Can Other Planets Tell Us Our Fate?

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Ben Bradford (0:14)

The story usually goes like this. A few years after the use of the first nuclear weapons, Enrico Fermi, Manhattan project physicist, known as the architect of the atomic bomb, not a man generally known for small thoughts, walked to lunch with colleagues. Suddenly he asked, but where is everybody? He didn't mean in the cafeteria, he meant in the universe. Where are the aliens?

That question has nagged a lot of people because of what it could mean for us, for our future. Here's why from an astrophysicist at MIT, Sara Seager.

Sara Seager (0:55)

Our galaxy has hundreds of billions of stars.

Our universe appears to have hundreds of billions of galaxies.

The numbers of planets that must be out there are just absolutely astonishing.

Ben Bradford (1:07)

Trillions upon trillions of planets. And so?

Sara Seager (1:11)

Even if intelligent life is rare, it will emerge somewhere.

Ben Bradford (1:15)

But where is everybody? Space is big, but time is long. An absolutely unfathomable number of civilizations should have evolved with billions of years before us to explore space. Imagine where we could be in billions of years. So why doesn't the universe team with life? Why don't we see anybody? Where is everybody?

Do we smell?

I think it's kind of embarrassing for Enrico Fermi, the architect of the atomic bomb, that he didn't come up with the simplest explanation.

Seth Baum (1:54)

The reason we haven't seen any extraterrestrial civilizations is because civilizations tend to destroy themselves before they have the chance to spread across the cosmos.

Ben Bradford (2:04)

If that's true, it's bad news for humanity. But that's if.

I'm Ben Bradford. From NuanceTales and distributed by the NPR Network, this is Where Is Everybody? Sorry, this is Are We Doomed? But it's really the same question.

Seth Baum (2:25)

If that one answer is right, civilizations tend to destroy themselves, then yeah, we're doomed.

Ben Bradford (2:32)

Show over. Thanks for listening.

Think about it. Humans broke orbit for the first time 70 years ago. We're already eyeing Mars. If intelligent species destroy themselves before they can spread among the stars, well, the clock is ticking. So the answer has huge relevance for our own lives and futures, even if you don't really care about ET.

Fortunately, there are other possibilities. Three main arguments to solve that question.

SPEAKER_6 (3:01)

Where is everybody?

Ben Bradford (3:03)

Now known as the Fermi Paradox. We're gonna test each one. Are we doomed? Are we special? Or are we ants?

Each one has its own implications for our role in the universe and whether we can make it off this planet alive.

Seth Baum (3:28)

My name is Seth Baum. I am the Executive Director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute.

Ben Bradford (3:33)

Seth, who's also in our first episode, studies all different kinds of risks to humanity. So, I wanted to bring him back as a natural to give me the simplest, bleakest argument.

SPEAKER_6 (3:45)

Where is everybody?

Ben Bradford (3:47)

Life destroys itself.

Seth Baum (3:50)

It's no coincidence that just as humans have become capable of venturing to outer space in recent decades, we've also been capable of causing a massive global catastrophe. Technological progress is a double-edged sword. It can be used for good or for bad, and it's probably fair to assume that that holds true for all civilizations all across the galaxy, the cosmos, wherever they might exist.

Ben Bradford (4:20)

Technology advances.

A civilization learns to travel beyond its planet, and at the same time, it discovers how to destroy itself. But it's more than that.

Seth Baum (4:31)

Self-destruction may actually be quite a fair bit easier than massive expansion into outer space. Arguably, we've been able to destroy ourselves since we first built large nuclear arsenals in the 1950s and 1960s. But even now, we still don't have the capacity to spread widely across the cosmos.

Ben Bradford (4:54)

Technology advances, and the ease with which a civilization can destroy itself outpaces its ability to go to the stars. But it's more than that.

Seth Baum (5:04)

It's true, it's not just about nuclear weapons, it's about any type of technology that could cause a massive global catastrophe.

Ben Bradford (5:12)

Technology advances, the stars get closer, and the civilization finds more possible ways to destroy itself. We have.

When the first satellite entered space in 1957, humans had discovered one way to end the world ourselves, nuclear war. But technology advanced, we discovered we were warming the earth unsustainably, yet have not surmounted that problem, and technology advanced.