2020 was so wild that it was easy to overlook the news that the US military is taking the possibility of our being visited by advanced extraterrestrials very seriously.  Simultaneously, a prominent Harvard astrophysicist has released a new book arguing that an advanced alien object carried by a solar sail was observed passing through our solar system. This is a good time then to take stock of what the social science literature on interstellar civilizations tells us, and we are joined by the wonderfully creative Robin Hanson, professor of economics at George Mason University.  Professor Hanson has several papers in this area, and the hosts discuss with him how one makes advancements on a topic where so little about "society" can be known. They discuss his new model of "Grabby Aliens" to explain why the universe appears so empty, why Robin thinks "Dark Forest Theory" is extremely unlikely, what the recent sightings imply about  the prospects for Panspermia and alien religion. We also follow up with a discussion of how to use tenure to explore undervalued ideas in academia. 

Resources:

• Robin Hanson's work on interstellar civilizations:
  • "A Simple Model of Grabby Aliens." (with Daniel Martin, Calvin McCarter, and Jonathan Paulson). Blog posts summarizing paper here and here.
  • "Burning the Cosmic Commons: Evolutionary Strategies for Interstellar Colonization"
• Research article in Entropy  on the flight characteristics of the Unidentified Aerial Objects (the "tic tacs") that have been encountered by the military.
• New York Times coverage of "tic tacs" here and here.
• Coverage of the COVID-19 bill requirement for DoD disclosures on UAOs.
  • CIA data release in compliance with bill
• Avi Loeb's new book "Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth." Ungated coverage here.
• "Dark Forest Theory"
• "Panspermia"