Biden 2020

[Lachlan]

I like the Kardeshev scale in terms of measuring how advanced other species are

I think it's pretty simple minded and limited honestly. Literally measuring them based on how much energy they can use. Not factoring in things like medicine, knowledge, structures(aside from those that produce or use energy). Not to mention how the scale itself has just 3 ranks-the lowest of which WE haven't even reached.

yeah but people have expanded on it. You also can't have better medicine, knowledge or structures without advancing your technology and to advance your technology you need energy. It is a bit limited though. But that guy made that theory in the 1960's and nobody knew much about space then. I wonder is there a better way of measuring and ranking things?

[Meliva]

Sure energy is needed for a lot of stuff, but it isn't NEEDED to advance technology. If you want a better method just look at how we measure our own history. Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, etc. That's a far better method then just how much energy is being used. Hell, wouldn't you think it would be more impressive if a society could get by using very little energy but using it far more effectively? Based on the Kardashev scale, if a civilization had far superior tech then we did like light-speed space craft, but it used next to no energy and they produced hardly any energy, it would rank below us. That makes no sense.

Better to measure things on what their tech is able to do, and what the materials they use rather then energy usage. Or hell, measure them based on how far their reach is. Many ways you could better measure a society's progress then how much energy they produce and use.

[The Lamb]

Sure energy is needed for a lot of stuff, but it isn't NEEDED to advance technology. If you want a better method just look at how we measure our own history. Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age, etc. That's a far better method then just how much energy is being used. Hell, wouldn't you think it would be more impressive if a society could get by using very little energy but using it far more effectively? Based on the Kardashev scale, if a civilization had far superior tech then we did like light-speed space craft, but it used next to no energy and they produced hardly any energy, it would rank below us. That makes no sense.

Better to measure things on what their tech is able to do, and what the materials they use rather then energy usage. Or hell, measure them based on how far their reach is. Many ways you could better measure a society's progress then how much energy they produce and use.

Hey Mel,

I have to disagree with ya on this one. The ages were a great way to measure our technological evolution, but we have progressed more in the past 50 years than all of human history before, and what has ushered that progression? We started with fire for energy, then animals, then water, then wind, then steam, then electricity, then nuclear but the pure amount of energy we can harness led to computers and use of energy that snowballed further innovations maybe .

I would argue a hybrid thought. Maybe energy usage is a great way to describe civilization, but, also to your point, the ability to harness all of the available energy created which would require "less" energy production.
When we generate/use energy, we loose some to heat, friction, line drop, conversions etc. Imagine if instead of using fissile material to heat water to steam, to spin turbines that turn generators, what if we could just harness the energy straight from the reaction, or harness lighting or smash quarks, or or or...lol

The sun drops 1000w per sq/ft on the earth, our solar panels are only 15-20% efficient. I would think a far superior society would use far more power than us, but would also capture far more.

Just a thought.

[Meliva]

Sure, more energy helped speed things up, though it isn't the only reason things have snowballed. Better living conditions, and knowledge obtained from older ages that was preserved also help speed things up. The less time folks need to spend struggling to survive, is more time they can spend thinking, and studying, and trying to come up with new innovations. That's why hunter-gatherer societies didn't progress compared to farming ones. Though energy did help.

Though, to try to think of energy as the best measurement is still not a good method. I mean, what if a society learns to make tech that can function on next to no energy? What if they figure out a way to make everything self powered? Thus no longer need to bother harnessing energy? Not to mention, what would be the point in harnessing massive amounts of energy if one does not need it? A super advanced civ could be able to harness all the energy in their galaxy, but have no desire to do so, as they don't need all that energy. The scale would then class them as a 2 or 1, despite them being more advanced then that.

It would be like classifying how prosperous a nation is based on one metric-and decide on say food. Trying to classify how advanced a civilization is on just one metric, even an important one like energy is just bad logic.

[The Lamb]

Better living conditions brought by? AC? Refrigeration? Sky scrapers, how did we make all that steel? Medicine (chemistry)? Farming and water management?

I think the idea behind energy, is that everything, every movement we make, every vehicle, every storm, every plant, every animal, every chemical reaction relies on energy and the transfer of energy to function. The US Patent office does not allow for perpetual motion machines since it goes against the First Law of Thermodynamics. You cant get energy from nothing. We can only store and transfer energy. (change its form)

Lets not just think of energy as electricity, if you do then everything your saying is true, but if you think of energy more broadly as the force that makes the universe work, then the more you do as a civilization, the further your go, the quicker you get there, the more innovation, the more energy you will need. It would take more energy than the sun puts out in its lifetime, for example, to get just you in a space ship to get close to the speed of light as stated by E=MC2

And of coarse, if we all just decided to stop our advancement and live in huts, our score would be much lower than our capabilities, but if a civilization has the capacity to harness all the energy in its galaxy, it should still rate high because of the capability.

A dead cell phone battery is still a battery.

Its funny that Biden cant chain an unscripted sentence together and here we are on the Biden thread debating science. I miss fart jokes

[Meliva]

Just because we have no way or knowledge of making any sort of perpetual motion, and think it impossible, does not mean it truly is. Sure, it might be the case, or maybe there is something we don't know. It used to be thought flying is impossible. It used to be thought going to space impossible. If you were to tell someone just a few hundred years ago, that man would walk on the moon, be able to talk to another person on the other side of the planet instantly, or be able to look up any question and instantly find answers, they would lock you up in an asylum.

A super advanced civilization might be able to accomplish major things with far less energy then we do.

[The Lamb]

Fair enough! I will concede that we have tons to learn still. Hey, maybe they figured out how to harness the "leaking" gravity that has physicists making up crap science to describe the weakness of it.

But still, the law of conservation says all the energy in the universe is all there was and is and will be, its just changes form. So maybe they can pull from another universe. But even that is still the transfer of energy, just from somewhere else

[Leo]

Lol most of us are just random plebs speculating on advanced scientific theories. We all have a lot to learn. On that note, if you know for sure something is true because an actual expert/many actual experts said so, I will definitely listen. What I'm not in favor of is people trying to figure it out for themselves when they are not trained to do so. I mean it's great that you are trying to get information, but please learn how to get it correctly so that you can be sure that you aren't mistaken.

Ahh, science is a wonderful thing.

[Meliva]

Lol most of us are just random plebs speculating on advanced scientific theories. We all have a lot to learn. On that note, if you know for sure something is true because an actual expert/many actual experts said so, I will definitely listen. What I'm not in favor of is people trying to figure it out for themselves when they are not trained to do so. I mean it's great that you are trying to get information, but please learn how to get it correctly so that you can be sure that you aren't mistaken.

Ahh, science is a wonderful thing.

mate, you should really learn to take your own advice before you try to lecture others. I mean, you claimed Sweden was socialist when it isn't, and when I asked you to name places where socialism has worked you never responded-aside from your false claim on Sweden being one, which, I predicted ahead of time you would do.

[Dmanwuzhere]

ahhhh science

blue i am sure your version of science is very arguable and well learned
but this pleb is still so confused at how a fetus is not human but men are women if they say so

ahhh the forever elusiveness of science