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August 19, 2025 28 mins

If there are so many inhabitable planets in the universe, why haven't we made contact with other civilizations? One terrifying answer is that very few civilizations are able to create world-altering technology without also killing themselves off in the process.

This monologue episode introduces the concept of Great Filter Events through the work of Dr. David Grinspoon's outstanding book, Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future.

Go read it, and listen to the shows I've done with David Grinspoon in the past! Links below.


“The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.”

― E. O. Wilson


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Resources

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Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future by Dr. David Grinspoon

47: David Grinspoon, Astrobiologist

Geology Cage Match: The Sapiezoic vs. the Anthropocene

S2E15: Are you a wizard or a phophet?—w/ Charles C. Mann

Gaia hypothesis

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI)

The Wizard and the Prophet: Two Remarkable Scientists and Their Dueling Visions to Shape Tomorrow's World by Charles C. Mann

Objectivism and Ayn Rand

Geologic time scale

Great Filter

Fermi paradox

Drake equation

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