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.

Imagining the Goals of an Alien Civilization

It is much easier to imagine some aspects of alien society, such as their energy sources, than other aspects, such as their goals, because we have on Earth made some progress in understanding the possible sources of energy and can make some good guesses as to what might exist in a more advanced society. But with respect to social goals, our technology is very primitive. We hardly understand anything about societies and their goals; even the basis for this technology or scientific knowledge is vague and undeveloped. We have some observations, but nothing equivalent of Newton's law has been figured out yet. Just to appreciate the difficulty involved, think of asking someone in Columbus' time about energy, after explaining the concept to him. He might answer there was wind power, and that's about all. A person who had some education involving ancient Greek science and who had heard of Hero of Alexandria's aeolipile might add steam power, which comes from fire. There would be no way that such a person could estimate what energy usage would look like five hundred years later, or a thousand.

On the other hand, we have some confidence now in understanding electromagnetic energy, kinetic energy, chemical energy, equation of state energy such as compression, and nuclear energy, along with the many ways they exist in nature and how they can be harnessed and converted. A person on Earth today might be able to do a good job in describing the use of energy, and might even be able to imagine how energy might be used in the far future. And if we subscribe to the concept of societal convergence, meaning technology drives society and since technology is the same no matter what planet you live on, all sufficiently advanced societies will have similar features, and therefore what this person imagines for Earth five hunderd years from now would be quite insightful as to what a similarly advanced alien civilization might be doing.

We are in the Columbus era stage of understanding neurology, politics, governance, societal arrangements and whatever else relate to the goals of an alien civilization. We would make grave mis-assumptions to try and use what we think are the goals of Earth's various societies, current and historical, as possible goals of an alien civilization.

Some goals that might pop up from the study of Earth societies' history include empire expansion, maintenance of the existing power structure and factionalization, development of profitable trade connections and routes, collection of items of universal value such as gold, the pursuit of scientific progress and technology, revenge or hatred directed toward some group, usage of a particular economic system, the spread of medical technology to various factions, and so on. These are goals which are appropriate, if at all, for a single planet. Ones which relate to multiple planets might be the expansion of life to dead planets, resettling on other planets as an insurance policy against catastrophes or other events which eliminate life on the home world, and a few others.

Our knowledge of energy and astronomy enable us to realize that some of the one-world goals are ineffectual for a multi-solar system civilization. Each planet of the civilization is almost totally isolated with respect to transportation and communication, not absolutely, but almost totally, by the distances between different solar systems and the huge amounts of energy needed to move anything from one civilization to another. Some minimal communication might be attempted between two solar systems which are not too far from one another, but little can be done with simple information transfer with no transport to implement any agreements, requests, or orders from one planet to another.

An alien civilization which is somehow frozen in its level of technology at something like what Earth has now might also have its goals be chosen from the ones listed above, but technology does not plateau easily. It proceeds forward to the asymptotic conclusion or the society degenerates. So at the very least, we can say that multi-planet civilizations do not have empire-building as their goal, nor the development of trade routes, collection of items to be brought from one solar system to another, and perhaps more.

After an alien civilization moves through its technological development of electronics, robotics, and artificial intelligence, the next area it encounters is genetics. The genetic revolution will overwhelm the electronics revolution, and the concept of factionalization, based on legacy concepts of genetics, local origins, language preferences and so on, will drift away as good genes are made available to all members of future generations beyond some point in time. Technology has shown cost reductions in the electronics phase of development, and when this wave passes genetics, there will be little reason to suspect that good genes would not be universally available.

The same wave of technology would also pass through the quasi-sciences of politics and economics, transforming them into fact-based sciences and enabling an alien society to have wise political structures and economic arrangements. The idea of an alien society having a goal of enforcing some legacy economic system on its members seems a little ridiculous; the optimal system would be known and used everywhere. Why would any region or goup want to use antiquated systems when better ones were instantly available?

For one-planet goals, the one which passes through the filter of advanced society might be the preservation of the civilization via wise use of resources, and the expansion of it to other appropriate planets. The other one is the preservation of life in general on the planet, but more importantly of spreading it to other planets. These are quite dissimilar goals in their effect on the civilization, even though they both originate from the abstraction of the goals of life across all species. There is no reason that both of them could not be accepted and acted upon by any particular alien civilization, except for the cost in resources they both have. If it is true that civilization can establish itself on a much different class of planets that life can evolve upon, it is fair to say that they operate almost independently.

It does not seem possible to extrapolate from goals of Earth societies, current and recent, to goals of a civilization with more advanced technology, by a few centuries of progress. The only way forward is to look for the simplest possible ones, those which derive from the nature of life. Perhaps some others can be found with a different approach, and that is certainly an interesting avenue to follow.