Cancer Research

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

On the last page of The Martian, you mentioned that hundreds of millions of dollars were spent to save this one life. What are the limits of spending that kind of money to save individual lives? Where do you draw the line? How do you think about that philosophically? I guess it would come down to how, like, if you were going to spend that money to save other lives instead, how many could you save? You'll never know. But you never really know.

Before writing a single word of his new book Artemis, Andy Weir worked out the economics of a lunar colony. Without the economics, how could the story hew to the hard sci-fi style Weir cornered the market on with The Martian? And, more importantly, how else can Tyler find out much a Cantonese meal would run him on the moon?

In addition to these important questions of lunar economics, Andy and Tyler talk about the technophobic trend in science fiction, private space efforts, seasteading, cryptocurrencies, the value of a human life, the outdated Outer Space Treaty, stories based on rebellion vs. cooperation, Heinlein, Asimov, Weir’s favorite episode of Star Trek, and the formula for finding someone else when stranded on a lonely planet.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded November 15th, 2017 Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Follow Andy on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.