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

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

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

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

In a future where humanity has conquered scarcity and unlocked the secrets of longevity,

could the greatest challenge be finding purpose in paradise?

Star Trek, the next generation, is set in a post-scarcity future,

where everyone has access

to advanced technology, abundant energy, food, and medicine.

The first season is not really the show at its best, but the very first episode shows

us something important they don't discuss much later on.

Captain Picard is 60 years old when it starts, and played by an actor in their

mid-40s, the ever-excellent Patrick Stewart, while we get to meet Dr. McCoy from the

original series who put in a cameo at age 137, and Humanity's chief ally, the Vulcans, often

lived to 200. Folks in the Federation live a lot longer than now. We'll be looking

at much longer-lived civilizations today, but one interesting aspect of that society is that

seemed abundant in everything but opportunity to excel socially. We can take for granted

that they have great education, great comfort, and pretty much anything they want from

holodecks and replicators. But much is made of how hard it is to get into Starfleets,

and as best we can tell, there are maybe a million people in the organization in this era,

as we never get an exact figure for ships, but all told they can field over a thousand,

and that most are smaller than the Enterprise,

...