Lewis Dartnell on Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History

Prof. Lewis Dartnell is an astrobiologist who looks for life on distant planets. In his most recent book, however, Dartnell turns his gaze inward and backward to the human story – who we are, how we came to be, where we are coming from, and, most importantly, how the geological planetary processes drove the evolution of humanity and set the stage where our culture, politics, science, technology, and economics later came to play. During our 85-min conversation with Lewis Dartnell, we cover a variety of interesting topics such as our Origins: How the Earth Shaped Human History; the associations between US domestic politics and 75-million-old rocks; the Anthropocene and Climate Change; the existential challenges that humanity is facing today; AI and consciousness; intelligence as a survival function of settings your priorities; The Knowledge and how to rebuild a civilization; Alien Life and whether we are the lone intelligent species; colonizing Mars and the minimum viable number of people; story, science, music, and ethics; why the world is transformed by asking questions. My favorite quotes that I will take away from this conversation with Lewis Dartnell are: "We’re children of plate tectonics" and "Humanity survives on eating grass" As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunes, make a direct donation, or become a patron: https://www.singularityweblog.com/donate-and-support-singularity-weblog/