[ExI] "Toward a Type 1 civilization" by Michael Shermer

Michael LaTorra mlatorra at gmail.com
Wed Jul 30 18:15:18 UTC 2008


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shermer22-2008jul22,0,5301697.story
Los Angeles Times
 Toward a Type 1 civilization
 Along with energy policy, political and economic systems must also evolve.
By Michael Shermer
July 22, 2008
Our civilization is fast approaching a tipping point. Humans will need to
make the transition from nonrenewable fossil fuels as the primary source of
our energy to renewable energy sources that will allow us to flourish into
the future. Failure to make that transformation will doom us to the endless
political machinations and economic conflicts that have plagued civilization
for the last half-millennium.

We need new technologies to be sure, but without evolved political and
economic systems, we cannot become what we must. And what is that? A Type 1
civilization. Let me explain.

In a 1964 article on searching for extraterrestrial civilizations, the
Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev suggested using radio telescopes to
detect energy signals from other solar systems in which there might be
civilizations of three levels of advancement: Type 1 can harness all of the
energy of its home planet; Type 2 can harvest all of the power of its sun;
and Type 3 can master the energy from its entire galaxy.

Based on our energy efficiency at the time, in 1973 the astronomer Carl
Sagan estimated that Earth represented a Type 0.7 civilization on a Type 0
to Type 1 scale. (More current assessments put us at 0.72.) As the
Kardashevian scale is logarithmic -- where any increase in power consumption
requires a huge leap in power production -- we have a ways before 1.0.

Fossil fuels won't get us there. Renewable sources such as solar, wind and
geothermal are a good start, and coupled to nuclear power could eventually
get us to Type 1.

Yet the hurdles are not solely -- or even primarily -- technological ones.
We have a proven track record of achieving remarkable scientific solutions
to survival problems -- as long as there is the political will and economic
opportunities that allow the solutions to flourish. In other words, we need
a Type 1 polity and economy, along with the technology, in order to become a
Type 1 civilization.

We are close. If we use the Kardashevian scale to plot humankind's progress,
it shows how far we've come in the long history of our species from Type 0,
and it leads us to see what a Type 1 civilization might be like:



*Type 0.1:* Fluid groups of hominids living in Africa. Technology consists
of primitive stone tools. Intra-group conflicts are resolved through
dominance hierarchy, and between-group violence is common.

*Type 0.2: *Bands of roaming hunter-gatherers that form kinship groups, with
a mostly horizontal political system and egalitarian economy.

*Type 0.3:* Tribes of individuals linked through kinship but with a more
settled and agrarian lifestyle. The beginnings of a political hierarchy and
a primitive economic division of labor.

*Type 0.4:* Chiefdoms consisting of a coalition of tribes into a single
hierarchical political unit with a dominant leader at the top, and with the
beginnings of significant economic inequalities and a division of labor in
which lower-class members produce food and other products consumed by
non-producing upper-class members.

*Type 0.5:* The state as a political coalition with jurisdiction over a
well-defined geographical territory and its corresponding inhabitants, with
a mercantile economy that seeks a favorable balance of trade in a win-lose
game against other states.

*Type 0.6:* Empires extend their control over peoples who are not
culturally, ethnically or geographically within their normal jurisdiction,
with a goal of economic dominance over rival empires.

*Type 0.7:* Democracies that divide power over several institutions, which
are run by elected officials voted for by some citizens. The beginnings of a
market economy.

*Type 0.8:* Liberal democracies that give the vote to all citizens. Markets
that begin to embrace a nonzero, win-win economic game through free trade
with other states.

*Type 0.9:* Democratic capitalism, the blending of liberal democracy and
free markets, now spreading across the globe through democratic movements in
developing nations and broad trading blocs such as the European Union.

*Type 1.0:* Globalism that includes worldwide wireless Internet access, with
all knowledge digitized and available to everyone. A completely global
economy with free markets in which anyone can trade with anyone else without
interference from states or governments. A planet where all states are
democracies in which everyone has the franchise.

The forces at work that could prevent us from making the great leap forward
to a Type 1 civilization are primarily political and economic. The
resistance by nondemocratic states to turning power over to the people is
considerable, especially in theocracies whose leaders would prefer we all
revert to Type 0.4 chiefdoms. The opposition toward a global economy is
substantial, even in the industrialized West, where economic tribalism still
dominates the thinking of most politicians, intellectuals and citizens.

For thousands of years, we have existed in a zero-sum tribal world in which
a gain for one tribe, state or nation meant a loss for another tribe, state
or nation -- and our political and economic systems have been designed for
use in that win-lose world. But we have the opportunity to live in a win-win
world and become a Type 1 civilization by spreading liberal democracy and
free trade, in which the scientific and technological benefits will
flourish. I am optimistic because in the evolutionist's deep time and the
historian's long view, the trend lines toward achieving Type 1 status tick
inexorably upward.

That is change we can believe in.

* * *

Michael Shermer is an adjunct professor in the School of Politics and
Economics at Claremont Graduate University, the publisher of Skeptic
magazine and a monthly columnist for Scientific American. His latest book is
"The Mind of the Market."
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