What If We Became a Type II Civilization?

[Music] when it comes to energy we have a long way to go before our utility bills become a thing of the past on the kardashev scale we're still a type zero civilization but we're closer than ever to harnessing earth's energy so what would it take for us to become a type 2 or stellar civilization how could we harness the energy of our sun [Music] what could prevent us from getting to the next level on the scale and how would our lives change this is what if and here's what would happen if we became a type

2 civilization okay if you're new to the kardashev scale to put it simply it's a way to measure a civilization's level of technological advancement based on the amount and types of energy that it can use as a type zero civilization we are a sub-global culture meaning we still get the majority of our energy from organic sources like wood coal and oil in order to reach type 1 we'll have to master the use of all the forms of energy on earth not just fossil fuels with many advancements in solar wind hydro and geothermal power we're almost

there to earn a type 2 rating on the scale we'd need to be able to use all the power of our sun so what could we do with it [Music] in order to become a type 2 or stellar civilization we'll need to build a massive swarm of energy collecting satellites around the sun known as a dyson swarm you can learn more about this in our other video what if we built a dyson sphere around our sun [Music] but before we start building we'll have to improve a lot of things here on earth there are many

potential dangers to humanity that could stop us in our tracks including climate change war pandemics and even asteroids speaking of asteroids nasa has been hard at work developing their dart project or double asteroid redirection test in 2021 nasa will launch the dart satellite on a collision course with the near-earth asteroid diddy moon which orbits the larger and more threatening asteroid didimas this collision will increase diddy moon's orbital speed by about four minutes which is just enough time to alter the larger asteroid didymos's trajectory away from earth creating the first artificial meteor shower if this proves

to be a successful defense against threatening asteroids it could help us pave the way to becoming a type 1 civilization and eventually type 2 if we're lucky mind you if we had the power of our entire sun at our fingertips we could simply vaporize any potential threats to our planet in fact we could move earth out of harm's way if we wanted to theoretically we could control the orbits of everything in our solar system using a dyson swarm could also make other planets more habitable with the help of these solar satellites we could carefully control

any planet's temperature by redirecting the sun's energy we could start terraforming nearby planets to give us new places to live this would even let us take interplanetary vacations anyone up for a ski trip to mars in fact why stop at mars with limitless solar energy at our disposal we could travel almost anywhere in our solar system technology at this point would likely make space travel available and affordable to everyone right now a ticket to space could cost anywhere from two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to tens of millions of dollars yeesh so much for my

mortgage we might even be able to solve our climate change problems by partially shading the earth with the dyson sphere giving us time to heal and rebuild our atmosphere with no more air pollution from fossil fuels we'd be a much healthier and happier species but before you breathe easy we have a lot of work to do here on earth before we even become a type 1 civilization and as you may have guessed that's a story for another what if