Project Cyclops, A Design... - Department of Earth and Planetary ...

INTERSTELLAR CONTACTANDCULTURAL
LONGEVITY
The age-oldstruggleof each species against rival
species and natural enemies has had its counterpart in
wars of territorial and cultural expansion. Today man
faces a new threat as the dominant species of this planet.
In Pogo's words: "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Man must either sublimate the basic drive of uninhibited
growth, converting it into a quest for quality rather than
quantity, and assume responsibility for the husbandry of
the planet he dominates, or die a cultural failure killing
his own kind.
We are almost surely not the first culture in the
Galaxy to face this problem; in fact, it would appear that
our present situation is the direct result of technological
mastery over our environment and would therefore
confront all life forms at our stage of development. If
our own case is typical the problems of overpopulation
arise and require urgent attention long before the culture
is able to engage in Dyson's feats of planetary remodeling,
so other solutions must be the rule and Dyson's
mobile homes must be rare exceptions.
We are, however, at the point where we could
attempt interstellar contact. Such contact would most
likely occur with cultures that have already faced and
solved our immediate problem. Those we detect will
probably have achieved stability and avoided their own
extinction. If we can learn through such communication
the ways that have proved effective in assuring long-term
social stability, it is likely that our own chances would
be significantly increased. For this reason alone, the cost
of establishing interstellar contact would be more than
justified.
If indeed a galactic community of cultures exists, it is
this community that might be expected to have individual
cultural life expectancies measured in aeons rather
than millennia. The long time delays of the communication
would allow (in fact would force) continued
individual innovation by each culture, but the accumulated
wisdom of the group would serve to guide each
member society. Finally, the pride of identification with
this supersociety and of contributing to its long-term
purposes would add new dimensions to our own lives on
Earth that no man can imagine.
REFERENCES
1. Kardashev, N. S., Soviet Astronomy-A.J. (Astronomicheskhi
Zhurnal) Vol. 8, Page 217 (1964).
2. Interstellar Communication, A.G.W. Cameron (ed)
W.A. Benjamin, Inc., New York (1963), pages
111-114.
3. Dyson, F.J., The Search for Extraterrestrial Technology,
Perspectives in Modern Physics, R. E.
Marshak (ed), John Wiley & Sons (1966), page 641.
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