July 20, 2010 • 20 mins
When Nicolai Kardashev began searching the universe for intelligent life, he built an energy-based scale to measure the progress of any given civilization. Tune in to discover how this scale works -- and why humanity's place on the scale may surprise you.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. This
is Alice Madam of the science editor at how stuff
works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science writer
at how stuff works dot com. And uh, I've got
(00:23):
a question for you, Alison. Have you ever played Dungeons
and Dragons? I haven't. I think my brother did. My
oldest brother used to play Dungeons and Dragons. We we
know how it works. You have like a character, right,
like maybe you're an Elf, or you're a mage, or
you're it's just like like a wizard, you know, like
fireball spells and all that. Oh, the guy just died, Dave,
didn't you die last Yeah? It was at least last year,
(00:47):
it was. But any rate, My point being, in this game,
you have a character and you gain experience points, and
then you reach that point where you level up and
you go from like your level one Elvin Mage to
a level to Elvin Mage, and suddenly you have new
spells and a new type of fireball, you know, and uh,
and then there's a lot of this video games too,
you know, reach that next level, you gain new powers,
(01:07):
new responsibilities, right, humans whether in games or in real life,
are always trying to advance. I guess that's the point
you're getting at, isn't it. Yeah, like you're trying to
become a level five editor, at which point you get fireballs. Yeah.
For writers who mess up on their questions of the day,
I gets a hot nuclear missiles, Adam, I would never
do that. Maybe a fireball, Yeah, I think fireballs more
(01:30):
your speed for level five. Yeah. Yeah, But my point
being that civilizations, according to some cosmologists and science fiction writers,
also level up. Yeah. So today we thought we'd bring
to you a look at the Kardashe of skill thanks
to Nikolai Cardashe of Russian astrophysicists and director of the
Space Research Institute of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
(01:55):
And this was a guy who conducted the first Soviet
search for intelligent extra chest field signal in Yeah. It
was like Soviet set going on. Yeah yeah, not Soviet city,
but Soviet steady. Yeah. I mean it comes down to
the Okay, there, you're looking for intelligent extra terrestrial life
in the universe. That's great, but what are you looking for? Actually?
(02:15):
You know, you know, you you need something to look for.
You need some idea of what this intelligent life could be.
And as always we we end up falling back on
our own model, you know, I mean, what more do
we have to go out? We did. We're the only intelligence,
you know, species in the universe that we know of.
So if we're going to guess at what that might
entail for another planet in another corner of the universe,
(02:37):
we have to base it on this model, right right,
that makes sense? So so yeah, basically, so he basically
would take our our civilization all right and extrapolate on it.
You know, look at look at what our technology is,
what our understanding of science is, and by and just
and and say what would that be like in you know,
(02:57):
X number of years? Because because one of the things
when you're looking for for alien life, you've got to
think some of these alien life forms, if they exist,
could be billions of years ahead of us. So they've
got to you know, a huge head start, and they
could their technology could already be really advanced. So how
do you classify that? And then how do you look
for it? And what's the common thread that runs through
(03:17):
all civilizations? I mean, what do we need? What what
does every species need to survive. We need energy, of course,
and so Kardachev's scale is built on energy. Yeah, now
starting off, not really starting off, but currently we're um,
we're about a according to Carl Sagan, about a point seven.
So let's run you through the different kinds of civilizations.
(03:39):
Kardach have named three a type one, a type two
in type three. So we're gonna start off with type one,
well type zero technically, because type zero is was what
we technically are, or type zero point seven. Any right,
we're not on the scale yet. That's never a good thing.
I don't think. Yeah, well it's it is what it is.
But but yeah, we're not quite on the scale yet,
(04:00):
but we're getting closer and closer. Type one is the
next one. This is when we're gonna If we reach
this point, we're gonna level up. Okay, So yeah, let's
talk about what a type one civilization should be. What
what Kardashian imagine it to be. Um, he thought that
these kind of civilizations are masters of planetary energy, which
is no small feat, meaning that they can harness some
energy of an entire world. But we're not quite there yet. Again,
(04:22):
as Robert was saying, we're Sagan thought we were point seven. Um,
so we depend on fossil fuels, as you guys will know,
as opposed to win solar geothermal for the most part,
dead plants instead of actual global forces. Right, we're beholden
to the weather and we haven't really figured out how
to manipulate it yet except for the Olympics in Beijing. Yeah,
and that's kind of testy, you know, it's kind of
(04:43):
like there are some cannons into it. You know, it's
um not to The opening ceremony was pretty clear that night,
So I think China would describe that. But that's that's
different from being like, Okay, we've got hurricanes coming in
the continent. How are we going to shut one of
those down? No doubt, I agree. Um, but yeah, would
just and and it also would entail um according to
(05:04):
uh To to some cosmologists, wh would just entail becoming
a global a planetary civilization. What do you mean by that? Well,
all right, well we're kind of the seeds are there, right, Um,
Like we already are beginning to have more of a
planetary language. Oh what does the planetary language? Well, it's English,
it's not French, it's it's not French. But but according
(05:26):
to something especially, Um, how do you said that guy's name, right,
the gentleman from the with the crazy hair from University
of New York as opposed to n y U, which
I think we are erronestly said before Michio Kaku Kacku. Yeah,
Mr Kaku, who's doctor to you? Doctor? Yes, doctor Kaku,
who's all over the internet and is awesome. I loves
talking about this stuff. Um. Yeah. He points out that
(05:48):
we already are getting to where we have a planetary
language in the form of English. We already have a
planetary communication system in the terms of the Internet. We're
we're growing planetary economies such as uh European Union, and
we're beginning to have a planetary culture in the form
of Lady Gaga. Well that's that's not his example, but
that's mine. You know. It's like we're getting there are
(06:09):
these things that like everybody seems to love because everybody
loves Lady Gaga. So you can't even sing one of
our songs. I bet I know I could if I
really wanted to. But we're not right where a science podcast.
You guys don't want to hear that from us anyway, No,
Lady Gaga infessions. Right, so Cacus stresses a type one
civilization will have mastered pretty much most forms of planetary energy.
(06:31):
M hmm, this is this would be thousands or millions
times are current planetary output of energy? All right, Um,
you know we're talking controlling earthquakes, volcanoes, being able to
build cities out in the middle of the ocean. Um,
just you know, any of these sort of far future
ideas that show people just really you know, like nothing
(06:52):
that the Earth can throw at us can stop us.
Because that's the other thing. It's like you will be
able to snicker at the weather forecast earthquake. I don't
think so. Yeah, So like all the extinction events or
at least most of the extinction events that we know,
all all the extinction events that relate to the Earth
itself will be solved. Really, but how does he think, Um,
you know, cosmic bodies crashing into well, see that's the
(07:14):
thing that that's where we we would still have a
pendential threat because we maybe masters of planetary energy. But
but the rest of the energy in the in the
solar system, in the universe, etcetera. That's still beyond our
graphs that doesn't mean we're not traveling into space, because
you could be a type one civilization theoretically and still
be still be traveling around the Solar System. It just
don't you know, it's like you can you can walk
(07:35):
the streets, and I mean you own the streets. So
what time what kind of time fame are we talking about? Her? Well?
It as as always, it depends who you ask. Our
friend Mr kku Uh thinks we'll get there in a
mere century, which sounds but you know, we're point seven.
I mean Sagan said we were points and I think
we're somewhere like a point seven four right now on
(07:57):
some of these scales. People like, you know, these are
the people that are kind of indicator on the internet somewhere. Yeah, yeah, probably.
So it's kind of like the experience point counter in
a video game or in New Dungeons and Dragons and
people are like, oh man, I don't have to kill
seven more Orcs and then we're totally civil civilization one um. Right,
So that's an optimistic prediction if you asked Uh. Physicist
Freeman Dison, on the other hand, he's thinking maybe within
(08:18):
two hundred years when the leap is going to occur. Yeah,
so you know, and you know a lot of factors
you know, play into that sort of thing. A big
one of course, is will we destroy ourselves before we
level up? Right? Right? This is a this is a
huge deal that that a number of cosmologists stress that
that this is a very dangerous transition from type zero
(08:41):
to type one because are we going to kill ourselves
with war? You know? Or are we going to you know,
all burn up and uh in some sort of nuclear
arma armageddon? Are we going to ravage the planet to
where we know we have nothing left to go forward
with when we actually reach the point of becoming a
Type one civilization, um, you know, they think that we'll
(09:03):
we'll have a lot of this stuff worked out, will
be a global culture. So global cultures aren't going to
wage war against themselves. You know, it's like we'll all
be one that kind of thing. So and you can
sort of take that or leave it as you like,
you know, because that brings in the whole question, um,
as humanity becomes more and more advanced technologically, um or
even become more unified, um, you know, on a political
(09:24):
cultural level, are we were really going to outgrow our
self destructive tendencies. That's an optimistic that's an open question.
I look forward to that day should it ever occur. So,
you guys know that we're always fans of science fiction.
So what's a good example of science fiction? Um? Type
one civilization? UM? I think a lot of your more
and the only specific example I ran across was like
(09:46):
sort of like the old Buck Rodgers, Um, you know,
where he's moving around the solar system a little, but
the energy involved is basically Type one civilization. I think
a lot of your sort of I think you see
a lot of it in some sort of some cyberpunk
you know, where it's like you're not like super space
faring kind of um kind of future world, but it's
like they're they're getting the energy figured out on a
(10:07):
planetary level. I guess some of your more optimistic Yeah,
of course cyberpunk tin is not to be all that
optimistic because some of your more optimistic views of a
of a you know, not too distant future. Okay, so
let's level up. Let's head on up to type two civilizations. Yeah,
this is where things get like, things get pretty far
out in a hurry. When we started talking about Dyson
(10:29):
swarms and Dyson spears. Yeah, there are friends from the
last section we just talked about Freeman Dyson and uh,
all these guys are still alive, by the way, even Um,
even Karachev. So Type two civilization is all about the Sun. Really,
it's about harnessing the energy of the solar system, namely
(10:50):
the star at the center of the solar system. And
and of course we're talking pretty much here about solar energy.
It's the big one. Uh. Freeman Ayson proposed this idea
called a dice and swarm um and and this was
again this is kind of like you know, him thinking
along the lines of Kardashi of it laid out and
(11:10):
saying like, all right, what would this entail if you
could capture, you know, the power of entire sun. So
this is like taking satellites like solar harvesters and either
like looping them in a belt around a star or
just completely swarming them around a star, you know, like
flies around you know, a rotting steak or something, you know. Uh,
and they just harvest all to the point where they're
(11:30):
just harvesting like all the energy of that star and
transferring it back to the master and wherever man kind
maybe right, And then I haven't. They also talked about
enslaving a black hole for type two civilization. Yeah, yeah,
any of these, uh, these situations where they talk talk
about like harnessing some sort of massive um you know,
star or star related body, like a black hole. Yeah,
(11:53):
that would be another instance of type two status. Um oh,
and Dyson also had There's also the idea of the
dice In sphere, which is basically in like a giant
egg shell. Imagine, you know, a big round shell that
goes around a star. Yeah, I'm thinking of a Cadbury egg.
Maybe it's because we're recording this, yeah, you know, and
(12:14):
it could be. I mean, they could make it shaped
like a Cadbury egg and even have it like with
the fancy floor wrappers. Because they're tipe two civilizations. Who's
gonna stop them? But this one is shown up in
a lot of science fiction. Um, I know they encountered
one in Star Trek a sphere, and then also in
like the Warhammer forty universe there's like one with an
evil energy god in the center or something I did.
(12:35):
They're everywhere because they're they're really is there a Dicen
sphere and d oh no, I'm sorry there's a type
two civilization, yes, yeah, yeah, Dune is a good example
of type two civilization. Um, that's the thing. Also, um yeah,
in addition to the dicensphere, we're gonna be able to
do cool stuff and a type two civilization like interstellar
travel and yeah, the ability to move entire planets. Yeah,
(12:56):
a lot of megastructure type things, like the stuff in
like Arey Niven's Ring World or the Halo games. We
have these just giant, you know, structures that are floating
out there, and I mean that's that's all type two
civilization type stuff. Um. Of course, when will we actually
reach the point where we could have those things? Well,
Kardashev himself said that it would take a mirror two
(13:19):
hundred years to reach type two status, So it's all
the ways off, right. So now we're working on thirty
three hundred years because we still have to make the
leap to the type one civilization from our lily point
seven or point seven floor status. So factor that in
and now that we have another thirty two hundred years,
so we're working on. Don't market on your Google calendar
just yet, because again, these are very rough figures for
(13:41):
dealing with here. Um. You know, it's not like oh,
typetoo Civilization Day and we get to take a half
day at work. You know, let's get to the apex
of civilization, Shelly, the Type three civilization, and this is
a natural progression here At type three you command energy
on a galactic scale. All right, So we're basically talking
(14:03):
god like powers, Like everybody's going to be naming their
kids Zeus and stuff like that. Oh I don't Will
there be kids, Will they have names? I don't know.
That's the thing gets to the point where I mean,
are we what are we? At that point? Are we
people are anymore? It's like very you know, past human
and trans human kind of a deal. And that's where
the sci fi examples get kind of weird because like,
technically the Star Wars Empire is an example of the
(14:26):
type three civilization, but just in terms of its scope really,
you know, because that's that's not what a Type three
civilization would be like. You know, yeah, you made the
analogy before that predicting what a Type three civilization would
be like, it's kind of like predicting the weather. I mean,
it's just so far out, unpredictable and more far out
you get, the more difficult it is to imagine, um,
(14:47):
you know, because like for one thing, you're getting into
stuff like planet energy, which which could you know, involve
like warping time and space. You know, so you know,
it's just very difficult to to read. It's fun to
imagine what that could entail, you know, like Doctor Who,
(15:08):
Time Lords, you know, the monoliths and two thousand and one,
you know, all sorts of really trippy and amazing stuff.
But but it's it's it's technology on a level that's
really hard to fathom. Right. So Plank Energy is talking
about energy that's a quad jillion times larger than our
most powerful atom smasher, you know, the large hetern collaterate
now or actually I don't know if that's our most
(15:29):
powerful one to you. I gotta think it's one of
the most to these secret ones. Right. So the energy,
as fun, the energy, as fantastic as it may seem,
is by definition within the range of a type two
or type three civilization. And you are asking earlier, you're like,
well how about type for civilization? But I mean at
that point you're getting you're just getting silly. I mean,
(15:50):
that's we're not necessarily getting silly. But it's like again,
it's like we're already talking about god like technological powers
that we can barely begin to fathom. So, um, you
type four, who knows what that would entail. The big thing, though,
the thing that we can fat them in theory about
all this is that each civilization would involve more and
more energy being used, and therefore we used efficiently and
(16:13):
used in a large scale app right and being and
being thrown into a communications system, uh in theory, and
that that comes back to the whole reason that Kardascheff
came up with all of this stuff. Like his his
thinking is that all right, you're scanning radio waves and
deep space. You know, um, type one civilization would be
very difficult, very unlikely to detect, but a type to
(16:35):
civilization will be putting out enough that you'd be able
to detect it, and type three even more so. So
it comes down to that, and presumably type four would
be you know, the even more energy on a scale
that it would either either you would be able to
detect it or it would be just everywhere anyway, so
you wouldn't be able to detect it. Like maybe type four.
(16:55):
I mean, who can even imagine you know, like maybe
it's space time itself is a is like a civil
as a fourth level civilization. I say this is a
good time to invite listener feedback because I would like
to hear what you guys imagine to be. And we're
far from sci fi experts, so let you know, hit
us with your examples of of type one through three
in science fiction and and uh, you know, let us
(17:18):
know what you think, because I mean that's the ultimate
thing about a lot of this cosmological stuff, is it
just it's their their their models that we use to
try and understand the future, uh and and understand the cosmos.
So they're very thought provoking. So yeah, if you want
to hear Robert ponder more over what the Earth may
be like in five hundred years or five thousand years, Hey,
go to house stuff works dot com. We just published
(17:39):
articles on both of those topics. Yeah, they're pretty brief,
but they're they hit the topics pretty hard, I think.
And Josh just posted on this too, so you can
always check it out at the blogs too. Yeah. Yeah,
Josh got a post on I think about human humanity
smugness when it comes to this particular scale. So yeah,
check it out. So what's you gotten around there? I
have some listener email that we received. It was like
(18:04):
a photo actually that you have in your hand. Oh
well yeah, well we'll get to that in the next
next podcast. Um, but no, these two. I got to
have two emails here from us and listeners in Australia. First,
we have one from Taylor and Taylor Rights. Hey, guys,
just thought I would let you know how to say
(18:25):
good day. You say it like get a. The D
is short and the ai sound is long on the end,
so again it's saying, wait, let me get this good
a instead of good ay. So apparently that's a common
problem when people try and do Australian accents or even
just mimic some of the lingo. We also got another
(18:47):
email from Ustralia that kind of cracked me up. I
have to say, oh, yes, this one is. This is
our very first correction upon correction. Yeah, this was a
listener by the name of Matthew wrote in and said
I'm correcting a correction. Um. One of your previous listeners
from Australia obviously doesn't know about the funnel web spider,
(19:08):
which lives in the Greater Sydney region at least one
person is bitten each year because they forgot to check
their shoes and with snakes. The Eastern brown and the
red belly black are often found in home at home
in regional centers. So there you go. Because I think
the whole thing we we did the podcast about the
venom and we're like, whoa Australia is just like crazy
(19:30):
venomous and uh and and and then someone wrote it
animals was like, it's really not that bad as long
as you're not at out of me. Though she did
permanently give me the visual of writing a kangaroo and
to work, which is oh yeah, she said, like she
wanted to let us know that that everyone doesn't live
in caves or ripe kangaroos. And though we're making fun,
I mean I Australia does get a bad rap a
(19:51):
lot of times because I mean, like any place, there
are stereotypes. Of course, yeah, yeah, just like I'm obnoxious
Americans that we are yeah with our guns. But so anyway,
if you have, if you have any other corrections, hit
us with them. If you have corrections upon corrections, hit
us with those. If you have corrections of corrections of
concrect don't send them to Facebook because they're on Facebook. Yeah,
(20:15):
and Twitter Lab stuff on Twitter, stuff in the science
lab on Facebook. All right, guys, that's all we got,
Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, is that how stuff works dot Com. Want
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
house stuff works dot com home page
Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. This
is Alice Madam of the science editor at how stuff
works dot com. And this is Robert Lamb, science writer
at how stuff works dot com. And uh, I've got
(00:23):
a question for you, Alison. Have you ever played Dungeons
and Dragons? I haven't. I think my brother did. My
oldest brother used to play Dungeons and Dragons. We we
know how it works. You have like a character, right,
like maybe you're an Elf, or you're a mage, or
you're it's just like like a wizard, you know, like
fireball spells and all that. Oh, the guy just died, Dave,
didn't you die last Yeah? It was at least last year,
(00:47):
it was. But any rate, My point being, in this game,
you have a character and you gain experience points, and
then you reach that point where you level up and
you go from like your level one Elvin Mage to
a level to Elvin Mage, and suddenly you have new
spells and a new type of fireball, you know, and uh,
and then there's a lot of this video games too,
you know, reach that next level, you gain new powers,
(01:07):
new responsibilities, right, humans whether in games or in real life,
are always trying to advance. I guess that's the point
you're getting at, isn't it. Yeah, like you're trying to
become a level five editor, at which point you get fireballs. Yeah.
For writers who mess up on their questions of the day,
I gets a hot nuclear missiles, Adam, I would never
do that. Maybe a fireball, Yeah, I think fireballs more
(01:30):
your speed for level five. Yeah. Yeah, But my point
being that civilizations, according to some cosmologists and science fiction writers,
also level up. Yeah. So today we thought we'd bring
to you a look at the Kardashe of skill thanks
to Nikolai Cardashe of Russian astrophysicists and director of the
Space Research Institute of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
(01:55):
And this was a guy who conducted the first Soviet
search for intelligent extra chest field signal in Yeah. It
was like Soviet set going on. Yeah yeah, not Soviet city,
but Soviet steady. Yeah. I mean it comes down to
the Okay, there, you're looking for intelligent extra terrestrial life
in the universe. That's great, but what are you looking for? Actually?
(02:15):
You know, you know, you you need something to look for.
You need some idea of what this intelligent life could be.
And as always we we end up falling back on
our own model, you know, I mean, what more do
we have to go out? We did. We're the only intelligence,
you know, species in the universe that we know of.
So if we're going to guess at what that might
entail for another planet in another corner of the universe,
(02:37):
we have to base it on this model, right right,
that makes sense? So so yeah, basically, so he basically
would take our our civilization all right and extrapolate on it.
You know, look at look at what our technology is,
what our understanding of science is, and by and just
and and say what would that be like in you know,
(02:57):
X number of years? Because because one of the things
when you're looking for for alien life, you've got to
think some of these alien life forms, if they exist,
could be billions of years ahead of us. So they've
got to you know, a huge head start, and they
could their technology could already be really advanced. So how
do you classify that? And then how do you look
for it? And what's the common thread that runs through
(03:17):
all civilizations? I mean, what do we need? What what
does every species need to survive. We need energy, of course,
and so Kardachev's scale is built on energy. Yeah, now
starting off, not really starting off, but currently we're um,
we're about a according to Carl Sagan, about a point seven.
So let's run you through the different kinds of civilizations.
(03:39):
Kardach have named three a type one, a type two
in type three. So we're gonna start off with type one,
well type zero technically, because type zero is was what
we technically are, or type zero point seven. Any right,
we're not on the scale yet. That's never a good thing.
I don't think. Yeah, well it's it is what it is.
But but yeah, we're not quite on the scale yet,
(04:00):
but we're getting closer and closer. Type one is the
next one. This is when we're gonna If we reach
this point, we're gonna level up. Okay, So yeah, let's
talk about what a type one civilization should be. What
what Kardashian imagine it to be. Um, he thought that
these kind of civilizations are masters of planetary energy, which
is no small feat, meaning that they can harness some
energy of an entire world. But we're not quite there yet. Again,
(04:22):
as Robert was saying, we're Sagan thought we were point seven. Um,
so we depend on fossil fuels, as you guys will know,
as opposed to win solar geothermal for the most part,
dead plants instead of actual global forces. Right, we're beholden
to the weather and we haven't really figured out how
to manipulate it yet except for the Olympics in Beijing. Yeah,
and that's kind of testy, you know, it's kind of
(04:43):
like there are some cannons into it. You know, it's
um not to The opening ceremony was pretty clear that night,
So I think China would describe that. But that's that's
different from being like, Okay, we've got hurricanes coming in
the continent. How are we going to shut one of
those down? No doubt, I agree. Um, but yeah, would
just and and it also would entail um according to
(05:04):
uh To to some cosmologists, wh would just entail becoming
a global a planetary civilization. What do you mean by that? Well,
all right, well we're kind of the seeds are there, right, Um,
Like we already are beginning to have more of a
planetary language. Oh what does the planetary language? Well, it's English,
it's not French, it's it's not French. But but according
(05:26):
to something especially, Um, how do you said that guy's name, right,
the gentleman from the with the crazy hair from University
of New York as opposed to n y U, which
I think we are erronestly said before Michio Kaku Kacku. Yeah,
Mr Kaku, who's doctor to you? Doctor? Yes, doctor Kaku,
who's all over the internet and is awesome. I loves
talking about this stuff. Um. Yeah. He points out that
(05:48):
we already are getting to where we have a planetary
language in the form of English. We already have a
planetary communication system in the terms of the Internet. We're
we're growing planetary economies such as uh European Union, and
we're beginning to have a planetary culture in the form
of Lady Gaga. Well that's that's not his example, but
that's mine. You know. It's like we're getting there are
(06:09):
these things that like everybody seems to love because everybody
loves Lady Gaga. So you can't even sing one of
our songs. I bet I know I could if I
really wanted to. But we're not right where a science podcast.
You guys don't want to hear that from us anyway, No,
Lady Gaga infessions. Right, so Cacus stresses a type one
civilization will have mastered pretty much most forms of planetary energy.
(06:31):
M hmm, this is this would be thousands or millions
times are current planetary output of energy? All right, Um,
you know we're talking controlling earthquakes, volcanoes, being able to
build cities out in the middle of the ocean. Um,
just you know, any of these sort of far future
ideas that show people just really you know, like nothing
(06:52):
that the Earth can throw at us can stop us.
Because that's the other thing. It's like you will be
able to snicker at the weather forecast earthquake. I don't
think so. Yeah, So like all the extinction events or
at least most of the extinction events that we know,
all all the extinction events that relate to the Earth
itself will be solved. Really, but how does he think, Um,
you know, cosmic bodies crashing into well, see that's the
(07:14):
thing that that's where we we would still have a
pendential threat because we maybe masters of planetary energy. But
but the rest of the energy in the in the
solar system, in the universe, etcetera. That's still beyond our
graphs that doesn't mean we're not traveling into space, because
you could be a type one civilization theoretically and still
be still be traveling around the Solar System. It just
don't you know, it's like you can you can walk
(07:35):
the streets, and I mean you own the streets. So
what time what kind of time fame are we talking about? Her? Well?
It as as always, it depends who you ask. Our
friend Mr kku Uh thinks we'll get there in a
mere century, which sounds but you know, we're point seven.
I mean Sagan said we were points and I think
we're somewhere like a point seven four right now on
(07:57):
some of these scales. People like, you know, these are
the people that are kind of indicator on the internet somewhere. Yeah, yeah, probably.
So it's kind of like the experience point counter in
a video game or in New Dungeons and Dragons and
people are like, oh man, I don't have to kill
seven more Orcs and then we're totally civil civilization one um. Right,
So that's an optimistic prediction if you asked Uh. Physicist
Freeman Dison, on the other hand, he's thinking maybe within
(08:18):
two hundred years when the leap is going to occur. Yeah,
so you know, and you know a lot of factors
you know, play into that sort of thing. A big
one of course, is will we destroy ourselves before we
level up? Right? Right? This is a this is a
huge deal that that a number of cosmologists stress that
that this is a very dangerous transition from type zero
(08:41):
to type one because are we going to kill ourselves
with war? You know? Or are we going to you know,
all burn up and uh in some sort of nuclear
arma armageddon? Are we going to ravage the planet to
where we know we have nothing left to go forward
with when we actually reach the point of becoming a
Type one civilization, um, you know, they think that we'll
(09:03):
we'll have a lot of this stuff worked out, will
be a global culture. So global cultures aren't going to
wage war against themselves. You know, it's like we'll all
be one that kind of thing. So and you can
sort of take that or leave it as you like,
you know, because that brings in the whole question, um,
as humanity becomes more and more advanced technologically, um or
even become more unified, um, you know, on a political
(09:24):
cultural level, are we were really going to outgrow our
self destructive tendencies. That's an optimistic that's an open question.
I look forward to that day should it ever occur. So,
you guys know that we're always fans of science fiction.
So what's a good example of science fiction? Um? Type
one civilization? UM? I think a lot of your more
and the only specific example I ran across was like
(09:46):
sort of like the old Buck Rodgers, Um, you know,
where he's moving around the solar system a little, but
the energy involved is basically Type one civilization. I think
a lot of your sort of I think you see
a lot of it in some sort of some cyberpunk
you know, where it's like you're not like super space
faring kind of um kind of future world, but it's
like they're they're getting the energy figured out on a
(10:07):
planetary level. I guess some of your more optimistic Yeah,
of course cyberpunk tin is not to be all that
optimistic because some of your more optimistic views of a
of a you know, not too distant future. Okay, so
let's level up. Let's head on up to type two civilizations. Yeah,
this is where things get like, things get pretty far
out in a hurry. When we started talking about Dyson
(10:29):
swarms and Dyson spears. Yeah, there are friends from the
last section we just talked about Freeman Dyson and uh,
all these guys are still alive, by the way, even Um,
even Karachev. So Type two civilization is all about the Sun. Really,
it's about harnessing the energy of the solar system, namely
(10:50):
the star at the center of the solar system. And
and of course we're talking pretty much here about solar energy.
It's the big one. Uh. Freeman Ayson proposed this idea
called a dice and swarm um and and this was
again this is kind of like you know, him thinking
along the lines of Kardashi of it laid out and
(11:10):
saying like, all right, what would this entail if you
could capture, you know, the power of entire sun. So
this is like taking satellites like solar harvesters and either
like looping them in a belt around a star or
just completely swarming them around a star, you know, like
flies around you know, a rotting steak or something, you know. Uh,
and they just harvest all to the point where they're
(11:30):
just harvesting like all the energy of that star and
transferring it back to the master and wherever man kind
maybe right, And then I haven't. They also talked about
enslaving a black hole for type two civilization. Yeah, yeah,
any of these, uh, these situations where they talk talk
about like harnessing some sort of massive um you know,
star or star related body, like a black hole. Yeah,
(11:53):
that would be another instance of type two status. Um oh,
and Dyson also had There's also the idea of the
dice In sphere, which is basically in like a giant
egg shell. Imagine, you know, a big round shell that
goes around a star. Yeah, I'm thinking of a Cadbury egg.
Maybe it's because we're recording this, yeah, you know, and
(12:14):
it could be. I mean, they could make it shaped
like a Cadbury egg and even have it like with
the fancy floor wrappers. Because they're tipe two civilizations. Who's
gonna stop them? But this one is shown up in
a lot of science fiction. Um, I know they encountered
one in Star Trek a sphere, and then also in
like the Warhammer forty universe there's like one with an
evil energy god in the center or something I did.
(12:35):
They're everywhere because they're they're really is there a Dicen
sphere and d oh no, I'm sorry there's a type
two civilization, yes, yeah, yeah, Dune is a good example
of type two civilization. Um, that's the thing. Also, um yeah,
in addition to the dicensphere, we're gonna be able to
do cool stuff and a type two civilization like interstellar
travel and yeah, the ability to move entire planets. Yeah,
(12:56):
a lot of megastructure type things, like the stuff in
like Arey Niven's Ring World or the Halo games. We
have these just giant, you know, structures that are floating
out there, and I mean that's that's all type two
civilization type stuff. Um. Of course, when will we actually
reach the point where we could have those things? Well,
Kardashev himself said that it would take a mirror two
(13:19):
hundred years to reach type two status, So it's all
the ways off, right. So now we're working on thirty
three hundred years because we still have to make the
leap to the type one civilization from our lily point
seven or point seven floor status. So factor that in
and now that we have another thirty two hundred years,
so we're working on. Don't market on your Google calendar
just yet, because again, these are very rough figures for
(13:41):
dealing with here. Um. You know, it's not like oh,
typetoo Civilization Day and we get to take a half
day at work. You know, let's get to the apex
of civilization, Shelly, the Type three civilization, and this is
a natural progression here At type three you command energy
on a galactic scale. All right, So we're basically talking
(14:03):
god like powers, Like everybody's going to be naming their
kids Zeus and stuff like that. Oh I don't Will
there be kids, Will they have names? I don't know.
That's the thing gets to the point where I mean,
are we what are we? At that point? Are we
people are anymore? It's like very you know, past human
and trans human kind of a deal. And that's where
the sci fi examples get kind of weird because like,
technically the Star Wars Empire is an example of the
(14:26):
type three civilization, but just in terms of its scope really,
you know, because that's that's not what a Type three
civilization would be like. You know, yeah, you made the
analogy before that predicting what a Type three civilization would
be like, it's kind of like predicting the weather. I mean,
it's just so far out, unpredictable and more far out
you get, the more difficult it is to imagine, um,
(14:47):
you know, because like for one thing, you're getting into
stuff like planet energy, which which could you know, involve
like warping time and space. You know, so you know,
it's just very difficult to to read. It's fun to
imagine what that could entail, you know, like Doctor Who,
(15:08):
Time Lords, you know, the monoliths and two thousand and one,
you know, all sorts of really trippy and amazing stuff.
But but it's it's it's technology on a level that's
really hard to fathom. Right. So Plank Energy is talking
about energy that's a quad jillion times larger than our
most powerful atom smasher, you know, the large hetern collaterate
now or actually I don't know if that's our most
(15:29):
powerful one to you. I gotta think it's one of
the most to these secret ones. Right. So the energy,
as fun, the energy, as fantastic as it may seem,
is by definition within the range of a type two
or type three civilization. And you are asking earlier, you're like,
well how about type for civilization? But I mean at
that point you're getting you're just getting silly. I mean,
(15:50):
that's we're not necessarily getting silly. But it's like again,
it's like we're already talking about god like technological powers
that we can barely begin to fathom. So, um, you
type four, who knows what that would entail. The big thing, though,
the thing that we can fat them in theory about
all this is that each civilization would involve more and
more energy being used, and therefore we used efficiently and
(16:13):
used in a large scale app right and being and
being thrown into a communications system, uh in theory, and
that that comes back to the whole reason that Kardascheff
came up with all of this stuff. Like his his
thinking is that all right, you're scanning radio waves and
deep space. You know, um, type one civilization would be
very difficult, very unlikely to detect, but a type to
(16:35):
civilization will be putting out enough that you'd be able
to detect it, and type three even more so. So
it comes down to that, and presumably type four would
be you know, the even more energy on a scale
that it would either either you would be able to
detect it or it would be just everywhere anyway, so
you wouldn't be able to detect it. Like maybe type four.
(16:55):
I mean, who can even imagine you know, like maybe
it's space time itself is a is like a civil
as a fourth level civilization. I say this is a
good time to invite listener feedback because I would like
to hear what you guys imagine to be. And we're
far from sci fi experts, so let you know, hit
us with your examples of of type one through three
in science fiction and and uh, you know, let us
(17:18):
know what you think, because I mean that's the ultimate
thing about a lot of this cosmological stuff, is it
just it's their their their models that we use to
try and understand the future, uh and and understand the cosmos.
So they're very thought provoking. So yeah, if you want
to hear Robert ponder more over what the Earth may
be like in five hundred years or five thousand years, Hey,
go to house stuff works dot com. We just published
(17:39):
articles on both of those topics. Yeah, they're pretty brief,
but they're they hit the topics pretty hard, I think.
And Josh just posted on this too, so you can
always check it out at the blogs too. Yeah. Yeah,
Josh got a post on I think about human humanity
smugness when it comes to this particular scale. So yeah,
check it out. So what's you gotten around there? I
have some listener email that we received. It was like
(18:04):
a photo actually that you have in your hand. Oh
well yeah, well we'll get to that in the next
next podcast. Um, but no, these two. I got to
have two emails here from us and listeners in Australia. First,
we have one from Taylor and Taylor Rights. Hey, guys,
just thought I would let you know how to say
(18:25):
good day. You say it like get a. The D
is short and the ai sound is long on the end,
so again it's saying, wait, let me get this good
a instead of good ay. So apparently that's a common
problem when people try and do Australian accents or even
just mimic some of the lingo. We also got another
(18:47):
email from Ustralia that kind of cracked me up. I
have to say, oh, yes, this one is. This is
our very first correction upon correction. Yeah, this was a
listener by the name of Matthew wrote in and said
I'm correcting a correction. Um. One of your previous listeners
from Australia obviously doesn't know about the funnel web spider,
(19:08):
which lives in the Greater Sydney region at least one
person is bitten each year because they forgot to check
their shoes and with snakes. The Eastern brown and the
red belly black are often found in home at home
in regional centers. So there you go. Because I think
the whole thing we we did the podcast about the
venom and we're like, whoa Australia is just like crazy
(19:30):
venomous and uh and and and then someone wrote it
animals was like, it's really not that bad as long
as you're not at out of me. Though she did
permanently give me the visual of writing a kangaroo and
to work, which is oh yeah, she said, like she
wanted to let us know that that everyone doesn't live
in caves or ripe kangaroos. And though we're making fun,
I mean I Australia does get a bad rap a
(19:51):
lot of times because I mean, like any place, there
are stereotypes. Of course, yeah, yeah, just like I'm obnoxious
Americans that we are yeah with our guns. But so anyway,
if you have, if you have any other corrections, hit
us with them. If you have corrections upon corrections, hit
us with those. If you have corrections of corrections of
concrect don't send them to Facebook because they're on Facebook. Yeah,
(20:15):
and Twitter Lab stuff on Twitter, stuff in the science
lab on Facebook. All right, guys, that's all we got,
Thanks for listening. For more on this and thousands of
other topics, is that how stuff works dot Com. Want
more how stuff works, check out our blogs on the
house stuff works dot com home page
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