The Kardashev Scale: Type I to Type VII Civilizations

imagine if we could control earthquake researchers have detected strange radio signals coming from deep space these mysterious radio waves might just be bursts of cosmic energy from a distant neutron star or it could be that scientists have discovered a highly Advanced civilization 90 light years away from Earth so what kind of civilization would have the ability to send strong signals like this well scientists classify civilizations on something called the kardashev scale it's a scale that measures a civilization's technological ability to harness energy while it's a hypothetical scale that could eventually have five or more levels

most scientists only refer to the first few but don't be underwhelmed we're the only civilization we know of and technically we're still stuck on type zero at this stage we've managed to harness some but not all of our planet's potential energy we consume about 18 trillion watts of power every year and if we wanted to bump ourselves up to a type 1 civilization we'd need to consume over 500 times that every second to do this we' need to harness store and utilize all of the energy available to us that includes all raw materials and every

bit of sunlight that reaches Earth we'd also have to tame volcano earthquakes and other Natural Forces at the rate at which we're developing now it's possible that we could be a type 1 civilization within the next 200 years but whatever civilization scientists may have discovered in the far reaches of space could already be a type 2 civilization or higher once our civilization has all of the energy available on our home planet under control and we graduate to a type one on the kardashev scale then we need to take the next step time to crank up

our energy consumption to 10 billion times what it was before to do this we'd need to harness not just all the solar energy that reaches Earth we'd need all of the energy our star generates period if there is a type 2 civilization out there they're probably using an incredible system to do this a Dyson Sphere they' build this Mega structure around their star to collect all the energy it radiates out in every direction they could even assemble other Dyson spheres around the first Dyson Sphere to guarantee that little to know energy escapes but there's nothing

simple about this technology and that's why only Advanced civilizations could construct something like it for one a Dyson Sphere must be larger than the star itself and if these Mega structures are bigger than Stars well they should be easy to spot right well this could be tricky once a civilization is finished building the Dyson Sphere the mega structure blocks nearly all of the visible light from its star a civilization this Advanced could make its own solar system invisible lucky for us visible light isn't the only way to detect a star even with a Dyson Sphere

blocking its light a star would still radiate heat and we could detect the Star by the infrared light it gives off but that wouldn't be the only way we might discover a civilization this Advanced remember that strange radio signal it originated about 90 light years away from Earth coming from the Star HD1 164 595 was this powerful radio signal created by an alien race and intentionally pointed toward Earth a civilization able to pull this off would need to be far more advanced than our own this type 2 civilization would be able to utilize the raw

materials on every planet in its star system and maybe even Beyond they may have built Fusion reactors that orbit their Planet fueled with gas from other worlds with hydrogen-rich atmospheres and they might be mining precious metals from rocky planets just like Earth they could terraform other planets into livable worlds for their populations and they wouldn't live in fear of civilization ending natural disasters like asteroid impacts ice ages or global warming because they'd have Technical Solutions for these too this alien civilization would be at the stage on the kardashev scale where they'd be able to master

Interstellar travel but if that's true there should be no reason for them not to pop by for a visit right well not so fast with all the advanced technology they might have at their disposal these aliens could be waiting for us to catch up that way when our civilizations meet we would do so as equal Partners who knows they could be so Advanced that they're no longer a fully biological race they could be more like cyborgs with a mix of robotic and or organic material this would make them capable of incredible things that humans could

only dream of but they wouldn't stop there an advanced world like this would want to go farther up the kardashev scale and as they became a Type 3 civilization they'd rely on something other than the power of their own star system they would harness the power of several stars in their Galaxy with this much power a civilization would have no problem meeting its ever growing energy needs they'd just hook up another star when they needed more power if we ever Advanced to this level we'd have 100 billion stars available to harness in the Milky Way

galaxy alone a civilization like this would no doubt be the rulers of their Galaxy and they'd have the power to move entire star systems merging them to harvest the energy they need more efficient efficiently so if one of these civilizations existed well you could detect them by observing the sudden disappearance of many stars in a far away Galaxy this could be a sign that Dyson spheres have been constructed around not just one but several Stars a Type 3 civilization could already be out there yeah after all scientists have announced that they found two galaxies with

a highly unusual amount of infrared light this is something we usually observe in galaxies where new stars are being born but some unusual and sudden spikes in infrared light could mean that we found the first signs that civilizations many times more advanced than us exist [Music] maybe imagine having the ability to live forever travel anywhere in the universe and harness enough power to create wormholes well if you're part of the ultra exclusive type 3 civilization Club these are just some of the everyday luxuries available so how could feeble earthlings get to this level of power

but more importantly should we even try how would our lives transform as a type three civilization would technology work for us or against us and what would it take to get to a type four civilization this is what if and here's what would happen if we were a type three civilization on the kardashev scale which measures a civil civilization's technological ability to harness energy we're stuck at a type zero to graduate to type 1 we'd have to take full advantage of all the Earth's energy and any energy that comes our way such as sunlight according

to physicist Michio Kaku we'll get there in a century or two but to get to type two where we're able to harness all the energy of our sun Dr Kaku estimates we're a few thousand years away which is frankly pretty optimistic to reach type three where a civilization harnesses the power of its entire galaxy micho estimates that we're looking at anywhere from 100,000 to 1 million years so if we managed to fast for forward 1 million years into the future what would our lives look like with the ability to harness nearly Limitless energy from any

planet or Star within sight we could live anywhere we wanted maybe we could build an even better Earth or an entirely new solar system from scratch looking for a tropical beach Planet it's all yours or how about a mushroom planet sure we can do that Earth Mars and every planet in our solar system might just be husks at this point we would have mined them of all their resources to build Dyson swarms no I'm not talking about a swarm of fancy vacuums but millions of energy collecting satellites that could swarm around a star and turn

it into one big battery but to truly become a Type 3 civilization we'd need swarms of Dyson swarms collecting an unfathomable amount of energy from all the stars in our entire galaxy at this point humans would have harnessed biotechnology to its fullest and we would likely become a race of cyborgs so Advanced we'd be indiscernible from robots our new favorite dance move might be called the human over the past decade we've already developed electrode implants that allow amputees the ability to control artificial limbs with their brains we have brain implants that allow us to hear

and perceive color and Elon Musk is working on melding AI with the human brain with his company neuralink just imagine where this techno Evolution will take us in a million years to survive warp speed travel we may very well have to modify our flesh and Bone bodies into something more resilient this is all wishful thinking though as AI improves exponentially robots will rapidly outsmart and outnumber humans they might consider us to be too useless whiny and well obsolete if we're lucky they'll keep us around as pets or Wildlife or we may have to start acting

more like them ridding ourselves of any emotion or moral conscience at this point AI would be self-replicating on an exponential scale and could strip a planet with little remorse for whatever creatures live there I'm sorry guys but you all know our slogan we are the board work and resistance is futile with almost Limitless resources as a Type 3 civilization we would have enough power to harness plank energy the energy of SpaceTime physics at this level would be vastly different from what we know today according to Einstein's theory of relativity our ability to travel faster than

light is impossible but at the plank scale we could build a wormhole to get around as a Type 3 civilization with an almost infinite energy Supply we wouldn't need resource management at this point we'd be Godlike with enough biotech to make us Immortal and nearly indestructible if anything stood in our way well we could snap our fingers and call it a day over time we would eventually exhaust our our entire Galaxy's resources in this case we'd need to advance to become a type four or five civilization to explore and harvest energy from the rest of

the universe without a resource limit as a type four civilization we'd have no reason to Value the universe around us beyond our own technological gains in other words we'd get pretty bored like getting 100% completion in your favorite video game on the most challenging setting imagine a world where Humanity has not only gained the ability to travel and populate space but has progressed even further than that Humanity can now control and navigate multiple universes welcome to one of the most advanced civilizations ever thought of a type five civilization what is a type five civilization what

would it mean for Humanity and how would we get to this point this is what if and here's what would happen if Humanity became a type five civilization okay so before we get to our epic type five civilization we first need to start at zero this is unfort Al where Earth Is Right Now a type zero civilization is one that's reliant on things like fossil fuels and still struggling with issues like climate change yeah we've sent people to the moon and Rovers to Mars but we're far from Interstellar travel and although we have lots of

technological advancements we're still vulnerable to things like natural disasters and pandemics so although Earth Earth is highly advanced in many ways we still have a long way to go before we reach a type one or two or five civilization how do we get there well before we get to that what are these civilizations anyway and who came up with them it's known as the kardashev scale developed by Nikolai kardashev in 1964 the scale categorizes a civilization according to its technological capabilities and energy consumption originally the scale only involved type one 2 and three civilizations but

it's since been expanded to include type four and five now while civilizations 4 and 5 are mostly speculative and theoretical civilizations 1 through three could happen someday so how could humans become a type five civilization hm Who whoo whoo not so fast first we need to get to a type one there's no way a civilization can jump from a zero all the way to five so let's get started type one civilization a type 1 civilization would be a massive improvement from where we are now on Earth as a type one we could harness all the

energy available to us on the planet imagine being able to harness the power of the oceans and the sun things like hurricanes and earthquakes would become minor inconveniences and all our energy would be renewable now to get to this point the main thing we'd need to focus on would be energy transition shifting from non-renewable to renewable energy sources would be the key priority and it would need to be done at a global scale think entire deserts filled with solar panels wind turbines covering the clouds and ocean thermal energy conversion plants other scientific advancements would also

be essential things like Quantum Computing and advanced AI would be key parts of helping us transition into this new civilization but it's not just about the technology we'd also need some sort of global governance to help unify the world to tackle these massive challenges experts think that this might happen in the next Century or two but we don't have time to wait that long so let's fast forward and move on to the next type of civilization we got four more to go type 2 civilization this would be a massive leap on all fronts of energy

and technological advancement being a type two would mean that we'd be able to build extreme Mega structures like this Dyson Sphere this would allow us to harness the power of the Sun and and with that our energy capability would be virtually Limitless we could innovate our way to incredible technological Heights instead of being Tethered to Earth we now have the power to travel to new planets and start populating them Mars Venus and other planets in our solar system would become our new homes and overall the solar system would become a Utopia with humans having this

much power we'd move Beyond things like scarcity war and inequality a unified Galactic government would span across our star system but it would take some hard work becoming a type 2 civilization would require all of Humanity's effort and span multiple Generations type 3 civilization you think harnessing the power of our Earth and Sun is epic how about an entire galaxy well that's what you can expect when transitioning to a Type 3 civilization things like black holes billions of stars and other celestial bodies would all be at Humanity's disposal to harness and use this could allow

for Wormhole travel we can instantly travel to distant points in the galaxy and if that wasn't enough we'd also have the ability to terraform different planets however we please I kind of want a ski on Venus type four civilization okay now is where things get really crazy A type four civilization is beginning to reach a point beyond our current understanding of the universe and physics so naturally there would be some weird aspects to this upgraded version of humanity being able to terraform planets and control celestial bodies was so last Civilization now we reshape destroy or

create entire worlds we would have unlimited power having mastered the resources of the entire universe things like artificial intelligence would become so Advanced by this point that they'd become part of the structure of the universe with that we'd be able to control virtually every aspect of everything we could manipulate time and create different timelines create new life forms and different kinds of matter and on top of all that in a type four civilization we'd be able to transcend biological limitations and achieve a form of immortality pretty crazy right well we're not even done yet type

5 civilization similar to a type four civilization a a type five civilization would be dealing with problems and obstacles that we can't even comprehend but what we do know is that this civilization would be able to do virtually anything the people or whatever they would evolve to at this point would essentially become gods they could instantly create new universes with specific conditions that they could use to experiment with new life they could effectively create their own simulations ones that are even more complex than the world we live in today and the key difference would be

that a type five civilization would have access to and control of multiple universes yeah instead of being limited to just one puny Universe we would now become a multiversal civilization this means everything we could do in one Universe our control of energy and our access to resources would now be multiplied across the entire Multiverse now what happens after that is almost incomprehensible a type six or seven civilization May mean that Humanity merges with the fabric of reality itself we might go beyond our physical reality and who knows what happens after that but no doubt it

it'd be pretty crazy imagine a world where you're not even human you can create universes with ease and control time this could be a reality in an incredibly Advanced and I mean an incredibly Advanced civilization okay we've talked about what if Humanity reaches type 1 through type five civilizations but what if we take it a step further what if we become a type six or seven civilization What would life be like then is a type 7 civilization even possible what would humans look like and why might something like this be a terribly bad idea this

is what if and here's what would happen if Humanity became a type seven civilization okay before we start let's quickly recap the types of civilizations we've covered so far I'll make it quick type one civilization okay here Humanity gains control of Earth and we're able to access all the power on the planet type two civilization well this is where we harness the power of the Sun and start to populate other planets like Mars and Venus type three Civilization now humanity is controlling the entire galaxy commanding the power of black holes multiple stars and all other

celestial bodies these civilizations were conceived by Nikolai kardashev who created the kardashev scale it's a hypothetical framework used to measure a civilization's ability to harness technological power civilizations 1 to three were developed by kardashev himself but the list has since expanded in a more speculative manner to add types 4 through 7 here are some of them in Fast Forward type four civilization well Humanity gains the ability to populate and control the entire universe type five Civilization now humanity is controlling multiple universes we've become a multiversal civilization so that's 1 through five but what happens next

is pretty ridiculous and we should preface that this goes beyond the expanded kardashev scale making these next civilizations purely speculative they're also getting so Advanced that scientists claim these civilizations are hard to even comprehend we'll be dealing with problems we don't even know about yet but hey you guys asked for this so let's strap in things are about to get weird type 6 civilization a type 6 civilization will see some significant upgrades from our type 5 civilization instead of controlling parts of multiple universes well we can now control everything yeah we can instantly create or

destroy any Universe of our choosing not only that but time would become a new toy for us to play with we can now manipulate it any way we want feel free to create multiple timelines maybe I'll create one with where I'm the president or I have blonde hair or maybe one where I'm super jacked and with all these multiverses Humanity wouldn't be the only Civilization by now there's a good chance that we've discovered or even created multiple civilizations of other new species across different universes ones that range from type zero to type five and of

course with us at the top of the food chain Humanity would be the rulers of these civilizations or we might view them as cultures that are lesser than us maybe we'll just observe them in the same way we do with ant colonies or zoo animals and what would you look like in a type 6 civilization well definitely not like you do now or I guess you could if you wanted to let me show you some examples you'd have the power to control reality and matter so if you wanted you could look like you do now

or you could look like the rock there's also a chance that we would no longer be biological beings as we've progressed through these civilizations technology and AI have only been getting more advanced we may have fused with artificial intelligence becoming Robo human hybrids maybe we'd look like this and if you're more creative who knows what you could be you could be an a Al a Godlike giant or go a more efficient route and become a ball of energy one that could move around universes with ease now if you think a type 6 civilization sounds nuts

well wait till you see what's next type seven civilization as we progress through these civilizations things are only getting more ridiculous weird and confusing we're now officially at the point where this civilization is almost Beyond human comprehension we'd have the ability to create alter and Destroy more universes ultimately controlling everything one of the key differences between a type six and seven civilization would be us being able to control the Omniverse okay again this is entirely speculative but the Omniverse is even bigger than the Multiverse it contains an infinite amount of universes both real and fictional

it shows every conceivable timeline and contains realities we can't even understand yet humans or whatever we're called at this point would be able to transcend any form of physical or metaphysical reality our new forms are unimag inable at least with our current knowledge we'd be past the point of having to worry about dying or any form of suffering instead humans might exist in a state of constant Bliss Enlightenment and Euphoria we might be able to exist simultaneously in multiple realities and timelines able to see everything in the past present and future with all this incredible

power it kind of begs the question would Humanity even want to get to this point would we even be considered human I mean Society has progressed so far that we're not even experiencing the things that make us who we are instead of hanging out with our loved ones and following our passions we're now Invincible beings who have transcended our current feeble human needs and ideas we're building new realities and playing God we'd also have plenty of existential challenges in this period with Humanity being so powerful and controlling everything well what would there be for us

to do we've already conquered the Earth the universe and now the Omniverse where does Humanity progress and what would we have left to accomplish we wouldn't experience any adversity or challenges two essential aspects of our human life so as exciting as these things sound would it be worth it at what point will we attain type two status well remember now we're talking about centuries to maybe a thousand years into the future this means building the first Starships so we're going to go far beyond the solar system and reach out to the nearby [Music] Stars [Music]

so Pete how you doing today I'm good how are you doing you seem surprised that I'm asking you how you're doing it's just an odd way to start not you say it every week but it it seemed like you were putting me on the spot for some reason well I mean in this case I was actually concerned I am concerned with how you're doing but more in the context of energy how are you feeling energetically uh well I mean here we're sitting in August of 2020 and uh just a hope is this the tail end

of the pandemic really I don't know uh I think like a lot of people who are working from home not everybody's working from home but I am a lot of people are taxed they're uh they're they've expended a lot of their energy they're low and I mean I think most people would answer the question the same way most people feel they don't have enough energy they could use more energy because at the end we're all energy including our planet okay now I see where you're going with this you're you're talking about and because of probably

the uh the topic of today's show everything is energy everything is energy and in this case how planets are sort of categorized according to the card she scale which is something we'll get into later there are type one type two type three civilizations and it's according to how much energy they can harness from in this case type two that you harness from the Sun I we have done a few kardashev scale like videos on uh what if um and I don't recall are we a type one well bad news we're not a type one yet

we're actually type zero which is not something that yeah it feels depressing but we have nowhere to go but up okay which is another way to look at it's kind of like type two would be more like solar power on steroids okay solar power on steroids so it's like the sun but we're getting all of our power from the Sun we're able to harness All That Power from the Sun and store it too yes and store it which as you can imagine would allow us to do a whole bunch of things not things that I

would necessarily understand nor did I really understand this prior to probably hours ago but that's why we have guests on the show because we want people to be able to come on and explain some of these complicated topics like what if Earth became a type 2 civilization and in this case lucky enough to have somebody who's a bit of an expert on the subject and who we've also had on the show before yeah we have it's uh Professor meio Kaku who's extremely uh smart and well respected and and followed by a lot of people and

really one of the people who are most cited and quoted when you're talking about today's W if what if the Earth became a type 2 [Music] civilization miio Kaku is known as a futurist a great communicator and a popularizer of science he first graduated Suma from Harvard University in 1968 and received his PhD from Berkeley in 1972 Kaku has expertise in several Fields such as hadronic physics super symmetry super gravity super string theory and super Quantum no not super quantum physics just quantum physics he's also quite the medium Haven with multiple best-selling books to his

name including his most recent the future of humanity he also hosts two radio shows and appears regularly in television series exploring space physics and the future he's currently the City College of New York's Henry seat professor of theoretical physics where he's been teaching for 35 years Professor Kaku welcome back to what if discussed glad to be on the show and we're always glad to have you and sure as Peter and I talked about off the top it's it's a complicated subject this type one type two civilizations if you don't know the kardashev scale uh and

of course I think we did our best to try to understand it and explain it but this is why you're here because obviously this is something that you're considered uh one of the experts on this planet so first of all please clarify what is the kardashev scale and what is a type one type two type three civilization well we physicists are tired of talking about flying saucers and Little Green Men and speculating about life in space I'm a physicist we use energy energy to rank civilizations in outer space a type one civilization is planetary they

consume all the energy that they receive from the Sun for example they control the weather the type two is Stellar they control all the energy output of the Mother's Son sort of like the the Federation of planets in Star Trek they've colonized a few of the neighboring planets neighboring star systems but not much more then there's type three type three is galactic they roam the galactic space Lanes they can harness the energy of a 100 billion stars in the galaxy sort of like uh Star Wars Star Wars would be an example of a type three

Galactic Civilization now what are we do we play with the weather play with volcanoes and play with earthquakes do we play with the sun do we play with black holes throughout the Galaxy no we are type zero we don't even rate on this scale disapp we get our energy from dead plants oil and coal but we are about a hundred years away from attaining type one status for example the internet what is the internet internet it is the first type One telephone system to be Unleashed in this Century what language will this type one civilization

speak well already English and Mandarin Chinese are the two greatest languages on the internet and what is the European Union what is NAFTA what are all these trade blocks the beginning of a primitive type one planetary economy now if you keep this scale up at what point will we attain type two status that is leave this solar system and start to explore the nearby Stars well you just take out a slide rule or a calculator you can calculate that in just a few thousand years we will be type two like Captain Kirk now Captain Kirk

lives in the 23rd Century so that's about right uh a little early but still well on the scale that Nikolai ctera formulated in the 1960s then you hit type three in about a 100,000 years wow and why is that because that's the energy that you attain the plun energy the plon energy is the energy of SpaceTime it's when space becomes unstable wormholes develop black holes Gateway hyperspatial gateways through space and time that's the plank energy the plank energy is a quadrillion times more powerful than the large hron collider outside Geneva ssin and why do I

mention that because once you attain the plank energy wormholes maybe even time travel is a possibility wow um let's bring it back down to earth and uh and uh talk about type two I I was asking off the top whether a type two civilization was simply like solar power on steroids yes now I know you're not going to quote me in your next book as a genius Insight but uh how close is that idea to toh what type two means well type two does not mean simply getting sunlight from the Sun it means playing with

the sun itself for example a Dyson Sphere would envelop the entire sun with a sphere to absorb 100% of the energy output of a star that's a Dyson Sphere and astronomers think that well we're not sure but we may have the signals from some potential candidates of being a type two civilization in outer space there's a star called Tabby star which drops in intensity by about 25% some people think that maybe a gigantic Jupiter siiz planet moves in front of the star absorbing all its energy and perhaps that is a Dyson Sphere in outer space

Oh and a type two civilization would be like Star Trek the Federation of planets they've colonized a small quadrant of the Galaxy would be a type two civilization um energy is something that we I don't know it I don't mean we don't talk about energy because we talk about energy but as important as energy is to our day-to-day lives and our functions be in on this planet survive but even Beyond you'd think we'd have even more Focus I think we take it for granted obviously just walk into a room turn on a light switch Etc

but as you said earlier we we still are at a pretty primitive level of harnessing energy which is again fossil fuels how important is it that we let's say fastforward our harnessing of solar power to not only get to type two civilization one day but to expedite the evolution of this species well let's take a look at it historically throughout most of human history for 99% of human history we had about a quarter of a horsepower per person the strength of your left hand and right hand and that's it folks that was the energy output

for most of human civilization about a quarter of a horsepower then when we domesticated horses about 10,000 years ago we went from a quarter of a horsepower to one horsepower and that began what is called civilization cities armies Empires began to be formed and then just 300 years ago we discovered the steam engine and as a consequence we went from one horsepower to maybe 10 horsepower in a buggy in a locomotive now of course you have access to thousands of horsepower and in fact we're going to use that energy to rock it into outter space

so so you see that the progress of civilization can be mapped by the progress in energy harnessing that we've been able to harness thousands of horsepowers for one astronaut while before it was only the strength of your left hand and your right hand now you mentioned energy sources of the future solar is one but there's another one I think that is even more important and that's fusion power now fusion power is still a few decades away but fusion power is the power of the universe wow W it's what makes the sunshine it's what makes the

stars twinkle and we're going to be able to I think in a few decades harness that fusion power on the planet Earth to give us unlimited amounts of energy from seawater seawater is the basic fuel for Fusion plants and we have one in France it's called the ier fusion reactor in Kardash France built by the European Union with the help from the United States and Russia and Japan and we hope to get Fusion off the ground in the coming decades well just so we book you in far enough in advance i' just like you to

put in your calendar that when that happens we'd like to have you back on the show cuz ideally you you and I would still be alive Peter we'd still be doing what if discussed but uh like right now I would say let's just put a pin in that for now let's say we jump in the time machine and go right there the what if time machine Peter started up yes we haven't used it in a while so let's say all the theoreticals are behind us we are now at that point where we are a type

two civilization what are some of the kind of cool things that people would be sort of fascinated by that a type 2 civilization as Earth would be able to do whether it's controlling the weather the atmosphere uh you know blowing asteroids out of the SK like what are some of the things that we should be able to expect as a type two civilization well remember now we're talking about centuries to maybe a thousand years into the future well we have pretty much colonized the entire solar system out to Pluto and maybe out to the nearby

Stars uh we're going to build the first Starship perhaps within 100 200 years NASA already has the 100 star 100e Starship program looking at potential propulsion systems for a Starship uh for example antimatter engines uh Fusion engines um even Ramjet Fusion engines these are all possible engines for Starships now we're not talking warp drive to get warp drive you'd have to be type three but by the time you're type uh one and aspiring toward type two this means building the first Starships so we're going to go far beyond the solar system and reach out to

the nearby Stars there's even a program called the Breakthrough starshot program uh Stephen Hawking uh the my late colleague was a member of that program and he believed that yes we should build the first Starship not in a few hundred years but in this Century just in this Century build the first Starship well one of the great things about having you is that regardless of where we're at individually or collectively I'm always optimistic and excited after I I speak to mokaku because you see the future in such a way that is uh especially in these

times uh encouraging and exciting and and gives us a reason to sort of you know look forward beyond our sort of day-to-day problems and be excited about the it's interesting because we talked about you know Homo sapiens being around for 200,000 years and Professor Kaku is saying you know all you had for power was you know half a horsepower and now we're hundred years away probably yes and I mean a 100 years away we couldn't fly or or sorry 100 you know a little over 100 years ago we couldn't fly so and then you know

50 years later 60 years later we're sending people to the moon so as as you are always Adept at doing you get us sort of steered in the right direction we're going to have uh Professor Kaku on later if you want to listen to this full in-depth interview beyond our conversation that we just had click on the link below because a special treat we are going to be breaking down uh your most recent New York Times bestseller the future of humanity I don't think it's overstating it to say that this is one of those times

where you want to be thinking about the future of humanity but especially the insights and the Visionary uh perspectives that you have in the book give us a little idea of what we're going to be hearing about uh and what people can expect to find in the book the future of humanity well you know the the dinosaurs did not have a space program they did not that's why they're not here today there are no dinosaurs joining us for this interview today because they got WP out they were clueless they didn't know what get them well

we do have a space program and it's inevitable that we're gonna have crises for example volcanic eruptions meteor impacts pandemics we know they're going to be crises of the future and we need an insurance policy an insurance policy to make sure that Humanity survives no matter what catastrophes hit the planet Earth and the main stumbling block preventing that was a four-letter dirty word cost it cost $10,000 to put a pound of anything into orbit around the planet Earth that's your weight in gold think of your body made out of solid gold that's what it costs

just to put you in orbit around the planet Earth well now prices are dropping because Elon Musk and others are perfecting the reusable rocket because of competition because of private public public collaboration the price of space travel is dropping like a rock this means that in the future Mom and Dad may be able to go to outer space and I would even predict that our grandkids may have the option of honeymooning on the moon cool not the Dark Side of the Moon though because that's not a good way to start a relationship little more private

um so again more with Dr Kaku uh about everything future of humanity you don't want to miss this so click on the link below and you're going to get a really in-depth dive into a rabbit hole that's going to cover so many topics about the short medium and long-term future of Humanity on this planet so yes I guess we have a lot to look forward to would be the glass half full because we're type zero as as Professor Kaku talked about we're hundreds of years away from probably being a type one and thousands of years

away from being a type two this is is and like I mentioned is this is uh heartening for me as opposed to disheartening for me in that like I say the human Homo sapiens have been here for 200,000 years and all the progress we've made is basically to get to here and he thinks in a 100 years 200 years we could be a type one civilization my gosh like how incredible is that progression in 100 years compared to the last 200,000 years I'd love to see that on the news more right because it's so easy

as he talked about that we we get so focused on the present and you know if you're a Zen Buddhist you'd say well that's where you want to be you want to be in the moment but we also get fixated on this particular time as though this is you know this is the the future of the species is basically the next 10 no it's hundreds of years thousands of years regardless of even what happens in the short term we and the planet are going to be around a long time in some form and it seems

C crazy obviously as we sit here today that the energy that we use and harness is still you know as he said like you know plants and and and fossil fuels when you have this decaying dinosaurs decaying dinosaurs and the focus on the sun isn't new but hearing this you think man if we really focused all our attention on solar power and then you know further harnessing that power so we've got this enormous yellow burning ball of fuel that I can feel on my face when I walk down the street it's burning all day long

I mean certainly we our Earth rotates but why are we not expending all our energy expending all our energy into capturing the energy from something that's free something that's incredibly powerful and something that's so close rather than like you know bugging around with all this junk underneath the the dirt we're the only species in in the world that actually has the ability to delay its own Evolution because we have we've known this for 50 60 years that obviously there's a way to get solar power uh you know make it ubiquitous around the world and essentially

make energy as close to free as possible but our Focus hasn't been there our Focus has been in other ways and of course once you have that link to your economy nobody's in a rush to sort of change the status quo and that's kind of been the case I think though not only is the is the will there by most people or many people around the world I think it's starting to see that the the the political currency is there as well so I think we're doing the show in 10 years it's a different story

because I think we're going to be way further down the line on way more solar and way less years we're 10 years closer to that you know 30 years in which we're all going to die if we don't stop burning fossil fuels and treating the planet like we don't have a great history as being proactive but we have a pretty good history as being reactive are we the only uh species that could end our own Evolution as well I would think so outside of lemmings I think Lemmings can just run off cliffs but as a

whole I mean all over the world they can't coordinate their I mean it's it's it's funny because we're supposed to be the smartest species in the world yet we have that unique ability which is you could argue not smart exactly if you want more with Professor M Kaku like we said there's the full audio podcast click on the link below and you'll get about 20 more minutes with us and Professor meio Kaku it's going to be really interesting trust me talking about the future of humanity which we're kind of doing here but of course at

a kindergarten level so if you want to hear somebody who really has an incredibly Visionary perspective on and exciting and optimistic perspective on the future of the species Humanity the planet Etc you're going to want to stick around for this because again every time we talk to meio Kaku we we usually leave you know kind ofil smiling and feeling a lot better about things he's he's talking about things that make you happy rather than it's not the end of the world for him it's the possibilities of what we can do well said Peter what are

the possibilities of you coming back and watching another what if discussed maybe next week well why don't you because this one's over thanks for joining us here on Whata if [Music] discussed imagine if we could control earthquakes and tsunamis to generate power or maybe even terraform every planet in the solar system these are just a couple of the things that might happen if human civilization was to advance in the future so how can humans get to this point what other advancements will happen and What Makes Us think we'll even progress this far this is what

if and here's what would happen if we became a type one civilization Global civilizations can be categorized into what's known as the kardashev scale this measures a civilization's ability to use all the energy available to it and is scaled from 1 to three currently Humanity doesn't even reach type 1 civilization this is because humans don't use all the forms of energy on Earth we use wood coal and oil but there's a lot more so what would change if Humanity evolved into one of these types of civilizations being a type 1 civilization means we would have

complete control over all the energy on Earth this means that we'd say goodbye to fossil fuels since they're limited and unsustainable instead we could use the wind sunlight and water for our energy needs and since this energy is so accessible you may no longer need to pay for your power bill in a type 1 civilization we'd continuously be using energy it would be as essential as oxygen we would also start using natural disasters to our advantage tsunamis could be used to produce energy and earthquakes could potentially be used to terraform parts of the world with

us having complete control over our planet's energy sources we could also control the weather if an area of the world were suffering through a drought we could disperse rainclouds over it and bring it back to life Humanity could also say goodbye to global warming at as we'd be able to bring the atmosphere back to carbon neutral and control our planet's temperatures casualties from natural disasters would also be reduced as we'd be able to predict when and where they might happen and not only that but we'd be able to live on places on Earth we'd never

have dreamed of before like in the water as well as in climates that used to be unsuitable for us humans y living in a type 1 civilization would be pretty great but with things being this perfect we might get a little bored so what if we took Humanity one step further and became a type 2 civilization or even a type three a type 2 civilization means we could harness the energy of the Sun and use it not just on Earth but throughout our solar system we could use its power to travel to and terraform Mars

or even a planet like Neptune becoming a Type 3 civilization would allow us to use all the energy in the galaxy and