Tinky Be Tumblin'

In 1963 on his “Transmission of Information by Extraterrestrial Civilizations” the Russian astronomer Kardashev proposed a system to classify any extraterrestrial civilizations based on the energy available to them in order to make radio broadcasts beyond the borders of their home planet. This system became known as the Kardashev scale.

Later, this scale abandoned the reference to radio transmissions, focusing more generally on the magnitude of energy that a civilization is able to use for any purpose. The existence of these civilizations is purely hypothetical, but this scale has been used as a starting point in the SETI project, as well as in many works of science fiction.

It consists of (originally) three types, determined in function of the technological level based on the amount of energy that a civilization can use:

Type I: civilization able to use all the energy available on its planet (4x10^12 watts).

Type II: civilization able to use the energy radiated by its star (4x10^26 watts).

Type III: civilization able to use the energy coming from its galaxy (4x10^37 watts)

Carl Sagan has defined a method, starting from the initial types, to calculate even fractions, by means of the following formula:

In which K represents the level of civilization of the scale and MW the megawatts used. According to this formula, the human civilization would be a 0.7 Kardashev scale civilization, while nature a 0.9 one. So mankind is moving from Type 0 to Type I society.

Now, dear anon, I’m going to ask you a question. If I had an answer to the last part of your query, would I be here, playing with Tumblr?
I can only say that technological development is a necessary, but not sufficient condition. We need a drastic change in the social and political context in order to make the jump (namely, achieve globalism, know how to modify the weather, master space travel).

More info and images’ sources: [x][x][x][x]

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namelessstreets:

Louis CK nailing it every time.

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brokebackimpala:

barackfuckingobama:

weepingangelcastiel:

thedoctorisaconsultinghunter:

aslytherinsuperwholockian:

fueledbycastiel:

2 days ago with 40,144 notes

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chutzpahhh:

tyleroakley:

buzzfeed:

George Takei responds to “traditional” marriage fans.

George Takei is flawfree.

God bless, George Takei.

“You mean the generation that paid three times as much for college to enter a job market with triple the unemployment isn’t interested in purchasing the assets of the generation who just blew an enormous housing bubble and kept it from popping through quantitative easing and out-and-out federal support? Curious.”

When comments are better than the article, Atlantic edition (“The Cheapest Generation: Why Millennials arent’ buying cars or houses, and what that means for the economy”)

2 days ago with 19,198 notes

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andrewfishman:

Marina Abramović, “Rhythm 0,” 1974

Marina Abramović is best known for her performance pieces, in which she tries to explore what is possible for an artist to do in the name of art. Her best known piece was the recent “The Artist Is Present,” in which she sat motionless for 736.5 hours over the course of three months, inviting visitors to sit opposite her and make eye contact for as long as they wanted. So many people began spontaneously crying across from her that blogs and Facebook groups were set up for those people.

Her bravest piece, however, is my favorite. This piece was primarily a trust exercise, in which she told viewers she would not move for six hours no matter what they did to her. She placed 72 objects one could use in pleasing or destructive ways, ranging from flowers and a feather boa to a knife and a loaded pistol, on a table near her and invited the viewers to use them on her however they wanted.

Initially, Abramović said, viewers were peaceful and timid, but it escalated to violence quickly. “The experience I learned was that … if you leave decision to the public, you can be killed… I felt really violated: they cut my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the public. Everyone ran away, escaping an actual confrontation.”

This piece revealed something terrible about humanity, similar to what Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment or Stanley Milgram’s Obedience Experiment, both of which also proved how readily people will harm one another under unusual circumstances.

This performance showed just how easy it is to dehumanize a person who doesn’t fight back, and is particularly powerful because it defies what we think we know about ourselves. I’m certain that no one reading this believes the people around him/her capable of doing such things to another human being, but this performance proves otherwise.

Edit: Several commenters have pointed out that I’ve overlooked an important variable here: gender. They are right; I imagine that a lot of the dehumanization inherent in this performance is related to the gender of the artist. I am sure that people would have reacted differently to an utterly non-responsive male than they did to Abramović.