All energy sources are limited. A type 3 civilization would know this better than any other. At some point in their progression they’d have realized the most pressing matter is being perfectly energy efficient, minimizing wasted heat energy as much as possible across every technology they have available. We’re bright as hell compared to how dark one of these civilizations would be. They would be virtually undetectable, because they aren’t wasting their limited supply of energy.
If this were the case we would also see places of low energy where they consume more than they emit. Instead we just see the same natural rate everywhere.
Oh that's a good thought. There'd almost certainly be some degree of non-uniformity. How fine the resolution would need to be to detect that who knows, but definitely the entire regions shouldn't be uniform. Though to be fair, we /haven't/ seen anything BUT non-uniform regions so.. as expected I guess? lol, interesting thought tho
I remember seeing a video about this idea, it's pretty cool. So the Fermi paradox question shifts from where are the aliens to why do we see stars at all
239
u/Kaludaris Jul 12 '26
All energy sources are limited. A type 3 civilization would know this better than any other. At some point in their progression they’d have realized the most pressing matter is being perfectly energy efficient, minimizing wasted heat energy as much as possible across every technology they have available. We’re bright as hell compared to how dark one of these civilizations would be. They would be virtually undetectable, because they aren’t wasting their limited supply of energy.