it is also possible to use physics to sketch out the outlines of possible civilisation in space. If we look at the rise of our own civilisation over the past 100,000 years, since the modern humans emerged from Africa, it can be seen as the story of rising energy sonsumption. Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev has conjectured that the stages in the development of extraterrestrial civilisation in the universe could be ranked up by energy coonsumption.
- Type 1 Civilisation : Those that harvest planetery power, utilizing all the sunlight that strikes their planet. They can harness the power of volcanoes, manipulating the weather, control earthquakes, and build cities on the ocean. All planetery power is within their control.
- TypeII Civilisation: those that can utillize the entire power of the sun, making them 10 billion times more powerful than Type I civilisation. The Federation of Planets in Star Trek is a Type II civilisation. A type II civilisation in sense, is immortal; nothing known to science, such as ice ages, meteor impact or even a supernovae can destroy it.(In case their mother star is about to explode, these beings can move to another star planet or perhaps even move their home planet.
- Type III civilisation: They can utillize the power of an entire galaxy. they are 10 billion times more powerful than a type II civilisation. the Borg in Star trek, The empire in Star Wars and the galactic civilisation in Asimov Foundation series correspond to a type III civilisation colonize billions of stars systems and can exploit the power of the black hole at he center of their galaxy. The freely roam the space lanes of the galaxy
Kardashev estimated that any civilisation growing at the modest rate of few percent per year in energy consumption will progress rapidly from one type to the next within a matter of few thousand years to ten of thousands of years.
Our own civilisation is level 0.(Ie we use dead plants, oil and coal to fuel our machines.) We only utilize only a fraction of the sun's energy that falls on our planet. But we are can see the beginning of a type I civilisation emerging on the Earth.. The Internet is the beginning of a type I telephone system connecting the entire planet. The beginning of a type I economy can be seen in the rise of the European Union, which in turn was created to compete with NAFTA/ English is already the second language on the Earth and the language of science, finance and business. I imagine it may be come the type I language spoken by virtually everyone. Local cultures and customs will continue to thrive in thousands of varieties on the Earth, but superimposed on this mosaic of peoples will be a palentary culture, perhaps dominated by youth culture and commercialism.
The transition betweeen one civilisation and the next is far from guaranteed. the most transition, for example maybe between a type 0 and a Type I civilization. A type 0 civilisation is still wracked with the sectarianism, fundamentalism, and racism that typified its rise and it is not clear whether or not these tribal and religious passions will overwhelm the transition. (Perhaps one reason that we dont see any type I civilisation in the galaxy is because they never made the transition, i.e the self destructed. One day, as we visit other star systems, we may find the remains of civilisation that killed themselves in one way or another e.g their atmospheres become radioactive or too hot to sustain life.)
by the time a civilisation has reached type II status it has the energy and how to travel freely throughout the galaxy and even reach the planet earth.
But a type III civilisation would likely not be inclined to visit us or conquer us, as in movie Independence day, where such a civilisation spreads like a palgue of locust, swarming around planets to suck their resources dry. in reality, there are contless dead planets in outer space with vast minerals wealth they could harvest without the nuisance of coping with restive native population. Their attitude toward us might resemble our own attitude towards an ant hill. our inclinination is not to bend down and offer the ants beads and trinkets, but simply to ignore them.
The main danger ant face is not that human want to invade them or wipe them out. Instead it is simply what we will pave them over because they are in the way. remember that the distance between a type III civilisation and our own Type 0 civilisation is far more vast than the distance between us and the ants, in terms of energy usage
Next in line tomorrow? UFO?
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