The Kardashev Scale is Fascism.
There is a wrapped way of seeing science future, which while fine for science fiction, offers no tangible benefit, and limited avenues for success.
The Kardashev Scale outlines three types of civilizations, of which the Earth is none. The Earth, presently, is barely indistinguishable from cave dwellers — barely cracking a .7, which I honestly think is being generous. A Type I civilization, which we are not now nor at the time of the “thought experiment’s creation” in 1964, can harness all the energy of it’s planet. Not just from renewable sources like solar, geothermal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, hydro-electric, and echo friendly things such as electric vehicles — this, however, was not central to the original thesis. The original thesis had Earth controlling the weather and earthquakes, and harnessing the core of the Earth, like Thor, or some dumb shit. Most Science fiction of the 20th century takes place between Type I and Type II — on varying ends of the spectrum. Probably the closest to a Type II being “The First Order” of the new Star Wars trilogy. However, I think they are even slightly south of it.
Type II basically has a Dyson Sphere around it’s star and controls it’s solar system — like, pfft, I guess the Old Testament Christian God — who didn’t know about other galaxies or planets, but close enough. They can terraform every world in their solar system. You know, real science-y shit. I got news for The Dyson Sphere people; where are you getting all the matter to build that thing? There isn’t enough in our solar system to build one of those massive rings. Do they think Jeff Bezos and Amazon will create a wormhole in space to send them infinite Ikea furniture to build their Dyson Spheres?
This is where the Kardashev Scale falls apart scientifically. We see zero evidence of Dyson sphere out in space. None. It would affect the visibility of stars. There are probably a few cases I’ve seen looking into this that can be explained by other means, but it is negligible. As best we can tell, Type II, does not exist.
Type III is absurd — it basically is Dyson Sphere around a galaxy. No evidence whatsoever. What the fuck does this even mean anymore.
Type IV and V are basically you how Evangelicals view God, as Batman with prep time. You can just unmake reality, traverse the multiverse. Type IV and V are civilizations, that in my opinion, take DTM and acid all day, every day, from the moment they wake up, until they die. You really don’t need any Dyson Spheres for this one. You can just bypass the whole harnessing the power of your Earthquakes to get to a Type I civilization, got straight to Type IV and V, it’s great.
I’m not sure if anyone has read a science paper lately, but even a manned mission to mars and back is many hundred years away, provides minimal if any benefit that robots do not — other than a cool story for the people who undertake such a dangerous mission should they make it back. Terraforming a planet is hundreds and hundreds of years off — and, this begs the question? Why?
First of all the scale is based on energy control and consumption. Those proposed (later) Type IV and V civilization basically go around consuming entire universes like super Galactus — I’m assuming snuffing out those realities in the process. But who knows, maybe they are super careful and have a good third party of Multiversal overlords who act as a watchdog group to make sure they don’t consume any reality with sentient beings — just like the fucked up ones where the fundamental forces are out of whack and created a soup.
If this sounds dumb. It is. First of all, Type I seems to imply if we haven’t extracted all the resources from our own planet, we are close too, since Type II implies we’ll all live as immortal beings in our Dyson Sphere around our not eternal sun — also get to Type III and you’ll evade the Big Rip, by that point you’ll have to being Type IV, the multiverse is mine bitch, and then God…just extracting resources from everything…harnessing ALL THE POWER!
Why though? Why would I rank an animal or alien species worth as a “civilization” by how well they have extracted all their resources?
This comes from a Fascist mindset. The Kardashev Scale implies, in it’s framing, that the only way to progress as a species is the harness and control power — to have a relationship over power. I just refuse to believe that makes any kind of sense. Why would a smart, perhaps smarter than our own species, immediately go — hey lets go build a Dyson Sphere around our sun and then we’ll figure out what to do about the heat death of the universe in 15 billion years. We must preserve consciousness at all costs! I just don’t see why that species wouldn’t learn to live efficiently within their means. Reduce the amount of stress on their population. Improve education and health care — instead of building stupid Dyson Spheres so some weirdo can live out their dream of being Star Trek Wars. I get that these things spark the imagination on cgi, but they are not real, and when you scratch beneath the surface, will likely never be for a whole host of reasons placing them far outside the realm of possibility.
We’re born here, and we’re going to die here. While I personally think elsewhere intelligent life is a given, theirs is likely that same fate.
I think erecting a model of what scientific success looks like in the realm of scientific achievement is critical, and this is where the fascism of the Kardashev Scale and other views like it promote harmful ideas.
Harmful fascist ideas.
Even though the other planets contain no life, why is it an intelligent lifeforms right or good for them to upset the balance of their solar system, for example? Why would that even be a particularly smart thing to do? Our solar system is an ecosystem too, and much of our success as a planet is due to no small part to the planets surrounding us — especially Jupiter, who’s massive gravity has led to low bombardment. This comes from that inner manifest destiny present in Fascism.
Who gets to control the earthquakes and weather when we reach Type I. If you ask some Right Wing members of Congress, they seem to think we already have:
The “They” here slant rhymes with “Muse”. However this brings up the issues with the Kardashev Scale — when we reach Type I who gets to control the earthquakes and weather and make hurricanes like the movie Geo-Storm? Is it an A.I.? One person? An oligarchical family? Optimus Prime maybe? Beyond again, just shut the fuck up my God how is anyone this fucking dumb to think we can control weather, she inadvertently points out that somebody possesses these Type I super-powers of controlling the planet and the hurricanes, and harness earthquakes, it’s awesome.
It’s also Fascist. When we have these hurricane controlling powers, how will they be used? That is what Majorie Taylor Greene is suggesting — because if we did have weather control abilities we would use it on people, just not the ones she thinks.
The problem with the Kardashev Scale is it wraps itself around the Fascist fascination with infinite growth and infinite power. Neither of these things are achievable.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been a disaster for the environment so far, with mixed results (I’m being generous) in terms of the promise of technological advancement. Certainly diminishing returns versus what the early manned missions into the space netted in terms of new technology and findings. Much of NASA is now research, which in my opinion, is laudable. Elon Musk and SpaceX are nexuses around this idea of infinite growth and infinite power at the expense of our environment. He has caused multiples on his launches, many of which having been failures. Jeff Bezos rockets are more transparently a vanity project, being little more than the world’s craziest amusement park ride for the ultra wealthy.
Elon Musk’s flat sequel to the 1960s space race is a suck of federal funds — a bigger bridge to nowhere than Sarah Palin’s fabled bridge to nowhere (which actually went somewhere).
If you look at the “science” projection behind the space faring projects of Elon Musk, Bezos, and many others, not only will you find a repulsive Fascism not centered around making the lives of others better — but rather plaudits and statues to one’s own greatness. An attempt at immortality through unanimity — all this stuff is just fantasy. Travel between stars seems next to impossible, travel between galaxies, forget it. There seems to be very hard limits, without causing excessive damage to our own planet that we are capable to enduring to get to or terraform another world in our own solar system.
While exploration, other without a human hand, seems like a valid goal — these dreams of excessive growth, and this idea that another smarter being surely would see the value in being fascist and colonizing his entire galaxy create an environment where what is and is not “science” is perverted. Science is only science when it orients itself to the goals of conquest, science is not science when it turns it’s eye towards prolonging our lives within what seems to be a safe biological limit, or prolonging the ease at which we can live on this planet. Science is activism at that point. It is Marxism. Socialism. Communism. Fake. Except the irony is that science is far more real, than the speculative fan fiction scientists write about what a warp drive might look like. There is no tangible goal — just the same nonsense, contradictory philosophy of Fascism. We need to control the Universe because then we won’t have to confront our frail mortality.
Fascism. The Kardashev Scale and the views of science it promotes are a perverted one — both at odds with political and scientific realities.