessible in a lot of ways but very very passionate about the idea of us being essentially animals in an intergalactic Zoo not willing to necessarily make absolute conclusions one way or the other but it was a pretty open-minded and cool guest for lack of a better way to say it yeah and I mean I was really intrigued by his talking about the difference between Metis messaging extraterrestrial intelligence and of course the organization that more people probably know of and have have preconceived notions of and that is SETI the search for extraterrestrial intelligence I found his kind of discussion of the difference between those two very interesting he also brought us some ideas that I haven't up to this point thought of and specifically he talked about you know what could uh what could an advanced alien civilization tens of thousands hundreds of thousands millions of years ahead of us in terms of evolution learn from us and he I was very interested in the way he talked about our vulnerability or our fear of death and that aliens could learn from that and then it would almost be novel to them I'd never thought about it in those terms I've only thought about it to be honest in the in terms of benevolent or mom that malevolent are they coming to help us or even just to observe us or are they coming to kill us but he put some different he put some different angles on that on that kind of notion and I really like that and that's it like almost like we're more a curiosity yeah it like almost like well the cat example cat just doesn't care the only reason you're bringing up a cat in this context is to demonstrate aloofness right basically man don't care one way or the other are you feeding me or not yeah like and and it was interesting because he referenced his cat but in that regard some people and because medhi and I don't know this I apologize I think I'll I'll google this later but I would assume because Nettie's a relatively newer organization versus SETI which as we know has been around for a few decades now and Metis again was kind of SETI 2.0 well wait a sec we've been listening for X amount of decades perhaps maybe we should be sending a message instead or in parallel with listening we should always also be sending a message Douglas vac Koch is logic for that is to almost let a super advanced species know that hey we're here like where is zebra example that if if we were walking by zebras in a zoo and a zebra turn around start talking to you would be like hey everybody stop we've got to get these zebras out of here they're conscious beings like more than we thought right and his his logic is that's kind of why we'd be doing the many sort of methodology but I assume that's also when Stephen Hawking came out with sounding the alarm around the idea of sending messages out his his position on what that was that's a bad idea because if we send a message out to somebody who doesn't know and they are malevolent and they and there's like hey thanks for helping us we were looking for somebody to conquer and you just basically said hey here we are I personally don't believe that but you know somebody like Hawking of Hawking sort of intelligence to the seemed you got to you got to respect it I guess and I mean the other thing is you know we think in terms of us being not as advanced and our potential Galactic zookeepers or Watchers being more advanced but it could also be that you know we're sending a message that they can't properly interpret it's not just about whether or not they're more advanced than us it has to do with whether they speak the types of language that we're sending out you know the Voyager space probes obviously famously include the golden record right which has information about earth and about us as a human species but just because a receiving alien life-form is more advanced than us doesn't mean that they would properly interpret that message you know they might not be able to interpret it because they're so far advanced that they've forgotten how to communicate in the way that we do currently or there are there are any sort of number of of options or of eventualities right but I'm intrigued by that you know that we're already sending messages out and that MIDI is obviously furthering that I also thought it was interesting talking to him about Trappist one and I asked him about that star system in particular because in the last few years it's the Alpha Centauri system that's really grasped a lot of the headlines in terms of people like us who are curious about the search for extraterrestrial life and that is cos Alpha Centauri is the closest star to us and it's also where they've recently discovered the planet Proxima B which they say is the most earth-like planet that we have found as an exoplanet up to this point so I wanted to ask him about that one in particular because I had heard him speak about it in previous interviews and I liked what he had to say about Trappist 1 and it seems that that should certainly be a focus of our of our search for um for extraterrestrial life it's interesting because he also said and it's not something we're not aware of but when somebody repeats and reminds you of the fact that yes we've like how young we are right he said radio frequency thing for a hundred years yeah now here you're talking about Trappist 1 and all these other galaxies that we've obviously discovered in a very short period of time through an incredible advancement in technology of telescopes of of everything else and yet as we're as we're searching the Stars and talking about different galaxies and all these things we're babies yeah like we're little infants probably relative to what other species would be in a gal in a universe of 14 billion so years and that's always the other thing that we need to probably be reminded of that this we're just beginning this search right like it really is but it's it's happening faster and faster and faster if if a hundred years ago we didn't have radio signals and now we're talking about you know stuff like the the web Ellis cope going out there that can see and I don't know what yeah Jesus Webb tells us the James Webb telescope this is this is happening at an exponential rate we talk about the exponential rate of Technology and create and change much law but in Moore's law in this particular context this search is is is on fast-forward yeah well I'm certainly endlessly intrigued by the the possibility of living in a galactic Zoo I just hope our zookeepers our watchers are of the benevolent variety couldn't put it better myself thank you so much for being a part of this episode and for joining us and we'll catch you on the next what if discuss [Music]

Channel: What If

Views: 837,945

Rating: 4.8434243 out of 5

Keywords: what if, scifi, science documentary, what if scenario, mysteries, aliens, METI, Space, Cosmos, What If Cosmos, Douglas Vakoch, Teddy Wilson, alien invasion, area 51, science fiction, unsolved mysteries, sci fi, possible worlds, documentary, alien, astrophysics, space documentary, universe full documentary, cosmos: possible worlds, cosmology, space documentary 2020, alien life, deep space, galaxy, space meditation, spaceRip, documentary hd, sci-fi, cosmic journeys

Id: 6fAgihenxcU

Length: 41min 33sec (2493 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 15 2020