The Great Filter

Thomas Wright
The Great Filter

The nature of existence is such that we will always find ourselves hurtling toward a string of sequential cataclysmic events. Unfortunately, humanity is lacking in the "proactive measures" department. Let's fucking talk about that.

  1. 10/10/2021

    Escape To Mars: Moving Humanity Off Planet

    Impact threats are the most certain of any extinction-level events. Yet, despite the warnings of hundreds of scientists - we continue to dawdle in both our search for alternative, extraterrestrial, homes and the development of technologies to get there. Let's take a really good look at this, shall we? "All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct." Carl Sagan (unsourced) "Since, in the long run, every planetary society will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring - not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive. And once you're out there in space for centuries and millennia, moving little worlds around and engineering planets, your species has been pried loose from its cradle." Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of The Human Future in Space p 173 "If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds." Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of The Human Future in Space p 176 The Great Filter now has a website :)    https://thegreatfilterpodcast.com/ Your feedback is appreciated and important to us. Comment, like, subscribe, follow, or rate The Great Filter on your favorite podcast listening platform. The Great Filter is a PhobosTech podcast. All proceeds go to funding the STEM Theory research project and other PhobosTech research endeavors. You can support STEM Theory research with a small monthly contribution for as little as $0.99 here: https://anchor.fm/thegreatfilter/support Special thanks to NASA on Unsplash for the photo in this episode's cover art.

    46 min
  2. 09/27/2021

    The Education Catastrophe

    Our children are the future, yet our willingness to invest in them dawdles and whimpers. With so much at stake - including our species' own survival - why have we chosen to ignore this problem? This episode takes a look at the motivations and bottlenecks surrounding this issue. "It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self." -- Donald Woods Winnicott "Whether in the public or independent sector, in schools or at home, being creative in providing education and promoting creativity are not dispensable luxuries. They are essential to enable us all to make lives that are worth living." -- Sir Ken Robinson Links: _____________________________________________________________ Education, Children, Learning & Development (courses, books, research, and other resources): https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learning/dp/0674729013 https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Understanding-Creation-Intelligent-Machines/dp/0805078533 https://www.amazon.com/Discipline-Without-Punishment-Employees-Performers/dp/0814402763 https://www.wondrium.com/scientific-secrets-for-raising-kids-who-thrive https://www.wondrium.com/raising-emotionally-and-socially-healthy-kids https://www.wondrium.com/how-to-raise-lifelong-learners https://www.wondrium.com/how-the-world-learns-comparative-educational-systems Scrum: https://www.amazon.com/Scrum-Doing-Twice-Work-Half/dp/038534645X Scrum in The Classroom: https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/scrum-classroom-part-1-time-change https://threeteacherstalk.com/2019/01/25/using-scrum-in-the-classroom/ Marijuana & The Adolescent Brain (Research): Marijuana Use and High School Dropout: The Influence of Unobservables: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2910149/ Effects of Cannabis on the Adolescent Brain: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3930618/ Is the Adolescent Brain at Greater Vulnerability to the Effects of Cannabis?: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00859/full Cannabis and the adolescent brain: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/1/7 What Pot Really Does to the Teen Brain: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-pot-really-does-to-the-teen-brain/ NOVA Principles (bad science): NOVA homepage: https://novaprinciples.com/ Religious Kids Are Less Likely to Get in Trouble (as cited by NOVA): http://www.center4research.org/religious-kids-likely-good/ Effects of Religion (the more honest science): Mixed Blessing: The Beneficial and Detrimental Effects of Religion on Child Development among Third-Graders: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/1/37/htm Science Does Not Say That Religious Children Are More Likely to be 'Immoral': https://futurism.com/no-science-does-not-say-that-religious-children-are-more-likely-to-be-immoral -- The Great Filter now has a website :)    https://thegreatfilterpodcast.com/ Your feedback is appreciated and important to us. Comment, like, subscribe, follow, or rate The Great Filter on your favorite podcast listening platform. The Great Filter is a PhobosTech podcast. All proceeds go to funding the STEM Theory research project and other PhobosTech research endeavors. You can support STEM Theory research with a small monthly contribution for as little as $0.99 here: https://anchor.fm/thegreatfilter/support Special thanks to Pete Linforth from Pixabay, Kindel Media from Pexels, and Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels for providing the artwork used in this episode's cover art.

    53 min
  3. Global Suicide - Part IV: Disorder & Dead Presidents

    09/13/2021

    Global Suicide - Part IV: Disorder & Dead Presidents

    Entropy is a two-edged sword. It is our life-force; but if it accelerates and begins to runaway with our energy, it can become a death sentence. Our society has within itself a variety of entropy amplifiers that increase our system's entropy by orders of magnitude - warming the planet and wasting our hard work. If we don't get this fixed, these entropy amplifiers will truly spell our end. "If your theory is found to be against the second law of theromodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." -- Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington The Royal Institution: Explaining Thermodynamics - Monthly(ish) Mailbag #3: https://youtu.be/0A44-TCJU9g?t=105 World Hunger: https://ourworldindata.org/hunger-and-undernourishment FBI Crime Data Explorer: https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/downloads Psychopaths / Brain Injury: https://www.med.wisc.edu/news-and-events/2011/november/psychopaths-brains-differences-structure-function/ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brains-psychopaths/study-finds-psychopaths-have-distinct-brain-structure-idUSBRE8460ZQ20120507 https://sciencenordic.com/forskningno-psychology-society--culture/no-we-are-not-swimming-in-psychopaths/1450492 https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/mar/30/michael-mccaul/michael-mccaul-says-1-100-people-sociopath/ Up The Gravity Well (Essay): https://creationtribe.medium.com/up-the-gravity-well-7af2e35ac87a Value & Harmonized-State Potential: https://youtu.be/MnkMLj24J3Y Professor Dave's Thermodynamics Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLORSu_035d5XIQfDwty_LY8kp2-39jgdh -- The Great Filter now has a website :)    https://thegreatfilterpodcast.com/ Your feedback is appreciated and important to us. Comment, like, subscribe, follow, or rate The Great Filter on your favorite podcast listening platform. The Great Filter is a PhobosTech podcast. All proceeds go to funding the STEM Theory research project and other PhobosTech research endeavors. You can support STEM Theory research with a small monthly contribution for as little as $0.99 here: https://anchor.fm/thegreatfilter/support Special thanks to Björn Austmar Þórsson from Pexels for this episodes cover-art photograph.

    1h 2m

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The nature of existence is such that we will always find ourselves hurtling toward a string of sequential cataclysmic events. Unfortunately, humanity is lacking in the "proactive measures" department. Let's fucking talk about that.

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