Jeff Koeppen's Reviews > Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization

NDGT's latest book is a page-turner, full of interesting takes on a variety of subjects all from a very high (cosmic!) level. If you listen to Neil's podcast, or have heard him interviewed on other podcasts, or seen him in person you've no doubt heard some of the book's content already, but it's much more fleshed out in this book.

This is a quick read - only 216 pages plus acknowledgements, a thorough notes section, and an index. Being a science minded fellow I gobbled it right up and agreed with much of what the author had to say about the many subjects, and even when I didn't agree understood where he was coming from as he explained his position thoroughly and often with touches of humor. The eleven main chapters all focus on a particular theme, some of them rather controversial in these modern times such as abortion, statues of historical figures, race, gender, and vegetarianism.

Despite being a NDGT bobo, I was not familiar with his 2016 proposal of creating a virtual country named Rationalia with a one-line constitution: All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence. Where do I sign up for this? Holy crap - I live in a country which could be named Irrationalia. He talked about this idea in the "Law & Order" chapter, and I was surprised to read that this idea was panned by many in the media, liberal and conservative alike.

The chapters' titles reveal the subject matter and are as follows: "Truth & Beauty", Exploration & Discovery", "Earth & Moon", "Conflict & Resolution", "Risk & Reward", "Meatarians & Vegetarians", "Gender & Identity", "Color & Race", "Law & Order", "Body & Mind, and "Life & Death".

I wish he would've expanded on the "Life & Death" chapter. I've heard him talk about death a million times and I think he's right on about how we need to look at it. He hit the main points and it's not a long book. Maybe he'll dedicate a book to his subject in the future.

I thought this was a good read. NDGT is always entertaining and has a way with explaining science, and it was fun to read him apply his cosmic perspective to issues that currently affect us all.