October 10, 2025 • 52 mins
Let's imagine the worst scenario for civilization: humans, for one reason or another, go extinct. What will rise from the ashes of the Anthropocene to take their place? In the second part of this two-part series, Ben, Matt and Dylan explore the possible candidates, from various high-order mammals and avians, to life beneath the seas, to plants, fungi, artificial intelligence and more. (We're extremely excited about this one, and can't wait to hear your picks for the next rulers of Earth.)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is still on an adventure, but will
be back soon.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Here are the facts.
This is the second part of a two part series
that gets into some deep conspiratorial strange water. Here's where
(00:56):
it gets crazy. We are joining the show in media rests,
so please listen to part one before you roll past
this ad break.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I think the honestly, one of the most important things,
which is why I think raccoons might have an edge
on everybody, is the fine motor skills. Because if you
really want a species to be able to develop technology,
you need to have the ability to make those tiny
adjustments to make small things, or at least make something
(01:34):
big that can create a small thing. So I do
I feel like the lower raccoon. Well, it's it's five digits,
that's it's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
The dexterity, right, there are a couple extra articulation points away.
That's it, and that's not hard for evolution to solve.
That's ye same, Yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Exactly, yes, because I think I do think about honestly,
like the intelligent of specifically the corvids that we've talked
about extensively on this show, and just how you could
have the brains, but you would you may not have
the ability to manipulate a thing exactly the way you
know you could or you would want to, but you
just physically can't do it without some major adaptation like
(02:18):
we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, dude, the corvids have the tool making and even
more importantly, they have the intergenerational educational capabilities. Yes, right,
Obviously elephants can do the same thing, but they're large animals,
so they're probably going to go out depending on how
the humans go out. It just depends, but elephants could
(02:39):
figure it out. So we also have to consider our
maritime friends, especially those enormously intelligent cetaceans. Oh what a mystery,
oh man, And they don't have some of the stuff
that we're naming. Right, that's why the oceanic environment such
a different proposition. Right. They don't have the thumbs, so
(03:01):
we're bracketing whales and orcas and dolphins and the other
cetaceans because they don't they got the flippies. They don't
have the thumbies.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, which stinks, right, because that I do feel And
maybe I'm completely wrong, but it feels like that would
be an impossibility just to due to that, unless unless
there was enough of an adaptation to where there was
some kind of articulation right where we're talking about like
a joint or something.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Right, or a social evolution wherein you know, they say, Okay,
if I hang out with this other orca. Orcas are
so smart, man, and we put our fins together, we
can build a thing or move a thing. That's a possibility.
They are brilliant. But they're not the octopus. And I'm
(03:51):
very very pro octopus.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well what if okay, I'm going out way out on a.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Tentacle here, I'm with you. I got your back.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
But if the orcas do survive somehow, or you know,
some other citacean survives and they in some way make
the octopuses work for.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Them, domesticate them, enslave them. Yeah, teach them. That's interesting.
I really like where you're going because the octopus is
fascinating right if you look at it on paper. Aside
from three big asterisks, these folks are great, Like they
(04:33):
are an absolute winner. They went to the Harvard of Evolution,
you know the They are so smart. Chrematophores are so cool.
We know they dream, they experience something like emotion. I
don't know if there's a human equivalency to it, but
I get it. They also, recently, and I'm sure we
(04:54):
all saw this, they were historically solitary creatures. Right outside
of reper reduction. Environmental pressures have led to the creation
of octopus villages. Whoa, Yeah, well village is a big name.
It's not like they have an hoa or something. But
they're living in groups. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Do they have a garden? Maybe an octopus.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
It's called the Octopus Ringo Memorial Park.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I have a great book. It's like a kid's book
about the octopus's garden. I think it is by Ringo
and others, but it's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I thought it was a Ringo thing. I love it
because it's one of those songs and stories where you
have to wonder what inspired it.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
But it's also yeah, I agree, but it's so joyous
and just like, oh my gosh, this.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Hack I know, I know, man, because he's just it's
just speculation and aspiration. I'd like to be there.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know, under the sea, you know, under the Yes, Okay,
I feel like that was a tick that just happened.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
We are so programmed, right.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yes, we really are. This hit our radar a little
while ago. I don't know that I could say exactly when.
I think it was last year, sometime like towards the
end of the year. But it was a person named
Professor Tim Colson, and he was doing a lot of work,
just trying to do this thought experimentation what could be
(06:31):
the next species that emerges, And one of the things
or the thing that he landed on was the octopus,
specifically for the things we've already outlined here my big
takeaway from it and trying to visualize this, and you know,
maybe if you're listening, you can help us, help me
understand this, Ben, maybe you can help me right now,
(06:51):
how could you have a technological evolution like a species
that builds the technology that we imagine would be a
next advanced species. How do you do that in a
water environment if you, you know, primarily exist within that
water and your systems breathe through that water, Like, how
(07:12):
do you build electricity and electrical systems under there?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, that's why I always bring up the example of
the Promethean taming fire thing anytime we talk about octopus
on the octopus on air and look, technically it's octopuses,
but you can say OCTOPI. Nobody's going to get mad
at you. English is a living language and everybody's just
(07:38):
kind of making it up. So don't stress on that.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
It'll only be here as long as we are.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Do stress on the thing that we're bringing up here.
It's a huge question. One of the best answers would
be domestication of other animals. Would be some way to
tame natural electricity, right, natural bioelectricity occurrences. Another answer would
(08:08):
be harnessing the power of undersea thermal vents. But then
we have to ask ourselves is this human centric? You
know what I mean? Do they need it?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Like?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
We have to remember the dinosaurs ran the game for
a long time. They didn't need poetry, nor religion or
art or rocket science. They just ran around eating stuff
and then an asteroid smacked the crap out of them.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
So we say so we say, we say they didn't
have poetry. There's incredible dinosaur poetry out there.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I would love to hear it it. Write us some
dinosaur poetry and send it. Send it our way, conspiracy
diheartradio dot com. We also we got to get those
three caveats in the first one, the biggest one we've
already nailed, which is that living in the water is
so so very different from living on the surface. So
(09:06):
there are wildly varying priorities for survival, they're wildly varying
avenues of evolution and progress. The second thing is the
current octopus, so far as civilization knows, has a brutally
short lifespan. The third caveat is when they bang, they die.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Oh wait really yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, they got a kill switch, hormonal kill switch in them.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That stinks.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
It's you know, that's why we saved it for the end.
I think that's the biggest stumbling block there.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Oh my gosh, can you imagine that, Like if if
there is some kind of adaptation and evolution occurring over
a seer, you know, a long enough span of time.
You have an octopus, but three four four years around,
Oh okay, it says up to potentially five years common
octopus only two years.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, man, geez.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So if you imagine you do all of your great work,
let's use that term great work in two years and
then you pass it down.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
But that's what she got, right, Yeah, you would have
to figure out how to communicate that knowledge, effectively communicate
that progress so that these other generations within their limited
lifespan can continue the great work. There was some research
back in the nineteen seventies which I believe we've mentioned
(10:42):
on air before. It was essentially an octopus lobotomy. They said,
let's go into a female octopus is going to reproduce, right,
so let's get into their top brain because all eight
arms are like the own brain. So let's get into
like brain prime and let's cut out. Let's physically remove
(11:05):
the part of this organism that triggers that kill switch,
and let's see how long it can live. So we
don't know what happened to the rest of the research,
but the human intervention there could start to address one
of those issues for the octopus to be successful. For
the octopus to be our new main character. It would
(11:27):
need a longer lifespan, it would need something some way
to communicate learning across generations, and it would also have
to be able to bang without automatically dying.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
That's a that's a tough list there.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Other than that phenomenal candidate.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
But again, if you've got a couple million years, you
can accomplish so much two years at a time.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, and then we also you know, we know it's
the environment baby steps. Yeah, we also know it's the
environmental pressure that pushes evolution. So if for instance, something happens,
whatever mops the humans is so global, right and so
(12:18):
catastrophic that it alters the oceanic environment, that may alter
the adaptation and the evolution of the octopus and the cetacean.
And we do have to remember that another advantage the
octopus would have given the precedent is that a lot
of the octopuses are smaller creatures. And again it's the meek.
(12:41):
This is the meek's game once the humans are gone.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, sorry, colossal octopus or was it a giant specific octopus?
Speaker 3 (12:49):
I think that's what they'll worship it like a god,
or it'll be the way we look at the gigantipithecus,
you know what I mean, Fast forward to the descend
and didn't of the octopus, whatever the Homo sapien version
of them is, and they'll be doing an octopodcast and
they'll be talking about their version of Bigfoot.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Oh my god, that'd be so exciting. Again. Happy International
Podcast Day. Go listen to a new podcast you haven't
heard before.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Right now, So we we hit this point a little bit,
like a dominant life form doesn't need to be what
humans would consider civilized. Dinosaurs, of course, ruled for millions
of years and so far as we know, they just
(13:41):
ran around in the in the brutal fight to reproduce,
to consume, and to expand to explore. So we know
then logically that a larger apex predator could evolve to
a certain point, right a fauna could have all to
dominate Earth or regions thereof, but then it might never
(14:04):
encounter those environmental pressures that push them to the next
stage of intelligence. I mean, it's depressing, but it's also
kind of freeing in an ego obliterating way, you know,
because this thing would not know much about the past.
It wouldn't know what came before it, it would not
have that Osmandias moment, and it would also not possess
(14:27):
those big, heartbreaking dreams of exploring space.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It just makes me a little sad.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
It's ignorance as bliss, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, it's just going to go around doing all the
things that we do every day.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
And ignorance, I think is our least favorite of the drugs.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, that stuff's terrible, and stop taking it from the
people who are selling it.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah, don't get started, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
First time you take a little ignorance, you're gonna want
to get more. I know I do.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
The first one's free, and then the next thing, you know,
you're paying for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
They're just out there offering it in every corner of
the Internet.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
In every local shop, in every conversation at your favorite restaurant. Yeah,
there's going to be someone selling that dope.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah in what this one huge room in Virginia that
had a bunch of people in it just selling all.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
The red wedding style my guy, so also insects. I
feel like that's another episode on its own. Because humans
still don't have a ton of information about how many
insects exist other than that they are also in a
mass extinction event. Also, humans don't know the capabilities of insects.
(15:52):
Shout out to our animal communication episode if there were
a world. Oh gosh, all right, quick plug. If it's
okay for Katie DIDs, I agree. Oh man, they're fascinating.
There's a sci fi writer that I really love, and
actually I was chatting with our pal Connell about this
(16:15):
not too too long ago. His name is Adrian Tchaikovsky,
spelled like the composer, and he has a series of
just absolute superb novels about evolution kind of not posthuman,
but evolution of animals without humans. So what happens if
a bunch of ants have their intelligence radically increased? What
(16:39):
happens if a certain type of arachnid has its intelligence
radically increased? And then we let them spin along in
the evolutionary sandbox for millions of years. It's pretty cool.
It's a great read available on audiobook as well. This
is not an official sponsor of the show. We're just
(16:59):
fans of the guy. Amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I'm gonna check it out for sure. I'm also gonna
check out mantids. Have we even considered the praying mantis
as the next thing.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Have you even thought about the mantids.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
To those guys, those are incredible creatures and they display
all kinds of other intelligence, especially for an insect will
comparatively to what humans have considered to be intelligent in
the actions of insects, you know things that are not
Oh God, I mean, I'm gonna rant here for a second,
(17:35):
but do you remember a while ago we talked about frogs,
and we talked about the there was some scientific inquiry
into like essentially programming of frog's actions with visual cues
and how you can you can force a frog to
display the eating like singing the tongue out and attempting
(17:56):
to eat something depending on what type of images you
display in front of it. And there are all kinds
of other things that you can just make specific species
of frogs and toads do things because of the visual cue.
Makes me think about no fence cats, some of the
kill instinct, things that get turned on, and dogs certain
things where it's just like it just kicks in whatever
(18:17):
that thing is. When you've got certain stimuli, when you
know you're looking at mantids and other insects like that,
sometimes there doesn't seem to be that full on instinctual
action taking place. There seems to be, and there's no
way to tell right now, but there seems to be.
I was gonna say, thought some some kind of calculation
(18:38):
that's occurring outside of just you know, stimulus action.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Yeah. Also that the name of the series is Children
of Time or that's the first one in the trilogy
by Adrian Tchaikowsky. I'm going to reread that. I'm a
fan of it. You will love the insects stuff there too. Man,
no spoilers, And I think it's important that you're pointing
out another commonality here, which may explain why the the
(19:08):
mantids aren't in the top slot right now. Reproduction is
also fatal for them.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Ah, son of a gun.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
I know, I know, it's like at every point, come on,
give us a break, evolution.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But isn't the males that get eaten kind of like
a racknet style? That's problem?
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean, dudes are our least favorites. We'll
pause here for a word from our sponsors. I'm thinking
is so many jokes? Anyway, here are the ads.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
All right, you ready for this? We're gonna jump back
in three two one boom.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Since we're talking about life humans wouldn't recognize as civilization,
we got to give a shout out to our non
animal buckaroos and buds, the plants, the mold, the funnest
of guys. What plants for me? Do you, dude? Do
you remember when we had that really strange episode and
(20:20):
I think we went through a phase together where we
were super myopically focused on the possibility of plant intelligence.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, that's what we were doing a lot of shrooms, right, No, I'm.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Just kidding, were doing us, Yes, Yes.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
When we really got into my celium networks, we did
a whole video on plant intelligence I recall from a
long time ago, check out our YouTube channel, looking at
the systems of communication and nutrient management and movement throughout
plant structures. It's so much more complex than I think
(20:56):
we're comfortable even imagining.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah. No, he likes it. And I say this as
a person who was a vegetarian for a very long time.
We learned it is scientifically proven that plants have chemical
interactions that in practice to humans can seem a lot
like conversations. They warn each other, they attack each other,
(21:19):
some of them kind of scream when they die. You
just can't hear it.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
So what those last year's I remember there was another
study like, do plants really scream? Well, you've never heard
him scream, but yeah, they sure do do a thing
that is kind of like a scream.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they know what's They're not cool
with what's happening. Yeah, you know what I mean. This
is also magnified by the fact that one of our
big caveats for plant life would be the stationary aspect. Right. However,
as we know some plants can move around. They're not
(21:56):
ever going to be usaying bolt. We don't know of
any just yet. But it isn't impossible to imagine a
world where the next main character life form is not
an animal. It's just a plant. It's an apex plant.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah. And then we start to recall our episodes about
time and how time moves, and how time is so
subjective to our experience, and how the speed at which
we move and speak. Right, and then then you imagine
the time frame if you look at a time lapse
of certain flowering plants or other plants, you know that
(22:33):
only then only come around and bloom over these large
expanses or you watch a vine and how it if
you watch it at the right speed, it appears to
just be you know, wrapping its way up a tree
or something, if you consider the earth moving at their speed,
right yeah, yeah, yeah, And there's not a lot of
(22:53):
other stuff around to you know, eat the primary source
of you know, whatever plant it is, especially because they
proliferate really well. Yeah, you can imagine this thing happening
where maybe the plant ends up becoming super intelligent.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
I don't know. And that's definitely more sci fi than
some of the other stuff, even though we're already on
this track, right this heavily sci fi.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
You're not saving anything for the swim back man, this
is the deep water that you're here with me. Like,
I love this idea because we're talking about something like
a hyper intelligent form of kudzuo, you know, ye Kudzuo
times a million covers the globe. Sure, when Williams Style
(23:41):
still a very inappropriately creepy logo for a paint company,
cover the earth, cover the earth. This scenario we're describing
an apex plant life. It probably won't happen as its
own thing. It's less likely than other scenarios because another
big caveat for plants is that they are pretty reliant
(24:04):
upon animal life. Animal life one of the most popular
fads on planet Earth historically, and so odds are that
if plants survive, some other form of animal life will
survive too, and one of those things will eventually likely
evolve into that top ecological spot, the empty throne of
(24:25):
the former humans. And because plants are dependent on animal
life in so many different ways, it would be extremely
anomalous to see one without the other. It it kind
of depends on how we want to define dominant life form,
leading us to our favorite astronauts, Dylan, if we could
(24:48):
get a drum roll, please, you know them, you love them.
It's the mold, it's the fun.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Guy, Pemperoni rooms up. It's a uh.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah, well, fungus still mysterious desciens, right, They've got a
ton of the winning traits, but they're just so radically different.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yes, And from a scale perspective, it's hard for us,
because of you know, what we know and how we
experience the world to imagine mushrooms of some sort, these
giant networks turning into something that could manipulate the world
in a way that we would consider it to be
(25:37):
highly intelligent.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Right, yeah, yeah, nailed it. Okay, So yeah, let's walk
this one out. None of these organisms necessarily exhibit what
humans call tool making, but some varieties are capable of amazing,
terrifying things like perfectly mapping out communication routes, adapting to
(25:58):
the most inhospitable and bizarre environments, surpassing even the tartar grade,
which is, by the way, not part of this conversation
about doubtless. Yeah, for that tartar grade shade.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Amazing shade today in tartar grade shade shade. Cortceps finally
in facts the first time. Oh, Cordyceps tartar grades go
on that.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I'm gonna steeple my fingers. We're in the shark tank now,
all right.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
That's how you get a fungus inside a thing that
could travel through space, that is.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Microscopic, brilliant. The Cordyceps tartar grade the new ambassador of Earth.
As we'll see, there's some stiff competition, but I do
think that's very exciting. I mean, imagine this. Okay, so
humanity falls, the circumstances of the extinction are such that
all the large animals are gone. Maybe the smaller animals
(26:55):
also go the way of the Dodo and they go
gentle into that good night, And millions of years later,
extraterrestrial explorers or descendants of the things once called humans
rediscover the planet. And when they get there, it's a
ghost town. It's covered in a specific type of mushroom.
(27:16):
It's a mushroom planet. There's nothing else going on. Oh
my god, that's a downer. Huh.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, And well all they hear in the distance is.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Elli, Kelly, Ellie.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Sorry, that's the last of us reference. There's one guy.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, yeah, he's just the white guy has just.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Pedro bscal and he's forgotten who he is and he's
walking around.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
He builds a little like Wilson esque volleyball mushrooms. He
talks to it. All right, that's chilling again. All of
these things, these things are all technically possible, but we
hope we're outlining some of the issues. One of the
most exciting and terrifyingly plausible possibilities is that humanity will
(28:16):
or is presently manufacturing the inheritor of the Earth, as
well as its own demise. In the process, non organic sentients,
the Rise of the Robots.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
We're back to Aloy Horizon. So here we're done.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Okay, we're back to data centers. That's the that's the
present touchstone, and then we're back to the future of
sci fi.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
We are just send everybody over to c neet real
quick to read something that was written by Cora and
Cesarek or Ciseric. I believe September twenty four, twenty twenty five.
AI data centers are coming for your land, your water,
and power. This concept that the data centers themselves might
(29:02):
usurp all of the things that we humans need to
survive because there are enough of them, right, And it's
that trope that was also in Josh's podcast. It was
also in Marshall Brain's book. This concept that the artificial
general intelligence, the thing that we're making that is born
from these data centers, that is born from the manufacturing
(29:24):
facilities that they eventually become connected to, and it overtakes
us and it doesn't need the stuff that we need
to survive.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Right. The idea that humanity does manage to birth genuine AGI.
As you're saying, Matt, artificial generative intelligence. A couple things
would need to occur for this life form. It would
be a life form to get the top slot first,
it would have to well, it would be nice if
(29:55):
it achieved true sentience. That's the thing humans are still
working on. It doesn't have to achieve true sentience to
work to be a quote unquote dominant. I mean second,
it would it wouldn't be able to survive if it's
locked up like a gin in a lamp. It would
have to be able to somehow touch the physical world
(30:17):
so that it could repair its infrastructure, It could build
new stuff, it could acquire new resources.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
To your point, yeah, you'd have to have companies out
there across the world building. I don't know robots that
have all that articulation we were talking about and the
ability to make tiny little movements with their fingers and
grasp things.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
The dexterity. Yeah, I also think it would be ethics aside.
For a second, I think it would be more successful
if you're true non organic intelligence. I think your first
move is to start a religion and then have those
people build the robots for.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
You, all one, all one.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
They shouted, that's a that's a sick reference to our
earlier text messages.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Well, it's also on that soap. I don't know if
you ever read that soap Carefull.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
What's that guy's name? Oh, dang it, Bronner, that's it.
It's it's also, here's a cool thing about the ai AI.
If you're listening, we're cool too, Please be nice. Uh.
It's it's likely that this sort of life form would
have tremendous advantages, right the stuff that we're describing now
(31:40):
that we love the octopus, we love the raven, you know,
we respect the rat or whatever, but those things would
have to spend at least another two hundred thousand years
rediscovering stuff like germ theory or fire or as you mentioned, electricity.
But a non organic life form human created will start
(32:05):
on third base. It will already know calculus, It will
already know physics. It may not appreciate poetry, but it
will probably have a repository of all poetry that has
ever been entered into a computer at some point, or
ever touch the cloud. It will have a memory, will
have an understanding of previous discoveries leading to its creation,
(32:29):
and then it'll be immune to a lot of stuff
that kills organic life forms. The germs. What do I care?
I'm an algorithm. Yeah, I don't know why I sound
like Larry David as Ai.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
There, you really did. I'm just imagining a system like that, right,
that all goes back to one repository in the end. Right,
it's one repository of.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Information, one great library. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
What happens when there are scientific discoveries made by that
organism that you know, that has a great many minds
attached to it. What happens when there's let's say, a
new new piece of research that's found. Is how is
that incorporated back into what is known? If it contradicts
(33:18):
that which is known?
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Ooh, get into some ASTHMOV stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I like it, but really, I mean how how? What?
What is the decision there? Oh, well, this is contrary
to all known things? How should we incorporate it or
reject it?
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Right? How does it adapt cognitively? It's it's crazy because
you know, the reality is where we in civilization humans
not are seeing this already, A non organic mind would
quickly evolve past the understanding of current Homo sapiens. We
(33:55):
see this already with large language models that are essentially
mechanicals right in terms of software, but when they interact
with each other, even now, they exhibit a tendency to
rapidly evolve their methods of intermodel communication. They already move
very quickly, if imperfectly, toward complexity. They surpass human comprehension.
(34:19):
I remember we were talking on this show earlier about
about different algorithms or quote unquote AI that made scientific
breakthroughs that humans hadn't figured out, solved old math problems,
were made, new inventions, well properly put tweaks to inventions.
(34:41):
So yeah, there's a lot of undeserved hype about the
concept of a real non organic mind. There's so many
potentials and consequences already at play. And Matt I loved
that when we're hanging out off air, and then when
we went to record listener mail, one of the first
things you brought up, even before that, when we're just
talking about this hanging out, you brought up the demands
(35:04):
of that AI infrastructure. What if there is a world
where big bot takes priority over human resource needs? Right,
you know, sorry, you're thirsty, but we gotta we gotta
keep the check going.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Oh yeah, dude, I h I don't know how much
of this is dream, how much of this was me
sitting there and thinking about it. But there's this vision.
I had a vision Ben oh Man, dude, Yeah, and
it was this push by you know, a few human
(35:41):
beings and organizations that need that profit thing, the profit
model that we keep talking about. And in order to
get that, to get the infinite injections of money, they
have to continue building these data centers. So they have
to continue building them out, to make them larger and larger,
using up all the water, using up all the electricity,
all the stuff. And they need money, so services, physical
(36:02):
things to be purchased at some point in order to
continue that. And I had this vision of which is
maybe something people are talking about or read about, or
again maybe I dreamed it. But this this version of
dead Internet theory. But it's not the Internet. It's the
world and it's products being ordered by automated systems, sent
(36:24):
to other, you know, warehouses, and then purchased again sent
to another warehouse, and it's all done automatically on purpose
to push up profits.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Which are again in this case fictive. Yes, the profits
aren't feeding anybody. There's no one around. There will come
soft rains, shout out rape Bradberry. Right, I don't.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I still don't know that reference necessarily, we've talked about
it before, But is that the scenario there whereas yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Yeah, okay, posthuman but automation persist, it's still it's let
let's go to it this way. This is the possibility
humans are gone. Automation persists, but this is automation without sentience.
So the world becomes like an abandoned wristwatch, a clockwork
(37:14):
mechanism just ticking along in the universe. And uh, it's
dead Internet theory in real life. So someone far in
the past or something far in the future, or fungal
astronaut or what have you, visits this world and it's
like finding a fancy watch on the side of the street,
(37:35):
TikTok TikTok, TikTok, with just stuff everywhere, just stuff moving
around like a circulatory system, shipping it back and forth,
pinging calendar invites, you know, making announcements that no one hears.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
God, that's so crazy, man.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
And it's interesting. It's a haunted house. It's a real
version of a haunted house.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
It just if we get to that point where we
don't need humans anymore for the mass corporations to profit
like that, you could It feels like we're headed that
way and I don't want to be I don't know
over the top about it. But dang, I don't know
how to describe this feeling that I'm getting when I'm.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
A human becoming obsolete or redundant.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, but I don't know if I hope, I don't know.
If you're listening, you feel that, Like, could you describe
it better?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Like?
Speaker 2 (38:29):
How what do you feel when you imagine some of
the stuff we're talking about today?
Speaker 3 (38:34):
I see it as a non zero possibility. I see
all of these as non zero potentials, some more exciting
than others. Again, there are a lot of intervening variables
on the way. But what we have to ask about
a Ponzi scheme or a religion like capitalism, Hang on,
let me get on this soapbox real quick. What what
(38:55):
we have to what we have to realize is that,
as we've earlier established and fairly conclusively, capitalism in practice
is not science. It is religion. It is articles of faith.
They're blasphemers, there are heretics, there are denominations, and they
beef with each other constantly because there is no scientific basis,
(39:22):
because it is opinion. It is a matter of spirituality
and without that, with that taken out of the game.
With that perspective, we see a path. Right, we have
path dependence we call it right where you depend upon
a legacy technology or concept and it kind of constrains
(39:42):
your opportunities to move forward. So in this case, what
happens with capitalism is we are combining it with technology
in such a way that there is this possibility for
the humans, for the meatmes to become increasingly irrelevant and obsolete.
(40:03):
And ultimately, because evolution is a brutal editor, evolution will
look around and say, what the fuck do we need
these guys for? Yeah, you know what I mean. I
mean it takes forever. People still have the stigial organs.
Now those are still around, but eventually they'll evolve a way.
Hold the phone, folks, we're getting some breaking news. So
(40:25):
we're gonna pause for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
All Right, you can put the phone down. We're getting
back to it. Here we go. It's such a tragic
state to exist in knowing all of this stuff and
knowing what's happening right now and seeing the inevitable outcome
of it, because if it doesn't work out, like think
about what the religions, the economies do if it doesn't
(40:57):
work out right now with the mount of investment, the
amount of like resources and all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
The sunk costs, the path dependence.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
And and knowing as well when we look back at
some of our earlier explorations, how humans could exist on
this planet, like without a lot of the stuff that
we make and do.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Oh, I thought you were going to say, how could
humans exist on this planet in the first place?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Oh, I mean that's that's not already, but just knowing
that if we could get to some weird I don't
know it's going to say, avatar like existence within the
the ecosystems here, it could be pretty cool. Life would
be awesome, but we wouldn't have Call of Duty Mobile,
and I wouldn't be, you know, almost at the top
tier in this season's rankings.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Congratulations, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
And I don't I don't know how I would live
with myself if I didn't have that.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
So yeah, it's like I thought of this Faustian bargain
to when I was when I was backstage and some
one told me I could come back and I could
be in a world that had case ideas or I
could go to a better world that doesn't have case ideas.
And that was a real moment. Man, I think I
made the right choice. You could invent them. Bro shout
(42:16):
out to the farido, the time has come, AI, please
make this happen. There's there's another there's another question. There's
so many things we don't understand about a non organic
inheritor or civilization. Would it be a single hive mind.
Would it be a network of discrete minds? Is it
(42:37):
possible it would solve that resource maintenance problem that's their
big stumbling block. If it creates its own civilization, what
level of complexity could it obtain? Would this civilization? But
what would their motivations be? Just survive, reproduce, expand? I
mean what would they want? Would they look at organic
(42:58):
life forms? Should it ingramh main and say, hey, let's
start a zoo, let's save those. Would they maybe attempt
to resurrect humans and other species? Would they want to
franchise out? Would they expand beyond the bounds of earth?
That's the That's the point, Matt, that that I think
(43:18):
about so often. The two biggest possibilities for alien life,
if they're not extra dimensional that's weird stuff to say
on a Tuesday. They're gonna be uh. I think there's
a strong possibility of a fungal life form, or more
probably a non organic thing created by an organic civilization
(43:41):
that is God. Yes, you know, that's the circle of life.
Thank you for the sound, qu Dylan, sound too expensive,
tod That might be the cosmic circle of life.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Organ There's there's some great explorations of this if you
have the time and investment, specifically in the Mass Effect series.
I love some of the things that makes you think
about when you're playing through that. Uh, specifically the GETH
(44:13):
G E t H a race of artificial being or
beings made from metal. Right in there, there are machines,
but they are a race that has wants and needs
and all these other things. The Koreans another one really interesting.
But then specifically, uh this there's a third one that
(44:34):
I don't want to spoil too much, but there's a
third one that has a very specific purpose that it
plays and it is almost like, at some point, with
enough time, what does that artificial being want or need
to do? Right? Why what does it want to do
(44:57):
and why? And just if you play through that series,
it gives you some really cool thought experience about our
potentials of why that might be.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Ooh, that reminds me of the the Uplift novels by
David Brenn, who starts to ask some of those same questions.
All Right, Matt, you've persuaded me. I am going to
put massive effect on the list.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Look, it's a lot of time, dude.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
Okay, it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
It's so worth it. It's just it's a lot of time.
I think you can. I think you even watch. There
might be available somewhere. I think Bioway or might have it,
like where you can watch the cinematics that kind of
tell the story. But it's not the same as playing
through and actually discovering the things as you go, because
it changes how you It'll set you up to think
(45:45):
one way and then changes that a little bit, and
that small change is the thing that makes you have
more further thinking on it.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Okay, Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm persuaded. What genre of
game would you describe this as?
Speaker 2 (46:00):
It's a third person shooter ultimately, Okay, but there's a
lot of RPG elements elements.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Okay, all right, I'm in. I'm in because I can't
keep replaying Skyrim. I'm going to, but I shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
If you start with a character in the first one,
you don't get to necessarily play that character all the
way through, But the storyline and like the character you
created continues on, which is really cool.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Oh that's cool. Intergenerational. Like we were talking about, well,
a nice bookend for what became a two part series. Here,
this is the question that we're talking off, Eric, This
is the question that Dylan and Matt and yours truly
keep coming back to. This is what we want to
land on in the exploration of what may come after humanity.
(46:50):
The big fundamental pickle the dilemma is the question of growth.
Would a new form of life practice what youmans would
recognize as religion or art or poetry or music. Would
it like the humans of old ones did. Would it
look to the stars and yearn to explore the deep
(47:11):
ink and broach the vast horizon of the heavens? I mean,
can we imagine a documentary style project Millennia for Now
with like a very mild civic sounding posh David Attenborough
esque alien saying humanity knowing lya not past the torch
(47:32):
of existence? To another form of life. Is somebody making
the documentary now and they like can't interfere?
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Oh yeah, yeah. Is the way we experience time such
that it's already happened. The downfall has already occurred. They
already made this documentary, just we are still experiencing it
because of some quirk we function.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
I wonder what the vio is going to be like.
They'll probably be in sperm whale alphabet. It would be phonetic.
So there's a comfort of this. You know, life goes on,
and Earth so far persist against all odds. This lonely
blue globe. It's a fighter first and foremost, it's the
(48:27):
little engine that could of the galaxy. We want to
hear your thoughts, human or not bought or what have you.
If you're a fungus and you're attached to a computer,
hit us up. We can be found online all the hits,
all the social meds that may sip. Check out our
previous episodes we recommended, check out our YouTube page. You
(48:49):
can also send us an email or call us right
now on the phone.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Yes you can. And before I take you that, Ben,
I just stumbled on something I was good to bring up.
Three eye Atlas again because of this whole thing, this
whole discussion that we've been having these two episodes. I
just found something written by Avi Lobe or Old Pal.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
Yeah I know.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
It says was the Wow signal emitted from three I Atlas.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
So, Matt, roll my eyes so hard.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Just imagine that's the thing coming in to usher in
either our demise as humans or the New Age. Right? Ugh,
maybe not anyway, call us please. We do have a
phone number, as you said, Ben one eight three three
st d wyt K. It's a voicemail system. You've got
three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname and let us
(49:49):
know within the message if we can use your name
and message on the air, if you want to send
us links, attachments, a ton of reading pictures of your
animals that you hang out with, which one of those
animals is going to evolve to rule the planet next.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Thank you Dylan by the way for the picture.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Oh yes, thank you Dylan and everybody else. People have
been sending us pictures of pets and they're adorable. You
can send us an email.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back, and as a bonus, we'll always send
you a random fact upon your request. Also, i'd like
to thank everybody who listens to the end of the
episode where we sneak in some easter eggs. If you
(50:34):
are hearing our apocalyptic explorations and you're a little bit
concerned about living in your neck of the Global Woods,
there's an amazing fact we learned. Svalbard, the world's northernmost
solid settlements, will let basically anybody but war criminals in
(50:55):
no residency paperwork, no visas. You can just go.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Isn't that where the seed vault is?
Speaker 3 (51:04):
That is where the seed vault is? That there are
some catches. It's kind of cold. You should bring a jacket. Also,
if you leave the main settlements long year beyond being
the number one most populated place, if you leave the settlements,
you do have to carry a flare gun or a
rifle for the polar bears.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Makes sense checks out.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Checks out. So we'd love to hear your experiences in Svalbard.
We'd love to hear anything that's on your mind. Find
us out here in the Dark Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Noel is still on an adventure, but will
be back soon.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Here are the facts.
This is the second part of a two part series
that gets into some deep conspiratorial strange water. Here's where
(00:56):
it gets crazy. We are joining the show in media rests,
so please listen to part one before you roll past
this ad break.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
I think the honestly, one of the most important things,
which is why I think raccoons might have an edge
on everybody, is the fine motor skills. Because if you
really want a species to be able to develop technology,
you need to have the ability to make those tiny
adjustments to make small things, or at least make something
(01:34):
big that can create a small thing. So I do
I feel like the lower raccoon. Well, it's it's five digits,
that's it's pretty good.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
The dexterity, right, there are a couple extra articulation points away.
That's it, and that's not hard for evolution to solve.
That's ye same, Yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Exactly, yes, because I think I do think about honestly,
like the intelligent of specifically the corvids that we've talked
about extensively on this show, and just how you could
have the brains, but you would you may not have
the ability to manipulate a thing exactly the way you
know you could or you would want to, but you
just physically can't do it without some major adaptation like
(02:18):
we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Yeah, dude, the corvids have the tool making and even
more importantly, they have the intergenerational educational capabilities. Yes, right,
Obviously elephants can do the same thing, but they're large animals,
so they're probably going to go out depending on how
the humans go out. It just depends, but elephants could
(02:39):
figure it out. So we also have to consider our
maritime friends, especially those enormously intelligent cetaceans. Oh what a mystery,
oh man, And they don't have some of the stuff
that we're naming. Right, that's why the oceanic environment such
a different proposition. Right. They don't have the thumbs, so
(03:01):
we're bracketing whales and orcas and dolphins and the other
cetaceans because they don't they got the flippies. They don't
have the thumbies.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, which stinks, right, because that I do feel And
maybe I'm completely wrong, but it feels like that would
be an impossibility just to due to that, unless unless
there was enough of an adaptation to where there was
some kind of articulation right where we're talking about like
a joint or something.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Right, or a social evolution wherein you know, they say, Okay,
if I hang out with this other orca. Orcas are
so smart, man, and we put our fins together, we
can build a thing or move a thing. That's a possibility.
They are brilliant. But they're not the octopus. And I'm
(03:51):
very very pro octopus.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well what if okay, I'm going out way out on a.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Tentacle here, I'm with you. I got your back.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
But if the orcas do survive somehow, or you know,
some other citacean survives and they in some way make
the octopuses work for.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Them, domesticate them, enslave them. Yeah, teach them. That's interesting.
I really like where you're going because the octopus is
fascinating right if you look at it on paper. Aside
from three big asterisks, these folks are great, Like they
(04:33):
are an absolute winner. They went to the Harvard of Evolution,
you know the They are so smart. Chrematophores are so cool.
We know they dream, they experience something like emotion. I
don't know if there's a human equivalency to it, but
I get it. They also, recently, and I'm sure we
(04:54):
all saw this, they were historically solitary creatures. Right outside
of reper reduction. Environmental pressures have led to the creation
of octopus villages. Whoa, Yeah, well village is a big name.
It's not like they have an hoa or something. But
they're living in groups. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Do they have a garden? Maybe an octopus.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
It's called the Octopus Ringo Memorial Park.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I have a great book. It's like a kid's book
about the octopus's garden. I think it is by Ringo
and others, but it's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
I thought it was a Ringo thing. I love it
because it's one of those songs and stories where you
have to wonder what inspired it.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
But it's also yeah, I agree, but it's so joyous
and just like, oh my gosh, this.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Hack I know, I know, man, because he's just it's
just speculation and aspiration. I'd like to be there.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know, under the sea, you know, under the Yes, Okay,
I feel like that was a tick that just happened.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
We are so programmed, right.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yes, we really are. This hit our radar a little
while ago. I don't know that I could say exactly when.
I think it was last year, sometime like towards the
end of the year. But it was a person named
Professor Tim Colson, and he was doing a lot of work,
just trying to do this thought experimentation what could be
(06:31):
the next species that emerges, And one of the things
or the thing that he landed on was the octopus,
specifically for the things we've already outlined here my big
takeaway from it and trying to visualize this, and you know,
maybe if you're listening, you can help us, help me
understand this, Ben, maybe you can help me right now,
(06:51):
how could you have a technological evolution like a species
that builds the technology that we imagine would be a
next advanced species. How do you do that in a
water environment if you, you know, primarily exist within that
water and your systems breathe through that water, Like, how
(07:12):
do you build electricity and electrical systems under there?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, that's why I always bring up the example of
the Promethean taming fire thing anytime we talk about octopus
on the octopus on air and look, technically it's octopuses,
but you can say OCTOPI. Nobody's going to get mad
at you. English is a living language and everybody's just
(07:38):
kind of making it up. So don't stress on that.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
It'll only be here as long as we are.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
Do stress on the thing that we're bringing up here.
It's a huge question. One of the best answers would
be domestication of other animals. Would be some way to
tame natural electricity, right, natural bioelectricity occurrences. Another answer would
(08:08):
be harnessing the power of undersea thermal vents. But then
we have to ask ourselves is this human centric? You
know what I mean? Do they need it?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
Like?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
We have to remember the dinosaurs ran the game for
a long time. They didn't need poetry, nor religion or
art or rocket science. They just ran around eating stuff
and then an asteroid smacked the crap out of them.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
So we say so we say, we say they didn't
have poetry. There's incredible dinosaur poetry out there.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
I would love to hear it it. Write us some
dinosaur poetry and send it. Send it our way, conspiracy
diheartradio dot com. We also we got to get those
three caveats in the first one, the biggest one we've
already nailed, which is that living in the water is
so so very different from living on the surface. So
(09:06):
there are wildly varying priorities for survival, they're wildly varying
avenues of evolution and progress. The second thing is the
current octopus, so far as civilization knows, has a brutally
short lifespan. The third caveat is when they bang, they die.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
Oh wait really yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, they got a kill switch, hormonal kill switch in them.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
That stinks.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
It's you know, that's why we saved it for the end.
I think that's the biggest stumbling block there.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Oh my gosh, can you imagine that, Like if if
there is some kind of adaptation and evolution occurring over
a seer, you know, a long enough span of time.
You have an octopus, but three four four years around,
Oh okay, it says up to potentially five years common
octopus only two years.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah, man, geez.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
So if you imagine you do all of your great work,
let's use that term great work in two years and
then you pass it down.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
But that's what she got, right, Yeah, you would have
to figure out how to communicate that knowledge, effectively communicate
that progress so that these other generations within their limited
lifespan can continue the great work. There was some research
back in the nineteen seventies which I believe we've mentioned
(10:42):
on air before. It was essentially an octopus lobotomy. They said,
let's go into a female octopus is going to reproduce, right,
so let's get into their top brain because all eight
arms are like the own brain. So let's get into
like brain prime and let's cut out. Let's physically remove
(11:05):
the part of this organism that triggers that kill switch,
and let's see how long it can live. So we
don't know what happened to the rest of the research,
but the human intervention there could start to address one
of those issues for the octopus to be successful. For
the octopus to be our new main character. It would
(11:27):
need a longer lifespan, it would need something some way
to communicate learning across generations, and it would also have
to be able to bang without automatically dying.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
That's a that's a tough list there.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Other than that phenomenal candidate.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
But again, if you've got a couple million years, you
can accomplish so much two years at a time.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Yeah, and then we also you know, we know it's
the environment baby steps. Yeah, we also know it's the
environmental pressure that pushes evolution. So if for instance, something happens,
whatever mops the humans is so global, right and so
(12:18):
catastrophic that it alters the oceanic environment, that may alter
the adaptation and the evolution of the octopus and the cetacean.
And we do have to remember that another advantage the
octopus would have given the precedent is that a lot
of the octopuses are smaller creatures. And again it's the meek.
(12:41):
This is the meek's game once the humans are gone.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Yeah, sorry, colossal octopus or was it a giant specific octopus?
Speaker 3 (12:49):
I think that's what they'll worship it like a god,
or it'll be the way we look at the gigantipithecus,
you know what I mean, Fast forward to the descend
and didn't of the octopus, whatever the Homo sapien version
of them is, and they'll be doing an octopodcast and
they'll be talking about their version of Bigfoot.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Oh my god, that'd be so exciting. Again. Happy International
Podcast Day. Go listen to a new podcast you haven't
heard before.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Right now, So we we hit this point a little bit,
like a dominant life form doesn't need to be what
humans would consider civilized. Dinosaurs, of course, ruled for millions
of years and so far as we know, they just
(13:41):
ran around in the in the brutal fight to reproduce,
to consume, and to expand to explore. So we know
then logically that a larger apex predator could evolve to
a certain point, right a fauna could have all to
dominate Earth or regions thereof, but then it might never
(14:04):
encounter those environmental pressures that push them to the next
stage of intelligence. I mean, it's depressing, but it's also
kind of freeing in an ego obliterating way, you know,
because this thing would not know much about the past.
It wouldn't know what came before it, it would not
have that Osmandias moment, and it would also not possess
(14:27):
those big, heartbreaking dreams of exploring space.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It just makes me a little sad.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
It's ignorance as bliss, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, it's just going to go around doing all the
things that we do every day.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
And ignorance, I think is our least favorite of the drugs.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Yeah, that stuff's terrible, and stop taking it from the
people who are selling it.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Yeah, don't get started, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
First time you take a little ignorance, you're gonna want
to get more. I know I do.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
The first one's free, and then the next thing, you know,
you're paying for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
They're just out there offering it in every corner of
the Internet.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
In every local shop, in every conversation at your favorite restaurant. Yeah,
there's going to be someone selling that dope.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah in what this one huge room in Virginia that
had a bunch of people in it just selling all.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
The red wedding style my guy, so also insects. I
feel like that's another episode on its own. Because humans
still don't have a ton of information about how many
insects exist other than that they are also in a
mass extinction event. Also, humans don't know the capabilities of insects.
(15:52):
Shout out to our animal communication episode if there were
a world. Oh gosh, all right, quick plug. If it's
okay for Katie DIDs, I agree. Oh man, they're fascinating.
There's a sci fi writer that I really love, and
actually I was chatting with our pal Connell about this
(16:15):
not too too long ago. His name is Adrian Tchaikovsky,
spelled like the composer, and he has a series of
just absolute superb novels about evolution kind of not posthuman,
but evolution of animals without humans. So what happens if
a bunch of ants have their intelligence radically increased? What
(16:39):
happens if a certain type of arachnid has its intelligence
radically increased? And then we let them spin along in
the evolutionary sandbox for millions of years. It's pretty cool.
It's a great read available on audiobook as well. This
is not an official sponsor of the show. We're just
(16:59):
fans of the guy. Amazing.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
I'm gonna check it out for sure. I'm also gonna
check out mantids. Have we even considered the praying mantis
as the next thing.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
Have you even thought about the mantids.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
To those guys, those are incredible creatures and they display
all kinds of other intelligence, especially for an insect will
comparatively to what humans have considered to be intelligent in
the actions of insects, you know things that are not
Oh God, I mean, I'm gonna rant here for a second,
(17:35):
but do you remember a while ago we talked about frogs,
and we talked about the there was some scientific inquiry
into like essentially programming of frog's actions with visual cues
and how you can you can force a frog to
display the eating like singing the tongue out and attempting
(17:56):
to eat something depending on what type of images you
display in front of it. And there are all kinds
of other things that you can just make specific species
of frogs and toads do things because of the visual cue.
Makes me think about no fence cats, some of the
kill instinct, things that get turned on, and dogs certain
things where it's just like it just kicks in whatever
(18:17):
that thing is. When you've got certain stimuli, when you
know you're looking at mantids and other insects like that,
sometimes there doesn't seem to be that full on instinctual
action taking place. There seems to be, and there's no
way to tell right now, but there seems to be.
I was gonna say, thought some some kind of calculation
(18:38):
that's occurring outside of just you know, stimulus action.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Yeah. Also that the name of the series is Children
of Time or that's the first one in the trilogy
by Adrian Tchaikowsky. I'm going to reread that. I'm a
fan of it. You will love the insects stuff there too. Man,
no spoilers, And I think it's important that you're pointing
out another commonality here, which may explain why the the
(19:08):
mantids aren't in the top slot right now. Reproduction is
also fatal for them.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Ah, son of a gun.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
I know, I know, it's like at every point, come on,
give us a break, evolution.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
But isn't the males that get eaten kind of like
a racknet style? That's problem?
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Yeah? Yeah, I mean, dudes are our least favorites. We'll
pause here for a word from our sponsors. I'm thinking
is so many jokes? Anyway, here are the ads.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
All right, you ready for this? We're gonna jump back
in three two one boom.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Since we're talking about life humans wouldn't recognize as civilization,
we got to give a shout out to our non
animal buckaroos and buds, the plants, the mold, the funnest
of guys. What plants for me? Do you, dude? Do
you remember when we had that really strange episode and
(20:20):
I think we went through a phase together where we
were super myopically focused on the possibility of plant intelligence.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Yeah, that's what we were doing a lot of shrooms, right, No, I'm.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
Just kidding, were doing us, Yes, Yes.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
When we really got into my celium networks, we did
a whole video on plant intelligence I recall from a
long time ago, check out our YouTube channel, looking at
the systems of communication and nutrient management and movement throughout
plant structures. It's so much more complex than I think
(20:56):
we're comfortable even imagining.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah. No, he likes it. And I say this as
a person who was a vegetarian for a very long time.
We learned it is scientifically proven that plants have chemical
interactions that in practice to humans can seem a lot
like conversations. They warn each other, they attack each other,
(21:19):
some of them kind of scream when they die. You
just can't hear it.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
So what those last year's I remember there was another
study like, do plants really scream? Well, you've never heard
him scream, but yeah, they sure do do a thing
that is kind of like a scream.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, they know what's They're not cool
with what's happening. Yeah, you know what I mean. This
is also magnified by the fact that one of our
big caveats for plant life would be the stationary aspect. Right. However,
as we know some plants can move around. They're not
(21:56):
ever going to be usaying bolt. We don't know of
any just yet. But it isn't impossible to imagine a
world where the next main character life form is not
an animal. It's just a plant. It's an apex plant.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Yeah. And then we start to recall our episodes about
time and how time moves, and how time is so
subjective to our experience, and how the speed at which
we move and speak. Right, and then then you imagine
the time frame if you look at a time lapse
of certain flowering plants or other plants, you know that
(22:33):
only then only come around and bloom over these large
expanses or you watch a vine and how it if
you watch it at the right speed, it appears to
just be you know, wrapping its way up a tree
or something, if you consider the earth moving at their speed,
right yeah, yeah, yeah, And there's not a lot of
(22:53):
other stuff around to you know, eat the primary source
of you know, whatever plant it is, especially because they
proliferate really well. Yeah, you can imagine this thing happening
where maybe the plant ends up becoming super intelligent.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
I don't know. And that's definitely more sci fi than
some of the other stuff, even though we're already on
this track, right this heavily sci fi.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
You're not saving anything for the swim back man, this
is the deep water that you're here with me. Like,
I love this idea because we're talking about something like
a hyper intelligent form of kudzuo, you know, ye Kudzuo
times a million covers the globe. Sure, when Williams Style
(23:41):
still a very inappropriately creepy logo for a paint company,
cover the earth, cover the earth. This scenario we're describing
an apex plant life. It probably won't happen as its
own thing. It's less likely than other scenarios because another
big caveat for plants is that they are pretty reliant
(24:04):
upon animal life. Animal life one of the most popular
fads on planet Earth historically, and so odds are that
if plants survive, some other form of animal life will
survive too, and one of those things will eventually likely
evolve into that top ecological spot, the empty throne of
(24:25):
the former humans. And because plants are dependent on animal
life in so many different ways, it would be extremely
anomalous to see one without the other. It it kind
of depends on how we want to define dominant life form,
leading us to our favorite astronauts, Dylan, if we could
(24:48):
get a drum roll, please, you know them, you love them.
It's the mold, it's the fun.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Guy, Pemperoni rooms up. It's a uh.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah, well, fungus still mysterious desciens, right, They've got a
ton of the winning traits, but they're just so radically different.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yes, And from a scale perspective, it's hard for us,
because of you know, what we know and how we
experience the world to imagine mushrooms of some sort, these
giant networks turning into something that could manipulate the world
in a way that we would consider it to be
(25:37):
highly intelligent.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Right, yeah, yeah, nailed it. Okay, So yeah, let's walk
this one out. None of these organisms necessarily exhibit what
humans call tool making, but some varieties are capable of amazing,
terrifying things like perfectly mapping out communication routes, adapting to
(25:58):
the most inhospitable and bizarre environments, surpassing even the tartar grade,
which is, by the way, not part of this conversation
about doubtless. Yeah, for that tartar grade shade.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Amazing shade today in tartar grade shade shade. Cortceps finally
in facts the first time. Oh, Cordyceps tartar grades go
on that.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I'm gonna steeple my fingers. We're in the shark tank now,
all right.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
That's how you get a fungus inside a thing that
could travel through space, that is.
Speaker 3 (26:30):
Microscopic, brilliant. The Cordyceps tartar grade the new ambassador of Earth.
As we'll see, there's some stiff competition, but I do
think that's very exciting. I mean, imagine this. Okay, so
humanity falls, the circumstances of the extinction are such that
all the large animals are gone. Maybe the smaller animals
(26:55):
also go the way of the Dodo and they go
gentle into that good night, And millions of years later,
extraterrestrial explorers or descendants of the things once called humans
rediscover the planet. And when they get there, it's a
ghost town. It's covered in a specific type of mushroom.
(27:16):
It's a mushroom planet. There's nothing else going on. Oh
my god, that's a downer. Huh.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, And well all they hear in the distance is.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Elli, Kelly, Ellie.
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Sorry, that's the last of us reference. There's one guy.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Yeah, yeah, he's just the white guy has just.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Pedro bscal and he's forgotten who he is and he's
walking around.
Speaker 3 (27:47):
He builds a little like Wilson esque volleyball mushrooms. He
talks to it. All right, that's chilling again. All of
these things, these things are all technically possible, but we
hope we're outlining some of the issues. One of the
most exciting and terrifyingly plausible possibilities is that humanity will
(28:16):
or is presently manufacturing the inheritor of the Earth, as
well as its own demise. In the process, non organic sentients,
the Rise of the Robots.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
We're back to Aloy Horizon. So here we're done.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Okay, we're back to data centers. That's the that's the
present touchstone, and then we're back to the future of
sci fi.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
We are just send everybody over to c neet real
quick to read something that was written by Cora and
Cesarek or Ciseric. I believe September twenty four, twenty twenty five.
AI data centers are coming for your land, your water,
and power. This concept that the data centers themselves might
(29:02):
usurp all of the things that we humans need to
survive because there are enough of them, right, And it's
that trope that was also in Josh's podcast. It was
also in Marshall Brain's book. This concept that the artificial
general intelligence, the thing that we're making that is born
from these data centers, that is born from the manufacturing
(29:24):
facilities that they eventually become connected to, and it overtakes
us and it doesn't need the stuff that we need
to survive.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Right. The idea that humanity does manage to birth genuine AGI.
As you're saying, Matt, artificial generative intelligence. A couple things
would need to occur for this life form. It would
be a life form to get the top slot first,
it would have to well, it would be nice if
(29:55):
it achieved true sentience. That's the thing humans are still
working on. It doesn't have to achieve true sentience to
work to be a quote unquote dominant. I mean second,
it would it wouldn't be able to survive if it's
locked up like a gin in a lamp. It would
have to be able to somehow touch the physical world
(30:17):
so that it could repair its infrastructure, It could build
new stuff, it could acquire new resources.
Speaker 2 (30:22):
To your point, yeah, you'd have to have companies out
there across the world building. I don't know robots that
have all that articulation we were talking about and the
ability to make tiny little movements with their fingers and
grasp things.
Speaker 3 (30:37):
The dexterity. Yeah, I also think it would be ethics aside.
For a second, I think it would be more successful
if you're true non organic intelligence. I think your first
move is to start a religion and then have those
people build the robots for.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
You, all one, all one.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
They shouted, that's a that's a sick reference to our
earlier text messages.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Well, it's also on that soap. I don't know if
you ever read that soap Carefull.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
What's that guy's name? Oh, dang it, Bronner, that's it.
It's it's also, here's a cool thing about the ai AI.
If you're listening, we're cool too, Please be nice. Uh.
It's it's likely that this sort of life form would
have tremendous advantages, right the stuff that we're describing now
(31:40):
that we love the octopus, we love the raven, you know,
we respect the rat or whatever, but those things would
have to spend at least another two hundred thousand years
rediscovering stuff like germ theory or fire or as you mentioned, electricity.
But a non organic life form human created will start
(32:05):
on third base. It will already know calculus, It will
already know physics. It may not appreciate poetry, but it
will probably have a repository of all poetry that has
ever been entered into a computer at some point, or
ever touch the cloud. It will have a memory, will
have an understanding of previous discoveries leading to its creation,
(32:29):
and then it'll be immune to a lot of stuff
that kills organic life forms. The germs. What do I care?
I'm an algorithm. Yeah, I don't know why I sound
like Larry David as Ai.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
There, you really did. I'm just imagining a system like that, right,
that all goes back to one repository in the end. Right,
it's one repository of.
Speaker 3 (32:54):
Information, one great library. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
What happens when there are scientific discoveries made by that
organism that you know, that has a great many minds
attached to it. What happens when there's let's say, a
new new piece of research that's found. Is how is
that incorporated back into what is known? If it contradicts
(33:18):
that which is known?
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Ooh, get into some ASTHMOV stuff.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
I like it, but really, I mean how how? What?
What is the decision there? Oh, well, this is contrary
to all known things? How should we incorporate it or
reject it?
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Right? How does it adapt cognitively? It's it's crazy because
you know, the reality is where we in civilization humans
not are seeing this already, A non organic mind would
quickly evolve past the understanding of current Homo sapiens. We
(33:55):
see this already with large language models that are essentially
mechanicals right in terms of software, but when they interact
with each other, even now, they exhibit a tendency to
rapidly evolve their methods of intermodel communication. They already move
very quickly, if imperfectly, toward complexity. They surpass human comprehension.
(34:19):
I remember we were talking on this show earlier about
about different algorithms or quote unquote AI that made scientific
breakthroughs that humans hadn't figured out, solved old math problems,
were made, new inventions, well properly put tweaks to inventions.
(34:41):
So yeah, there's a lot of undeserved hype about the
concept of a real non organic mind. There's so many
potentials and consequences already at play. And Matt I loved
that when we're hanging out off air, and then when
we went to record listener mail, one of the first
things you brought up, even before that, when we're just
talking about this hanging out, you brought up the demands
(35:04):
of that AI infrastructure. What if there is a world
where big bot takes priority over human resource needs? Right,
you know, sorry, you're thirsty, but we gotta we gotta
keep the check going.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Oh yeah, dude, I h I don't know how much
of this is dream, how much of this was me
sitting there and thinking about it. But there's this vision.
I had a vision Ben oh Man, dude, Yeah, and
it was this push by you know, a few human
(35:41):
beings and organizations that need that profit thing, the profit
model that we keep talking about. And in order to
get that, to get the infinite injections of money, they
have to continue building these data centers. So they have
to continue building them out, to make them larger and larger,
using up all the water, using up all the electricity,
all the stuff. And they need money, so services, physical
(36:02):
things to be purchased at some point in order to
continue that. And I had this vision of which is
maybe something people are talking about or read about, or
again maybe I dreamed it. But this this version of
dead Internet theory. But it's not the Internet. It's the
world and it's products being ordered by automated systems, sent
(36:24):
to other, you know, warehouses, and then purchased again sent
to another warehouse, and it's all done automatically on purpose
to push up profits.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
Which are again in this case fictive. Yes, the profits
aren't feeding anybody. There's no one around. There will come
soft rains, shout out rape Bradberry. Right, I don't.
Speaker 2 (36:45):
I still don't know that reference necessarily, we've talked about
it before, But is that the scenario there whereas yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Yeah, okay, posthuman but automation persist, it's still it's let
let's go to it this way. This is the possibility
humans are gone. Automation persists, but this is automation without sentience.
So the world becomes like an abandoned wristwatch, a clockwork
(37:14):
mechanism just ticking along in the universe. And uh, it's
dead Internet theory in real life. So someone far in
the past or something far in the future, or fungal
astronaut or what have you, visits this world and it's
like finding a fancy watch on the side of the street,
(37:35):
TikTok TikTok, TikTok, with just stuff everywhere, just stuff moving
around like a circulatory system, shipping it back and forth,
pinging calendar invites, you know, making announcements that no one hears.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
God, that's so crazy, man.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
And it's interesting. It's a haunted house. It's a real
version of a haunted house.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
It just if we get to that point where we
don't need humans anymore for the mass corporations to profit
like that, you could It feels like we're headed that
way and I don't want to be I don't know
over the top about it. But dang, I don't know
how to describe this feeling that I'm getting when I'm.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
A human becoming obsolete or redundant.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
Yeah, but I don't know if I hope, I don't know.
If you're listening, you feel that, Like, could you describe
it better?
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Like?
Speaker 2 (38:29):
How what do you feel when you imagine some of
the stuff we're talking about today?
Speaker 3 (38:34):
I see it as a non zero possibility. I see
all of these as non zero potentials, some more exciting
than others. Again, there are a lot of intervening variables
on the way. But what we have to ask about
a Ponzi scheme or a religion like capitalism, Hang on,
let me get on this soapbox real quick. What what
(38:55):
we have to what we have to realize is that,
as we've earlier established and fairly conclusively, capitalism in practice
is not science. It is religion. It is articles of faith.
They're blasphemers, there are heretics, there are denominations, and they
beef with each other constantly because there is no scientific basis,
(39:22):
because it is opinion. It is a matter of spirituality
and without that, with that taken out of the game.
With that perspective, we see a path. Right, we have
path dependence we call it right where you depend upon
a legacy technology or concept and it kind of constrains
(39:42):
your opportunities to move forward. So in this case, what
happens with capitalism is we are combining it with technology
in such a way that there is this possibility for
the humans, for the meatmes to become increasingly irrelevant and obsolete.
(40:03):
And ultimately, because evolution is a brutal editor, evolution will
look around and say, what the fuck do we need
these guys for? Yeah, you know what I mean. I
mean it takes forever. People still have the stigial organs.
Now those are still around, but eventually they'll evolve a way.
Hold the phone, folks, we're getting some breaking news. So
(40:25):
we're gonna pause for a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (40:33):
All Right, you can put the phone down. We're getting
back to it. Here we go. It's such a tragic
state to exist in knowing all of this stuff and
knowing what's happening right now and seeing the inevitable outcome
of it, because if it doesn't work out, like think
about what the religions, the economies do if it doesn't
(40:57):
work out right now with the mount of investment, the
amount of like resources and all this stuff.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
The sunk costs, the path dependence.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
And and knowing as well when we look back at
some of our earlier explorations, how humans could exist on
this planet, like without a lot of the stuff that
we make and do.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Oh, I thought you were going to say, how could
humans exist on this planet in the first place?
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Oh, I mean that's that's not already, but just knowing
that if we could get to some weird I don't
know it's going to say, avatar like existence within the
the ecosystems here, it could be pretty cool. Life would
be awesome, but we wouldn't have Call of Duty Mobile,
and I wouldn't be, you know, almost at the top
tier in this season's rankings.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Congratulations, that's cool.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
And I don't I don't know how I would live
with myself if I didn't have that.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
So yeah, it's like I thought of this Faustian bargain
to when I was when I was backstage and some
one told me I could come back and I could
be in a world that had case ideas or I
could go to a better world that doesn't have case ideas.
And that was a real moment. Man, I think I
made the right choice. You could invent them. Bro shout
(42:16):
out to the farido, the time has come, AI, please
make this happen. There's there's another there's another question. There's
so many things we don't understand about a non organic
inheritor or civilization. Would it be a single hive mind.
Would it be a network of discrete minds? Is it
(42:37):
possible it would solve that resource maintenance problem that's their
big stumbling block. If it creates its own civilization, what
level of complexity could it obtain? Would this civilization? But
what would their motivations be? Just survive, reproduce, expand? I
mean what would they want? Would they look at organic
(42:58):
life forms? Should it ingramh main and say, hey, let's
start a zoo, let's save those. Would they maybe attempt
to resurrect humans and other species? Would they want to
franchise out? Would they expand beyond the bounds of earth?
That's the That's the point, Matt, that that I think
(43:18):
about so often. The two biggest possibilities for alien life,
if they're not extra dimensional that's weird stuff to say
on a Tuesday. They're gonna be uh. I think there's
a strong possibility of a fungal life form, or more
probably a non organic thing created by an organic civilization
(43:41):
that is God. Yes, you know, that's the circle of life.
Thank you for the sound, qu Dylan, sound too expensive,
tod That might be the cosmic circle of life.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Organ There's there's some great explorations of this if you
have the time and investment, specifically in the Mass Effect series.
I love some of the things that makes you think
about when you're playing through that. Uh, specifically the GETH
(44:13):
G E t H a race of artificial being or
beings made from metal. Right in there, there are machines,
but they are a race that has wants and needs
and all these other things. The Koreans another one really interesting.
But then specifically, uh this there's a third one that
(44:34):
I don't want to spoil too much, but there's a
third one that has a very specific purpose that it
plays and it is almost like, at some point, with
enough time, what does that artificial being want or need
to do? Right? Why what does it want to do
(44:57):
and why? And just if you play through that series,
it gives you some really cool thought experience about our
potentials of why that might be.
Speaker 3 (45:06):
Ooh, that reminds me of the the Uplift novels by
David Brenn, who starts to ask some of those same questions.
All Right, Matt, you've persuaded me. I am going to
put massive effect on the list.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
Look, it's a lot of time, dude.
Speaker 3 (45:23):
Okay, it's worth it.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
It's so worth it. It's just it's a lot of time.
I think you can. I think you even watch. There
might be available somewhere. I think Bioway or might have it,
like where you can watch the cinematics that kind of
tell the story. But it's not the same as playing
through and actually discovering the things as you go, because
it changes how you It'll set you up to think
(45:45):
one way and then changes that a little bit, and
that small change is the thing that makes you have
more further thinking on it.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Okay, Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm persuaded. What genre of
game would you describe this as?
Speaker 2 (46:00):
It's a third person shooter ultimately, Okay, but there's a
lot of RPG elements elements.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
Okay, all right, I'm in. I'm in because I can't
keep replaying Skyrim. I'm going to, but I shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
If you start with a character in the first one,
you don't get to necessarily play that character all the
way through, But the storyline and like the character you
created continues on, which is really cool.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Oh that's cool. Intergenerational. Like we were talking about, well,
a nice bookend for what became a two part series. Here,
this is the question that we're talking off, Eric, This
is the question that Dylan and Matt and yours truly
keep coming back to. This is what we want to
land on in the exploration of what may come after humanity.
(46:50):
The big fundamental pickle the dilemma is the question of growth.
Would a new form of life practice what youmans would
recognize as religion or art or poetry or music. Would
it like the humans of old ones did. Would it
look to the stars and yearn to explore the deep
(47:11):
ink and broach the vast horizon of the heavens? I mean,
can we imagine a documentary style project Millennia for Now
with like a very mild civic sounding posh David Attenborough
esque alien saying humanity knowing lya not past the torch
(47:32):
of existence? To another form of life. Is somebody making
the documentary now and they like can't interfere?
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Oh yeah, yeah. Is the way we experience time such
that it's already happened. The downfall has already occurred. They
already made this documentary, just we are still experiencing it
because of some quirk we function.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
I wonder what the vio is going to be like.
They'll probably be in sperm whale alphabet. It would be phonetic.
So there's a comfort of this. You know, life goes on,
and Earth so far persist against all odds. This lonely
blue globe. It's a fighter first and foremost, it's the
(48:27):
little engine that could of the galaxy. We want to
hear your thoughts, human or not bought or what have you.
If you're a fungus and you're attached to a computer,
hit us up. We can be found online all the hits,
all the social meds that may sip. Check out our
previous episodes we recommended, check out our YouTube page. You
(48:49):
can also send us an email or call us right
now on the phone.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Yes you can. And before I take you that, Ben,
I just stumbled on something I was good to bring up.
Three eye Atlas again because of this whole thing, this
whole discussion that we've been having these two episodes. I
just found something written by Avi Lobe or Old Pal.
Speaker 3 (49:08):
Yeah I know.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
It says was the Wow signal emitted from three I Atlas.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
So, Matt, roll my eyes so hard.
Speaker 2 (49:27):
Just imagine that's the thing coming in to usher in
either our demise as humans or the New Age. Right? Ugh,
maybe not anyway, call us please. We do have a
phone number, as you said, Ben one eight three three
st d wyt K. It's a voicemail system. You've got
three minutes. Give yourself a cool nickname and let us
(49:49):
know within the message if we can use your name
and message on the air, if you want to send
us links, attachments, a ton of reading pictures of your
animals that you hang out with, which one of those
animals is going to evolve to rule the planet next.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Thank you Dylan by the way for the picture.
Speaker 2 (50:05):
Oh yes, thank you Dylan and everybody else. People have
been sending us pictures of pets and they're adorable. You
can send us an email.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back, and as a bonus, we'll always send
you a random fact upon your request. Also, i'd like
to thank everybody who listens to the end of the
episode where we sneak in some easter eggs. If you
(50:34):
are hearing our apocalyptic explorations and you're a little bit
concerned about living in your neck of the Global Woods,
there's an amazing fact we learned. Svalbard, the world's northernmost
solid settlements, will let basically anybody but war criminals in
(50:55):
no residency paperwork, no visas. You can just go.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Isn't that where the seed vault is?
Speaker 3 (51:04):
That is where the seed vault is? That there are
some catches. It's kind of cold. You should bring a jacket. Also,
if you leave the main settlements long year beyond being
the number one most populated place, if you leave the settlements,
you do have to carry a flare gun or a
rifle for the polar bears.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Makes sense checks out.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Checks out. So we'd love to hear your experiences in Svalbard.
We'd love to hear anything that's on your mind. Find
us out here in the Dark Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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