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.

The future of our civilization may make that old phrase, go big or go home, take on an

entirely different meaning.

Something we discuss a lot on this show is the sheer immensity of possible future civilizations, those which

might colonize billions of stars each with untoward billions of people around them.

Indeed, we discussed how we might house a billion, billion people in this solar system alone,

and even trillions, right here on Earth.

But something we never have addressed before was how an individual can stand out in such

an immense civilization, and at first I was actually a bit surprised it did so well as a potential

episode topic in one of our recent polls.

Upon reflection though, it makes sense.

Folks in past civilizations could more easily lie to themselves

about their personal importance. Frequently, they were only a few thousand to maybe a few million

folks in your whole nation, most of whom did not even know what a million was, and for the

supermajority of them, their existence was virtually exclusive in a community of maybe a few hundred

to a few hundred to

a few thousand.

Nowadays, we are quite aware all populations nearing 8 billion and by last count over half

...