Affluence in Two Eras of an Alien Civilization

Recall, for reference, that the early history of an alien civilization is divided into eras based on technological change. Some creature on an origin planet evolves intelligence and manipulative skill, and begins to use objects as tools, such as rocks, sticks, fire, and possibly others. This makes the brain grow, and that species is on the road to having a civilization.

On Earth, this early era is called the Stone Age, but that may be because only stone has lasted for the long period of time since this era began. In this blog, eras are divided by what has been labeled grand transformations, as technology completely reworks the civilization and causes most aspects to adapt to it. Provided the planet has animals, the next phase would be hunting in packs or groups, which give rise to the need for communication, and language results, which also makes the brain grow. They would be developing tools for hunting, and for many other tasks as well. Clay or some other formable material might be used here. There is no mandatory ordering of tasks, as one does not depend on the other. Hunting weapons can be developed without having clay pots. This era might be called the Hunting Weapon Era, and much technology gets developed during this period, as the species has been getting smarter and smarter, and more options will be visualized.

After that, assuming climate is reasonably benign and evolution has been doing what it does in the plant kingdom, there would be an Agricultural Grand Transformation. This is where agricultural tools are developed, and the nomadic species, slowly and gradually, settles down so that some of them live in permanent settlements. These tools would be adapted to whatever plants and crops are first conquered by the species, and this might vary by location on the planet. Different areas should have quite different potential crops, as the alien species adapts wild crops to ones which can be reliably grown.

The next era occurs after another transformation happens, the Industrial. Sources of energy are tapped in this era, starting with wind and water if they are available on the planet, and biomass used with fire in a controlled sense. There would likely have been the use of fire for heating of dwellings and for metal working, and the next step is to use it for other purposes. If there are surface quantities of hydrocarbons, they might be used as well. The first engines might be developed to substitute for wind and water power in areas where they are not available and biomass is.

The Industrial Era gives way to the Electronics Era, which runs all the way from the first development of electical communication up through robotics and automation. It depends on the energy sources of the Industrial Era and must therefore come later. Following that the Genetic Grand Transformaion happens, which must also be even later, as it depends on a large amount of computational power being available.

Affluence can be a corrosive influence during these two intermediate eras, the industrial and the electronics, but the bad effects happen in two different ways. It is generated as technology ramps up productivity, and there soon appear many goods, starting with agricultural ones, but soon moving into a panoply of goods satisfying other needs of the members of the civilization. Since any society in a primitive agricultural situation is worried about population growth outrunning agricultural production, with an additional concern possibly arising because of weather or climate changes, the motivation to continue to work in an affluent period would be diminished. If that reduction spreads to the groups which develop technology, the growth rate slows and it might even stop. This represents a potential halt to this civilization's advance to space-faring.

During the electronics era, a second aspect of affluence might set in. Prior to the Genetics Grand Transformation, there might be no ability within the society to improve the genetic mix. This result has been titled idiocracy, and refers to a differential reduction in the per capita intelligence in the civilization. Again, this would permeate all parts of society, including that sector which produces genetic advances. If it stops for this reason, or for a combination of this and the previous reason, technology never reaches the starship level.

How could an advanced alien civilization not notice that this was happening, and do something about it? One possibility is there are no measures in the civilization to measure motivation or average intelligence. This needs to be combined with the gradualness of these changes. The civilization would have no alarm bells going off, only a slight sense that things were deteriorating. And there are so many other things that happen in a society under rapid technological change, that these effects might escape notice completely.

Another possible answer to this is to ask if life in an alien civilization in these two eras will be calm and coordinated or chaotic and divisive? Calmness would come when basic societal questions have been answered, such as what political and economic arrangements should be in place, what goals the civilization should adopt, how should children be educated, and more. At least in the early part of these two eras, what might be called the social aspect of the grand transformation sequence will not have been worked out. There will be a period during economics, politics, education, and psychology become real sciences, with proper definitions, theories, and deductions. But that period may be delayed for various reasons, such as factionalism based on location, background, profession or other divisions. They will also be delayed until what might be called the neurological revolution takes place, and provides the society with a complete explanation of how the brain works. Thus, these two eras may be so disruptive, in the area of social arrangements, that there is no chance that the two ill effects of affluence are even noticed and certainly paid the proper attention.

One way to summarize this is to say that the side effects of affluence, which is the successful application of technology to the problems of the alien civilization such as the provision of food, shelter and other necessities, overwhelm it and cause the rate of progress in technology to gradually slide lower and lower, and the progress itself becomes more and more inconsequential in the innovations it comes up with. This means that the alien civilization will never get to star travel, and never get to visiting Earth.

Momentum and Goals in an Advanced Alien Civilization

In this blog, the various eras of an alien civilization are described by the technology that is possessed. There is the early fire and stone era, then comes the age of metal, followed by the age of mechanical industry, followed by the age of electronics, then the age of genetics. It was convenient to divide these eras up by naming transition periods, 'grand transformations', when the knowledge and capability in one of these areas of technology was changing fast and leading the civilization into new directions and plateaus. All of the areas of technology continue changing at once, so there is necessarily overlapping of inventions in different fields, but the effect on society would seem to have peaks and valleys. In the peak, society is reorganizing itself to take advantage of the new technology. In the valleys, the reorganization is diffusing out but the main changes have passed in the part of the civilization that is at the forefront of technology change.

There are several possible catastrophes that could end an alien civilization and prevent it from ever traveling in space to visit Earth. Most of these are physical, such as a nearby supernova or a basalt flood or an asteroid impact. Some are social, such as idiocracy, which is the failure of the society to generate enough intelligent people to keep it running, or factionalism, where the civilization devotes itself to strife between factions, which again prevents it from pursuing higher technology or maintaining what has been achieved. A third one is resource exhaustion, where the cost of obtaining mineral or energy resources gets too high to maintain the standard of living necessary to keep technology going forward, and incidentally doing anything sufficient to prevent resource exhaustion. As noted in the posts on idiocracy, this happens when the culture ceases to value reproduction of intelligence, on the average, and might best be referred to as a situation of social momentum.

One way to think of social momentum is to think of a herd of herbivores outrunning some predators. They have no plan to follow, just speed to use to their advantage. So they run without thinking, most times to a successful escape, but sometimes into a cul-de-sac or over a cliff. The essence of social momentum is that the civilization has not reached the point where the goals of the civilization as a whole are discussed and clarified, but instead, they have not crystallized into any usable form. Goals are all personal and do not align. During a special period like a war, there will be a goal of at least a faction of the civilization, but other times, none exists.

For idiocracy, the social momentum is in the direction of differential breeding, with lower intelligence individuals breeding at a higher rate. For factionalism, there is a goal for each different faction, but they are opposite and pertain to the destruction of the other faction or factions. The social momentum is toward destruction of assets. For resource exhaustion, the social momentum is in the direction of individual consumption, and resources are not thought of as being needed for the successive generations, but only for the current one; otherwise they are thought of as being so huge that infinite is a good approximation in economic thinking.

Where does social momentum, in self-annihilating directions, arise? The nature of individual decision-making, in overview, is quite simple. Individuals make decisions for themselves or they copy the decisions made by others, which they obtain through individual contact or via media. Those controlling the media can filter such decisions, leading to a limited scope of choices for those individuals who prefer to copy the selections of others. Some number of individuals will make their own choices, depending on their feelings or using some amount of reasoning. If those who control the media make their choices in such as way as to have them fulfilled by spreading some particular set of goals, then the direction of the social momentum of society is determined by them. If in a particular alien civilization, there are divisions in choice among the media-controlling elements, then social goals will be diffuse, otherwise they might be more aligned.

Some economic systems have strong feedback loops which tend to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few individuals. Other systems might not have these loops. So one question to ask is, if factionalism is part of the social momentum of a particular alien civilization, will the economic system present on the planet allow power, in particular media control, to be concentrated. Technology might also push toward concentration, or rather, work via economics to do this.

Does technology and its understandable stages and steps tend to have economic changes along with the other social changes that it brings, and do those economic changes favor economic systems which concentrate power? One aspect of technology is a kind of communication range that individuals have. In the fire and stone era, there were only a small number of others who could communicate with any particular individual, maybe only one or a few families. In the metal era, there was surplus food at times, which allowed individuals to be used as travelers bearing communications. In the industrial era, communications begins to open up so that an individual might be in contact with thousands, via printing. Then electronics opens the gate even further, perhaps to the maximum possible, where any individual on an alien planet could without great difficulty communicate with any other one.

Is concentration of power also a social momentum artefact, so that if there at one time a high degree of it, does that continue for a long period, through technology changes? The feedback loop which promotes this might be the default condition of the civilization, and only by some unusual circumstances would there be a smaller concentration. The feedback loop works very simply. Someone with a large amount of power can use some of that to increase the amount of power he possesses, leading to a greater concentration. In the later stages of technology, transportation and communication are no longer hindrances to such concentration. So, the three social catastrophes, idiocracy, factionalism, and resource exhaustion might well be in the cards for many alien civilizations, as they will allow power to be concentrated to the point where the feedback loop begins to function, leaving the concentration to increase inevitably. The three catastrophes are not sudden, but very gradual, and the concentration of power effects will continue to push towards their final state, while power continues to concentrate even more.