Humanity destroying a Type III civilization

[TooManyErrors]

We were once bacteria, and we do not all of a sudden forget that. We still step on them though.

No human has ever been bacteria before. What eventually evolved into a human may have been bacteria, but humans have never been bacteria.

[Holo]

I swear to ... >.>

Do you all not read? A type III civilization is all about advancements in technology and energy use. Type III where once type 0 just like us. They do not all of a sudden forget that. Comparing humans to bacteria is retarded, just stop. That comparison makes no sense as humans and bacteria are totally different. Even if we where to scale a human to the size of a bacteria, we still would be entirely different organisms.

And if we were to scale a Type III civilisation back to a type 0, it would be entirely different

Are you saying a type III is too stupid to know what we are? You know they have only lived for billions of years, yet they some how see a full sized mammal as bacteria?

When your subconscious thoughts involve perfect understandings of the inner workings of entire societies, a couple of mere brain-sentients look pretty expendable

http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/14.3.htm

Also if you know how biology works, you would know a species as smart as us or smarter would have to be a similar size. The larger you are the more work it takes to keep you alive, and usually you tend to be not as smart. Humans have the largest brain size to body ratio out of all the animals on earth.

That assumes we stay biological. In a type III civilisation, there are few barriers to dissassembling it into a star, splitting it into about a million planetoid-sized chunks, and transforming them all into computronium able to host a sapient mind.

Let me ask you this, an Elephant isn't exactly smart, do you see them as insignificant like a bacteria? Do you not see them?

They're not as smart as us, but individuals are probably within about an order of magnitude of us. A better comparison is "do you see them as insignificant like ants" or "do you see them as insignificant like sessile photosynthetic organisms", and from personal experience we will gladly kill them if they get in the way.

Edit: Also there is not going to be any element on earth that is so rare that an alien species would attack us. If you know how elements are created by super novas and such, you would know this would be an impossible. There are billions of stars in a galazy and billions of galaxies. There are billions of supernovas. You can be damned certain there is billions of planets with each element you could ever want.

The Earth is made, in its most fundamental form, out of protons. Things that the galaxy wants are also made of protons. Although I doubt that they would dissassemble the Earth. The Sun is a much more verdant source of protons.

EDIT:

A more accurately scaled analogy might be an encounter between an anthill and the whole of United States society, or between a single man and a single ant.

The USA may not even recognise the anthill as being there. If they want to escavate the land around it and build a quarry or a Wal-Mart or something, they won't spare a second thought for groups of organisms that may have been there. The loss of sapience is so minimal on human scales that it's not even worth it to check if there are anthills.

Edited May 17, 2013 by Holo

[Brabbit1987]

And if we were to scale a Type III civilisation back to a type 0, it would be entirely different

When your subconscious thoughts involve perfect understandings of the inner workings of entire societies, a couple of mere brain-sentients look pretty expendable

http://www.xenology.info/Xeno/14.3.htm

That assumes we stay biological. In a type III civilisation, there are few barriers to dissassembling it into a star, splitting it into about a million planetoid-sized chunks, and transforming them all into computronium able to host a sapient mind.

They're not as smart as us, but individuals are probably within about an order of magnitude of us. A better comparison is "do you see them as insignificant like ants" or "do you see them as insignificant like sessile photosynthetic organisms", and from personal experience we will gladly kill them if they get in the way.

The Earth is made, in its most fundamental form, out of protons. Things that the galaxy wants are also made of protons. Although I doubt that they would dissassemble the Earth. The Sun is a much more verdant source of protons.

I stopped taking this thread seriously. Most of what you are saying is based merely on assumptions. I also have to say, very unlikely assumptions.

Again, if we think logically, as life goes on, we become more aware of the smaller things. Not the opposite. How many caveman where aware of bacteria at all? I mean think about that for a second. This would imply as we grow smarter, the more we notice the smaller things. The more we pay attention to detail.

No matter what you say, most humans don't just go around purposefully killing things with no reason. It's usually for food, clothing and such. We most certainly don't see them as important as us, however, again as we progress, the more we see they are in fact important. We become more aware what part they play in or eco system and how it keeps everything stable. So again the more we grow smarter, the more we care about the animals we kill.

First we also have to ask, does a type III no longer have morals? Do they see killing things as a bad thing? If they dropped the morals, why would they, there really is no benefit to that.

A type III is very likely to integrate with machines, however how far do you think they will go from their own form? Did you ever notice how humans can relate to other humans more easily. Did you notice when we think of aliens, they tend to have some human characteristics. Species can more easily identify with themselves, and any great changes to form are very unlikely. Also making larger bodies would be incredibly inefficient. So again they would still be fairly close to the same size as us.

"from personal experience we will gladly kill them if they get in the way."

Personal experience? I don't know about you, but I would never kill an animal on purpose unless my life or another was threatened. I believe this would be the same case for most intelligent people. We wouldn't kill some random animals just because they are in our way.

"When your subconscious thoughts involve perfect understandings of the inner workings of entire societies, a couple of mere brain-sentients look pretty expendable"

Maybe to you, but not to me. I see all life as important, and I fail to see why that would change in a type III.

[Lazurkri]

have any of you tried reading the "Galactic Marines" Series by the author Willian Kieth? It deals with (Eventually) humanity coming into contact with a very old ( Millions of years) species that have since uploaded themselves into machines. The cute thing is, the species (Named the Xul) have a rather bad holdover from their past when they were still flesh; a uber active darwinian drive. In essence, anything other than "Us" is "Enemy".

Another cute thing is, they're really technologically advanced; when humanity first encounters the Xul, the Xul used Quantum Power Taps for their ships, had insanely effective nanotech, and could play around with velocity to a impressive degree using a form of "Quantum Editing"; the example in a book is that a Xul ship that's trying to wipe out the Earth using meteorites accelerated to a good percentage of light is changing the "Quantum Data" of the rocks its slinging so that they are going reallllllly fast directly at Earth.

In Essence, the Xul are damn near gods. The way humanity defeats them? The Xul as a whole react reallllly slowly. At least on a large scale. And the Xul cannot be everywhere at once in the galaxy.

In short, any race thats REALLLLLY advanced may be rather slow to come to a decision; they may think humanity isn't a threat. Or they may have, over time, come to view the matters of anyone that's not at their level of advancement as damn near meaningless; kinda like the Ancients in Stargate, in that the affairs of "lesser planes" are ignored, and those who do tinker there are punished for it. I mean, if one of your own screws with the lessers too much, they may find a new and unexpected way to kill you all off, no? In your own interests to not smite the ants too much after all.....

[Inspector Gadget]

OMG aren't you the one that made that website. Credit for that. You deserve it.

Also, could I hear your thoughts on this? You're allowed to say it's completily ridiculous but it'd like to hear it anyway

[Naiba]

I somewhat doubt the entirety Type I, II and III categorisation system.

[Rune]

I fear you have not thought this all the way through. You seem to be under the misapprehension that the entities of the Type III civilization are going to be identical to the Type I civilization entities they evolved from. Way before the Type I evolved to even Type II they are going to hit a technological singularity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Look at the timelines suggested in the linked article, and realize that it will probably be millions of years before we reach Type III (assuming we do not destroy our civilization before then).

Type III species will probably be entities that have uploaded their minds into their version of a cosmic internet and formed multi-mind colony creatures. The same way single celled organisms evolved into multcellular organism like us, our single-mind organisms will evolve into multiminded organism.

Type III species are not going to be like Star Trek federation members walking around with more powerful phasers.

But they could. I mean, the kardashev scale only refers to energy usage. Imagine for a second that we figure out fusion and, perhaps, FTL comms (so we can keep calling it the same culture). You don't need anything more, really. Then we figure out the unification theory and sadly discover FTL travel is really impossible, but we keep on growing exponentially by building free-floating habitats and sending them out like seeds. Eventually, humans are literally everywhere on Dyson swarms (and everywhere else midly interesting with more than just hydrogen), and galaxy-hopping only takes "a bit" time more. Now all you need for humans staying human-like, is that there is enough information in that FTL network so that no human can even make himself an idea of how much there is. So all new discoveries are just a reproduction of something tried somewhere else. That and some healthy organic chauvinism not to create A.I's more intelligent than them, or to make radical alterations in themselves, and you could have "dumb" type III civilizations, thanks to the power of exponential growth and a bit of time (on the cosmic/evolution scale).

Edit: by "humans" I mean "federation alien-like" or whatever

Rune. And I only needed to break physics as we know them once. The rest is conservationism.

Edited May 17, 2013 by Rune

[The Stinger]

As long as we can't reach them, we are unable to destroy a Type III civilization.

[NASAFanboy]

Since the scale is completely energy based, humanity could be a civilization with FTL and inter-galantic travel and force fields and building entire worlds of their own, whole being a Type II. Then, we meet a Type III still stuck on a single planet, with primitive satellites and only a little manned presence, by still somehow harnessing the post of the entire galaxy.

[Rune]

Since the scale is completely energy based, humanity could be a civilization with FTL and inter-galantic travel and force fields and building entire worlds of their own, whole being a Type II. Then, we meet a Type III still stuck on a single planet, with primitive satellites and only a little manned presence, by still somehow harnessing the post of the entire galaxy.

See? You've gone ahead and broken the whole book of physics and burned the remains. Funny, but I might as well postulate magic. But, another interesting idea you gave me might be a non-sentient type III, like an intergalactic space bacteria/pest.

Rune. VERY mutation-resistant.

[nyrath]

I stopped taking this thread seriously. Most of what you are saying is based merely on assumptions. I also have to say, very unlikely assumptions

...snip...

Maybe to you, but not to me. I see all life as important, and I fail to see why that would change in a type III.

Yes, but by the same token, what you are saying is based merely on different assumptions. It is just that we are disagreeing on which set of assumptions are unlikely.

Again, you may see all life as important, but you probably are facilitating the killing of life because you eat animals and plants. The difference is where one draws the line of what level of organic development is too high to casually kill.

In Stephen Baxter's science fiction Xeelee novels, for the last few billion years two Type III civilizations have been engaged in a life-or-struggle: the Xeelee and the Photino Birds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeelee

Towards the end, the Xeelee foresaw their defeat, and started creating an escape route. The Xeelee Ring is sort of a star-gate, several million light years in diameter. Current day astronomers know the Ring as The Great Attractor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_attractor

The Photino Birds do not want the Xeelee to escape. So they are throwing galaxies at it in an attempt to destroy it. So the reason galaxies are heading to the Great Attractor is not due to gravitational attraction. It is due to the technology of the Photino Birds.

In this universe, do you think the Photino Birds care about the trillions of sentient beings living in the galaxies the Photino Birds are using as weapon projectiles? They are in a pitched battle with the Xeelee, and do not have the inclination to worry about such things.

But they could. I mean, the kardashev scale only refers to energy usage.

Yes, my point is that maybe they could, but that's not the way to bet.

Edited May 17, 2013 by nyrath

[Lazurkri]

OMG aren't you the one that made that website. Credit for that. You deserve it.

Also, could I hear your thoughts on this? You're allowed to say it's completily ridiculous but it'd like to hear it anyway

Pardon? You mean the "Different types of alien" page?

[Sof]

In this universe, do you think the Photino Birds care about the trillions of sentient beings living in the galaxies the Photino Birds are using as weapon projectiles? They are in a pitched battle with the Xeelee, and do not have the inclination to worry about such things.

It was my understanding that due to the fact they are made of dark matter, they aren't really aware of much "normal" matter objects and therefore can't notice simple species like us.

[The Jedi Master]

A few quick scales:

Modern Earth is not even Type I yet.

A "classic" alien invader would probably be around Type II.

The Star Wars universe is Type III.

Do you think we stand a chance against a real life Galactic Empire? Neither do I.

They probably wouldn't notice us anyway, though. On the scale that you are talking about, we would be the cosmic equivalent of farmers plowing fields in the country. The aliens wouldn't care about us.

[nyrath]

It was my understanding that due to the fact they are made of dark matter, they aren't really aware of much "normal" matter objects and therefore can't notice simple species like us.

Which was sort of my point.

But they certainly noticed the Xeelee, who were made of normal baryonic matter just like us. Otherwise the Photino Birds would not be going to the trouble of chucking entire galaxies at them.

[Holo]

For those saying type 3.0s will notice us as intelligent and not accidently destroy us:

People regularly destroy entire ant civilisations. Yet, they are clearly intelligent - they build structures, collaborate, even have a social hierarchy with different jobs. Why should it be any different for a Type 3.0?

[Brabbit1987]

We destroy ants because of multiple reasons.

1. They are dirty to us

2. They get into our food supply

3. Some of them bite

4. Some people are grossed out or scared of insects.

5. They are too small to notice. Has little to do with their intelligence, and more to do with they are small and they are nuisances to us.

Now tell me what reason an alien race would destroy us? Why would they not notice us? Do we steal their food? Do we bite them? Are they grossed out by us, even though we are no where near them? Are we too dirty to them, again even though we are no where near them?

Point of the matter is, the comparisons you are making don't make much sense.

There are several mistakes you are making. You are assuming a type 3 would be exactly like us in the fact that humanity kills other species for sometimes dumb reasons. A type 3 is suppose to be far more intelligent then us. With that being said, it's just highly unlikely they would just randomly kill us. Even humans, for the most part, don't do that, unless there is a reason behind it.

Another mistake you are making is, you act like we are not intelligent at all. Even if they are far more intelligent, doesn't mean they wouldn't be able to recognize our intelligence. They may not be overly concerned about us, but what makes you think they would view us like ants?

[Capt.Joseph Kerbertson]

You're assuming a super-advanced civilization can't bother to do a decent detection system. It's like if you sent a US carrier to investigate a subsaharian tribe and all of a sudden they can make nuclear weapons based on the carrier reactor and destroy the United States. It sounds ridiculous.

Edit: one more thing: the problem with the body metaphore is that on a large scale, a immune system would probably more efficient. The antibodies in our blood are mere proteins with no consciousness. An advanced spaceship would probably have artificial intelligence, or commanded by robots with artificial intelligence and/or biological beings.

As an experiment, a group dropped a bunch of tablets off to a non-tech saavy, illiterate, remote Ethiopian villages and did nothing else. They discovered something amazing. These kids were able to hack the tablets with in 5 months of first obtaining them. I'm talking about hacking the OS. http://www.nextnature.net/2012/10/illiterate-kids-learn-to-hack-tablet-computers-with-no-outside-help/

Now, that being said, it's not out of the realm of ridiculous now that I've put it into perspective is it? Technology is technology and the human minds need for exploration is only rivaled by a humans need for self preservation. Put the two together and we are truly scary.

[Brabbit1987]

As an experiment, a group dropped a bunch of tablets off to a non-tech saavy, illiterate, remote Ethiopian villages and did nothing else. They discovered something amazing. These kids were able to hack the tablets with in 5 months of first obtaining them. I'm talking about hacking the OS. http://www.nextnature.net/2012/10/illiterate-kids-learn-to-hack-tablet-computers-with-no-outside-help/

Now, that being said, it's not out of the realm of ridiculous now that I've put it into perspective is it? Technology is technology and the human minds need for exploration is only rivaled by a humans need for self preservation. Put the two together and we are truly scary.

To truly hack an android device, you really need access to a computer. On another note ... I have to say this article is BS.

If it is true .. they are using the word hacking wrong.

I also hate to say this .. a tablet isn't really hard to use .. even if you know nothing about it. 5 months is a long time to learn if you click this button it does this .. it's basic human understanding that you are born with. It's why you don't touch an electric fence usually more then once.

I have seen babies use a touch screen device and very young kids know how to use it fairly well. Which to me is far more impressive since they know little to nothing about the world at all.

Edited May 19, 2013 by Brabbit1987

[Specialist290]

We destroy ants because of multiple reasons.

1. They are dirty to us

2. They get into our food supply

3. Some of them bite

4. Some people are grossed out or scared of insects.

5. They are too small to notice. Has little to do with their intelligence, and more to do with they are small and they are nuisances to us.

I am bolding the portion that you clearly stated yourself but seem to be missing.

If you can't think of a way that humanity might make themselves nuisances to another, more highly-advanced race that might bring about the wrong sort of attention, then you are naive beyond belief.

Also, some humans might be prone to "bite" as well, in a metaphorical sense.

[Brabbit1987]

I am bolding the portion that you clearly stated yourself but seem to be missing.

If you can't think of a way that humanity might make themselves nuisances to another, more highly-advanced race that might bring about the wrong sort of attention, then you are naive beyond belief.

Also, some humans might be prone to "bite" as well, in a metaphorical sense.

In a sense you are correct .. but that would mean we would have to find them first. How likely is that?

If they where to greet us first . .which is also unlikely .. what could we possibly do to make them hate us enough to kill us all?

[Inspector Gadget]

In a sense you are correct .. but that would mean we would have to find them first. How likely is that?

If they where to greet us first . .which is also unlikely .. what could we possibly do to make them hate us enough to kill us all?

As a reference point I just got ants in my house. They walk around everywhere and even get in our food. They're annoying as hell. So we kill them and we're even going to buy some anti-bug spray or something to keep them away.

We could imagine a Type III civ with there planetsized habitat. Some humans recon ships show up and they fly onto it begining to scan them. The humans even harvest materials from the hull. Annoying as hell. So they kill them. They maybe even begin to emit gamma radiation to keep them away. Worst case scenarion they track down oure planet and destroyes it.

[Brabbit1987]

As a reference point I just got ants in my house. They walk around everywhere and even get in our food. They're annoying as hell. So we kill them and we're even going to buy some anti-bug spray or something to keep them away.

We could imagine a Type III civ with there planetsized habitat. Some humans recon ships show up and they fly onto it begining to scan them. The humans even harvest materials from the hull. Annoying as hell. So they kill them. They maybe even begin to emit gamma radiation to keep them away. Worst case scenarion they track down oure planet and destroyes it.

Again you are comparing a type 3 to us. What we do does not mean a type 3 would do the same. Also, how did we manage to even get on their ships? Meaning why is the type 3 anywhere remotely near earth for us to board their ship? Scanning our planet? What, they can't scan from a safe distance?

Also if we did happen to run into a spaceship, of a type 3, and some how managed to board it for what ever reason that is ... how many are going to be on board? Maybe 5? Why would humans harvest materials? I can maybe see a human taking some samples to test later on, but that doesn't really require taking much. Again this is nothing like ants.

[Inspector Gadget]

Again you are comparing a type 3 to us. What we do does not mean a type 3 would do the same. Also, how did we manage to even get on their ships? Meaning why is the type 3 anywhere remotely near earth for us to board their ship? Scanning our planet? What, they can't scan from a safe distance?

Also if we did happen to run into a spaceship, of a type 3, and some how managed to board it for what ever reason that is ... how many are going to be on board? Maybe 5? Why would humans harvest materials? I can maybe see a human taking some samples to test later on, but that doesn't really require taking much. Again this is nothing like ants.

Why wouldn't they park their ships close to earth? They wouldn't care about us. Maybe they wouldn't be close to a rivel Type III civ but we're just some simpel Type I. We're no threat at all to them so they would care if they came a little close.

Some humans might land on this "New discovered planet" or "Ruins from an old civilisation". Humans are known for there curiosity and stubbornness and properly wouldn't like to have some Type I begining to colonise them and mine them for ressources or examine there technology. Even if we don't get through at first we properly would mush later like entire ant hills can find there way into your house. It would be easier to kill them before they get to far.

[Brabbit1987]

Why wouldn't they park their ships close to earth? They wouldn't care about us. Maybe they wouldn't be close to a rivel Type III civ but we're just some simpel Type I. We're no threat at all to them so they would care if they came a little close.

Some humans might land on this "New discovered planet" or "Ruins from an old civilisation". Humans are known for there curiosity and stubbornness and properly wouldn't like to have some Type I begining to colonise them and mine them for ressources or examine there technology. Even if we don't get through at first we properly would mush later like entire ant hills can find there way into your house. It would be easier to kill them before they get to far.

Well now we are getting a little ahead of ourselves here. We are not even a type 1 civilization just yet. We have yet to even land a human on another planet.

You don't need to be scared to know if you get to close you could cause a problem, I am pretty sure they are smart enough to know that. Also why wouldn't they care? Why would they want to waste their time dealing with us, when they could have simply scanned and moved on?