The Ethics of Seeding the Universe - Dr. Asher Soryl - #68

Asher Soryl is a philosopher and bioethicist from New Zealand whose work focuses on well-being, suffering and the ethics of wild animal welfare. He studied wild animal welfare during his master's degree and PhD, including a research visit to the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford. There he met Anders Sandberg, and a three-hour conversation about whether spreading life through space would be a good thing turned into a joint paper. Published in Acta Astronautica in 2025, it weighs the ethics of directed panspermia, the deliberate seeding of other planets with microbial life, and argues for a moratorium until we understand the consequences. Asher is now moving to California to join a biotech startup developing better ways to reduce suffering. Expect to learn what directed panspermia is and where the idea comes from, how cheap rocket launches make seeding other planets feasible, whether someone could secretly seed life in space, why some argue spreading life is a moral duty, how rare life might be in the universe, whether microbes can be conscious, why nature may contain more suffering than joy, how parasites shape the scale of animal suffering, why pain may be stronger than pleasure, whether seeding life could wipe out alien microbes, whether humans should play God with nature, and why Asher and Anders Sandberg call for a moratorium. Asher Soryl online: Paper: To seed or not to seed: Estimating the ethical value of directed panspermia, Acta Astronautica (2025), doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2025.03.025 0:00 Intro 0:54 How the paper came about 3:54 What is directed panspermia 6:58 How feasible is it today 11:48 Projects beyond our lifetimes 17:54 Who is working on it 19:18 Seeding life in secret 23:46 The case for spreading life 26:11 Is life rare in the universe 32:43 Can microbes be conscious 36:39 Signs of life on Mars 39:36 How many habitable planets exist 42:00 The welfarist case against 48:33 Suffering in nature 53:49 Parasites and hidden suffering 56:06 Engineering happier ecosystems 57:43 Is pain stronger than pleasure 1:02:49 Contaminating alien life 1:09:08 Should planets be left alone 1:12:28 Playing God with nature 1:16:30 The case for a moratorium 1:20:56 Asher's work on reducing suffering