alien civilizations

Kurzgesagt asks whether advanced civilizations could have existed on Earth in the deep past and left little evidence. It looks at time as a dimension for searching for alien civilizations and the limits of the geological record.

A 146-minute Merged Podcast episode in which UAP researcher Ryan Graves talks with economist Robin Hanson about UFOs. Topics include the Great Filter, Hanson's grabby aliens model, and the push for more inquiry into UAPs.

A short Kurzgesagt animation explaining the Great Filter, the idea that finding alien life might be bad news because it implies something usually destroys civilizations. It connects the concept to the Fermi paradox.

Physicist Angela Collier gives an hour-long critique of Avi Loeb's alien claims and reputation, placing them within the broader topic of physics crackpots. The Loeb discussion starts around the 24 minute mark.

Rational Animations explains Robin Hanson's grabby aliens model, which argues that humanity looks suspiciously early in cosmic history. Expanding civilizations set a deadline that explains our timing and bears on the Fermi paradox.

Kurzgesagt animated explainer on the Dark Forest answer to the Fermi Paradox. It argues that if advanced civilizations exist, staying silent may be the safest strategy because revealing yourself invites a first strike.

An Isaac Arthur episode on civilizations in the dark, post-stellar universe, including black hole farming, accretion disks and the Penrose process as energy sources.

PBS Space Time examines the interstellar object 'Oumuamua and the popular theories about it, including the light-sail hypothesis. It argues that a natural rock is the likeliest explanation.

Lex Fridman interviews Harvard astrophysicist Avi Loeb about the interstellar object Oumuamua, aliens and black holes. Loeb lays out his argument that it may be an artifact rather than debris.

Kurzgesagt introduces the Fermi paradox: with so many stars and planets, why do we see no sign of aliens? It sets up the question and what it might imply for our own future. It is part 1 of 2.

PBS Space Time considers whether life could be based on silicon instead of carbon, comparing the two elements' chemistry and why silicon is the most plausible alternative.

Isaac Arthur examines the Dark Forest theory, Cixin Liu's proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox in which civilizations stay silent and may destroy any that reveal themselves. He tests the theory's underlying assumptions and arguments.

Kurzgesagt explains the black hole bomb and how far-future civilizations might extract energy from spinning black holes, including Dyson-sphere-style ideas.

An Isaac Arthur episode on civilizations in the far future, past the Black Hole Era. It covers iron stars, Boltzmann brains, reversible computing and the idea of reversing entropy.

Lex Fridman interviews University of Glasgow chemist Lee Cronin about the origin of life, aliens, complexity and consciousness. The conversation centers on Cronin's assembly theory.

A 2004 short film adaptation of Terry Bisson's story "They're Made Out of Meat", in which aliens discuss the astonishing discovery of meat-based intelligent life. It stars Tom Noonan and Ben Bailey.

Lex Fridman talks with Tufts biologist Michael Levin about bioelectricity, embryogenesis, xenobots and how cells collectively pursue goals. They range into cognition, evolution and the possibility of aliens.

The first part of the ending alien sequence from the 2018 film Annihilation, with its distinctive soundtrack. The scene features a strange, shifting mimic and a surreal visual climax.

Folk musician Peter Mulvey performs Vlad the Astrophysicist, a spoken-word style song that touches on why civilizations may never meet across space and time.

A Kurzgesagt video exploring how advanced civilizations might wage war across light years. It looks at weapons such as relativistic beams and what they would do.

A five-minute clip in which Erich Fromm asks whether the purpose of work is just making money. He argues that white-collar workers end up selling their personality, relating to others the way goods relate to each other on a market, and he points to creative pleasure, participation and usefulness to society as what work could offer instead.

An Onion News Network satire about Prague's Kafka International being ranked the most alienating airport because of delays, bureaucratic staff, and an oppressive atmosphere.

Lex Fridman interviews Navy pilot David Fravor, a primary witness of the 2004 Tic Tac UFO encounter, about the sighting, military aviation and aerospace engineering. The conversation runs close to four hours.

PBS Space Time explains the proposal to use the Sun's gravity as a giant lens, sending a train of small light-sail spacecraft to the focal point roughly 550 AU out. It covers how such a telescope could image exoplanets in surprising detail and the engineering challenges involved.

A three-hour Joe Rogan Experience conversation with Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson about lost civilizations, the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis and Earth's cataclysmic history.

Veritasium explains how ASML's EUV lithography machines make the most advanced computer chips, covering the engineering of the light source, mirrors and the supply chain around them. It is a long-form explainer on the world's most complex commercial machine.

Lex Fridman's long conversation with Andrej Karpathy on Tesla's self-driving approach, Optimus, neural networks, transformers, AGI and more. It also touches on his OpenAI work and working with Elon Musk.

A short film adaptation of Terry Bisson's story 'They're Made Out of Meat', in which alien explorers discuss with disbelief that humans are sentient beings made of meat. It won a grand prize at the 2006 SIFF short film festival.

A clip from the film Aliens in which Ripley says to nuke the entire site from orbit because it is the only way to be sure.

A very short clip of Bill Paxton's famous 'Game over man, game over!' line from the 1986 film Aliens.

Episode 8 of the Fall of Civilizations podcast, a roughly two and a half hour history of the Sumerians. It covers their mysterious origins, invention of writing and mathematics, great early cities and eventual collapse, with myths, proverbs and recreated music.

An episode of Fall of Civilizations on the Late Bronze Age Collapse around 1100 BC, when many Eastern Mediterranean societies were destroyed in a short span. It explores the Sea Peoples and the lessons for modern globalised societies.

A two-hour episode of Fall of Civilizations on the Nabataeans, from humble desert traders to masters of Petra, and what finally brought down their empire.

Andrei Tarkovsky's 1972 film Solaris, in which a psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting a planet with an alien intelligence and meets his dead wife there. It is the full movie, uploaded by Mosfilm.

A DevGAMM talk by Jonathan Blow arguing that civilizations can lose technological capability and that software quality is already deteriorating. He discusses how knowledge fails to transfer between generations.

Robert Miles explains the orthogonality thesis: how an agent can be highly intelligent while pursuing goals that seem stupid or alien to humans. He separates intelligence from goals and touches on the stamp-collector example.

Potholer54 presents the climate science case and a market-oriented, conservative-friendly approach to addressing global warming, with sources listed. It is part one of a two-part series.

Kurzgesagt explains stellar engines such as the Shkadov thruster and Caplan thruster, which could move the Sun and solar system across the galaxy over millions of years to avoid hazards and reach new regions.

Jake Birkett of Grey Alien Games explains at GDC 2016 how an indie developer survived eleven years without a hit by building a long tail of games and redefining success.

Isaac Arthur examines the Dyson Dilemma, the puzzle of why we see no Dyson spheres or megastructures if growth-oriented civilizations should build them. He covers detectability and whether such structures could hide.