The Mystery of the Absence of Advanced Civilizations

Dr. Jordan Peterson sits down with the director of the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University, Dr. David Kipping. They discuss the likelihood of finding life elsewhere in the universe, what it means to be a Type I civilization, why Mars is our best chance at interplanetary expansion, the comparative rarity of a solar system like ours, and science fiction concepts, such as the Dyson sphere, which may one day become a reality.

David Kipping is an associate professor of astronomy and director of the Cool Worlds Lab at Columbia University in New York City. He has published over a hundred peer reviewed research articles, spanning the fields of exoplanet and exomoon detection, astrostatistics, astrobiology, and technosignatures. He is also an active communicator of science through his popular YouTube channel Cool Worlds.

This episode was recorded on June 28, 2024

- Links -

For David Kipping

On X https://x.com/david_kipping?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Cool Worlds on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@CoolWorldsLab