For humans, the Qadira civilization is just an episode. In fact, from beginning to end, it did not cause any waves in society.
Time is still passing slowly, and the population of human civilization has increased from about 70 billion before to nearly 200 billion at this moment - and this is without counting the population of the Storm Country.
The four large planets orbiting the H1 star are all surrounded by countless huge spacecraft. One after another, the living spaceships were filled with people, and the machines in one space factory after another were roaring.
At this moment, no matter which aspect is measured, whether in terms of technology, population, culture, or scale of civilization, human civilization has stood at the pinnacle of the third-level civilization.
In comparison with the historical data obtained from other civilizations, the development of human civilization is not unsatisfactory. After all, just a few hundred years ago, human civilization only had a few large spaceships and a small population. The level of science and technology has not really reached the level of third-level civilization.
If this development speed were known to other civilizations, they would probably not only be surprised, but frightened.
But this kind of miraculous thing actually happened in civilization.
However, from now on, a new problem appears in front of the leaders of human civilization headed by Zhao Changxing.
"As of now, we have millions of scientific research institutions of various types, with more than 4 billion scientific practitioners, and the number of people is still increasing at a rate of about 160 million every year; we have facilities such as large neutrino telescopes and ultra-high-speed There are hundreds of thousands of extremely important large-scale scientific research equipment such as high-energy particle accelerators, deep space radio, optical telescopes, gravitational wave telescopes, large-scale genetic analyzers, and supercomputing centers; there is a strong "science first" atmosphere in society, which allows the scientific community to Recruiting the most outstanding talents among civilizations. From a certain level, we, who pursue the 'everyone is equal' policy, have almost reached the highest level of scientific research capabilities that a third-level civilization can possess."
In another top-level meeting, facing many civilized leaders, a participant made a report in clear words.
"But even so, according to the model, if we want to rely on our own strength to complete the 'vacuum model', an unprecedented large-scale scientific research project, the most optimistic estimate will take at least a thousand years."
Everyone present here knows that the so-called "vacuum model" is a set of scientific methods that use the latest scientific theories to describe vacuum, just like the standard model is used to describe microscopic particles and the theory of relativity is used to describe gravity.
Completing the "vacuum model" and having the ability to completely describe vacuum with the latest theory means that it has a sufficient understanding of the physical characteristics of vacuum, which also means that this civilization has truly become a level four civilization.
On this basis, the development of fluid-free propulsion based on a certain type of "vacuum fluctuation" and more types of related application technologies, such as new weapon systems, protection systems, etc., has Theoretical basis.
Zhao Changxing listened carefully. When he heard this, he raised his hand to interrupt the reporter.
"What do you mean by the most optimistic estimate?"
The reporter replied: "The efficiency and transparency of social operations are as good as now, or even better than now, the investment in scientific research is at least the same as now, the social atmosphere is at least the same as now, and there are endless numbers of great scientific researchers. And a stage where these researchers can fully display their talents. These factors are indispensable."
"Even so, will it take at least a thousand years...?"
"Yes. At least a thousand years. The scientific research project of 'Vacuum Model' is too big and too complex, with too many difficulties and nodes. Even one branch of a branch, one branch compared to the entire project, No matter how small a problem is, it requires many outstanding scientists to devote their entire lives to it, and it may not be able to be finally solved. This entire project is definitely not something that can be solved in one generation."
Zhao Changxing was slightly emotional.
He can clearly realize that the scientific research potential of human civilization that pursues a unique "everyone is equal" policy is much deeper than that of other civilizations. But even human civilization needs at least this much time. What about other civilizations?
In particular, in the vast and cold universe, there is not much time and opportunity for a level three civilization to go all out to develop technology.
Invasions of alien civilizations, wars, cosmic disasters, ubiquitous threats, internal disputes within civilizations, uneven distribution of benefits, chaos, etc., etc. If you are not careful, civilization will weaken, split, and even perish.
On average, I am afraid that not even one year in ten years can be devoted to the development of science and technology.
"Every civilization that can enter the fourth-level civilization stage has a wonderful story."
Without wonderful stories and strange experiences, they would not have reached that stage.
"It would be great if we could expand the scale of civilization again and increase the population to 400 billion or even 1 trillion."
In today's era, human civilization with a population of about 200 billion can support more than 4 billion scientific researchers. So, if the scale of civilization expands, for example, the population increases to 400 billion, then can the number of scientific researchers that can be supported reach 8 billion?
Doubling the scientific research population will obviously promote scientific research to a greater extent. By then, it may only take a few hundred years to complete the "vacuum model", an unprecedented super scientific project.
"Let me answer this question."
A research scholar from the Academy of Social Sciences stood up.
"The conclusion of our research is that it is not feasible. The population of our human civilization has almost reached its limit, and it is impossible to increase it on a large scale."
Although he had expected this answer a long time ago, when it was actually confirmed, Zhao Changxing was still slightly disappointed.
He sighed silently in his heart and continued to listen.
"The reasons are multifaceted and very complex. But in short, I can give you an example.
Taking the history of our human civilization as an example, why was it that in the early days of the slave age, there were only city-states and tribes among civilizations, but no countries covering a vast area? At the end of the slave age, there was a country, but why was the country so small in population and area? Why did the huge country that the Mongols established across the Eurasian continent fall apart after a short period of time and become unsustainable? "
Facing his series of rhetorical questions, all the participants showed thoughtful expressions on their faces.
“The final answer is actually very simple. The size of a group—whether it appears in the form of a city-state, a country, or a civilization—depends on the group’s technological level, that is, its productivity.
Scale must match productivity. Otherwise, this group will inevitably split.
Can you imagine a country that uses mules and horses as its main means of transportation to eventually dominate the world? Can you imagine a country that only mastered chemical rocket technology and eventually ruled the entire solar system? Can you imagine a country that hasn't even invented computers and relies on pen and paper to record and make statistics, with billions of people living in it? "
"This is unimaginable." He concluded: "Therefore, with the current productivity and technological level of our human civilization, the total population is between about 180 billion and 220 billion, which is already the limit. Any more, and it will be Restrictions have led to a series of sociological accidents such as the inability to maintain order, lack of energy among leaders, and the inability of the political system to withstand it. This is actually supported by real examples - in the past 100 years, the number of criminal cases involving the division of civilization has increased to an average of There are about 16,000 cases every year, and on average about 26,000 people are executed and hundreds of thousands of people are imprisoned for this every year, which is the evidence.”
"The fundamental reason for all this is that our civilization is too big, with too many people, and it is close to the upper limit. If we continue to increase the population on a large scale, then our civilization will inevitably split, and there will be in the universe Two human civilizations emerged.”
The division of civilization is absolutely unacceptable to anyone. Then the only solution is to limit the rate of population increase and control it overall to about 200 billion people.
This also means that there is no way to increase the scientific research population and shorten the way to break through scientific problems by increasing the scale of civilization.
"Alternatively, we can divide a part of the population and establish a human country like the 'Storm Country', and transfer the responsibility of ruling this part of the population to the political system of the human country, thereby achieving the de facto purpose of reducing the size of civilization. But I don’t think everyone can accept this plan.”
The attendees were silent, expressing their disregard for the proposal.
"Another plan is to integrate other civilizations. Just like when we integrated the Storm Civilization, it led to the explosion of our civilization's technology."
Zhao Changxing murmured: "Communicating with different civilizations is indeed a good way to promote the development of science and technology."
At this point in the meeting, everyone fell silent.
Several paths for the future development of civilization have been clearly laid out in front of people.
"Well, it would be great if that unknown threat could be eliminated so that we could return to the Iron-Blooded Nebula without any worries."
At this moment, I don’t know how many people had this idea in their minds.
Zhao Changxing knocked on the table lightly, attracting everyone's attention.
"At this stage, we should focus on ourselves. The resources of the H1 galaxy are already showing signs of exhaustion, and it is time to plan for the next interstellar voyage." (To be continued)
