Tech billionaire and Twitter owner Elon Musk commented on abortion and civilization in a Tuesday night Fox News segment.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson interviewed Musk about human consciousness, extraterrestrial live, and civilization.
“People sometimes take the fact that we’re here on Earth for granted, and that … consciousness is just a normal thing that happens,” Musk told Carlson.
The tech billionaire said, to the best of his knowledge, conscious life did not exist anywhere else in the universe, though conceded “it might be there.”
Musk touched on the Fermi paradox, which notes the discrepancy between the lack of conclusive evidence of advanced extraterrestrial life and the likelihood of its existence.
“If anyone would know about aliens on earth it would probably be me,” he continued, saying he was familiar with “space stuff,” though reiterated he’s seen no evidence.
“I would immediately tweet it out in a split second,” he joked, adding “that would be one of the top tweets of all time.”
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Carlson asked Musk if human consciousness made earth unique in regards to the universe, to which the tech billionaire agreed.
“I’m not saying we are unique, I’m simply stating, to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence for other conscious life,” he replied. “I hope there is and I hope they’re peaceful.”
The Fox News host asked Musk if humans take their existence for granted.
“We should not assume that civilization is robust,” Musk continued, citing the rise and fall of human civilizations. “There’s a lifecycle arc to civilizations just as there is to individual humans.”
Musk noted his previous concerns over decreasing birth rates, citing Japan’s death rate doubling their birth rate.
Carlson said the human urge for sexual intercourse and reproduction was a basic urge and asked why the birth rate would be in decline.
“In the past, we could rely on simple limbic system rewards in order to procreate,” the tech billionaire replied. “But once you have birth control and abortions and whatnot, now you can still satisfy the limbic instinct but not procreate.”
Musk cited the relatively recent implementation of birth control measures, saying humans haven’t evolved to find an equilibrium.
“I’m sort of worried that if civilization … if we don’t make enough people to at least sustain our numbers, perhaps increase a little bit, then civilization’s gonna crumble,” he continued, saying civilization was ending with a “whimper in adult diapers.”
The tech billionaire joked that he would rather civilization “go out with a bang.”
