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(Cross-post of this thread by Azathoth on the old forum)

Isaac Arthur is a YouTuber who makes videos dedicated to "science and the future". They cover quite a wide variety of topics, from space exploration and colonisation to medicine and biological immortality. The videos are usually pretty long (they seem to average half an hour each), so they go into quite a lot of depth: they cover aspects such as yet-to-be-invented technologies, as well as the underlying philosophical questions that citizens of this futuristic world would likely find themselves pondering. 

Here, for example, is a fairly recent video by him on resurrecting extinct species:



I will let you know in advance that he does have a bit of a speech impediment, so he might be a bit difficult to understand at first. It did take me a bit of getting used to; however, after a few minutes, it ceased to be an issue :)

I hope you enjoy this guy's videos!
Here's one about post-scarcity civilizations (that is, civilizations with effectively no limits on the supply of anything useful): 



Here, he explores the needs that a post-scarcity civilization would need to fulfil - as well as the technology that it could conceivably use to do so.
I'm enjoying these videos. I've never heard of him, and now he's gained a subscriber. :)
Good to hear :)

And, yeah, in a world where attention spans are seemingly getting shorter and shorter, you wouldn't think a guy with a speech impediment making 30-minute videos about science would have much of a chance. But, as it is, he's thriving. He said in that post-scarcity video that he was amazed to hit 10,000 subscribers - but now, he's at 273,000. 

That gives me hope for humanity, really :D .
There's plenty of material out there on colonising the Moon and Mars - but, less on colonising Ceres, which is the subject of his latest video: 



This one actually follows quite a different format. There's less emphasis on science (although there's still plenty of that). Instead, there's more about what society would be like for the everyday people - told from the point of view of a traveller from Earth.
His latest video is about jobs of the future. An important topic, considering the threat of people's current livelihoods being automated away: 

Here's a weird one. This time, he ponders how we might go about colonising the Sun  :unsure: :



When I first saw the title, I thought, "What the heck :wtf: ?!". However, it turns out that it is possible to do it within the limits of our current understanding of physics - if you're willing to push those limits :P . Of course, such a colony would be home to few humans (if any at all), but it could become a tremendously valuable energy hub!
He's started a new series called "Earth 2.0". This is about using terraforming techniques to improve the Earth in a variety of ways; for example, by making deserts and frozen wastelands inhabitable. 

The first episode is about how we might build artificial islands, and what other techniques we might use to colonize the sea: 

Here's a good one. He's exploring the idea of a generation ship on a million-year-long mission: 



This is particularly interesting, because of the range of problems which would arise in this scenario. Most obvious are the practical issues of ensuring that the ship has enough resources for the duration of the mission, and that it can be maintained for that long. However, there are more subtle issues too: for example, the social and cultural drift on board the ship over the course of a million years. There needs to be a way to get the later generations to remember and continue the mission of their distant ancestors!
I have to admit, for the first time since I started watching his channel, he made me facepalm today :facepalm:

It was at the intro to his "Making Suns" video, which he put out a couple of days ago:

Quote:We often discuss colonising planets around distant alien suns, or building artificial habitats around our own sun - but building suns might be a stellar idea.

I'm surprised to find that someone as intellectual and 'serious' as Isaac Arthur has a liking for lame puns :P !
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