I wonder if advanced civilizations would use a lot of energy?
We always imagine they have very advanced physics and engineering, to do things like take apart planets to build mega-structures and things like that, but usually don't think about their other sciences.
My guess is that by the time they have gotten that far in physics, they have also gotten way ahead of us in biology. They'll have wiped out disease and illness, stopped aging, and only die by choice or accident. They'll have figured out geology and ecology and climatology and psychology.
I suspect that the final steady state for most civilizations that don't end up wiping themselves out by doing something stupid is a relatively small (by our standards) population of essentially immortal beings, living on a world they have restored to a largely pre-civilization state, using less energy by far that we are using but using it way more efficiently.
We always imagine they have very advanced physics and engineering, to do things like take apart planets to build mega-structures and things like that, but usually don't think about their other sciences.
My guess is that by the time they have gotten that far in physics, they have also gotten way ahead of us in biology. They'll have wiped out disease and illness, stopped aging, and only die by choice or accident. They'll have figured out geology and ecology and climatology and psychology.
I suspect that the final steady state for most civilizations that don't end up wiping themselves out by doing something stupid is a relatively small (by our standards) population of essentially immortal beings, living on a world they have restored to a largely pre-civilization state, using less energy by far that we are using but using it way more efficiently.