The Why Files: Operation Podcast - 25: Comparing Earth technology with alien civilizations | The Kardashev Scale

Episode Date: June 26, 2022

THE KARDASHEV SCALE.  We have no idea what an alien civilization would look like. Humans are evolved primates. What if an alien species is reptilian? Or more like an insect? Or a hybrid of these? Or maybe something completely unique that we couldn't even imagine.   There is only one set of universal laws that every species must follow. Physics. Specifically energy.   One way to measure a civilization is by its energy consumption. This is done with the Kardashev Scale.   By using the Kardashev Scale, we can address some big questions about alien civilizations. Like: Fermi's Paradox. It's estimated that there are 40 billion Earth-like planets in the Milky Way that could support life. Certainly a few of these should have given rise to intelligent life. And if so, where is everyone?   A recent study done by researchers at JPL and CalTech states that when a civilization finally reaches a certain point on the Kardashev Scale, it destroys itself. Which is why we haven't discovered any evidence. They're gone.   And the Kardashev Scale addresses the most worrisome theory of all. If there are advanced civilizations in our universe, it's probably best if we don't make contact with them.    Let's find out why. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thewhyfiles/support

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Do you believe there are alien civilizations out there? And how do those civilizations compare with us? How do we even measure it? Well, we have no idea what an alien civilization would look like. Humans are evolved primates. What if an alien species is reptilian, or more like an insect, or a hybrid of these? Or maybe something completely unique that we couldn't even imagine? There is only one set of universal laws that every species must follow physics,

specifically energy. And one way to measure a civilization is by its energy consumption. And this is done with the Kardashev scale. By using the Kardashev scale, we can address some big questions about alien civilizations like Fermi's paradox, which says if the universe is full of advanced civilizations, we're the hell out. Right. That's Fermi's paradox, which says if the universe is full of advanced civilizations, we're the hell out of here. Right. That's Fermi's paradox in a nutshell. It's estimated that there are 40 billion Earth like planets in the Milky Way that could support life.

Now, certainly a few of these should have given rise to intelligent life. And if so, where is everyone? A recent study done by researchers at JPL and Caltech states that when a civilization finally reaches a certain point on the Kardashev scale, it destroys itself, which is why we haven't discovered any evidence. They're all gone. That's depressing. And the Kardashev scale addresses the most worrisome theory of all. If there are advanced civilizations in our universe, it's probably best if we don't make contact with them. Let's find out why.

For hundreds of thousands of years, human technology didn't advance very much. Tools were useful. Discovering fire was a big deal. The wheel, super helpful. Breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, and physics certainly happened, but there was a lot of time in between major discoveries. Then the Industrial Revolution came along and everything changed. And in the past couple of hundred years, the human race has experienced an explosion of scientific progress. Then the computer revolution accelerated that progress. Now think about it. Just over 100 years ago, nobody thought human flight was even possible. About 50 years later, we're walking on

the moon and now we're flying drones on Mars. Things are moving along. And given this rapid advancement of technology, you can't help but wonder what we'll be able to achieve in the next hundred thousand or million years. If there are alien civilizations in our universe who have achieved levels of scientific progress beyond our own, how do we grade and compare them? One of the most popular metrics for doing this is the Kardashev scale. In 1964, Nikolai Kardashev theorized that- Courtney's my favorite. What?

Courtney Kardashev. Love her. No, no, no, no, no. Nikolai Kardashev. He was an astrophysicist. Courtney's not an astrophysicist. Courtney, what the f*** is up with your Wi-Fi? You have this big ass house and you can't afford a Wi-Fi box out here?

It's not about affording, it's about radiation. You're gonna die anyway, you understand that, right? Die with a good Snapchat going. Ha! She's the best. Anyway, Kardashev said that civilizations can be categorized by the total amount of energy available to them and how much they use. Plugging how much power a civilization uses into a formula gives us a number that represents the advancement of that civilization's technology. And the formula is simple. Oh yeah, real simple.

P is the total amount of power a civilization is capable of using at a given time. K is the number assigned to represent their technological advancement. That's the Kardashev number. Kardashev defined three levels, levels one through three, and these have since been expanded by another four, so the levels are now zero through six. Let's go through the levels and see where we are on the scale. A type zero civilization is entry level. This civilization harnesses some of the energy of its home planet, but not to its full potential. As you might have guessed, that's us. We're currently about a 0.7 on the Kardashev scale, maybe 0.75.

We'll reach Type 1 in anywhere from 1 to 500 years. Now, a Type 1 civilization is capable of harnessing the total energy of its whole planet. Think burning timber for cooking, using coal, building geothermal power plants, using hydroelectricity dams, even harnessing the power of the atom to heat steam and move turbines. Two kilograms of matter converted entirely to energy per second. This can even be extended to collecting starlight coming down to the planet. So solar panels or satellites that can collect the sun's energy and wirelessly beam it back down to the planet for use. And this is where we're heading. Now, the good news is we'd be able to control our environment entirely. As a type one civilization, we could control the weather, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. We could influence the evolution of plants and animals. Now, the bad news

is we'd have more energy demand than supply. So to keep advancing, we'd have to leave Earth and start mining other planets and asteroids for their resources. Now, if that sounds like sci-fi, that's because it is. Actually, the best way to describe civilizations as they climb the scale is through science fiction. So let's do that. A type two civilization can harness all the energy within their own solar system. Still science fiction, but theoretically it could be done with something called a Dyson sphere, sometimes called a Dyson shell. And this is a structure that completely encompasses a star and captures all that star's energy. Could this be a Dyson sphere? The object does fit the general parameters of Dyson's theory.

And this is one of my favorite theories, and it needs its own video, but the gist of it is this. Imagine building a giant hollow sphere in space, and the sun is actually at the center of the sphere. Now, the edge of the sphere would be about as far out as the Earth is, 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers. Now, civilization would exist on the interior surface of this sphere. Now, that's a lot of surface area. In fact, it would be about 550 million times the surface area of the Earth. So plenty of room to move

around. Now, even though a Dyson sphere works in theory, this is just way beyond our current level of engineering. The biggest problem is there just isn't enough raw material available in the entire solar system to build it. But an intermediate step could be a structure called a Dyson swarm. A Dyson swarm is a large number of independent satellites orbiting in dense formation around the sun. And these structures would use wireless energy transfer that would beam energy between swarm components and ultimately back to Earth. Now, there's actually a star where a Dyson swarm may exist. It's designated KIC 8462852, also known as Tabby's star. Now, Tabby's star emits such a wildly changing and varying amount of light and energy that it can't be explained by our current

understanding of stellar physics. There seems to be some kind of ring of matter orbiting the star, and some have hypothesized that this could be a Dyson swarm under construction. Now, sounds crazy, but people are taking this seriously. In fact, in 2018, scientists began speaking of using the European Space Agency's mission to seek out Dyson spheres and other megastructures in the galaxy. Now, if they're there, we should be able to detect them. That is, unless they don't want to be found. Now, what would a Type 2 civilization be hiding from, you ask? Well, a Type 3 civilization.

And that's where things get really scary. I mean, if there are super intelligent aliens out there, they're probably already observing us. That would seem quite likely. And we just are not smart enough to realize it. A type three civilization would span the entire galaxy, colonizing and controlling numerous systems. It would be able to harness, store and use the energy output of all stars in that galaxy. This civilization would use planets like building blocks, moving planets from one solar system to another. They could merge solar systems, merge stars, even create stars from scratch. The galaxy is their playground, and everything in it is a toy. Now, to reach Type 3, the energy harvested would be insane. It's a huge number. I mean, we're talking hundreds,

if not thousands of Dyson spheres scattered throughout the galaxy, or alternatively, tapping into a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy. Now, this civilization almost certainly would use some form of faster than light interstellar travel, utilizing wormhole technology to form shortcuts between points in space time or the ability to manipulate gravity to twist and bend space time to drastically reduce the distances between two points. Now, Kardashev himself stopped at Type three. He said that it was nearly impossible for a civilization to reach a galactic level of energy control. But he did think that in time mankind could progress to a type two

before we, you know. Now, the clock is ticking and we're only one meteor away from starting over. Then there's the fact that our sun will expand into a red giant in about five billion years and occupy the space we're currently living in. But before that happens, the approaching solar mass will turn the Earth's surface into a scorched wasteland, boiling away all water and atmosphere, and then it atomizes us. So there are a few problems to solve.

Nothing like a little existential dread to ruin my mood. But let's say we do survive all of that and make it to type 4. What does that even look like? There is some chance that in the next few decades we will get a signal from some spectacularly distant, spectacularly exotic civilization, and everything on Earth will, as a consequence, change. There have been a few add-ons to the Kardashev scale in subsequent years. We covered Type 0, representing a primitive civilization that doesn't appear on the graph. Going in the other direction, a Type 4 civilization would be able to

harness a power output equal to all of the galaxies in the observable universe. Now, we can also assume that a Type 4 civilization would make use of the energy from black holes and neutron stars, as well as regular stars. Now, this is so technologically advanced that science fiction doesn't really cover it because it's just too difficult to wrap our minds around. Now, for reference, Star Trek is about a 2.2 on the Kardashev scale. The Asgardians in the MCU are about a 3.2. And bid you farewell and good luck, morons. Marvel's Masters of the Mystic Arts, a 3.3. The Star Wars stories are considered right around 3.6. This station is now the ultimate power in the universe.

Still not Type 4. Now if you're able to control the energy of an entire universe at Type 4, what the heck do you do at Type 5? Well say hello to interdimensional beings who travel the multiverse, and probably through time. Yep, this type of civilization would be able to manipulate all the matter and energy within their own observable universe and likely travel beyond it. How do you travel beyond something if you can't observe it? I don't know, it's too abstract for my monkey brain.

But even more abstract is the type six civilization. They're capable of creating universes and multiverses and destroying them just as easily. They could step outside the confines of time, influence future possibilities, branch infinite timelines, all at will. Now, a type four civilization would seem like magic to us, but even a single being from a type five or a type six would seem like a god. Oh boy. And probably not a benevolent god. This is why many theorists would prefer we never make contact with anyone, because if we do find an advanced civilization, it would probably mean the end of

our own. The aliens don't have to be evil in order to be dangerous to us. They might not care. They just might not care about us and in the process pave us over. If we look at the Kardashev scale, the next logical step for us, a move from type one to type two, requires space exploration. It's likely any extraterrestrials we encounter are at least a type two, if not type three, and there's no guarantee they'd be friendly. There's a strong possibility that if we get the attention of an intelligent civilization, they might not be interested in our friendship, but they certainly be interested in our resources. First contact could be something that accelerates our own advancement and improves the quality of life on Earth. Or it could be the end of our species. We really have no way of knowing. Still, there are plenty of people searching for

life. The European Space Agency broadcasts 3,700 text messages toward Polaris. Oh boy. Breakthrough Initiatives is a program founded in 2015 and funded by billionaire Yuri Milner. Its mission is to search for extraterrestrial intelligence using various approaches. Breakthrough Listen is an effort to search over 1 million stars for artificial radio or laser signals. A parallel project called Breakthrough Starshot will send a swarm of probes to the Alpha Centauri system at about 20% the speed of light. Now, what do you think? Is this a good idea? Now, some scientists, most notably Stephen Hawking, are convinced the answer is a firm no. Many scientists have compared discovering alien life

to Columbus or Cortez coming to the new world. And FYI, in that comparison, humans are the natives, and things didn't work out that well for them. When any of us explored the world with high technology ships and came upon a civilization less advanced, it was bad for the less advanced civilization. The Kardashev scale is just one measurement of civilization, but there are others. In 2010, John Barrow, mathematician and theoretical physicist, proposed an alternative theory for measuring civilization. He called it micro-dimensional mastery. John Barrow, a mathematician and theoretical physicist, proposed an alternative theory for measuring civilization. He called it micro-dimensional mastery. Now, Barrow said that humans are currently more cost-oriented and that it's more economical to manipulate smaller-scale

environments than venturing to the cosmos. So his scale is one of decreasing value. Now, type one would be the ability to manipulate objects on the same scale as ourselves, like breaking down rocks to mine ore or to make building materials from trees. A type two is capable of manipulating DNA, altering the development and function of living organisms by replacing or inserting new genetic code. A type three is a civilization capable of manipulating molecular bonds directly to create entirely new and non-naturally forming materials. A type 4 can manipulate actual atoms themselves, nanotechnology that can create artificial

life forms from base matter. Type 5 is the power to change the atomic nucleus and stitch it together from subatomic particles to create designer elements. Type 6 can customize most basic forms of matter, quarks, leptons, and organize them into a complex system. This isn't just understanding quantum physics, it's controlling it. And a type omega civilization, well, they have complete control over space and time. Currently, we sit somewhere between types three and type four in the micro dimensional mastery scale. That means our next step is artificial life. Yep, we sit somewhere between types three and type four in the micro-dimensional mastery scale.

That means our next step is artificial life. Yep, we always end up here, don't we? The good old rise of the AI. Oh boy. You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna.

There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling

adventure stories on Audible. You searched for your informant who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth, while curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. If humanity collectively decides that creating digital superintelligence is the right move,

then we should do so very, very carefully. Very, very carefully. Okay, so back to Fermi's paradox, which simply states, if there's so much life in the universe, why can't we find it? Now, a response to this is in a paper released just last year by researchers at Caltech and JPL. And the basic idea of the paper is that the universe is full of civilizations, dead civilizations, that through technological advancements eventually kill themselves off. This is why no one's answering our calls. Given our own path and the ominous presence of apocalyptic weapons, this scenario seems plausible.

I mean, we're not even close to going interstellar, but we're certainly capable of self-annihilation right now. I think this is why we want there to be advanced life out there. Because if another civilization is able to overcome the risks of technology and finally travel the stars, then that means we could do it too. I think this is also a reason why people like science fiction stories that take place in the far future. Not just positive futures like Star Trek, but darker futures like Ender's Game or The Matrix or Terminator. The future may be dark in these stories, but at least there's a future. There's

security and a sense of peace in knowing that even though our individual time on Earth is short, life does go on. Our species will continue. But will it? When we finally do find evidence of intelligent alien life, will that discovery motivate the human race to use technology to address problems here on Earth so that we can join the larger community? I wouldn't count on it. Or if we find evidence of an extinct civilization, that too should motivate us, right? Because if we can't evolve past our selfishness and tribalism, we could share the same fate. Our future may be just like many scientists believe.

No future at all. Thanks for hanging out with us today. My name is AJ. That's hecklefish. This has been the Y files. If you had fun or learned anything today, comment, like, subscribe, share. It really helps out the channel. Fun. I'm terrified over here. Sorry about that.

Anyway, until next time, be safe, be kind and know that you are appreciated.