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Imagine that Alexander the Great was gifted a fancy looking vehicle by another king of his time. As it turned out, the gift was a part of a vicious conspiracy and the vehicle was a time machine, which transported Alexander to our time. That would be an experience he would never forget. The order and peace would shock him and the technology we have today would appear nothing less than divine powers.
This is convincing enough to prove that humanity has come a long way since its dawn. Now with AI in our aid, our world will see more rapid advancements in the coming years. In a much similar way, the technology and power that our future generations will harness will also seem to us as scary and god-like.
But the question remains that for how long would the flames of humanity burn before it is finally extinguished forever. Or will we reach a point where our advancement would prevent our extinction. Can we reach such a point where our science would get so advanced that mankind would turn into a super civilization? And what would make a civilization superior to what we are now?
Here we will cover one of those aspects. We will see what are the types of advanced civilizations, how long would it take for us to turn into a super civilization and what challenges would come our way.
The Kardarshev Scale
In 1964, Nikolai Kardarshev, a Soviet astronomer decided to classify civilizations and their level of technological advancements, and the Kardarshev scale was born. Although it has been quite popular since long, the scale is hypothetical and based mainly on energy consumption on a cosmic scale. The scale classifies civilizations mainly into Type I to Type III and then further into Type IV and beyond.
Type I Civilization
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A Type I civilization has the ability to harness and store the entire energy available on its planet. They would also be able to capture and control all the light energy that would be coming from it's nearest star.
Also, they would have sufficient energy to have control over natural phenomena like volcanoes, earthquakes and storms. Well, even energy depletion wouldn't be a problem since it would all be renewable.
According to American astronomer Carl Sagan, humanity would become a Type I civilization by 2100. But that would require vast improvements in infrastructure, research and development, engineering and communication.
Type II Civilization
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A Type II civilization has the power to harness the entire energy radiated by its home star. This could possibly be done by using a Dyson Sphere. A Dyson Sphere is a hypothetical mega structure which would surround a star from all sides and capture a large percentage of its energy output.
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| Dyson Sphere |
Builiding a Dyson sphere would enable a civilization to harvest vast amounts of energy. But for humans, building such a structure at first, would be a big challenge. To be considered a Type II civilization, mankind would be required to master space travel, interplanetary communication, stellar engineering and complete control over climate. But it would almost take 3000 years more for us to reach Type II.
“According to physicist Michio Kaku, the only serious threat to a Type II civilization would be the explosion of a Supernova nearby.”
Type III Civilization
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According to Theory, a Type III civilization would have control over an entire galaxy. With god like powers and technology way superior than ours, it would be the first to be called a Super Civilization.
There doesn't exists any kind of cosmic catastrophe which would have the power to wipe out a Type III civilization. It would take 5000 years from now for us to reach Type III.
Type IV and Beyond
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At first, scientists never thought of extending the original scale beyond Type III simply because they didn't believe that a civilization could attain that level of advancement. As a Type IV civilization, we would have control over the entire universe. Mankind would have its footprint in every galaxy.
It would also be the first time since the age of Neanderthals, that two species of humans would exist at the same time - humans who would have merged with machines and the truly natural ones. Humans would finally outlive the stars.
Type V and VI civilizations would have similar powers like Type IV but more. Using the energy from Black Holes, their level of powers would go beyond the laws of physics and perhaps would also alter the fragments of reality. It would all seem beyond our comprehension. Wormholes, Time Travel, Multiverses and Alternate Realities would finally be true. They would look at us in the same way we look at Cavemen today.
Our Way Ahead
I know, all of this seems too good to be true. But think once... There was a time when Internet didn't exist. AI existed only in fiction. But these things are very much real today. So the dream of Mankind becoming a Super Civilization could also come true one day, although it would take generations to get accomplished.
Humanity is currently a Type 0.7 civilization. And we are advancing fast towards Type I. But anything truly worthwhile never comes off very easy.
The biggest threat that stands between us and our cosmic ambition is Extinction. At present, Climate Change is a major concern which could threaten our existence in the coming years. And with time, possible new threats can also emerge in the form of Global Nuclear or Biological War, or AI Takeover. How much of that would affect us again depends on us.
Humanity would be required to resilient enough to hold off against these blows. More importantly, we would need to be efficient enough to know how to tackle these threats properly and to make sure that these issues are duly taken care of before they get big.
Mankind has seen and defeated threats like these before as well. Now, only time will tell whether Humanity is worthy enough to see the future it dreams of or not.
Drake equation ?
ReplyDeleteThere is a high probability that there is no advanced civilization nearby ours, otherwise we would have traced their energy radiation.
DeleteAlso it could be possible that some advanced civilization is actually present nearby but in an undetectable form, although chances are very less.