{"id":19074,"date":"2017-02-10T20:41:32","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T12:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/marijuana-fans-mix-with-space-fans-at-the-goodship-companys-seattle-seti-salon\/"},"modified":"2017-02-10T20:41:32","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T12:41:32","slug":"marijuana-fans-mix-with-space-fans-at-the-goodship-companys-seattle-seti-salon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/marijuana-fans-mix-with-space-fans-at-the-goodship-companys-seattle-seti-salon\/","title":{"rendered":"Marijuana fans mix with space fans at The Goodship Company\u2019s Seattle SETI salon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Goodship
SETI astronomer Seth Shostak (far left) takes questions from the audience while The Goodship Company\u2019s art director, Greg Lundgren, looks on. GeekWire\u2019s Alan Boyle is the guy with his head down in the front row. (Goodship Photo \/ Ben Lindbloom)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Is Seattle\u2019s Goodship Higher Education Series about bringing together cannabis users? Or is it about deep subjects like the search for extraterrestrial intelligence? And is it OK to ask fellow attendees if they\u2019re toasted?<\/p>\n

The answer, apparently, is yes, yes and yes.<\/p>\n

As SETI astronomer Seth Shostak and I were chatting before Thursday night\u2019s talk at Melrose Market Studios in Seattle\u2019s Capitol Hill district, we wondered how many folks in the standing-room-only crowd had arrived \u201cpre-boarded.\u201d<\/p>\n

In The Goodship Company\u2019s parlance, pre-boarding means getting high before sitting in on the event, an activity that\u2019s in line with the Seattle venture\u2019s main business of selling cannabis-laced edibles.<\/p>\n

Goodship founder Jody Hall told me she sees the Higher Education Series as \u201cTED talks with pot\u201d \u2013 a social alternative to the TV-watching, game-playing, music-listening or chip-eating marathons that are stereotypically associated with stoners.<\/p>\n

\"Doodling
One of the audience members works on intricate doodles during astronomer Seth Shostak\u2019s talk, which was titled \u201cWhere Are the Extraterrestrials?\u201d (Goodship Photo \/ Ben Lindbloom)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Shostak and I mused out loud about the etiquette of asking people whether they were under the influence. And just then, Laurel Cleveland, creative director for the Vela Community pot shop in SoDo, stepped up from behind and set us straight: Yes, it\u2019s OK to ask. And yes, she was toasted.<\/p>\n

Cleveland said the Goodship events provide a social get-together for the cannabis community in Seattle, where state law allows the discreet use of marijuana and its mood-altering derivatives. \u201cI think the community aspect is what drives people together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But the night\u2019s subject matter got her thinking about a different kind of community as well: \u201cIt can\u2019t just be us,\u201d she said \u2013 adding that when she referred to \u201cus,\u201d she meant global humanity.<\/p>\n

Inside the hall, you might not have even realized that you were at a pot-friendly event. Alcoholic drinks were served, and The Goodship laid out free samples of cookies, chocolate bars and pastille candies. But the labeling made clear that the samples contained \u201cNO THC.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause that would be illegal,\u201d a sign helpfully offered.<\/p>\n

\"Sample
The Goodship Company put out samples of cookies, chocolate bars and pastille candies, but made clear that none of them contained cannabis-based additives. (GeekWire Photo \/ Alan Boyle)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Outside the hall, beyond the organizers\u2019 control, it was a slightly different story. It\u2019s against the law to toke up publicly in Washington state. Nevertheless, you could catch a faint whiff of marijuana in the Capitol Hill air.<\/p>\n

Virtually every person we spoke with before the event had some connection to the pot industry. \u201cThis is one of the only cool events where people get out as a group who socially smoke instead of drink,\u201d said Katie Roux of Dockside Cannabis.<\/p>\n

Another attendee, who declined to give her name but said she was in marijuana sales, told us that pot was the perfect accompaniment for an evening discussion of aliens. \u201cUsing cannabis can aid one in delivering a greater awareness of connectedness that can extend out beyond,\u201d she said, in a tone that made clear that the \u201cbeyond\u201d she had in mind was farther away than Tukwila.<\/p>\n

Does pot make a difference at a science-themed soiree? Maybe so: The attendees seemed a little more willing to make eye contact and give a welcoming nod to a stranger. Shostak\u2019s jokes seemed to get somewhat bigger laughs. And at the end of the evening, the astronomer acknowledged that the audience seems more \u201centhusiastic\u201d than usual, although the intimate setting may have had more to do with that.<\/p>\n

\"Seth
SETI astronomer Seth Shostak talks about the search for extraterrestrial life at a Goodship Higher Education Series lecture. (Goodship Photo \/ Ben Lindbloom)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the subject is the search for aliens, it\u2019s hard not<\/em> to be engaged, right? And Shostak, who\u2019s the senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Silicon Valley as well as the host of the \u201cBig Picture Science Radio Show,\u201d knows how to hold a crowd\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n

We covered the main threads of Shostak\u2019s SETI talk a couple of days ago, but here are a few of Thursday night\u2019s bon mots (or should I say \u201cbon pots\u201d?):<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Based on an extrapolation of our own technologies, the first intelligent aliens we meet are most likely to be machines with artificial superintelligence. \u201cI think that may be part of the reason why the universe seems so quiet,\u201d Shostak said. \u201cMachines don\u2019t need to talk to us. You probably don\u2019t talk to the ants in your back yard. If you do, get help.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • If Shostak ever did get the chance to communicate with aliens, he\u2019d want to ask two big questions: Do you have music? And do you have religion? \u201cIf they too had religion, believed in God and so forth, I would find that a very interesting thing to know,\u201d he said. \u201cIt does suggest one reason to come here \u2026 and that is to proselytize. Think about it: That motivated a lot of exploration on Earth, right?\u201d<\/li>\n
  • How does Shostak define intelligent life? \u201cI get that question fairly frequently \u2026 you know, is there intelligence on Earth. People make that joke. The way we define intelligence, it\u2019s just an operational definition. If you can build a radio transmitter, you\u2019re intelligent. That\u2019s it. So ask the guy next to you: Can you build a radio transmitter? Then you\u2019ll know how to treat him.\u201d<\/li>\n
  • What about the idea that we\u2019ll make ourselves more intelligent by putting super-smart AI chips in our brains? Shostak doesn\u2019t think much about the prospects of a human-machine merger. \u201cIn the end, I think it\u2019s sort of like putting a four-cylinder engine in a horse,\u201d he said. \u201cVery quickly you\u2019d say, \u2018Look, can we get rid of the horse part?’\u201d<\/li>\n
  • Shostak acknowledged that he spends a lot of time thinking about a deep subject \u2013 specifically, are we alone in the universe? But he doesn\u2019t think that gives him any better insight into the meaning of life. \u201cIt\u2019d be great if it were true, but I don\u2019t think it is,\u201d he said. \u201cYou might as well ask the guy sitting next to you at Denny\u2019s.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The Goodship Higher Education Series presents lectures on a quarterly basis, and the talks tend to sell out quickly. They\u2019re presented in partnership with The Stranger and the Cloud Room. For advance word about the next lecture, join The Goodship\u2019s mailing list.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    SETI astronomer Seth Shostak (far left) takes questions from the audience while The Goodship Company\u2019s art director, Greg Lundgren, looks on. GeekWire\u2019s Alan Boyle is the guy with his head down in the front row. (Goodship Photo \/ Ben Lindbloom) Is Seattle\u2019s Goodship Higher Education Series about bringing together cannabis users? Or is it about deep […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1874,5453,5120,3754,21],"class_list":["post-19074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astrobiology","tag-goodship","tag-marijuana","tag-seti","tag-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19074\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}