Type 1 Civilization

Existential Risk and Democratic Peace

2009-08-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

Has climate change become a stark catastrophist vision of global doom? Here, a social anthropologist argues that it is something to be managed, not scared of.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7081804.stm

Minority Report-like OS Interface

2009-07-23T13:33:00.001-07:00

A computer interface for an operating system reminiscent of the movie Minority Report where hand motions are used to navigate through the GUI.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ubb9ZkC4VA

The Big Reboot of Science

2009-07-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

Even as mega-banks topple, Juan Enriquez says the big reboot is yet to come. But don't look for it on your ballot -- or in the stock exchange. It'll come from science labs, and it promises keener bodies and minds. Our kids are going to be ... different.

http://www.ted.com/talks/juan_enriquez_shares_mindboggling_new_science.html

Skin Cells Converted to Stem Cells

2009-07-22T18:12:00.000-07:00

Scientists' Work Could Clear Moral Hurdle to Embryonic Research

Embryonic stem cells are capable of becoming virtually any kind of cell or tissue and are being intensely studied around the world as the core of a newly emerging field of regenerative medicine, in which researchers hope to grow new tissues to revitalize ailing organs.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/21/AR2005082101180.html

Laser experiment powers up

2009-07-22T15:35:00.000-07:00

Scientists in the US have finished building the National Ignition Facility - a colossal new physics experiment

which aims to recreate the blistering conditions at the heart of the sun.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7973111.stm

Artificial brain '10 years away'

2009-07-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

A detailed, functional artificial human brain can be built within the next 10 years, a leading scientist has claimed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8164060.stm

Aubrey de Grey says we can avoid aging

2009-07-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

Cambridge researcher Aubrey de Grey argues that aging is merely a disease -- and a curable one at that. Humans age in seven basic ways, he says, all of which can be averted.

http://www.ted.com/talks/aubrey_de_grey_says_we_can_avoid_aging.html

Gordon Brown: Wiring a web for global good

2009-07-22T15:17:00.000-07:00

We're at a unique moment in history, says UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown: we can use today's interconnectedness to develop our shared global ethic -- and work together to confront the challenges of poverty, security, climate change and the economy.

http://www.ted.com/talks/gordon_brown.html

Ray Kurzweil on how technology will transform us

2009-07-22T15:09:00.000-07:00

Inventor, entrepreneur and visionary Ray Kurzweil explains in abundant, grounded detail why, by the 2020s, we will have reverse-engineered the human brain and nanobots will be operating your consciousness.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurzweil_on_how_technology_will_transform_us.html

Michio Kaku - The Future of Civilization

2009-07-22T13:04:00.000-07:00

Michio Kaku discussing the progression of civilization types, and our generation's role in the transition between a Type 0 and a Type 1 civilization.

Toward a Type 1 Cilization - Los Angeles Times

2009-07-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

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."

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/22/opinion/oe-shermer22?pg=1