Kardashev scale

[Ordr]

Are there any members here who find this useful or informative when postulating on the future energy requirements of our civilization? For those unfamiliar with it, Wiki has a very good explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

[Dogmudgeon]

1. WARNING! Forbidden ISO units used in Wikipedia article!

The word is much too inflammatory to post directly. It sends some DUers into paroxysms of rage, hysteria, and hebephrenia.

If you want to see what it is, first make sure the children are out of the room and heart patients and pregnant women have been properly warned.

Now, select ("highlight") the text between the two angle marks:

> Exajoule <

It's a disgrace!!! Why doesn't Jimmy Wales do something about it???

--p!

[phantom power]

2. Oh fuck! My eyes! I'm blind!

[Ordr]

4. LMAO

(see subject)

[GliderGuider]

3. I do not find it terribly useful, for one main reason

It's a fundamentally anthropocentric view of the universe. If one rejects that point of view, and instead adopts an ecological position that other species have intrinsic value and an independent right to exist, the picture changes deramatically. In this world-view those other species are seen as having the right to manage some portion of the global energy flow themselves, for their own purposes. If they have that right, then we humans do not have the right to deny tham that ability. We have the right to see to our own needs, but sequestering the entire energy flow of a planet for our own purposes, at the inevitable expense of all other life that shares the planet, doesn't count.

Actually, this is worse than just "not terribly useful". I find the underpinning philosophy of the Kardashev scale to be morally repulsive, and antithetical to life itself.

[Ordr]

5. Interesting.

I definitely see your point. I do, however, think that at the level of advancement he describes for a full level 1, that there would be a moral requirement of that civilization to not impede upon the rights of those less developed. Similar to (I hate myself for being this geeky) the Prime Directive in the Star Trek series. I'm of the belief that without that type of universal unselfish morality, the advancement required to progress on that scale will not continue.

[GliderGuider]

6. Any philosophy that relies on altruism as a species-level organizing principle is doomed.

We've proven to monumentally bad at altruism, even on much smaller scales than whole species.

[Ordr]

7. "We've proven to monumentally bad at altruism, even on much smaller scales than whole species."

If that is the case, although I hope it won't be) then I'm rather certain that we won't achieve any of the levels he describes.

[GliderGuider]

9. I agree

Given climate change, Peak Oil and Gas, and the food limits that are showing up, we're out of time NOW. What you see is what you get, as far as I can tell. We appear to be at the development limit for this cycle of civilization, and a decline of debatable severity appears likely.

The problem for the next cycle of civilization is that we used up all the tasty civilization-building stuff this time around -- the oil, the gas, the coal, the easy-to-access minerals and even many of the other species. We've also damaged the air, water and soil so severely that they may take millennia to recover.

The next cycle of civilization will have a hard time simply rebuilding, and there is no chance they will be able to achieve the level of physical development we did. If they exceed our accomplishments it will be in other, non-technical realms -- perhaps social organizations, the arts or philosophy (lord knows we'll have left them enough to be philosophical about...)

[Ordr]

10. Hmm.

While I don't necessarily disagree with your statements, I do not feel that they are as apocalyptic as you imply. A significant amount of healing or even reversal of the damages that we have done can be accomplished with something as "simple" as a regime change in the country that wields the greatest amount of power (ie November 2008).

[GliderGuider]

14. If you really feel that way

you need to do more research. The problems run far too deep for the simple election of a different set of rogues, even in the great and glorious USA, to make any difference whatever.

Three or four years ago I'd have agreed with you. Everything I've discovered since -- about energy, ecology, economics, evolution and food -- has converged to lead me to this position.

[Ordr]

15. you need to do more research

Since I know nearly nothing about ecology and food, I will do as you suggest.

[GliderGuider]

17. Ecology and food are two crucial elements

Our civilization really is facing an existential crisis, and energy, ecology and food are the key factors. Anyone who wants to think deeply and realistically about the future (whether our own or the future of the co-inhabitants of this planet) needs to understand what these issues are.

I know I can sound a bit preachy and patronizing at times, but my over-riding goal in life right now is to wake as many people as possible up to the situation before its too late. I figure we have only five years left before it actually is too late. It's already too late for a lot of other species and a significant chunk of our own.

[Ordr]

21. my over-riding goal in life right now is to wake as many people as possible up to the situation

You don't seem preachy to me. I appreciate you presenting issues that I have been unaware of until now that I will research on my own. :)

[hunter]

25. You can make a pretty good sword out of a car spring.

So it won't be quite so difficult as the first time around when you had to make the steel yourself out of dirt.



Coke forge and sword (at instructables.com)

[OKIsItJustMe]

20. Have we?

Some would say that it is only through altruism that we have succeeded so well as a species.

http://www.altruists.org/about/altruism/evolution/

http://endeavor.med.nyu.edu/~strone01/altruism.html
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB411.html

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7105/abs/nature04981.html

[GliderGuider]

22. I'm not saying we don't practice altruism, or that it's not a successful strategy

Even the notion of inclusive fitness, though, extends only as far as the kinship group. I don't see anything in the links you provided that argues for indiscriminate altruism towards unrelated groups. In fact, the Nature abstract in your final link explicitly mentions parochialism as a shaping influence in altruistic behaviour. From an evolutionary perspective, indiscriminate altruism would be quite counter-productive. Groups that limit their altruistic expression to their own group while accepting altruistic expressions from anyone would gain a significant competitive advantage over the indiscriminate group.

From an evolutionary POV altruism works really well within your group, but less and less well the steeper the boundaries are that the expression has to cross. As a result we don't practice much large-scale altruism across group boundaries -- the inclusive fitness payoff is perceived as being too low. Now, this may change if we begin to understand our situation as a potential extinction event. The costs of such an event might be high enough to break down some of our reluctance, though I would expect the more typical reaction would be "I'm going to save my own group. I don't care if the rest of the groups die off, I owe them nothing." Unless and until the crisis is perceived as being that severe, though, I expect business as usual in the altruism industry.

[OKIsItJustMe]

23. What you said was

"We've proven to monumentally bad at altruism, even on much smaller scales than whole species."

What I said was, "Some would say that it is only through altruism that we have succeeded so well as a species."

Altruism is a survival trait.

[GliderGuider]

24. I was responding to the comment that what we need is a "universal unselfish morality"

It may depend on your interpretation of the word "universal". Altruism is a standard feature of our species' behaviour, and as a result can be considered a universal phenomenon. However, I interpreted the word in that context to mean unselfishness toward "all others inside and outside our species". I don't think that's a realistic expectation, which is what I objected to. I think we've been singularly bad at behaving altruistically even towards those of our own culture who practice different religions for example, let alone towards other nationalities, ethnic groups or species.

[OKIsItJustMe]

27. Are we "singularly bad" at altruism?

"... we've been singularly bad at behaving altruistically ..."
(For us to be "singularly bad" would imply that we stand alone among other species; all others better better at it than we are.)

Occasionally, we hear stories of dolphins saving humans, or of dogs saving their masters from fires or whatever.

We also hear of humans risking their lives to save whales or elephants or horses or cute little kittens or... (what-have-you.)


Now, I will freely admit that I wish we were much, much better, but please consider the amount of aid the citizens of the USofA have given over the years to other countries (either as individuals or collectively) regardless of their culture, ethnic group or religion.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-06-25-charitable_N.htm
http://qesdb.usaid.gov/gbk/

See also about Canada's giving:
http://www.afpnet.org/ka/ka-3.cfm?folder_id=1325&content_item_id=24352
http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/index.htm


Now, granted, altruism may be seen as acting in one's own "enlightened self-interest" but, then, isn't this what you're really talking about? (Saving ourselves by looking out for others?)

[GliderGuider]

28. OK, how about "remarkably" bad at it?

Compared to the degree of altruism individuals are capable of, our nations, cultures, societies and civilization fall way short. Compared to what our religions teach us is the proper human response to others' misfortunes, our actual behaviour is distinctly underwhelming. If we think we will need the degree of altruism shown by exceptional individuals to be expressed on a civilizational scale in order to save ourselves, we are heading for a major disappointment.

What about the UN Millennium Development Goal of giving a paltry 0.7% of GDP for foreign aid? The only donors to reach or exceed the target are Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Canada's record in this matter is abhorrent - a mere 0.26%, with no timetable set for reaching 0.7%. It's embarrassing.

[OKIsItJustMe]

30. How about "not as good at it as we wish we were"

Now, here's a telling bit, "... what our religions teach us is the proper human response to others' misfortunes ..."

Unless you believe that religious teachings were given to humanity by some non-human entity/entities, our "religions teach us" nothing other than what we wish to teach ourselves. Our religious writings were written by ourselves to ourselves. They teach us our own self-set requirements of ethical/moral behavior.

When we fail to live up to these religious precepts, whose standards are we falling short of but our own? What does it say about humanity that we have set these standards, and that we care if we fall short of them?

Why did we commit them to writing and call them "sacred," unless at a very fundamental level we believe that these standards are extremely important?


Here's another telling bit, you write, "It's embarrassing."

Why are you embarrassed? Who are you embarrassed in front of? (Are you embarrassed in front of the rest of humanity who is more altruistic? Are you embarrassed in front of other species? Are you embarrassed in front of your God?)

Canada has failed to live up to your ideals of altruism. However, you are a member of humanity yourself.

It seems to me that you are expressing a basic human instinct of altruism. Whether you received this via "Nature" or "Nurture" doesn't matter much to me.


It doesn't seem necessary to me to imbue humanity with a drive towards altruism. We seem to already have it deep in our ("psyches"/"souls?") The only challenge is to acknowledge and nurture it.

[GliderGuider]

32. Everything you say is true

To re-state my position a bit differently, the problem is not that altruism is not widely distributed in humanity -- it obviously is. The problem is that we can't activate it toward total strangers without some extraordinary effort. Individuals will occasionally make that effort because it aligns with their self-image or it enhances their inclusive fitness. For example, a man's hot and nubile new GF will see his selfless acts toward strangers as evidence that the same generosity will apply to her offspring, and so will allow him to (try to) father those offspring.

On the other hand, it takes very little for strangers in need to slip below the radar of altruism - out of sight, out of mind. And even I don't give money to every panhandler I see. There are limits to altruism. And those limits generally stop within the kinship group. At the national level all you need is for a politician to say, "Charity begins at home," and foreign aid promptly dries up.

The urge to altruism is already wide awake in most people. The problem is that it's been programmed by evolution not to extend out far enough to get us out of this jam.

[OKIsItJustMe]

33. "... we can't activate it toward total strangers without some extraordinary effort ..."

Nonsense. It happens all the time.

Consider the "Christmas Tsunami" as an obvious example... in that case, millions of people saw total strangers, half-way around the world who needed help, and they responded.

[GliderGuider]

34. What about that event wasn't extraordinary?

What about the (lack of) public response to repeated Ethiopian famines? What about Somalia, Darfur, Chad or Congo, or the Bangladeshi cyclones? There's a reason they coined the term "donor fatigue" - it describes the diminishing of altruistic interest when the situation is no longer perceived as novel. Novel disasters breach our boundaries for a while, as happened with the tsunami and NOLA. Repeat the same disaster a few times and watch what happens to the altruism. When the bad news becomes a litany, people find better things to do with their money.

[OKIsItJustMe]

35. It just struck me...

You're a city dweller! and you believe the behavior of city dwellers is natural. I was raised in a small town, and find the behavior of city dwellers to be unnatural.

---

Desmond Morris pointed out that "concrete jungle" is not an accurate metaphor for a city. A better metaphor is "concrete zoo," (people are simply too tightly packed in a city) and that just as the behavior of animals in a zoo is not natural, the same is true for people who live in a city.

In one of his TV series, he ran a fascinating experiment. Using a hidden camera, an assistant would lie down on the sidewalk. They measured how long it took (on average) for a passerby to come to the aid of the person lying down. They ran the experiment in a number of cities.

They tried to run the experiment in villages, but could not. Just as soon as the experimenter started to lie down, someone came to their aid. They were never able to actually lie down.

---

There's a long cultural tradition of "sin city." Whether it's Sodom and Gomorrah or Mos Eislie Spaceport, the country dweller finds there a "wretched den of scum and villainy."

[GliderGuider]

36. Huh.

You're right.

GF looked over my shoulder at your post and said, "He's right, you know."

I argued with her for a couple of minutes, and then I got it.

I'm going to have to rethink a lot of what I said in this thread.

I'll talk to you later.

Thanks.

[Dogmudgeon]

8. Non-anthropocentric, non-geocentric, and speculative

Kardashev's work is more along the lines of a gedankeneksperiment. It is not specific to the Earth, it presumes the establishment of a space-based civilization, and it's meant to be a way to measure one isolated parameter of collective intelligent activity in the event any should exist outside of our own world.

If Kardashev actively promoted converting the Sun into a giant generator and disassembling the Earth to make machines, your point would be spot-on. But that's just not the case. It's like saying, "if you stacked everybody head-to-toe, how high would the resulting pile be?" Nobody expects to actually do it, though it is a useful way to give a person perspective on distances.

I made a similar analogy about a human die-off: one thousand Holocausts. One could easily (and cynically) establish a new unit -- The Holocauston (Hc). One Hc = 6,300,000 or 6.3 * 10^6 human deaths. A human die-off would be measured at 500-1000 Hc; The Rwandan Genocide comes in at 0.16 Hc; Chinese famine of 1959-1962, at 4.3 Hc; the Rape of Nanking at 0.048, and Hiroshima at a "mere" 0.025. A useful scale, maybe; moral it is not. And certainly an illustration, not a prescription.

--p!

[GliderGuider]

12. Fair enough. I still object to the organizing principle

My philosophical objection is that no species has the right to even consider this degree of management. My practical objection is that I don't think it's possible for us or anyone else (the Fermi Paradox underlies that conviction), so why waste time worrying about it?

[Ordr]

13. Agreed.

I view it as more of a speculative thought experiment, not an outline of certain progress. Various scientists like Michio Kaku and Raymond Kurzweil successfully (in my opinion) use it to illustrate their ideas on how the human race will progress in the future based on our development.

[pscot]

11. So the top civilization

would be one that could generate a planet consuming fusion reaction that would blow the place to smithereens. Cool.

[Ordr]

16. So the top civilization...

I'm pretty sure we could do that now, if we wanted to :).

[losthills]

18. More bunk.......

[Ordr]

19. "More bunk......."

"More" implies that there has been other "bunk". Care to clarify?

[losthills]

38. More bunk....

[hunter]

26. I don't think there is any such thing as "civilization."

I see everything as ecology and evolution and there is no hierarchy of life, or even of matter itself.

I do very much enjoy being human, and I enjoy sharing that human experience with others, but in the grand scheme of things our intrinsic significance is no greater than that of ants or termites. I look at my dogs and they are happy to be dogs, and their experience of life has much in common with my own.

Our desire to protect the earth's environment arises from selfish reasons -- it is reasonable to preserve the environment we are adapted to, and it is entirely irrational to destroy the environment that supports us physically and spiritually.

A space faring race will not be human. If I had the desire to explore the galaxy I would want to do it in a body that was adapted for that, as a physical being unaffected by extremes of temperature, acceleration, or radiation. Perhaps I would want to be a durable crystal of some sort. Or there might be a comfortable dimension we don't know of where we one can peak out into this universe anywhere and experience what goes on there.

A space faring race born of monkey intelligence such as ours is almost certainly something we won't recognize -- perhaps dust sailing on the solar winds, or a brief glimpse of the will-o'-the-wisp.

[GliderGuider]

29. "I see everything as ecology and evolution and there is no hierarchy of life"

:toast:

[OKIsItJustMe]

31. "Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity."

It's an old, old sentiment.

[hunter]

37. The joy is in the adventure and the telling of stories.

Vanity of vanities is anguished cry of a dying soul.