Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, I know you're a big fan of aliens. Well,
Speaker 1: I haven't met them yet, but yeah, I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to it, right, But I wonder if you've really thought
Speaker 1: it through them. What do you mean, I'm all set,
Speaker 1: I haven't aliens have arrived. Go bag already packed? Really,
Speaker 1: what's in it? An emergency kid and some bottled water
Speaker 1: and toilet paper. Toilet paper? Good, idea hold on them
Speaker 1: and put that in my lady, you're gonna eat that
Speaker 1: if the aliens come. I guess all I'm saying is
Speaker 1: that you don't really know how friendly these aliens are
Speaker 1: ever going to be. Well, that's why I want to
Speaker 1: meet the aliens. But I don't want to be the
Speaker 1: first human to meet the aliens. Oh, I see. You
Speaker 1: want to wait until that's even the first group of humans.
Speaker 1: Then you want to talk to them when they're full.
Speaker 1: That's my plan. I want to be dessert, not appetizer.
Speaker 1: You don't want to be the aperitie. Instead, I want
Speaker 1: to be the post dinner conversation. That's my plan. So
Speaker 1: you can be the dessert. I'll be the one that
Speaker 1: chills out with them. I am more handmay cartoonists and
Speaker 1: the creator of PhD Comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a
Speaker 1: particle physicist and I'm happy to be any part of
Speaker 1: dinner with aliens. I think you're just very sweet, Daniel.
Speaker 1: So you make a good dessert. I can be salty.
Speaker 1: Watch out, well, I could be wanted those desserts. It's
Speaker 1: savory and sweet. That's right. Would you like to meet Daniel.
Speaker 1: He's a particle physicist and he's ummmy flavored. And they're
Speaker 1: gonna be like, no, thanks, get me some cartoonists please.
Speaker 1: They're much more out of shape. They're softer. But welcome
Speaker 1: to our podcast. Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a
Speaker 1: production of Heart Radio in which we take stock of
Speaker 1: the shape of the universe. How squishy is it, how firm,
Speaker 1: how fit is it? And how deep is our understanding
Speaker 1: of the fundamental nature of this reality. We take you
Speaker 1: on a tour of every being that's out there. From
Speaker 1: the very biggest, oldest, most ancient questions about the nature
Speaker 1: of this bizarre cosmos, we find ourselves into the newest,
Speaker 1: freshest exploration of the tiniest particles that make up this reality.
Speaker 1: That's right. We'd like to talk about all the delicious
Speaker 1: and amazing facts about physics that are out there for
Speaker 1: humans to discover and wonder about and feel amazed about.
Speaker 1: But we also like to talk about the possible theories,
Speaker 1: the maybes that are out there, the amazing possibilities that
Speaker 1: are waiting for us to discover. That's right, because exploring
Speaker 1: the universe requires a lot of creativity. We don't just
Speaker 1: go out there and ask the universe, hey, tell us
Speaker 1: how things work. We have to discover it. We have
Speaker 1: to put together a story that explains all of the
Speaker 1: clues that we have found, and that sometimes requires a
Speaker 1: lot of mind bending creativity about what might be going on. Yeah, Daniel,
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's a job out there where you
Speaker 1: have to just think of possibilities about the universe and
Speaker 1: think of interesting scenariosm and what could happen. That's called
Speaker 1: theoretical physicist exactly make up. Yeah, you go. I wonder
Speaker 1: if the universe works this way, what would that mean
Speaker 1: and how would we check? Or like, how can I
Speaker 1: tell a story about the universe that we'ves together all
Speaker 1: these weird experiments that we've seen. It's all about coming
Speaker 1: up with a narrative. I think that narratives are a
Speaker 1: deep part of the way the humans think, and that's
Speaker 1: essentially what science is. Trying to tell a story about
Speaker 1: all the experiences we've had, and you get paid for it.
Speaker 1: If you can get the job, you get paid for it.
Speaker 1: You're also welcome to do theoretical physics on your own
Speaker 1: time as an amateur. Interesting like a non paid theoretical physicist.
Speaker 1: Can I put that in a business card? I think
Speaker 1: that almost everybody who listens to this podcast is a
Speaker 1: nonpaid theoretical physicist, because you guys like to think about
Speaker 1: the nature of the universe, and you email me lots
Speaker 1: of fun ideas about how the universe might work. So
Speaker 1: in some sense, we are all theoretical physicists paid or not. Yeah,
Speaker 1: even children, I guess you know. Children are trying to
Speaker 1: figure out the world and trying to figure out what
Speaker 1: the rules are, and that's basically what physicists are, right children.
Speaker 1: This is our children that never stopped asking those questions exactly.
Speaker 1: So on the podcast, we like to talk about the
Speaker 1: theories that are out there and also the facts that
Speaker 1: scientists have discovered, but we also like to delve into
Speaker 1: the fictional side of science, in particular science fiction that's right.
Speaker 1: I'm an avid reader of science fiction because while I
Speaker 1: do enjoy our universe, I also like thinking about other
Speaker 1: ways that the universe might be. And I think it's
Speaker 1: really important for a scientist to sort of stretch their
Speaker 1: minds a little bit and imagine that the universe might
Speaker 1: be quite different from the ones that we think it
Speaker 1: is today, because lots of times in the history of
Speaker 1: science we have had to do exactly that, to toss
Speaker 1: out our conceptions of how the universe works and accept
Speaker 1: a completely different story that makes us feel really different
Speaker 1: about the nature of humanity and our context and what
Speaker 1: it means to be alive. And one great way to
Speaker 1: do that is to have somebody else do that thinking
Speaker 1: for you. My reading science fiction novels. Yeah, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they're right, sort of right, Like sometimes they posit crazy
Speaker 1: scenarios and they turn to be true, right, like the
Speaker 1: internet was in the internet, or satellites one of those technologies.
Speaker 1: Didn't those come from a science fiction novel? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think there are lots of example there, and they're not independent. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm not the only scientists who read science fiction. And
Speaker 1: so if you're a scientist and you read science fiction,
Speaker 1: you go, oh, that's a cool idea. Let's make that real.
Speaker 1: Then sometimes that happens and people start to work on
Speaker 1: projects because they read about it in a novel. So
Speaker 1: science fiction authors out there, you may be controlling the
Speaker 1: future direction of human progress. Are they technically theoretical theoretical
Speaker 1: physicists then, or imaginary theoretical physicists? How would you name them?
Speaker 1: They are creative directors of theoretical physics. There you go,
Speaker 1: the most important job obviously. Yeah. So we like to
Speaker 1: talk about science fiction, and we like to interview science
Speaker 1: fiction authors on the podcast and to talk about this
Speaker 1: unique combination of physics and art. And speaking of this
Speaker 1: interesting interplay between physics and r Daniel, you recently had
Speaker 1: a great conversation with some physicists and artists that are
Speaker 1: collaborating on a special project. That's right. As you may know.
Speaker 1: I think it's a great idea for a scientist to
Speaker 1: reach out and collaborate with people in the artistic creative community,
Speaker 1: not just to benefit from their ideas, but to work
Speaker 1: together as a way to communicate science. Is a way
Speaker 1: to sort of make science more accessible. You and I
Speaker 1: have had a lot of fun doing that, and I
Speaker 1: recently ran across another pair of physicists and an artist
Speaker 1: who used to be a mechanical engineer working on a
Speaker 1: fun project together. Oh my goodness, it's like an alternate
Speaker 1: universe version of us. Should we write a science which
Speaker 1: novel about that is pretty implausible? Are they the anti
Speaker 1: version of it? Are they like the cool, funny, attractive
Speaker 1: versions of us? And if we touch them, we're all
Speaker 1: going to annihilate each other. Well, they're definitely younger than
Speaker 1: we are. I won't comment on our relative attractiveness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you talked to him and they have a great
Speaker 1: project that's going live pretty soon. That's right. So here's
Speaker 1: a short conversation I had with Sophia gat Nasser, physicist
Speaker 1: and Katherine Matchin, a space artist. So then it's my
Speaker 1: pleasure to welcome too friends to the podcast. Sofia gad
Speaker 1: Nezer and Catherine Machen Welcome. Can you guys begin by
Speaker 1: introducing yourselves, tell us a little bit about you and
Speaker 1: how you guys got to work together, Sofia, Yeah, so um,
Speaker 1: I am a PhD candidate at the University of California
Speaker 1: in Irvine, so I know you very well. Dane one
Speaker 1: of the most awesome professors at the school. What I
Speaker 1: do is like cosmology, sort of like astroparticle theory type
Speaker 1: stuff with simulations. I work on dark matter, particularly, although
Speaker 1: I'm interested in many other things, like you know, dark
Speaker 1: energy and stuff like that, and inflation also is something
Speaker 1: that I'm interested in. But like, my current project is
Speaker 1: working on taking dark matter halos and using them to
Speaker 1: explain how the seeds for super massive black hole were
Speaker 1: formed in the early WHOA, very cool? So do you
Speaker 1: think that dark matter haloes can't explain how we got
Speaker 1: supermassive black holes so early in the universe. It really
Speaker 1: depends on the model. It's highly dependent on the model,
Speaker 1: Like certain models would not be able to do it,
Speaker 1: and so if you have self interactions that's a consequence
Speaker 1: of it, and so it's entirely model dependent. Very cool,
Speaker 1: Very cool. And Catherine, I'm Kat. I'm a deep space
Speaker 1: artist currently based in Sydney, Australia, but I get around
Speaker 1: a little bit and I've been making basically anything related
Speaker 1: space artwork over the last five years. But prior to that,
Speaker 1: I made video games for a living my real job,
Speaker 1: I like to call it. And I actually studied mechanical
Speaker 1: engineering as a degree, and uh, that definitely didn't suit me, because, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was too creative in a way for the rigidity
Speaker 1: of engineering. So well, I am a big fan of
Speaker 1: collaborations between physicists and artists, actually artists who were once engineers,
Speaker 1: as Jorge was a mechanical engineer once as well. But
Speaker 1: tell me how you guys darted working together and what
Speaker 1: you guys have in store for us. And we've both
Speaker 1: been prevalent in like the online science Steam community as
Speaker 1: far as I content, Yeah, I get some steam on
Speaker 1: the go. Um. I just getting people excited about space generally.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get people to connect to the universe
Speaker 1: in the same way that Sofia is trying to pick
Speaker 1: it apart. And we're just trying to share as much
Speaker 1: as possible, and our paths inevitably crossed when I joined
Speaker 1: Twitter a couple of years ago and I just found
Speaker 1: Sofia and it just was enthralled by all her content.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been doing this for about five years now,
Speaker 1: and a couple of years ago I reached out to
Speaker 1: actually was it a year ago? I reached out to you,
Speaker 1: Sofia and said, I really like to draw some book
Speaker 1: dark matter stuff if you could tell me how it
Speaker 1: works and then try and visualize some of her research
Speaker 1: a year ago. That's happy anniversary, baby. But you just
Speaker 1: can't find, you know, I mean unless you go to
Speaker 1: very specific space artists, of which there are not that many.
Speaker 1: You know, if you go into any store, any gallery,
Speaker 1: you know, the one thing you won't find is beautiful
Speaker 1: pictures of the cosmos or beautiful pictures that describe, like
Speaker 1: you know, dark matter and its interactions and nothing. You know,
Speaker 1: you'll find a lot of abstracts and landscapes and bowls
Speaker 1: of fruit. And that is obviously some people's cups of tea.
Speaker 1: But there's a lot of us out there that we
Speaker 1: want stuff on our walls that actually means something to
Speaker 1: us and gives us the chills because it reminds us
Speaker 1: that we're part of this incredible phenomenal universe. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe someone gets that from a bowl of bananas, but
Speaker 1: don't discampananas. So what do you guys have planned? What
Speaker 1: do you guys putting together? Can people expect to see?
Speaker 1: We're basically putting together a series of really high quality,
Speaker 1: like very luxurious artwork prints based on Sophia's research and
Speaker 1: other aspects of dark matter that you know, she's very
Speaker 1: fascinated with, and also they're still also involved in my research. Yes,
Speaker 1: so we're creating a series of these artworks and then
Speaker 1: making them available to the public to purchase, and obviously
Speaker 1: they can go into the store order them, but it's
Speaker 1: only open for three days, so it is a very
Speaker 1: short span. But you know, we hope to maybe do
Speaker 1: something like this again in future, because I think what
Speaker 1: I realized is the overwhelming amount of support from the
Speaker 1: public that, like I, have been desperate to get something
Speaker 1: like this, and no one's doing it, and even if
Speaker 1: there is a visualization available, it might not be guided
Speaker 1: by science. It's really special because it's not a simulation.
Speaker 1: A simulation is based on literal, fundamental equations and sort
Speaker 1: of turnout like if you have everything right as you think,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, at least right with whatever model
Speaker 1: you're using, it will turn out a certain way. But
Speaker 1: this is so much more beautiful because you get an
Speaker 1: extra touch of creativity from the art that goes into it.
Speaker 1: And so what I want people to take away from
Speaker 1: this is I want them to take away the science
Speaker 1: and the creativity that it takes to put together something
Speaker 1: that is abstract that you have visualized before where you're
Speaker 1: using like physics, and then you're trying to sort of
Speaker 1: use an interpretation of what that would look like and
Speaker 1: put it on paper, and it's a really beautiful thing.
Speaker 1: So I so what I want people to take away
Speaker 1: from that is that as well as to support and
Speaker 1: bring you know, to a forefront steam like the merging
Speaker 1: of science and art together, because I think it's super
Speaker 1: important that we move in that direction. Wonderful. Totally agree.
Speaker 1: So I know that you guys had something open in
Speaker 1: June by the time folks are here in this podcast
Speaker 1: that will have clothes already. Let people know where they
Speaker 1: might be able to find and your future works and
Speaker 1: collaborations if they go online, which they type in the Google.
Speaker 1: I think that it's pertinent just to go to all
Speaker 1: our social media channels because everything is really linked there
Speaker 1: and obviously the specific you or else do change every
Speaker 1: time we run something, so um, but I would definitely
Speaker 1: head over there Astro Party Girl and at Katherine ma
Speaker 1: Chin which is dreadfully hard to spell, so probably just
Speaker 1: google it and it will try and recorrect it. For
Speaker 1: I wanted those names, and my mom was like, I
Speaker 1: would like you to be unique, and I spend my
Speaker 1: whole life trying to spell it to people. You know. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll put links to your social profiles in the show
Speaker 1: notes so people can find it there. Thanks to both
Speaker 1: of you for coming on and telling us about it,
Speaker 1: and congrats on your awesome new collaboration. Can't wait to
Speaker 1: see what you guys put together. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having us all Right, pretty cool. I like that
Speaker 1: she's a space artist. Does that mean she does art
Speaker 1: in space or her artist space or well, she had
Speaker 1: a zoom background, so I couldn't tell if she was
Speaker 1: on the International Space Station at the time or just
Speaker 1: in Australia, which I think it was equidistant for me anyway,
Speaker 1: so it's just as alien really, who knows. Maybe she
Speaker 1: was in her art space. Yeah, but it was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: She told me that five years ago she didn't even
Speaker 1: know how to paint, and now she makes a living
Speaker 1: as a space artist. She used to work in video games.
Speaker 1: She has a background as a mechanical engineer. So it
Speaker 1: just goes to show you that people's lives can't take turns,
Speaker 1: and you can start out in one field and end
Speaker 1: up being quite successful in another. As you well know,
Speaker 1: anyone can be a space artist. You just need a
Speaker 1: little space and some art. But anyways, back to our
Speaker 1: conversation about science fiction and how they really expand our
Speaker 1: minds about what's possible and what could be out there
Speaker 1: in the universe and what would happen if we run
Speaker 1: into some of these amazing things. We have today a
Speaker 1: pretty interesting interview with a new author. Right, that's right.
Speaker 1: This is a science fiction book by debut author just
Speaker 1: broke into the scene, and a really fantastic book, and
Speaker 1: it takes a sort of a new look at the
Speaker 1: idea of first contact, what it would be like if
Speaker 1: aliens came to Earth? Right? And does it have a
Speaker 1: happy ending? I'm not going to ruin it for you,
Speaker 1: but there's definitely a lot of suffering along the way,
Speaker 1: you know, that's what makes it feel real. All right? Well,
Speaker 1: then today on the podcast, we'll be talking about the
Speaker 1: science fiction universe of cat Will turn Rolls the lesson.
Speaker 1: It's right, it's a super fun book, and I don't
Speaker 1: want to give it with the ending, but I guess
Speaker 1: I'll just say that it's unlikely that Disney is going
Speaker 1: to option this for a family movie. What about Disney
Speaker 1: plus I think Fox owns Disney now, right, can it
Speaker 1: be like a Marvel movie. I don't have to be
Speaker 1: Disney like plus plus plus I think Disney x Disney Max. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So the book is called The Lesson and it's a
Speaker 1: science fick and novel and the author's name again is
Speaker 1: cat Will Turnbull. And it's a pretty interesting novel because
Speaker 1: you're saying it kind of re imagines first contact, right,
Speaker 1: because I guess usually first contact still worries are either
Speaker 1: really good or really bad. Right. There's the et version
Speaker 1: where the aliens are friendly, and then there's the Independence
Speaker 1: Day version where the aliens are just here to destroyers. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And it reimagined it in several ways. You know, usually
Speaker 1: when the aliens come, they like land on the lawn
Speaker 1: of the White House, or attack New York City or
Speaker 1: something here. Instead, he centers the aliens in the Virgin Islands,
Speaker 1: not in like the financial or population or political center
Speaker 1: of the United States or of the world, but in
Speaker 1: this sort of like off the beaten path place. And
Speaker 1: he does something really cool with it, which is that
Speaker 1: he uses the arrival of aliens to sort of cast
Speaker 1: a light on or make us think more deeply about
Speaker 1: something that already exists in our society, and that's the
Speaker 1: sort of colonial power structure. And he's from the Virgin Islands,
Speaker 1: so he knows a lot about the history and the
Speaker 1: you know, colonial mistakes that were made in the waves
Speaker 1: of the you know, the Spanish and the Danish and
Speaker 1: then the Americans sort of coming and taking over and
Speaker 1: making use of it for themselves. And so he imagines
Speaker 1: this alien arrival sort of like the latest in waves
Speaker 1: of colonization of the Virgin Islands. That's pretty cool. I
Speaker 1: guess if I was an alien, I would also land
Speaker 1: in a tropical paradise, probably like it in New York City.
Speaker 1: It's terrible there in the winter. Well maybe for an alien,
Speaker 1: New York City is a tropical paradise, right, maybe they
Speaker 1: like to lounge on the beaches covered with snow. You know,
Speaker 1: who knows where they're alien planet is like, right, I
Speaker 1: guess New Yorkers are pretty um exotic. They are, in fact.
Speaker 1: And the cool thing is that he imagines this spaceship
Speaker 1: itself also sort of looks like a shell, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like some weird mechanical object or even like
Speaker 1: a tic tac like we've seen in those Navy UFO videos.
Speaker 1: It looks like a shell. It's like a massive seashell
Speaker 1: descends and hangs out on the top of a mountain
Speaker 1: and the Virgin islands. Interesting, like a giant clamshell. No,
Speaker 1: more like a nautilus shell, one of those like round
Speaker 1: ones with the many loops in it, like the kind
Speaker 1: of spirally. Oh, that's pretty cool. And that's how they land.
Speaker 1: It's like it floats, it lands, it crashes, what does
Speaker 1: it do? It gently floats and lands on the top.
Speaker 1: And then the aliens come out and they greet humanity
Speaker 1: and they come bearing gifts. Initially, obviously, these aliens are
Speaker 1: much more technologically advanced than we are because they can
Speaker 1: get here from where they came from, and they have
Speaker 1: very powerful technology. And initially they're just like bestowing gifts.
Speaker 1: You know. They cure diseases, and they give us technology,
Speaker 1: and they solve our energy problems and all sorts of stuff. Interesting.
Speaker 1: They bring good things at first, they do. They're like
Speaker 1: dinner party guests, you know, they show up with chocolates
Speaker 1: and wine and everything. They have very good manners in
Speaker 1: the beginning. And these aliens have a name, right the
Speaker 1: aliens of the name. They're called the Inna. It's spelled
Speaker 1: y n a a and pronounced the ina. And they
Speaker 1: sort of can look like humans underneath, there's something different,
Speaker 1: right they but they can sort of like put on
Speaker 1: this facade so they look more human, but they never
Speaker 1: quite human. They're always like a little bit weird, a
Speaker 1: little bit different. You can tell when one of them
Speaker 1: is around. They don't blend in perfectly smoothly into the
Speaker 1: human population like New Yorkers. Basically, I'm gonna leave that alone.
Speaker 1: But it's like a costume, like a hologram or like
Speaker 1: are they like piloting you know, human like you know,
Speaker 1: bio robots. So they have this technology in them called reefs,
Speaker 1: which are like little nano robots which they can use
Speaker 1: to you know, repair their bodies or make their bodies
Speaker 1: look different, or controller bodies in all sorts of ways,
Speaker 1: and the sort of under mental control. And so they
Speaker 1: have this technology where they can basically sheath themselves and
Speaker 1: these nano robots to give themselves another appearance. And you know,
Speaker 1: Cantabal I think is more interested in the emotional intellectual
Speaker 1: response and the relationship that is built rather than like
Speaker 1: the details of the technology of how this works. So
Speaker 1: he glosses over that a little bit. He glosses over
Speaker 1: how the technology works. All right. So there they come
Speaker 1: in bearing gifts and they solve all of our problems.
Speaker 1: But soon, um, things are not quite what they seem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are more powerful than we are, and they are
Speaker 1: here for a reason, right, They're not just like on
Speaker 1: a tour of beaches of the galaxy. They came looking
Speaker 1: for something and they have their own interests. And you know,
Speaker 1: when a more powerful visitor comes to your shores wanting
Speaker 1: something your resources or something from your civilization, then they
Speaker 1: do what they need to to get it. And that's
Speaker 1: sort of the history of the Virgin Islands. You know.
Speaker 1: People come and they take advantage of the resources and
Speaker 1: the opportunities that are there. And so when the interests
Speaker 1: of the humans and the ena conflict, then the humans
Speaker 1: find out what happens, which is that the Nail respond
Speaker 1: with casual but overwhelming violence. Wow, they're salty, and they
Speaker 1: are salty. They're sweet and salty, that's right. As we
Speaker 1: meet more of the Email, we find some of them
Speaker 1: are less interested in being friendly with the humans and
Speaker 1: even like casual disrespect, you know, stepping in front of
Speaker 1: them or brushing against them can be met with violence,
Speaker 1: like being torn in half. And it becomes pretty clear
Speaker 1: that the Inna don't see the humans as equals. They
Speaker 1: see them sort of lookin to the way we see
Speaker 1: dogs or cows. You know, they're like, they're they're fine.
Speaker 1: You want to keep them half be if it's convenient,
Speaker 1: but as soon as it's inconvenient or annoying, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't think about their rights. We're just like means
Speaker 1: to an end for them, we are means to an end.
Speaker 1: And again, there's a really nice sort of parallel here
Speaker 1: to colonial structures, right. You know when colonists come sometimes
Speaker 1: they have a very patronizing attitude like we're gonna bring
Speaker 1: new technology and we're gonna bring our culture, and this
Speaker 1: is gonna be good for everybody. But really it's just
Speaker 1: good for the colonists, right. They think they're there to
Speaker 1: save the people that are already there. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's meant to sort of mirror the colonial history
Speaker 1: of the Virgin Islands kind of. Yeah, as a lot
Speaker 1: of really good science fiction does, it's written in a
Speaker 1: way to make us think about what's already going on
Speaker 1: in our society by exaggerating it, by accentuating it, by
Speaker 1: throwing a light on it, you know, from a science
Speaker 1: fiction point of view. And so he does a great
Speaker 1: job of doing that, and it's really interesting. He's a
Speaker 1: he's a great writer. And a lot of the characters
Speaker 1: respond in interesting ways, you know, some of them like
Speaker 1: rebel against the Ina, and some of them are collaborators,
Speaker 1: they work with the Ina. Some of them even form
Speaker 1: like romantic relations and ships with the alien. WHOA, So
Speaker 1: I guess there's variation not just in the humans, but
Speaker 1: maybe also in the aliens, Like some aliens fall in
Speaker 1: love with the humans and some are maybe more sympathetic
Speaker 1: and some less. Yeah, just like in every colonial story, right,
Speaker 1: you have a whole spectrum of people with different attitudes
Speaker 1: and different responses. So it's quite realistic and really quite engaging,
Speaker 1: I stated reading this book. All Right, well, let's get
Speaker 1: into the science of the Lesson by cut Will Turnbull
Speaker 1: and then let's get to your interview with the author.
Speaker 1: But first let's take a quick break. Alright, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the science fiction universe of cat Will Turnbulls. The
Speaker 1: Lesson debut science fiction novel kind of about colonialism, but
Speaker 1: more like space colonialism exactly. Galactic colonialism. Galactic colonialism. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that anytime you use that word, it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound great. And this is sort of a topic that
Speaker 1: is in the conversation right now in our culture right now,
Speaker 1: when we talk about going to Mars and maybe colonizing Mars,
Speaker 1: there's people sort of on both sides of the issue
Speaker 1: and saying that that's a good thing or that's a
Speaker 1: bad thing, right, Yeah, exactly. People talk about the need
Speaker 1: to move humanity off of Earth, so we have our
Speaker 1: eggs in more than one basket, but other folks think
Speaker 1: that we shouldn't just treat the rest of the galaxy
Speaker 1: as like baskets for the taking places to put our eggs.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a long history of human colonialism and
Speaker 1: a lot of it has led to a lot of
Speaker 1: pain and suffering, and a lot of mistakes were made
Speaker 1: sort of in the interests of capitalism or the interest
Speaker 1: of spreading our culture. So there are folks out there
Speaker 1: who want us to take a pause and think about,
Speaker 1: like should we let private companies like SpaceX lead the
Speaker 1: way to Mars and build colonies on Mars and sort
Speaker 1: of structure it in a explorational, colonial capitalistic way, or
Speaker 1: should we take a more measured approach. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of discussion on both sides of this issue, right,
Speaker 1: And it's not just sort of about whether there are
Speaker 1: aliens or Martians there on Mars that we will be
Speaker 1: taking over. So I think it's more about sort of
Speaker 1: preserving the Marsnis of Mars also, right, not sort of
Speaker 1: like going there and just completely, you know, turning it
Speaker 1: into Earth. Yeah, the question is, you know, are there
Speaker 1: martians on Mars And if we come and we aggressively
Speaker 1: terraform it, could we be wiping out Martian life, which
Speaker 1: would be scientifically a tragedy of course, but also from
Speaker 1: the point of view of like the value of life,
Speaker 1: could be effectively genocide of an entire new, potentially independent
Speaker 1: form of life. And then there are people who take
Speaker 1: it a step further and say, even if there isn't
Speaker 1: life on Mars now, there could be life on Mars
Speaker 1: in a million years, and if we go and we
Speaker 1: turn into Earth, that could be preventing independent life on Mars.
Speaker 1: So there's a whole fascinating spectrum of ideas there. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting subtleties there in real ethical and
Speaker 1: moral decisions we should sort of make consciously rather than
Speaker 1: just sort of like steamrolling because it sounds cool, rather
Speaker 1: than just letting Ela Musk do whatever he wants. I
Speaker 1: don't do you want him to be president of Mars.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's done some cool stuff. I think he's
Speaker 1: president of planet right now. Anyways, Another really interesting question
Speaker 1: is the whether the same issues applied to exploration of
Speaker 1: the Solar System and the galaxy as they did to
Speaker 1: exploration of Earth. You know, a lot of colonialism and
Speaker 1: conflict on Earth is born from limited resources. Everybody wants
Speaker 1: gold or people are looking for places to grow crops
Speaker 1: or etcetera, etcetera. But you know, when it comes to
Speaker 1: the Solar System, it is so rich with resources. There's
Speaker 1: so much water out there and platinum out there, and
Speaker 1: so many planets. I'm not sure we necessarily need to
Speaker 1: fight over resources. Well, I think that's the dream, right
Speaker 1: The dream is not just to get more, to get more.
Speaker 1: The dream is to get more so that we stopped
Speaker 1: fighting over more. Yeah. And one question that Kendbell raises
Speaker 1: in his book is whether that's possible, whether species that
Speaker 1: sort of came into existence out of conflict out of
Speaker 1: this struggle for survival on the gravity well of one planet?
Speaker 1: Can ever break free from that and live in a
Speaker 1: poor scarcity society? In science fiction is a whole like
Speaker 1: set of books that deal with like a post scarcity
Speaker 1: society like Ian Banks culture novels where everybody has everything
Speaker 1: they ever want and can get it instantly. What is
Speaker 1: life like in that kind of utopian society? And then
Speaker 1: folks who think that that's never going to happen. And
Speaker 1: the humans are humans and we will always be fighting
Speaker 1: even if we have you know, planet sized blobs of platinum,
Speaker 1: there still will be people who want more or want
Speaker 1: it all for themselves, right, Like, are our humans inherently greedy? Like?
Speaker 1: Will never ever be enough? And maybe not? Right Like,
Speaker 1: maybe there's something about humans that we'll always want more
Speaker 1: than the other person. Yeah, Jeff Bezos is an argument
Speaker 1: that humans will always be greedy and want more. Whoa, Well,
Speaker 1: he's going to be an astronaut soon and he might
Speaker 1: be president of Mars. Daniels watch out, what about what
Speaker 1: do you say? Yeah? Well, I don't know if he's
Speaker 1: a listener to this podcast, but if the president of
Speaker 1: Mars is a race between Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 1: I might not even vote Daniel is your galactic duty? Well,
Speaker 1: back to the novel, you know, that's something that he
Speaker 1: focuses on. The name of the book is the lesson,
Speaker 1: and the lesson. Without spoiling the book, I can tell
Speaker 1: you that the lesson the Aliens come to teach us
Speaker 1: is that there is always struggle, that every society has
Speaker 1: to fight and struggle to survive. And then that's just
Speaker 1: sort of the way of life. And as you hear
Speaker 1: me talk to Cadwell about it in our interview, he
Speaker 1: thinks that humanity will never be able to throw off
Speaker 1: those shackles and change and grow into a utopian society,
Speaker 1: even if we have mountains of platinum and you know,
Speaker 1: entire planets of water for everybody. Interesting, Yeah, I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, we like that's what life is, right. It's
Speaker 1: a struggle, it's a competition. That's how it evolves. And
Speaker 1: it's hard to turn that off. It is hard to
Speaker 1: turn that off, I suppose. But you know, we live
Speaker 1: differently now than we did a thousand years ago and
Speaker 1: twenty tho years ago and fifty thou years ago, and
Speaker 1: I have hope that humans can evolve, that we can
Speaker 1: change the way we live, that we won't always be
Speaker 1: struggling and have massive economic inequality. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: want that if we become a space bearing species, that
Speaker 1: I have one person owns and nine of the planets,
Speaker 1: and you know, the rest of humanity is crowded onto
Speaker 1: one little one. You know, that's sort of an extension
Speaker 1: of the Jeff Bezos style gathering of resources. I hope
Speaker 1: that we can, you know, lift everybody out of poverty.
Speaker 1: That's the idea. But we'll see. I think the lesson
Speaker 1: I'm learning here is how much you hate Jeff Begers. Daniel,
Speaker 1: I had no idea, you see, the sort of the
Speaker 1: pitome of evil these days for you. No, I don't
Speaker 1: know the guy at all, But I don't understand why
Speaker 1: anybody needs that much money. Well that's because you've never
Speaker 1: had it, Daniel. I have never had it, exactly, and
Speaker 1: in that situation, I don't know how I would act,
Speaker 1: So I shouldn't judge the man. All right, Well, let's
Speaker 1: get into some of the science in the lesson by
Speaker 1: Capital Turnbull. There are a couple of interesting science technologies
Speaker 1: here that he has in his book. There's this idea
Speaker 1: of nanobots called reefs, and whether or not aliens can
Speaker 1: even get here or whether you know, first contact is
Speaker 1: a possibility for us, and if they come, what they
Speaker 1: actually be superior to us or not. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of really interesting science here. One of
Speaker 1: the coolest science fiction things he has in his book
Speaker 1: are these things called reefs. So these are like little
Speaker 1: nanobots that the aliens can control with their minds. So
Speaker 1: they basically, you know, they tell them to enter human
Speaker 1: body and repair it. For example, so when one alien
Speaker 1: wants to help a human, they can just like send
Speaker 1: these reefs sins they fix this problem, or that's how
Speaker 1: they cure a lot of human diseases. They share these
Speaker 1: little nanobots around and have them like go inside the
Speaker 1: body and do little repairs, and that's pretty awesome. Of course,
Speaker 1: it also has other consequences. I mean, if the aliens
Speaker 1: have filled your body with nanobots under their control, they
Speaker 1: can do things like you know, kill people at will,
Speaker 1: because they basically are in total control of your bodily functions.
Speaker 1: So not something I would necessarily sign up for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't drink the nanobots exactly, but you know, is it realistic?
Speaker 1: Could you actually do this? I mean I think this
Speaker 1: is the kind of thing people are working on, you know,
Speaker 1: synthetic immune systems, things like that, tiny little robots that
Speaker 1: can find and attack cells. I don't know how you
Speaker 1: would accomplish like actual like mind control of these robots,
Speaker 1: telling them, coordinating them somehow to do things. But it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem impossible to me. I mean, you're the engineer.
Speaker 1: Tell me, do you think nano robots are the future? Well?
Speaker 1: I always wonder if with anything robotics is like where
Speaker 1: do they get their power? Like what you know, it
Speaker 1: takes energy to move these things, for these things to
Speaker 1: do things like do they have little tiny nano batteries?
Speaker 1: Do you see that as being possible? Or how do
Speaker 1: you recharge? Do you know what I mean? Or how
Speaker 1: do you build them? That's another thing I always wonder about,
Speaker 1: Like I guess if you have nano bots, then you
Speaker 1: can have them build other nana bots. But how do
Speaker 1: you build the first nana box. Maybe you need like
Speaker 1: a microbot to build the nano bot, and you need
Speaker 1: a millibot to build a microbots. You just get smaller
Speaker 1: and I stop with nano or I guess maybe a
Speaker 1: nano you start getting into atomic limits, like, are these
Speaker 1: like robots with individual atoms? Yeah? Yeah, I suppose you
Speaker 1: could build them out of individual atoms, but that would
Speaker 1: limit their complexity in terms of the power. I always figured,
Speaker 1: you know, they could power themselves the way our cells
Speaker 1: power themselves. Our cells don't have little batteries. They you know,
Speaker 1: live along a flow of energy from our blood. So
Speaker 1: I figured, you know, nano bots could like sip energy
Speaker 1: from our blood just the same way everything else does.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how I would design it. That's even
Speaker 1: more terrifying. They sit inside you, sucking up your here blood. No,
Speaker 1: it's like a diet. Now I can eat as much
Speaker 1: as I want because the nanobots are using all the calories. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but if the aliens want to eat is wouldn't that
Speaker 1: be counter productive? Oh that's true? Yeah exactly. Maybe. Well,
Speaker 1: I guess the other part is the mind control, Like
Speaker 1: how would you transmit your thoughts to these things? And
Speaker 1: I guess you need it like an amplifier, and then
Speaker 1: how would you decode your thoughts? Does the book get
Speaker 1: into any of that. It was just sort of magical.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of left unspecified. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: tended to be magical, But I don't think Cadwell's interest
Speaker 1: was like figuring out the technical details of how that worked.
Speaker 1: But you know, you could imagine you have a bout
Speaker 1: the brain that can read your signals, and maybe they
Speaker 1: don't have to be all directly controlled. You can like
Speaker 1: pass messages from Nana bat to Nana bat. They have
Speaker 1: effectively like our network, and so they can communicate sort
Speaker 1: of like in lots of little leaps, perhaps so to
Speaker 1: the way the internetworks. So, I mean, I don't have
Speaker 1: a solution to this, but I imagine that it could
Speaker 1: be possible. When I was reading this, I didn't think, oh,
Speaker 1: that's implausible. It didn't take me out of the story.
Speaker 1: I just thought, well, that would be pretty cool. I
Speaker 1: guess as a physicist you're like, sure, why not. But
Speaker 1: maybe it's an engineer. Someone might be like, but how
Speaker 1: do you make that work exactly? How are we going
Speaker 1: to fix these things? How are we going to repair
Speaker 1: these things? How we're going to produce software upgrades? You're like,
Speaker 1: I'll leave it to the lesser beings, the engineers. Thanks
Speaker 1: your words, all right, Well, the other little bit of
Speaker 1: science here is about aliens coming to Earth and is
Speaker 1: that realistic or not? Yeah, And this is a question
Speaker 1: that really has popped up a lot recently because we've
Speaker 1: seen these alien UFO videos and people are wondering, like,
Speaker 1: is it even plausible for extraterrestrials to come to Earth?
Speaker 1: You know, we know that there are a lot of
Speaker 1: other planets out there that might potentially harbor life like
Speaker 1: on Earth, but we don't know if there are any
Speaker 1: near enough to come visit us because even the nearest
Speaker 1: stars are pretty far away. The closest star to Earth
Speaker 1: is almost four light years away, and any reasonable kind
Speaker 1: of travel that's not FTL would take decades to get here,
Speaker 1: and so exploring the galaxy feels like it would take
Speaker 1: a long time. So without some sort of FTL travel
Speaker 1: like a warp drive or a wormhole, it does seem
Speaker 1: sort of implausible that aliens would come here, because how
Speaker 1: would they even know that we are here? Our signals
Speaker 1: have been broadcasted very far. We haven't put out very
Speaker 1: powerful signals, so you have to be really near by
Speaker 1: our solar system to even detect us to know we're here.
Speaker 1: But FDL you mean faster than light, right, Yeah? Exactly,
Speaker 1: because the galaxy is pretty big, the distances between stars
Speaker 1: are large, and we have this speed limit of light speed,
Speaker 1: and so without being able to go faster than light ftl,
Speaker 1: it seems pretty difficult to explore the galaxy and find
Speaker 1: all the glorious beaches for aliens to hang out on, right,
Speaker 1: I guess one question I always have is why would
Speaker 1: they come here? I mean, like, if the Solar System
Speaker 1: is so full of resources and water and metals and
Speaker 1: minerals and materials, Like, why even make a stop on
Speaker 1: Earth with these you know, locals, Why not just like
Speaker 1: take what they need from the Solar System and leave. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great question, and I can answer that question
Speaker 1: about this book without spoiling it. But these aliens are
Speaker 1: hunting for something specific, and they have been exploring the
Speaker 1: galaxy for a long time without finding it, and they
Speaker 1: think they might be able to find it on Earth.
Speaker 1: And that's the reason they are here, which isn't revealed
Speaker 1: until late to the book and super fascinating and pretty creative.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to spoil it for our listeners,
Speaker 1: But it might be that Earth does have something rare.
Speaker 1: You know, what if life is pretty rare in the galaxy.
Speaker 1: Then Earth represents something like a jewel, you know, billions
Speaker 1: of years of evolution working to solve a problem of
Speaker 1: highly evolved complex little biological machines that are maybe otherwise
Speaker 1: difficult to figure out. You can look at, evolution is
Speaker 1: sort of like a big computation, you know, solving a
Speaker 1: problem very slowly over billions of years, finding a solution
Speaker 1: through all this repeated mutation and evaluation. In some sense,
Speaker 1: it's extremely valuable information just to know, like, here's a
Speaker 1: potential solution to the life problem. Yeah, and potentially delicious
Speaker 1: as well, which is maybe the problem in this case.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't read the book, but it
Speaker 1: sort of seems like that's where here maybe leaning, But
Speaker 1: I guess folks will have to read the book to
Speaker 1: find out. Yes, folks will have to read the book.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, then let's get to your interview with
Speaker 1: author cat Will Turnbull, who wrote the book to The Lesson,
Speaker 1: available now wherever you can find books. Here's Daniel's interview.
Speaker 1: All right, So then it's my absolute pleasure to welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Cadwell Turnbull, author of The Lesson, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. Hey, yeah, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thanks very much for joining us. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed your book. Congratulations, And I'd like to hear first
Speaker 1: about how you got into science fiction writing or speculative fiction.
Speaker 1: Tell us a little bit about background, where you came from,
Speaker 1: how this happened for you. So I grew up in
Speaker 1: the Virgin Islands. I grew up once Si comments and
Speaker 1: my mom was a science fiction nerd, but mostly films,
Speaker 1: so she watched we had like a collection of our
Speaker 1: Trek films. I had not watched any of the show,
Speaker 1: just the movies and a bunch of other like science
Speaker 1: fiction movies. So you know, she had time tops I
Speaker 1: would watch that with her serenity. Um, thank jeez, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to I'm spacing on the name of this movie.
Speaker 1: And I watched it like a million times Wow to
Speaker 1: kick with my mom. It's um Dennis Quaid because the
Speaker 1: guy that played Jesus. Is it the time Trouble one
Speaker 1: where they communicate back and forth yes yes or something
Speaker 1: frequency yes? So frequency was you know, another one. And
Speaker 1: then we also with TV, we watched star Gate together.
Speaker 1: And so when I was, you know, in high school,
Speaker 1: I was really into start Gate as you one, and
Speaker 1: that was the thing that I watched a lot, and
Speaker 1: you know, I was the one that was watching it,
Speaker 1: and my mom was said and watching me. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how I got into you know, science fiction, you know,
Speaker 1: in a in a general sense. But at school, you know,
Speaker 1: in high school, they would occasionally assigned us to read
Speaker 1: things that were science fiction adjacent, so like you know,
Speaker 1: Great New World, and I always found those stories more
Speaker 1: interesting than the more literary stories, and so I would
Speaker 1: actually finish those books and be able to you know,
Speaker 1: talk about them, and I would write about them for school.
Speaker 1: And then once I got to college, I um, I
Speaker 1: just started reading a lot of science fiction on my own,
Speaker 1: you know, getting recommendations from friends in that on St.
Speaker 1: Thomas that wasn't really like the community of science fiction readers,
Speaker 1: and so it was whatever I stumbled across. And then
Speaker 1: once I like you know, went to Pittsburgh for undergrads,
Speaker 1: who met some other people that was into it, and
Speaker 1: they gave me books to read. And so that's how
Speaker 1: I got into the literature. You know. One of the
Speaker 1: earlier books that a friend handed me was a lot
Speaker 1: of Heaven Quinn and I love this so much, and
Speaker 1: I just continued reading her books, and now she's like
Speaker 1: my favorite author, she really favorite author to this thing wonderful. Well,
Speaker 1: then I'd like to ask you some questions to sort
Speaker 1: of orient you in the universe of science fiction authors.
Speaker 1: These are questions we ask all of our science fiction
Speaker 1: author guests so we can sort of calibrate. So you're
Speaker 1: very familiar with Star Trek and the technology there, what's
Speaker 1: your opinion on the philosophical question of whether a Star
Speaker 1: Trek transporter kills you and clones you, recreating you somewhere else,
Speaker 1: or actually transports your very atoms to another location. Oh wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: so this makes me think of It's not like the transporter,
Speaker 1: but it makes me think of think like a dinosaur.
Speaker 1: By Jim Kelly. It was a story that he wrote
Speaker 1: in response to an older story called The Cold Equations.
Speaker 1: It's about a teleportation machine. Got of I's you are
Speaker 1: transferred to another place, but I'm gonna spoil the whole story.
Speaker 1: What happens is that the machine actually, because you know,
Speaker 1: the aliens that created don't believe in like creating more stuff,
Speaker 1: You'll be copied and transported to that new place where
Speaker 1: you'll be recreated and then that original version of you
Speaker 1: will basically be murdered, you know. It's it's like the
Speaker 1: Prestige let, It's basic. I just love that story because
Speaker 1: it asked that same question, right, It's like, it is
Speaker 1: the person that is recreated on the other side you
Speaker 1: or is that another you? And wouldn't matter to me
Speaker 1: being copy? If my copy lives on, I'm dead, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think you know, Star Trek I think tries to,
Speaker 1: you know, hide that fact by the fact it's like
Speaker 1: it's the same particles. But like even if you are
Speaker 1: sit apart into particles and recreated in another environment, and
Speaker 1: my suspicion is you died, you know, that's where my
Speaker 1: mind goes. I have a pretty dark reading on it.
Speaker 1: It's I don't think you can just like be blown
Speaker 1: apart and pull back together. And that's the same contest,
Speaker 1: that's the other right, So then would you be willing
Speaker 1: to step into a Star Trek transporter somebody shows up
Speaker 1: and says, hey, no more commuting for you. Would you
Speaker 1: be willing to do that? Or is that essentially signing
Speaker 1: up for your own murder? I think it's signed up
Speaker 1: for my own murder. I think I like the idea
Speaker 1: of a portal more than a teleporter, you know, like
Speaker 1: two areas in space being connected by me from kind
Speaker 1: of the right thing to walk through that makes me
Speaker 1: feel like I'm not dead. But the teleporter, I think,
Speaker 1: if it requires me to be blown apart and pull
Speaker 1: back together, I am not for it. So then what
Speaker 1: technology and science fiction would you like to most see
Speaker 1: actually become reality? What should a scientists be working on?
Speaker 1: What's our number one priority? I mean, I feel like
Speaker 1: the first question set me up for this, the portal,
Speaker 1: Like I really want to be able to like right now.
Speaker 1: So it was like it about this. So I just
Speaker 1: kind of new job at all Kalinda State University, you know,
Speaker 1: teaching creative brading and thank you so much, thank you.
Speaker 1: And my wife is a scientist and she's finishing off
Speaker 1: her PhD at Harvard and basically had to you know,
Speaker 1: separate for you know, for me to take this job,
Speaker 1: for her to continued to her work, and she's coming
Speaker 1: down at the end of the summer. But it would
Speaker 1: have been really great if there was just a door
Speaker 1: in my apartment that I could open up and walk
Speaker 1: through and I can meet up there hang out with
Speaker 1: you know, my wife and go to work. That would
Speaker 1: just be fantastic, And so I think a lot about
Speaker 1: it. It It is, um, I just finished the edits to
Speaker 1: my second book, and there's something like that in this book.
Speaker 1: Because I've been thinking a lot about it. It's like
Speaker 1: the next step in zoom technology. Right, you could actually
Speaker 1: just go through and be in a room together without
Speaker 1: having to commute. That would be great. So then let
Speaker 1: me ask you one more generic question before we dive
Speaker 1: into your book, which is what's your personal and swerve
Speaker 1: to the Fermi paradox. If there are so many amazing
Speaker 1: planets out there, the team like they could harbor life,
Speaker 1: and the galaxy is quite old and doesn't take that
Speaker 1: long to get across, why haven't we been visited by
Speaker 1: aliens yet? Okay, so two thoughts for this. The first
Speaker 1: thought is that maybe we have. And you know, like
Speaker 1: I remember it was just earlier this week. I opened
Speaker 1: my phone, I went on Twitter, and I just saw
Speaker 1: trending that the Pentagon is going to release, you know,
Speaker 1: the classified documents about your post, and it was all
Speaker 1: of the legitimate news sources. I was just blowing my
Speaker 1: mind because I'm like, I was like, we're in the
Speaker 1: middle of a sci fi you know story right now
Speaker 1: with you know what's going on, And then I'm reading
Speaker 1: about u POS and it's being taken seriously, it's news.
Speaker 1: Obama is talking about it right right right, Obama is
Speaker 1: talking about it, you know, high, high up officials are like,
Speaker 1: this is a conservative? Is the sperity? I was like,
Speaker 1: is this them? Seems like they've been chilling out, So
Speaker 1: maybe maybe they are and we just can't even understand it,
Speaker 1: Like they are visiting us, but they're like, well, why
Speaker 1: even bother trying to have a conversation with us? We
Speaker 1: we clearly can't talk to them, and we're clearly not
Speaker 1: even you know, remotely close to us as bad as
Speaker 1: they are. The probably just kind of just hang out
Speaker 1: and then they go back and they're like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: there are things are doing, okay, I guess, And that's
Speaker 1: pretty much it. The other answer I have is that
Speaker 1: I really like the second book, where I like is
Speaker 1: the wrong word for it, but I really enjoyed the
Speaker 1: second book for to the Remembers the First Past by
Speaker 1: six and Loup the Dark Chorus, and that book posits
Speaker 1: that the reason why no one's talking is because everyone's
Speaker 1: smart and we're quite dumb and we're trying to talk
Speaker 1: to aliens aliens and like, yo, and should shut up
Speaker 1: because you know, there's we might not kill you, but
Speaker 1: there's some super advance you know, you know, you only
Speaker 1: and somewhere else they are going to just be like,
Speaker 1: let's just take care of that problem before it becomes
Speaker 1: a problem. You know, if we're advanced enough to try
Speaker 1: to communicate with aliens, I imagine aliens being other aliens
Speaker 1: being self protective, you know, might preemptively respond to that
Speaker 1: in an aggressive and negative way. And that's nice marrish,
Speaker 1: but it seems plausible, sort of like we moved into
Speaker 1: a dangerous neighborhood and we're inviting everybody over for brunch,
Speaker 1: right right. The analogy that the book uses is that
Speaker 1: like it's a forest and every day is on pers
Speaker 1: in it, and we're the ones that like the fire.
Speaker 1: We lit the fire, and now everyone knows where we are,
Speaker 1: you know. Basically, Yeah, So I think both of those
Speaker 1: answers boils down to they're being careful. That's why we
Speaker 1: can't really confirm it, because aliens aren't establishing first contact
Speaker 1: in the way that we might imagine it being. Either
Speaker 1: they're you know, laying low, or they're researching us. They're
Speaker 1: just like checking up from awesome. Thanks, all right, wonderful.
Speaker 1: I have lots more questions for our guest author, but
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. Okay, we're back and
Speaker 1: we're talking to Cadwell Turnbull, author of The Lesson. So
Speaker 1: let's turn to the subject of your book, The Lesson,
Speaker 1: which is an awesome first contact story. When I read
Speaker 1: really good science fiction, I love when it sort of
Speaker 1: shines a light on something that already exists in our world.
Speaker 1: It makes us think about something we're living but not
Speaker 1: really paying attention to by accentuating it. And in your book,
Speaker 1: something you highlight is the power dynamics of society and
Speaker 1: the structures that enable it and support that and categorize
Speaker 1: people into sort of different classes of rights and privileges,
Speaker 1: especially in a colonial setting. And so when the aliens
Speaker 1: arrive in your book, they sort of fit in at
Speaker 1: the top layer of this power structure. Did you write
Speaker 1: it in this way on purpose, intentionally adding this new
Speaker 1: alien layer to sort of shine a light on the
Speaker 1: colonial and historical power structure as we have here on earth.
Speaker 1: Answers yes. By the end of it like eventually the
Speaker 1: book was doing that on purpose, but I don't think
Speaker 1: I started that way. So the novel as a whole
Speaker 1: was inspired by a dream that I had several years
Speaker 1: back at this point, because it took me several years
Speaker 1: to write this thing. And it was set in a
Speaker 1: small town and there were aliens in that small town,
Speaker 1: but they looked like people. There was something off about them,
Speaker 1: and you could just tell that they were aliens pretending
Speaker 1: to be people. And they acted just like the na
Speaker 1: in the book They, you know, is the alien raised
Speaker 1: in the book, and they anytime they felt threatened or
Speaker 1: disrespected in a way that made them worry for their
Speaker 1: safety at all, they would respond with, like you know,
Speaker 1: egregious acts of violence. That dream had a character very
Speaker 1: much like the Ambassador character in the book Mirror, and
Speaker 1: she was starting to feel guilty about her specific responses
Speaker 1: the threats because she was living among humans long enough
Speaker 1: to kind of incorporate some of human or y. And
Speaker 1: there was a character that was very much like the
Speaker 1: Derrick character in the book. And the dream was so
Speaker 1: memorable to me that I thought that I should definitely
Speaker 1: do something with this. When your subconscious gives you something
Speaker 1: that good. You know, I feel like you're obligated to
Speaker 1: at least try, and so that first. The very first
Speaker 1: thing I tried was that story transplanted to the US
Speaker 1: Virgin Islands and having it was pretty much the same
Speaker 1: kind of set up. But the more and more I
Speaker 1: worked on it, the more and more I had to
Speaker 1: change it to fit the context. Because the dream that
Speaker 1: I had was like Middle America somewhere. It was somewhere
Speaker 1: in some small town. All the characters were white. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, you know this, that's just what came
Speaker 1: to me. And so when I transplanted it into the
Speaker 1: context that made sense to me. St Thomas, you know,
Speaker 1: mostly predominantly black. All of these other themes started coming up.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, if this is transplanted to the
Speaker 1: Virgin Islands, this is how the Virgin Islands people will
Speaker 1: read this thing. You know, if they either show up
Speaker 1: and they're super powerful and they have all of these
Speaker 1: great gifts, but they respond to any you know, threat
Speaker 1: with you know, this kind of like violence that will
Speaker 1: be memorable, that will remind the virginal as people of colonialism,
Speaker 1: things that have happened in the past. You know, like
Speaker 1: how the Danish treated, you know, the slave society of
Speaker 1: that time, right, And so it seemed to me that
Speaker 1: as soon as I made that transplant, it became about
Speaker 1: colonialism as well as power. So their dream was about
Speaker 1: what do you do with power? And you know, how
Speaker 1: do you challenge beings more powerful than you? But because
Speaker 1: I made this decision, it also became about how does
Speaker 1: that also map onto you know, things that have happened
Speaker 1: in our past. How does it map onto colonialism and
Speaker 1: powerful you know, societies on our own world going to
Speaker 1: new places and subjugating the people there, or bringing people
Speaker 1: to be subjugated. So then when you wrote the story,
Speaker 1: is it necessary for them to be aliens? I mean,
Speaker 1: could you have written a similar story with like some
Speaker 1: overwhelming human army that comes and decides to recolonize or
Speaker 1: subjugate the people there. What about it makes it necessary
Speaker 1: for them to be aliens? I mean, I love aliens.
Speaker 1: I'm glad they were aliens. I mean, and that's that
Speaker 1: would be my My most basic response is just like,
Speaker 1: I love aliens. That's fine, But I think it would
Speaker 1: be a really different story if it was just another empire.
Speaker 1: You know, I wouldn't be able to do two mappes
Speaker 1: so closely to our present, and do you know, have
Speaker 1: the Virgin aledge remained the same? I would have to
Speaker 1: create a justification for why there's a new empire somewhere
Speaker 1: on earthcoming and subjugating the virginality because of originalitis is
Speaker 1: it belongs to the US. And so we're in a
Speaker 1: pretty stable state of colonialism, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It's like the US if we misbehaved, shows up, you know,
Speaker 1: and they're like, what are you guys doing? Otherwise we're
Speaker 1: kind of like left to you know, to the most part,
Speaker 1: our own devices, and our structure is pretty much like
Speaker 1: any American state. And so I would have to create
Speaker 1: a context for to make that possible for another human
Speaker 1: nation to come there and subjugate did us Virgin Islands
Speaker 1: without the U s say hey, no, that's ours. But
Speaker 1: the other the other aswer to that is I just
Speaker 1: think that there's some really interesting things to do with
Speaker 1: aliens that are not just colonialism. And so so the
Speaker 1: book plays with that question of colonialism, but I also
Speaker 1: wanted to ask more existential questions about like how far
Speaker 1: would you go to make yourself improvious to harm? It
Speaker 1: is like the whole motive for the Eena is a
Speaker 1: really important aspect of their culture and their belief system.
Speaker 1: That they believe that the universe is this like, you know,
Speaker 1: ancient enemy that they have the vanquage the universe itself,
Speaker 1: you know, So you imagine that the humorous of a
Speaker 1: species like that their goal is to become more and
Speaker 1: more powerful so that nothing can hurt them, And that
Speaker 1: to me seems like something that I think is also
Speaker 1: true of humanity. Like I would argue that any person
Speaker 1: seeking power, you know, if I look back at like
Speaker 1: empires of any kind, I think that there's a fundamental
Speaker 1: insecurity that motivates great men or great people to be
Speaker 1: the most powerful thing in the world in the environment
Speaker 1: around them, so that maybe they might be spared, is
Speaker 1: what I think. And so I think the Ena are
Speaker 1: kind of embodiment of that thinking. They're like, if we
Speaker 1: make ourselves impervious, we will be spared. And I think
Speaker 1: that that Aliens needed to come and represent that ideology. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's really interesting and I understand where it
Speaker 1: comes from. Here on Earth, we are all competing for resources.
Speaker 1: There is something of a survival of the fittest, you know,
Speaker 1: not everybody makes it, not every society makes it, not
Speaker 1: every person survives. I wonder though about whether that really
Speaker 1: maps onto the situation of a interstellar galactic empire. You know,
Speaker 1: if you can conquer space, if you can travel through space,
Speaker 1: isn't there enough room for everybody? Aren't there enough planets,
Speaker 1: enough asteroids filled with platinum and have frozen water, enough resources,
Speaker 1: enough stars forever to have whatever they need. Isn't it
Speaker 1: possible we could end up in a post scarcity society?
Speaker 1: Is it colloquial to imagine that will have the same
Speaker 1: sort of conflicts on the galactic scale that we've had
Speaker 1: on the planetary scale. What do you think about the
Speaker 1: future society in that way? So there's two answers to that, right.
Speaker 1: I think that sure that that should be true, that
Speaker 1: everyone can live, and that if we have a universe
Speaker 1: worth of resources at our disposal, we should all be fine.
Speaker 1: But I do think that cultures are built before realities change,
Speaker 1: and that cultures are slow to change in the face
Speaker 1: of new realities, you know what I mean. And so
Speaker 1: my feeling is that right now, if we wanted to,
Speaker 1: we could be okay on Earth, you know, like everyone
Speaker 1: could have all the resources that they need. We could
Speaker 1: live you know, in relative peace and security with some
Speaker 1: measures taken, you know what I mean. But I think
Speaker 1: right now we could do it. But cultures are slow
Speaker 1: and is a lot of conflicts intentions that create you know,
Speaker 1: it's not just the resources, it's ideologies, it's interests that
Speaker 1: create this kind of scarcity. And so my thinking with
Speaker 1: the NA at the very least is that their core
Speaker 1: motivation isn't that they need more resources to be more secure.
Speaker 1: Their motivation is fear. They worry that there's something out there,
Speaker 1: bigger and stronger that will take whatever they've gained from them,
Speaker 1: you know, and so their response is reactive. It's like,
Speaker 1: we continue to look for these, you know, solutions to
Speaker 1: our insecurity so that we can be completely secure. I
Speaker 1: don't think it even occurs to them that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's enough for everyone. It's it's like they believe that
Speaker 1: the universe, and some of this has to do with
Speaker 1: the history that I imagine for them, they believe in
Speaker 1: the universe picks different centiate beings against each other that
Speaker 1: it's like you have to strike first in order to
Speaker 1: be the one that maintains. And it is not a
Speaker 1: very utopian idea, balistic vision, you know, and there's characters
Speaker 1: in this book that try to challenge that belief because
Speaker 1: they think differently. But you know, because you know, have
Speaker 1: a long established culture, it's really hard for to shape that.
Speaker 1: It sounds like they have had a bad experience in
Speaker 1: the dark forest and and now they're more careful. So
Speaker 1: then let me ask you if you don't mind to
Speaker 1: weigh in on some of the current debate about human
Speaker 1: plans for colonization. You know, Elon Musk wants to do
Speaker 1: private colonization of Mars, and a lot of folks in
Speaker 1: the science community are saying, hold on, that's built on
Speaker 1: a colonial structure, which has led to like all sorts
Speaker 1: of terrible things in human history. Maybe we should take
Speaker 1: another approach. What do you think should we let Elon
Speaker 1: Musk be the new Dutch East India Company and colonize
Speaker 1: Mars or should we leave Mars for the Martians? I
Speaker 1: would say no. I think that we've seen on our
Speaker 1: own planet, you know what runaway, you know, capitalism has done,
Speaker 1: and I think that it's dangerous to just extend that
Speaker 1: outward without thinking about regulating it. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: think there's anything necessarily wrong or harmful about space exploration.
Speaker 1: But I do think that, you know, it's legitimate when
Speaker 1: people talk about, well, there's problems here that we haven't solved,
Speaker 1: why are we doing that? And I think that at
Speaker 1: the very least these things should be moving at similar paces,
Speaker 1: or space exploration should be slower than the work that
Speaker 1: we're doing on our own planet. If our own planet
Speaker 1: is a mess, why would we extend that out to
Speaker 1: other planets? Like why would we make other messes? And
Speaker 1: so that's my feeling. I don't think that it should
Speaker 1: be elon Musk. If we do it, it should be
Speaker 1: the public. It should be a collective process, and it
Speaker 1: should be subject to a lot of slow collective decision making.
Speaker 1: So I like to imagine a scenario talking about power structures,
Speaker 1: about what happens when aliens come to Earth. And you know,
Speaker 1: in your book, the aliens, for example, they don't see
Speaker 1: any difference in the value of a human life and
Speaker 1: an Earth dog's life. So we're in sort of like
Speaker 1: a second category below the aliens. And you know, for
Speaker 1: me as a human, this feels shocking when I read it,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of a natural extension of our own
Speaker 1: moral structure here on Earth. We don't value the lives
Speaker 1: of pigs and cows the way we do humans. We
Speaker 1: raise them for meat. So do you think if aliens
Speaker 1: come to Earth and they're vastly superior to us the
Speaker 1: way we imagine we are to cows and pigs, that
Speaker 1: we really have any right to object being treated like
Speaker 1: farm animals, being you know, raised for human bacon, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Do we have a moral leg to stand on there?
Speaker 1: What do you think? This makes me think of a
Speaker 1: really good story from Octavia Butler called Blood Child, where
Speaker 1: we are cattle. It's complicated. We're not exactly cattle. We're
Speaker 1: kind of like birth sex. So like the aliens, they
Speaker 1: use us to help nurture their young, and they live
Speaker 1: inside our bodies and then they burst out of our
Speaker 1: bodies and hopefully, you know, the more progressive aliens try
Speaker 1: to make sure that the humans are not egregiously harmed
Speaker 1: in the process. But they're kind of like, well, whatever
Speaker 1: if they get hungry. If these worms get hungry, you know,
Speaker 1: they have to eat. They have to eat. But I
Speaker 1: think there is a right to object. I think that
Speaker 1: will have no choice but to object because it's us,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think if we can make the argument,
Speaker 1: we can make the argument. You know, if we can
Speaker 1: convince the aliens not to just eat us, that that
Speaker 1: would be great, or not to just use us as
Speaker 1: their their birthday pots, that would be great. But I
Speaker 1: think that in the same way that we make the argument.
Speaker 1: You know, we talk a lot about all of us
Speaker 1: becoming vegetarians, and not all of us will agree. I
Speaker 1: think that we can't expect aliens to all come to
Speaker 1: the same agreement on this. They some of them might.
Speaker 1: We might be able to convince some of them, but
Speaker 1: if it's to their advantage to use us in some
Speaker 1: way that we feel is degrading to who we think
Speaker 1: we are, I think the same rules apply. We'll have
Speaker 1: to convince them or we'll have to fight, and you know,
Speaker 1: we'll likely lose. But I think that there's something to
Speaker 1: be said about gradually moving the ethics of another group
Speaker 1: by continued engagement. But that group in whatever form right. Well,
Speaker 1: there's lots of reasons to be vegetarian, environmental, ethical, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But I suppose one of them is to gain moral
Speaker 1: standing when arguing with our future alien overlords. So let
Speaker 1: me ask you a last question. About the sort the
Speaker 1: science and the physics of your novel in your book,
Speaker 1: these aliens they can travel great distances between the stars.
Speaker 1: How much did you think about, you know, how that
Speaker 1: travel happens and how to make it plausible. How critical
Speaker 1: is it to you that the science of your universe
Speaker 1: be plausible even if it is in the science of
Speaker 1: our universe. That is a very good question. And the
Speaker 1: answer to that is it was not a huge concern,
Speaker 1: to be honest. Some of the ways that I kind
Speaker 1: of like convinced myself that it was okay. It's because
Speaker 1: they are very old, and even if they travel you know, slowly,
Speaker 1: they can do that just fine, and they won't really
Speaker 1: you know, affect them because they live with thousands of
Speaker 1: years already before the events of the book. But I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure in the back of my mind I justified
Speaker 1: it the way that a lot of you know, really
Speaker 1: trophy soft sites for should justifies it is the Ring Gate,
Speaker 1: or they have FTL you know, you know, they jump.
Speaker 1: I did not think about how far away their home
Speaker 1: world was from Earth. Even I was much much more
Speaker 1: concerned with the history of the Virgin Islands and how
Speaker 1: the people were responding to them. And what what it
Speaker 1: made them think about, and questions of faith and all
Speaker 1: of these things that they brought up for the Virgin Islanders.
Speaker 1: And I was also really interested in what the ships
Speaker 1: looked like and model them off of, like reefs and
Speaker 1: coral and seashells, because I thought, this is me the island,
Speaker 1: you know, an Alan culture, see as seashell in the sky,
Speaker 1: and so I just thought about the imagery of that
Speaker 1: more than even the physics of how that would work,
Speaker 1: you know. So I'm ashamed to say not a lot
Speaker 1: of thought. That's all right, it was very compelling. Great.
Speaker 1: We'll tell us if you can a little bit about
Speaker 1: your upcoming book, your next project. So the title of
Speaker 1: it is No Gospel Monster Earth. It's coming out on
Speaker 1: September seven, you know, pretty soon. And it's fantasy. I
Speaker 1: even less consideration about how things work, you know, it's magic.
Speaker 1: So the way that I would pitch it, although how
Speaker 1: I've talked about it in the past, it's imagine the
Speaker 1: Civil Rights era but modernized and with monsters from popular
Speaker 1: culture and Caribbean folklore and you know, other cultures. So
Speaker 1: where worlds vampires, I have a monster in the book
Speaker 1: called a Sukuyant, which is like a you know, local
Speaker 1: Caribbean folklore monster. You know, a bunch of different islands
Speaker 1: have it. It's kind of like a vampire that removes
Speaker 1: its skin. It's kind of like a mix between a
Speaker 1: vampire and a selky. All of these different monsters that
Speaker 1: we recognize and then some made up monsters that I created,
Speaker 1: and they're all advocating for their the human rights in
Speaker 1: a world that has just learned of the existence. I
Speaker 1: very much see it as like a in conversation with
Speaker 1: a lesson. So the lesson is like, how does humanity
Speaker 1: respond to a threat from without? And this one is like,
Speaker 1: how does society respond to a threatful with him? Our
Speaker 1: darkest nightmares are real, and how do we deal with that?
Speaker 1: And are they really that nightmarish? Wow, it sounds like
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. Well, congrats on the lesson, a
Speaker 1: wonderful book, and best of luck on new gods, new monsters.
Speaker 1: And thank you very much for coming on the podcast
Speaker 1: and answering our awkward physics questions. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. This is really fun, all right, pretty
Speaker 1: interesting interview, fascinating author and book. I liked how he
Speaker 1: said that the story came to him from a dream
Speaker 1: he had about a man who has a relationship with
Speaker 1: an alien. Sounds like a pretty racy dream there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure every dream you have about like that
Speaker 1: should turn into a novel, but this one, he told me.
Speaker 1: He started writing it as a short story and then
Speaker 1: just sort of grew and grew and grew, and he
Speaker 1: sort of fought the idea that it was a full novel,
Speaker 1: unill eventually he just gave in. He was like, all right,
Speaker 1: let's turn this whole thing into a novel. And I'm
Speaker 1: glad he did because it's a really good book. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess you never know, right, Like, if you have
Speaker 1: a dream and it could turn into a book, yeah, actually,
Speaker 1: if you can do that, if you can turn one
Speaker 1: dream into a novel, then you're a good writer. But hey,
Speaker 1: take notes of all your crazy dreams. They are your creativity.
Speaker 1: And I also like the discussion you had about colonialism.
Speaker 1: And it seems like he thinks that, you know, we
Speaker 1: shouldn't maybe colonize Mars, Like he thinks maybe we should
Speaker 1: leave Mars for the Martians. Yeah, Well, as somebody who
Speaker 1: grew up in the Virgin Islands, I think he has
Speaker 1: a different and very valuable perspective on the question of
Speaker 1: being colonized. So yeah, right, yeah, leave Mars Weird would
Speaker 1: be maybe the T shirt slogan keep Mars weird, keep
Speaker 1: Mars alien, exactly. Send one of those two bezos and
Speaker 1: Elon Musk and as excited as I am about exploring
Speaker 1: the Solar System and getting answers to questions and it
Speaker 1: just seems super fun to get out into space and
Speaker 1: to build this technology, I think we do need to
Speaker 1: think carefully about how to make these decisions, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they're planetarying scale right there, galactic and scale right.
Speaker 1: We don't want to be like, hey, Mars seems really comfortable.
Speaker 1: It's our new home, but then it turns out that
Speaker 1: there are maybe you know, there's life kind of brewing
Speaker 1: under the surface. Yeah, And do we want the head
Speaker 1: of some technology company to make those decisions on behalf
Speaker 1: of the entire human race. You don't get to unmake
Speaker 1: them once you've made them, right, We definitely don't want
Speaker 1: We definitely want maybe like a physicist making because they're
Speaker 1: really in tune with humanity and struggle of everyday people. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm not running for president of Mars for sure, definitely not.
Speaker 1: Don't vote for me. Maybe just you could be the
Speaker 1: first gentleman who knows right. All right, Well, we hope
Speaker 1: you enjoyed that, and we hope you check out the
Speaker 1: lesson the debut Nobble by author cat Will Turnbull. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us, see you next time. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio or more podcast For
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
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