[tt] [x-risk] Shermer: What it takes to be Type 1 civilization: global integration

[Eugen Leitl]

----- Forwarded message from "Hughes, James J." <James.Hughes at trincoll.edu> -----

From: "Hughes, James J." <James.Hughes at trincoll.edu>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:11:10 -0400
To: technoprogressive at yahoogroups.com, existential at transhumanism.org,
	News and views from the IEET <ieet-news at ieet.org>
Subject: [x-risk] Shermer: What it takes to be Type 1 civilization: global
	integration
Reply-To: For discussion of existential risks <existential at transhumanism.org>

He overstates the need for unregulated "free trade" and understates the
need to globalize democracy and the rule of law for my taste, but this
is precisely how I like to see the argument stated. - J.

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."

_______________________________________________
existential mailing list
existential at transhumanism.org
http://www.transhumanism.org/mailman/listinfo/existential

----- End forwarded message -----
-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE