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