Where Technology and Morality Meet w/Boyan Slat | Joe Rogan

I mean, if you do get to do this, here's another problem, okay? Here's a big one for the ocean. We're depleting it of seafood, of life. I mean, you know, I had, how do you say his name again? Sahoyes, right? Luis Sahoyes, who directed the Kovan. We were talking about the replenishing of the wildlife in the ocean. And when you start looking at it on a grand scale, like how much fish they're pulling out of the ocean, it's very sobering, you know? Sure. Maybe you can come up with a way to replenish the fish in the ocean so we can continue eating sushi. What do you think? So maybe just zoom out a bit and realize what it's, so because of course, plastic pollution, climate change, overfishing, I think it's all part of one big problem to make civilization sustainable and the way I look at it is that, of course, over the past 200 years, humanity has made tremendous progress. So of course, since agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, humanity has been kind of stagnant, no progress, or just very, very slow progress, number of people, lifespan, it was all kind of flat, nothing really happened. And then since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and when we learned how to utilize science and our knowledge, collective knowledge, to turn that into progress, basically every possible metric for humanity has improved tremendously. If you think of wealth, health, violence, education, rights, all these things, I know you've had Steven Pinker on, he's much more knowledgeable on that topic than I am. Yet, so truly, at this point in time, it has never been a better time to be alive for humans than today, not saying that it can't get better, but we have made tremendous progress by, on one hand, imagining things that don't exist yet, so inventing technologies and also inventing institutions. And on the other hand, our human ability to collaborate effectively in large numbers, which includes the corporation, which is a very effective way for people to work together. Now, all that progress has always, has also had its negative side effects, which are most pronounced, of course, in the area of the environment where we put things into an environment that shouldn't belong there, and we take too much out of it, then nature can replenish, which includes the fish, and on the other hand, you have the plastic going into the environment, et cetera. So, then the question is, well, how do we solve that? And of course, one hand is to say, okay, it's kind of the, maybe the ludite is maybe a bit of a negative way to phrase it, but the sort of reactionary approach of saying, okay, we should consume less, corporations are bad, technology is bad, we should all get rid of all those things. And I think the modern environmental movement, which is really kind of this romantic movement has this image of back in the day, everything was great, and we lived in harmony with nature, so let's get rid of all this modernity and try and return to that pure original state. What I, however, believe is that, first of all, that I don't think it's a very realistic thing. People want to keep their iPhones and their cars and people want to move forward. And at the same time, I don't think it's really the most effective way to solve these problems, because it would be like fighting a leopard tank with bow and arrow. Technology is nothing more than an enabler of human capabilities, it enhances our power. So why not use that power to also try and solve these problems as well? So rather than try and reject business, reject technology, I truly believe that we should embrace those forces that make us human and has created this amazing world to also try and solve these negative side effects as well. And that's why I believe the overconsumption of fish is not going to end by people all becoming vegan, but rather through fake meat. I think that the transport emissions are not going to be solved by people not flying anymore or not going anywhere anymore. Realistically, people are going to fly more, so we better invent technologies that allow people to do that without harming the environment. And the same thing, I think would be the case for plastic and really other energy uses as well. No, I think that's a very wise way of looking at it. And it's a hopeful way of looking at it. And it's funny that today, even though you're dealing with statistics and factual information, like the fact that it's safer to live today, there's less violent crime, it's easier to get by, there's more technology, more innovation, medical technologies improve radically, all these things are true, but you still have to say it's not where we want it to be. I'm not saying that the world's perfect, you have to say that even you, like even though you're, I mean, look, it's the worry about people barking at you. So worry about people, it's still terrible in parts of the world, it's still terrible for people who have color, it's still terrible for trans, it's still, I get it, I get it, I get it. No one's saying that there's not room for improvement, but you have to say that. Like you even know you felt compelled, you're like, it's still not perfect. Yeah. And I wonder why it's so controversial. I think it's important to learn from the things that we do well, and then apply that. I don't think it is that controversial. I think it's a trick. I think there's just a lot of people looking for every single opportunity to complain, even to someone like you who is objectively done nothing but good. You say one thing, like, I mean, Steven Pinker took a ton of heat for saying that. And even though he's talking about actual scientific statistics, he's just, it's not saying the world's perfect and everyone should shut up. What he's saying is we should look at this, you know, from a bird's eye view, look down and understand that although there's much work to be done, we're in a great place in comparison to the rest of human history. And it's, it's helpful to realize that progress is possible. Just imagine that every, there's something that feels intuitively right, as if every step forward would also have to equal a step backward elsewhere. And I don't think that's the case. There's plenty of things that you can invent that are not that, and we see it, for example, with carbon right now, that there's countries where, you know, like, like Sweden, GDP has grown a lot past 20 years, carbon emissions has gone down. So they call that the decoupling. And I think what's really the main challenge in this century is to decouple human progress from, from those negative side effects. And I think the way to do that is not reactionary. It's really, again, through innovation and through to collaboration. I agree with you. And I think that a lot of times people just assume that this is these are the consequences of innovation, there's a pro and a con to everything. Because there has been so many things, there have been so many things that are inventions that were there are pro and a con to it. But that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be that way. No, and even if things have a pro and a con, it doesn't mean the pro is as big as the con. So, and if that would be the case, all the technology, every technology would be neutral, and it wouldn't matter, wouldn't matter what you invent. But it would mean that an atomic bomb is morally as neutral as an ocean cleanup system, which I just don't find plausible. So I do believe that inventors, entrepreneurs, they put certain morality into their creations, into their technology. There is, you know, there is a certain use that you prescribe with your invention. I mean, you don't use nuclear bombs to wash your car, right? I mean, you use it not for benign uses, unless maybe you want to terraform Mars, which some people propose to do with atomic bombs. I don't know what that's a good idea. But yeah, I don't think technology is neutral. It has a morality. So what that means is that as long as we consequent consistently develop net positive technologies, you know, eventually, the world does get better and better if say technology is 60% goods, and maybe has 40% downside. And okay, but then we can invent a solution for that 40%. And maybe that's again, net positive. And you can't get this cascade of ever improving world. No, I think what you're saying sounds beautiful. And if more people thought the way you're thinking, I think the world would be a better place. I like the positivity. I like the optimism and what you're thinking in terms, particularly in terms of what's, what's possible with innovation. Yeah, well, I, I just don't think that being against something is very productive. It doesn't really move us forward. So rather than, you know, protesting against the things that I don't agree with, and there's certainly things that I don't agree with. But again, I don't think it's very helpful. Rather than doing that, I'd much rather built towards a future that I do agree with. You listen, man, I think what you're saying is very, very logical. I wish more people thought like you. You're a great role model for a lot of kids to use your energy in a positive direction. It can be done. Yeah. Sure. I mean, I think we agree with your journey. Yeah.