Cosmic Queries – Curiosity, Conspiracies & the God Particle with Jordan Klepper

Are we in the center of the universe? Or does it just feel like it sometimes? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Jordan Klepper tackle a grab bag of fan questions on curiosity, conspiracy, and cosmology.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:45Speaker 00

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• 1:22Speaker 01

  A Cosmic Queries grab bag, and only half the questions were for me. They were asking you questions too.

• 1:28Jordan Klepper?

  As it should be, Neil. The people, they need their Klepper. Give the people what they want.

• 1:33Speaker 01

  Come get your Klepper, right up on StarTalk.

• 1:39Speaker 01

  Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  This is StarTalk, Cosmic Queries Edition. And this time, look who I have sitting right next to me, Jordan Klepper, oh my god!

• 2:01Jordan Klepper?

  Can you believe it?

• 2:03Speaker 01

  Jordan, we love you, man.

• 2:06Jordan Klepper?

  I like being loved. I go wherever I feel there is a warm energy that will bestow compliments on me, and I think I found it in this cluttered office.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  And, right here at the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History. Half the time I put on Comedy Central, you're there. So it should be like Klepper Central. They should rename the station.

• 2:25Jordan Klepper?

  That's what I'm hoping. This is contractually, I have to do anything they want. I clean the bathrooms, I wash the windows. So it's just, it's Daily Show, Daily Show spinoffs, and then office reruns. That's what we are.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  You got it. Well, this is gonna be a Cosmic Queries grab bag, and you are my man in charge.

• 2:44Jordan Klepper?

  Query Master, which, fun fact, query is scientific speak for questions. If there's any confusion, if you're new to StarTalk,

• 2:55Jordan Klepper?

  don't get, don't get lost on query. There's the people at home are tuning this off. They're like, what is this queries? Already they're deep into it.

• 3:00Speaker 01

  It goes deep. So in Isaac Newton's publication of Optics, 1704, unusual because it was published in English.

• 3:12Jordan Klepper?

  Helpful for, for those who only speak English.

• 3:14Speaker 01

  Yes, and if you don't only speak Latin, you know, you're out, you're not in the moving frontier of science.

• 3:19Jordan Klepper?

  I like that Isaac Newton's already talking down to people. It's like, these English plebes, they're not gonna learn multiple languages. Let, let me give them, let me give them the knowledge.

• 3:27Speaker 01

  So I think it was not until the second edition, which actually was in Latin, that he included a whole section in the back called queries. And I just thought that was so elegant and so beautiful. And just so, well, because it was Latin, I think queries is Latin for questions. But that word has stuck with me ever since. Because you read it, and he says things like, "I wonder," but these are questions that's still left over after he wrote his book, okay? This stuff, this musings, right? So, so one of them is, "I wonder if the stars in the night sky are just like the sun, except much, much farther away." Yeah!

• 4:10Jordan Klepper?

  This is how he ends his book? Which, it is, it's, it's, it's beautiful, but it's also an unfinished book. If I, if I got to the end of like Lena Dunham's memoir, and she was like, "I wonder what I did after girls." Tell me, Lena, that's why I bought your book. Come on, Isaac.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  No, he hadn't had the answer yet. I'm just saying, it was a whole set of them. It was just beautiful to read. These are the crumbs on his plate that he didn't know how to finish. Yeah.

• 4:33Jordan Klepper?

  That's beautiful. And you, and you stole queries from Isaac Newton.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Cosmic Queries, StarTalk, give them to me. And these come in from our Patreons, our Patreon supporters, and they each pay $5 a month for this, which I think is a bargain, actually.

• 4:47Jordan Klepper?

  Well worth it.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:48Jordan Klepper?

  Well worth it. And I've, I've looked at some of them, there's some great questions here. Let's kick it off here.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 4:53Jordan Klepper?

  Hello, Dr. Tyson and Jordan Klepper. This is Cleo from Denver, Colorado. And I have a question that both of you can answer from different angles. You've interacted with people with wildly different worldviews. Have you found that curiosity is something people choose? Or is it a trait that's surprisingly difficult to cultivate once we've settled into a worldview?

• 5:14Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 5:15Jordan Klepper?

  Great question. Is curiosity something people choose? Or is it a trait that's surprisingly difficult to cultivate once we've settled into a worldview?

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 5:26Jordan Klepper?

  That is a biggie. Curiosity to me is a, it's a beautiful trait. It may be one of my favorite traits. As a parent, I think a lot about curiosity.

• 5:35Speaker 01

  How old's your kid?

• 5:36Jordan Klepper?

  Five and a half.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Oh my gosh!

• 5:37Jordan Klepper?

  But I, curiosity, I'm trying to teach my child to be curious with the world, which is very easy for a kid. Because I think children walk through space generally curious.

• 5:46Speaker 01

  Space and time.

• 5:46Jordan Klepper?

  Yes, space and time. Oh my gosh, here we go. How many dimensions? Walk through space and time, curious about the world around them and trying to find answers with that. And then I take that curiosity, I try to inject it into myself. I also then go out into the world of politics, and I talk to a lot of people who I get frustrated with their certainty and their lack of curiosity.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  Oh, so this is, these are total strangers.

• 6:10Jordan Klepper?

  I will say like,

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Generally, yeah.

• 6:12Jordan Klepper?

  When I go to say like a MAGA rally, or it doesn't have to be even a political rally, but talking to people in the middle of America, when you, when you interview people more often than not on camera, the camera, which is also happens on social media, forces people to be much more certain in their views and much less curious about the world around them, and only there to, I think curiosity gets shut off. I see it getting shut off because people feel a fight or flight mentality to be more certain and right about the worldview that they've concocted.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Ooh, so they're uncomfortable in uncertainty.

• 6:46Jordan Klepper?

  Very much.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Or even ambiguity.

• 6:50Jordan Klepper?

  I think culturally, they're not rewarded for uncertainty. Online, you're only gonna get retweeted if you have something certain and hyperbolic.

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Right, if you say, "I kinda think this is true, but I'm not sure." No one cares what you just said.

• 7:04Jordan Klepper?

  There's no, there's no cultural reward for somebody who is curiously uncertain about the world.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Ooh, you know, I, I don't think I have anything to add to that.

• 7:14Jordan Klepper?

  Did I, did I top you?

• 7:15Speaker 01

  I, you topped it and layered it and put icing on it.

• 7:19Jordan Klepper?

  Did the, did the student become the teacher? Did we watch it happen?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  I didn't go that far. No, let me try, let me see what I can squeeze into what you just said. So I, as an educator, I put it on me to ask, is there something I can dangle in front of them that will reignite their childhood curiosity in a way that might bring them back to reassess whatever it is they might be thinking? So you don't hit it blunt face on. You just say, "Hey, look at this shiny object," or "look at this thing," or "look at this idea." "Oh, that's interesting." And then you follow it through, and sometimes it can boomerang back on them. It's, "Well, is that what I've been thinking all this time?"

• 8:05Speaker 01

  But that takes effort on your part, the educator. Because otherwise, you're just stating what is true and hoping people come to you. But if they, if they dig their heels in, they dig their heels in. And you, you, you need some act of persuasion more than just speaking what is true.

• 8:24Jordan Klepper?

  I love that. I run into people who often ask me about changing people's minds and think that it's done with just evidence or facts. That if I present the case, then the case will be understood. And more often than not, it is not.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  So instead of presenting the case, you present something else that is auxiliary to the case, that's kind of interesting, they're less invested in whether it's true or not, and they learn about it, and then you're working your way back to the center line. That's effort.

• 8:52Jordan Klepper?

  Like, in,

• 8:53Speaker 01

  That's effort.

• 8:54Jordan Klepper?

  If we zoom out a little bit, if you're talking to somebody who has a set worldview, and call it an anti-scientific worldview.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Okay. Earth is flat.

• 9:03Jordan Klepper?

  Earth is flat.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:04Jordan Klepper?

  They're an earth is flat person, they believe that. What, what are you dangling there in that conversation?

• 9:09Speaker 01

  Okay, so, here we are on the East Coast, and middle of the winter, okay? It's dark here by 6 o'clock. But wait a minute, there's a football game on in Los Angeles, or in San Francisco. Let's turn it on. The sun is shining!

• 9:30Speaker 01

  The sun is shining on California right now. At the same time, it's dark in New York. Hmm, I wonder how you explain that, okay? You're not jumping and saying, "Earth is not flat." You're just saying, "Here's something that we can all see, that we all agree and understand that this is a phenomenon." And you can say, "One way to explain this is that Earth is round." That's a way to explain it. Do you have another way to explain it? Just, you just have that conversation. That takes effort. It does, it's not sound-bitten. It's not a sound-bitey conversation.

• 10:04Jordan Klepper?

  Well, and it speaks to your, your ability to create narrative.

• 10:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yes.

• 10:10Jordan Klepper?

  Right?

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, I had thought about it that way, but that is true, because I'm, it's, you're, you're working a, a conversational way to get, to get them back into the game of curiosity. And here's another one. If you lay down, feet towards sunset, perfectly clear horizon, so you gotta wait for that, okay? Feet towards the horizon, lay down on the ground, but part your feet so you can see the sunset. The instant the sun sets, immediately stand up, and the sun rises.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  We used to do this all the time as a kid.

• 10:46Speaker 00

  Really?

• 10:47Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, I was a nerdy kid. Don't look at me like that.

• 10:51Speaker 00

  Shock. Oh, I'm shocked. You were a nerdy child.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  I was a nerdy kid. But, but in that instant, you come back, you were looking beyond the horizon that you previously had when you were laying down on the ground. That happens when Earth is round.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  So, so little things like that. It's a fun little thing to do. And you engage people that way. So that's, it's effort. It is effort. But I will get back to your kid and say, all kids are curious. And the real challenge here is not, how do you keep them curious? That's not necessary. How do you give them curiosity? That's not necessary. They're already curious. It's how to get out of their way. What happens? You, you got a five-year-old? That's the perfect age for them to go into the kitchen, open the cabinets, pull out the pots and pans, and start banging on them. Okay? And what are you gonna say? Stop banging. You're making a racket. You're making everything dirty. You just thwarted an experiment in acoustics.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  I saved myself an argument with my upstairs neighbor is what I did.

• 11:54Speaker 01

  Okay, who cares about you? You didn't have kids to have a quiet household or an orderly household. So, everything they do creates disorder. And you want to keep a clean household, you should think differently. Everything they do is the cunt, the mess they make is the consequence of an experiment they conducted. They don't think of it as an experiment. They're just exploring their environment. You don't think of it as an experiment. They're just destroying the environment. But as a scientist, they are cultivating their curiosity.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  Well, as a landlord, they are ruining my apartment.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  But I understand your point.

• 12:39Speaker 00

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• 13:21Speaker 00

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• 16:23Speaker 01

  Got another one for you. If we could travel faster than light, it would introduce paradoxes into the timeline of our lives, some of them with no known way to resolve them, which might mean it's not possible to travel faster than light at all. We don't yet know.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  If you liked that fact, you can find 4,999 more in Lost in Space. 5,000 facts to help navigate the universe. Lost in Space is now available wherever you get your books.

• 17:18Speaker 00

  Next question is from Jack Omealia. Jordan, oh, this is for me.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Dude, it's my show, okay?

• 17:26Speaker 00

  For me, no big deal. No big deal. Dr. Tyson and Master Klepper. Oh, look at this.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  Oh!

• 17:32Speaker 00

  The respect of your Patreon members.

• 17:34Speaker 01

  Okay, so we all have title, we all acquired titles over the years. And so, Dr. Tyson's obvious. And Chuck Nice is here. He, he was bestowed the title Lord.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  That's very nice.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  We had a titled person from the US Space Force declare him to be Lord Nice, because he was felt bad. He didn't have a title. So ever since then, people have been acquiring titles. And so that, there you are. Master. Is that what he calls you?

• 17:59Speaker 00

  Master Klepper.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:01Speaker 00

  Do we think Jack Omealia has?

• 18:04Speaker 01

  The power to do so?

• 18:05Speaker 00

  Does he have the power to, to give me?

• 18:06Speaker 01

  What I do know is that in Old England, master was the title you gave to little children.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  I'm pretty sure.

• 18:16Speaker 00

  That feels about right.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  Childlike Klepper, baby Klepper.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  There you go, baby Klepper. Okay, what do you got?

• 18:22Speaker 00

  Dr. Tyson and Master Klepper. Greetings. This is Jack from Norwalk, Connecticut. Jack Omealia says, Jordan, I've seen many of your fingers, the pulse segments, and they are brilliant. I love this guy. I know you edit it, so we only see the good stuff. But has there ever been times someone said something that set you back on your heels? Something completely unexpected that maybe we didn't see?

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Ooh. So first, let's verify. Do you edit your own pieces?

• 18:45Speaker 00

  I'm, I'm usually in the edit. We have an editor. We have Editing Bay. We, we take our pieces. We go in there, like all television, we edit it down. We, we interview usually about 12 to 15 people, edit it to like a four-and-a-half-minute piece.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  And about how many people make the final cut?

• 19:00Speaker 00

  Usually see a lot of them, probably eight to 10.

• 19:03Speaker 01

  And just to verify, just so people know, they all explicitly give you permission to put them on the air.

• 19:10Speaker 00

  They, they all sign an agreement. They understand the conversation.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  And so, everybody you see has agreed to be on, on air. And, and you edit. Television is edited, and our bias is towards comedy, fighting hypocrisy, something that is interesting and compelling. But they're not super-long interviews. They're usually like, you know, anywhere between two to five minutes that we get little moments from. As far as something that stands out.

• 19:35Jordan Klepper?

  What I interviewed someone, I don't think this made air. I interviewed somebody who was there on January 6th, who drove to Washington DC because they wanted to protest on January 6th. They, they went to the Capitol. They went inside the Capitol. They hit a cop, it was on camera. They were arrested. They then pled guilty to attacking a cop on January 6th. They served time in prison. And I talked to them after prison.

• 20:02Speaker 01

  When they were the-

• 20:03Jordan Klepper?

  After, after the pardon.

• 20:05Speaker 01

  The pardon, yes.

• 20:05Jordan Klepper?

  And they were, they were out. And they explained all of these steps, all these choices that they made to drive to DC, to go inside the Capitol.

• 20:12Speaker 01

  And just to be clear, you didn't pre-choose this person. This person happened to have all of that backstory.

• 20:17Jordan Klepper?

  They had all this backstory. And this was, this was a person I, I talked to who had written a book about it. So we found them and they had a compelling story. And, and articulated all of these steps and choices that they made. And literally pleading guilty for the actions that they took. And I asked them, who did January 6th? And they said, oh, it was the deep state. And what kind of blew my mind is like, well, you did it. You, you made so many choices that day to be a part of the action. But you still can't wrap your head around the idea that the consequences you experienced were because of the choices you made. You were still being puppeted in some way. And I had an interview two days ago with somebody who was there on January 6th. It's sort of, not to get caught up in the actions of January 6th,

• 21:00Jordan Klepper?

  but it's such an interesting human phenomenon of people who both want to express power for the choices that they made for righteous reasons. And yet, when pushed, want to still also hide behind the idea that they've been manipulated in ways that they couldn't have done the things that they did.

• 21:16Speaker 01

  Hmm, okay.

• 21:17Jordan Klepper?

  And that happens often and often where you're like, people are like, there's so much hypocrisy out there. There's so many people living with two realities.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  I think the deep state argument comes from the idea that none of that could have succeeded without a deep state enabling it.

• 21:31Jordan Klepper?

  Yes.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  I think that was where that argument comes from.

• 21:34Jordan Klepper?

  And I think there is a lot of like, well, why didn't they stop me when this would have happened? And more often than not, it is, it's like, these were actions you took. And you can argue whether or not there were certain elements that were made easier.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  It kind of looked like the cops were trying to stop them. Just, was that just my, myopic view? Just my, from the camera angle I saw, it looked like the cops were trying to stop them.

• 21:54Jordan Klepper?

  There's, there's a lot of videos that seems like the cops put up a fight to stop people from getting inside. But you realize people find the media that tells the story they want.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  So that surprised you, that he could think that way, that deeply about it?

• 22:06Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah, it was somebody who had built a bit of a reputation on, on not apologizing for their actions, but like standing behind them as like, I, I was a, an actor in this because I saw something that was wrong and I wanted to make it right. And yet, still had to also be the hero and the victim in that story.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  So, the closest story I have to that, which doesn't come close at all. There was someone who was the husband of someone I was working with when we were filming Cosmos. And educated guy. And he doesn't think we went to the moon. And I said, why don't you think so? Well, you know, there's no pictures of the landing site, you know, after we, plus we know we had to beat the Russians. So I said, what would convince you that we landed on the moon? And he said, I think pictures of the landing site would do it. Cause we've been back to the moon with orbiting. So I said, okay. I found a website that had pictures of the landing site. And you can see the rover tracks and everything, it's all there. I gave him the link.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  The next day he comes back, Neil, I saw that, I saw that. However, and by the way, it was a Japanese satellite that did this. JAXA is what it's called. And he said, I saw that, but that Japanese satellite was in collaboration with NASA. And NASA's logo was on the page and they're the government. So I can't trust it. And so I said, you asked me what would convince you. I delivered to you exactly what you requested and you still refuse to believe it. At that point, I said, we have nothing more to discuss. And I, and I stopped the conversation. Cause it was clear he would just believe it no matter what. Oh, no, he said, I would believe it, because he deeply respected me.

• 23:54Speaker 01

  He said, I believe it, if you told me we landed on the moon, I will believe it. And I said, that's not how this works. It's not by my authority that we have landed on the moon. It's not, has nothing to do with my proclamations. It was, so he just went back to this conspiracy. And I couldn't get him out of it. And I, I didn't have the patience to keep working it.

• 24:17Jordan Klepper?

  I mean, that is, that's the crux of so many of the, the divisions we have right now. There isn't that, that thing, if, if distrust is there from the get-go to sort of establish that trust.

• 24:29Speaker 01

  Then there's no, there's no opening. Yeah, yeah.

• 24:32Jordan Klepper?

  All right, we have a question from April Walsh. Hello, Sir Neil and Jordan. Sir Neil, this is April Walsh and my 16-year-old son, Aiden Free, coming from Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Our question is, when you look out as far as we can see to the CMB, is it the same distance away, for example, when you look east and west, north and south? Does it form a perfect circle that we are in the center of? I know there is no center of the universe, except in time. If it was, say, 1 million light years closer to the west, shouldn't we be able to see further than the CMB? Thanks in advance. And can I just add, what is the CMB?

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Stupid.

• 25:13Jordan Klepper?

  I know. I just, I just got a title a second ago and now I'm-

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I rescind the title.

• 25:21Jordan Klepper?

  It blew it, it blew it.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 25:23Jordan Klepper?

  CMB, I think I bank at CMB, right?

• 25:28Speaker 01

  They have very flexible hours for deposits.

• 25:30Jordan Klepper?

  Wonderful hours for deposits. They don't charge a fee for me to take money out.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  So that is the cosmic microwave background.

• 25:37Jordan Klepper?

  Right.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  So I will hold you to that.

• 25:40Jordan Klepper?

  The cosmic, I'm writing it down in case you quiz me later.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  The cosmic microwave background. This is the remnants of the Big Bang, which were formed at a universe when we were like 3,000 degrees. Since then, because of the expansion of the universe, that light, that temperature has cooled to 3 degrees. 3 degrees absolute, so it's like 3 degrees Kelvin, not 3 degrees Fahrenheit. 3 degrees on the absolute scale. So what's happened is that, that heat, the intensity of that energy has been diluted over the expansion of the universe. So, that's a remnant of the Big Bang and the Big Bang happened in the entire universe. So it looks like we're in the exact center of the CMB.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  The difference is, we are also moving in space. We are falling towards the Andromeda Galaxy. Falling towards it.

• 26:35Jordan Klepper?

  We're falling towards it.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  Well, we're falling towards each other is the proper way. Cause there's no absolute reference where that's stationary, we're going towards it. And we're going to collide in five or six billion years. So put that on your calendar.

• 26:47Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah, this is my Google, I gotta put that on my Google Cal. Oh, it's, I got a haircut that day. No, and it's already prepaid.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  It's on October 8th, was when we collide, right?

• 26:56Jordan Klepper?

  It's five billion years from now. Cancel the haircut.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  So that collision will take several hundred million years to complete until it settles into a new galaxy. It'll probably settle into one double-sized galaxy. There'll be some stars cast hither and yon from this collision, like a train wreck. But, point is, we can detect our movement through space against the cosmic microwave background. Okay, so because we're falling towards Andromeda, that side, the side behind Andromeda is slightly warmer than the CMB that's behind us. Because we're moving towards it.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  And that would give the impression to our detectors that it's slightly warmer in that direction.

• 27:47Jordan Klepper?

  And so we utilize that, that, we utilize that to understand the speed with which we are falling towards it?

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Yes, and so it's completely consistent, right? So we said, can we see this movement in the cosmic microwave background? The answer is yes. So it's there and it's uniform and it's equidistant in every direction. So, so deal with it. All right, what else?

• 28:11Jordan Klepper?

  Miranda Kegy, hello, I'm Miranda from Austin. I want to know your thoughts on the mass of the Higgs particle. Is our universe fragile based on this? And could a small change in one quantum after the Higgs field and change the physics we currently know?

• 28:27Speaker 01

  So I'm not qualified enough to give the answer I wanna give to that question.

• 28:33Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah.

• 28:34Speaker 01

  But I will give a version of an answer and maybe I'll have to bring in one of them. I got people. I got people.

• 28:41Jordan Klepper?

  Get your Higgs bros in here. I know Johnny Hadron. He's gonna come in, collide some ideas off one another. We're gonna get you the answer you need, Miranda.

• 28:50Speaker 01

  Johnny Hadron, he's cousin to Jimmy Neutron.

• 28:55Jordan Klepper?

  Those guys are fun drinkers, those two.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  So the Higgs boson, a boson is a kind of particle. A photon is a boson. Bosons are, are, are force vectors. So they, they enable particles to interact with each other. Bosons as a category. The Higgs boson is, in some circles, called the God particle. Why? Because it creates a field and as you move through the field, it hands you your mass. Now, that's badass.

• 29:29Jordan Klepper?

  That's pretty darn cool.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  That's totally badass if you're giving mass to other particles. And so I don't know the uncertainties in the mass of the Higgs boson itself and why that would matter to its power to give mass to other particles. So I can't answer that. I need higher powers here. Don't make a face like that. That was like a disappointed face.

• 29:55Jordan Klepper?

  You know, how about that, maybe I could, if we don't have the answer, I give you an anecdote about the Hadron Collider.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  What?

• 30:00Jordan Klepper?

  Forgive me if I told this to you years and years ago. The Large Hadron Collider. Do you know, I was flown out 15 years ago to teach the physicists their improv.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Is that right?

• 30:09Jordan Klepper?

  Yes. At the time, they hadn't, they hadn't found the God particle. And because the Fermi Lab is outside Chicago and there were physicists from Fermi Labs who were big improv fans.

• 30:20Speaker 01

  Oh, because Chicago, that's a big comedy scene.

• 30:22Jordan Klepper?

  It's a big comedy scene, and that's where I was from at the time. So I was learning improv, and so the birth of long-form improv is at a place called the Improv Olympic. And there was a physicist there who was inspired by the way comedians thought. And they were having trouble over at the Hadron Collider. And so they flew myself, Sharona Halpern, who is the founder of the Improv Olympic, and my friend Seth Whiteberg to go over for a week to Geneva to teach the physicists how to listen and to work together. And so I spent five days teaching improv and theater workshops to a sea of physicists.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  How to make particle physicists funny?

• 30:59Jordan Klepper?

  Yes.

• 31:00Speaker 01

  I, I got it. Like, the German ones too?

• 31:04Jordan Klepper?

  They all have to come together. They did a show at the end.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 31:07Jordan Klepper?

  And you know what it was?

• 31:08Speaker 01

  What?

• 31:09Jordan Klepper?

  Terrible. It was a terrible show. Not super funny, but what, what, what I did learn, they were remarkable, remarkable people. But the scientific mindset was so different than the improvisational one. So many people there had spent so much time defending their theories and their work that the idea of listening to somebody else and collaborating was an anathema to them. So we were doing very basic improvisational exercises. Just like, listen to the end of this sentence before you start another sentence. And it was proving almost impossible for many of the people there. And after the few days, there were breakthroughs on that level. And the, the point was, we have some of the smartest people on the planet here in this one space and nobody is listening to one another. So let's let these comedians kind of help make a breakthrough.

• 31:54Jordan Klepper?

  And then afterwards, they found the God particle. So is it?

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, coincidence?

• 31:59Jordan Klepper?

  I don't know. You, you said it. I mean, maybe, maybe.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  So I have very deep respect for your profession.

• 32:08Jordan Klepper?

  Thank you.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  And I consume large quantities of it just because the rhythms and the brilliance and the perceptions, perspectives. And so I, just so you know, I'm, I'm not worthy. But do you know about Alan Aldous' project?

• 32:23Jordan Klepper?

  I don't.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, at Stony Brook. He may be a graduate of there, I'm not certain. He created a whole division of that school to teach acting to graduate students in the sciences. So that they can know how to deliver, how to communicate with the public. In ways, so they say, here's an idea, now deliver it in a convincing way and pretend like you're having fun.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  So the whole moniker is the Alan Aldous Center for Communicating Science. And because he, you might have remembered, he hosted a science program. We went around to labs.

• 33:04Jordan Klepper?

  Really?

• 33:04Speaker 01

  And just talked to scientists. And that's where he felt that rhythm. And so, you know, what is comedy if not acting, being funny, right? I mean, you're on stage and some of the greatest actors we've ever had were formerly comedians. I mean, look at Tom Hanks, who's a comedian. And they would, and he's got, you know.

• 33:22Jordan Klepper?

  The man's got awards, if that's what you're saying.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying.

• 33:24Jordan Klepper?

  And he's, and he's Woody at Toy Story, he has money as well. He's doing very well. Well, I think you're articulating something that we were just talking about. Is it, it's one thing to be able to understand the way the world works around us. It's another thing to be able to articulate that to somebody else who is skeptical of that, and that's.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  And in a way that makes them interested and wanting to come back for more. And that is StarTalk.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  See what I did there? Oh, man.

• 33:47Jordan Klepper?

  Oh, man, that's just easy.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Keep, keep it going.

• 33:50Jordan Klepper?

  Here's what we got. We got, this is from Stephen Landau. Hello, Dr. Tyson and Mr. Klepper. From what we know about entropy, the fact that it always moves from lower to higher entropy, couldn't we surmise that the constant state of unrest we feel about government and politics is just another form of entropy? From my perspective, there has always been a political persona that has been triggering and considered the worst that has come. That has always been one up by another that seems to become more hard-lined. Can this explain the fall of the Roman Empire, the American Revolution, World War II, Germany, et cetera? Are these pivotal moments in history, the example of entropy expanded to a rate that the system needs to reboot to low entropy?

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Wow. So this is, this is deep. So we're talking about a new theory of political entropy.

• 34:45Jordan Klepper?

  I'm game.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Political entropy. Is that something natural? And if we build that into our governance, then maybe we're not so surprised by it. And that we would then navigate that as an inevitability.

• 35:04Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah, to at least plan for the inevitability of where our politics is going to go.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  So here's why I don't agree. The Roman Empire was around for a long time. Where's your entropy there? No, it's building. There's, there's no entropy. Then it falls, okay. Then it was after the Greeks rose and fell, okay. It just says things rise and fall. You want entropy. People talk about today, how turbulent the world is and how much unrest there is. You know, you can have a, you know, a van drive into protesters and kills a half a dozen people. It's headlines worldwide. Yeah, it's bad. However, I, I don't like lessening how bad one thing is by saying how much worse something else is. That's never a fun exercise.

• 35:53Jordan Klepper?

  The internet doesn't like it either, Neil. Careful.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Just contemplate this, and I've done the math. Between 1939 and 1945, 1,000 human beings were killed per hour for every hour between 1939 and 1945. Were killed in the service of the Second World War. Either were killed outright or died of disease related to being in a place where they couldn't treat it. The, died of, died of injuries, thousand per hour. And the fact that half a dozen people could die from a van that plows into them

• 36:35Speaker 01

  and that make world headlines for a day, national headlines for a week, local headlines for a month, and it was six people, you wanna talk about entropy? There's nothing that rivals the Second World War, either before or since. And Europe has been mostly peaceful since 1945. Now, here's an interesting fact. As we withdraw support from NATO, saying, countries, you gotta put, you know, put up or shut up. What's happening? Countries in Europe are building their armies, which they didn't have to do before. If you don't have an army, who are you gonna declare war on? Who are you gonna fight? If you don't have an army, who are you fighting?

• 37:20Speaker 01

  You're just gonna build your economy and educate people and just have fun. Now you have an army because we're not footing your bill. And so I worry, and what do I know? I'm not a politician. I'm a scientist. But if you rearm Europe, because we're stepping out of the support system, then I don't know. Europe has, twice, has been down a road nobody wants to repeat. So is this the buildup of entropy again? As armaments gather, country to country? I don't know. But I think political science, which has the audacity to use the word science, in there.

• 38:04Jordan Klepper?

  Oh, wow. Oh, we struck a nerve.

• 38:07Speaker 01

  Blood drawn, okay? If politics were science, we would call it science.

• 38:14Jordan Klepper?

  Wow.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  You can't tell me I'm not right there. Okay?

• 38:19Jordan Klepper?

  I'm not gonna, I'm a comedian, okay? I don't know, I don't wanna get in this battle.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  Now you're back in the way for this.

• 38:25Jordan Klepper?

  This is, I just occasionally read some political stories here and there. I don't know, I'm not getting in this fight.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  So, in politics, I think there should be a thread of, in their analysis, in political philosophy, there ought to be a thread of entropy. Are people only happy when they're angry? Think about that.

• 38:44Jordan Klepper?

  That's a great question. Are they only happy when they're angry?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Let me be more precise. Are people only contented with their lives when they have something to complain about?

• 38:53Jordan Klepper?

  Well, I think, I, I think, I might get on board that anger is maybe the quickest way to give meaning to people. And in a society without, has a hard time giving meaning, or it's always hard to find meaning, anger is often the quickest way to mobilize it.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, oh, oh!

• 39:10Jordan Klepper?

  Science, that's science, Neil. That's political science.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Spinning political philosophy here on StarTalk. I love it. Were the cameras running for that?

• 39:20Jordan Klepper?

  Did you get that? Retweet it, everybody. This is just, it's hot fire here on StarTalk. Yeah, this is what we do with your queries. Thank you, Isaac Newton.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Well, now, just to make sure it's real, can you repeat what you just said?

• 39:35Jordan Klepper?

  No, this, I'm an improviser. I forget it all.

• 39:37Speaker 01

  That's what I'm saying. You just improvised a brilliant bit of political philosophy, and now it'll never be recovered again.

• 39:46Jordan Klepper?

  Just, just forgotten. It's just, just, just, just let the people have it. It's time for me to think about something else. Yes. All right, we have another one here from Heather Walker. Salutations from upstate New York. As a concerned parental unit, what is it everyone, what is everyone's perspective on the less-than-stellar educational system? And how do we rectify it short and long term?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 40:09Jordan Klepper?

  Hoping to see you at the museum, Heather and Kevin Baez.

• 40:12Speaker 01

  Okay. I, one day I'll be writing a book on this, on education.

• 40:16Jordan Klepper?

  Slow down, Neil. Slow down, what, you're trying to get that a hundred, what, what do you get? You get a, is it like, is it like the bucket? You get like free pizza if you write a hundred books?

• 40:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, free pizza, free pizza. I get a little card punched for it.

• 40:28Jordan Klepper?

  Every book, congratulations.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  So, let me comment specifically on science education. And then I'd like to comment on the arts, if I may.

• 40:37Jordan Klepper?

  Please.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Okay. So, in science education, at least in the physical sciences, it's taught, well, here's a word, a vocabulary word, here's an experiment that was done, here's a fact, here's a formula, and then you learn it, and then you're done, and you go on to your next class. Science is a means of querying nature and probing what is true and what is not, and ensuring that you're not fooled into thinking that something is true that is not, or that something is not true that is. That's what science is. And if that's not taught, which it isn't, then people come out thinking science is just a satchel of facts, and I memorize it for the test and move on,

• 41:20Speaker 01

  and nothing remains within them as a posture. They're not given a place to stand and to observe nature, so that when someone comes up to you and says, I have these crystals, let me rub them together, and it'll heal your ailments. Had they been trained on how to probe nature? They would say, what is the mechanism by the way they work? And what is the evidence in support of it? Can you show me, give me a demonstration now? Oh, did you know that crystals are the lowest energy state of the atoms and molecules that comprise it? So, why are you saying there's energy coming out of the crystals? It has none. This is what you would do, okay? You, you have the power of inquiry. That is not taught.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  And that's gotta be taught if we are to have a scientifically literate public. No, if we'd have a scientifically literate electorate, that's what matters. Because once there is no truth, objectively established truth by the methods and tools of science that are underpinning the foundations of civilization, once that objective truth goes away, there is no informed democracy.

• 42:29Jordan Klepper?

  Preach, preach. You are speaking, but let's, let's expand that slightly more. Help me, give me some advice on this. I'm raising a five-and-a-half-year-old right now, who's going into school.

• 42:39Speaker 01

  It's too late. Yeah, they're on their way to school now. Just, just starting school.

• 42:45Jordan Klepper?

  And so, I'm thinking a lot about what type of education I'm, I'm wishing for my child, curating for my child. And I, I concur. I think discernment, understanding sources, understanding the information that you are getting. And I, I think about, I think about AI. I think about like, what, what is a toolkit that they're going to need 10 years from now?

• 43:05Speaker 01

  No, no, curiosity, that's the toolkit.

• 43:08Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah.

• 43:08Speaker 01

  Curiosity, if you're curious, you're always learning. Okay, now, with your five-and-a-half-year-old, okay? Has he found out that you don't know everything yet?

• 43:17Jordan Klepper?

  No, I will not let that information get out. That, that, that information's.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  There's a non-disclosure agreement with your wife?

• 43:23Jordan Klepper?

  Yes, that information stays here.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  It does not get out.

• 43:28Jordan Klepper?

  Do not tell, do not tell my child. Do not tell my child. I think my child is figuring that out, yes.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  All right. So, that you should value not the answer, but the question. The question is the source of curiosity. Not the, the answer stops the curiosity. But the question, as it persists, it stokes curiosity. So, if, if your kid asks you something you know the answer to, say, let's find out. What would be a way to find out? And get in the car and drive there? What color is the sun when it sets? Get in the car, go to a sunset, and observe, and think about it.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  And do things that feed the curiosity with your five-and-a-half-year-old. And if your five-and-a-half-year-old remains curious through those turbulent hormonal years, they'll come out the other side as a scientist, or as a minimum scientifically literate. So, they, they will never be exploited, ever, by someone who is ignorant of the laws of physics, trying to sell you something to the contrary.

• 44:42Jordan Klepper?

  How do I make my kid a venture capitalist? Do you have that, because I think that's gonna be much more lucrative.

• 44:48Speaker 01

  You want to secure retirement as they support you. Yeah, I can't help you there.

• 44:53Jordan Klepper?

  Your things sound nice, that sounds nice as well.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  So, now about arts education. I don't go out of my way to say this. So, this is, I'm just letting you know. You've heard of STEAM? The STEM, science, technology, engineering, and math. And there's STEAM, science, technology, engineering, arts, and math. Both sides of Congress know, except for aberrations in the Trump administration, Republicans and Democrats historically have known the value of science as a force that stokes our economy. We have the world's largest economy, and it's been that way for like, since any of us can remember. That's not an accident. It's what real science plays. And how do you get the science discoveries into tech, into engineering? And how does engineering then become economy?

• 45:40Speaker 01

  Right? Creative investments in science are the engines of tomorrow's economy. The arts people saw their budgets drop, and they say, let's piggyback the STEM movement. And that way, whatever money goes to STEM, we'll get some crumbs that might spill off the table. I don't get in the way of that. But what I'd rather do is defend art on its own sake, for its own reasons. How do you do that? You say, oh, every city has some art sculpture somewhere, in the park, modern office buildings, there's some sculpture you either don't understand, or, but it's there. It's there. You have the arts. There are people who sing to you in opera, okay? I don't know if operas are ever self-sustaining.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  I think they're not. They always require donations just to stay afloat. That's true with most of the arts. Not the graphic arts, because we need those for, for movies and this sort of thing. But for fine arts, that needs support, always. All the museums, there's like, flow of philanthropic funds. Okay. So then you say, why do the art at all? Who needs it? You could imagine a country that has no art, and all the money that would have otherwise been philanthropically given to art would go to building a factory and make something that they'll sell to you. Here's my question.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Jordan, were we Sir Jordan or Master Jordan?

• 47:12Jordan Klepper?

  Master Jordan.

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Master Jordan. We can all imagine a country such as that with no art. But is that a country you want to live in?

• 47:25Jordan Klepper?

  No.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  That's all I'm saying. It's very simple. I don't want to live in a country with no art, with no expression of human creativity, whether or not it can be commercially supported. I want to see the world through the lens of those who have a completely different view than I do. That's what art is, art at its best. And so, yeah, you take money away from art, you will create a country that no one will want to live in, or all be miserable, because, yeah, we'll have money, but no joy.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  We'll have resources, but no perspective on ourselves, on society, on life. That should be the future of education.

• 48:19Jordan Klepper?

  Now, that is an answer, Neil. Can I piggyback on that?

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Please.

• 48:23Jordan Klepper?

  Because what I love-

• 48:24Speaker 01

  As long as they're not too heavy.

• 48:27Jordan Klepper?

  Art significantly changed the trajectory of my life because it invited me to think about the world in a completely different way. It invited me to find emotions, live in uncertainty, understand less about what was right and wrong, and more about like who people are, how they feel. And I think art can articulate feelings and who we are in so many different ways, whether that's through fine arts, whether that's through comedy, whether that's through writing.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  Because we can feel and imagine.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  If that is denied us, then we are not living as complete a life as we possibly can, experiencing all that it is to be human. And one of my favorite paintings, in fact, is the very favorite painting of mine. It appears in a dozen different ways in this office. We should have a Weir's Waldo thing, okay? So, what's this called, Jordan?

• 49:28Jordan Klepper?

  Well, that is Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Very nice, except you left out the "the."

• 49:32Jordan Klepper?

  It's a "the" Starry Night?

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Idiot.

• 49:38Jordan Klepper?

  Damn it.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  Okay, so, here's my point. I'm an astrophysicist. I'm telling you right now, the sky has never looked like this, not even for him on the night he painted this. I know this. In fact, separately behind my desk, I have a printout of the actual stars, moon, and planets in the sky when Van Gogh painted Starry Night.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  Here it is.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  So, this is the actual night sky. And how do I know the night he painted it?

• 50:14Speaker 01

  How do I know?

• 50:15Jordan Klepper?

  How do you know?

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Because there's a crescent moon and the planet Venus. That's Venus down there, the bright one. That configuration, at that angle to each other, at that elevation above the horizon, tells me he painted this somewhere around 4:30, 5:30 in the morning, near the June solstice in the year 1889. In Rémi de Provencal, did I pronounce that right? Let me pronounce that. Rémi de Provencal.

• 50:47Jordan Klepper?

  Don't turn to me for this. I do not have your answer there, yes.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Anyhow, point is, this is not what he saw, but looking at that night sky, this is what he felt. I want to experience the world the way artists feel it, thereby giving me sightlines to all the ways of being human, enriching my own life with your creativity. That's, for me, the future of education.

• 51:21Jordan Klepper?

  That's worth your Patreon money right there, am I right?

• 51:26Jordan Klepper?

  That's beautiful. Invest in the arts and the sciences, make them come together.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  I just, because that is life and the pursuit of happiness. Somewhere I read that.

• 51:37Jordan Klepper?

  That's the political sciences, your second favorite science.

• 51:41Speaker 01

  Political philosophy, let's call it that, yes, okay.

• 51:44Jordan Klepper?

  And also, I will say, if you don't have the arts that can help you articulate the sciences, then you're just alone in your room without-

• 51:52Jordan Klepper?

  Like, I came up with something great, but nobody will listen to me. So, you should have taken an art class.

• 51:57Jordan Klepper?

  Let's bring in an improviser.

• 52:10Speaker 00

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• 54:49Speaker 05

  I'm Brian Futterman, and I support StarTalk on Patreon. This is StarTalk with Neil deGrasse Tyson.

• 55:02Jordan Klepper?

  Neil, this is from Mark Hart. Hello, Dr. Tyson and Mr. Clapper. Jordan, if I may, this can be for all of us. If I may, how do you keep from becoming depressed and hopeless? What drugs-

• 55:16Jordan Klepper?

  What drugs are you on, is the question? Well, I'm on Allopurinol for my gout, so-

• 55:23Speaker 01

  What, are you King Henry VIII?

• 55:24Jordan Klepper?

  Let me tell you, I live a life of privilege. If you have gout right now, you are living a good life. Those purines, the steaks, the yeasty IPAs.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  The turkey leg, yeah.

• 55:36Jordan Klepper?

  This is, yeah, I wear gout like Gucci slip-ons, just as proof of my success. How do I keep from being depressed and hopeless? This is a question I think we both could, I like to unplug, is one. I think the quickest way for depression, for me specifically, is to get lost in the fake reality that is online discourse. And so, wherever I can unplug, I will, you know, we are, we're working on the same themes here. I went to MoMA last week, where Starry Night is.

• 56:07Speaker 01

  Museum of Modern Art.

• 56:08Jordan Klepper?

  Museum of Modern Art. I took my child there. We go usually a couple times a month.

• 56:11Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 56:12Jordan Klepper?

  We love to draw the pictures. We saw the Starry Night.

• 56:14Speaker 01

  So, I have the original behind my desk, so theirs is a copy of mine.

• 56:18Jordan Klepper?

  Oh, that is the original. I was gonna say, yes. It's beautiful. It really is. And you deserve it.

• 56:22Speaker 01

  But don't tell anybody.

• 56:23Jordan Klepper?

  No, I won't. No, you're fine. As long as nobody listens to the podcast, you're totally good.

• 56:29Jordan Klepper?

  I like to dip my head into abstract.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:32Jordan Klepper?

  You go to a modern art museum and look at a Jackson Pollock, and nobody's telling you what to think. It's just expressing a feeling that can't be articulated in words.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Jackson Pollock, the splattered paint.

• 56:43Jordan Klepper?

  The classic-

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Genre.

• 56:45Jordan Klepper?

  The classic, the splatter paint, or Rothko, the big loud paint. All of those, to me, are sort of a reset that helped me step away from the depressing things. And then, and then the cliches of family stepping in and paying attention to a little child who's five and a half.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  Who needs you.

• 57:03Jordan Klepper?

  Who needs you. Yeah, it gives you meaning, it gives you purpose, and it gives you perspective that they care a lot less about what was on the news that morning.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  They don't care anything.

• 57:12Jordan Klepper?

  They don't care at all.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 57:15Jordan Klepper?

  Well, I mean, my little one's kind of a Bernie bro, but, you know, the five and a half, they'll grow out of it. But so, I get a lot of progressive politics, but outside of that, we can move into Legos, and you can find a bit of joy.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  I don't know that I can add to that.

• 57:26Jordan Klepper?

  No?

• 57:27Speaker 01

  That was beautiful.

• 57:28Jordan Klepper?

  And whiskey. Whiskey helps a lot.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  So, I'm generally a happy guy. It's not an act. I'm generally, so, I'm an optimistic realist. I'm not going to delude myself into thinking something is better than it is, because then you, then you, solutions miss their target if you don't know exactly what's happening and why. But I always carry the hope, and I don't like the word "hope", because hope and prayer are what you have when you confess that you are not in control of the situation.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  So, I don't want to say I have hope, so let me say I have confidence that with some effort and with some time, it will change for the better, as the history of civilization has. I am today not owned by someone on their plantation, okay? I know that's a low bar.

• 58:30Jordan Klepper?

  It's a very low bar, but it's a good thing.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  But it's a good thing, okay.

• 58:33Jordan Klepper?

  Okay, we can be grateful for many things.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Okay. Okay, you know, pick your oppressed group. You are not better off in the past than you are today statistically. If you just look at overall, and yes, there are fits and starts to that arc. But I look at where we were versus where we are. And I say, that's progress. Let me keep at that. I grew up at a time where I was not welcomed for my scientific curiosity. Urge to do athletics because in people's expectations, my skin color were only imagined in that role. Not as an astrophysicist.

• 59:18Speaker 01

  So I can speak for hours about how many times I've been stopped by the police, by security guards, assuming I'm a criminal. And I could go on and on. However, my father's stories were way worse. And his father's stories were way worse than his. So I try to step back, get a longer measure of that arc. And say, things are better. And Jordan, I've written about this. In one of the books that I had hole punched.

• 59:52Jordan Klepper?

  You're gonna get that pizza sooner than later.

• 59:55Speaker 01

  May I?

• 59:56Jordan Klepper?

  Please.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  May I? A Starry Messenger, Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization. This came out a few years ago.

• 1:00:03Jordan Klepper?

  No, I've read it twice.

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Did you?

• 1:00:06Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah, I loved it.

• 1:00:07Speaker 01

  Why'd you read it twice? It wasn't?

• 1:00:09Jordan Klepper?

  Well, because I, you know, I was bored by it the first time. So the second time, I was like, I must have missed something.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Okay. One last thought experiment. Imagine you're offered the opportunity to enter a time machine and go back to any previous moment in human history. Where and when would you choose? The white, cisgender, heterosexual male?

• 1:00:36Jordan Klepper?

  Check.

• 1:00:39Speaker 01

  Is there one in the room?

• 1:00:41Jordan Klepper?

  Fair.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  Heterosexual male has his pick of the timeline. This traveler to the past will be welcomed everywhere and everywhere. I invented that word for that sentence.

• 1:00:57Jordan Klepper?

  Everyone?

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not in this dictionary.

• 1:00:59Jordan Klepper?

  You need to get an editor for these.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  Leave me with my new words. Everywhere and everywhere. If that's not you, then you'd better think hard about the time and place you'd like to visit. Are you female, a person of color, disabled, queer, or any combination of these? When was it better for you? A thousand years ago? Five hundred years ago? A hundred? Fifty? Ten? Five? For me, I'm good with the present. I'd rather not be declined a taxi ride, overlooked for job opportunities,

• 1:01:44Speaker 01

  denied a bank loan, or redlined from my choice of housing. With childhood ambitions of being a scientist, I don't want to be someone's servant. Nor do I fancy being purchased and owned by another human being who thinks I'm not entirely human. Come to think of it, I'd rather visit the future. As I presume the preternaturally progressive unitarian minister Theodore Parker would too. As he wrote in 1853. "I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one.

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I can see, I am sure it bends towards justice." That's the origin of the comment, "The arc bends towards justice." So how do I stay happy, positive, with hope? I look at how much worse it was in the past. Which means there has been progress. If not immediately today, or in the last month, over my life and over the life of everyone who has preceded it. That's how.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  And yes, the kids part and the raising the kids.

• 1:03:16Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah, I said bourbon and then Neil is like, get my book, please. "The Arc of the Moral Universe! That's not justice! Who am I? I'm not someone who has suffered the slings and arrows of torturous? But do I retain hope? Yay! I retain hope everywhere and everywhere!" Bourbon, I said bourbon.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  And a sip of wine every now and then.

• 1:03:42Jordan Klepper?

  An occasional sip of wine.

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  All right. Time for a few more.

• 1:03:47Jordan Klepper?

  A few more, let's see what we got. Uh, this is Joe M. Hello, Dr. Tyson and Jordan. Joe M. from Denver, Colorado here.

• 1:03:54Speaker 01

  That's a second from Denver?

• 1:03:55Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah, a lot of, yeah.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  We got Denver folks here, okay.

• 1:03:57Jordan Klepper?

  Shout out to Denver. "I've long said that it isn't my responsibility to convince people they are wrong. I'm not their parent or teacher. However, it seems that people have fallen so deeply into the trap of only believing the evidence that supports what they already think, that they may never see anything any other way. It almost feels that today what folks believe feels more like religion and faith than anything else. Belief despite evidence. When having conversations with people like this, how can we spark curiosity so that they can start to look for and take in evidence themselves? With boundless curiosity, Joe."

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  One of my favorite things not taught in school. We need an entire class on psychological bias. Confirmation bias. That's the most pernicious. Is that I used the right word?

• 1:04:45Jordan Klepper?

  That seems close.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  It feels close to a word. The most, the pernicious, that's the word. It's, I pay attention to what supports what I already want to be true, and I barely notice conflicting evidence. And therefore, I build a case that supports how I think the world should be, rather than how the world is. That's confirmation bias. There's a Wiki page on all the kind of biases that we have. There's other ones. You buy a brand new kind of car, and all of a sudden, everybody has that car. You ever notice that?

• 1:05:20Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:20Speaker 01

  That's a bias. It's a bias. You have an awareness that changes your awareness of other things. That's a bias. In science, we are trained to reduce our biases to as little as they can possibly be. Recognizing that we're human, and we're gonna have biases no matter what. So as a scientist, I say, I think I have no biases here. Could you check this? That's peer review. You're a peer. You check it. You have a different configuration of biases, you might be able to spot mine that's not yours. And peer review is a way to keep bias in check, even though we are nonetheless all trained as scientists to reduce the biases as much as possible. The public, with no such background, all hell breaks loose.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  The biases are running rampant. So the solution here is go back into the school system and teach an entire class on bias. This whole reading, writing, arithmetic, we gotta up our game there into the 21st century. How to spot something that is not true, in spite of your bias. Leonardo. There's only one Leonardo.

• 1:06:24Jordan Klepper?

  Well, yeah, I believe he was the one who ate pizza. Which one, they, Donatello or no, Michelangelo ate the pizza. Leonardo was the one with the...

• 1:06:32Speaker 01

  Predating the teenage mutant ninja turtle.

• 1:06:35Jordan Klepper?

  Tell me more.

• 1:06:36Speaker 01

  Yes. Uh, there was Leonardo of Vinci.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  He says, and I quote, "The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions."

• 1:06:50Speaker 01

  He knew it. Five hundred years ago, this man knew it. Okay? So that would be an antidote to all of those problems.

• 1:06:59Jordan Klepper?

  Well, I stumble upon this all the time in my work. The only time I see movement was somebody who feels strong in a point of position. And they're strong in their opinions in a way that they don't want to change, is admitting your own failure. Pointing out your, the own flaws and uncertainties.

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  How quick are you to do that?

• 1:07:18Jordan Klepper?

  Yes. Well, I am not quick to do that. But I think within my families and within people who I find, again, off camera this week, I had the one productive conversation that was actually moving towards some sort of understanding and/or truth, came off camera when I was able to show and articulate the things that I was unsure of. The things that I didn't know. And then that person then met me with, well...

• 1:07:43Speaker 01

  You were opening up

• 1:07:44Jordan Klepper?

  Yes.

• 1:07:44Speaker 01

  Your soul.

• 1:07:45Jordan Klepper?

  Well, I think there, to me, just as a, just as a human being who came up in the comedy scene, all of my closest friends, I've watched fail over and over again. It's what improv comedy is, it's what life is. And to me, trying and failing and trying again is human.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Right, no one who's truly successful hasn't failed.

• 1:08:06Jordan Klepper?

  Exactly. And I think like people pretending as if they are, they are geniuses and/or are perfect in their thoughts and their ways, to me is an insincere projection of who you are.

• 1:08:18Speaker 01

  I would use the word delusion.

• 1:08:19Jordan Klepper?

  Delusion, exactly.

• 1:08:20Speaker 01

  It's a self-delusion.

• 1:08:21Jordan Klepper?

  It's a self-delusion.

• 1:08:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Someone once asked me, when was the last time I was wrong? And I thought about it and I said, let me do a whole show on that. So we have like what we call an explainer. And Chuck was with me here, Chuck Nice. And I just said, I'm wrong all the time. Okay? And there are levels of wrong. There's like, I'll be home by six, no, I'm home at 6:30. I was wrong. Okay, that's, that's the, that's not, probably not where they were headed with that question. But you can work your way up the ladder. And the point is, I don't have emotion invested in what I think. It's proportional to data and evidence. So if the evidence shifts, I'm shifting with the evidence. Immediately.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Okay, if I don't have emotions invested in it, I got nothing, I'm not shackled back to with heels dug in saying, "It's gotta be this way. I'm not changing my mind. I change my mind all the time. Bring on the evidence and I'm there." That's all it is. So the question almost doesn't mean anything to me.

• 1:09:23Jordan Klepper?

  That articulates something that isn't talked enough about. It's the emotions that are invested into that. That, that also in a political perspective, I see like, identity then gets built on top of those emotions.

• 1:09:34Speaker 01

  And then you can't mess with the identity, because that is built, and even if there's some, it's a house of cards, that's your identity.

• 1:09:40Jordan Klepper?

  That's who you are. That's who you've been projecting to your family members, the people you love for 10 years. And now, somebody gives you a piece of information, you have new data points, and you're like, "I have too much built on this idea."

• 1:09:51Speaker 01

  Jordan, we got 10 minutes left, four questions. Let's close the lightning round. Okay, go.

• 1:09:56Jordan Klepper?

  Okay, Denaida Buchheit says, "Hi Neil, Jordan, Denaida, from Utah. What's with this space reflecting mirror? Is this crazy? Are we doomed?"

• 1:10:09Speaker 01

  So, one of the latest ideas was to put a huge reflecting mirror, it's actually a Mylar surface. Mylar is very reflective, very thin, very light, so it doesn't take much energy to get it up. You deploy it, it's like 30 yards across, I mean, it's huge. And it would position it in such a way, that it would reflect sunlight back down to like a 5 kilometer area on Earth.

• 1:10:35Jordan Klepper?

  For what, for what reason?

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Couldn't wait for you to ask.

• 1:10:39Jordan Klepper?

  Cool.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  It's like, "Why?" Okay?

• 1:10:41Jordan Klepper?

  We have a, I think we have an object up in space that does a lot of sunlight on a certain, on a lot of Earth.

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  Called the sun.

• 1:10:47Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah. Seems pretty effective.

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  So, and I might wanna sleep every now and then at night. So, you wouldn't do this in the daytime, there's no point, because like you said, the sun is there. Nor could you do this if it's cloudy, because it would get blocked by the clouds. You would do it when it's clear on the ground, and it would be a way to get a few extra hours of sunlight beamed down onto your solar panels. Now, when I say a few extra hours, it's high up enough, so that when the sun sets for you, it hasn't set for it. For the evidence, Earth is round, by the way. So it can keep beaming like, well, deep into twilight. But in the middle of the night, it's, it doesn't see the sun, it's in Earth's shadow, so that wouldn't work.

• 1:11:32Jordan Klepper?

  And it's getting like, you said like a 5 mile radius?

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  I said 5 kilometers.

• 1:11:36Jordan Klepper?

  5 kilometers. I can't even hear kilometers. It's just like, and I was all ready, I was like, that's, just making miles, just don't get into it.

• 1:11:46Speaker 01

  Because you're American.

• 1:11:47Jordan Klepper?

  American. That's right. That's right, Isaac Newton, write in English for me, alright? Plain English.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  And he's English, he would've used miles and Fahrenheit, and, and, so he's your guy.

• 1:11:59Jordan Klepper?

  That's my guy.

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  So, yeah, it would create a bright source of light in the sky. Now, of course, it's beaming it to one location or another, it's not lighting up the whole sky. But, the plans are to have thousands of these in the sky. That's, that's the plan. And, you know, gone is the night sky. I feel privileged that I grew up at a time, even though it was in the city, you go out to the country, the night skies are a majestic canopy of the cosmos, looking back down upon you. And now, it's a canopy of satellites. Point is, back then, in twilight, I would catch one or two orbiting satellites.

• 1:12:43Speaker 01

  And they're fun, because they're like, they're very different from an airplane. They're like, and they're moving fast. They say, "Check this out, an orbiting satellite." "Oh my god, we have satellites up there." Two, three weeks ago, satellites were just going back and forth, it wasn't even interesting. It wasn't even special. Most of them were SpaceX Starlink satellites, which are now rising through 12,000 in the night sky. Yeah, SpaceX is like 80, 90, 85% of all satellites in the sky have been launched by SpaceX right now. So, so now, it's just crisscrossing satellites. All I can say is, this ship has sailed, and I don't know if there's any coming back from it.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  The night sky is no longer sacred, as it was to the ancients, as it was to anyone who didn't have a Netflix account at night.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Who would not otherwise be distracted at night to look up and bask.

• 1:13:45Jordan Klepper?

  Just a few minutes ago, you were talking about how much better it is now than everything in the past, the arc, what happened to the whole arc of morality? You got a book about this, Neil, huh? You got a quote you wanna read about this?

• 1:13:55Speaker 01

  We'll get spaceships to go to the moon, the backside of the moon, and we'll have observing trips there. Which would, which would be way better than anything we ever saw on Earth.

• 1:14:03Jordan Klepper?

  Would I get an invite to that party?

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:14:06Jordan Klepper?

  I'm holding you to it.

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Real quick, we're running out of time.

• 1:14:11Jordan Klepper?

  Real quick. Alright, this is Natasha from New Mexico. Hello, Dr. Tyson, StarTalk team, and Jordan Klepper. "As an incoming MD, three more years, my field is currently at the peak of unfortunate theories about vaccines. How do people become anti-vax? Why? Is there any good way to help people understand their importance without losing herd immunity? Do human beings have to F A F O to learn? Saying this as a thick-skulled woman, please give me hope." Natasha from Mexico, New Mexico.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  I was executive producer on a documentary called Shot in the Arm, which is an exploration of vaccine hesitancy in the country and in the world.

• 1:14:52Jordan Klepper?

  Congratulations.

• 1:14:53Speaker 01

  And ways to navigate where that hesitancy is coming from, and how to overcome it. Shot in the arm. Google it.

• 1:15:03Jordan Klepper?

  Are you gonna give us a taste?

• 1:15:05Speaker 01

  No, because I spent the whole time being executive producer, and I was science advisor, because the filmmaker himself, Scott Hamilton Kennedy, he has an active Instagram page, Scott Hamilton Kennedy is a filmmaker. The, he, it's his film, but it has science themes, and he wanted to make sure that they were communicated accurately or as effectively as possible. And, because he's a storyteller. And so I came in and helped shape many of those stories. So, it's a sympathetic look at those people who were duped by anti-vaxxers. And so I recommend it, if you can, it might be streamable on PBS, but find it out there. Yes.

• 1:15:46Jordan Klepper?

  Uh, this is from Khalid Alves. "Hi y'all, this is Khalid from Brazil. I listen to StarTalk Podcast every day, and I'd like to know if Mr. Klepper ever got scared doing his job."

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  Ooh, I like that.

• 1:15:59Jordan Klepper?

  All the time.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  No. Wait, wait, wait, just to be clear, when we see you on TV, you're just talking to a camera.

• 1:16:07Jordan Klepper?

  I'm telling you.

• 1:16:07Speaker 01

  So, so how scary could a camera be, relative to live people who could throw things at you?

• 1:16:14Jordan Klepper?

  I mean, well, this camera steals your soul, and it makes you a fame whore, so you become a terrible person. So that's one thing to be afraid of.

• 1:16:21Speaker 01

  Right. And I've seen comedians who went all camera for many years, they came back to stand-up, and they lost the mojo.

• 1:16:26Jordan Klepper?

  Oh.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  You, you, they think they're funny just because they think they're funny, but they had no evidence that they were funny in front of a live audience. You guys, without a live audience, can get rusty.

• 1:16:38Jordan Klepper?

  You can very easily get rusty. And the great thing about a live audience is, I mean, you're getting real-time responses as to whether or not you're effective or not.

• 1:16:45Speaker 01

  In the moment.

• 1:16:46Jordan Klepper?

  It's like, okay, that didn't work. Yeah, I've, I mean, I've, I've done, I go to places like rallies where things can get dicey, but I have four security guards. Political rallies, and I was there on January 6th. I've been at places where it gets nasty. But on a, but on a performance stage in front of an audience, it's probably the most nervous and scared you get, because you're confronted with the things that you think are interesting, compelling, and/or funny, and then an audience of a thousand or so people, who uh, tell you, "No, we don't agree."

• 1:17:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:17:17Jordan Klepper?

  And that is-

• 1:17:18Speaker 01

  By their silence, they don't agree.

• 1:17:19Jordan Klepper?

  They don't, yeah. Yeah, there's nothing scarier than a blow to your ego. I think that my physical, my physical harm is something I'm, I'm, I'm fairly okay with.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  But the emotional harm, you're still sensitive. And what does that do to the remainder of the show, if you don't get them up until some point? And you gotta still go deliver the show.

• 1:17:38Jordan Klepper?

  You still, you have, that, that's, that's the work.

• 1:17:40Speaker 01

  That.

• 1:17:41Jordan Klepper?

  That's when you dig in, like, alright, I have a show to do. What you get better at, I was doing new material a few weeks ago. You get better at, at loving the bomb, and loving what is bad about it. I was doing some new material about things that I saw online, that I thought everybody was having an experience with. And as soon as I started talking about it, I realized, nobody was having that experience. The algorithm has lied to me, and I crafted a bunch of commentary about the things that I was seeing, and nobody was seeing it. And, and it felt terrible, but also amazing in that, like, I've gotten to the point where like, well, this is very interesting. This is not, I wish this were funny, but now, I'm gonna explore that I'm having an experience that's completely alien to yours.

• 1:18:25Jordan Klepper?

  I'm gonna talk to the people in the audience, I'm gonna try to find out more about it, and you, you love that.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Lemonade and a lemon.

• 1:18:30Jordan Klepper?

  Yes.

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  So, three weeks ago, I deleted my entire search history on YouTube.

• 1:18:36Jordan Klepper?

  Really?

• 1:18:36Speaker 01

  Yes. And then all of a sudden, recommendations came up, is that, "Oh, is that what other people are looking at?"

• 1:18:42Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's buried in there, but you can do it. And it's a fresh start. I recommend it.

• 1:18:48Jordan Klepper?

  I would, we have, we are missing out on serendipity, and that's a beautiful thing.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  And let me give my version of what you just described. When I'm on stage, giving a public talk, I like saying funny things, I like making the audience laugh. I said, "I deeply respect what you guys do, I absorb as much as I can." But, if a joke doesn't land, or they're not laughing, I'm still teaching them something about science. So, you don't have that luxury, okay? You don't say, "Okay, I'm not funny now, I will be educator for 10 minutes." You don't, you don't have that luxury.

• 1:19:23Jordan Klepper?

  You don't know my material. If I bomb, I'm like, alright, we're going into quirks. We're just gonna talk quirks. They're gonna get something out of this.

• 1:19:30Speaker 01

  Right. They will get something out of it, even if nothing I say is funny. They went to a lecture. So that's, that's how I survive that.

• 1:19:39Jordan Klepper?

  I think that's smart. Work on a couple different levels. That's the smart move.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  Alright. Last one.

• 1:19:44Jordan Klepper?

  Last question. This is My Ann from Phoenix, Arizona, just a few kilometers from the sun. If you'll indulge me, I have a thought experiment for you.

• 1:19:53Speaker 01

  Love him.

• 1:19:53Jordan Klepper?

  If a roughly five light year wide bubble around the sun were suddenly displaced to another region of the universe, carrying our solar system and the light already traveling through that space with it.

• 1:20:04Speaker 01

  Boy, I love it.

• 1:20:05Jordan Klepper?

  Our familiar night sky might appear unchanged for years, before the old photons finally ran out. When the new sky arrived, what would the transition actually look like from Earth? And what would scientists detect first that proved we were no longer in the same part of the cosmos? I'll take this one.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  That's a fascinating.

• 1:20:30Jordan Klepper?

  That's a beautiful question.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  That's fascinating. That's like sci-fi fascinating.

• 1:20:33Jordan Klepper?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:33Speaker 01

  Right? So that means we have five years of the old sky. That, oh, look at the Big Dipper and look at this. And then in an instant, the entire sky would change. In an instant. And all the constellations would be different. There'd be no Big Dipper, no Cancer, no, no Leo. The astrology would have to like reinvent itself. Because we're in a different part of the galaxy. And all those stars were only visible from where we are in our part of the galaxy. By the way, in a hundred thousand years, since we're in a rotating galaxy, all the stars that you see tonight would be in a different position anyway. But you'd sort of watch them drift over the hundred thousand years. So constellations today would be very different

• 1:21:18Speaker 01

  from a hundred thousand years from now. And if it's a five light year bubble, they will change instantly. And that would be fun to watch. A more devastating phenomenon would be if you were, if a giant plucked the sun from the middle of the solar system. Plucked. Okay? What would happen? Okay? Someone actually asked that of Merlin, which was my pen name for 15 years. I wrote a column. And I wrote a book. This is one of the hole punches.

• 1:21:49Jordan Klepper?

  This pizza, it is on its way.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  In Merlin's tour of the universe, this came out a couple of years ago. One of the questions was, if the sun were to disappear all of a sudden, how much time would we have to think about it? And my brother, who's an artist, drew. I don't know if you can.

• 1:22:09Jordan Klepper?

  I love it. Yeah.

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  And it shows some cosmic hand plucking the sun. So how much time would we have to think about it? First of all, you wouldn't know what happened until that information reached you. And that takes eight minutes and 20 seconds at the speed of light. So not only does light take eight minutes and 20 seconds to reach you from the sun, the absence of the light takes eight minutes and 20 seconds to reach you. That trailing edge of light from someone having removed the sun. So we will sit here, orbit the sun, rotate, bask in the energy of the sun on the beach, then plunge into darkness and fly off at a tangent

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  and lost forever to interstellar space. Have a nice day. No, no, but it's just fun to think about. Because the question was, how long would you have to think about it? You wouldn't know what happened until it was too late for you to do anything about it. Because, and that's the eight minutes and 20 seconds. That's 500 seconds. So you can only interact with the universe with the information coming to you at any given moment.

• 1:23:21Jordan Klepper?

  If you got a heads up, what would you do for those eight minutes?

• 1:23:24Speaker 01

  Who would give me the heads up?

• 1:23:25Jordan Klepper?

  The giant. Or you're like, yeah, yeah. Let's say you got intel with the giant. He's like, I'm not gonna save you, but.

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  No, you can say, I'm gonna do it at this time.

• 1:23:34Jordan Klepper?

  I'm plucking the sun, so you got eight minutes. Good luck.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  Okay, I would... Everyone should just kiss their ass goodbye. I think that's the... What do you do? Move near volcanoes, because that would be your only heat source.

• 1:23:49Jordan Klepper?

  Oh, okay.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  After the sun is gone.

• 1:23:52Jordan Klepper?

  Mount Etna down there in Sicily? That's beautiful anyway.

• 1:23:55Speaker 01

  Is it still erupting, Mount Etna?

• 1:23:56Jordan Klepper?

  It was recently.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah. Just move inside the crater.

• 1:23:59Jordan Klepper?

  Okay.

• 1:23:59Speaker 01

  And try not to inhale the poisonous gases, and you'll be fine for a while.

• 1:24:03Jordan Klepper?

  You get, they'll give you what? A little bit?

• 1:24:06Speaker 01

  Well, yeah. So all the plants will die. And then all the animals that eat the plants will die. And there'll be a wave of extinction percolating across the tree of life. And so depending on how much canned food you have. So for example, I have... So what is this?

• 1:24:21Jordan Klepper?

  That looks like rice and beans. It looks like chicken soup.

• 1:24:25Speaker 01

  Okay, okay. Look what kind of soup it is.

• 1:24:27Jordan Klepper?

  Wallet? It's primordial soup. Good. I've been looking for that.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  You need this in situations like that. And you could take, you could heat it up on the lava and that's jumpstart civilization on Earth after we all die.

• 1:24:47Jordan Klepper?

  So do your shopping and move to Sicily.

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  Jordan, that's all the time we have. Thanks for coming in and doing this.

• 1:24:53Jordan Klepper?

  Thank you.

• 1:24:53Speaker 01

  I know you're a busy guy. And there's always a rally out there where we see you querying participants.

• 1:25:00Jordan Klepper?

  You know, it's so much more fun and enlightening to query with you every now and then.

• 1:25:05Speaker 01

  Well, thank you.

• 1:25:05Jordan Klepper?

  It's a, it's a nice rejuvenation and a connection to the world as it exists.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  Rational reality.

• 1:25:11Jordan Klepper?

  Thank you for that.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  To the objective truths of the cosmos.

• 1:25:14Jordan Klepper?

  It's nice to touch, grasp with that every now and then.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  So do you have a, are you appearing anywhere? Or where do we find you?

• 1:25:20Jordan Klepper?

  You're gonna find me at The Daily Show a lot of the time. So if you got a TV, check me out there. I also travel the country. I do, I do my stand-up show. So check out officialjordanclepper.com. And I might be coming to your town and, and hanging out and telling some jokes.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  So, so official is part of the web address?

• 1:25:37Jordan Klepper?

  Official Jordan Klepper, yeah.

• 1:25:38Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:25:38Jordan Klepper?

  Don't go to jordanclepper.com. I don't know who has it.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  There's some fake people.

• 1:25:41Jordan Klepper?

  Don't trust him.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  Don't trust the fake Jordan.

• 1:25:43Jordan Klepper?

  Don't trust the fake Jordan.

• 1:25:45Speaker 01

  So we can track your comedy tour.

• 1:25:47Jordan Klepper?

  Yes.

• 1:25:47Speaker 01

  On that. Love it. This has been StarTalk Cosmic Queries, Jordan Klepper Edition. Oh, I like saying that. Until next time, as always, I bid you to keep looking up.

• 1:26:10Speaker 06

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