Do aliens have nuclear war? | Robin Hanson and Lex Fridman

Lex Fridman Podcast full episode: • Robin Hanson: Alien Ci...
Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors:
- Lambda: lambdalabs.com/lex
- Audible: audible.com/lex
- BiOptimizers: www.magbreakthrough.com/lex to get 10% off
- BetterHelp: betterhelp.com/lex to get 10% off
- ExpressVPN: expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free
GUEST BIO:
Robin Hanson is a professor at George Mason University and researcher at Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford.
PODCAST INFO:
Podcast website: lexfridman.com/podcast
Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2lwqZIr
Spotify: spoti.fi/2nEwCF8
RSS: lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/
Full episodes playlist: • Lex Fridman Podcast
Clips playlist: • Lex Fridman Podcast Clips
SOCIAL:
- Twitter: / lexfridman
- LinkedIn: / lexfridman
- Facebook: / lexfridman
- Instagram: / lexfridman
- Medium: / lexfridman
- Reddit: / lexfridman
- Support on Patreon: / lexfridman

[@Professor_Bugs]

Hey Lex! Thank you for everything! :-D Picked up coding at age 29 partially because you made it seem interesting. I now work with frontend development and self identify as a brogrammer yo.

[@Madman6970]

Please give advice on how you started?

[@mattiagriggio43]

Where did you learn to program?

[@ChocolateMilkyYummy]

@@Madman6970 You could just start by googling any language and "hello world" thats generally the starting place of most people. it will involve writing probably 10 lines of code or less, they'll tell you what to write, it will be a series of instructions that instructs the computer to display the words "hello world" on the screen in one way or another.

[@ChocolateMilkyYummy]

@@mattiagriggio43 yo I wrote a reply

[@ChocolateMilkyYummy]

after you complete that just click the next coding video that catches your attention or that seems like something you want to try. Maybe just start with the ones that look easy.

[@mmhoss]

the idea that foragers are inherently peaceful is absurd and completely unquantified

[@cesarsantagadea8079]

Thanks Alex for this interview 🙂 I love everything related to 👽

[@chettywapfilms1783]

Is it obvious or evident at all, that a forager is peaceful…at all?

[@alexanderhamilton582]

No, the definitely had conflicts between forging bands. This guy is smoking crack if he thinks otherwise.

[@vyhozshu]

organized wars were very late in hominin/human evolution timescale. organized war as we know only began popping up after sedentarism+population booms around world, which created resource bottlenecks and divisions, and private property/steward relationships in an 'official' sense. before that only evidence we have is sometimes small scale raids when one tribe's environment has no more resources and so they starving and go attack (and rarely sometimes eat) other small tribe. but was exception rather than rule, based on archeological evidence. before that... I mean look how much neanderthal and denisvan dna some ppl have. and caves which showed inter-hominin-species housing and sharing.

[@jonah11111]

This conversation really undercuts the level to which the instant destructiveness of Nukes changed everything. Starting a war pre-nuke was a different prospect for the very rich and powerful who often could have ways to avoid the worst that war has to offer. Now if two global powers go at it everyone probably dies, rich and poor... A way different ball game.

[@vyhozshu]

thats why they started exporting the wars to the third world for proxy conflicts instead. which is also why the 3rd/2nd world began seeking nukes for insurance against lmperial world (that and seeing what happens when theyre given up, a la Qadafi

[@kaibe5241]

Mutually assured destruction is the only reason why we haven't had a nuclear war yet.

[@davidrpaoli]

Thanks Alex for being a inspiration KZbinr that I find myself always enjoying your content and guests that you choose to interview in the daily. It gives me more and more confidence in my work and gives me direction and high hopes to launch a secondary channel involving me interviewing guests on their story about addiction and how they came to be the human being that they are today and what experiences they’ve gone through to shape who they are and who they want to be in the future. One day I hope to sit across from you and share my story snd how you inspired me along with Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and Theo Vonn of course lol 😋

[@BeastReview]

It’s funny how Lex is trying as hard as he can to get this guy to talk about the subject of discussion, without analyzing it from a statistical perspective, but the dude just keeps going back into statistical analysis.

[@davidclawson4733]

I'm high right now, but I think Lex is even higher in this video.

[@deanbutler3264]

What about one country pushes the button and sends nukes to another country with same arsenal, but person in charge of the other country knowing his country is going to be hit within minutes, still doesn't retaliate . Would you retaliate?

[@oljekcur2554]

is there any way to replace the water vaporized(seatroyed/disintegrated) by thermonuclear weapons?

[@samuelbarbosa1170]

That’s a really good question

[@derekcraig3617]

The oxygen in the atmosphere would go before the water. So moot question

[@samuelbarbosa1170]

@@derekcraig3617 I guess the question is does any water hit with a thermonuclear weapon re-enter the water cycle?

[@kjamesjr]

There aren’t enough nuclear weapons on the planet to disintegrate all surface water on earth. Not even close.

[@kjamesjr]

@@samuelbarbosa1170 The water molecules, or atoms thereof are largely unaffected. Nuclear fission is what powers the explosion (chain reaction) and must be done under very specific conditions. Critical mass depends on the density of the material. Basically you need a heavy atom, uranium for example. You need to shoot that atom with a neutron, or in modern nuclear weaponry, compress that atom (nuclear fusion) to the point whereas it reaches that critical mass to start the chain reaction. H2O1, or water, is a very light molecule of very little density. Not nearly packed enough to continue this chain reaction under fission or fusion. The atoms are simply spread too far apart. Yes, the initial heat wave is enough to vaporize surface water through sheer pressure and heat, but not nearly enough energy to actually break those molecules down into free atoms.

[@sal4856]

where is his pen and pencil holder for his shirt pocket

[@dubsar]

0:36 It would take more than ten thousand or one hundred thousand years for centipedes and cockroaches to develop a technological civilization after the next nuclear war.

[@Jim_Snape]

I think their weapons are a little better than nukes. More on the level of time based weapons that make it so the earth never existed. Or gravity weapons that would just fling the whole planet into the sun. Or a bomb that becomes a sun.

[@charleswest6372]

Dunno of that but we're close to it..

[@phox.2234]

all that it takes for a full nuclear exchange to happen is one idiot or one malfunction.

[@DDechoes87]

Can we just take a moment and appreciate how Lex pronounces "mutual"

[@derekcraig3617]

this guy clearly doesn't know gatherer societies. there's far more evidence of them waring with other gatherer societies than he leads us to believe

[@JohnSmith-te1zd]

Maybe he's referring to extremely small groups that don't have expendable warriors or something along those lines. You're right because far as I can tell, when those societies reached larger proportions, like the Aztecs, war became an important activity that was very organized.

[@derekcraig3617]

@@JohnSmith-te1zd aztecs were not gatherers. I'm talking about Native Americans in the contiguous 48 states

[@JohnSmith-te1zd]

They weren't? They just started off as a massive organized society out of the blue?... If you say so.

[@vyhozshu]

@@derekcraig3617 native american wars were very late in hominin/human evolution timescale. organized war as we know only began popping up after sedentarism+population booms around world which created resource divisions and property/steward relationships in an 'official' sense. before that only evidence we have is sometimes small scale raids when one tribe's environment has no more resources and so they starving and go attack (and rarely sometimes eat) other small tribe. but was exception rather than rule, based on archeological evidence.

[@Paul-ou1rx]

How many AI robots would push that button? Eventually, countries could have them in command of the arsenals for certain situations. "Shall we play a game?"

[@aaronabuusama]

“There are dictators, there are democracies” We have already had a nuclear war….. Carried out by a democracy

[@Armuotas]

This idea reminds me of the Nox from StarGate series. For those who don't know, (spoilers), basically the Knox where people that were like forest dwelling druids, however they were part of super advanced space faring civilization. They just chose to live in peace with nature and learn about it's "ways". The Nox have returned to their roots, but with a knowledge of FTL behind them. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZpWypoyqm7KKgpo

[@johnquiroz8279]

Oh it's going to happen in this time

[@ADGreen-es6hm]

We used Atomic bombs in WW2 remember?

[@pureruckuspower2165]

We probably wouldn't of nuked Japan if they also had the same capability. But they didn't. We told them to stop. And they didn't. We told them we would bring destruction the world had never seen. And they didn't believe us. And we had to do it twice and threaten to nuke Tokyo to get them to finally give up. Those Japanese are tough lol

[@booqrdoit9138]

@@pureruckuspower2165 bombed them into panty vending machines and weirdo anime, but they're still a high power country

[@smartgenes1]

@@pureruckuspower2165 It's a big lie that they were told to stop, the weapons were used purposefully and politically.

[@dick8997]

No they have laser wars

[@ifafeller]

This forager utopia he says we are moving towards sounds like hell. No thanks

[@jakehill8186]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/iJLOkqObbJmihLs

[@dasczwo]

Wow. Trying to chew thru mr hanson interview, now mr hoffman is waiting. Good stuff lex, and thx for splitting it up in clips, 1st time i appreciate it. So about that button: robin demonstrated niceley how by changing the question ie assumption to living in a simulation slighthly led to a much lower probability. Excuse my going on a tangent, its about probabilities: -mr putin goes to war. No expert saw it coming. - we had a case of cannibalism last year in berlin. It was the teacher of a friends kid. My friend developed a schooltheater piece for starring pupils and teachers. He had the main role. They spent hours with him. Everybody loved him. He was the most popular teacher. Then he ate someone. Nobody saw it coming. - another aquaintence got paranoid during lockdown and suffered a psychosis. After beeing convinced government grilled him with microwave radiation he fled from a bulgarian mob who wanted to get the world formula they had hid in his amygdala. He opened his veins in the forest. They saved him. I talked to him next day when he was already back to senses. Quite enlightning- arelative who got psychotic from a brain infection from the nile virus mosquite, was convinced he could he the world with fire, and satan was trying to melt his brain in the mrt machine. Took us a month to get police to force him to have surgery and be saved. While we were chasing after him. Lives healthy and sane. Most people reading this will know a similar story. So: ím talking about probabilities: how probable is it to be one person away from that canibal case? Rephrasing that button question: how propable is it that someone becomes convinced that pushing that button solves his/her problem? Higher than we think. Thats why you also need two tu push it.

[@erichvonmolder9310]

I think we have had a lot of wars/conflicts since WW2, just not at that level, but conflict nonetheless. The American Civil War was just one war that was limited to a small area in a far flung part of the world. You think someone in Italy or India at the time was thinking about the American Civil War? Heck no. The same thing goes for today, the war in Yemen is devastating, but most don't know or care about it, I can go on with more with examples. It depends on the eyes you are viewing wars.

[@goujeewugee2458]

Just watch this whole thing and has nothing to do with alien nuclear war, all speculative human acts, got"thumbnailed"but good interview still.

[@dreadtrain2846]

A lot of people would press it.

[@dreadtrain2846]

The button, I mean.

[@indio007]

So naive. Inh a nuclear you know your end state is going to be less than your current state. However the calculus that should be made is is your end state not participating in a nuclear war and have outcome X worse than participating in a nuclear war in have outcome Y? I can't think of even one scenario where outcome X is worse than Y. In conventional wars, this is not as certain. The fact is , post nuclear war outcome is worse than all other possible outcomes win or lose.

[@sizedtoaster0278]

CHIMPANZEE WARS. "That's a hopeful message."

[@ZigzSniping]

somedays i feel like i would press that button

[@michaelinzo]

I will press the button in the mountains 🏔 Lex.

[@mikemaloney1289]

anyone notice that Hiroshima and Nagasaki went right back to being modern bustling port towns in less than a generation?

[@richardtyler3498]

Now add a few more million people to the planet and let's see how the "non-confrontational" foragers gather to compete for mates with these burly-azz farmers. Civilization go!

[@jascough]

Statistically democracies rarely have war, autocracies much more frequently. As aptly pointed out: it needs two assholes, or an asshole baiting a democracy. I presume the frequency of larger wars has decreased proportional to the product of the number of democracies * size of democracies and perhaps their relative distribution.

[@smartgenes1]

What a load of horseshit, the US and Britain are the most destructive countries on the planet - democracies.

[@gregorybrewer3619]

Look at the mental health issues that is running wild right now.

[@le-berry]

Many woke people would love to push that button.

[@berkefeil5646]

Non-being is better than being. Intelligent life will understand

[@a7xbandy]

Sorry but I did not enjoy this guest