Phillip DeFranco notes that no matter how long one has been on TH-cam, there's always another million subscriber channel you've never even heard of to discover. A civilization of trillions will be like that. Even outside of TH-cam, our world of 7 billion people contains countless world-wide contexts, "scenes," or movements you've never heard of which contain people who are literally famous the world over, but only in that specific context.
That's a reasonable conclusion. On an unrelated note, in the 1960s, after my mom got back from her trip to Europe, someone who developed her pictures from the trip, had mixed up her photos with someone else's who had taken photos of dragonflies. Dragonfly after dragonfly. I wonder if we could ever find those photos from her trip to Europe...
You gave me a good chuckle. It reminded me of a Futurame quote: "Are you the Philip J. Fry from Earth, or the Philip J. Fry from Hovering Squid World 97-A?"
I’d never even considered how enhancing personal intelligence with technology/cybernetics could allow us to maintain a greater number of personal relationships. The effects that would have on our society at large would be insane! Great video as always, Isaac! Edit: Since I apparently wasn’t clear enough, I’m NOT talking about downloading social media into our brains or surfing them with a thought. I AM talking about using technology to increase our intelligence, i.e. our ability to process and remember information about the people in our social circle and how they relate to one another, which would allow us to form more *actually meaningful* relationships, not the Facebook “friend” type of “relationship”.
I considered this.. Thought it is one of the greatest advantages of today's social media. We probably could keep friends with 1000+ friends now compare to 10+ or 100+ in the last decade
Is it great news? Every single study going on about the effects of socializing online through what they've dubbed social media has found that it's extremely damaging to the human psyche, at much higher degree for females. Right now over half the population of first world countries seem to have gone insane and we just have computers in our pockets, imagine them implanted into our heads.
@@AadhithyaVikram It really hasn't been an advantage, not by any civilized metric. The social divide between people is really at this point probably the highest point it's ever been in the entirety of human existence, acquaintances that you superficially get along with through a computer is not a friendship.
22:18- "If you are alive, hearing this now, then in my opinion you have a better than 50-50 chance of having your name remembered and recorded long after this bright star we live around burns out. And all you need to do to stand out is find something you love and pursue it." Granted, with the increase of our numbers and the expansion of data storage and recording, our memory footprint, so to speak, will increase over time. We will just leave more distinct stuff behind, whether those are actual things or information stored somewhere. But that does not follow that you, as in the distinct unique person you are, will stand out or be remembered. Just like we know the names of Roman politicians and businessmen from the city of Pompeii from the graffiti on the walls, and inscriptions on storage bottles and tombstones yet we know nothing about what they look like, or their personalities. Growing up, I lived next door to the annex of a major public library. Every week there were boxes of books taken to the curb to be thrown out because they were worn out, or were multiple copies. Most of these books were out of print, and not the most well-known authors or titles. These books were also the products of someone who had a passion for something and pursued it, and took the effort to write it down and publish it. Sure, there is a ISBN number somewhere, indicating what and where the work is, and there may be a hard or digital copy stored somewhere. But for the most part, all that work and effort is in the bottom of a landfill, or in a recycling bin, and no one is coming to look for it. (My mother rescued a lot of these books, and I still possess a few of them- it's a big part of where I get my love of reading.) I'm not trying to be a "negative nancy" for it's own sake, or throw cold water on what is mostly presented on this channel as an optimistic future. I just don't want to fall into the deception that one key technology somehow changes the human condition, and that we'll all, or even most of us, have a shot at digital immortality. Storage space, and the energy to store and retrieve data from it, is finite. Human attention spans, and priorities, are finite. Your memory footprints, even if not erased, will fade.
Storage space and the energy to store it, will exceed the growth of people. So sure its finite, but finite in the sense there would be a theoretical limit you'll never reach. So you might as well call it infinite with an asterisk. Although the attention span of humans would be the primary factor which determines what you leave gets recognition or not. That, once again, with sufficient technology will expand the time and capability of humans to push that into the such-a-high-limit, which makes it another non-issue. Of course they got rid of those books. They didn't have cheap and ever expanding space to fit it like we have in the digital space. So it makes sense for the library. Although not having a warehouse somewhere to store them, means no one cared to keep that around but yourself, because you had some free space. This is a nonissue when dealing with digital artifacts. And the quality of what is left behind is much more greater now, than of Roman politicians. I would wager something much more mundane than banking on the finiteness of infinity. An entity looking to curate and collect data and dumping it to the way side as useless data. The capability of determining the difficulty at finding 'your' part you leave. The primary real world example would be Google and its search engine. You can google something, and if you recalled something from 2009 and you know the exact words you googled to reach it, you may have a very hard to to actually reaching it today. As well a targeted attack on data storage. And if people's minds are copied and uploaded to make them 'immortal' in the net, they still can be attacked and wiped from outside or inside. If someone wants certain data expunged, that is bound to happen such as book burning of old. If we progress into a Utopia, we'll be totally find and this 50/50 chance maybe even be much higher. Although continuing forward as we are, we'd run into a high risk to have plenty of curation, censorship, and control. Which means you are far less likely than that 50/50. Your dragonfly pictures may be deemed as an information hazard and expunged in an totally automated fashion without appeal and without anyone know it ever existed at all.
That's where internet archivists/historians come in... As long as they are around and you have a digital presence we'll be fine... Still though things do fall through the cracks but I believe something will always remain.
My mother is from Guyana. All she knew about America growing up was the Jim Jones massacre. Imagine her terror when her father told her that she's moving to the states
A friend of mine (much older than I am) went to Japan back in the 70s and dated a rural Japanese girl for a few weeks. When he was introduced to her mother, she hid and apparently thought he was a monster, because she'd never seen nor heard of a human being that didn't look like an Asian before, and he was this moon pale navy sailor with blonde hair that was 6" taller than anyone she'd ever seen. We're mostly away from this for now, but I think once mankind spreads among the stars and we get segmented cultures and even evolutionary variants of human, this will start to be a very common trope.
my sense is that in a free society there will always be "niches".. so people will be able to stand out within particular segments/groups activities/hobbies..
“Free” are you suggesting that Egyptian slaves building the pyramids didn’t know who the prettiest slave was? Hadn’t heard of the greatest roman gladiator?
@@WiseOwl_1408 And that's good. Imagine absolute freedom to do as you please. I can't say how people will be in the far far future, but in todays world it'd end up with mass chaos and bloodshed on an imaginable scale. You can't even trust most people to bring back shop cart back to the shop if it's not enforced by rules/laws/fines.
"To stand out all you have to do is find something you love and pursue it", this makes me think of H.P. Lovecraft who started out contributing to amateur fanzines, struggled to sell his poems and stories to specialist weird fiction pulps and died in poverty at 46 from stomach cancer probably brought on by long term malnutrition. In his wildest fantasies I doubt he could have imagined in less than a century the word Lovecraftian would be an influence on or associated with almost every aspect of the popular culture of billions of people.
@@squireob yeah sure but you so have to be good at what you do. If Lovecraft sucked he would only be remembered as a massive racist, not a massive racist and a genius author who fathered a whole genre and inspired philosophies. After a certain point doing what you love isn't enough.
@@ferretappreciator If Lovecraft sucked, he would not be remembered as a massive racist. The only reason anyone brings that up at all, is because he is famous. :D
I'm part of development/community team for a game modification, and while I'm not part of the inner admin circle, I'm one of the oldest members of the team. Our player numbers range in the hundreds of thousands or more, with just our main support Discord server having almost 80,000 users. That's not a lot on a global scale, but it still makes us one of the biggest mods around. That also means that I as part of it get to speak on eye level with several other well-known modders and other creators/personalities from related areas - some of our modellers/voice actors for example have worked on other well known projects as well, with those being their day jobs. Standing out in a specific community only gets easier when you can find likely minded people out of the entire human population.
I guess in a post scarcity civilisation standing out wouldn't be as important as it is in today's highly competitive society. There would be many people completely fine with being just like anyone else.
Besides I can easily imagine people "standing out" in their fields, interest circles and such. Basically, people standing out in fandoms, art societies, programming ones and so on and so on.
Just look what stupid shit people do on tiktok just for views. People are desperate for attention and i don't know how future will change this human nature.
I agree. Even if you look at Chinese culture, it is less important to stand out (obviously there are some political influences), but standing out is more considered self absorbed rather than important or something to strive for.
There are a lot of people like that now. Me for instance. I am completely fine being just like anyone else. I have no particular desire to stand out or be noticed by the masses.
Over the course of years I've grown self-effacing and undermine my self worth. While I don't like to capture my own pics I do like to capture beautiful moments that means something to me but almost all of them end up sitting in my hard drive for months or even years before I open to take a look at them again. Standing out in millions of people do feels like a big achievement and many would like to achieve just that and as you said success and fame come to those who are obsessed and passionate than to others who only seek fame and I guess a lot of people also would be more happy for getting to do things they like than to actually being famous. Amazing episode as usual Isaac!!! Your every episode sends me down to philosophical rollercoaster.
The ability to remember more people is one of the major mental enhancements I want. I wonder if this combined with radical life extension will all but eliminate jealousy, since you’d have enough time and emotional energy for innumerable loved ones who would no longer have to compete.
there's an XKCD comic that says subcultures are nested fractally. obviously we don't have the experimental data to validate this at the scale of trillions, but I could imagine among the number of people wanting to be unique, you could have groups of hair-splitters all doing very specific variations on the focus of their sub (-sub-sub-sub...) culture.
Great episode. Even now its possible to have conversations as surreal as something out of a scifi novel ("you do _what_ with cockroaches?"). I find the sheer breadth of potential experiences, cultures and sub-cultures, of a trillion+ person civilization to be impossible to imagine (especially as anything particularly unified).
@@justinweeb8145 Aw, heck, I've already been categorized by a TH-camr as a "Gen-X Elder." Perhaps one day in the future, the term "boomer" will be an honorific!
Watched this on Nebula earlier, yet another informative episode as always Isaac. The numbers involved with numbers like a trillion people and the scales that follow are mind-boggling indeed. The idea of small communities and groups of hundreds of thousands and even up to several millions... oh man.
Any time I am worried about not standing out, all I do is go to a party and I am immediately put at ease that I do, in fact, stick out like a sore thumb.
Very inspirational video. It's been awhile since I watched one of your videos, and this was a pleasant one to come back to. As an aspiring crop scientist - very much looking forward to the next one!
Hi Mr. Arthur. For whatever it's worth a couple video ideas have been in the back of my mind lately. - Alternatives to electronic computing - Heat management in space Thank you and your team for another great episode, Cheers ~ Fan of the channel.
@@hyrumhanson3390 Computes with gears? A mechanical computer? My Dad had used a thing called an "integrator" back in the early 60's. Big heavy thing with a giant handle on the side, heavy as hell and frequently broken.
I suppose they were not posing for stock photos of people posing for pictures, but rather someone else was taking pictures of another photo shoot that had its own purpose. It could be B roll from the same company, so the model releases are already there from the main shoot.
Great episode and very motivating! Congrats to Isaac and the team! It made me think about equilibrium between the desire to share one's passion and our need (or maybe that's just me?) for privacy. Not everybody wants to be famous, but everyone wants to be known / loved / cared about... Again: love your work guys; you just keep getting better! 👍👍👍
people radically overestimate the amount of attention they need from people they don't know, because we're some of the first victims of/participants in electronic social media that we're finding out is often designed to be addictive. I think with internet connections getting better, it will enable people to be more anonymous (by living more remotely and working from home) if they choose to. Even if we managed to have something like a cohesive civilization of trillions, plenty of them will live outside the scramble for uniqueness.
With regard to the example of a dragonfly photographer with intellectual disabilities or some other impediment to effective online presence, this is a situation where cybernetic or genetic therapy per se probably wouldn't be necessary, although it will likely still occur. There is a gifted young nature photographer with Downs called Oliver Hellowell whose mother runs his accounts, and that is the sort of role an AI assistant could fill for many in the future. A number of partly or fully non-speaking autistic people are able to use the web and even write and self-advocate very effectively with the help of enhanced communication tools which will only grow more advanced. The kind of AI partnerships you discussed in the relevant episode are likely to be of specific importance to future disabled communities.
I'm autistic myself. My IQ is rather high, which doesn't always equate to competence. IQ augmentation wouldn't help me deal with my electricity supplier- an AI assistant might.
I live in the same region as Isaac, and I think he was being a little ambiguous. The cheapest hdd from a reputable brand I can find is ~$37 US. My idea of a bill for dinner for one at a modest restaurant is about $20 or less, so he either meant dinner for two or his idea of modest is significantly better than mine 😅
This is such a good topic. I remember when I was a kid long before the internet and we would labor over writing that one perfect poem or drawing a picture that would take months or getting that one perfect picture that would cost a small fortune in film to capture just the right one. Now, there is no more paper needed to write, no more film needed to buy and digital graphics allows us to create art much quicker. The sheer abundance of litriture, photography and art + the ability to instantly release anything world wide on the internet, no wonder it must feel like it is hard to stand out for people today.
I dunno. I remember that gronk who threatened to bash me because I was standing too close to his car while I was waiting for my mother to pick me up. I was a child. He's probably still alive unfortunately, but I remember him.
22:18 great thought! _you've a better than __50:50__ chance of having your name remembered and recorded (...),_ _and all you need to do to stand out is find something you love and pursue it_
I would assume that in a population that huge, any fame will draw a significant amount of haters, and within them someone will go to extents like bot spam harassment or digging and distributing personal information, or even real life assault. It will be a dark forest.
I hope there will be more sociology minded episodes like this one, the meaning in a post scarcity one and the one about the future of relationships. Love hard science but those are my favorite videos.
In the internet era it takes more effort to have no presence than to stand out moderately. This recent phenomenon plays out before our eyes in many ways. The Gabby Petito/Brian Laundrie case is one, as it's increasingly hard to imagine people "disappearing" anymore. Thanks for another thought provoking video.
The thing with the “other people would notice if you’re gone” argument is that if *everyone* is gone then there’d be no one left to notice, which is why the word ‘existential’ in existential threats isn’t limited to the physical definition
Completely off topic but, that animation of the human populaces distribution over earth at around 15:00 was bloody stunning, the visuals on this channel are getting to a point where they genuinely enhance the overall experience and I personally appreciate the effort.
Great episode! Thanks for confirming that “drive” is one of the greatest indicators of success. It’s something I’ve always believed, but didn’t know research had been done on that. REALLY looking forward to next week’s episode on farming! Great job Isaac and team!
Crazy thing is when I got to the halfway point and you discussed gene editing and that being motivated or driven are the biggest markers for success, I thought immediately to all the single mothers, and some two parent households, that literally hold their children back. Imagine these parents making them unmotivated before birth, or a "mommas boy" so she creates a son husband or a daughter that never ventures from their care. Scary thought. As parents would once again be the biggest dream killers
I remember bringing this up to my girlfriend. I called it “screaming into the void”. People have to go to further and further extremes in order to be noticed as we are more connected.
8 months later and what you said still holds. This "screaming into the void", where people are doing more extreme stuff just to get noticed is getting worse. There are too many clout chasers and few people who are legit talented/exceptional.
Loved the episode! Really spoke to me on several levels. Thank you again, your videos have shaped my world- and future view more than most people I know (e.g. informed my current choice of study)
I don't think that a civilization of trillions will perceive itself as a singular entity. It'd be easier to associate oneself with a particular planet, state or space station. You'll know that there are other planets out there and a certain overarching government body exists, but they will not be of interest or concern to you, unless you have to interact with them personally
True. The equivalent of the different power structures we have today will probably have control over similar number of people and there will just be higher levels of power that we do not have today.
I was really hoping he'd say 'my wife has been on billboards all over the district, but I still don't remember her name' (and it's getting awkward to ask)
A slight correction: the prophet Mohammed isn't worshiped in Islam (at least not to my knowledge) but rather Muslims worship God/Allah. This is the reason Muslims aren't allowed to depict Mohammed in artwork, because it may lead to him being worshiped as a god himself.
The need to stand out is a mental condition. Most of the battles that play out on the public stage would be better off being fought in persons own mind.
I know, right? People savagely contesting for the approval of others, for whom they have zero respect. It's idiotic, and it is enabled/amplified/made binary by social media, which is far outside our evolved range of reactions.
As far as i know we don't yet have gas molecule memory storage or solid molycircuit memory storage that is a staple of sci fi. Of course a near by supper nova goes off and all the memory storage goes bye bye. Along with every thing else not very well shielded.
I've done hundreds of shows, a bunch of seminars, and lots of therapy over the last twenty years. Those people who have participated or watched might know me, but at most my total audiences probably rank somewhere from the tens of thousands to one hundred thousand at max. I've never worried about it. When someone says I must be famous, I shrug and say, "I'm only a little bit famous." That phrase will work for ever-larger groups as the population increases further.
It's sad where scientists including Steven hawking say we are running out of space yet IA says nope we have enough room for 500 billion. Good to have a positive outlook on humanity.
I like the idea of tech to "connect" with other people. It's like having people connected to a a cloud network. You can a lot of options on who to connect to and the type of connections. I'd imagine couples who consider themselves "soul mates" to have a type of connection where you can feel everything about the status of the other.
I do not beleive technology helps people connect at at all. It isolates people. The ideal use is to keep in touch with friends, and family that come in and out of your life. But it cannot replace a physical community right outside your door.
This is definitely in the top ten videos you made thus far! One thing that got me thinking is video games, sports, and other competition. At such a scale of tens or hundreds of trillions of people, the concept of being 'good' at something may shift vastly. For example, being 1 out of a billion at a popular video game may as well make you the world champion. Being 1 in a billion when the player base is 10 trillion? Meh, still decent but there are thousands upon thousands of people better than you. Being good at something may thus shift from being above average to being close to perfect, at least on the broadest scale. Of course, the more specialized you get the less close to perfect you need to get to be considered very good.
I think we'll have virtual or simulated sub-realities in which people can live entire lives in whatever setting they choose, and in those places, standing out will be very possible.
My biggest fear is being forgotten. I come from a family with 'famous' architects, engineers and ship builders and its difficult. In my study there are 400 students every year and it makes me feel so small. Thank you for this great video Isaac!
Have you actually examined why you equate "small" with "bad" or "unsatisfactory"? "small" by whose standards? Are you better than others if you become "big"? Have you examined the ethical grounding for that feeling? Your life is too important for you to let others keep score. (ooh! a "wise aphorism"!)
Be kind, be humble, and treat all as you'd want to be treated, write your thoughts, your fears and your fictions. Do that, and you'll never be forgotten.
I do know exactly what you mean. My TH-cam channel is small compared to the big names, but I do have over 25 million total views across all the different videos. Out of all of that I have had exactly 3 people recognize me from them. Or at least just 3 that walked up and introduced themselves. Which is just fine with me. Never had the ambition to be famous. Just started the channel to share some of my hobbies. Never expected to ever see 25,000 views, let alone 25 million. So I always encourage other people to do videos, on whatever subject might interest them. After all, what`s the absolute worst that could happen? That no one watched? If so, you are out the time it took to make and upload the videos. Nothing else. So why not give it a try. The more videos there are out there, the more choices people have as to what to watch. And more choices is almost always a good thing for everyone.
>If so, you are out the time it took to make and upload the videos. Nothing else. you're forgetting that time - is the only thing we don't have the luxury to waste.
@@1957Shep I am. I have to. It's a living. But then, not all videos take 30 minutes to make. Isaac's videos are perfect example, how much time do you think he spends into research, writing, editing? I bet his 30 minute video is like a week worth of time.
@@swancrunch I expect it does. But you don`t have to, and should not, copy him or anyone else. Do your own thing. About something you know or like. Hell, do a book review or comment on a movie, or how bad the gunk that passes for TV these days is. Nothing wrong at all with 5 minute videos. I tend to keep mine to between 5 and 10 minutes. Some people can keep people interested for an hour, but I`m not one of them.
This video made me oddly feel better that it would be hard for ALL of my data to be removed for people to be able to look up in the future. But in a very lonely way.... fragments waiting to be remembered....
Inspiring stuff.. what I am missing is why or what the motivation is to be remembered.. Never cared for it myself.. and outside validation from others or material gains i really see no need to stand out.. As long as I reach my own set goals or am happy with the choices i made I should be able to be happy..
@@garethbaus5471 no but really do you think its really in our DNA or mindset that its one of the key points that could dictate how our society will end up forming? I would've thought it was more of a mindset..
Being remembered isn't satisfied just by having a medium for remembering, you need actual people inspecting the thing and actually having it in their minds.
Imagine the people who truly do stand out. In any group someone will be the best. In a population of trillions or quintillions, even without artificial enhancement, some will be more intelligent, attractive, athletic, creative, and talented than anyone in history.
Standing out is a concept we should leave behind. Who cares about fame, when you enjoy what you do, who you are, and whom you share your time with? I find we have way too many selfish people who are that way without any good reason, just because of how the culture affects us.
It isn’t something that humans can just shut off. It’s a part of human nature to want attention, however, why they want it varies based on personality.
Totally agree, Alvaro. "leave behind" or dramatically moderate. The idea of becoming "known" to everyone in the world seems kind of pathological to me. I'd rather be well-respected by someone I myself admired, than be known by a million randos. Now, if we can reduce our social groups down to double digits, there might actually be a healthy approach to this "need".
Phillip DeFranco notes that no matter how long one has been on TH-cam, there's always another million subscriber channel you've never even heard of to discover. A civilization of trillions will be like that. Even outside of TH-cam, our world of 7 billion people contains countless world-wide contexts, "scenes," or movements you've never heard of which contain people who are literally famous the world over, but only in that specific context.
That's a reasonable conclusion.
On an unrelated note, in the 1960s, after my mom got back from her trip to Europe, someone who developed her pictures from the trip, had mixed up her photos with someone else's who had taken photos of dragonflies. Dragonfly after dragonfly. I wonder if we could ever find those photos from her trip to Europe...
@@FLPhotoCatcher wtf?? lol
@@youtube7076 spammer probably
@@e.h.8936 No, he mentioned dragonflies at about 12:00, so I figured I'd tell a cool true story about dragonflies.
Ha ha, I'm literally a minor celebrity in a circle so obscure, my own family has no idea anybody knows me online.
You gave me a good chuckle. It reminded me of a Futurame quote: "Are you the Philip J. Fry from Earth, or the Philip J. Fry from Hovering Squid World 97-A?"
I’d never even considered how enhancing personal intelligence with technology/cybernetics could allow us to maintain a greater number of personal relationships. The effects that would have on our society at large would be insane! Great video as always, Isaac!
Edit: Since I apparently wasn’t clear enough, I’m NOT talking about downloading social media into our brains or surfing them with a thought. I AM talking about using technology to increase our intelligence, i.e. our ability to process and remember information about the people in our social circle and how they relate to one another, which would allow us to form more *actually meaningful* relationships, not the Facebook “friend” type of “relationship”.
I considered this.. Thought it is one of the greatest advantages of today's social media. We probably could keep friends with 1000+ friends now compare to 10+ or 100+ in the last decade
Jokes on you, i remember so many relationships that are beyond any sane person's.
What makes you think anyone would want to?
Is it great news?
Every single study going on about the effects of socializing online through what they've dubbed social media has found that it's extremely damaging to the human psyche, at much higher degree for females.
Right now over half the population of first world countries seem to have gone insane and we just have computers in our pockets, imagine them implanted into our heads.
@@AadhithyaVikram It really hasn't been an advantage, not by any civilized metric.
The social divide between people is really at this point probably the highest point it's ever been in the entirety of human existence, acquaintances that you superficially get along with through a computer is not a friendship.
22:18- "If you are alive, hearing this now, then in my opinion you have a better than 50-50 chance of having your name remembered and recorded long after this bright star we live around burns out. And all you need to do to stand out is find something you love and pursue it."
Granted, with the increase of our numbers and the expansion of data storage and recording, our memory footprint, so to speak, will increase over time. We will just leave more distinct stuff behind, whether those are actual things or information stored somewhere. But that does not follow that you, as in the distinct unique person you are, will stand out or be remembered. Just like we know the names of Roman politicians and businessmen from the city of Pompeii from the graffiti on the walls, and inscriptions on storage bottles and tombstones yet we know nothing about what they look like, or their personalities.
Growing up, I lived next door to the annex of a major public library. Every week there were boxes of books taken to the curb to be thrown out because they were worn out, or were multiple copies. Most of these books were out of print, and not the most well-known authors or titles. These books were also the products of someone who had a passion for something and pursued it, and took the effort to write it down and publish it. Sure, there is a ISBN number somewhere, indicating what and where the work is, and there may be a hard or digital copy stored somewhere. But for the most part, all that work and effort is in the bottom of a landfill, or in a recycling bin, and no one is coming to look for it. (My mother rescued a lot of these books, and I still possess a few of them- it's a big part of where I get my love of reading.)
I'm not trying to be a "negative nancy" for it's own sake, or throw cold water on what is mostly presented on this channel as an optimistic future. I just don't want to fall into the deception that one key technology somehow changes the human condition, and that we'll all, or even most of us, have a shot at digital immortality. Storage space, and the energy to store and retrieve data from it, is finite. Human attention spans, and priorities, are finite. Your memory footprints, even if not erased, will fade.
Storage space and the energy to store it, will exceed the growth of people. So sure its finite, but finite in the sense there would be a theoretical limit you'll never reach. So you might as well call it infinite with an asterisk. Although the attention span of humans would be the primary factor which determines what you leave gets recognition or not. That, once again, with sufficient technology will expand the time and capability of humans to push that into the such-a-high-limit, which makes it another non-issue.
Of course they got rid of those books. They didn't have cheap and ever expanding space to fit it like we have in the digital space. So it makes sense for the library. Although not having a warehouse somewhere to store them, means no one cared to keep that around but yourself, because you had some free space. This is a nonissue when dealing with digital artifacts. And the quality of what is left behind is much more greater now, than of Roman politicians.
I would wager something much more mundane than banking on the finiteness of infinity. An entity looking to curate and collect data and dumping it to the way side as useless data. The capability of determining the difficulty at finding 'your' part you leave. The primary real world example would be Google and its search engine. You can google something, and if you recalled something from 2009 and you know the exact words you googled to reach it, you may have a very hard to to actually reaching it today.
As well a targeted attack on data storage. And if people's minds are copied and uploaded to make them 'immortal' in the net, they still can be attacked and wiped from outside or inside. If someone wants certain data expunged, that is bound to happen such as book burning of old.
If we progress into a Utopia, we'll be totally find and this 50/50 chance maybe even be much higher. Although continuing forward as we are, we'd run into a high risk to have plenty of curation, censorship, and control. Which means you are far less likely than that 50/50. Your dragonfly pictures may be deemed as an information hazard and expunged in an totally automated fashion without appeal and without anyone know it ever existed at all.
"Create a wise aphorism, and your name will live forever."
~Anonymous
That's where internet archivists/historians come in... As long as they are around and you have a digital presence we'll be fine... Still though things do fall through the cracks but I believe something will always remain.
1.8 billions all oo
Obligatory audiance engagement for the algorithm
Indeed
I too am engaged
I have heard that of you use the word algorithm in your comment TH-cam ignores it.
@@jeremyleyland1047 spell it backwards
Very Engaged
My mother is from Guyana. All she knew about America growing up was the Jim Jones massacre. Imagine her terror when her father told her that she's moving to the states
Did you drink Kool-Aid as a child?
@@stefanr8232 nope!
A friend of mine (much older than I am) went to Japan back in the 70s and dated a rural Japanese girl for a few weeks. When he was introduced to her mother, she hid and apparently thought he was a monster, because she'd never seen nor heard of a human being that didn't look like an Asian before, and he was this moon pale navy sailor with blonde hair that was 6" taller than anyone she'd ever seen.
We're mostly away from this for now, but I think once mankind spreads among the stars and we get segmented cultures and even evolutionary variants of human, this will start to be a very common trope.
Is that why they broke up? Did she eventually realize that he was a.normal person?
@@maxthexpfarmer3957 what?
"Building houses of cards in low gravity" sounds like a very exciting hobby. Real life size sky scrapers in cards on ceres!
Will one have to factor in the rotational speed at some point I wonder.
@@wahlex841 build height limited to stationary orbit distance.
my sense is that in a free society there will always be "niches".. so people will be able to stand out within particular segments/groups activities/hobbies..
“Free” are you suggesting that Egyptian slaves building the pyramids didn’t know who the prettiest slave was? Hadn’t heard of the greatest roman gladiator?
No such thing as free. Always something oppressing something
@@WiseOwl_1408 And that's good. Imagine absolute freedom to do as you please. I can't say how people will be in the far far future, but in todays world it'd end up with mass chaos and bloodshed on an imaginable scale. You can't even trust most people to bring back shop cart back to the shop if it's not enforced by rules/laws/fines.
@@chillax319 I expect the carts will know their way home.
@@jerkfudgewater147 The Egyptians did not use slaves to build their structures...
"To stand out all you have to do is find something you love and pursue it", this makes me think of H.P. Lovecraft who started out contributing to amateur fanzines, struggled to sell his poems and stories to specialist weird fiction pulps and died in poverty at 46 from stomach cancer probably brought on by long term malnutrition. In his wildest fantasies I doubt he could have imagined in less than a century the word Lovecraftian would be an influence on or associated with almost every aspect of the popular culture of billions of people.
Do What You Love; The Money Will Come. Maybe not to you in your lifetime, though.
@@squireob yeah sure but you so have to be good at what you do. If Lovecraft sucked he would only be remembered as a massive racist, not a massive racist and a genius author who fathered a whole genre and inspired philosophies. After a certain point doing what you love isn't enough.
@@ferretappreciator i haven't heard of him being racist tho. I'm not saying he was not, just that his big works are bigger.
@@ferretappreciator If Lovecraft sucked, he would not be remembered as a massive racist. The only reason anyone brings that up at all, is because he is famous. :D
@@ferretappreciator Well, there is Ed Wood.
I'm part of development/community team for a game modification, and while I'm not part of the inner admin circle, I'm one of the oldest members of the team. Our player numbers range in the hundreds of thousands or more, with just our main support Discord server having almost 80,000 users. That's not a lot on a global scale, but it still makes us one of the biggest mods around. That also means that I as part of it get to speak on eye level with several other well-known modders and other creators/personalities from related areas - some of our modellers/voice actors for example have worked on other well known projects as well, with those being their day jobs. Standing out in a specific community only gets easier when you can find likely minded people out of the entire human population.
I guess in a post scarcity civilisation standing out wouldn't be as important as it is in today's highly competitive society. There would be many people completely fine with being just like anyone else.
Besides I can easily imagine people "standing out" in their fields, interest circles and such. Basically, people standing out in fandoms, art societies, programming ones and so on and so on.
Just look what stupid shit people do on tiktok just for views. People are desperate for attention and i don't know how future will change this human nature.
I agree. Even if you look at Chinese culture, it is less important to stand out (obviously there are some political influences), but standing out is more considered self absorbed rather than important or something to strive for.
@@chillax319 Yes, or just within their friend group.
There are a lot of people like that now. Me for instance. I am completely fine being just like anyone else. I have no particular desire to stand out or be noticed by the masses.
Over the course of years I've grown self-effacing and undermine my self worth. While I don't like to capture my own pics I do like to capture beautiful moments that means something to me but almost all of them end up sitting in my hard drive for months or even years before I open to take a look at them again. Standing out in millions of people do feels like a big achievement and many would like to achieve just that and as you said success and fame come to those who are obsessed and passionate than to others who only seek fame and I guess a lot of people also would be more happy for getting to do things they like than to actually being famous. Amazing episode as usual Isaac!!! Your every episode sends me down to philosophical rollercoaster.
The ability to remember more people is one of the major mental enhancements I want. I wonder if this combined with radical life extension will all but eliminate jealousy, since you’d have enough time and emotional energy for innumerable loved ones who would no longer have to compete.
But there's only so much hours in a day
@@thanhvinhnguyento7069 depends what planet you're on
there's an XKCD comic that says subcultures are nested fractally. obviously we don't have the experimental data to validate this at the scale of trillions, but I could imagine among the number of people wanting to be unique, you could have groups of hair-splitters all doing very specific variations on the focus of their sub (-sub-sub-sub...) culture.
Until you end up at a sub-culture of one (the individual)
@@TomLisankie Chasseing sub-cultures is a sure way to find yourself at the bottom.
@@TomLisankie true, and I feel like I'm already there with a few subcultures
Great episode. Even now its possible to have conversations as surreal as something out of a scifi novel ("you do _what_ with cockroaches?"). I find the sheer breadth of potential experiences, cultures and sub-cultures, of a trillion+ person civilization to be impossible to imagine (especially as anything particularly unified).
I heard a person say today, "Is he talking about parrots finding god?"
If Life Extensions gets underway in this century. Just being born at or before 2000 will make you stand out all on its own!
You can wear fancy long robes and give yourself a title of "Elder"!
Have some respect, the elder one has seen it all
Yeah I really hope they make progress but I wouldn't hold my breath
Imagine living the next 3000 years of your life, where every 2860-year-old punk calls you a boomer
@@justinweeb8145 Aw, heck, I've already been categorized by a TH-camr as a "Gen-X Elder." Perhaps one day in the future, the term "boomer" will be an honorific!
Watched this on Nebula earlier, yet another informative episode as always Isaac. The numbers involved with numbers like a trillion people and the scales that follow are mind-boggling indeed.
The idea of small communities and groups of hundreds of thousands and even up to several millions... oh man.
Solid episode Isaac, I love when you give a noble ending phrase like that. Keep it up my dude, you would stand out in trillions for sure
That ending was poetic. greatful for your content!
I didn't expect today's episode to be so inspirational and reassuring. Well done sir
Any time I am worried about not standing out, all I do is go to a party and I am immediately put at ease that I do, in fact, stick out like a sore thumb.
You'll always be in my top 10,000 youtube channels buddy! .. Keep up the good work 👍🏻
Very inspirational video. It's been awhile since I watched one of your videos, and this was a pleasant one to come back to. As an aspiring crop scientist - very much looking forward to the next one!
I needed this video...thank you Isaac.
Hi Mr. Arthur. For whatever it's worth a couple video ideas have been in the back of my mind lately.
- Alternatives to electronic computing
- Heat management in space
Thank you and your team for another great episode, Cheers ~ Fan of the channel.
I'd like the second one. I think I know how it's done but I would like to know how it's actually done and what the limits are.
The alternative computing interest me as well, NASA wants a Venus rover that runs on gears.
@@hyrumhanson3390 Computes with gears? A mechanical computer? My Dad had used a thing called an "integrator" back in the early 60's. Big heavy thing with a giant handle on the side, heavy as hell and frequently broken.
Sidenote: stock video footage of people posing is so weird. Imagine being one of those actors
I suppose they were not posing for stock photos of people posing for pictures, but rather someone else was taking pictures of another photo shoot that had its own purpose. It could be B roll from the same company, so the model releases are already there from the main shoot.
Apparently Mars, PA manages to stand out as the perfect ‘small town’ stock footage for a sci-fi show.
I’d be disappointed if they didn’t 🤣
Mars has always stood out when it comes to sci-fi
:) Jupiter, Florida has made a couple appearances in the show too
Can't wait for you to reach a trillion subscribers.
If we're already at it, why not a quadrillion? Or a bajilion?!
That was a truly inspiring segment. Thanks for this Isaac.
I feel like this is the twin episode of the "finding meaning in a post scarcity society" one
Great episode and very motivating! Congrats to Isaac and the team! It made me think about equilibrium between the desire to share one's passion and our need (or maybe that's just me?) for privacy. Not everybody wants to be famous, but everyone wants to be known / loved / cared about... Again: love your work guys; you just keep getting better! 👍👍👍
Great comment.
people radically overestimate the amount of attention they need from people they don't know, because we're some of the first victims of/participants in electronic social media that we're finding out is often designed to be addictive.
I think with internet connections getting better, it will enable people to be more anonymous (by living more remotely and working from home) if they choose to. Even if we managed to have something like a cohesive civilization of trillions, plenty of them will live outside the scramble for uniqueness.
With regard to the example of a dragonfly photographer with intellectual disabilities or some other impediment to effective online presence, this is a situation where cybernetic or genetic therapy per se probably wouldn't be necessary, although it will likely still occur. There is a gifted young nature photographer with Downs called Oliver Hellowell whose mother runs his accounts, and that is the sort of role an AI assistant could fill for many in the future. A number of partly or fully non-speaking autistic people are able to use the web and even write and self-advocate very effectively with the help of enhanced communication tools which will only grow more advanced. The kind of AI partnerships you discussed in the relevant episode are likely to be of specific importance to future disabled communities.
I'm autistic myself. My IQ is rather high, which doesn't always equate to competence. IQ augmentation wouldn't help me deal with my electricity supplier- an AI assistant might.
"1TB costs about as much as a dinner at a modest restaurant" *sad Eastern European noises*
I live in the same region as Isaac, and I think he was being a little ambiguous.
The cheapest hdd from a reputable brand I can find is ~$37 US. My idea of a bill for dinner for one at a modest restaurant is about $20 or less, so he either meant dinner for two or his idea of modest is significantly better than mine 😅
@@AugustusBohn0 his wife is rich from the sound of it so he'd probably look at me like some dirty peasant for spending 300$ on food for a month.
it's true for Switzerland
@@AugustusBohn0 I was able to get a 4tb hdd for £20, so I'd actually agree with isaac here
@@AugustusBohn0 It makes more sense when thought of a "per TB" rather than the cost of a one TB disk, which is higher than one quarter of a 4TB disk.
This is such a good topic. I remember when I was a kid long before the internet and we would labor over writing that one perfect poem or drawing a picture that would take months or getting that one perfect picture that would cost a small fortune in film to capture just the right one. Now, there is no more paper needed to write, no more film needed to buy and digital graphics allows us to create art much quicker. The sheer abundance of litriture, photography and art + the ability to instantly release anything world wide on the internet, no wonder it must feel like it is hard to stand out for people today.
LITRITURE! Actually we were saturated with information, images and even art before there were any computers!
I don't want to be remembered.
If I'm being remembered, it means that I'm dead.
I don't want to be dead.
I dunno. I remember that gronk who threatened to bash me because I was standing too close to his car while I was waiting for my mother to pick me up. I was a child. He's probably still alive unfortunately, but I remember him.
Memento mori
Love this show Isaac! Thank you for years of thought provoking entertainment!
22:18 great thought!
_you've a better than __50:50__ chance of having your name remembered and recorded (...),_
_and all you need to do to stand out is find something you love and pursue it_
I would assume that in a population that huge, any fame will draw a significant amount of haters, and within them someone will go to extents like bot spam harassment or digging and distributing personal information, or even real life assault. It will be a dark forest.
I hope there will be more sociology minded episodes like this one, the meaning in a post scarcity one and the one about the future of relationships. Love hard science but those are my favorite videos.
Your optimism towards the future always brings me so much joy, thanks for that
In the internet era it takes more effort to have no presence than to stand out moderately.
This recent phenomenon plays out before our eyes in many ways. The Gabby Petito/Brian Laundrie case is one, as it's increasingly hard to imagine people "disappearing" anymore.
Thanks for another thought provoking video.
Well this has certainly brightened my spirits!
Hey Isaac, I hope life’s going well, proud of you man
Thanks
The thing with the “other people would notice if you’re gone” argument is that if *everyone* is gone then there’d be no one left to notice, which is why the word ‘existential’ in existential threats isn’t limited to the physical definition
What a positive message. I needed to hear that today. Thx 😁
Completely off topic but, that animation of the human populaces distribution over earth at around 15:00 was bloody stunning, the visuals on this channel are getting to a point where they genuinely enhance the overall experience and I personally appreciate the effort.
"Just a tiny little spec, about the size of Mickey Rooney..."
Yep, this show does STAND OUT IN THIS CIVILISATION!
I was actually waiting for you to make this video lol.
Great episode! Thanks for confirming that “drive” is one of the greatest indicators of success. It’s something I’ve always believed, but didn’t know research had been done on that. REALLY looking forward to next week’s episode on farming! Great job Isaac and team!
Crap! Well that explains a lot. I was always relying on "drift"...
@@bradgregory6995 hahahahaha
Crazy thing is when I got to the halfway point and you discussed gene editing and that being motivated or driven are the biggest markers for success, I thought immediately to all the single mothers, and some two parent households, that literally hold their children back.
Imagine these parents making them unmotivated before birth, or a "mommas boy" so she creates a son husband or a daughter that never ventures from their care. Scary thought. As parents would once again be the biggest dream killers
This was your best episode by far.
One of the longest motivation videos I've seen
I remember bringing this up to my girlfriend. I called it “screaming into the void”. People have to go to further and further extremes in order to be noticed as we are more connected.
The irony of the internet is it caused great disconnect.
8 months later and what you said still holds. This "screaming into the void", where people are doing more extreme stuff just to get noticed is getting worse. There are too many clout chasers and few people who are legit talented/exceptional.
"To stand out, all you need to do is find something you love and pursue it." Thanks, Isaac. I needed to hear that this week.
Whoo hooo! A new Isaac Arthur video!
Great job Issac Arthur! You are very popular among the STEM students at my school!
This video was very inspiring for people in my Technology club!
Loved the episode! Really spoke to me on several levels. Thank you again, your videos have shaped my world- and future view more than most people I know (e.g. informed my current choice of study)
I don't think that a civilization of trillions will perceive itself as a singular entity. It'd be easier to associate oneself with a particular planet, state or space station. You'll know that there are other planets out there and a certain overarching government body exists, but they will not be of interest or concern to you, unless you have to interact with them personally
True. The equivalent of the different power structures we have today will probably have control over similar number of people and there will just be higher levels of power that we do not have today.
7:00 I may not know my mayor's name, but I do recognize Mars, PA when I see it.
Thanks for the positivity Isaac. I didn't realize how badly I needed it.
I was really hoping he'd say 'my wife has been on billboards all over the district, but I still don't remember her name' (and it's getting awkward to ask)
A slight correction: the prophet Mohammed isn't worshiped in Islam (at least not to my knowledge) but rather Muslims worship God/Allah. This is the reason Muslims aren't allowed to depict Mohammed in artwork, because it may lead to him being worshiped as a god himself.
Yea that's correct.
The need to stand out is a mental condition. Most of the battles that play out on the public stage would be better off being fought in persons own mind.
couldn't have said it better. standing out is for friend groups, not international relations.
I know, right? People savagely contesting for the approval of others, for whom they have zero respect. It's idiotic, and it is enabled/amplified/made binary by social media, which is far outside our evolved range of reactions.
@@bradgregory6995 You are awesome.
You are one of my favorite youtubers and scientists brotha
As far as i know we don't yet have gas molecule memory storage or solid molycircuit memory storage that is a staple of sci fi. Of course a near by supper nova goes off and all the memory storage goes bye bye. Along with every thing else not very well shielded.
2:09 oh damn it... okay guys, we need to find another person to rule galactic federation
I've done hundreds of shows, a bunch of seminars, and lots of therapy over the last twenty years. Those people who have participated or watched might know me, but at most my total audiences probably rank somewhere from the tens of thousands to one hundred thousand at max. I've never worried about it. When someone says I must be famous, I shrug and say, "I'm only a little bit famous." That phrase will work for ever-larger groups as the population increases further.
It's sad where scientists including Steven hawking say we are running out of space yet IA says nope we have enough room for 500 billion. Good to have a positive outlook on humanity.
Not going to lie, that ending monolog made me tear up
IA: Talks about only having a million people that would recognize his brand.
Me: Double checks that I'm subscribed.
very inspired and inspiring this was. thanks guys
I like the idea of tech to "connect" with other people. It's like having people connected to a a cloud network. You can a lot of options on who to connect to and the type of connections. I'd imagine couples who consider themselves "soul mates" to have a type of connection where you can feel everything about the status of the other.
I do not beleive technology helps people connect at at all. It isolates people. The ideal use is to keep in touch with friends, and family that come in and out of your life. But it cannot replace a physical community right outside your door.
Thank you mr. Arthur for another great video.
damn that ending got me right in the feels
This is definitely in the top ten videos you made thus far! One thing that got me thinking is video games, sports, and other competition. At such a scale of tens or hundreds of trillions of people, the concept of being 'good' at something may shift vastly. For example, being 1 out of a billion at a popular video game may as well make you the world champion. Being 1 in a billion when the player base is 10 trillion? Meh, still decent but there are thousands upon thousands of people better than you.
Being good at something may thus shift from being above average to being close to perfect, at least on the broadest scale. Of course, the more specialized you get the less close to perfect you need to get to be considered very good.
Great great episode. Very poetic as well toward the end.
I think we'll have virtual or simulated sub-realities in which people can live entire lives in whatever setting they choose, and in those places, standing out will be very possible.
My biggest fear is being forgotten. I come from a family with 'famous' architects, engineers and ship builders and its difficult. In my study there are 400 students every year and it makes me feel so small. Thank you for this great video Isaac!
My biggest fear is isaac never doing halo video
lol
Have as many kids a possible and then whenever they trace their ancestry it will come back to you.
Have you actually examined why you equate "small" with "bad" or "unsatisfactory"?
"small" by whose standards? Are you better than others if you become "big"? Have you examined the ethical grounding for that feeling?
Your life is too important for you to let others keep score. (ooh! a "wise aphorism"!)
Be kind, be humble, and treat all as you'd want to be treated, write your thoughts, your fears and your fictions.
Do that, and you'll never be forgotten.
Futurism videos like this (oddly?) give me hope for the future.
You, ISAAC Arthur, stand out sir. 'Fame without honor is like a meteor gliding through the sky, shedding only transient light.'
Someone needs too open a bar called the Jim Joans with look alike a as bartenders just for that phrase “Pick your poison.”
I do know exactly what you mean. My TH-cam channel is small compared to the big names, but I do have over 25 million total views across all the different videos. Out of all of that I have had exactly 3 people recognize me from them. Or at least just 3 that walked up and introduced themselves.
Which is just fine with me. Never had the ambition to be famous. Just started the channel to share some of my hobbies. Never expected to ever see 25,000 views, let alone 25 million.
So I always encourage other people to do videos, on whatever subject might interest them. After all, what`s the absolute worst that could happen? That no one watched? If so, you are out the time it took to make and upload the videos. Nothing else. So why not give it a try. The more videos there are out there, the more choices people have as to what to watch. And more choices is almost always a good thing for everyone.
>If so, you are out the time it took to make and upload the videos. Nothing else.
you're forgetting that time - is the only thing we don't have the luxury to waste.
@@swancrunch If you are too busy to waste 30 minutes, you are too busy. :-)
@@1957Shep I am. I have to. It's a living.
But then, not all videos take 30 minutes to make. Isaac's videos are perfect example, how much time do you think he spends into research, writing, editing? I bet his 30 minute video is like a week worth of time.
@@swancrunch I expect it does. But you don`t have to, and should not, copy him or anyone else.
Do your own thing. About something you know or like. Hell, do a book review or comment on a movie, or how bad the gunk that passes for TV these days is.
Nothing wrong at all with 5 minute videos.
I tend to keep mine to between 5 and 10 minutes. Some people can keep people interested for an hour, but I`m not one of them.
Standing out synonymous with making a difference or being important as a person.
This explains so much in what his happening in society right now.
Measuring the people who got famous for being famous would be the Kardashian Scale?
Lol
Lol
This video made me oddly feel better that it would be hard for ALL of my data to be removed for people to be able to look up in the future. But in a very lonely way.... fragments waiting to be remembered....
Facebook alone currently has roughly 30 million accounts that were created by people who are no longer alive.
Cyber graveyard.
Unusually emotional endspeech Isaac. Not your normal style. It touched me though. Thx for the great vid!
Inspiring stuff.. what I am missing is why or what the motivation is to be remembered..
Never cared for it myself.. and outside validation from others or material gains i really see no need to stand out..
As long as I reach my own set goals or am happy with the choices i made I should be able to be happy..
Good for you.
@@garethbaus5471 no but really do you think its really in our DNA or mindset that its one of the key points that could dictate how our society will end up forming?
I would've thought it was more of a mindset..
Most people just want to be respected in their own village, town - or O'Neill Cylinder.
i love the optimism of this channel
the only reason I remember my mayor's name is because every time I read Ray Salazar that telenovela drama sound plays in my head.
Being remembered isn't satisfied just by having a medium for remembering, you need actual people inspecting the thing and actually having it in their minds.
absolutely beautiful
Love the positivity of this episode!!
Very informative, Coach
Imagine the people who truly do stand out.
In any group someone will be the best.
In a population of trillions or quintillions, even without artificial enhancement, some will be more intelligent, attractive, athletic, creative, and talented than anyone in history.
Thank you arthur
i love the fact that isaac wikipedia page now has a photo
Standing out is a concept we should leave behind. Who cares about fame, when you enjoy what you do, who you are, and whom you share your time with? I find we have way too many selfish people who are that way without any good reason, just because of how the culture affects us.
standing out in a group of tens is plenty of attention for me, personally. fame just exposes you to more nuts, detractors, and nuisances.
It isn’t something that humans can just shut off. It’s a part of human nature to want attention, however, why they want it varies based on personality.
Totally agree, Alvaro. "leave behind" or dramatically moderate. The idea of becoming "known" to everyone in the world seems kind of pathological to me. I'd rather be well-respected by someone I myself admired, than be known by a million randos.
Now, if we can reduce our social groups down to double digits, there might actually be a healthy approach to this "need".
Easy-you be the crazy brave puppeteer