Joe Rogan talks to Lawrence Krauss about CRISPR

Hello freak bitches. When you see some of the emerging technologies like CRISPR and some of these genetic engineering technologies where they're starting to use non-viable human fetuses and run some tests on them, are you concerned at all about that? Are you concerned about, or I shouldn't use the term concern because obviously you have that mindset. No, no, no, no, I'm concerned. Of let things happen. No, no, it's not just let things happen. Let them, watch what's going to happen, try and anticipate the results, understand them in detail, anticipate what the results are and avoid negative ones to the extent you can. That's what life is all about. But accept the fact that things are going to change. But accept the fact that things are going to change. That's not such, that's, aren't we happy that the world is different than it was during medieval times? Sure. I mean, except for Mike Pence and other people. The rest of us are happy, or I can pick a lot of radio commentators, but most of us are happy that the world has gotten more open, more interesting. And so that's part of the human drama, is that it's going to go places and we don't know where it's going to go. And that's okay, but we should all work as much as we can to try and make sure to the extent that we can that the direction it heads is a good one, is beneficial, more interesting, more exciting, more possibilities, more fun for everybody, and maybe even more sustainable. Because it seems reasonable that it should be sustainable if we think we care about not just our children, but our grandchildren and their grandchildren. And so it's self-interest in some sense to be interested in conservation and sustainability instead of immediate profit. If you really care, of course, you know, I might say if I am mass enough wealth and my children will be fine forever, and who gives a damn about the rest of the people's children? But you know, we can decide that maybe it's in the best interests of everyone if human society is sustainable because there'll be less likelihood for extreme war, extreme violence, blah, blah, blah. You can, I would argue that we behave well in large part because of reason. And my point is, and I've had this, we had a session in my Origins Project, a whole meeting on the origins of morality. And I've had this debate with a number of colleagues who point out, I think it was Hume who said, you can't get ought from his, okay? You can't get ought from his, just by rationality you can't decide how to behave. Maybe, maybe, but here's the point. Without is, you can never get to ought. Without knowing the consequences of your actions, which is what science is all about, you can't decide what's good and bad. And so science and reason is an essential part of any progress because we can't possibly decide what economic policies to enact or what social policies or what technological policies if we don't know the consequences of actions. That's why, for example, here's an example. It was so stupid for the Republicans to design this healthcare policy and promote it before anyone had analyzed, say, the economic impact of it. I mean, they could have still decided to do it. It's not as if, but at least that data would have been useful for making a final decision. It's that simple. But getting back to that CRISPR thing, if that becomes available and if it advances to the point where it's available to people that are alive today, would you give it a shot? Would you change anything about yourself? Would you become Thor? I mean, if it really gets to that point, what do you mean? We can worry about a lot of things. I'm not as many when you're as worried about that as I'm hacking, right? Because if you know, we can hack computers and if you can hack DNA, as a lot of kids want to do. In fact, I was told years ago, I'm chairman of the board of something called the Bold and Need of Atomic Scientists, the board of sponsors that sets the doomsday clock every year. So we have to think about existential threats to mankind. I remember about seven or eight years ago, we had a professor from MIT who said his computer science students were most interested in hacking DNA, much more interested than hacking, because it's just a code. If you can manipulate arbitrarily in a very precise way DNA, then of course there are many good things that can come and maybe you can make yourself stronger, bigger, whatever you want. Maybe it were not you, maybe your children, whatever. And maybe you can overcome genetic diseases, which of course would be great, but you can also, with great power comes great responsibility. And with that, you can also imagine hacking, right? And creating new viruses or whatever you want. And so yeah, it's any new technology is terrifying. Does that mean we shouldn't create new technologies? I mean, cars are terrifying. Cars kill. Now maybe we'll have self-driving cars. Maybe fewer people will die. Some people are afraid of self-driving cars because they do present moral problems. If a car is designed to minimize the number of people it kills, and it can do that by killing you, if you're faced with running into five school children or the car turning and hitting a wall, what do you want your car program to do? And they're fascinating questions we will have to address. Technology can be used in many ways, and it's terrifying, but it's trite to use this old expression. But I do think of it at times, which is that the little thing I gave my stepdaughter once that said, ships are safe in the harbor, but that's not what ships are meant to do. You can bury your head in the sand. You can never go outside the house for fear of being run over by a car or being embarrassed or whatever, or you can choose to live a life. It's your choice. But to me, living a life is more interesting. That's why in the book I point out you can choose how to look at the world. You can choose to say you're the center of the universe, and if that makes you feel better, fine, and the universe was created for you. Or you can choose to let your beliefs conform to the evidence of reality and assume the universe exists and evolved independent of your existence. And in that case, you're bound to be surprised. Isn't it better to have a life full of surprise than a life that doesn't have any? No, it's a wonderful philosophy. What I'm thinking is I'm wondering about these technological advancements when it comes to the ability to manipulate the human body, and when they get to the point where we don't have the same issues that we have today with diseases and with injuries, or even with biological inferiorities, with everyone who looks like LeBron James. Yeah, yeah. Okay. You could imagine that's the case. I suspect people will want different things. Sure. But okay, that'll be a very different world. But look at this way. You're a pretty buff guy, okay? You manipulated your body, right? Yes. Okay, what's wrong with that? No, nothing, but I'm still five foot eight. Okay. LeBron James is seven feet tall and manipulated his body. It's a very different deal. If someone gives me a seven foot tall pill, I might take it. Yeah, but you manipulate your body given the technology of the time. Right, but if that technology changes and everyone can be seven feet tall. Is it worse because you know enough physiology now or whatever, exercise physiology, that you can manipulate your body more efficiently now than you could before, and people can run faster miles or jump higher because we've been sports forever. Sure, forever. Right. So that's okay. That's fine. It is. I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on the future when there are these physiological imbalances. I try to anticipate the possibilities, and to the extent I can discuss what they are so that we as a society can address them more cogently. I do not, however, generally make predictions about anything less than two trillion years in the future. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. That's great.