Just to zip up this thread, Kardashev, for all his 1962 faults, said was that
a type 1 Civilization used ALL the energy available on an entire planet, a
Two--their Solar System, a Type Three-a large galaxy (no globular clusters
need apply) and that is that. He was probably off-base when he thought we
would use of need every little joule of energy on this globe. Lets just say
it would screw with the ecosystems on a Soviet level scale. As far as messing
with the solar system, I will leave that to the experts, but as far as
leaving too much dust to clock the sun, or otherwise dropping their megaton
level trash drifting to planet earth, they are free to do as they like,
unless we hear complaining from amateur astronomer who are content to view
Jupiter from 400 million miles rather then 20,000. Galaxy level
intelligence? Hmmm -as Broderick indicates, hard to imagine. By the way Larry
Niven came out with a very short story in Analog July/Aug as a supplement to
Draco Tavern stories. Quite Tasty, though I am not sure his Chirpsithra
creatures would be content to remain Chirps.
In a message dated 6/5/00 1:09:36 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au writes:
<< Could well be. I suppose it depends on whether the post-Spike future is
*literally unimaginably strange* (perhaps with `magic physics', etc), or
just *strictly unpredictable in detail* but functioning within today's
rules, more or less (given a better fusion of QT and relativity, say).
I do have a hunch that even more advanced science isn't going to show us
that the Earth is actually a gigantic tetrahedron. Will it teach us rules
of game theory and economics that *altogether* escape the strictures known
to us? Maybe, in which case you're probably right. But if so, the
post-Spike ET cultures are likely to be beyond our cognitive event horizon,
aren't they? So even if they're *there*, you can't get there from here -
*except* via a Spike of your own... Does this disable the Great Filter
model? Dunno. Over to Robin... :)
Damien >>
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