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Michio Kaku: we are a type 0 civilization

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Forgive the cynicism, but I don't think we as a species have the wisdom, ethics, and compassion to be a Type O civilization, let alone a Type 1.

I was just reflecting that if we should, as a world, decide to defend our world against asteroid or cometary impact, the political turf wars and infighting would in itself be an obstacle of enormous proportions, even within just the United States.

We really can't afford this kind of stupidity, but we spend for it constantly.
 
DanielBrenton said:
Forgive the cynicism, but I don't think we as a species have the wisdom, ethics, and compassion to be a Type O civilization, let alone a Type 1.
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I hear what you are saying, but the categorization has nothing to do with wisdom, ethics, or compassion, which are all, if you will forgive me, somewhat subjective in nature, would that they weren't. The whole issue is energy use. If a civilization has obtained mastery over the entire energy resources of its planet, it's a Type 1. Using that scale, which was developed by a Russian scientist originally, puts us, right now, at about .72 when you do the math on it.

The ethics and compassionate areas of our civilization actually prevent us from advancing along this scale because we refuse to totally utilize the energy available to us. We leave oil in the ground when we know it is there because we say we are protecting the environment. We won't build more nuke power plants for political and 'moral' reasons. I'm not arguing for or against these decisions--just saying those ARE our decisions.

So, unless Greer's Zero Point energy arrives in small packages sometime soon, getting something from nothing, we will likely never get to 1.0--at least not with the goons in power these days.
 
But Schuyler, the key is the word "mastery". Leaving the reserves in the ground is not so much a decision of ours as it is a failure to remove it without causing harm.

If we could remove it, safely, efficiently, cheaply, then we could say we have "mastery" over it as a resource. Because we cannot do ALL of those things right now for ALL our resources, then perhaps revising the .72 percentage downwards would be in order. And that scientist would need to re-calculate using all the information we have now on possible energy sources as well as what may be available in the future.

We do have rich resources on this planet, but not all of them are efficient for mass use, utilizing our current extraction/production technology.

Mastery implies, to me; ready access to ALL the population of the planet, 100% efficient use, with cheap production and purchase costs or even no purchase cost at all.

I submit an estimate of .40.

Our ocean is a vast resource for energy which has not even been on the radar for the general population. Think of all the underwater currents that could be generating electricity with use of underwater windmills.

and no, that isn't a pun-on-purpose!:cool:
 
Schuyler said:
I hear what you are saying, but the categorization has nothing to do with wisdom, ethics, or compassion, which are all, if you will forgive me, somewhat subjective in nature, would that they weren't. The whole issue is energy use.
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Schuyler --

Point taken.

My comment really was how I feel about our civilization's expansion personally. I'm thinking about how White European culture callously dominated and subjugated the New World and parts of the Old, and how radical Islam seeks to do the same now in its own noisy, guerrilla fashion.

I don't feel our species has any right to inflict its will on other intelligent species, should we find any out there eventually. But I suspect if we can, we probably will.
 
AnnetteMarie said:
But Schuyler, the key is the word "mastery". Leaving the reserves in the ground is not so much a decision of ours as it is a failure to remove it without causing harm.
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I would maintain that is a political issue rather than a technical one. For example, the Alaska Oil Pipeline was widely criticized because of the incredible environmental catastrophe sure to follow its construction. Caribou would be devastated and might cease to exist as a species. And those greedy oil companies--let's not even get started! But lo and behold the pipeline was built and (shock) the Caribou herd expanded several fold. I've seen pictures of a herd grazing near the pipes. One wag suggested they were warmed by the heat of the flowing oil and were thereby more amorous.

We haven't so much failed to remove it without causing harm as we have been prevented from removing it altogether because compassionate people are afraid we might cause harm.
 
DanielBrenton said:
Will on DVD. I don't care for theaters. I hate having to track down ushers to throw rude people out. Wind up missing most of the movie.
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I was just thinking that the basic idea you expressed above is pretty much the basic idea behind Avatar, so it ought to be right up your alley! Agree with you on theaters. It's a lot cheaper to just wait for the DVD!
 
I agree with Annette (sort of) in that the term "mastery" implies more than mere access. Mastery to me is more like farming: to kill an animal in the wild and consume it is dominance but to raise an animal from birth and have control over every aspect of it's existence up to and including the way it is killed and eaten, THAT is mastery.

We're nowhere near that. Put me down for 0.25.
 
Schuyler said:
I would maintain that is a political issue rather than a technical one. For example, the Alaska Oil Pipeline was widely criticized because of the incredible environmental catastrophe sure to follow its construction. Caribou would be devastated and might cease to exist as a species. And those greedy oil companies--let's not even get started! But lo and behold the pipeline was built and (shock) the Caribou herd expanded several fold. I've seen pictures of a herd grazing near the pipes. One wag suggested they were warmed by the heat of the flowing oil and were thereby more amorous.

We haven't so much failed to remove it without causing harm as we have been prevented from removing it altogether because compassionate people are afraid we might cause harm.
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Political or technical or even monetary to my way of thinking, harm encompasses all that.

To master something is to have complete control, and complete control to me means being able to affect each aspect of a 'thing'; when you can do that, it is up to you, the controller, what happens at each step.

So far, we are still in the stage where anything can, and does, happen, and not often to anyone's benefit, other than those who already have, getting even more.

But, that is splitting atoms as, in general, I think we are saying much the same thing.

Although I still feel a lower estimate is in order as we have no idea what may be made available in future years by leaps in knowledge and technology.
 
I think Michio Kaku (and other physicists) are on the right track with this line of thought. (Assuming the 'light speed' limitation cannot be broken).

Searching for a type 3 civilization relic (or monolith ;)) makes sense in a galactic context. Intelligent robots that propagate to infinity with reporting missions is a brilliant solution to evaluate and maybe eventually unite sentient creations of this universe.

This may be the reason why Buzz Aldrin was so excited with the monolith on Phobos.

article-1204254-05F3905A000005DC-334_634x262.jpg


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1204254/Has-mystery-Mars-Monolith-solved.html

Now that Stanley Kubrik has passed away it would be great to see the first five minutes of '2001 a space odyssey' that he cut off in order to set the 'mystical' tone of his movie.
 
I think the human species has more good in it than a lot of people on the ParaCast forums give us credit for. I think that 90% of humanity is compassionate, ethical, and humble to a degree, at least some of the time, enough to keep Pandora's Legacy, hope, alive.

This isn't to say the other 10%, which tend to be the one's in power and with their fingers on the triggers of weapons of mass destruction, aren't evil bastards. It's also not to say we won't destroy ourselves prior to shifting from Dr. Kaku's level 0 to level 1 civilization, I honestly think we will either kill ourselves off or knock ourselves back to the dark ages with our own technology soon, I just believe, perhaps overly optimistically, that there's still a lot of good in us.
 
DanielBrenton said:
Forgive the cynicism, but I don't think we as a species have the wisdom, ethics, and compassion to be a Type O civilization, let alone a Type 1.
Click to expand...

Interesting !!

That's one thing Michio didn't talk about, the moral framework needed to enable the passage from type 0 to type 1.

... or is that even a pre-requisite. Have to admit that an immoral type 3 civilization would be pretty scary :eek:. (Hopefully they get sucked up by a black hole ;))
 
With respect to energy mastery, we don't even have a clue. We're still at the "fire" stage, the only real difference being that we burn petro chemicals instead of wood. Certainly the rapid oxidation that occurs during combustion releases a great deal of energy, and we've gotten quite good at utilizing some of it, but we're still in the dark ages, with respect to utilization and mastery of energy sources.

I would submit that the optimization of solar, wind, and tidal energies as well as nuclear energies will be a start in the right direction. I don't know the amount of radiant energy nor electromagnetic energy that our planet absorbs from the sun, thermal updrafts, nor the amount of energy generated bythe wind and tides, but I think it's substantially greater than anything we humans can produce in one day. We haven't mastered that yet, have we?
 
This issue is a mathematical one. It has nothing to do with anything but use of energy, period. At its heart it is a formula. The Karashev Scale is written up in wiki here: Wikimedia Error which gives you the mathematical formula and explains the reasoning behind it. It is also, like the Drake Equation, a theoretical construct. In other words, it's a bit of a play toy and needn't be taken as seriously as some would suggest.
 
Schuyler said:
This issue is a mathematical one. It has nothing to do with anything but use of energy, period. At its heart it is a formula. The Karashev Scale is written up in wiki here: Wikimedia Error which gives you the mathematical formula and explains the reasoning behind it. It is also, like the Drake Equation, a theoretical construct. In other words, it's a bit of a play toy and needn't be taken as seriously as some would suggest.
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jkoci said:
Great point. It is really just a mental exercise for now.
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I concede I was attempting to overlay more on to it than is really there.

I would like to see our species get past its cultural differences and look toward its future and the universe with something of a sense of unity. In that way, I can't think of Earth civilization as a "civilization" because it is so fragmented, even within the disparate cultures.

Though, thinking back to WW-II and the introduction of atomic weapons, being an American I'm pleased the U.S. solved that particular problem first, rather than Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. Having leverage over "others" (and the need for this for cultural and even personal survival) is going to be a part of the human condition for some time to come.

Hopefully we will eventually outgrow it.
 
"Michio Kaku: 'We are a Type 0 Civilization.'"

So what happens if/when this industrial civilization collapses (as some have suggested it is already in the process of doing)?

Will our utter (and evident) lack of "mastery" over our energy use then make us a "Type -1 Civilization"?
 
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