Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asked at the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and add free, plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

This episode is brought to you by Brilliant.

Empires rise and empires fall, but there is no cycle. Each time something new is tried for

better or worse, what new empires might rise in the future, and how shall they govern themselves?

So today we will be looking at government types of the future, surveying everything

from how old styles of government, like feudal kingdoms, might arise again on space colonies,

to how democracies might handle interstellar colonies or voting by citizens who were transhuman

or artificial intelligence or uplifted organisms

like human intelligent animals. We will also consider some entirely new governmental types

we have not seen before, as well as many ways in which systems we have seen before might

emerge again with new flavors under new technologies. This is going to be a rather long episode,

so now it is probably a great time to grab a drink and a snack.

And if you enjoy today's episode, please let our wise and mighty overlords know this by hitting the like and subscribe buttons.

In fact, it's going to be long enough that we will be carrying this episode into next week too,

where we'll examine the concept of nomadic fleet-based civilizations and government types like the

navarchy, which is run run by captains and admirals. There are a ton of arcies and

acracies incidentally, and I'll mention many of the more obscure ones as we go through today,

but we'll focus most on democracy. We will try to do this topic today with fun and ask

food for thought, and without

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