Combining the Fermi Paradox with the Cassandra Complex

A theory as to why civilisations fall

When the Roman Empire fell, it took with it a myriad of advanced technology and the human species entered a period referred to as The Dark Ages. To most of us living today, the idea that the civilisation we live in – the cities, the societies, the knowledge – could be lost and that we again enter a low-tech, dark world is ludicrous. Yet, most of us also know it has happened before and, when you consider Pol Pot’s maniacal goal to take Cambodia back to Year Zero (a pre-industrial, classless society), it can happen if you have mad men (they’re usually men – Argentina being the latest to elect a male stark-raving lunatic to power) in control.

Previously, knowledge existed in people and printed material. Now it exists in people and, more often than not, as electronic data. Previously books were burned and lost. Now, without electricity …

Massive changes in societies, in civilisations, are more obvious in hindsight. We live in a world that assumes tomorrow will be the same as yesterday – give or take. When we push this logic to the nth degree, society will never change - give or take.

Yet societies do radically change. Civilisations fall.

The Fermi Paradox takes its name from Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi, who supposedly made his observations during a casual lunchtime conversation in 1950. It runs like this …

Given that our solar system is young compared to the rest of the universe — roughly 4.5 billion years old, compared to 13.8 billion — and that interstellar travel and communication is achievable given enough time – Earth should have been visited, or communicated with, by aliens already.

Why haven’t they made contact?

One logical answer is that there can be no advanced enough civilisations, at least in our galaxy (where there are approximately 100 billion stars).

Can this really be the case?

One theory that offers a solution to the Fermi Paradox is that as civilisations progress and develop the advanced technologies needed for space travel and communication, they also develop technologies that can annihilate themselves. Here, on the third rock from the sun, at some point in the last century we passed the milestone of enough nuclear weapons to destroy human life on earth (I’m sure someone has worked out the exact date). Given the massive timescale involved, this solution projects that, if we had the means to investigate, we would find on many planets the ruins of alien civilisations.

It is important to note, at the same time that we were developing the ability to destroy all human life, we were also developing probes, beaming electronic messages and building enormous telescopes. This is our civilisation embracing the Fermi Paradox.

That brings us to the Cassandra Complex, which will be familiar to many, especially climate scientists. In Greek mythology, Cassandra was given the gift of prophecy, but was also cursed by the god Apollo so that her true prophecies would not be believed.

Currently, the Doomsday Clock is 90 seconds to midnight – midnight represents the moment at which we will have made Earth uninhabitable for humanity. If the picture below isn’t a beautiful (possibly the wrong word) illustration of the Cassandra Complex, I don’t what is.

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/01/24/world/doomsday-clock-2023-climate-scn/index.html

There is a huge body of evidence that shows that the planet is heating up, and this is caused by humans. Despite the odd dissenting voice (crank?), this is generally accepted as true. But, in true Cassandrian style, its impact is yet to be truly believed by those responsible for running the majority of countries. The future so many scientists (and others) are warning us about sits outside our government’s ability to comprehend - they can’t look any further forward than a budget cycle (one year) or an election cycle (3-5 years). In this timeframe they are prisoners of the logic of the status quo logic – that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday.

I don’t believe climate change, in and of itself, will not result in the wide scale loss of knowledge that will usher in a new dark age. But when the Earth’s temperature rises, when resources (food, fresh water, land) become scarce, when societies demand that their leaders secure their countries future – at any cost - having ignored the voices that tried to avoid the situation (Cassandra), that’s when the spectre of the Fermi Paradox will become apparent.