Milliongenerations talk:Interview project summer 2009

Ideas

• Try a few things / leave it open to participants.

• Students (at schools) to interview people (e.g., colleagues, teachers, parents, senior citizens) with questions around milliongenerations to be developed. Intergenerational dialogue would add value, young generations views would be most valuable.

• Ask leading intellectuals, famous smart people
  • record their answers e.g., on film
  • or keep their answers anonymous

• Interesting examples
  • Interviews of six billion others
  • Do you think science can understand everything?
    • Amazing result. All these smart physicists and engineers. And none have read Popper. (What a shame to the profession.) None able to reflect on the an eternal difference between description and reality, theory and truth. But that's a diffferent story.
    • Could ask Semiconductor films / Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt if they'd be interested in asking people questions like "Will there be millions of generations in the future?"

• Could also include things like
  • How can there be most happiness?
  • Do we need to save the earth?
  • For how long will there be life on earth? And for how much longer do you think humans can live on earth / will there be civilization?
  • In a billion years there still is life on earth. Conscious knowledge, too?
  • Can you imagine that there still are intelligent beings on this planet in a billion years...
  • Can knowledge be passed on while there is life?
  • Can knowledge increase forever?
  • What is necessary for civilization? Can the definition be reduced to the sharing of information?
  • When would you want civilization to end?
  • How would you act if you lived for a million years?
  • What is the purpose of civilization?
  • If everyone acted like me/you, would civilization be able to continue?
  • Why do we express status with consumption?
  • Change in perceived status brought down birth rates. Can we use it to stop irreversible consumption?
  • If civilization continues long enough, will the ideal society be found?
  • How long till races vanish? (Someone alive in 300 yrs has more than 1,000 ancestors alive today.)
  • How would you have lived had you had the genes and experiences of Michael Jackson?
  • Assuming there still is a civilization a million generations from now, how much can each generation consume?
  • Assuming there still is at least one civilization on this planet in a billion years, what has been the average population growth?
  • When will the use of aluminum become illegal?
  • Discounting future assets is standard. Should the value of future life be discounted? If so, how?
  • What is the greatest ambition?
  • Who is happier: one who lives 200 years or two who live to 100?
  • imagine receiving a call from someone living in a million generations
  • as well as questions already posted on this site
  • In cradle to cradle, can technical cycles be closed?
  • If destruction remains easier than preventing it, how can we survive progress?
  • How many individuals could there be (on earth)?
  • Why is it that we don't see signs of intelligent life in the rest of our galaxy?

or some of the questions directly

Preference to stick to something that conveys the change of perspective in the assumption, but no dogma. Hope that robust interview questions will emerge.

• Could also result in a video montage of sequences of
  • short questions from different people, such as (examples!)
    • The sun provides energy for billions more years
    • Life on earth is expected to go on while the sun shines
    • Knowledges make our lives easier and only knowledge allows many of us to exist at the same time.
    • Imagine that what we know now is still known a million generations from now (and a lot more)
    • How can we create conditions that enable knowledge to be passed along all the time that life is possible?
    • Save the earth? The earth will stay!
  • contrasted with quotes from people who doubt civilization can continue much longer on earth
    • such as physicist Stephen Hawking (minute 7)
    • transhumanists like Nick Bostrom
  • and the realization that leaving the planet will mean a miserable ending for those left behind (i.e., almost everybody) and would mean that we give up a living space that can still support life for a very long time prematurely
  • quotes from those who show the beauty of the planet e.g., Carl Sagan or the Home movie