Daniel Gross: belief

Transcript context

…One of the things I want to ask you is, since we’re in San Francisco, and everything is Elon Musk, and we’re always talking about what we’re going to do when we end up on Mars. How do we screen or select for the first group of settlers? What are the interview questions we should ask them? That’s a great question, by the way. I’ll throw out a few ideas. I think the interesting question for Martian settlers, any form of settler — anyone who wants to do that is saying a lot by self-selecting into it. And I think it has been the case for people that have gone to new continents, and to settle new nations and existing continents, and whatnot. You’re going to get a lot of free selection effect by virtue of the person wanting to be an astronaut, let alone an interplanetary settler — that’s quite the LinkedIn. I think an interesting broader question for that colony will be, what’s going to keep people together during the hard times? If you look at successful countries that were settled, there were very strong religious ties that built out lore, that helped create fabric. Look, maybe the conditions will be so harsh that that alone will create ties. I’d be looking and asking for groups of people — I would make no case on what form of religion is the best — but groups of people that are very connected on some very deep level because otherwise, I think you can end up with something that blows up. Tyler, what do you think? Diet Coke drinking? There’s no Diet Coke . . . Obviously, I’m an American, and I’m personally very influenced by Puritan culture and my country’s own background. I would look, first and foremost, for religion, but it’s a bit like the GMU hires. If you have to ask someone, “Do you believe in some idea?” it’s already a bit hopeless. You need to know that they already do before you have to ask them. In that sense, it’s not an interview question. I think simply whether the person is American is, to me, of critical import for settling Mars. I think Americans are fairly well-situated to settle Mars — pretty high level of trust, frontier mentality. A lot of us are crazy. We’re relatively religious. The notion of settling a hostile territory obviously is in our cultural DNA. Israelis, possibly. It’s a little more complicated because for Israel, it’s a bit more about settling a specific place, which Mars is not. Nonetheless, there’s the sense of braving the hostile elements. So, religious Americans and Israelis would be my first cut at it. I would even consider LDS Mormons, who tend to have beliefs about other worlds and that human beings should have some role in colonizing other worlds. That might help. I don’t know if that’s the strongest LDS belief, but it’s not going to hurt any. I want to double down on the Americans and not, say, the Belgians. Nothing against the Belgians. They have amazing chocolate ice cream — [laughter] — and French fries and some other things, but I’m not really going to send them to Mars. I’m sorry.…

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