HOW LONG WILL A TECHNIC CIVILIZATION ENDURE?

Here again is another philosophical question. What is the future of a technic society? We are about halfway through the reasonable life of our star. We have been a technic civilization for only the minutest fraction of that time. How much longer will we last?

Doomsayers continue to predict our eminent destruction. But we continue to push back the likelihood of nuclear armageddon day by day. We are tackling the problems of hunger and over-population. I also believe that the problems with the ecology will be solved. They are not as utterly horrible as many claim. What we can identify, we can solve.

Such things that we cannot predict, such as a devastating asteroid hit, may in fact be able to destroy much of civilization. Particularly now while our civilization is entirely on one planet. As we move out into the solar system, we will be less vulnerable. Five hundred years from now when a self sufficient colony on Mars exists, we may be able to shrug off even the destruction of the Earth. At any rate, this type of destruction would be of low probability.

Probably of more impact on the future of man is our own changing attitudes. Will we always want to be a technc society? Will we always grow and expand or will we get tired as a species and lose interest? Science fiction author's have long speculated on the changing face of humanity. C. M. Kornbluth, in his classic "The Marching Morons', details the eventual de-evolution of human intelligence, whereby indiscriminate reproductive patterns reduce humanity to a vast sea of gibbering idiots.

Olaf Stapledon's sweeping "Last and First Men/Last Men in London' details a panorama covering millions of years. He describes a scenario wherein civilization waxes and wanes with great interregnums of darkness interspersing brief flashes of civilization. His human creature eventually evolves into something that we barely recognize.

There are so many changes that can happen to us. To predict that civilization will remain continuous and unchanged is not rational.

This begs the question of where can we go. If we are not locked to this solar system, then that changes the whole scope of the problem. Stars that previously had no planets suitable for the formation of life would now be candidates for colonization by an alien species. A species could concievably far outlive its parent star. We might expect an entire sector of the galaxy to be alive with technic societies. But in order for any of this to happen, one major hurdle would have to be overcome. We could not possibly settle nearby star systems if we had to do so at sublight speeds. Any colonists would have to be instantly self-sufficient. The likelihood of stumbling across a nearby extra-solar planet where this would be possible is exceedingly remote. As yet, we see no identifiable way to violate Einstein's velocity barrier. Speculation that it can be done eventually is best left to the realm of science fiction.

The point of this portion of the overall argument is to determine that if other creatures in the galaxy were able to form and evolve into technic societies, what is the probability that they exist now at this time, such that we can see their radio signals if we just look. If they died out so long ago that their last transmission reached Earth yesterday, looking for them tomorrow would be fruitless. Likewise, if they are still stone age savages, they would not be transmitting now either. Humans did not start transmitting until we were halfway through the lifetime of our star. If we assume that we are an average species on an average star, then half of the total possible started transmitting before we did and half will not start transmitting for some time yet.

If we discount the speculation that the colonization of nearby star systems is possible, we see the this probability becomes at most about 0.5 dwindling downward to a very small number. If we consider a possible future of technic civilization lasting nine million years on Earth, we see that our own personal fraction is about 0.001. I suspect that an average probability of 0.05 is probably an optimistic guess.