The future of our civilization: death or immortality?

Observing how technological progress, science and medicine are developing, one increasingly comes to the conclusion that by the end of the XXI century humanity will acquire the power of the ancient gods, about which myths once formed. But where does all this lead and what awaits us on the way to Olympus?



All the technical revolutions that we are witnessing can be considered as stages of a long journey towards one great goal: the creation of a planetary civilization. The transition to it should probably be the greatest event in the history of mankind. Moreover, the generation of people living today can be safely considered the most significant of all that ever lived on our planet. It is they who must determine whether humanity will achieve this great goal or will be plunged into chaos. Since the time when our ancestors first came out of Africa about 100,000 years ago, about 5000 generations have passed, but only one generation — today’s — will determine the fate of our world.

Unlike professional historians who view history through social movements, wars, acts of kings, the spread of ideas, etc., physicists view history through the prism of energy consumption.
For thousands of years, man was limited to one fifth of the horsepower, i.e. the strength of their hands. Whole human epochs are in essence difficult to distinguish from the life of wild animals: small tribes, food extraction in a harsh and hostile world. There were no records, all the information passed from mouth to mouth at the lonely steppe bonfires. The average life expectancy was 18–20 years. All the property of a person was limited to what he could carry on his shoulders. For most of his life, a person suffered from hunger, and after his death he disappeared without a trace, leaving nothing behind.
But the last ice age was completed, and people managed to domesticate horses and bulls, thereby increasing the energy they could control up to 1 hp.
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The surpluses resulting from the agricultural revolution gave rise to new nontrivial methods of preserving and increasing wealth. Mathematics and writing have arisen, which made it possible to organize welfare accounting. It took calendars to determine the dates of sowing and harvesting; scribes and bookkeepers were required, able to keep track of capital and tax it. Due to the surplus large armies, kingdoms, empires were created, slavery and ancient civilizations arose.
The industrial revolution showed that capital can create machines, and mass production can bring fabulous wealth. The peasants, starving in the next lean year and exhausted by the hard work in the fields, fled to the cities and turned into industrial workers. Then the carpenters and blacksmiths changed car mechanics, and the internal combustion engine gave humanity hundreds of horsepower.
And finally, today we are witnessing another wave: now information has become the source of capital. The wealth of countries is now measured by electrons running around the world through wires. Already around us, Internet payments, electronic currencies (including gaming currencies, cryptocurrencies, such as, for example, the sensational Bitcoin ), various payment systems are being used and developed. Science, commerce and entertainment today travel at the speed of light. A person, wherever he is, at any time can get all the necessary information.

Civilizations type I, II and III

People living today happened to live in the period
which can be seen as three or four
the most extraordinary century in the history of mankind.
Julian simon

But where does humanity lead an exponential increase in energy consumption? Can we answer the question: what will happen to humanity in a hundred or even a thousand years of such development?
Physicists for the classification of civilizations evaluate them on the basis of the laws of thermodynamics, as well as all by the same criterion: the energy consumed. Scanning the sky in search of extraterrestrial civilizations, they are not looking at all for biological forms of life, but for objects with energy production corresponding to civilizations of type I, II and III. For the first time such a hierarchy was proposed by the Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kardashev in the 1960s for the classification of radio signals from possible civilizations in outer space.



He understood perfectly well that civilizations can drastically differ in culture, social organization, management principle, etc., but the laws of nature are inexorable and therefore even the most highly developed civilizations are forced to obey them. Due to this, it is clear that from the Earth we can register and measure only one thing - energy consumption, and civilizations should be classified according to this criterion. In addition, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics , any highly developed civilization will create entropy in the form of heat used, which will inevitably go into space. Therefore, even if this civilization tries to disguise its presence, it will be impossible to hide the faint glow created by their entropy.

A civilization of type I is a civilization that uses all the energy from a star to a planet, or more precisely, 10 ¹⁶ W. With the help of this energy, such a civilization can control hurricanes, adjust the weather, build cities even in the oceans. Their rockets travel through space, but their energy sources are mostly limited to their home planet. Such civilizations are the real owners of their planet and therefore are called planetary.

A type II civilization uses the energy of an entire star, or approximately 10 ²⁶ watts. Such civilizations could probably even control solar flares. In addition to the stupidity of the inhabitants of the planet, nothing known to science can not destroy such a civilization. Comets and meteors can be directed the other way, ice ages can be prevented by changing climatic conditions, even the threat of an explosion of a nearby supernova can be avoided simply by leaving the home planet and transporting civilization away from danger.

Type III civilization has already exhausted the energy of a single solar system and has colonized vast areas of its native galaxy. The power consumption of such civilizations is estimated to be about 10 ³⁶ W - 10 billion stars give such energy. A civilization of type III can, perhaps, be called the Empire from the Star Wars saga, or perhaps the Borg from Star Trek. Those and others colonized much of their galaxy, capturing millions of star systems. They can travel the galaxy as they please.



Thus, the types differ from each other by 10 billion times, i.e. The power consumption of type III civilizations is 10 billion times more than that of type II civilizations.

According to this scale, our earthly civilization is of type 0, because we still receive energy from the remnants of dead plants, i.e., from oil and coal. Even managing hurricanes, which carry the power of hundreds of nuclear bombs, is beyond our technological capabilities. However, the American astronomer Carl Sagan proposed to interpolate the scale values ​​to denote smaller orders. Sagan used the following formula:


where K is the civilization rating and W is the power consumption in watts.



As of 2007, the Kardashev scale value is approximately 0.72. It is important to note that according to the Sagan formula, the value 0.72 means that humanity uses about 0.16% of the total energy budget of the planet. So we still have to go and go to planetary civilization of type I, because in terms of energy production, a civilization of the first type is still a thousand times larger than a civilization of type 0.7.

To understand how much time we need for this transition, you can make some simple calculations. The grander the economy, the more energy it needs, and since the GDP of many countries is in the range of 1-2% per year, energy consumption can be expected to grow at about the same rate. With such modest indicators, we will need 100-200 years to achieve the status of a planetary civilization. To achieve the level of a type II civilization, it will take from 1000 to 5000 years. And finally, for type III, it is necessary from 100,000 to incredible by human standards, 1,000,000 years.

Transition to the first type

To stop striving towards a future where technology and biology merge into a coherent whole and lead to a singularity is the same as giving up their essence.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Reading articles on his beloved Habré, articles in the newspaper, seeing the news on the zomboyaschiku, we constantly see all the new evidence that humanity is on the verge of transition from conditional type 0 to type I.

• Languages. Today, people on our planet speak 600 languages, but in the next few decades 90% of them are doomed to disappear, according to Michael Krauss from the Center for Indigenous Languages ​​at the University of Alaska. The telecommunications revolution is accelerating this process more and more, as people living in even the most remote areas receive free access to resources in English. However, the departed languages ​​will remain forever in the repository of human knowledge - the Internet. Thus, English has all the conditions to become a planetary language. Today, English has become de facto the language of science, finance, business and entertainment, as well as the most popular foreign language on the planet.
• The Internet. People were able to communicate with each other, while being in different parts of the globe. Skype and other technologies allow us to use the Internet as a planetary means of communication. Some people already think that they have more in common with someone from another part of the planet than with a neighbor. And this whole process is just beginning to accelerate, and will continue as new fiber-optic networks are laid, new satellites are launched. Suffice it to recall the recent project from Google to launch a network of balloons for worldwide access to the Internet.
  Stop this process is no longer possible.
  
• Economy. Today, without taking into account the general trends of the world economy, it is impossible to consider the economy of one particular country as a whole. The financial crisis in one country inevitably affects all other countries and is rolling in a wave all over the world. So it has been more than once in the last decade, and we all remember it. Thus, we are all - witnesses of the emergence of a single planetary economy. This is clearly indicated by the rise of the European Union. For centuries, the warring European states threw all the old feuds and united together. Now the EU has the most concentrated capital on the planet. In the future, other countries, seeing the impossibility of maintaining competitiveness alone, will continue to unite in economic blocks. Even the Customs Union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan is dictated by this need.
• Culture Even today, in whatever part of the world you travel, the same cultural trends in music, fashion, and art are noticeable everywhere. Hollywood, assessing the future success of the new film, carefully calculates the impression that he should make on the representatives of different cultures. The main sources of income for Hollywood - and evidence of the emergence of a planetary culture - are films on cross-cultural themes with international celebrities. In the fashion world, the same thing happens - world famous brands make fashion the same on a global scale. More and more people, having entered the middle class, join the world fashion. High fashion is now available not only to the privileged elite. Global culture will become a link in communication between people of different cultures. This has already happened with many local elites of the world. These people speak their own language and follow their traditions, but when communicating with people of other cultures speak English and follow international rules of conduct. This is a model of the emerging type I civilization.
• Tourism. For millennia, people lived their lives mainly in the same places where they were born. Different cultures and nations had little contact with each other. But now with the development of means of communication, travel becomes easier than ever. Students with one backpack behind them and a small amount of money manage to drive around the whole of Europe or America. And now tourism is one of the fastest growing industries. The economy of some countries even rests mainly on tourism.
• Middle class. Hundreds of millions of people from China, India and other countries constantly replenish this category. This is truly the greatest social upheaval in human history. These people, well-versed in cultural and economic trends on the planet, are little concerned with war or religion, but political and social stability and consumption are more important for them. Their goal - to get a house in the suburbs and two cars.
• Ecology. People are gradually realizing that environmental disasters have no national boundaries and can cause international conflicts. Increasingly, environmental threats are widely discussed around the world. After the ozone hole formed over the South Pole, the countries united and agreed to limit the production and consumption of freons, which are used in refrigerators and industrial systems. In December 1997, the Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Japan, requiring developed countries and countries with economies in transition to reduce or stabilize greenhouse gas emissions, because the threat of the greenhouse effect is much worse than the ozone hole.
• Wars They will still occur, but their character will change as the spread of democracy in the world. When people's well-being grows and they have something to lose, it is becoming more difficult to wage wars. Moreover, in developed countries, fewer children are born, so there is no one with the same ease to join the ranks of the army, as it was before. In a democratic society with a lively press, opposition parties and a large middle class that can lose everything in a war, it is difficult to cultivate a military fever. When mothers want to know why their children are sent to war, and the press is skeptical, it is even more difficult. Moreover, the fall in prices for intercontinental flights make regular contacts of different nations and the integration of cultures. Misunderstanding breeds hostility, but, you see, it is quite difficult to start a war with someone you know well.

The turning point in history

So, now you are convinced that humanity is at a turning point in the history of the development of our civilization - the transition to the first type. But what is fraught with this transition?

It is now determined whether humanity will flourish or perish by its own stupidity. This transition is incredibly dangerous, because we are still hostages of primitive savagery and barbarism, but with the difference that we now have nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In our society, as before, there are racism, sectarianism, intolerance, hatred - human nature has not changed in the last millennia.

The path to the first type will be accompanied by ever-increasing entropy (greenhouse effect, pollution, nuclear wars, diseases), which in the end can destroy us. Cosmologist Martin Rees gives a sobering assessment of the chances of successfully overcoming this problem: fifty-fifty. Terrorism, the creation of bacteria and viruses, the achievement of bioengineering and other technological nightmares - one of the most difficult problems of mankind.

Perhaps for this reason we do not observe other civilizations in our galaxy. They were destroyed by internal contradictions or their own pollution, while they sought to achieve the status of a civilization of the first type.

So, this transition will be a test of fire for our entire civilization and the main role - the role of the blacksmith belongs to our generation. If we survive, we will become stronger - just as steel is tempered.

Information classification

We have created such a complex, rapidly changing and information overloaded environment that we must more and more often cope with the excess information in the same way as animals that we have long surpassed.
Robert Cialdini. "Psychology of influence"

The information revolution has forced scientists to pay attention to the fact that not only the power supply can show the level of development of civilization, but also the amount of information that civilization is able to process.

The conditions of development for different civilizations in the Universe cannot be the same. One can imagine a planet where the atmosphere conducts electricity well. In such conditions, any computer will quickly burn, so that the inhabitants of this planet can use only the most primitive electrical appliances. It will be difficult to create the Internet, which will greatly slow down the development of science and economics. Ultimately, such a civilization will be able to rise on the Kardashev scale, but this recovery will be very long and painful.

Sagan proposed to apply the information criterion for another classification. He singled out types from A to Z, where type A includes primitive civilizations in which there is no written language yet, but spoken language already exists. In order to understand how much information such a civilization can contain, Karl Sagan suggested using the game “20 questions” when it was necessary to guess the thought object while asking no more than 20 questions, the answer to which is only yes or no (for example, the question: Is it edible? ”). As a result, we will divide the world into 2 ²⁰ parts (or approximately 10 ⁶ ). That is, the information content of a type A civilization is 10 ⁶ bits of information.

Ancient Greece was a civilization with a developed writing, rich literature and contained about a billion units (10 ⁹ ) of information, which corresponds to type C.

Estimating the current number of books in libraries, the approximate number of pages in each book, the number of photos, videos, Sagan came to the figure 10 ¹⁵ bits. So we can be classified as type H. Considering our energy consumption, we are a civilization of type 0.7H.

When terrestrial civilization develops to the type of 1.5J or 1.8K, it will master the technologies of interstellar flights - perhaps, just then our first contact with extraterrestrial civilizations will occur. But up to this point, we still have at least several centuries or even millennia ahead. An informational assessment of a type III galactic civilization is possible if we multiply the number of planets in our galaxy favorable for life by the informational content of each planet. Sagan estimates such civilizations as type Q. While type Z corresponds to a civilization capable of using the informational content of a billion galaxies, that is, almost the entire visible universe.

Entropy classification

The road of civilization is paved with cans.
Alberto Moravia

To comprehensively assess the development of civilization, energy and information alone is not enough. The more energy civilization consumes and the more information it produces, the more the environment suffers. And this is not just rubbish. Waste of civilizations of type I and II can simply destroy them.



If we imagine a type II civilization that consumes all the energy emitted by a star, we can assume that the efficiency of the engines used by this civilization is 50%, then half of the energy consumed goes into the atmosphere in the form of parasitic heat. The temperature on the planet will rise until life on it becomes simply impossible.

Something similar was depicted in the cartoon "WALL-E", where humanity has so deeply bogged down the Earth that in the end it left everything as it is and moved to space ships.

It turns out that the uncontrolled increase in energy consumption means suicide. A new scale is needed, which would take into account efficiency, environmental pollution, emission of parasitic heat. Two types can be distinguished:

• The first type is a civilization that inhibits the growth of entropy, using all possible means for this, limits the growth of heat and the accumulation of waste. Ultimately, during the exponential growth of energy consumption, civilization is aware that further growth in energy demands may make the planet uninhabitable. Reasonably using renewable energy sources, nanotechnology, eliminating unnecessary losses and inefficiency, such a civilization will postpone this moment.
• The second type is a civilization that continues to expand, grow and increase energy consumption, without thinking too much about entropy. When the home planet becomes useless, this civilization will leave it and move to other planets. But space expansion is very complicated and expensive, and if entropy grows faster than the ability of civilization to expand, then such a civilization will wait for death.

Steps to the future

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As for our earthly civilization, since space flights will still be insanely expensive for several centuries, and the terraforming of nearby planets and moons will be a gigantic scientific and economic problem, our developing civilization can potentially suffocate in its own excess heat if it fails to miniaturize and streamline information processing.

The human brain contains about one hundred billion neurons (the number of galaxies in the visible universe) and practically does not emit heat. Now scientists are trying to simulate the work of the neural network of the brain using a supercomputer ( Simulation of the 1st second of activity of 1% of the brain took 40 minutes on a cluster of 82,944 processors), but apparently, if the task was to create a computer capable of performing calculations at a speed of quadrillion bytes per second — a task that the brain performs without any tension — then such a computer would probably occupy several quarters, and for its cooling an entire reservoir would be required. We can reflect on subtle matters and at the same time do not sweat at all.

Of course, the brain is not a computer at all, there is no central processor or operating system. The brain is a neural network in which memory and thinking patterns are distributed throughout the brain, rather than concentrated in the central processing unit. And the electrical signals between neurons are essentially chemical, so that the brain cannot perform fast, complex calculations, but it compensates for its slow work with the possibility of parallel data processing and can quickly and quickly accept new tasks.

Now scientists are trying to apply ideas borrowed from nature. Work is underway on the development of DNA computers and quantum computers.. Together with the development of nanotechnology, we will be able to find more efficient ways of development, rather than creating huge amounts of excess heat that threatens our existence.

Although space flights in most parts of the 21st century will remain the lot of the richest people and states, the creation of a " space elevator " can change everything. Carbon nanotubes are strong enough and light enough to function as a cable for such an elevator. The creation of an elevator is estimated at 7–12 billion US dollars. NASA is already funding the appropriate development of the American Institute of Scientific Research, including the development of a lift capable of moving independently on a cable.



But even if such technology becomes a reality, the elevator will be able to deliver cargoes or astronauts to near-earth orbit, and not to other planets. All the problems of space colonies run into the fact that a flight to the moon (not to mention flights to other planets) is many times greater than the cost of a flight to near-earth space. Placing a human colony on the Moon or Mars will bankrupt any state without bringing any income.

In addition to economic problems, it is necessary to take into account the danger to people on board, cosmic radiation, prolonged being in weightlessness, the possibility of disaster (we still use liquid fuel rockets, and the probability of disasters is one in seventy) - all these problems will keep us from mastering the Solar the system.

Of course, in a couple of centuries everything will change: the cost of flights will decrease enough to actively support and develop the colonies on Mars that we can create, perhaps in a couple of decades. The landing of the first humans on Mars, according to the Mars One project , will take place as early as 2023.

Creating a solar-ion engine could be the impetus for interstellar flight. Such engines will have a small burden, but they can support this craving for years. They will concentrate solar energy, heat the gas, such as cesium, and then release it through a nozzle, which will provide moderate cravings that can be maintained almost indefinitely.

Although we are heading towards a type I civilization, we are unlikely to reach for the stars, we will most likely remain on Earth for many centuries, overcoming nationalist, fundamentalist, racist and sectarian problems, fighting the rise in temperature on the planet, the greenhouse effect and innumerable other problems.

Science has allowed humanity to raise the destroyed cities and countries from the ruins of war, to ensure peace and prosperity to billions of people. The true power of science is that it increases our capabilities and gives us strength by giving us a choice. On the one hand, science contributes to the ingenuity, creativity and patience inherent in humanity, but on the other, it strengthens our obvious shortcomings. Humanity is very important to gain wisdom and direct the sword of science in the right direction.

In our society it is difficult to gain wisdom. Isaac Asimov once said: “The saddest thing in today's society is that science accumulates knowledge faster than society acquires wisdom.” Martin Rees warns: “If we kill each other, we will destroy truly cosmic possibilities. So if someone believes that life on Earth is a unique phenomenon, this does not mean that life always has to be an inconspicuous part of this universe. ”

Well, we live in the most interesting time. Science and technology open up new worlds to humanity, which we could only dream of before. It is our generation who will decide whether humanity will perish or gain immortality by taking a step towards type I civilization.