Hi there. I'm Jason Gatz, and you're listening to Think Again, a Big Think podcast.

Back in the old days, if your species was faced with an existential threat, you were stuck

hoping for some advantageous mutation, maybe an extra fin or a slightly more sophisticated

eyeball.

Outwitting fate was pretty much out of the question.

And as much as we might prefer to just go binge watch something and forget about it,

there are several plausible scenarios whereby humanity could face extinction in the too close for comfort future.

Happily, thanks to our very large brains, and thinkers like my guest today,

theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, we have some options. Dr. Kaku's latest book is The Future of Humanity,

Terraforming Mars, Interstellar Travel, Immortality, and Our Destiny Beyond Earth. Welcome to think again, Dr.

Kakou. Glad to be on. So it seems to me that kind of

related to CP Snow's old idea of the two cultures, right, that the humanities and the sciences

were separating off, that we may be facing something similar with respect to technology

and the future. I read a lot of philosophy

and literature and so on. And those people are terrified of many of them, of many of the things

that you study and talk about. And then there are many people on the other side of the

spectrum who are extremely, extremely excited about the future,

about what's emerging in technology, about where we're headed. Well, I think that we are

evolutionarily hardwired to be terrified of the future and the unknown because our ancestors

were timid monkeys. Every time they saw a tiger in the forest or the rustling of leaves

in the forest, they ran. That's why we're here today, precisely because our ancestors were terrified

of the unknown and the future. Those that weren't terrified got eaten up because once in a while

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