David Deutsch: Chemical scum that dream of distant quasars
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited for its optimistic argument that there are few limits to knowledge and human progress.
What it is
David Deutsch's TED talk arguing that humanity's survival depends on solving problems through knowledge growth. He frames people as improbable "chemical scum" capable of understanding distant quasars.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2016 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Cites lomnakkus · 2016-05 · on “Crying”
Since we all seem to be in a sharing mood... Also a guy -- no beard -- but (and I'm not joking here)... I watched that exact trailer just now and teared up a little. As for movies, I have two examples: Up (pure emotion) and The Fountain -- the scene towards the end where he talks to the high priest and Clint Mansell's music takes over. For me, I think it's generally sort of really EPIC things that do it. Really huge scales also tend to do it, for example some of the star size comparisons, or David Deutsch's talk about relativistic jets[1], or just contemplating the fact that some black holes swallow a solar mass per day . Sometimes it's just "beauty", e.g. I couldn't help tearing up when Car
Cites grabbalacious · 2020-01 · on “A singer apologized, closed his eyes, dropped his head and died onstage”
1. It won't effect it. Considering that the entire current human population could fit into France or Germany at about the same density as some parts in SE Asia. Not saying this is desirable. But consider how many people could live in the entire solar system? Ultimately in intergalactic space: [this video] [LINK] 2. Any neuroplasticity loss due to biological aging is itself accumulated damage which will have to be repaired as part of life extension. 3. Human evolution is now overwhelmingly the evolution not of genes but of ideas/culture/memes. 4. That's for an individual to decide. At the moment there are plenty of old people who can apparently think of no reason to live but they hide the fact. Th
Cites morphle · 2025-01 · on “Mandelbrot deep zoom theory and practice (2021)”
There are virtually no limits (for Mandelbrot and computing in general) because there are few limits on the growth of knowledge [5]. In a few decades we will have learned to take CO2 (carbon dioxide) molecules out of the air [4] and rearrange the carbon atoms in 3D structures atom by atom [6]. We will be able to grow the transistors and the solar cells virtually for free. Energy will be virtually free, a squandrable abundance of free and clean energy [2]. At that point we will start automatically self-assembling Dyson Swarms constructions of solar cells with transistors on the back [1] on the Quebibyte scale to capture all the solar output of the sun [3] and get near-infinite compute for fre